Silent Riot | Regulus Black

FORTY NINE

Elladora's funeral was odd. Gemma felt uncomfortable going, but she went for Regulus' sake. Just like Edward's, there were too many people, most of whom hardly even knew the girl they were burying. 

Her parents had brought her a silver coffin, and had even placed emerald gemstones along the edges and intricate ornaments on the top, designing some peculiar serpent form that did not truly fit Elladora Hargreaves. 

Cassiopeia Hargreaves, her mother, wept over her child's casket, grasping at the edge as she sunk to her knees and lowered her head until it touched the edge of the coffin. She wailed Elladora's name in the stone-built chamber, and it echoed through every attendees' soul- the cry of a mother that was burying her second child.

Regulus stood in the back, hands trembling as he fought back anxiety, and through his ears, the mother's cry played on repeat. His skin had turned grey from lack of sleep and malnourishment. The guilt was devouring him from inside out, and there was an abyss of desolation in his stomach that he could not entirely fill. The only other person in the room that seemed to be more devastated than Regulus was Remus Lupin, who also stood near one of the walls, gripping on a chair until his knuckles turned white, and his skin had blanched as he stared at the casket.

Albus Dumbledore was also present, eyes downcast. He couldn't wipe this one out of memory, Gemma though bitterly, half the school had seen it happen. She swallowed a lump that was forming in her throat. Iz deserved to buried. Gemma didn't even know what had become of her best friend's body. Ice cold fury settled into her bones and feasted on her marrow as her hand wrapped around the letter in her pocket. She'd gotten it this morning, and it weighed heavily on her mind. 

'I want to leave,' Regulus said suddenly. 'This is all a façade; nobody here is worthy of even speaking her name.' Gemma remembered feeling the same way at Edward's funeral- it seemed so long ago.

'Okay,' she said. 'If you're sure that's what you want.' Her gaze fell once again on Dumbledore. She had a million questions to ask him, but Regulus needed her just then, and she decided, for once, not to be selfish. 

He nodded, and they left the little chapel together. It was an open-casket ceremony, and they'd placed Elladora in a small chapel down in Hogsmeade, because Hogwarts did not have a proper burial ground.

As they walked through Hogsmeade back to the castle, each was absorbed in their own thoughts, and to the Black heir, the once lively street seemed to have lost all its jovial light. 

'How have things changed so much?' He asked in a low murmur. His eyes wandered to the Shrieking Shack, and he could almost hear their puerile laughter from so long ago. 'We were so happy, and now... how can we ever go back to that?'

'Time heals,' she responded carefully. 'It takes forever, but it'll get there in the end.'

'Maybe,' he said, but she could tell from his voice that he didn't believe her. They stopped outside the Shrieking Shack, leaning against the wire fence and staring at the structure. 

'Maybe I'll become a necromancer,' he said, smiling humourlessly. 'And I'll summon her spirit, with bread rolls or something. She'd definitely leave the afterlife for bread rolls.'

'You could,' she hummed thoughtfully. 

'I could,' he repeated numbly. 'Or I could go to a pub and get drunk.' She didn't think he was being serious, but not the first time, he surprised her as he pulled away from the fence and headed towards the Three Broomsticks, to drown out his misery with alcohol. 

.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.•*•.

Gemma climbed the stairs to Dumbledore's study mindlessly. It was barely 8 p.m. but she'd returned to Hogwarts in a rush after Regulus had started sobbing in the middle of the Three Broomsticks after downing three firewhiskeys. He'd never cried before, and she'd had no clue what to do, so she'd settled for dumping him in his dorm and forcing him to go to sleep.