RP: Saying Goodbye Date & Time: 10 December 2002 Post Type: RP Status: Open: Public Characters: Augusta Longbottom, Mandy Brocklehurst, Algernon and Enid Knightley (NPCs), Piglet the house elf, anyone who wants to attend. Location: Longbottom estate, Stratford-upon-Avon. Summary: Back at the Longbottom estate after Neville's funeral service.
Augusta did not cry.
Perhaps that would mean that, later on, people would think her cold and aloof, but Augusta did not believe in public grief, and she did not like feeling out of control. One look at Mandy and Augusta felt the need to be strong, steady. She took more comfort in her resolve than she ever would have in tears and hysteria.
It was a beautiful service. The funeral director was the same man who had performed the service for Fred Weasley - Molly had been one of the people Enid had written to in Augusta's day of silence and thought. They had wanted someone who could do justice to the memory of a young man, and he had delivered, arranging everything just so. The casket and mausoleum had been decorated with Neville's favourite flowers and greens, many of them out of season and prepared specially by friends and colleagues. The service had begun with a homage to Neville's upbringing with a traditional pureblood funeral poem, but then followed with a more modern celebration of life - stories about Neville that he had collected from friends who wanted to share them and a song that Neville had loved.
And now, here they were in the lounge and garden where only weeks ago they'd talked about having a wedding, sipping tea and nibbling politely on the mountains of sandwiches and cakes - all Neville's favourites - that Piglet had prepared. The elf had perhaps gone a little overboard, but he and Neville had, in a lot of ways, grown up together, and Augusta knew he was grieving too, and had cooked all of this as his own coping tool. She hadn't had the heart to tell him to stop - who could tell anyone that their way of grieving was wrong?