Funeral

Funeral

I have been to a single funeral in my life. I was six years old, and a boy. My orphan-mother (as that was the name the ornery hags insisted on being called) thought it obligatory for us to attend—after all, the deceased little boy had been a resident of our very own Stockwell Orphanage.

“Certainly, we cannot leave the boy without giving him proper farewell,” she had simpered to the head of the orphanage and school, Headmaster Winchcombe. The old man nodded vehemently, as if he could not agree more.

“Very good, Miss Harding, very good,” he said approvingly. He looked at me with small, squinty eyes. “It’ll do the boys good. You’ll realize soon, son, when you see the smile that graces his saintly face--God has taken young Jacob to His kingdom.” He looked stern now. “Won’t you?” When I stared blankly, Miss Harding nudged me for answer.

“Yes, sir,” I replied obediently. That night, when I could not stop thinking about what a funeral would look, smell, feel like, I realized I was apprehensive of it. I was excited; eager to seek out this new adventure that beckoned me. The feeling crawled in and out of my stomach. In a nearly indifferent way, I decided that I craved to know what death was. I had to know the face of what had been a part of me since birth.

--

The day did not dawn sunny and warm. I had dreamt the night before of a festival I had seen a summer ago, from the window of my dormitory. That day had smelled of cotton candy and merry-go-rounds. Six-year-old boys tend to think everything is a festivity. Perhaps funerals were not like festivals after all. Funeral Day was gloomy.

We arrived there as a group—all of us boys were restless and eager to breathe the fresh air so loudly that our nun-like orphan-mothers would hush us. It was one of our rare outings into the real world. We took advantage of it. In truth, our craving for the dirty city streets does not make sense. But when caged up in a dingy school-turned-orphanage all day and all night, anything seemed to be precious. It was out here, as we watched the pickpockets steal ladies’ purses that we truly learned. It was out here that I learned.

I lead the very back of the line, alone and observant of my surroundings as usual. Those stupid muggle boys never noticed much. They were busy pushing and shoving each other, always a useless struggle for dominance. They didn’t know anything about everything. Their eyes only saw what was told to them. ‘Look closely now,’ our orphan-mothers would say. And only then they would stare. I learned much just by using my eyes. In that way, I was already superior to these children with sticky fingers and rosy cheeks.

At funerals, no one pointed out anything. No one noted the smell of the salts they sprinkled on the corpses. Our caretakers wore somber clothing (but didn’t they always?) and had expressions to match. I had heard few things about funerals: There were many people. It was held in a church. There were flowers. It meant that someone would not be coming back with us. I didn’t give a damn about these nameless, faceless people for whom we held an entire ceremony. No, it was nothing even close to morbid fascination, my interest in funerals. To me, at that current point in time, a funeral was like a foreign food—interesting, because I had never tried it before, but only fascinating until it was stopped being something that was new to me.

In fact, the likelihood was that I would quickly lose interest in the actual procession, and instead I would engross myself in the variety of flowers presented there. Yes, I loved plants. I loved wild plants. I wanted to see all the bits and pieces that made them work. I enjoyed watching their fragility and strength intertwined in the way the sprouted from the cold, damp ground. I enjoyed knowing that it was possible to grow as tall as trees when you had no one to depend on but yourself. It is a very nice thought to think of at night.

We entered an empty expanse of land. The grass was not even properly green here—no, it managed to be a sickly puce color with a couple bald spots along the way where brown Earth was revealed.

We continued marching until we approached what looked like, from a distance, a large dark spot on the ground. As we grew closer, I realized it was a pit. Orphan-Mother turned around as we neared its edge. She held out a hand and we stopped marching like good little dogs. Curious boys peered over to try and look at what was inside the pit. I could not see a thing. I scowled at the dead grass beneath my feet.

The boys refused to quiet even as the priest arrived. He did not look like much of a priest. His footsteps did not thunder. He looked far too tired and shabby, millions of folds under his ancient brown eyes. When he spoke, his voice was soft and withered, like the wind. It was suddenly very cold here. I wished once again that I owned a proper pair of gloves—my hands were always two small, thin ice cubes. I flinched as I touched them to my cheeks.

The old priest-man spoke very few words, none of which I remember. He spoke of God and heaven and dear little Jacob. Jacob was the small boy wrapped in a ratty blanket, lying limply on the stretcher before us. I did not yet make the connections--I did not yet comprehend what that limp, pallid body meant. I suppose that though I was a bright young boy, all boys that age are ignorant. What was a dead body to me? I had not yet learned to fear it. I did not understand why we stood here. If gathering around this little boy was such an enormous and essential ordeal, why were we not in a church? All truly important events occurred in churches. Why had someone dug a massive hole in the Earth?

