Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [6]

⚡️ Chapter 56 ⚡️

They could not see clearly what was happening at the front. Hagrid seemed to have placed the body carefully upon the table. Now he retreated down the aisle, blowing his nose with loud trumpeting noises that drew scandalised looks from some, including, Vega saw, Dolores Umbridge... but Vega knew that Dumbledore would not have cared.

Vega tried to make a friendly gesture to Hagrid as he passed, but Hagrid's eyes were so swollen it was a wonder he could see where he was going. She glanced at the back row to which Hagrid was heading and realised what was guiding him, for there, dressed in jacket and trousers each the size of a small marquee, was the giant Grawp, his great ugly boulder-like head bowed, docile, almost human.

Hagrid sat down next to his half-brother, and Grawp patted Hagrid hard on the head, so that his chair legs sank into the ground. The music stopped, and she turned to face the front again.

A little tufty-haired man in plain black robes had got to his feet and stood now in front of Dumbledore's body. Vega could not hear what he was saying. Odd words floated back to them over the hundreds of heads.

'Nobility of spirit' ... 'Intellectual contribution"'... 'Greatness of heart' ...

It did not mean very much. It had little to do with Dumbledore as Vega had known him, or the little that she did. She suddenly remembered Dumbledore's idea of a few words, the ones he uttered on their first night in this castle, many, many years ago.

'Nitwit' ... 'Oddment' ... 'Blubber' ... 'Tweak' ...

Suppressing a smile at the thought, Vega wondered what was the matter with her. There was a soft splashing noise to her left and she saw that the merpeople had broken the surface to listen too. She remembered Dumbledore crouching at the water's edge two years ago, very close to where Vega now sat, and conversing in Mermish with the Merchieftainess.

Vega hadn't known that Dumbledore could speak Mermish, and she wished she could've asked him sometime. And if he knew any other languages. But it was too late now. She could not ask him all sorts of questions that she should've done so many times.

And then, without any warning, it swept over Vega, the dreadful truth, more completely and undeniably than it had until now, sinking into her.

Dumbledore was dead, gone...

Hot tears swept out of Vega's eyes and she clutched the cold locket in her left hand so tightly that it hurt. She felt Fred try to comfort her by holding onto her other hand but Vega turned her face away from people, looking anywhere but the people, off to the lake and the forest...

The little man in black continued to drone on and on. There was movement among the trees. The centaurs had come to pay their respects too. They did not move into the open but Vega saw them standing quite still, half hidden in shadow, watching the wizards, their bows hanging at their sides.

That was when that Vega remembered her first nightmarish trip into the forest, the first time she had ever encountered the thing that was then Voldemort, and how she had faced him, and how she and Dumbledore had discussed fighting a losing battle not long thereafter.

It was important, Dumbledore said, to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated...

Vega wanted to finish it...
Vega wanted to finish it for once and for all...

And Vega saw, very clearly, as she sat there under the hot sun how people who cared about her had stood in front of her one by one. It had started with Carina Lestrange, and her own twin brother. She had also lost Sirius, the one person she felt she could relate to, and Dumbledore, the one person she felt had the answers to many of her problems.