From the Ashes

From the Ashes

Prologue

by Fourth Rose

Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna

In die illa tremenda quando coeli movendi sunt et terra...

Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death

On that terrible day when the heavens and earth shall be shaken...

(Catholic funeral mass)

* * *

The words flow by Harry's ears without making sense. He's never learned much Latin, no more than was necessary for spells, and the priest is speaking quickly, obviously eager to get the ceremony over with. The weather is bad: overcast and damp; the rain has stopped a while ago, but the few people that are gathered around the open grave are still tightly wrapped in their cloaks, hoods pulled over their heads. It's cold for mid-April, and besides, they probably don't want to be recognized.

He has not deserved this.

Then again, so many people have not deserved what has happened to them in the past week. Harry frowns at the thought. Has it really only been one week? No more than seven days? It seems like seven years to him.

A week ago, Ginny and Arthur and Tonks and Padma and Oliver and dozens of others he's known were still alive. Voldemort was too, and Harry still believed that it would take no more than his enemy's death to end the ongoing nightmare that his own life had become.

He did not really expect to survive the end of the war, back then. He also never expected that, should he survive, he'd wish that he hadn't.

Yet here he is, standing in a small graveyard somewhere in Wiltshire, listening to a funeral rite he doesn't understand and trying to ignore the looks the others are throwing him. To them, he doesn't belong here. He doesn't blame them for their hostility; he feels out of place himself.

The priest prattles on. Harry tries to listen to him, but the few isolated words he is able to discern mean nothing to him. Judgement... fear... light... ashes... rest...

"Potter."

The deep voice startles him; he has not heard anyone approaching. Harry turns around and looks into the pale, grim face of Severus Snape.

Snape ignores his astonished expression; he only nods at him and then stands beside Harry, obviously listening to the service. Harry swallows twice before he is able to speak.

"What are you doing here?"

Snape doesn't even look at him. "I'm attending a funeral, Potter, as it is unfortunately so often the case in these dark days."

Some years ago, the reserved tone would have shut Harry up. He doesn't have such qualms any longer.

"That's not what I meant." And you know it very well, he adds silently. "I'm asking why you're here with me. Last time we met, you didn't seem too keen on my company."

"I'm keen on very few people's company, most of whom are dead now anyway. However, Miss Parkinson asked me to stay with you during the rest of the service."

Surprised, Harry glances around until he spots Pansy Parkinson, clad in deep black, her dark hair plastered to her round face in wet tendrils. She's not looking at anyone, but instead keeps her gaze fixed on the open grave, her expression unreadable.

"Why?"

"Because she did not want the ceremony to be interrupted by some unpleasant incident, I suppose. The people who are present today might be under the impression that you are here to gloat."

Harry clenches his hands into fists. Don't let it get to you. Not now. "Is that what you think?"

Snape remains silent for a moment; his head is slightly cocked to the side, as if he were suddenly listening intently to the words the priest is reciting: "Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum... "

He is frowning when he finally answers, "I can't say I understand the motivation behind your presence here, Potter, but I doubt you would lower yourself to that."

Harry exhales slowly and only then realizes he has been holding his breath. "Thank you." It's surprisingly easy to say; there hasn't been enough time or energy to spare during those endless years of war to keep hating Snape the way he once used to.

Snape remains silent; the priest has stepped closer to the grave and raised his hand in a gesture of blessing. Harry suddenly notices he is no longer speaking Latin, but has started reciting the text everyone in the wizarding world knows only too well these days:

"...thus, we commend to God our brother Draco Lucius Malfoy, and we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust... the Lord bless him and keep him, the Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him and give him peace... "

Harry hears the words he has heard twenty, fifty, maybe a hundred times before, and suddenly it is real. The haze that seems to have surrounded him since he received the news those three days ago dissolves and leaves him with the unyielding certainty that this is not a dream.

Draco is gone.

* * *

References:

Libera eas de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum: Deliver them from the jaws of the lion, lest hell engulf them, lest they be plunged into darkness. (Catholic funeral mass)