Draco stood scowling. He made quite the picture having, at some point, become rather good at it. Made of stone and metal in a style lifted from ancient Greece, the mausoleum could not scowl back; there was, however, something suggestive of mockery in the way a fitful breeze played with the torn cloth caught between its massive doors. 'I'm surprised to see you here,' Tonks told him. 'Especially after the place mauled you.'

'We weren't doing it right,' Draco informed her. 'You are Head of House. You should have been there.' He let her think about that for a bit. 'My own acknowledgement of status in following the procession should mean that you encounter fewer problems.' Proceedings had, necessarily, been set back by several hours while Saint Mungo's had been busy re-growing fingers and her cousin's Victorian style funereal garb was currently accessorised by a neat, black sling. He turned and offered her a rueful grin. 'We could always give her a Viking Funeral,' he said.

'I beg your Pardon?' Narcissa looked pale but she could well have been hung over.

'We put her and her grave goods – valuables, wine, whatever personal items - into a boat, send it out on the water and set fire to it. All very fine and dramatic: she'd love it.'

'I would agree,' said Andromeda, hunting in her pocket, 'and, had it occurred to us, we might have sworn an unbreakable vow to do just that.'

'But we didn't,' said Narcissa, accepting a small phial from her sister and swallowing the contents. 'Also, her coffin is already in the vault. Even if I were prepared to risk any of our elves to retrieve it . . . We began. We must finish.' She handed back the empty phial and shortly thereafter, began to look a bit better.

It was in the course of being a glorious afternoon. Little, fluffy, white clouds drifted in the bluest of skies. Tonks and the other remaining members of a Noble and Most Ancient House were about to venture into the family mausoleum in order to bury the earthly remains of her aunt: a witch whom she herself had killed.

And eaten.

An explosion of large black birds from the woods surrounding the lake, circling and cawing loudly, accompanied the realisation that what she had taken for a cloud shadow had morphed into a coach with four black horses with black plumes upon their heads, skimming along over the sparkling surface, and Tonks took a deep breath and steadied herself.

'You should put this on.' Narcissa was removing the thick chain that provided an alternative way of wearing a massive silver broach in the form of the Black Coat of Arms. 'It would be . . . appropriate.'

Tonks wondered what other word might have been replaced in that announcement. Her aunt reached up to pull the veil down over Tonks face and pinned the object to her headdress. Even at Ascot, the thing might have excited comment. Veil or no, it looked more like a helm than a hat; which actually did make a horrible sort of sense. Weddings might traditionally involve punch-up. Funerals meant a more immediate reorganisation of the power structure, combined with neutral ground and no laws of hospitality to ameliorate the interactions of people who could perhaps best be described as 'differently sane'

Her father had offered to attend and been told unequivocally, 'No'.

The hearse slowed to a halt. Two wizards rode up front, two more on a sort of footboard on each side to the rear. They climbed down. 'We shall take it from here,' said Andromeda. They began to move just a little more easily. The horses, all shining eyes and glossy coats, weren't moving at all. They smelled of soap rather than horse and they weren't moving their heads or feet, twitching or even breathing. Living creatures, they might once have been but, clearly, they were not now. Andromeda and Narcissa raised wands together and Bellatrix's bier slid silently out from the back of a wheeled vehicle that resembled the lovechild of a greenhouse and a desk. Tonks turned to face the mausoleum and waited. A minute passed and then she stepped forward.

And paused.

And stepped again. State funerals were among the formal events for which Aurors were forced to become proficient. At the time she'd thought it merely another step in a war of attrition designed to weed out trainees who weren't prepared to toe the line but, it would appear that, for once, the carborundum had been useful. She knew how to do this.

Step. Pause. (Repeat from the beginning).

As they approached, the doors of the Mausoleum swung slowly open.

Step. Pause. One after another. Up the steps. Trying not to trip over on her own damned skirts.

'If it had seriously intended harm, surely it would have waited until they were well within it to attack,' she thought as she passed inside.

