The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

You'd Be Sorry

It was a week later. An entire week. Lily couldn't believe it had been an entire week already. It is amazing how, when you're in the midst of terrible sorrow the time seems to drag along and yet move so very quickly that it becomes a blur at exactly the same time as you're buried beneath it forever.

James's arm wrapped about Lily's shoulders, his palm splayed on her shoulder, clutching her tightly. He could feel her weight pressing into him, and he got the idea - by the weight of her pressing against him - that she might tip right over if he didn't hold her close. Lily's lovely green eyes were covered with sunglasses, dark ones with black lenses that kept the dark bags beneath her eyes from showing. Her breath trembled.

All around them, people stood, quiet and staring ahead. Sirius was at James's shoulder, and beside him stood Remus and Peter. Jasper and Ethel had come as well, and, though he stayed a good distance away, lurking like a shadow behind a tree out of view of the Marauders, so had Severus Snape.

James glanced over Lily's head at her sister, Petunia, who was clinging to Vernon Dursley much the same as Lily was clinging onto him. For all the jokes about Vernon being a dudder and a walrus, James had to admit that the way that the bloke held onto Petunia Evans was entirely telling of just how much he cared for her. Nearly as much as he, James, cared for Lily Evans. 

As though hearing James's thoughts, Vernon looked over and their eyes met. Vernon's gaze travelled over James's arms around Lily, then he tightened his own arms slightly about Petunia, and turned back to face forward. James wondered if the gesture was competitive or if it had been in recognition of their identical roles in the girls' lives - an admission that, despite their differences in other areas of their lives, this one thing they would forever have in common.

Mrs. Evans smiled at them from a large portrait by the grave, where flowers had been placed and a brilliant candle had been lit. A magical funeral in the wizarding world would have been utterly different than the procession that was taking place here, but there were many more muggles in Mrs. Evans' life than there'd been witches and wizards, and so a muggle funeral would have to do. Though James would have preferred to have a long talk with a wizarding portrait of Mrs. Evans over the still, unmoving picture print they'd displayed. 

Lily, James, Petunia, and Vernon stood the longest by the grave, even after the minister had said his final amen and the dust of the earth was being returned to the earth. Lily stood still as a bone.

"C'mon," James whispered softly in her ear after several very long minutes had passed by. Most of the other guests had departed - only the Marauders hovered about the car across the way, waiting for James and Lily to leave with them. "We should go," James said to Lily.

"Just another minute, please," Lily whispered, voice cracking.

James didn't move. He would wait until Lily did.

Petunia had her eyes closed, her palm over her stomach. An anger-filled expression turned her lips into a pouting scowl and she seemed to tremble for several long moments as Lily stood there, silent and staring into the hole in the ground. 

Six feet deep, and a world apart.

Suddenly Petunia twitched, and Vernon's hand tightened on her elbow in an attempt to keep her by his side, but Petunia wrenched away and she took three very quick steps across the grass to where Lily and James were standing, raised her hand and brought it swiftly toward Lily's face and -- 

James caught her wrist, throwing it back. His lightening-fast reflexes from Quidditch having paid off, he pulled Lily a step aside so that he stood between the two sisters. Vernon stood behind Petunia, solid and bold, his scowl evident under his thick mustache. Petunia raised her hand again and James, again, caught it mid-swipe, though this time instead of a flat palm to strike her sister's face, the hand was twisted into a pointing finger.