Author's Note: This came about after I realized how many characters in my head-canon are in love with Amelia Bones. There are going to be some more chapters, which look at the four men mentioned below at her funeral and their different relationships with her.
A Death in the Family
A plaque, gold and shiny, was fixed onto a wall of fallen heroes soon after it happened; "In Memory of Amelia Susan Bones, 1938-1996, Department of Magical Law Enforcement. A life lived in service and duty" were the words etched into its surface. It sat in the middle of the wall, filling the space so well that it seemed to many that it had always belonged there, as if some omnipresent force had predicted that one day Madam Bones would pay the ultimate price for her country.
Everyone had heard about it of course, her brutal murder marking the triumphant return of a regime that brought the countries to its knees less than two decades ago. The door to her office had been swamped with a wave of flowers and then avoided, as if some kind of curse had permeated through it and people were worried that they too would be forsaken. Some, however, did not seem to believe in the curse; they would go to the door, seeking it out, and then freeze before it, captured by the ghost of things past. It was a quality that the living Amelia Bones had been known for, though she blatantly denied it; something about her smile, her mind, her voice, her eyes, her soul pulled people into her orbit and they very rarely left.
One was Rufus Scrimgeour. He was walking somewhere else, his arms full with papers and memos. Whether he had intended to pass by the office of his late superior was unclear, but, like walking into a wall, he abruptly stopped moving as it came into view. Rufus had served Amelia Bones for a very long time and there was a running (and secret) joke amongst the Aurors about the extent of their leader's devotion to his own. As he stood staring at the flowers, for a brief moment, had one been looking at the precise time, something akin to heartbreak could be seen in his yellowy eyes. But then it was gone and so was he, the propriety and sense of duty that had defined his relationship with Amelia driving him forward.
Kingsley Shacklebolt came actively seeking to stop and reflect, though it had taken him a few days to prepare himself to do so. He was one of the Aurors who had responded to the situation, when the alarm was raised after Amelia had failed to come into work. The sight of her limp and bloody body, crumpled against the wall, was one he wasn't sure he would ever get out from behind his eyes. It was no secret that Kingsley had worshipped Amelia; she had been his mentor when he first arrived at the Ministry and there was talk of her personally selecting him to one day be her successor. He was certainly always ready to be her loudest advocate, the woman unable to do wrong in his eyes. Standing before the mass of flowers, Kingsley could be seen to shake, the large man suddenly seeming so small as he bowed his head in respect.
Yaxley was hesitant to visit the shrine that had sprung up, fearing any association with the brutal act that had killed his colleague. He hovered nearly a whole corridor away, his dark eyes scanning the scene, watching from a distance as the flowers were laid down. They had not been close, Amelia and he, not in any way that could've been quantitatively summed up with a label. But there was a connection, something that did not go unnoticed; a comment here and there, a look shared between them. There was a general consensus that Yaxley and Amelia existed on a higher plain, their intelligence and mystique setting them apart from ordinary men. Yaxley undoubtedly found her attractive, the slight infatuation he felt for her something he admitted freely when asked. Perhaps, even after she was gone, that connection remained, for something was definitely haunting Yaxley, his mind somewhere other than the corridor.
If anyone had called the journey that John Dawlish made to Amelia's office a pilgrimage, he would've told them (in less than polite terms) to take their opinions elsewhere, but that was what it was. Few people remembered, and those that did would not dare gossip, the brief affair that the pair had had when John was still a junior Auror and Amelia was only head of the office. They had been thrown together at various points, each one resulting in a build up of tension that was at some point inevitably going to explode. It had been short lived, a few months at the most, but a certain amount of passion could still be felt between them, although these days it mostly resulted in their arguing. Well, it had. As John shoved his hands into his pockets and stormed away, it was impossible to tell exactly who he was angry at.