Title: Cataclysm Word Count: 582 Summary: This is clearly just me getting back at Mega and Niki for making me cry.
cat·a·clysm (noun.)
A violent upheaval that causes great destruction or brings about a fundamental change.
It was like some strange, distorted nightmare. One of those ones where you're paralysed from the neck down, forced to endure the dream through to the bitter end.
Allan stood frozen, the sight of their parents akin to discarded marionette puppets blocked slightly by his immobile form to the other siblings as they ventured forth from the kitchen, their chatter dying
Edgar pushed past him, the drive to protect his brother from the grotesque parody of family life that presented itself in the forms of their parents overpowering all other instincts, instincts that wanted him to retch, to heave, to run from the home and back to the flat.
To go back in time and stop it from ever happening.
Maybes, what-if's, if only's - all kinds of scenarios flashed through Edgar's mind as he reached for his wand, grief suspended as the real possibility of danger still being in the house sent a chill down his spine. The Mark hadn't been set, after all. There was every possibility that the invaders weren't done with the job.
The adrenaline left his system quicker than it'd flooded it, leaving him deflated as Aurors moved between the rooms, some of the less-hardened murmuring condolences, and offering him sympathetic glances. His knuckles were white as he answered questions, wand clenched so tightly between his hands that if his mind had been a bit more present, he'd surely have been a bit more worried about the possibility of it splintering in his grip. They needed someone in the family to accompany the bodies, to make arrangements, to be an adult. Allan was still just a kid, and he couldn't ask that of Amelia. He just couldn't.
Black was the colour for mourning in the wizarding world, robes as sombre as the mood whilst bodies were interred - the tombstones of the graveyard like soldiers in a line. Wasn't that who most of these were? Silence, bar for the official's words of 'being in a better place' - what, thought Edgar, wasn't here good enough anymore? Picky parents. And then he mentally kicked himself, because joking wasn't a brilliant idea when it was your parent's funeral, and that sort of thing was likely to end you up in the psych ward of Mungo's. Someone's hand slipped into his, and he glanced to his side to see Allan's silent tears, and then the oldest Bones' other hand slipped between the seemingly fragile digits of his sister's hand.
Together they stood - the perfect representation of orphans of war. Young. Heartbroken. United.
He took a week off from work - well, his boss'd given him temporary leave. He handed over his flat's lease to a mate from work, signed off on papers for becoming Allan's guardian, moved back into the home - it didn't seem right, disrupting his siblings more than necessary in this tumultuous period of their lives.
He went straight back to the department, exactly seven days after the funeral. Three days after he'd moved back home. His boss'd offered more time, but Edgar refused.
"If I take the time, it's like... like I'm letting it control me. Control my actions. My par- my parents wouldn't want that. For any of us. They'd want us to be proper British wizardfolk," the ghost of the old Edgar filtered through as he grinned a little in reflection. "Keep calm and carry on, you know."