Sorry that this has taken so long! I've been on holiday the last week, and before that… well, life was just hectic.

I'd like to say thank you to Kara, a guest who has reviewed just about every chapter since I started.

Sorry, it's a bit shorter than usual. Here goes…

FUNERAL

Judith came into the dormitory, and immediately Andromeda knew everything.

It was as if everything in the last few days had been waiting for this very moment, as if every breath of every seemingly irrelevant person, every twitch of the mouth, every quill-on-parchment, every word had been waiting for this. Every grim look. Every wept tear. Every beat of Mr Crouch's heart. Until it stopped. Everything stopped.

Despite what had happened, some ruthless knot inside Judy had come loose. In a way, in her own sorry way, she looked freer, as if while her heart was torn in two, a burden went with it. Her eyes didn't glisten with tears; her nose wasn't red; she held herself higher.

"Oh," Andy said, because what else was there to say?

In a way that she knew was wrong and twisted, she was relieved. Relieved that she had Judy - albeit a slightly broken version - back and that she no longer had to watch her best friend suffer. She was glad it was over. Glad a good man was dead.

In the following years, Andromeda would look back at this moment as the starting point of something bigger than herself and her family and her stupid crushes on someone who wasn't her fiancé. This, for her, marked the beginning of the war.

"Judy, I… I don't know what to say." She felt the need to whisper lest she was to break the fragility of the moment.

"Don't say anything, then. Just … don't leave." A solitary tear traced Judy's jaw. "Please don't leave me."

And yet again the wall that held back Andromeda's emotion cracked, letting a wave crash through of pity and fear and love, so she wrapped Judy Crouch, her only friend, in a bone-crushing hug, and wept.

The sun retreated and the cold crept over Hogwarts. The rain bucketed down day and night. The sky remained slate grey. The mood matched the weather.

Andromeda sat beside Judy every lesson and watched as her handwriting deteriorated from neat round lettering to a continuous scrawl. Her auburn-haired friend didn't crack a smile or make a joke, and hardly talked at all, never offering her opinion in lessons or starting conversations with anyone but Andy.

"Are you playing in the Quidditch match?" Andy asked. "It's not part of the league but it'll be good for you anyway - you can get back into the swing of things."

"No," said Judy.

Or another time,

"Will you come study with me? We've got transfiguration homework to do."

"I've done it."

And again:

"Are you sure you're alright?" (Even when she knew that Judy was anything but alright.)

"Fine."

Short answers, contributing nothing more than the minimum. What had happened to Judith Crouch?

The funeral was what did it.

The rain had paused for the day, leaving that after-shower clearness in the air. The headmaster had allowed the two of them to go, giving them a portkey there and the route for the nearest floo back. It was held only five days after Mr Crouch's death, the wounds still raw, the memory still thick. The portkey was an old teddy bear with one eye and three legs, such a sad thing which did nothing for Judy's state. But finally, with minimal tears, they arrived only half a mile from the place of the funeral in their best black robes.

They walked through a forest so thick that the slate-grey sky was obscured by the mass of dark leaves. Despite this, the path was well-kept, dead leaves brushed aside and a few glowing lanterns leading the way to the clearing where the funeral was to take place.

Wizarding tombstones were traditionally grouped in families, and when they approached the treeline past which was the Crouch cemetery, Judy suddenly stopped just outside the clearing.

"I don't think I can do it."

Andy turned. "What?"

"I can't … I just can't. I just can't."

She wasn't crying this time, but her eyes were red from earlier, and her mouth twisted as if she was holding in a scream.

"Judy…" She wanted to say she understood… but did she? If her father died, would she weep? "Judy, you have to hold on. Grief … it … it's like a monster. If you don't slay it, it will only keep gnawing at you until there's no way back. And … and maybe this is it. Maybe this will help, make it more … final. You can see your mum, and hear wonderful things about your dad, and he'll rest peacefully. He … he would've wanted you to be there." Andy stuttered, reaching for any reassurance she could manage.

Judy smiled. Painfully, weakly, but it was a smile nonetheless, and that was enough. "You should be a poet."

Andy smiled back but waited for Judy to make the next move. Her friend set her face in determination and strode towards the treeline and into the clearing.

The Crouch family wasn't rich, but they were certainly comfortable, shown by the neat lines of the graves, the fresh flowers by each headstone, the perfect carved words on the faces. A sorrowful silence lay over the area, a crisp clearness that could only be found around the homes of the dead. Andromeda wondered if the afterlife was silent, and if it was, had that gaping lack of noise trickled through into the living world? Is that what made such a fragile atmosphere?

In the background, barely discernible, were the chirrups of nearby birds. Why did they sing with such joy? There should be no space for such a happy noise to permeate such a sombre occasion. Even so, it sounded not-quite-there, as if it was a memory, or separated from the mourners by a sheet of glass.

The grave was already dug, a gaping black hole into nowhere. A few scattered mourners were wandering, but none moved to speak to them, and none spoke.

There was no sign of Judy's mum.

Mr Crouch had been well loved by most of the wizarding community, so fifteen minutes later, the arrival of guests that had before been a trickle became a stream of apparating, portkeying, walking and flying witches and wizards in swirling black robes.

Andy stood by Judy the entire time, close to the grave. Judy seemed transfixed, unmoving, just staring into the inky darkness as if it contained the answers to all of life's questions.

