Eulogizing Memoirs

Amelie Rae Lanhoss

[A/N-Dedicated, in loving memory always, to K.M.L.

-C.R.C.]

Prologue

He's dead.

I'm 26 years old and I can now honestly say that the only two people in my life, whom I have ever trusted completely, are dead. Freaking wonderful, isn't it? Straight out of a fairytale. I'm giving his eulogy. Not Harry, or Remus, or Dumbledore, but me. I didn't prepare anything; I don't have anything written down. Ironic, isn't it? He used to tease me all the time; he would say that I always have everything done the minute before it's assigned.

A few Christmas' after Harry, Ron, and I graduated from Hogwarts he jokingly told me, during one of our long talks, that I would probably have my own eulogy prepared for someone to read the week before I died. When I asked him how he would have his eulogy given he said he wanted whoever did it to just repeat special memories. To try to convey to the audience how much fun he'd had and tell as many memories as they possibly could. He wanted that to be the last thing people heard about him, someone who he trusted unconditionally, recounting favorite memories without 'stupid prompt card thingys'.

The will reading was a few days ago. I went, as did Harry, Remus, Tonks, the Weasley's, and a few other Order members. Most of his money and actual possessions went to Harry and Tonks, but both Remus and I received a shoebox each, full of things he said reminded him of either one of us. I'm showing my shoebox today.

He said that he trusted me the most. There was an entire section in the will that he spent rambling about how much he trusted Remus and I, how he loved Harry like a son, how Tonks was the only living person in his family who was decent, how he considered Dumbledore to be a grandfather of sorts, how he was so grateful to the Weasley's for all their support and hospitality over the years, and how he would miss us all so much. He rambled. Sirius never rambled, only when he was exceptionally nervous about something. That was the last section of the will. In the very last clause he asked, assuming, of course, that I would still be alive, if I would do his eulogy. He said I was the only person who knew how he wanted it done and I was one of the few people he trusted enough to 'do a clean job of it'.

I think there was a good deal of people who were surprised, if not shocked, at how much Sirius said he trusted me, and the amount of times he said it. Most people, I'm sure, expected him to ask Remus to do it, to do the eulogy. I know for a fact that Harry thought he was going to be asked to do it. I doubt a lot of people knew just how close we were. Remus knew, though, that's definite; he didn't look at all surprised. I've wondered before just how much of our conversations Remus heard or knew about. Apparently enough to know that Sirius does, did, trust me completely. I have to admit that it shocked me somewhat that Sirius trusted me the most out of everyone. I knew he trusted me. I knew that he trusted me as much as I trusted him, but I had always assumed that he trusted at least one person more than he trusted me. I guess not. Something I wish I had never had the opportunity to learn.

Remus is a complete wreck. I don't blame him. It hurts so freaking bad all the time. He's the last Marauder alive now, the last true Marauder. Pettigrew doesn't count, the fucking little traitorous rat. Dumbledore's suggested that Remus moves in with me. Apparently some of the medi-wizards at St. Mungo's aren't completely convinced of his sanity. They think losing Sirius, his only childhood friend left, while he was still recovering from the full moon that had been the day before, might have scarred him too much, emotionally.

He's gotten into the habit of going to a different pub each night and getting completely drunk. We've actually started taking nightly shifts to make sure he's home with a Hamone's Hangover Draught # 7 by midnight each night. Harry and Luna have Monday's, Ron and his girl-of-the-week have Tuesday's, Dumbledore or McGonagall take Wednesday's, I have Thursday's, Snape, shockingly enough, goes on Friday's, Tonks Saturday's, and Ginny and Draco find him Sunday's. Finding him is rarely a problem, usually he's already partially drunk when he leaves his flat and doesn't have the presence of mind to go any further than the Leaky Cauldron or somewhere in Hogsmeade. According to the others the difficulty is in getting him to leave the bar. Strangely enough, I've never had trouble with this.

The only reason I hate Thursday's more than anything is because I have to see one of the people whom I respect the most, someone who I've never once seen upset or entirely saddened, drunk beyond belief, just to take away some of his pain. The times that hurt the most are the Thursday's that he calls me Padfoot, insists he's not drunk, and leaves, easily enough, leaning on me, and asking if I remember various pranks 'we an' James an' the rat' played during 'our' Hogwarts days.

Dumbledore told me that during one of his drunken ramblings at the Hog's Head on a Wednesday he claimed that I was 'the only true Padfoot still alive'. Because Remus has said, repeatedly, that I'm 'the only piece of Padfoot left' everyone thinks it's best for his sanity if he stays with me and has a constant reminder that I am still alive, meaning that, in Remus' eyes, the second Marauder to die isn't completely gone.

