And when it rains I know
that sometimes you cry

The sound of the raindrops falling on her umbrella were louder in the silence of the graveyard than they had been on the road. With the darkly clouded sky, it appeared to be rather nightfall than afternoon. The gravel under her feet was slippery, and her shoes were slowly filling with water so that she had to pay attention not to fall while her feet grew colder by the second. Her hands were little warmer despite the gloves, and she had trouble to firmly hold the umbrella and the bunch of flowers she had brought. Why exactly had she come here? She knew, but it seemed so ridiculous at the moment.

And somehow wrong. All Saints was only in a week. Why had everything right have to feel wrong at the moment? Or the other way around, she didn’t know anymore. If someone else would choose this day to walk over the graveyard and ask why she visited her grandparents’ grave one week too early, she would have nothing to say. But she had needed to come here today. Because it was a year now. A year since her husband was dead, and she had lost orientation. Didn’t know any longer what she wanted. While Michael had been around… things had been fine. He had been a good man, maybe a better man than she deserved. Sometimes, she now wished she would have tried to love him as much as he had loved her. But it was too late, everything was too late. Even a funeral for she had no body. So where else could she go to mourn her husband’s deathday but a graveyard where she had family? Even though it was family she had never got to know.

She had to search a while for her family’s grave, she hadn’t been to the place very often, and it took her some time to remember that it was situated far closer to the church than she had intuitively looked. But finally she had made it to the big tombstone on which a long line of Twilfitts reminded the visitors that the family had once existed. Once lived in Godric’s Hollow and produced clothes there. Long, long ago, before she could remember. She put down the flowers and closed the umbrella, almost without thinking. She closed her eyes and lifted her head as if the rain on her face could compensate for the tears that she felt herself unable to cry.

Silver moonlight illuminated a name upon the tombstone.

Or at least it had, the night before when Susan had visited. St Parish wasn't hers, wasn't the Bones's losses, wasn't where many of her close blood relatives were buried. But--

There was a McKinnon or two, and one of Susan's aunts had been a McKinnon. Her godmother was said McKinnon's sister, and the whole McKinnon family had been wiped out thirty-six years ago. She wasn't a McKinnon, not any more than most families were McKinnons anymore (oh, there was blood generations back, but everyone had that) but she was there. And wasn't that what counted when there weren't McKinnons, that there were people to remember them and mourn them?

The Bones family certainly thought so, and it was Susan who was left to pass on their legacy. Her son knew what Susan did of the McKinnons, had roughly as much memory. Susan didn't remember her godmother, not anymore than she remembered her uncle and cousins, but Edgar's name was still alive, traditions kept hold of. Voldemort had wiped the McKinnons out in July-- well, the McKinnons Susan knew about, her godmother Marlene and her aunt Sarah, some siblings, some parents. Bones and McKinnon (and Doge, of course) had been allies, after all, even with little intermarrying. Well, Bones and Abbott were also allies-- had been, at least,until Hannah's cousin decided to be a fuckwad piece of seeping shit who didn't care that his aunt was killed. The Bones were mostly dead already-- it was just her and Athazaz and maybe the future one that was still fully hidden-- so no matter how strong Susan's friendship was with Hannah, it wasn't enough to be considered a formal allyship. Doge still lived on, likely the closest alliances Bones really had, but Bones was dying, would die with her or Athazaz or maybe even the little one, so--

What could be, really, what fit best, was Bones and the dead McKinnons. They'd married, died a few months apart, generations torn down by a man who thought himself invincible. She traced the letters of Marlene brother's name, let herself wander over to the Abbotts, bowed to Hannah's great-great grandfather, bowed to the odd Doges she saw.

The rain was slicking through her underlayers, dripping from her spiked braid. She closed her eyes-- it was always best to be with the dead when the sky wept-- and turned as if to head out when she noticed a person nearby her-- a few rows over, face tilted up to the sky. Susan shifted her feet, cracked a stick, her hand near he handle of her wand in case she started the person enough that they lashed out with a spell, and she needed a Protego. She wouldn't be surprised-- the person seemed about her age, and many Susan's age had been in the Hogwarts battle. It scarred others and she didn't judge that.

If they were Muggle-- well. She wouldn't have to worry.

Her presence here was pointless. It was a normal Tuesday, and she should be at work. Of course she trusted her employees, otherwise she would have fired them long ago. But trusting was not the same as relying, and Christine only relied upon herself. There was work to do, work that would keep her head busy from delving into unpleasant thoughts. But she had come here, the very place where she would be reminded of what had happened a year ago. She was usually a rational being so why did she keep making these mistakes? Falling for feelings that would only hurt. Her and everybody involved.

