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Fred Weasley
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"The smile on your face,
I live only to see
It's enough for me, baby, it's enough for me
Oh, heavenly day,
heavenly day, heavenly day"
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Nezz gripped my hand tighter than she ever had before.
Her and I walked hand in hand up the large sand dune where Dobby and Draco had been buried...and now it was Remus's turn.
All dressed in black, the long line of all those who'd loved Remus walked behind us like a sad parade. Nezz's long black hair flowed behind her, picked up by the breeze of the beach that she'd bled on mere months ago...
We finally reached the peak of the dune where long strips of grass leaned with the wind. Dobby's grave lay next to Draco's, covered with pebbles and socks that each of us had placed there when we'd been ready; Draco's grave stood next to his, the message carved into the stone simply being, 'You chose right'.
And now there was another stone next to Draco's with Remus's name printed onto it in a font that didn't look nearly nice enough for a person like him.
I gently guided Nezz to the side so that Harry, George, Ron and Bill could walk through-carrying Remus's body on a makeshift stretcher that had been bloomed with flowers. Fleur had done the arrangement and it looked wonderful.
When his body passed Nezz the boys paused, letting him linger in front of his daughter for a moment. A sharp intake of breath sounded from Nezz's quivering lips as the first tears of the day spilled over from her eyes, floating down her cheeks like water would down a creek.
Nezz slowly reached out her hand and placed it over his covered head. I could see the faint glow of her reddened magic radiating underneath her fingers. Then, the magic simmered out and her fingers returned to their normal fleshy pink as she took her hand away, cradling it in her chest she moaned in sadness.
The sound pierced straight into my heart.
"Love?" I hummed, patiently waiting for her to tell me what was wrong.
"I can't feel him anymore" she shuddered.
My eyes flickered upwards to look at the boys's faces when she'd trembled those words. Harry clamped his eyes shut, stopping the tears from pouring out whilst Hermione, Mum, Dad, Fleur, Neville, Ginny, Luna and her dad and Professor McGonagall all walked up the dune to stand where we were.
"That's okay, love" I murmured in her ear, pressing my forehead against her head, "just feel me" I said, taking her shaking hand and planting it over my heart where she could feel it beating just for her.
She nodded numbly.
The boys continued to walk with Remus's body before they lowered him to the freshly dug out grave.
They all returned to our side, every face twisted in pain and memories that they'd shared with Remus Lupin.
"Nerezza, you should say something" Hermione encouraged, holding onto Nezz's arm from beside her. "He should hear you say goodbye" she added sadly, letting her own tears fall.
Nezz sniffed and nodded, stepping forward towards the grace that hadn't yet been covered.
She exhaled and cast a glance down at her father.
"I thought that when Sirius died...I'd never be able to feel that much pain again" she began, her emotion cracking her words as she spoke, "but I was wrong" she croaked, shrugging her shoulders.
I could hear my mum weeping behind me as my dad held onto her. I could see Hermione and Ron embracing each other whilst their own tears cascaded silently, my twin next to them with his hands clasped together in front of him tightly-shimmering eyes reflected by the oceans line.
"But sometimes" she huffed, "I think that pain isn't a bad thing, it's a necessary evil-you know?" She said rhetorically as if she was mid conversation with an old friend. "Because pain is how you know you loved someone so truly, completely and without room for doubt. I think it's pain, loss and grief that teaches us most about how we should love-about how we should cherish those who haven't gone yet" Nezz cut herself off, biting her lip.
Bill hugged Fleur as she tilted her head at my grieving wife with sorrow and sympathy.
But Nezz was right.
Pain, loss, grief, death...it's not the end. How utterly beautiful is it to think that you can love a person so much that it causes you all this pain. When someone is lost and there's no one around to feel that pain or feel the love, that's the real tragedy.
"So no, I'm not gonna stand here and say goodbye" Nezz dismissed with a fresh wave of tears taking over her cheeks, "because this isn't goodbye. I'm just saying...that I'll miss you until I see you again" she whispered, looking down at his body with a weak smile.
Crouching down to the ground, she fisted a pile of sand and threw it into the grave.
She returned to my side, slipping her hand back into mine with a small squeeze.
Harry shuffled to his grave, fisting the sand and holding it out in front of him before he spoke.
"At least the marauders are back together again" he chuckled tearily and chucked the sand in.
Nezz smiled at Harry's goodbye and watched as everyone each approached Remus and chucked their own sand in. Each person reminding us of how deeply Remus was loved; each fistful of sand a piece of him that he'd left in us.
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Harry Potter
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After burying Remus we'd all gone to the burrow.
Everyone was sat outside, a huge fire pit in the centre. People roasted marshmallows and ate chocolate frogs, chuckling about what cards they got with them.
Molly had prepared food for everyone and some were munching away at the delicious stuff.
The night sky was blanketed with stars, the air cool but not cold, people smiled reminiscently as they shared stories about Remus. Everyone had such kind words to say about him-he'd been such a good person. How many people can leave this Earth and say that? He'd left with no hurt marking his path and that was something to be admired.
