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CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN;
❝ THE WEIGHTS OF THE WORLD ! ❞
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⠀⠀⠀On the Thursday of the week Manon, James and Sirius had spent at home, both Fleamont and Euphemia Potter breathed their last, separated by only a minute. Like the team of mediwizards and witches had told the couple's three children, Euphemia did indeed leave them first, and if it weren't for the way Fleamont looked like his whole world has already ended, and his heart crushed to pieces, he might've streaked out his life to last a few days more.
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⠀⠀⠀Euphemia's left hand had been in Fleamont's, their interlocked fingers hanging over the space between their hospital beds when her love-filled gaze was suddenly too empty and so lifeless, contrasting with the warmth of her hand. Nobody spoke, only silently cried even more than they already were. With his thumb stroking his wife's knuckles, Fleamont moved his tearful eyes to his three miracles sitting at the feet of their beds. Manon, with his eyes and her mother's wit, sitting with her hand clasping onto his leg, refusing to accept the stinging tears that were filling her eyes over and over again because she didn't want to pain him. James, who was nearly his carbon-copy from inside and out. He sat on a chair next to his sister, between the beds, appearance dishevelled. There were tears on the lenses of his glasses, as one dripped down from the tip of his nose. Sirius, not his son of blood but loved just as much. He mirrored Manon as he sat with Euphemia. The intense emotions of heartbreak that were running through his eyes were the first he ever saw from him, other than love and mischief. All three of them only somewhere around the age of seventeen, already living lives worth seventy.
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⠀⠀⠀He saw all of this and felt everything in only a few seconds. When he looked into his children's eyes one by one, they felt that he was silently asking for their permission. Neither of them wanted to prolong his pain only to coax theirs, so they made sure he knew he was free to do per his will and not tethered to the selfless duties of a parent. Fleamont smiled tiredly then and thanked them with his eyes.
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⠀⠀⠀Manon blinked away her tears to clear her sight, and the next thing she knew, there were only three souls left in the colourless room.
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