The Blackbird

The Blackbird

*

"Dad!" shouted a voice somewhere from the garden. "Dad!"

Sirius stopped watching the butterflies in the air and turned around. He saw three children running towards him. Harry was there, as well as Carol and Jason, his oldest and youngest children. A warm, loving smile spread on his face, only to fade away as he saw the serious expressions on each kid's face.

"What's wrong, little ones?" he asked, now becoming slightly worried.

"We found a bird on the ground," said Harry, his emerald eyes wide behind the spectacles.

"There's something wrong with it, Dad," continued Carol, her grey eyes just as full of worry. "It doesn't get up, it doesn't even sing!"

"Really?" asked Sirius, acting worried even though he was just relieved that it wasn't anything worse. "Let's go and see it, then."

The three kids led him through the little garden to the other side of the house. There, on the backyard, closely watched by Melanie, lay a small blackbird. One glance was enough to tell Sirius that it was dead.

"Is it sick, Dad?" asked Melanie, watching him with the intensity of a worried child in her gaze. "Can you heal it?"

Sirius sighed deeply. This would not be easy to explain. "I'm sorry, but I cannot heal it," he said. "It's not sick, Mel. This bird is dead."

"Dead?" echoed Carol, sounding shocked. "Why? There are no Death Eaters near!"

Shaking his head, Sirius was torn between laughter and another deep sigh. His children - he counted Harry as one - knew everything about Death Eaters, but all other dark sides of life were strange to them. "I don't know why, Carol. Maybe a cat attacked it, or an owl. Or maybe it flew against a window and broke its neck. I really don't know."

"So it's like James and Lily?" Harry asked quietly. "Is it singing to them now?"

Biting his lip, Sirius nodded. It still pained him that Harry didn't call his parents Mum and Dad, even though he knew that his family was the only one Harry had after Voldemort killed James and Lily. Even Harry's name was nowadays Black, as he'd adopted the boy. "Yeah, just like them," he said with an equally quiet tone. "It's in the Heaven now, singing to them. They need some birds up there also, right?"

"Of course!" exclaimed Carol. "It'd be so boring if there weren't any birds singing!"

"What do we do to it?" asked Melanie then, eyeing the bird carefully.

"We bury it to the ground," decided Sirius after a moment of thinking. "We'll give it a proper funeral."

"Okay!" said Harry, immediately ready for that. "I'll dig the hole. But where?"

"To the back corner of the garden," replied Sirius, "so we won't ruin any flower benches."

So, Harry dug a hole to the ground with a little shovel, while Carol fetched a box from the house. Sirius charmed the box black, then levitated the bird carefully into it. A bird's funeral or not, his kids wouldn't get any germs from the dead creature's body.

When the hole was deep enough, Melanie got the honour of placing the box to it. Jason had picked some flowers - and quite a lot of grass, but Sirius didn't have a heart to mention about it - and he tossed them messily on top of the "coffin."

Then Sirius realized that all kids were staring at him, like expecting him to do or say something. So, he quickly made up something. "This bird sang to us many times, cheering up our daily life. We thank great Merlin that it was always there for us to hear. May it now rest in peace." After this hurried "speech" he flicked his wand, making the sand and mould Harry had dug to create the hole back to its place, covering the box and the bird inside it.

For a moment, everyone was quiet. Even the usual sounds of the garden seemed to have disappeared to honour the blackbird's memory.

Then, suddenly, the silence was broken. Somewhere, among the tree leaves, a blackbird started to sing. Its joyous song rose to the sky, cheerfully and carefreely, and just as beautifully as always.

And then Jason noticed a butterfly and started to run after it, and Melanie ran after him. Harry and Carol started to chase each other, seemingly wholly forgotten the seriousness that had filled their world just a moment before.

Sirius watched his children, smiling gently at them. They were living reminders that despite all that happened, despite all death and sorrow that marked their lives, life had to go on. Sun shone even if somebody had died, and if a bird didn't sing, some other bird did.

The blackbird's song followed him as he walked into the house, leaving the children to their play.