Next morning, Mercuria took Alphard by the hand and said goodbye to Sirius. "We'll be back tonight". Sirius wrapped his arms around her and kissed her lovingly. "Be careful, sweetheart. Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?". She laughed, "you would only be immensely bored. We'll talk business for hours. Just relax". She kissed him and got into her car. Sirius waved after her as she turned around the house. Throughout the day Sirius was strangely restless. Towards evening, the phone in Mercuria's studio rang. Sirius jumped up and dashed down the stairs. "Hello?", he yanked up the receiver and yelled into the mouthpiece. "Mr Black, this is Angus McPhee. Your wife and I were supposed to meet today. But she didn't show up. I'd like to reschedule. Is your wife available?". Sirius staggered and had to hold on to the desk counter. In a strained voice he said, "Not at the moment. She'll be in touch". He threw the receiver down on the fork. For a moment he blacked out. Then he stormed upstairs. As he dashed through the living room he shouted, "Mercuria never arrived in town. I must find her". He ran to his motorbike, jumped into the saddle, and shot off. Vaguely he was aware that the others followed. His heart was pounding, and he was trembling with fear of what might await him. Shortly he remembered how once he had raced through the air like this before, on his way to Godric's Hollow. He had been too late then. He tried to block out the memory. He had advised Mercuria to take a less frequented side road instead of the motorway, which he now followed. Suddenly in the distance he saw something red in the cornfield by the road. He pulled the machine down and a moment later spotted Mercuria's Porsche. The driver's door stood open. When he was level with the car, he landed on the pavement and jumped off his motorbike, which rolled on without its driver until it began to swerve out of control and crashed into the ditch. Sirius sprinted through the crop to the car. Mercuria was lying next to it. Sirius knelt beside her and screamed uncontrollably. She was dead, there was no doubt about it. And she had been tortured. Her limbs were broken, and her clothes were stained with blood. The peaceful expression on her face contrasted with the pain she had obviously endured. Sirius took her in his arms, covered her face with kisses and gently rocked her mutilated body back and forth.
Through a veil of tears, Sirius indistinctly noticed that the others had formed a circle around him. Gently, he lifted Mercuria off the ground, summoned his motorbike, mounted it and returned to his property. There, he carried Mercuria to the bedroom. Tenderly, he laid her on the bed and pulled out his wand. With a wave he straightened her broken limbs and then he swapped her bloodstained clothes for her favourite green dress. Sirius sat on the edge of the bed, took her hand, and gently caressed her cheek with the other. "Don't worry, darling. I'll fix everything. You guided me back from the realm of death back then. Now I will do the same for you. Trust me. I know what to do. And when you are back, I will never leave you alone again". Carefully he took off her earrings, unhooked the chain from her neck and finally removed a ring from her finger. For a moment he looked at the pieces. Then he smiled. "Darling, excuse me for just a moment. Let me just assemble the time-turner". He kissed her on the mouth, got up and sat down at her dressing table. Carefully he laid the four pieces side by side and tried to remember how to put them together. He easily connected the two earrings, so that they formed a circle in whose centre the ring fitted perfectly. When he wanted to insert the pendant, he hesitated. Several times he turned the piece before he was confident that he had found its right position in the construction. But much to his dismay, the piece would not fit in, even though he was convinced that he had put it in the right place. He tried again and again but the last piece just wouldn't stick. Finally, he got up and pocketed the parts. "Love, I must go to your workshop for a minute. Obviously, something is twisted, and I need to fix it. Unfortunately, magic won't do the trick here and I need your tools to do the job". He left the room and went to Mercuria's work bench in the basement.
With his years of experience as a mechanic, Sirius, more than any other wizard, was sufficiently familiar with the small tools which Mercuria used for her work. But no matter how hard he tried, he just could not put the four pieces together so that the time-turner would be back in operation. While his frustration grew, several times he put his arms on the workbench, buried his face in his hands and cried heartbreakingly. Then again, he threw a pair of pliers or a hammer at the wall in a fit of rage. Finally, he pulled out his wand and, as an act of desperation, began to cast spells at the pieces. "Reparo". Nothing happened. "Coniungo". "Merge". Flashes of light erupted from the tip of his wand as he let one spell after another rain down. In the end he had to accept that for the first time in his life magic simply had let him down. Exhausted, he sank onto the chair and slowly realised that he could not put the time-turner into function. With heavy steps he returned to the bedroom, lay down next to Mercuria, took her in his arms and cried bitterly. In a broken voice he sobbed, "I just can't make it. What will I do now? Please don't go. Don't leave me alone". Suddenly an idea popped up in his mind. Carefully, he put Mercuria back into the pillows and jumped out of bed.
