Remembrance days were something Luna had learned to dread. Her dislike for them sharpened with every passing year, growing heavier each time she was asked to stand among mourners and bear witness to another ending. Funerals always pulled her backward, straight into the memory of her mother's farewell, a day carved so deeply into her that it had never truly loosened its grip.
On that day, something inside her had gone quiet and never fully returned. Her mother had been laid to rest, and with her went a piece of Luna that had once believed the world could be gentle without effort. The air had felt thinner then, stripped of warmth.
She remembered standing among the gathered crowd, young and overwhelmed, holding her grief like an anchor because it was the only thing keeping her upright. Her heart had splintered in ways that no careful stitching could undo.
Now, facing another service, that familiar ache returned with an almost cruel precision.
Every solemn face felt like an echo.
Every hushed condolence carried the weight of memory.
The room was thick with quiet sorrow, broken only by soft murmurs and the shuffle of feet. Yet it was the silence that pressed hardest, filling her head with the same hollow space she had learned to carry.
She moved through it all as if through fog, each step slow and heavy. Loss clung to her skin, seeping inward until it settled in her chest.
The carefully arranged flowers and polished surfaces of the funeral space offered no comfort. Their order only deepened her sense of separation, reminding her how small and alone grief could make a person feel.
Every detail felt familiar in the worst way. The sheen of the wood. The muted clothing. The steady presence of sorrow that refused to soften. Time folded inward, pulling her back to the moment she had first learned what it meant to say goodbye when she was not ready.
As the ceremony continued, Luna drifted further from the room. The faces around her blurred, voices blending into a distant hum. She felt suspended somewhere above it all, watching without fully participating. Grief wrapped around her with an intimacy she had never invited, a reminder that some wounds learned how to wait rather than fade.
Her thoughts slipped back to her mother's laughter, to the warmth of her arms, to the ease of being held by someone who understood her without effort. The contrast was sharp and unforgiving. The cold she felt now settled deeper, filling a space that time had never managed to close.
Her mother's absence remained a constant weight in her life, unchanged by years or milestones. Each funeral reopened that truth, setting it beside the memory of a life once full and vibrant. The reminder was relentless and deeply unfair.
Her eyes filled with tears she did not bother to wipe away, gaze unfocused as the rituals carried on around her. Breathing felt like work. Each inhale pressed against the heaviness in her chest, each exhale threatened to give way to something she was not ready to release.
Death felt final in a way that left no room for comfort. The memory of her mother's farewell lingered, refusing to soften with age. Luna understood then, as she had before, that some grief did not ask to be healed. It simply stayed, vivid and sharp, a permanent part of the shape of her heart.
~~~~~~
The air at Ron and Lavender's funeral pressed in on Luna from every side, thick and heavy, as if the world itself had forgotten how to breathe. Silence hung over the gathering, broken only by a cough here, a muffled sob there.
She stood near the back, hands folded together, feeling the familiar pull of dissociation settle into her bones. Funerals always did this to her. They blurred the edges of reality until everything felt distant and unreal.
Her gaze kept drifting to Hermione.
Hermione sat rigid in her chair, spine straight, shoulders locked in place like she was holding herself together through sheer force of will. Her eyes were red and swollen, fixed on nothing in particular. Luna recognized that look immediately. It was the stare of someone who had gone too far into grief and come out the other side numb. Hermione looked carved from stone, as if any movement might shatter her completely.
Luna felt a sharp ache bloom in her chest. Ron and Lavender were gone. The words still refused to settle properly in her mind. Ron, loud and stubborn and endlessly loyal. Lavender, bright and emotional and aching to be loved. Their absence felt wrong in a way that had no language.
The ceremony moved forward with careful solemnity. Words were spoken. Memories were offered. Luna heard them only faintly, like sound carried through water.
Her thoughts drifted instead, snagging on fragments of the past, on moments that now felt fragile and untouchable. She watched Hermione nod automatically at condolences, her expression never changing, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.
Luna understood that numbness all too well. It crept in when the pain grew too large, when the heart needed distance just to survive. Still, watching Hermione sit there alone inside herself made Luna's throat tighten. Grief shared was heavy enough. Grief carried in isolation could hollow a person out entirely.
She glanced around the small gathering. Harry stood nearby, his face drawn and pale, green eyes dulled by exhaustion and loss.
When his gaze met Hermione's, he offered a small smile that barely held together. Ginny stood close to him, fingers threaded through his, her usual fire dimmed to embers. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and her grip on Harry's hand looked like the only thing keeping her steady.