Through the circle of laughing, smiling and tear stained people I spotted Nerezza. My solemn looking sister, sat in between the twins like usual but there wasn't even a slither of a smile on her features as Fred spoke of the time he'd told Remus he loved Nerezza-just before the Yule Ball.
The sound of soft music began drifting through the air and I realised that Fleur must've turned the radio on.
No one took notice of the music, they just kept talking about how much Remus would be missed. About how deeply he was loved, maybe not widely but deeply and that was what mattered.
"Go to her, Potter" Ginny's amused voice told me from the seat beside me.
I glimpsed at her smile, an orange glow cast on her face from the fire, making shadows dance on her beautiful face. I smirked and kissed her cheek then rose from my seat and walked through the circle of people to reach my sister.
Nerezza meekly peered up at me through her wetted lashes.
I held out my hand, smiling when she took it and heaved herself up like it took all the effort in the world just to stand without Remus. Fred breathed in thankfully and nodded at me from behind his wife.
I moved us into the middle, nearer the fire where she'd be warm.
As I put my hand on her waist, an idea popped into my head-or rather a memory. A memory of watching Remus and Nerezza dancing at Bill and Fleur's wedding; the reason I could picture the moment so vividly was because I'd been wondering why she was dancing with her feet on top of his. When I'd found the time many moons later, I'd asked Nerezza in the tent what that was about.
She'd beamed and told me that they'd always dance like that since she was little.
"You wanna dance on my feet?" I asked her in a small voice, like it was a secret between us.
Her eyes shot up to meet mine, her lips jibbing as she inhaled at the memory. She swallowed her tears and nodded frantically to me, unable to reply with her voice. I carefully lifted her slightly so that her feet were on top of mine-I was grateful that she wasn't too heavy in that moment.
With each step, I kept her feet on mine and with each step, more and more eyes landed on our dancing forms. Her tears grew happy instead of sad as I span us around together.
"Hey Harry" Nerezza called out softly, "do you remember the time when The twins, Mione and Ron came over?" She questioned.
"Which time? They practically lived with us" I joked, smiling crookedly as I watched her roll her eyes.
"That one time where" she stopped, laughing audibly at the memory, "when Fred stole Remus's secret stash of chocolate?" She giggled, swaying with me continually.
"Yes!" I exclaimed happily, the memory of us racing through the twisted staircase of Grimmauld Place bursting into my mind, "and Sirius was telling us to hide before he caught us" I said.
She nodded, laughing at the memory.
"Or that one time, when we sat with Remus in his classroom and had tea" I proposed a new memory.
"Yeah, he told you about my middle name honouring your mum" she remembered, her eyes drifting off into space. "I miss them all, Harry" she breathed shakily, her lips dipping in a cry.
"Me too" I admitted, pulling her closer into my chest and hoping that if I held on tight enough, I could fix us both-mole us back together. "But you know what?" I started, bringing my hands to cup her face, "that's not the end for them, it's not" I told her.
"I know" she sniffled, "they're together now" she smiled at me.
"And I bet they're with us right now, dancing right with us" I said, looking around us and catching the sad yet proud eyes of Hermione, Ron and the twins.
"Mmm" she hummed softly, "I think they are" she said.
A beat of silence echoed as she glanced around us, like if she squinted hard enough, everyone we'd lost would be there.
"We have to let them go, Harry" she whispered.
I blinked, taken aback by her wise and mature words.
When Sirius had died, she'd been so angry and bitter-so unaccepting of his fate. But this time, she'd grown and changed and now...she was accepting it. And if she could let them go, then so could I-because we'd do it how we always did things.
Together.
"We can let them go...and we can rest" I mumbled to her, "no more fighting, no more fear or loss or pain" I promised her, smoothing down her hair and she nodded to me.
"We can rest" she repeated wistfully, "we can rest."
I looked past The twins, Hermione and Ron to see figured standing together...so familiar.
It was a line of everyone we'd ever lost.
I could see my mum's flaming hair over my dads shoulder as she leant her head on him and they both smiled at me; I could see Sirius there with a smirk and a twinkle in his eye; I could see Cedric nodding to us with a smile; I could see Draco with his hands tucked into his suit pocket; Dobby next to him wearing a full body of clothes as he grinned, then...right at the end, I could see Remus.
With a satisfied and proud smile growing on his face.
Nerezza and I had spent our whole lives fighting an ongoing war. Our first real losses starting from when we were just babies; since then we'd had to feel that gnawing-exhausting-feeling of regret and grief. As we grew up, our losses carried and they grew too. But now, yes Remus was gone, but the war was over and we'd never have to lose anyone to something as cruel as an early death again.
Nerezza and I could stop fighting and we could rest.
Love had persevered through all the grief and anger and war.
And finally, as Nerezza and I looked around at the family we'd collected throughout our difficulty years...we knew we could finally rest.
People were gone but that was okay.
We could let them go.