Sirius sprinted downstairs and onto the terrace. The whole family had gathered there. As he rushed out of the door, they looked up. All were badly shaken and visibly marked by shock. Some had cried and their bloated eyes now stared at him from swollen faces. His boys had snuggled up to the adults and were crying. On Andromeda's lap, Alphard sat with his eyes squinted tightly shut, rocking himself back and forth while an inhuman wail escaped his throat now and again. Sirius did not care for them but grabbed Lucius' arm and pulled him from his chair. "Lucius, come with me. I cannot reassemble Mercuria's time-turner. We must travel to the Ministry. That is where your time-turner is. We must go there and get it". Lucius looked at him confused. "Sirius, I can understand that you are utterly distraught. But have you now completely lost your mind? What do you think you're doing, man? Even if we manage to get into the Ministry and then into the Department of Mysteries what then? Remember that I threw the time-turner through the veil into the realm of the dead. We both heard it fall down the stairs. You can't enter there. Once you have passed through the veil, there is no turning back. Then it's over". "She saved me twice too". Lucius took Sirius by the shoulder and shook him violently. "Yes, she saved you twice. Because it wasn't your time yet. And because she had the means to help you. But there is nothing you can do for her. Let her go". Lucius put an arm around Sirius' shoulder and gently pushed him down the steps to the lawn. "Mercuria has been living life to the max. At the end, she was exhausted. Let's choose a place for her to rest. Believe me, she will always be with you. Just as Narcissa is with me. I have an idea for her grave that you might want to have a look at. Come with me".
Lucius led Sirius into the small clearing at the centre of the grove on the far end of the lawn, where a huge, ancient oak tree stood. Lucius pointed to the ground in front of the tree. "This would be a nice place for her, wouldn't it? What do you say?". Sirius had a look around. It was cool here. The treetops shielded the place from the summer heat. The sun's rays, which penetrated through the leaves, bathed the place in a bright, friendly light. The scent of moss and woodland soil filled his nostrils and a few birds chirped in the trees. Sirius nodded. This was the perfect place. Mercuria would feel at home here. He took his wand to separate a rectangular plot and edged it with white marble stones. In front of the tree trunk, he erected a white marble headstone into which he carved Mercuria's name, date of birth and date of death. In front of it he placed a larger-than-life-marble statue of his wife. Once again, he waved his wand and conjured up a marble tomb in the centre of the lot. Addressing Lucius, he said, "I don't want her to be underground. I want her to witness what is happening around her". Lucius nodded. Finally, Sirius placed two marble benches at either side of the tomb.
Lucius said, "I'm sure she would like it". As they walked back to the terrace, Lucius asked, "When will the funeral be? Time is short. You know". Sirius looked at him in despair. Finally, he replied in a raspy voice, "Tomorrow. Tomorrow at dusk". Then he headed upstairs to the bedroom and locked himself inside. He took Mercuria in his arms and held her close. All night and all the following day. In his mind he relived every single moment of their time together. From the moment he had first seen her on that Friday evening twenty-four years ago when she had entered the living room of the Evans house in Cokeworth to the moment she said goodbye to him for the last time. As his thoughts arrived in the present, he noticed that darkness was slowly falling outside. Sirius sighed, got up on his feet and slowly entered the bathroom. His gaze brushed his reflection in the mirror, and he cringed. He hadn't washed or changed his clothes since she had died. He lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit. He had been indifferent to his appearance since his imprisonment in Azkaban. But now he was ashamed that he looked and especially smelled like a bum. This was certainly not how he wanted to bury his wife. He showered and put on his most elegant clothes. Then he lifted Mercuria up and carried her down the stairs, across the terrace and the lawn into the grove to her burial place. Indistinctly, he perceived that a large group of mourners walked behind him. When he reached the gravesite, he took out his wand, removed the stone from the marble tomb, lined it with green velvet and laid Mercuria inside. Regulus put an arm around his shoulder, while Marius delivered a funeral eulogy, of which Sirius didn't grasp a single word. Tears ran down his face, he staggered and leaned on Regulus. When Marius had ended, Sirius wanted to step forward. Regulus gently pulled him aside and whispered, "Let the others bid farewell first". One by one, the other mourners approached the tomb, bid Mercuria their farewells, laid down their flowers and returned slowly to the house.