Neville stood beside Luna, shoulders hunched, his grief worn openly across his face. She rested her hand lightly against his arm, grounding both of them. His presence was solid and familiar, even now. She could feel how hard he was trying to stay upright, how much this loss weighed on him too.
When Hermione finally looked up, her eyes met Luna's across the space between them. The moment stretched. Luna did not smile. She did not tilt her head or offer comfort through expression alone. She simply let Hermione see her. The sorrow. The understanding. The shared knowing that some losses never truly loosen their grip.
Hermione's lower lip trembled, just barely. One tear slipped free and traced a slow path down her cheek. Luna felt it like a fracture in her own chest.
The room seemed to blur then, faces dissolving into muted shapes, voices fading into a low hum. Grief moved through the space like a tide, quiet and relentless. Luna felt the collective weight of it, the way it bound them together whether they wanted it to or not. This was how it always was. Love stitched people together, and loss pulled those stitches tight until they hurt.
As the service drew to a close, mourners began to drift away, their murmured condolences dissolving into the rustle of leaves and the scrape of shoes on stone. Luna stayed where she was. Hermione did too.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Now, as Luna stood among the gathered mourners, the weight of the moment pressed down on her chest until each breath felt deliberate. She let her gaze drift over the faces around her. Shock lingered there. Disbelief. A grief so fresh it had not yet found its shape. The air felt crowded with everything no one knew how to say, emotions colliding and folding into one another until the silence itself seemed to hum.
Life could fracture in a heartbeat. She knew that truth too well. One moment laughter existed, solid and real, and the next it became an echo you carried inside your ribs. She felt it now, that strange hollow where certainty used to live.
Her eyes returned to the casket. Two lives ended too soon, futures cut short before they had finished becoming themselves. The sorrow sat alongside something steadier inside her, a quiet resolve she had learned to live with over the years. Loss did not erase love. It clarified it. It reminded her why she held so fiercely to the people still standing beside her.
She stayed upright through the service, spine straight, hands folded loosely together. Grief moved through her, slow and heavy, yet she did not push it away. She let it exist. She had learned that pain demanded acknowledgment, that turning from it only gave it sharper teeth. If she carried this sorrow, she would carry it with intention, using it to guard the fragile joy she still had.
Neville stood at her side when they reached the grave. The headstone was simple, almost stark, the names carved into stone with an unforgiving permanence.
Ron Weasley. Lavender Brown.
Luna traced the letters with her eyes, each one anchoring the reality she still struggled to accept. Her feelings toward them had always been complicated, threaded with affection and frustration and memories that did not sit neatly together. Even so, the finality of their absence settled deep in her bones.
"Terrible as couple," she murmured quietly, more to the earth than to anyone else. "Lovely human beings."
Neville nodded beside her. He understood the strange contradiction of grief, how love and irritation and sorrow could exist in the same breath without canceling one another out.
Her thoughts wandered through fragments of the past. Arguments. Laughter. Shared rooms and shared silences. They had been messy, vivid, painfully human. Now all of it lived only in memory, a mosaic no one could ever rearrange again.
The wind slipped through the trees, cold against her skin, carrying the scent of damp earth. The graveyard felt alive with mourning, as if the ground itself recognized the weight it had taken in. Luna felt that chill settle into her, steady and unavoidable.
Finality lived here. There was no softening it, no disguising it as something gentler. Their story had ended. The imprint they left behind had not.
Her gaze shifted toward Hermione.
Hermione sat near the grave, folded inward, her posture collapsed under the gravity of what she carried. Her eyes stayed fixed on the ground, unfocused, as if she had stepped halfway out of the world. Luna recognized that distance. It was the mind protecting itself when reality became too sharp.
Harry stood nearby, shoulders shaking as tears slipped freely down his face. The Weasley family clustered together, grief etched into every line of them. Their sorrow moved through the space like a living thing, heavy and undeniable. They mourned Ron and Lavender, and they mourned the version of their lives that had vanished with them.
The sound of quiet sobbing mingled with the rustle of leaves overhead. It was raw. Unfiltered. Human. Luna felt it all wash over her, an ache that pulled tears from her own eyes without asking permission.
Her heart twisted for Hermione. Grief could hollow a person out, leaving them stranded inside themselves. Luna knew how easily it could swallow even the strongest souls.
The cemetery seemed wrapped in mourning, a shared weight that pressed down on everyone present. Luna breathed through it, steady and slow, letting the sorrow exist without drowning her. This was the cost of loving deeply. This was the price of connection.