Step. Pause. Step.

Beneath the veil she watched as metal birds flitted among the stylised bulrushes of the metal railing surrounding the descent into the tomb. Their beady eyes followed but that was all.

Pause. Step. Down was easier.

From behind her she heard Narcissa say: 'Do you remember how we used to play at funerals?'

'Oh yes. The proud and beautiful Bellatrix Black, most powerful and puissant amongst the great families, most lovely and noble witch of her era, treacherously slain, laid to rest with great mourning and all the Honours of State,' said Andromeda fondly. 'Do you remember dropping her into the duck pond?'

'It was an accident.'

'Well of course it was.'

Tonks heard soft laughter. 'Don't most little girls play at weddings?' she suggested wishing they'd shut up about 'treacherously slain'. Courtesy of Weasleys' chicken soup, she'd been a dragon at the time. It wasn't her fault. She couldn't even remember doing it.

'Oh no,' said Andromeda. 'That wouldn't have been decent.'

'Decent?' thought Tonks, wondering greatly.

'It would have been presumptuous, darling,' Narcissa explained.'

'Right. Of course.'

Down and down and down the stairs, into the sloping, stone tunnel that led into the rotunda where every exit was closed by an uncompromising metal portcullis. 'Third deasil.' That had been the way before. She was pretty sure it wasn't now. She stopped. 'We are here today to lay to rest Bellatrix, child of Druella, born of the House of Rosier, and Cygnus, second of that name, of the House of Black.'

'Who are you?' She couldn't tell whether she was actually hearing the many whispers or experiencing something akin to legilimency. 'Answer! She was in the zone now: emotion suppressed, all attention on the work in hand. Oddly, she could feel the muscles of her mouth trying to twist into something like a smile.

'I am Nymphadora Tonks Black,' she said, voice light and factual. 'I am the child of Andromeda, child of Druella, born of the House of Rosier, and Cygnus, second of that name, of the House of Black, sister to Bellatrix and Narcissa, and of Edward Tonks, First of his Line.' She'd been wrong. It wasn't a smile but a snarl. 'My parents being unbound by wedlock, I am the last remaining Black of the House of Black and I am "Toujours pur".' 'Still pure. Of heart, at least,' she hoped.

The voices became louder. Arguing. Echoing into incomprehension. 'Enough!' She could feel the dragon writhing in its rage beneath her. 'A mausoleum: a resting place for the dead. What right has it to question me? How DARE it?' Struggling to separate herself from the anger, she took a step forward, paused and stepped again. The metal bars of the portcullis snicked back into the walls and the small procession advanced into a chamber she'd only partially glimpsed before.

The narrow passage opened into a wide, circular space with green-veined, marble walls and a vaulted roof, the floor a pattern of black and white laid out like a compass rose. At every half point save those of entrance and exit, and hence invisible from outside, were angels - seven on each side - bronze and more than twice human height, wings spread wide, balanced on their toes, as though about to alight, together with the points of their double-handed swords. Fourteen beautiful, blind eyed faces turned towards them. Dreadfully aware of the fragility of her family behind her, Tonks, closing down all attention except to her slow progression, led onward and watched in her peripheral vision while the angels sank, pair by pair as she passed, down onto one knee. She was still pleased to leave the chamber behind.

Beyond, the passage was barely lit. Down and down it curved into darkness until, ahead of her, a crack of light widening into a strip, into an opening into the cathedral like vastness of the vault itself. Yellow torchlight revealed that the uneven surfaces and water had gone and the floor was dry and even, except for where a single block stood up by way of a catafalque. On it rested a leaden box.

Step. Pause. On, past the raised stone until she judged that the bier would be level with it. She stopped and, after a moment, turned. Two wands swept downward and Bellatrix sank gently, her flower covered bier settling neatly into her coffin. Side by side, the sisters stood. Behind them, Draco removed his hat. That was when the chairs appeared: plain, ebonised wood, all neatly arrayed and waiting. 'I had understood the funeral to be private,' she said.