Today is Thursday, August 27, another Thursday and another bad memory to add to The Scrapbook. At least tonight I know Remus will be getting drunk at my flat and I won't have to go out to look for him. Dumbledore says he's already moved all of Remus' stuff in. I'm not sure if they've told Remus about his change in residency yet, he's supposed to leave with me after the funeral service. It's a good thing I had made sure to get a flat with two bedrooms when I left Hogwarts. At the time it was just somewhere for Ron or Harry to crash for the night in case their girlfriends got mad at them and kicked them out, something that usually happened more to Ron than Harry. It was also for the many nights Sirius didn't feel like staying by himself at Grimmauld Place. Remus always said I spoiled Sirius too much because I had practically given him a second bedroom and a second home. I never mentioned that Sirius had told me before that he considered my flat 'home' and Grimmauld Place 'a dog house'. I think I'll tell everyone that today.

Everyone's here for the funeral. Ever since Sirius was proven innocent near the end of our sixth year practically the entire wizarding world has been trying to get him to 'forgive' them. He thought it was hilarious the way that people, who, barely more than a month ago, were still calling him a 'traitor, who should get the Dementor's Kiss', now sent him flowers and candy and apologies daily. The Alcohol Truffle boxes were his favorites. After Luna printed that as one of the headlines in an issue of The Quibbler those were pretty much the only chocolates he got.

The Daily Prophet, The Quibbler, Wand! Magazine, Celebrity Lives, Fortescue's Freelance Exhibitor, Daily Quill Notes, and W - World, along with a few other tabloids are all sitting in a section roped off and labeled 'PRESS'. Congratulations, Siri darling, you're getting the hero's farewell you've dreamed of. I just wish I could be watching it with you and not down here.

Harry and Luna are sitting up front with their kids, Angela, Lily, Ginger, Cara, and Joey, who are all dressed in red, blue, and black. Ron's behind them with his new girlfriend, another blonde-haired, blue-eyed bimbo, without a brain, who, I think, he said was called Sunny. Excuse me while I delve into sarcasm for a moment and say 'how incredibly original'. The rest of the Weasley's are in the same row as Ron and Sunny, or the one behind. Fred and Katie are with their sons Nicolas and Andrew, Charlie and Gabrielle with their daughter Fleur (in tribute to Gabrielle's sister), Bill and a very pregnant Pansy, Percy and Penelope with their son Paulie, George with his longtime girlfriend Angelina, and Molly and Arthur. The Malfoy's, of course, are sitting directly behind them, Ginny and Draco with their children, Meghan, Athena, and Jack. Next to them sit Colin and Parvati and Dennis and Lavender, both Mrs. Creevey's looking as pregnant as Pansy Weasley. The Wood's have a row of their own behind the Malfoy's and Creevey's, Alicia and Oliver are already desperately trying to keep Andrea, Otto, Owen, Amanda, Annie, Allison, and Aurora in their seats and under some semblance of quiet.

Dumbledore is sitting in the front row with Harry, as are Snape and Tonks who have made the wise decision to put a completely sober Remus between them. The Finnigan's and Zabini's are here, too, I can pick out Terry and Hannah Boot as well as Justin Finch-Fletchley and Susan Bones. After that it's pretty much a sea of faces, some I know by name, like Kingsley and Dung, some I can just recognize their faces from Order meetings long past, and some I can tell were simply old friends or had just wandered in to what the papers were already calling 'The Funeral Of The Century For A True Hero' as of almost a week ago. Wonder what they'll call Harry's funeral.

They'll call my name to speak any minute now. Did I mention that I don't have anything prepared? That I didn't write anything down? I know what I'm going to start with though, my first memory of seeing Sirius as someone I could trust. The split second he became my true best friend. And after that I'll just keep telling memories. I'll tell them everything, consider this 'Our Memoirs', Sirius' and mine. I'll tell one memory after another, I'll do it just like he wanted, and he'll be remembered just like he wanted.

As I start to walk towards the backstage area I let myself take a last glance around at all the people who had truly known my best friend and honestly would miss him. One look in Harry's eyes tells me that he still thinks he should be giving the eulogy instead of me. I knew he was going to be a bit miffed but I had figured that he would be over it by now. I'm starting to wonder just how little Sirius talked about me to him. He did say once that Harry had seemed jealous at how much Sirius told me. He also seemed a little jealous about the fact that something Sirius could casually mention about me in a conversation, something he could act as if it was incredibly obvious and should be common knowledge to everyone by now, I had never even mentioned anything slightly similar to him. I remember the time in my seventh year when Sirius asked me just how little I told Harry. I said I told Harry as much as I told the rest of the world. I think that was when he realized, fully, for the first time, just how much I had to trust him to tell him so much.

Remus is looking at me with empty eyes, pleading me silently not to give the eulogy, not to make Sirius truly gone. As he mouths 'Padfoot Jr.' to me I disappear behind the curtain and the Priest Warlock starts winding down with his speech. He says my cue and I come back out slowly, shooting an apologetic glance at Remus I wait another second as the Priest Warlock starts to introduce me. Another minute or so later he has, it seems, finished listing everything I've ever done in my entire life. Another few seconds while he talks about how good a friend I must have been for Sirius to actually request that I do the eulogy. A second later he's motioning me to the podium as he says my name.

"Hermione Granger."