i used to dream of being so strong nothing could shake me. now i am so strong that nothing shakes me and all i dream is to soften.
amelia bones former ravenclaw. wizengamot. sister & aunt. order. xxi.
“Do you ever just think about what a weird coincidence it is that all the founders had alliterative names? Almost makes you wonder if they’re just made up. The names, of course, not the people.”
I know, I hate it. [ she sighs, nodding ] Yeah, she does. I’m not going to go. I have work, I have a job here that needs my attention. And I have you, and Peter. I’m not just going to ditch you. [ she nods ] I can go with you, if you want. Or ask around; we’ll find him, though. I promise.
“You and me both,” she says. “Hey, you can go if you want to go --- you really deserve a break. And when I, Professional Workaholic say so, you really do. We’ll miss you, but if you want to go, you can, yeah?” She smiles a little. “That’d be nice, yeah. I hate being alone in these kind of moments. I think so too, it’s Edgar. He’s sort of careful.”
“I’ve been saying the same thing since I tripped carrying school things and broke eighteen potion viles.” She holds out a hand to help the younger Bones off the ground. “Are you alright?”
“Oh Merlin, that’s even worse than twisting your ankle! Were you able to fix them, or was everything just lost? I swear, if I had the time, I’d file a bloody lawsuit,” she says, taking the other’s hand. “Yeah, yeah, it takes a bit more to get me down, but still. How inconvenient.”
I’ll accept that, that’s fair. I am the perfect height for you. [ she laughs ] I’m a growing girl with a huge stomach, I can’t help it. I can always make you something else, I’m a pretty decent cook.
“Indeed! We make a good duo too, tall and small. Contrasts are always good.” She shakes her head then, laughing too. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not too hungry. Was just teasing you for your shit manners, that’s all.”
[ she shakes her head ] Just doesn’t feel like it makes sense, though, even then. [ she takes a deep breath ] Yeah, we’re gonna’ try and do something for her when things have settled. Marina said we could come stay with her for a little while, get out of the city. Florence is supposed to be really beautiful right now. [ she nods her head, squeezing amelia’s hand ] I’m sure he’s alright. Have you checked with any of the healers? They’ve been bringing people in and out so quickly that it’s hard to keep track.
“None of this makes any sense,” she says, frustrated. “This whole fucking war doesn’t.” She smiles a little. “That’s nice, that’d be good --- she deserves a proper party. And that sounds wonderful, I’d definitely take the opportunity. You deserve a break, you work too hard, and escaping to the French country sounds like a perfect break.” She nods. “Yeah, me too. I think I’d have heard if he wasn’t. I’ll have to do that, I’m going there as soon as possible. I just hope he’s working his butt off somewhere, completely zoned out. Not ... there.”
[ he grins at her ] Thanks, Mel. It went well, yeah. They’r e both healthy, and Annie’s fine too. She’s sleeping right now. Ah, he’s in the crib, c’mon. [ he nods for her to follow him ] This is Isaac, and then this… [ he stops next to the crib ] Is Sam. Amelia didn’t seem like it would fit that well, I’m sorry.
“That’s so good to hear,” she says, following him and looking at her other nephew with a proud look on her face. “Can I hold him?” She chuckles softly then, shaking her head. “I forgive you, but only this time. Besides, I can just tell him his actual name is Samelia.” She looked up at him, smiling. “I’m so happy for you, Eddie. And those are beautiful names.”
I’m smaller than you, how am I supposed to grow big and strong on six slices? [ she leans back and pulls a pizza box from under the coffee table ] Here, you ungrateful giant, I was hiding the second one for later. Grow big and tall like the elegant brontosaurus you are.
“I won’t let you grow any taller than you are now, because you’re the perfect length for me to lean on right now,” she says, before grinning. “Thank you. And ungrateful? Fuck off! You gave me only a quarter of a pizza and are selfishly eating thrice as much as me; I’m allowed to be a bit ticked off.”
She puts down the bags of ... well, everything (she didn’t want to just bring nappies and clothes and so had thrown in some other essentials for new dads in there) quietly and grins. “Hey,” she whispers, moving over on tiptoes and glancing at her new nephew. “Congratulations!” She wants to shout it, but her voice is a whisper still, and she refrains from hugging her brother out of fear of waking up the tiny thing. “Where’s --- where’s the other one? How’d it go? What’d you name them? Did you name one Amelia?”
Amelia Bones found murdered at her home, the headlines say.
She was a great witch, Dumbledore says.
She disagreed with that.
Home had not been a place for decades --- home had been the place she grew up in, before it was ripped to pieces and filled with ghosts. Home had been her brothers, before one of them died and things never seemed the same. After that, home was the beds of strangers and her office, her favourite seat in the Leaky Cauldron and the parks in London where she felt sane. Home was not the place she lived, not any more.
Amelia did not think herself a great witch. She knew how to use her wand, knew she had a proper set of brains, but greatness was more than skill. It was being personable and kind and so much more than the person she had become --- filled with grief and ghosts and stoicism. Greatness referred to personality, and she had none; she was a shell, functioning on impulses that came only from her surroundings, rather than her own wishes.
Amelia Bones died. She died fighting, but peacefully. She thought of her parents and her brother and her nieces and nephews. She thought of all the other people she had lost and how she would see them all again. She died fighting, but embraced death like an old friend.
There were others she thought of, of course --- those she would leave. So many people had left gaps in Amelia Bones’ being, holes where they once belonged that would never be whole again, and now it was her turn to rip open those who she loved.
Her niece, who was named after her, only so young, with grief running through her genes, who was doomed just for being a Bones, just for sharing the blood of children ruined by death.
Her brother, who had lost as much, if not more, as she had. He, too, was doomed, but that didn’t mean he deserved to lose another sibling, to attend another funeral for someone who shared his blood.
Her best friend, who she had promised to never leave. Mafalda, who had sat at her side at work, who’d given her a dog and the feeling that she wasn’t a useless person, who had been left behind too often to lose someone else, too.
And then there were colleagues and acquaintances and people who Amelia had gotten drunk with and one night stands and people she greeted on Diagon Alley but didn’t really know and her niece’s friends who knew of her and people she wished to get to know better but never had the time for. There were all the chances she didn’t take out of fear of fucking up and getting hurt and having her heart shatter some more, all the people she disappointed, the people she left, those she turned stoic on after Ed’s death. There were broken promises and could-have-beens, people she didn’t even know who admired her, people she could have loved, had she not been too afraid to.
Amelia left the thing she hated most behind when she died: grief. It was a thing she couldn’t explain, something that couldn’t be written out or expressed in numbers or filed in some kind of cabinet. It was the thing that both destroyed her and build her up again, the thing that ruined her over the course of her life but made her into what she was.
The idea that she would leave that was the worst of all.
But she knew that those she loved would treat grief better than she did, so she had hope.
But she left the world, nonetheless, murdered by someone who instilled so much fear and anger in her that she felt powerless. She looked the man who killed her in the eyes when he ended it and saw no humanity, saw something with no fire or happiness or pain, only greed and pride and a lack of anything human. She looked him in the eye knowing she would die -- barely anyone fought Voldemort one on one and lived to tell the tale, after all -- and all she almost whispered, “I’m coming,” to those she had left, knowing she would see them again once that green light hit her chest.
“I get that the cobbled street gives Diagon Alley a certain ... vibe, but it’s bloody inconvenient.” mutters Amelia, rubbing her ankle. “I mean, just one spell and it’d all be even and no one would have to twist their ankle ever again.”
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