'It is,' said Andromeda.

'Those were the instructions given,' Draco confirmed.

'And yet, it seems, we have guests,' murmured Narcissa.

'Who may well die here,' thought Tonks, raging against the stupidity of the average magical. Given her employment this not an entirely new phenomenon, and for a moment she was sorely tempted to find out just what the mausoleum was capable of. She pulled herself together. 'Fools,' she thought, fighting off déjà vu and despondency - it would still be her responsibility to get them out alive. 'Draco,' she said, 'Greet them.' She turned to her aunt and mother. 'Guide them down.' Obedience was immediate, she found herself alone with the dead.

Almost unwillingly she approached the coffin. Torchlight playing over an austere pattern of straight lines and Celtic knots, it seemed very small. As to the woman herself . . .

Bellatrix was clad in a dense white fabric patterned in silver at the hem, across the sleeves and at the neck. White slippers were on her feet; white roses and jagged green rose leaves wove in a wreath through curls that surrounded the face of a girl on the cusp of womanhood - seventeen or eighteen perhaps, set in an expression of serenity.

Abruptly something struck Tonks' nose and bounced off and into the coffin. The pin had failed to hold the heavy silver representation of the family crest and now it lay by Bellatrix's hand. Tonks reached in to find that the broach was caught in the deceased's white lace glove. Attempts to free the thing, entangled it worse. Hearing the echo of approaching mass imbecility, she tugged and finally the broach came free. Meanwhile, the glove, with the hand inside it, sailed out of the coffin, bounced off Tonks, rattled down the gap between her and the catafalque and rolled out of sight beneath her skirts just as the noise abruptly got louder. She turned to see that Fudge and his useful idiots were to the front of the queue heading out of the passage and down the steps that Tonks and the others had used during their previous visit, Rita Skeeta was off to one side and yes . . . she'd brought her damned photographer.

Sometimes the English language was just not sufficient to express the general fuckedupedness of things. She'd heard that Gobbledegook was better and vaguely wondered if it really was as difficult to learn as was supposed.

The stiff fabric of the sleeve having fallen back, the missing part wasn't noticeable. This left one obvious solution. 'Step. Pause.' Only now with a small kick on each pause. Very carefully, Tonks dribbled the hand around behind the coffin. Out of sight, she picked it up and jammed it into her pocket, springing forward to emerge into view as if she had not ever broken step, she moved out from behind the cover of the coffin lid and stopped by Bellatrix head. Only then did she realise where she was.

She had just walked into the place formally assigned to the Head of House.

There were a lot of very thoughtful looks and some nervous ones. Fudge, looking as though he'd bitten something sour, moved forward to gaze down upon the body. Tonks ignored him. She continued ignoring him until he and his cronies began arraying themselves on the chairs to await the eulogy only to be followed, in small groups, by everyone else.

'Stupid, stupid,' raged Tonks. There they sat, coughing and blowing their noses and deserving to die. Andromeda and Narcissa exchanged glances and, even under the veiling, understood one another. They reached up. Black cloth flipped neatly overhead and draped itself behind them. They were sisters to the deceased and older than Tonks. This wasn't a breach of etiquette unless she decided to make it so by not removing her own veil. Unfortunately, any sort of family disagreement down here was not an option. Not with the entire place waiting for the least excuse. And morphing would not help when they would certainly be waiting for her outside. The veil went back. Barely smothered fury in several pairs of eyes promised a reckoning for a variety of 'Pureblood' reasons.

'We are here today,' began Andromeda, 'to lay to rest our sister Bellatrix. There was a murmur, swiftly silenced.

'She was always something of a wild child. She could be thoughtless and cruel as can many children. She was also clever and funny and capable of the most extraordinary loyalty and kindness. She was our sister. When we were young, we adored her.'

