To say that this was a surreal experience would have been an understatement. Three days ago, he'd been onboard his ship, with hardly a care in the world that extended beyond the wooden walls of the hull. Two days ago, he'd been pulling into port and looking forward to a nice reprieve, a few days away from work to just relax and walk around open-air markets, trying new types of food he couldn't pronounce and maybe buying a trinket or two for his mother or Evelina. Except when he'd disembarked the ship, he'd been greeted by a relative — one he nearly hadn't recognized at first, given that he was so entirely out of context in a foreign port — with a portkey to England and a dour bit of news. Looking back, he supposed this particular relative had been chosen because he was distant enough that he wasn't really needed for the planning of all of this — he had no direct connection to John's father. Go fetch Johnny was probably the task that he'd been given; important in its own right but by no means necessary for the funeral to progress. It was strange to hear it from him. Not from his mother, or Uncle H, or Evander or Evelina — not even from a letter. Just a uncomfortable and out-of-place cousin who had, apparently, drawn the short stick in the funeral preparations.

Someone had remarked yesterday that it had been lucky that he'd been able to come back for the funeral, that the schedule had aligned and the portkey had worked properly. They didn't say whether it was lucky for John or for the family that he was here, but privately he had his doubts about both. He supposed he ought to be doing something for his mother or sister, offering them some kind of comfort, but he was hardly eloquent at the best of times, and now he had no idea what to say. And as for himself — was the funeral supposed to have helped him, somehow? Brought him some closure? He'd only heard the news two days ago — he was still in shock. Nothing could provide closure at this point, and by the time he was ready for it, he honestly didn't know where he was going to find it. Visiting a grave, maybe? That was a thing that people did when their loved ones died — did it help?

His mind was wandering in that direction as he followed the funeral crowd down the hill. He hadn't really even looked at the head of the grave — did it have a stone, or did that come later? What would it look like? Had someone designed it, and if so, who? Or was it something that had been sitting in a shop somewhere and merely needed to be engraved, and it would look just the same as any other. Merlin, what if he couldn't find it when he came back looking?

Distracted as he was by such morbid thoughts, Evander tugging his sleeve caught him totally off-guard, and his question even more so. John was convinced he'd misheard him — Evander couldn't possibly have just asked him about a button. "What?" he asked, blinking at his older brother in confusion.