When the silence finally settled, it did not feel empty. It felt full of everything that had been lost, and everything that would still have to be carried forward.
~~~~~~
Theo checked on her every hour, sometimes more, as if time itself might slip and leave her behind if he did not watch closely enough.
Each time, he found her in the same place, seated by the window, her body still while her eyes traced the garden without really seeing it. The roses had begun to wilt at the edges. The sky hung low and pale. Everything outside looked far away.
"Luna, my love," he said softly, careful, like one wrong note might shatter her. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine," she answered, though the words sounded thin even to her own ears.
He shook his head, slow and gentle. "You are not fine. I can see it. You are somewhere else."
She did not turn. "I'm just devastated," she said quietly, the truth slipping out without resistance.
Theo's chest tightened as he moved closer. "I want to make you happy," he said, his voice rough with it. "I hate seeing you like this. Tell me how I can help."
Her breath stuttered. "Please," she whispered, fingers curling in the fabric of her skirt. "Do not let our baby see me like this. I do not want him to see me lost."
"He is not here," Theo said quickly. "He is with the crazy neighbor lady playing with the kitten."
She finally looked at him, a faint spark of herself flickering through the grief. "She is not crazy," Luna said softly. "She just really likes astrology."
Theo grimaced. "She is vegan and talks to the moon. To me, that is suspicious. Still, I trust her. Tell me what you need."
Her composure broke then, quiet and complete. "I want my mummy," she said, the words barely holding together. "I need her so much right now."
Theo sat beside her and took her hand, his thumb warm against her skin. "Oh, love," he murmured, pulling her into his chest. "I wish I could carry this for you. I am here. I will always be here."
She folded into him, the tears finally coming, slow and relentless. He held her without trying to fix anything, without rushing her back into the world.
After a while, his voice came again, soft and careful. "Tell me about her."
Luna breathed in, shaky. "She was kind," she said. "She made people feel seen. Like they mattered just by standing near her."
Theo brushed a tear from her cheek, listening.
"Pandora was everything to me," Luna continued. "She had this warmth. Even on the worst days, she made the world feel lighter."
He nodded. "Pandora is a beautiful name," he said. "It sounds like someone who changed the air around her."
"She was my anchor," Luna whispered. "Losing her feels like losing my direction."
Theo wrapped his arms around her again. "I am so sorry," he said. "I know I cannot take this away."
She rested her head against his chest. "Being here helps," she said. "Thank you for letting me talk about her."
He held her a little tighter, aware that grief was something you carried together, something that asked for witness rather than answers, and that sometimes sharing the weight was enough to keep a person upright in the dark.
Luna lifted her head and searched his face, her eyes gentle and careful. "What about your mother?" she asked softly.
Theo went still. His gaze dropped to the floor, and when he spoke, the words came slowly, like they had been waiting a long time to be let out. "I never talked about her," he said. "Not with anyone. You are the only woman who ever touched me with kindness in her hands."
Luna's fingers rose to his face, her palm warm against his cheek. "Did she hurt you?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
He swallowed. "More than once," he said quietly. "The same way my father did."
The pain in his eyes cut straight through her. Luna felt it settle in her chest, heavy and sharp. "I am so sorry, love," she said, her voice shaking with it.
He nodded, his lashes dark with tears. "I never looked at it properly before," he admitted. "I never let myself. Listening to you talk about your mother made something shift. It helped me see my own wounds instead of stepping around them."
He drew a breath that trembled. "My father killed her," he said. "And I felt relief. When he went to Azkaban, I felt free for the first time in my life. I had my cousin, Titus, and that was enough. Then you came along."
He looked at her then, wonder and gratitude tangled together. "You changed how I see women," he said. "You showed me what care looks like. What strength looks like. You did it every day, without trying to teach me anything at all."
Luna brushed the tears from his face, her touch steady. "You should never have had to live through that," she said.
He nodded again. "Her name was Tessina."
Luna's mouth softened. "It is a beautiful name."
A shadow crossed his expression. "It never fit who she was," he said quietly.
She studied him for a moment. "Did you ever grieve your parents?" she asked.
Theo shook his head. "No," he said. "What I felt was relief."
Luna wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, offering the one thing she could give without question. "You deserve peace," she said softly. "And you do not have to find it alone."
I hope you find some peace of mind in this lifetime. I hope you find paradise.