Naturally, being so consumed with my ideas of what a funeral should be, I was the only one who gave a yell when the two men who had followed the priest abruptly threw Jacob into the pit. The other boys turned around and laughed at me. Orphan-mothers scolded us. I turned and met Miss Harding’s reproving glare.

“Why have they thrown him away? Now they'll have to retrieve him,” I mumbled defiantly in answer to her stare, so very sure of myself. Her face softened for a brief moment.

“They haven’t thrown anyone away. Don’t you understand? Jacob’s soul has been freed. He has no use for his body any longer—the Lord is in possession of Jacob now. He is safe now. He is safe.” She repeated those words like a mantra. They faded as she looked up and around the barren and desolate surroundings. Then, her face was cold and lifeless again, and she sighed in exasperation. “Have you learned nothing at Sunday school, Thomas?”

I was quelled. Not because I saw reason in her logic, but because someone was laughing at me. In reality, it was only the bully of the group, no doubt imitating my girlish shriek. But I felt someone else mocking me too. For the first time in my life, I heard the shrill laugh of Death.

With clenched fists, I tentatively wandered dangerously close to the edge of the deep pit. I had heard Death, and now I saw him. He stared at me within the face of innocent little Jacob. His face was ash gray and his lips devoid of pink. I knew then. From that moment on, I never failed to see Death again. I had observed it once, and it was there, in my mind, as clear as a Dark Mark. There it was, lying comfortably in Jacob’s porcelain body, permeating through like a plague. It was elsewhere, too. Death did not linger in the face of a boy who lay in a polished wooden coffin in the light of a glorious church. Here, in the black, black pit, Death made conversation with solitude and insignificance.

These revelations came all at once, like a sudden rainfall in summer.

No one would remember a small boy named Jacob Ackart ever again.

--

I learned one thing from that lonely funeral: There is death, and then there is death. People who truly died were the ones whose names would never be spoken of henceforth. That was ultimate death of a human. Orphan boys did not get lavish biddings off to Heaven. God had probably forgotten about children like Jacob Ackart. Lost war heroes are sought out for till the end—but what of lost dead children? Who in this world would find them?

I too was an orphan boy of misfortune. I had known that since I had entered the orphanage. But fear gripped me then. If I passed, I too would be wrapped in a piece of dirty cloth and be thrown deep into the Earth. Jesus had not died to save people like me. Ah, how this God and this Jesus and this religion had given me such blind, misconstrued thoughts of the so-called divine afterlife. There was none for me. And what lies they were, that we were all equal under His eyes. It was a dark, dark betrayal. But I learned--I had to. I had to learn that winter is always colder than they tell you it is, and I had to learn how to keep myself warm.

If there is one thing in this world that gives a person determination, it is fear. I knew I had to build something in my name. There had been monuments in honor of other great men before me—they were not forgotten. They had been men the size of giants and therefore, they had no need to live forever. I had to prove to pathetic orphanage boys, and the men they would grow up into that I was not like them. I was greater. I had been born with meaning. I was better.

To this day, I still fear the same thing. As I have predicted, Tom Riddle has already been forgotten. Lord Voldemort, I cannot let go. That is why it is safest never to die. Even the blindest of worlds cannot ignore power, lingering power, controlling power, and ever-present power. I have come close to building an empire, with a horde of men by my side—and all the proof that they will not, cannot ever forget me is burned deep along the skin of their forearms.

And you. You, Harry Potter, young, vibrant and born with a good, echoing name, threaten to fulfill my fears. It is why I have devoted the rest of my life to defeating, to killing you. It is why I must kill you now, as you listen to my story. But you have no need for worry. Your name will be in history forever, cast in good light, and loved by all. People will speak your name when asked for greatness.

In that respect, you are almost like me, Potter. You are that same boy I was, at least in theory, during those near 16 years of nights at the orphanage, imagining the dawn of my great future. I imagined you. In a sense, I created you. Perhaps it gives me the right to destroy you.

You must understand. At age 17, you’ve achieved in life exactly as I have, but while following another path. It’s a path that I was not offered. So I must turn to irony, invoking fear in others to keep my own at bay. After all, I must achieve my ends. It is what all of us must do, though there are many different ways to do it. It has become the single and most definite purpose in all of our lives.

In conclusion to the last monologue you will ever hear from me—

An old wizard said it once: My failure to understand that there are things much worse than death is my greatest weakness.

Where I was clear sighted in every other matter to be known, I am still blind to this, for I am told that death is nothing to be frightened of. Perhaps what I am also missing is bravery, but both things are innate and I, being an orphan boy of misfortune, do not posses either. Death, which has taken my mother the day I was born, death, which I have learned to wield, finally, is my only adversary. And you, to come along, my immortal fear clinging to your very eyes--you represent it. And none of this is any of our faults.

It is my greatest weakness. But now, at last, I defeat it.

Avada Kedavra.