G. Lippert - James Potter and the Curse of the Gatekeeper

For the first time, Kingsley lowered his eyes. He pressed his lips together, and then removed his glasses. Still looking down at the small podium before him, he concluded:

"Arthur Weasley was the best of his kind. And we shall miss him."

In the silence that followed, James fought back his tears. It was so confusing. When he'd first understood what was happening that afternoon as they'd all stood in the parlor looking at Granddad's hand on the Weasley clock, he'd felt strangely numb. He'd known he should've felt sorrow, or anger, or fear, but instead, he'd felt just a strange, ringing emptiness. As the family had dissolved into confused conversation— demands of explanations, expressions of grief—Harry had taken Lily, Albus, and James upstairs to the bedroom they'd so often shared.

"Do you understand what this means?" he had asked them, looking each one in the eyes, his face serious and sad. Lily and Albus had nodded dumbly. James hadn't nodded. If he'd understood what had happened to Granddad, he'd have felt something, wouldn't he? Harry had gathered all three of them into an embrace, and James could feel his dad's cheek on his shoulder. It had felt hot.

Now, as James watched his grandma and Uncle Bill approach the casket, he could barely grope around the edges of this sudden, monumental grief. His throat ached from holding it in. His eyes burned and he blinked yet again, forcing back the tears. He was ashamed to let it all out, and yet it felt wrong to hold it in. He was torn in the middle.

Why did Granddad have to die of a stupid heart attack, of all things? Great wizards just didn't die of such things, did they? This was the man who'd faced Voldemort's snake and survived to tell of it. How could a man who'd fought the most vicious villains of all time, who'd made such terrible sacrifices, have died so stupidly in the end? The unfairness of it was like a weight of stones on James' heart. Hadn't Granddad earned a reprieve from something like this? Didn't he deserve at least a few more years to watch his grandchildren grow up? He was going to miss James' first year on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He'd not attend George's and Angelina's wedding, nor know the names of their children. He'd never unwrap his Muggle socket wrench set, never use it to finish the homemade wings on his prize Ford Anglia. It would sit there in the garage, half-painted and with one headlight still hanging out, until it rusted and lost whatever soul Granddad had given it. Nobody else cared about it. Eventually, it would be towed away somewhere and disposed of. Buried.

At the end of the aisle, Harry stood up, helping Ginny to her feet. Lily and Albus stood as well, but James remained seated. He stared straight ahead, his cheeks burning. He simply couldn't do it. After a moment, Ginny led Albus and Lily up the aisle to the casket. James felt his dad sit back down next to him. Neither tried to talk to each other, but James felt a hand on his back. It comforted him a little. But just a little.

A few minutes later, the room was almost entirely empty. James blinked and looked around. He'd barely noticed everyone trickling away, heading outside into the blinding summer sun. Harry still sat next to him. James glanced up at him, studying his dad's face for a moment, and then lowered his eyes. Together, they stood and walked up the aisle.

James had never been to a funeral before, but he'd heard about one. Albus' namesake, Dumbledore the Headmaster, had meant a terrible lot to his dad. He'd heard about how, at Dumbledore's funeral, Fawkes the phoenix had suddenly flown overhead and the tomb had briefly, gloriously, burst into flames. As James approached his granddad's casket, he wished something like that would happen. James hadn't known Dumbledore, but how could that old man have been nobler than his granddad? Why wouldn't something glorious and beautiful like that happen for Arthur Weasley? And yet, sadly, James knew it wouldn't.

He climbed the steps to the casket and looked in. He couldn't have done it if his dad hadn't been there with him, with his big hand on James' shoulder. Granddad looked the same, but different. His face was wrong, somehow. James couldn't see specifically what it was, and then he realized: Granddad was just dead. That's all. Suddenly, shockingly, a memory leapt into James' head. In it, he saw Granddad sitting on a stool out in the old family garage, holding a much younger James on his knee, showing him a toy aeroplane. He held it up in front of young James' wondering eyes and made it fly back and forth over the workbench, imitating jet noises. James hadn't known it at the time, but he saw it now in his memory: Granddad was making the plane fly backwards, tail-first. He smiled down at the boy James, his eyes twinkling. "It's like a broom with a hundred Muggles in it," he said, chuckling. "You know, I've never actually seen one fly. I hope to someday, James, my boy. I truly do."

James closed his eyes as hard as he could, but it was no use. He sobbed a great, dry sob and leaned on the edge of the casket. Harry Potter put an arm around his son's shoulder and held him tightly, rocking him slowly while he cried, hopelessly and helplessly, like the child that he still was.

"It wasn't really his birthday, of course," Molly was saying to Audrey, Percy's wife, as they stood in the sunlight of the Burrow's backyard, punch glasses in their hands. "He was actually born in February. This was going to be his seventy-eighth-and-a-half birthday party, more or less. Why, it was the only way we could surprise him! Of course, I should've known that he'd find a way to have the last laugh, God bless him. Oh Audrey."

James ladled himself a glass of punch and moved away from the table, not wishing to hear any more. Hagrid was seated rather uncomfortably on one of the tiny lawn chairs, pressing it into the ground.

"I knew Arthur back when he was still in school, yeh know," Hagrid said to Andromeda Tonks, who was seated at the table with him. "Never knew of a gentler soul, did I. Always ready with a smile an' a story. An' sharp in 'is own way. Sharp as a talon."

James slipped past as inconspicuously as possible. He loved Hagrid, but he felt weary and washed out from his tears back at the church. He didn't think he could bear hearing any stories about his granddad as a young man just now. It was too sad.

He saw Rose, Albus, and Louis seated at one of the portable tables at the edge of the lawn and went to join them.

"I hear Grandmother might sell the Burrow," Louis said as James pulled over a chair.

"She can't do that," Rose said, shocked. "It's been the Weasley home since… since… well, since I don't know how long, but since before our parents were even born! It's like a part of the family!"

Louis shrugged. "Dad says it's too big for her to manage all alone. I mean, the place is seven stories tall, not even counting the attic and the cellar. Besides, it takes a lot of magic just to keep the place upright. Now that the kids are all moved out, and Grandfather gone, it's just too much work for her all by herself."

"It just doesn't seem right," Rose insisted, kicking the table leg. She glanced up, widening her eyes. "So why shouldn't somebody just move back in with her? George could bring Angelina here when they get married, couldn't he?"

James glanced out over the yard at the knot of family and friends milling morosely in the sun. "George can't stay at the Burrow," he said. "He has the shops to run. Besides, Angelina's taking a tutoring job in Hogsmeade. They're looking at renting a flat just down the street from the shop."

"I hear Ted is going to live in the upstairs part," Louis said, brightening. "He wants to try out for the National Quidditch Team, so George said he could live with them and work at the shop while he trains."