And that, perhaps would have been it, except that this time the murmuring went on for longer, was in fact getting louder and louder, prickling at her nerves.

'It was at school that she began to change,' announced Narcissa. 'We noticed when she came home after that first year. The murmuring had stopped. 'I wonder how many of you remember what Slytherin House was like in those days.

'Ambition and a certain disrespect for the rules. Isn't that what's said of Slytherin? Was there ever any mention of Lord Voldemort, of Tom Marvolo Riddle? Of his belief that, by reason of his being the "Heir of Slytherin", he owned us?

All Tonks could hear was breathing.

'Twisty little snakes are not naturally followers,' Andromeda resumed the extemporaneous eulogy. 'whatever some of our families might have wished. What of those of us who thought otherwise? Where were the Great and Good when Riddle's wishes were being enforced? His "discipline". We were children!' Her voice had risen almost to stridency. She began again, more softly. 'And if some of us believed foolish things, if we were wrong, should we not have been taught differently?'

'Slytherin House was all but abandoned,' said Narcissa. 'I watched as Bellatrix turned harder and colder and, in the end, downright vicious. I should have been sad. I should have been devastated, not grateful for the protection that it afforded me.'

'I am so sorry.' Andromeda's words crept into the silence. 'He wanted the three of us. I thought with one of us gone he might lose interest.'

Narcissa smiled sadly. 'Except that Riddle broke what he couldn't keep. And never lost interest in punishment.' She turned back towards the seated dignitaries. 'On her wedding day, I helped her dress. I remember asking if she was happy. I wasn't paying attention because I was going to marry Lucius after all. She kissed me and told me to take care of myself. My amazing sister left on her honeymoon and that was the last time I saw her. When she came back she was not . . .' Narcissa choked and hid her face in her hands but recovered seconds later. Tears chased down her pale cheeks but she made no effort to wipe them away. 'I think she chose to save me. And I think that it cost her herself.' She walked over to the coffin and bent to kiss the dead face.

Andromeda followed her, placing a kiss on Bellatrix's brow. 'Farewell sister,' she said as she straightened. 'May your tomorrow be a better day.'

Strips of metal, suspended from chains, were descending from above. The lid of the coffin closed and the pattern of lines and knots shifted to pass over it as well as opening at the corners to allow the descending rods to pass through and twist back upon themselves. After that the box began to rise. Being small enough, it would fit into its ceiling recess.

Narcissa spoke again. 'The girl that we grew up with would never, ever willingly have called anyone "master". You should ask yourselves what changed and why. You should ask yourselves if you could have done anything to stop it.'

'Now,' said Andromeda, 'I think you should leave.' While the torches had not moved, the light had become distinctly redder. It seemed that even magicals could take a hint sometimes. They left.

Narcissa pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Briefly, Tonks hoped that it wasn't just a handkerchief. With both of them on Licence from Azkaban, a portkey would be handy. The way by which they had come in having vanished, Andromeda and Narcissa's linked arms and together followed the crowd out.

'Pause,' said Tonks silently to Bellatrix's slowly rising coffin. 'Stop. Descend.'

It didn't.

She raised her wand but couldn't think of any magic she would be prepared to use. Perhaps a chat with Draco was in order. He'd seemed to know what he was doing. It was just a matter of finding him, although that would probably be considerably less easy than it might have been before the funeral.

Rather to her surprise, she made it up all the stairs without tripping. On the last flight, there was blood - just a few drops, here and there, not even a spatter - and a metallic sort of chirping overhead. Tonks left the tomb expecting trouble and found it: Scrimgeour together with several of her colleagues known to be loyal to him personally. 'Miss Black,' he said, 'we would appreciate your assistance in the matter of your application to the Aurory; specifically, regarding information supplied by yourself and proven to be incorrect. As you are no doubt aware, should your enrolment prove fraudulent, you would not . . . ' They were taking up position around her. Professional paranoia working overtime, it occurred to her that it was entirely too easy for persons who were not Aurors simply to disappear. Whilst, normally, she considered Scrimgeour honest, there was no one else here even to report what had happened.

