Thanks for being there today, both of you. That was one of the better things this afternoon.
Funerals are, y'know, complicated. No matter how you feel, you've got to be there and talk to people and look like you don't mind at all listening to the totally mad things people say, because they do say some perfectly eejit things. Like someone today was telling me this story that would never end about how when they were firsties together, he thought Percy was a complete prig and know-it-all, but he wanted to tell me about ALL the rude, ignorant, imbecilic things Percy did that hacked this bloke off. Oh, right, it was Erato Pucey. Anywiz, I'm sure Percy did everything he said, but, really? That's not the sort of thing you tell the family at someone's funeral, is it? And then Mal Preece came up and the two of them started in on all the pranks people used to pull on Percy.
And then there were the older witches who wanted to say how they always knew Percy was doomed to a terrible fate or how they'd always reckoned mum was smothering him and wasn't it half a miracle he got to be a Council wizard or how they remember when he was five and recited all the Ministers for Magic and all the Hogwarts Headmasters without missing any, and they knew he was going to be brilliant and would rise to the top.
Yeah, so anywiz, it was great you were there to just be normal, you know?
Say, do you remember our first year and the Welcoming Feast, and how it was when we all got to the House table and sat there with all the older ones? And how odd it was when Harry was Sorted with us, but then got told he couldn't stay a Gryffindor? And do you remember how Percy told us the password and made us learn it right then, and Nev, you were so worried you'd never remember?
Oh. And do you remember that first week when we decided which first-year witches were best looking? We said Greengrass and Brown, remember? But we decided that Brown only counted as long as she didn't talk! Still that way, isn't it?
Funerals are, y'know, complicated. No matter how you feel, you've got to be there and talk to people and look like you don't mind at all listening to the totally mad things people say, because they do say some perfectly eejit things. Like someone today was telling me this story that would never end about how when they were firsties together, he thought Percy was a complete prig and know-it-all, but he wanted to tell me about ALL the rude, ignorant, imbecilic things Percy did that hacked this bloke off. Oh, right, it was Erato Pucey. Anywiz, I'm sure Percy did everything he said, but, really? That's not the sort of thing you tell the family at someone's funeral, is it? And then Mal Preece came up and the two of them started in on all the pranks people used to pull on Percy.
And then there were the older witches who wanted to say how they always knew Percy was doomed to a terrible fate or how they'd always reckoned mum was smothering him and wasn't it half a miracle he got to be a Council wizard or how they remember when he was five and recited all the Ministers for Magic and all the Hogwarts Headmasters without missing any, and they knew he was going to be brilliant and would rise to the top.
Yeah, so anywiz, it was great you were there to just be normal, you know?
Say, do you remember our first year and the Welcoming Feast, and how it was when we all got to the House table and sat there with all the older ones? And how odd it was when Harry was Sorted with us, but then got told he couldn't stay a Gryffindor? And do you remember how Percy told us the password and made us learn it right then, and Nev, you were so worried you'd never remember?
Oh. And do you remember that first week when we decided which first-year witches were best looking? We said Greengrass and Brown, remember? But we decided that Brown only counted as long as she didn't talk! Still that way, isn't it?