Celestial | Sirius Black Love Story

Traditions

The house was exactly as I had remembered, yet nothing like I remembered it at all.

It was my third morning back, and I was sitting in the stone cold kitchen, drinking a lukewarm cup of coffee.

Coffee is poison to the soul and body. That's what my father had told me.

Well, look what good abstaining from it did for you. Though it tasted terrible, I drained the cup, almost out of spite, and laid it down on the kitchen bench, pulling a grimace. The funeral was today.

Not that it would be much of a funeral, it would just be me and him. He had told me that that was the best way for it to be done for when you burn a body, the remaining magical power of the corpse imprints on surrounding living entities.

I had argued extensively with McGonagall for her to allow me to stay here in the old house my father had lived in by myself for a few days, and after visiting it and seeing for herself how secure the area was, she had finally allowed it. My father had, after all, not been killed on the house grounds.

After having been missing for a while, the neighbour, Torulf (if you could call him a neighbour, he lived thirty minutes away by foot) had found him hung from a tree just outside the house protection, his dead eyes staring blankly over his bleek home. He had been dead long before having been strung up. The inevitable had finally happened. The reason why I had to start back at Hogwarts. It did sting though.

I realised now that I had been left an orphan.

Torulf had also been a wizard, and followed the same ways my father had. They had grown to know eachother after my father had moved North; Torulf had gone to Durmstrang. You could in no way say that they had been close, they were both bascially hermits by nature, but they had met up every now and again to exchange information. He was probably the only other person my father had trusted.

I pulled on my fathers thick boots and jacket, I had left Hogwarts so quickly I hadn't packed for the weather here, let alone told anyone where I was going..

Trying not to think anymore about the disaster I had left behind me, I trudged out of the kitchen and into the backyard where I had prepared for the funeral yesterday.

You see, just as with muggles, religion and tradition varies greatly within wizarding communities. In fact, many muggle religions had been inspired by magical practices. My father had critisised Dumbledore for not educating Hogwarts students about these, neglecting spirituality and mysiticism, and focusing too much on the outcome of magic. So, my father had taught me the tradition; on the first day, the body rests. Torulf had seen to that, and had carried my father all the way home to his old bed, spread his thick duvet over him and lit a small fire in the fireplace in his bedroom.

On the second day, they are marked. I had used my fathers old knife he had used so many times to mark his own skin, and mine when the time had come, with magical runes. Funeral runes were differnet, however. They were larger, and by the end of the day, his body was covered with marks promising peace, rest, and salvation.

On the third day, you prepared for the burning. I had spent all of yesterday gathering logs for the stake. I had carried my father out and fastened him. In the evening, Torulf and I had feasted. We prepared enough food for an entire party of people, ate til we burst, and the rest was thrown into the fireplace. This, too, was tradition.

Then, on the morning after the Great Feast was the burning. You might have thought it would feel strange for me to leave my father's corpse outside on a stake overnight, but I slept better that night than I had done in a long time. I didn't know if I believed in any of the rituals and religious practices my father had taught me, but I knew that this was how he had wanted to go and I had gained too much respect for him to deny him this.

I saw Torulf standing a great distance away, respecting the way of the burning. 

I started chanting slowly, barely more than a mutter. I picked up the engraved stone and started rubbing them together; no magic was to be used for the preparation of the funeral or the remaining powers of the dead witch or wizard would burn up in the flames.

Sparks began to erupt from the two stones, and soon enough a small fire licked it's way hungrily over the dry pieces of wood.

I stood back, still chanting the words I had been told to memorise. The warmth of the fire started to grow, and I stood closer to it, almost feeling disgusted by myself for enjoying it, but not quite. Then, I felt something more than just the warmth of the fire. It felt as though me veins were expanding, my heart was beating faster, and my breath got caught in my throat. I continued chanting, and it felt as though several fingernails were scratching down my back.

"I am your branches as you are my roots. Ordinary mortality is for ordinary people. Find rest, and find peace." As I spoke the last words, the fire was blazing. I looked up, my eyes stinging from the heat and the smoke. I could have sworn I saw my father smile at me just before I passed out.