A/N: Okay, so I'm not really sure how I feel about this one - I don't think it has even 1/100th of the emotion and feeling that I tried to put into it. You see, on the 17th of February (this past Monday), the world lost a beautiful and wonderfully talented person. We weren't very close, but she's the reason I'm writing this. Her stories were just so whimsical and fun and alive that they inspired me to attempt writing once more. As it turned out, my writing was more popular than my art (which I guess goes to show how popular my art was/is :P).

Anyway, I don't want to ramble on too much (mostly because I don't want to start crying again). Reviews are forever loved and cherished, much like Alie, to whom this is sort-of dedicated (I guess?).

10. Goodbye

The scent of fresh dirt lingered in the air. She wondered how long it would do so. Would she still smell it the next day? Next week? Thinking about such trivial things kept it from being real.

She had been stunned speechless when she'd first received the news. Her fingers and toes had lost all feeling. Her face had fallen and her jaw had become slack. She stared, comprehendingly but in a fog of disbelief; for how long, she did not know. To blink or to move in anyway would be to make time move and would make the words only that much more real. And she didn't want them to be real. Oh gods, she didn't want it to be real. She prayed and she wished, but of course it did no good.

Her best friend in the entire world… someone who was like a sister to her, was gone.

They had met on September 1st of 1971. After that, there was hardly any separating them, Dorcas Meadowes and Sarah Zachary. They'd bickered, they'd laughed, they'd joked, they'd cried, and who knows what else.

And now, not even nine years later, it was all over.

June 15th, 1980 – that was the date on the tombstone. Sarah hadn't even turned twenty.

Doe hadn't eaten properly since she'd heard the news three days prior. Focusing on work held her together through the day, if just barely. After that, well, Doe basically just lied in her bed, staring at the wall, and wishing for it all to be a bad dream.

"You're still here?"

Doe turned and saw James Potter walking towards her. They were related somehow, but Doe could never remember exactly; first or second cousins with a few removals tossed in along the way.

She nodded silently and turned to stare once more at the marble monument. James came to a stop beside her and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders and she leaned her head against him.

"It's so hard to believe," he said quietly.
"It doesn't seem real," she said, her voice cracking heavily. "It's just not possible, except…"
"I know."

And then, finally, for the first time since she'd heard, Doe broke down. Tears came pouring down her face and it wasn't long before she was collapsing against James, her breaths coming in choked gasps and half-formed screams. He held her up and together as she came undone. Every memory of the two of them was running through her mind, with the knowledge that they would never talk about them, laugh about them, or argue about them again.

Never again would Doe read a new letter from Sarah. Never again would she hear a new tale of adventure that sounded too absurd to be real. Never again would they "go out for a pint" and get utterly sloshed and trying to take care of each other for the rest of the night and the next morning. There would be no more hugs, no more quips, and no new tears to brush away.

Every thought ripped through her chest with another soul-tearing sob.

She was dead at nineteen. She hadn't met the person with whom she would spend her life (except that she had and the two gits were too stubborn to actually get together because they were just "too young"). She'd had no kids and never would. There'd be no grandchildren for her to dote upon. They would have been spoilt something awful, just as Doe's children would have been.

James was having a hard time holding her up now, because of how much she was leaning against him.

Sarah didn't even get to see the end of the war. It would end someday; it had to. Even if the result were that all magic was killed off in Britain, it would come to an end. Things were getting too bold and dangerous. The conflict wouldn't last much longer; Doe could feel it. She wasn't sure how or why, but she just knew that here wouldn't be much more of it.

And buried within that stream was the unbearable truth that neither Doe, nor James had dared say aloud. Nor had any other member of the Order. They all knew it, but no one dared to say it.

There was a traitor among them.

Someone had betrayed Sarah. A girl who was an unyielding optimist, who wanted to make the world a better place, who was as chipper and selfless as they come, had been betrayed by a friend.

"I'll kill them," she said, tears still flowing, but her grief turning to anger. She could feel herself shaking and everything was growing hot. "I'm going to find the dirty rat and I will kill them."

James said nothing, he just hugged her tighter and pressed a comforting kiss against her head.