Still no Mrs Crouch.

"We are here today to celebrate the life of Mr Jonathan Crouch."

Judy didn't even look up at the speaker who stood by the head of the open grave.

"This is a time not only for mourning, but for reflecting on the life of our late friend, and for celebrating not just what was, but what remains in his name."

No smiles or laughter or joy in the clearing … did it look like a celebration? A funeral is a funeral. A death. A coffin. Crying, crying, crying as the body is levitated through the crowd. Not a celebration. Never a celebration.

The voice continued, cutting through the crisp silence. "Those who knew Jonathan as I did will know his love for others, his appreciation for the beauty of our everyday surroundings, and his need for everyone to be happy. He would want an atmosphere gentler than this one.

"But such is the power of grief. Such is the effect of losing a loved one. Sometimes joy does not come as easily to us as he would have wanted it to. This funeral will be sad and sombre, but do not make the rest of your life so. Make it happier. For Jonathan."

Andy could see Judy shaking her head at such meaningless words. At this man, scolding mourners for mourning.

Others stood and recited rehearsed speeches, but in these Andy couldn't see through the rehearsed lines. They were about remembrance, which she did understand, but equally about celebration, and in such an environment, it was impossible to feel anything of the sort.

Eventually, Andy stopped listening, preferring to drown in the thick atmosphere.

"Those who loved Jonathan..."

As she looked at the faces of the people around her, she wondered why they were here. Did they come to be seen, to be observed at a popular man's funeral? Did they come for politics, to show support for the Crouch family? Did they come for a friend, to help them through it, as Andy was doing for Judy? Or did they actually care? She wondered how many were in the last category, and concluded that it couldn't be many because no-one seemed to love nowadays. Politics, politics, politics. No space for petty emotions.

"...leading us to a better world…"

In the last few years, Andy had seen the destruction of the wizarding world. Terrorism and hatred and loveless marriages, death and pain and unappreciated beauty. As a child, her worst day would include pouring the milk in before the tea, or spilt jam on her best robes. Now, she worried about the declining health of her mourning friend, about her miserable future with a vile man, and a war on the horizon. What had the world become?

"...all of his loved ones are with us today…"

Andy heard that line and paused. Really? Because where was Mrs Crouch?

She had a vision of the beautiful woman locked away in her empty house, clutching Mr Crouch's shirt to her face, crying as she read the obituary in the news. Alone, unable to even attend the funeral of her own husband.

The thought was not a pleasant one, so Andy pushed it aside.

Watch, she told herself, and listen. Be respectful.

"So thank you. Thank you all for being here. He would appreciate it." The woman stepped down from the platform, giving a small sad smile to Judy, whose position hadn't moved.

There was a noise from the side, from in the trees, and Andromeda looked up. There, levitated above the head of four men, was the coffin. It was black, with gold trim at the edges and shining hinges. The cold seemed to follow it into the clearing, leaving Andy shivering where she stood.

Judith made a sound somewhere between and choke and a sob, the tears finally beginning to fall again, her eyes trailing after her father's coffin. Her eyes held something like longing.

Slowly - ever so slowly - the coffin lowered and lowered down into the grave, landing with a whump that kicked dirt into the air.

Judy lunged forwards, still crying, and Andromeda had to grab her forearms as she pushed herself towards the open grave.

"No, Judy. You can't. He's gone, Judy. He's gone." Andy muttered, and Judy kept crying, tugging at the arms that restrained her.

"No," she muttered through tears, "No."

Finally, she stopped clawing at Andy, letting herself be pulled into a hug, crying instead into the shoulder of Andromeda's robes.

One by one, each funeral-goer flicked their wands, sending another handful of dirt into the grave. Andy did twice, for Judy, watching as the dirt slowly covered the black lid of the coffin.

And, just like that, Jonathan Crouch would never be seen again.

In the next half hour or so, nearly all the other mourners came over to pay respects at the grave. Some lay flowers, others knelt and whispered at the shining new tombstone, and most of them muttered a few comforting words to Judy, whose tears had ceased, leaving her rather shell-shocked, staring at the stone bearing her father's name as if she still couldn't believe he was dead.

Eventually, the other mourners were gone too, leaving the two of them alone in the cold, quiet clearing, just standing there together.

Flowers and fallen petals lay all around the grave, covering the bare dirt with a riot of colours that didn't quite fit in next to the dark, grim tombstone and general feel that wracked the place.

They stood there for who-knows-how-long, soaking up the feel of death, letting the breeze comb through their hair. After so long just staring, eyes boring into the marble, the skies opened up again, rain falling down in a sudden shower and landing on their eyelids, effectively waking them from whatever reverie they'd been trapped in.

Andromeda turned to her silent friend. "Shall we go?"

Judy frowned, looking at the stone one last time before nodding and turning away. Together, they hurried towards the shelter of the trees, barely looking up from their feet, not looking back at the grave.

Not looking back.

They walked through the forest and to a farmhouse in which lived a wizarding family who was happy to let others use their floo. The woman who opened the door just smiled sadly (just like everyone today had), and led them to a huge brick fireplace, ushering them through after showing them the pot of green powder.

"Look after yourselves," she said quietly.

They disappeared in a wave of green flame, shouting directions to Hogsmeade.

And there, waiting on the other side, was Rabastan Lestrange.