Finally, only Regulus remained with his brother. Sirius cast a shower of red roses into the tomb before he stepped up to it for the last time, leant over and kissed Mercuria. "Can you close the tomb and put the tombstone on?", he asked his brother. Regulus shook his head. "You have to do it yourself or you won't be able to put this loss behind yourself. You know that". Sighing, Sirius waved his wand, whispered "Wingardium Leviosa" and manoeuvred the lid over the tomb. As it closed the tomb with a loud noise, tears welled up in Sirius' eyes. He dropped onto one of the benches and wept uncontrollably. "I'll stay here for a while". Regulus nodded and left him alone to join the others. Sirius spent the whole night beside the grave and only at dawn did he stagger back to the house, sneaked into his bedroom, threw himself on the bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep from sheer exhaustion.
For the first few days after Mercuria's death, it seemed to Sirius that the grief would grow into a monstrous void that threatened to swallow him up. Nothing in his life so far was comparable to the pain this loss caused him. Sometimes he thought he would suffocate as the agony squeezed his chest shut and he struggled for breath. Even in Azkaban, his will to survive had been stronger than it had been since the moment when he had held Mercuria's battered body in his arms. At night he would startle because he heard her tiptoe to the bed. But when he looked around, he was alone. Then he would press his face firmly into her pillow to breathe in the last faint whiff of her scent, which already faded away forever. He was only vaguely aware of what was going on around him and sometimes spent days and nights sitting at Mercuria's gravesite and his blank face proved that his mind was somewhere else altogether. In short, he was affected to the marrow. In the beginning, his family watched Sirius compassionately and tried to console him. But when, even after several days, he still isolated himself, spoke to no one and either locked himself into his bedroom or sat on one of the benches beside the grave for hours, their concerns grew. Regulus tried several times to help his brother out of his torpor and dejection. But no matter what he said to Sirius, the latter would rebuff him and bury himself in his bedroom.
The situation still deteriorated, when in addition to his grief the old nightmares returned to haunt him in his sleep. The nameless horror was always preceded by a feeling as if someone had given him a cold shower, when all the warmth in his body evaporated. Something seemed to come from behind at first, then from the front, and finally from all sides. It closed in and grew stronger, causing a shiver to run down his spine and his blood to freeze in his veins. Sometimes Sirius no longer remembered the incantation "Expecto Patronum" and desperately shouted spells at his assailants that he knew would not help as soon as they had left his mouth. Or he would fumble for his wand in vain. But even with his wand and the correct words, he failed to summon his Patronus and not even a faint silvery thread would emerge from the tip of his wand. His miserable attempts to escape and disapparate from the horrific tormentors regularly failed and the Dementors encircled him. One would then step up, push back his hood and bend over him. This was the moment when he woke up screaming and flailing. His heart was pounding, his whole body was shaking, he was drenched in sweat and disoriented, and it often took him a long time to calm down again. When she was still by his side, on those dark and terrible nights, Mercuria had held him close, had cradled him gently in her arms, had whispered softly in his ear and had sung a lullaby which had driven away the unspeakable horror as effectively as a Patronus would have done. But now there was no one to protect him any longer. How could she ever have left him alone? He needed her so badly. Didn't she know that he couldn't cope without her?
Sirius was too afraid to fall asleep and the mere sight of his bedroom door caused him to panic. He crept to Mercuria's grave at nights, sat down on a bench and struggled to stay awake. After three nights without sleep, he was on the verge of cracking, and seriously considered to crawl into a corner and wait for the end. A turning point occurred when on the fourth night Sirius found himself lying on the ground next to the bench. Someone yanked violently on his hair and a desperate voice shrieked at the top of its lungs, "Daddy, wake up. Please, Daddy, wake up". Sirius opened his eyes and above himself saw Alphard's tear-streaked face which was contorted in panic. Apparently, he had fainted and fallen off the bench onto the ground where his son had found him. With difficulty he straightened up and hugged the whimpering and trembling child close against his chest. "It's all right, darling. Daddy's all right. I've fallen asleep. Let's go to bed, precious". Suddenly he remembered that of all his children, Alphard must have suffered the most from the loss of his mother. Not only had he always been Mercuria's favourite and for that reason alone he must miss her terribly. He had also witnessed Cygnus torturing his mother to death and consequently was highly traumatised. Sirius cursed himself. In his despair, he had ignored everyone else's grief. But his boys needed him. And most of all, Cygnus could not be allowed to get away with the murder of Mercuria. He pledged to hunt his son down, no matter the cost. For the first time since his wife's death, he felt strong enough to face life again. Even though his sudden strength was only fuelled by boundless hatred which had torn him from his mourning. He dried Alphard's tears, fumbled for his wand and apparated them to his bedroom. He undressed, slipped under the covers, and cradled the boy in his arms until he fell asleep. Sirius dozed off and this night he slept tight for the very first time in days. In his dreams, he still felt the Dementors lurking somewhere in the dark, but Alphard's body in his arms spread enough warmth to keep the horror at a distance.