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.'
'He can't be serious,' Rose grimaced. 'Ted's all right, but does he really think he can make the national team?'
Louis shrugged again. 'Mum says it's a mistake for George to take him in. She says that Ted just doesn't know what to do with himself and that he should just buck up and find some regular work.'
'Aunt Fleur thinks that about pretty much everybody,' Rose commented.
'Are you two looking forward to starting school next week?' James said before Louis could reply.
'Is the main ingredient of Halflinger Root potion Halflinger Root?' Rose said, sitting up excitedly.
James blinked. 'I assume the answer to that is 'yes'.'
'The new Headmaster's made some changes since last year, you know,' Louis pointed out. 'No more sharing dorms between different years. Much more regulated class schedules. No more putting off secondary classes until your last year. He pretty much completely wiped out the changes made by that guy that was Headmaster before McGonagall. Tyram Wossname.'
'I kind of liked having some of the other years in my dorm last year,' James muttered.
'Yeah, well, Mum says it was Tyram's 'forward-thinking' business that led to the Progressive Element and all this reforming Voldemort rubbish,' Louis said wisely, raising his eyebrows.
James didn't have a response to that. He wasn't surprised in the least, however, that Merlin had made some very conscious choices to take Hogwarts back to its pre-battle standards and procedures.
'What house do you think we'll get into, James?' Rose asked. 'Dad thinks I'll be a Gryffindor, but what would you expect from him? Personally, I hope I get into Ravenclaw.'
'I haven't the faintest idea what houses you'll be sorted to,' James said. 'The Sorting Hat itself doesn't even seem to know until it sits on your head. I wouldn't be surprised if it takes one look at you and throws eleven O.W.L.s at you.'
Rose arranged the napkin on the table in front of her. 'Just because I'm my mum's daughter, doesn't mean I'm some unnatural genius, you know.'
'No,' Louis agreed. 'But the fact that you've read the entire Encyclopaedia of Magical Poisons and Antidotes and can actually remember the exact page number for Barglenarf salve… does.'
'That didn't actually happen!' Rose insisted, her cheeks going red. 'Mum's been telling that story for months and it's pure rot. She bought me those encyclopaedias for my tenth birthday, for Merlin's sake. The only reason I read them at all is because I wanted to learn how to make the Draught of… er…'
Louis smiled politely and raised his eyebrows. 'The Draught of…?'
'Well, it hardly matters,' Rose said stiffly, still fiddling with her napkin. 'But I simply can't help it if I have a mind for details. Besides, it was just a cure for poison ivy. And I didn't remember the exact page. Just the chapter it was in.'
'Well, that's different, then,' Louis replied sardonically.
'Don't try that expression on me,' Rose said, throwing the napkin at him and hitting him in the face. 'Nobody does it like Aunt Fleur. She was practically born with that look on her face.'
'Well, I expect to get into Hufflepuff,' Louis said, tossing the napkin back to Rose and trying to look