Luna looked at him, something steady and resolute settling into her expression. "Let's have a funeral for them."
Theo frowned, confusion creasing his brow. "Luna, please. That sounds silly."
"It isn't," she said gently, her voice calm and sure. "You never had the space to grieve. That matters. You deserve that."
He let out a slow breath, shoulders dropping as the fight left him. "Alright," he said quietly.
She tilted her head, studying him, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Are you really agreeing with everything I suggest now?"
His gaze softened as he looked at her, open and sincere. "Yes," he said. "Every time."
~~~~~~
The sun sat low at the edge of the sky, washing the small estate in a muted gold that felt almost too kind for what this moment held. The garden was quiet, softened by evening light. White lilies lined the path in careful rows, their pale heads bowed as if they understood why they were here. Nothing about the space was grand. Nothing needed to be.
Luna had shaped the memorial with steady hands and quiet intention. Chairs curved in a loose semicircle around a modest wooden altar. Two framed photographs rested there, simple and unadorned. Tessina Nott. Elias Nott. The frames were plain, the wood warm beneath her fingers when she set them down. This was not about reverence. It was about acknowledgement.
Theo stood beside the altar, his body held stiff, his shoulders tight beneath the dark suit he wore. The fabric felt like armor he had never wanted, something heavy meant to protect parts of him that still ached. Luna stayed close enough that her sleeve brushed his arm when the breeze moved through the garden.
She took his hand and squeezed once. "Are you ready?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "As ready as I will ever be."
There was no audience beyond the two of them. No murmurs. No sympathetic faces. Luna stepped forward anyway, as though the earth itself were listening.
"Thank you for being here," she said gently. "We are here to remember Tessina and Elias Nott. This moment exists to acknowledge their lives and the impact they left behind."
Theo inhaled and stepped forward. His voice was calm, measured, almost careful.
"My parents were complicated people," he said. "My mother, Tessina, lived with deep emotion. Her life was filled with struggle. She carried pain that shaped everything around her. There were moments of warmth. Moments where she reached outward and made others feel seen."
Lies.
He swallowed and continued.
"My father, Elias, lived by choices that hardened him. He believed in his convictions with a force that left little room for mercy. His life was driven by control and ambition, and those decisions caused harm that rippled outward."
Lies.
Theo's gaze drifted past the altar, unfocused.
"They shaped me," he said. "Their presence, their actions, their absence. Whether I wanted them to or not, they became part of my story."
"This ceremony exists so I can acknowledge them as people who lived, who left marks that cannot be erased. Their lives are woven into mine, and this is me standing still long enough to face that truth."
He paused. His jaw tightened.
"This is about recognition. About naming what was left behind. About understanding the legacy they created and choosing what I carry forward."
Fuck them.
Silence settled again, thick and unmoving. Luna did not speak. She stepped closer, her hand still wrapped around his, grounding him without asking for anything he could not give.
She understood what this was. A ritual built from survival. A way to lay something down without forgiving it. A way to mark an ending without pretending it had been gentle.
With that, he stepped back and took the seat beside her. His eyes shone, damp with feeling he had carried for far too long. The words he had spoken did not vanish when his voice fell silent. They lingered in the garden, settling into the air like something finally given permission to exist.
Luna shifted closer until their shoulders touched. She laid her hand on his arm, warm and steady, saying everything she did not need to put into words. She was here. She was staying.
The sun slipped lower, stretching shadows across the grass and softening the edges of the altar. The moment closed on its own, quiet and unforced. There was no announcement, no final prayer. The guests drifted away in respectful silence, leaving the garden to breathe again.
Theo turned to her, his expression stripped of its usual armor. "Thank you, my love," he said quietly. "For all of this."
She smiled, gentle and sure. "I am glad we did it."
He threaded his fingers through hers, holding on like it mattered. "I feel lighter," he admitted. "Like something finally loosened its grip."
They walked slowly through the garden together, the fading light brushing their skin. Nothing was fixed. Nothing was erased. Still, something had shifted. A door cracked open where there had only been a wall before.
At the edge of the path, he stopped and looked toward the horizon. The sky was deepening into evening, layered with gold and shadow. "I never thought this would help," he said softly. "Yet it feels like the start of something."
She leaned into his side, her head resting against his shoulder. "It is," she said. "You get to choose what comes next."
He nodded, breathing deep, letting the air fill his chest. "Yes," he murmured. "I do."
They stood there together as the last light slipped away, wrapped in quiet and understanding.
It was not an ending. It was a beginning.