Author's Note: Written for the "Tears pour down my cheeks" Competition by Heart of Spellz on the HPFC forum. I used the prompts "lost you" and "photograph."
They made a bit of an odd couple. He was blond and posh, the sort of man who looked as though he had money even when he didn't. She was dark and a little wild – just enough to be appealing, but not so much as to appear like a child.
As a matter of fact they had a child, a five-year-old son. He looked a great deal like his father, but his hair was creamy instead of white-blond, and his complexion was more like his mother's, not to mention the structure of his face and ears. His eyes were very dark, probably brown, but he rarely let anyone close enough to see them properly, even his parents. He was a very active child. His father usually blamed his mother for that.
It was often speculated by those who did not know them well – and occasionally by those who did – that they had only married because of arrangements made by their families. The couple usually ignored such gossip; anyway, it wasn't true.
This is an account of the day they died.
It was sunny, the first such day in almost two weeks, and like any other couple with a young child, they were taking advantage of the opportunity to do something outside. In their case, this amounted to a walk through wizarding London, although they probably had plans to return to the family manor and play a good game of catch-the-Quaffle with the child. (At least, the father would have played; the mother was one of those people who wouldn't be caught dead on a broomstick, so she would likely have sat at the patio table and watched.) There were a number of other families with the same idea, most of whom acknowledged this family with a small nod. They didn't command quite the same amount of respect as they once had, but their name had come out of the war relatively unscathed, so they were not, as a rule, shunned.
There are a number of smaller alleys in wizarding London that branch off of Diagon Alley. One of the best known is Knockturn Alley, but there are others as well. It is an unfortunate fact that some of these areas are not as well isolated from the Muggle part of London as are the more used streets, and so it was that on this day, the couple's child went running off and managed to find his way past a group of Aurors and out of the alley entirely.
Well, what would any parent do? The couple hurried after their son, and soon they found themselves in the middle of Muggle London. This is a dangerous place for any pureblood wizard to be, because there are Muggles speeding around in cars and on motorcycles and bicycles, and even the ones that are walking aren't always paying attention because they're busy speaking into their mobile telephones. For a witch or wizard who normally travels by Floo, Apparition, or broomstick, with the occasional train, this can be overwhelming.
To be fair to this couple, they were quite aware of the danger as they attempted to squeeze through crowds of Muggles and find their child. It simply wasn't enough. One bicyclist was all it took to startle the woman into the road, and in her panic she dragged her husband with her. They never even saw the car coming.
It was around this time that the Aurors they'd seen back in the alley realized something was going on and came charging out into Muggle London. Possibly they were expecting some sort of attack, or that the boy had been kidnapped. Instead they were faced with a nasty car accident, which quickly turned into a major job for the Obliviation Squad, because a Muggle hospital was no place for a wizarding couple.
If those damned Aurors had just noticed as the child went running by, perhaps even stopped him, none of this would have happened. Do you know what came next? The Aurors brought them to St. Mungo's, but it was far too late. I believe the husband was already dead, and his wife – my sister – she was barely lucid. She couldn't even speak before she passed.
Oh, that's right. That's you. Merlin, I'm reduced to telling a bloody photograph about her own death.
I don't know what happened to Scorpius, Tori. I don't even know where you and Draco are buried. I got out of the country pretty much right after I heard the news. Well, you know my husband was never worth much. I feel a little guilty about Kevin, but he's only five; he won't remember me any more than Scorpius will remember his parents.
I've lost you, lost everything… sometimes I think I've even lost myself.
And with those words, Daphne ripped the photograph in half and let the pieces fall into the fire.