Let the yoke fall from our shoulders--don't carry it all
*It seems like it's taken no time at all to get here, to the pub. One moment the telephone rings and it's the neighbors in Ambleside saying there's a big green. . .thing. . .over the house, and shouldn't he better check on Angela and Ted Senior, and then the smooth machine of death and calamity starts working double-time and it's all a blur of Apparition and owls to friends and telephone calls to family and the Ministry neatly Obliviating the neighbors, concealing the Mark, and telling him not to look at his parents but he does anyway, immediately wishes he hadn't, and Aurors asking him questions, and remembering over and over the man outside the broom closet saying affront, who even says affront in this day and age, and making the Muggle arrangements because he has to, Andromeda's picked up an awful lot but not enough for this, even he has trouble with it--and explaining it to Nymphadora, or trying to, and the steady unrelenting succession of owls bearing food, and putting the condolence cards in a neat pile and digging out a nice suit from the back of the closet and sending out owls asking for the few wizarding attendees to wear Muggle clothing if possible, black if possible, and yes, he would like closed caskets, absolutely closed caskets.
Before he knows it he's standing up at the funeral, shifting and uncomfortable in his best suit, and Ted's always been shit at this sort of thing, he's stumbling over his words and blowing his nose into his handkerchief and dropping his notes until Andromeda comes up and takes over for him and he concedes it to her with a rush of gratitude so massive that it almost bears him away, she's always spoken beautifully and she speaks beautifully now.
Before he knows it he is done with the never-ending line of my-condolences and I am sorry for your loss and oh what a tragedy and it's over, and people are packing up the food and Dromeda takes Junior home to answer the hardest questions a parent has to answer and Ted does what the Tonks men have always done in their time of grief: he goes to the pub and takes off his tie and gets rip-roaring drunk.
He's red-faced now, from crying and Firewhisky, but he's reached an odd peace about it: it is the Tonks way to meet pain head on and take the measure of it, and do what it takes to surmount it, and that is what he is doing now. His voice is loud and hoarse, and Tom does his bidding almost before he's done shouting.*
ANOTHER ROUND, I THINK.
Before he knows it he's standing up at the funeral, shifting and uncomfortable in his best suit, and Ted's always been shit at this sort of thing, he's stumbling over his words and blowing his nose into his handkerchief and dropping his notes until Andromeda comes up and takes over for him and he concedes it to her with a rush of gratitude so massive that it almost bears him away, she's always spoken beautifully and she speaks beautifully now.
Before he knows it he is done with the never-ending line of my-condolences and I am sorry for your loss and oh what a tragedy and it's over, and people are packing up the food and Dromeda takes Junior home to answer the hardest questions a parent has to answer and Ted does what the Tonks men have always done in their time of grief: he goes to the pub and takes off his tie and gets rip-roaring drunk.
He's red-faced now, from crying and Firewhisky, but he's reached an odd peace about it: it is the Tonks way to meet pain head on and take the measure of it, and do what it takes to surmount it, and that is what he is doing now. His voice is loud and hoarse, and Tom does his bidding almost before he's done shouting.*
ANOTHER ROUND, I THINK.