'I would have to point out that the information she gave was correct, as far as she knew at the time.'

The way Tonks' colleagues leapt and spun in the air to face the new threat was really quite balletic. 'Who the hell are you?' growled Scrimgeour.

The witch, attired identically to Tonks, her mother and aunt, spoke in an unfamiliar but memorably lush contralto. 'Madame Black. Saint Mungo's legal department. Who, by the way, are aware of my presence here today. Also, the Black family solicitor.'

'You don't sound like Madame Black.'

'I am on holiday.'

'Can you prove your identity?'

'Yes. Do you want me to?'

There was some uneasy shifting.

'Well then,' continued the witch in black, 'Since the information in question was in fact already known to the Ministry, and not then by my client, I can only wonder why the decision was made not to make that disclosure at the time. If there has, in fact, been fraud, surely . . .' Scrimgeour disapparated. The Aurors, excluding Tonks, disapparated. Madame Black put her arm through Tonks' and patted it. 'You acted in good faith. It is possible that they did not. You may choose not to be held by the oaths you took in a name that was not your own. They, however, have no grounds to dismiss you. Walk with me.'

Under the deep green shadow of the trees, the witch threw back her veil. Smaller than her aunt and mother, she had the same eyes and wild curls. Something in the mouth and the line of the nose was also familiar.

'You look different,' Tonks told her, not entirely convinced that this was, in fact, the same individual that Theodore Nott had titled the Evil Green Glasses (of Doom)

'I prefer terror to lechery while working.'

'Right.' Tonks could see that. Together they wandered down through the trees towards tranquil, glittering water. 'The Black Hall is under that?' Madame Black made a small noise of affirmation. 'What was it like?

'Old fashioned. Dark because of the small windows and yet surprisingly draughty. Ugly.' She paused. 'Home.'

'What happened?' Tonks asked.

'An argument between my sisters, apparently. I only know what I was told and what I could discover, which wasn't much. I was abroad at the time. In Trieste. Attempts were made on my life. One of them succeeded.'

'In Trieste?

'In Berwick upon Tweed.'

There wasn't much to say to that. 'What was it you wanted to talk about?'

Madame Black let go of her arm and turned to face her. 'You are for now the Last of the Blacks. And the First, of course. You are all that is left of my family. I am on your side. Apart from that, I like you.' Her grey gaze willed for Tonks to trust her. 'Your mother will be staying at the Malfoy's place in France for a while. You should join her.'

'And the Ministry?'

'You cannot say the wrong thing if you are not there. And you do have several days of leave still due to you for the recent death in the family. Let us see how things fall out. Now, I believe that your father is waiting for you at home.'

'The Mausoleum . . .

'. . . will be fine on its own. Enjoy your holiday.'

Tonks apparated to her parents' kitchen. 'Dad,' she called.

Her father stuck his head out of the library. 'She spoke to you?' he said.

'Madame Black? Yes. Is she trustworthy?'

'As far as you're concerned, yes. Now off you go and pack.'

In the bedroom that had been hers as a child, she discarded her funerial finery onto the ghastly purple carpet. Clad in her usual casual clothing, she found a bag in the wardrobe, threw in a few items and paused. 'Now would be as good a time as any.' She would have preferred to stick the unlovely and unwanted relic of her aunt in with the rest of her but the markings on the coffin had looked like strong magic. The mausoleum was likely not to be cooperative. It would be difficult. On the other . . .

She knew lots of spells to make things disappear. Especially, if no-one was looking for them. She conjured and put on a thin, rubber glove picked up the dress and reached into the pocket for the hand and cursed. She tried the other pocket. Tonks turned both pockets inside out and checked everything for hidden compartments and cursed some more.

Her father called from the bottom of the stairs. 'Are you going to be much longer? We do need to be leaving.'

It was gone.