Putting the Past Behind Us

The wind, the razor-sharp wind, the biting, splitting, piercing wind cut through his cheeks as easily as if they were made of rice paper or soap bubbles. The knitted gloves that Mrs Weasley had given him gave no protection to his hands, already raw and bleeding from the incessant pounding of the stone walls that they did in his few hours of sleep. His eyes, red and bloodshot from lack of sleep, stung badly, but he carried on walking. Even though his robes were tattered and torn, and fluttering around him madly in the gale, he carried on walking. Despite the fact that his shoes were mere patches of leather, bound by the laces, he carried on walking. His legs ached fiercely, but he quickened his step. He had to be there, had to make it on time. He glanced to his wrist, where his watch had once sat, but saw only a pale, bony arm and a few deep scars.

He was nearly there now, he could see it. At the top of the cliff path, next to the roaring grey ocean and dark, shapeless sky, stood a tiny church, bare and roughly built out of local rock. He hurried up to the door, breaking into a run for the last few yards, and thrust the large, cracked and ancient door open. It's metal fixings, a crust shade of painted black, struck the wall of the church porch and resonated through the small, bare building. As he stood in the doorway, breathless and shuddering, a flash of lightning illuminated his almost ghostly silhouette, and the congregation turned to look at him. A small woman near the front fainted, and many others gasped. He ignored them, paced towards the altar, his huge black cloak billowing out behind him, and took a seat next to a pale man with similarly shabby clothes. The man took his hand, and Harry did not pull away from his firm grasp.

They sat in silence for several minutes until the pale man gave him a nudge. He jumped to his feet, stared accusatorily at the twenty or thirty other people with whom he shared the church, and went over to a small mahogany lectern that stood just in front of the altar.

"So," he said gruffly, and paused to clear his throat. "I, ahem, asked you all here today for a...particular purpose. Given the unlikelihood that Sirius." At the sound of the name, a redheaded girl near the back began sobbing loudly. Harry ignored her and continued with his speech, more loudly than before. "Given the unlikelihood that the body of my godfather will ever be found, I have taken the liberty of arranging a small memorial service. Please come outside."

In the broad daylight, outside of the dingy church, Harry saw that the woman who had fainted was Molly Weasley. She appeared to have sufficiently recovered her senses and was running to him as he strode ahead of the small group. She tugged at his sleeve.

"Please, Harry, not yet. We still might find him, there might be a chance."

He did not look at her, but stared out at the stormy sea, his eyes somewhat blank. Then he turned to her, with and expression that looked oddly like anger.

"It has been fifteen years, Molly. I'm not prepared to wait any longer. There are some...issues I have to deal with, and I want to confront them sooner rather than later and get on with my life." She looked to the ground and nodded gently.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe it's best to. Maybe we all should have moved on now. The war is over; maybe it's time to deal with it all." She did not elaborate any further, but he knew what she meant by 'all'. She had every right to be as angry and as sad as he did, maybe more so. Her family had been hit very hard by the second war. He now recognised the young woman who had been crying at the back. Ginny. Why, though? He didn't remember her having any particular attachment to Sirius.

Remus shuffled over to him.

"This isn't entirely fair, you know," he said quietly.

"Why?" asked Harry defiantly, although he thought he knew.

"Bringing us all here, especially Molly, Arthur and Ginny. We all knew them, it still hurts us all at times, but we're getting over it. This is bringing it all back up again. Don't say you don't know what I'm talking about. It can't be a coincidence. Why, Harry? Why do you want al, your misery in one place?"

"So I can get away from it if I want to," he replied truthfully. "So I can leave it where it is and get on with other stuff. So it doesn't follow me everywhere, so I can leave it all here." Remus sighed and shook his head.

"But it is with you everywhere, and it will be until you get your head straightened out. Burying them all together, putting Sirius' tribute next to Ron's and Hermione's and Neville's won't make it any easier to get away from. It will make it harder to come back to. Think about it. What if, in another fifteen years time, you decide you can cope and you come here again? It'll all come back to haunt you, and you'll become a wreck again. Just like you are now." Harry looked as though he had been slapped across the face, but Remus continued.

"You are a wreck, and if you can't see that you're a worse wreck than I thought." He walked away, drawing his robes around his thin and tired body with a certain air of dignity. Harry stood there, momentarily struck dumb, and then he followed Lupin through the wrought-iron gate into the graveyard.

It was small and ill kempt, with a few large marbled monuments scattered amongst the rest of the gravestones, mostly rough-cut chunks of local sandstone, many without inscriptions. His eyes darted between the large statues, towering above the rest. A sword, a book, a wand. The newest was situated slightly behind the rest, but thanks to its newly polished gleam, its placement did not detract much attention from it. There was no pit at its foot, as there had been with the other three, and no coffin next to it. It was just a monument, but to Harry it represented more than it ever could have if he had planted a corpse below it.

The people huddled around this stone giant, a statue of a Hippogriff, and looked eagerly to Harry. He stood facing them, on the opposite bank of where the grave would have been, if there had been a corpse. He was trying to remain calm, but a vein twitched menacingly at his temple and his fists were balled to the point where his knuckles were emitting an odd white glow.

He untwisted the contortion that had in recent years become his mouth, and began to speak.

"I have erected this monument in memory of Sirius, who was my godfather, but also like a father and a brother to me, for a few short years. This is here so that he many never be forgotten, even when few people truly knew of him, and fewer truly cared." There was a definite hint of bitterness in his voice, but he continued. "The people who are here today, all of you-" his eyes darted to the other monuments, "- are blessed. They all had the pleasure of knowing you, and it is with great sadness that we are all assembled here."

"Why?" enquired a familiar figure from the back of the crowd, his face bearing a grin. "Who died?"

Harry turned to look at his interrupter and almost fell to the floor.

"Sirius?" he asked, his voice full of disbelief.

"In the flesh," replied the man gently, "In the flesh..."