…Serene, that was the look on your mother’s face the day of the funeral. I remember sitting in one of those oversized, moth-eaten chairs with Asher in my lap, trying to hide from the world. I scanned the room to make sure that Lillian was still in sight, and I saw your mother sitting quietly amidst the crying and the declarations of sorrow. She looked upon the scene with a distinguished calm about her. I remember thinking how odd that she, the Weasley matriarch, the kind, caring soul that everyone knew her to be had yet to shed a tear on what should have been one of the worst days of her life. As I sat there, anger began to fill the very depths of my soul. She may have buried one child already; how on earth does that give her the right to not grieve for her only daughter? Every witch and wizard there had an expression of grief etched across their features, clearly visible to anyone who might happen by, everyone except the one woman who should have been inconsolable.
A month passed before I learned the true reason for her placid state on the day we had both tried unsuccessfully to forget. She sat me down and held my hands in hers, a gesture which I’m sure could not have been more unnerving. She began to regale me with stories of your happy childhood, many of them I remembered from our days at Hogwarts. As each story passed through her wearied lips, so too did the one emotion I earlier believed she had forgotten. With each happy occasion the tears began to fall, until sorrow pouring from her eyes became a river mapping the life lines strewn across her face. With her head buried in her apron she cried freely. I never would have imagined being privy to such an outburst of emotion, and truthfully I will admit, the very act she displayed left me alarmed and uncomfortable. I could not leave her to cry in a kitchen by herself; at the same time, I could not fathom what should be done to cease this torrent of despair she so surprisingly unleashed upon me. What she uttered next firmly cemented my original theory regarding your family’s lunacy. “She’ll never eat another chocolate frog.” That statement alone, I believe, would be enough grounds for having her committed. Perhaps I would not have to suffer your mother’s unusual form of torture every Sunday if I had.
That idiot counselor told me that grief comes in all sorts of forms, and some rot about five stages to acceptance. Why people would want to constantly dwell on their hidden emotions is beyond even my comprehension. What the purpose of spilling your soul to some stranger who’s paid to sit behind a desk and spout rubbish, I will never know. I have only been to my second “grief session” and already I’d rather perform an Unforgivable on myself than listen to her speak. I believe the proposition a very noble aspiration of mine seeing as I am the least liked half that once made up our whole. You always hear the joking during happy times when you see couples introducing their significant others as “My better half”. Everyone knew the truth when it came to our relationship. What do they expect of me now that you are no longer here?
After the accident I tried my best to keep everything together. I put on my mask for the rest of the world. As the days grew longer and the seconds seemed like hours, my mask became harder and harder to maintain. I do not understand how all of this can be. The sun still rises and sets. The earth still spins, and at night there are still stars in the sky. It seems as if nothing at all has changed; as if through everything that has happened, the world keeps on going. Why can’t I? Sometimes I feel as though I cannot breathe. Life seems to creep out of me far too slowly. What’s worse is my feeling that I have let down the two people who mean the most to me. What sort of father cannot pull himself together enough to help his children “cope”?
A month passed before I learned the true reason for her placid state on the day we had both tried unsuccessfully to forget. She sat me down and held my hands in hers, a gesture which I’m sure could not have been more unnerving. She began to regale me with stories of your happy childhood, many of them I remembered from our days at Hogwarts. As each story passed through her wearied lips, so too did the one emotion I earlier believed she had forgotten. With each happy occasion the tears began to fall, until sorrow pouring from her eyes became a river mapping the life lines strewn across her face. With her head buried in her apron she cried freely. I never would have imagined being privy to such an outburst of emotion, and truthfully I will admit, the very act she displayed left me alarmed and uncomfortable. I could not leave her to cry in a kitchen by herself; at the same time, I could not fathom what should be done to cease this torrent of despair she so surprisingly unleashed upon me. What she uttered next firmly cemented my original theory regarding your family’s lunacy. “She’ll never eat another chocolate frog.” That statement alone, I believe, would be enough grounds for having her committed. Perhaps I would not have to suffer your mother’s unusual form of torture every Sunday if I had.
That idiot counselor told me that grief comes in all sorts of forms, and some rot about five stages to acceptance. Why people would want to constantly dwell on their hidden emotions is beyond even my comprehension. What the purpose of spilling your soul to some stranger who’s paid to sit behind a desk and spout rubbish, I will never know. I have only been to my second “grief session” and already I’d rather perform an Unforgivable on myself than listen to her speak. I believe the proposition a very noble aspiration of mine seeing as I am the least liked half that once made up our whole. You always hear the joking during happy times when you see couples introducing their significant others as “My better half”. Everyone knew the truth when it came to our relationship. What do they expect of me now that you are no longer here?
After the accident I tried my best to keep everything together. I put on my mask for the rest of the world. As the days grew longer and the seconds seemed like hours, my mask became harder and harder to maintain. I do not understand how all of this can be. The sun still rises and sets. The earth still spins, and at night there are still stars in the sky. It seems as if nothing at all has changed; as if through everything that has happened, the world keeps on going. Why can’t I? Sometimes I feel as though I cannot breathe. Life seems to creep out of me far too slowly. What’s worse is my feeling that I have let down the two people who mean the most to me. What sort of father cannot pull himself together enough to help his children “cope”?
Author notes: Hoped you liked it so far. The next chapter will be up this weekend.
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