Of course she missed her husband. He was the father of her children, and they had been together for about fifteen years and been happy most of the time. There had been tensions, they had often not understood one another, but in the end they had always made it work. And now he was gone for a whole year, a year that seemed like half an eternity. And she may try to convince herself of the opposite, but if she was completely honest with herself, she had moved on. Partly. Emotionally. But her brain, her sense of duty, her conscience, they still insisted on mourning Michael. And blaming her. For forgetting. For adapting. Worse, for not being able to wish for the revenge as she should. She didn’t want the Durant times to return for the Death Eaters, she wanted them safe. And happy. Because it was the only way a Death Eater wife could be so too. And these wishes simply didn’t go together with her resolve to wreak vengeance upon her husband’s murderers. Whoever they may be.

The water was flowing down her face, in her ears, soaking her shawl. She should do something against this, otherwise she’d end up having a cold. And that would be cumbersome, she needed to work. If she were sick and forced into idleness, she’d only start to think. And the results would be very uncomfortable, they became more uncomfortable every time. There was a cracking sound nearby, and Christine stiffened. It could be some sort of animal she guessed, but everything had seemed so abandoned when she came here that she was suddenly afraid. She turned slowly away from the grave to glance over the churchyard. She hadn’t been hallucinating the sound. The woman standing a few feet away from her was very real. That didn’t help to dissipate her fear. The cemetery of Godric’s Hollow had wizard and Muggle graves alike, but right now everything felt ominous. ”Good afternoon,” she finally greeted the other woman, her senses returning. There should be no need to say more to a stranger. Christine didn't want to explain anything, not to herself, not to anyone.

"Afternoon," she returned, her hand relaxing. The person had tensed at the sound of the stick Susan had broken, and she doubted her seeming-sudden appearance did much as the rain turned everything gray. Good, good, she'd done the right thing. For that, at least. She laced her hands together in front of her-- the type that said I'm not gonna pull out a wand and fuck you up that she assumed might translate into Muggle culture as well with their guns and rifles and killing machines that Justin said they made so easily. And fuck, wasn't that true? They just had singular spells, a few poisons, and-- okay, they had a fuckton more, but it seem even fucking more in the Muggle world.

(Justin had refused to let her try for a handheld gun, though. She guessed that was lucky, maybe. Igraine's left tit, that would be hard to explain)

The woman looked half-semi-familiar in the ways of passersby. She lived in at the old home her family had, and her aunt's flat that Justin had rented-- one of those, maybe? Nah, she didn't think so. This was Godric's Hollow after all, and there were mages here, buried and alive. She knew the buried more than the alive-- she always fucking had, because most of her family was-- any of the family people fucking knew or cared about.

She'd be fucked if she'd allow that to happen to her children. Justin, she could-- the fucked had abandoned her, so maybe she could. But Athazaz, Amelia, Carin, the unborn one? She wouldn't allow them to be another fucking dead Bones.

"Live around here?"

Her shoes were so full with water that every step would be accompanied by a squelching sound if she moved. But she had been standing still for a while, letting the rain drench her face and hair until she could feel the water run down her back. She should do something about it she thought, otherwise she was going to catch a cold, and that would be bad for business, especially with the shop flourishing as it did of late. It was so childish of her to believe the rain could compensate for her lack of tears.

She had come here without telling anyone as if it had to be kept a secret. Of course, during the whole past year she had pretended to do not feel anything for her dead husband even when the pain had been new and acute. It was the only way of staying safe, erasing Michael from her life. The graves she stood before right now belonged to wizards, there was no danger in visiting them. And yet, she feared questions, and after thinking that she was all alone, she was alarmed at the sudden appearance of the other woman. But the rain was so loud that it was no surprise she hadn’t heard her earlier, and the stranger didn’t look as if she would pose any threat. And why should she? Who would attack someone on a graveyard?

”No, I live in London,“ she answered, smiling nervously. She couldn’t remember seeing the woman before, but there was something slightly familiar about her. Maybe from Hogwarts? A younger student? But then her memory might deceive her. There had been countless students at school, and after twenty years, they all looked very different from the children they had once been. ”I am visiting a family grave, but my grandfather had already left the village and only returned to be buried. There aren’t any Twilfitts left. You’re not from here either I suppose?“ Godric’s Hollow was small. If the woman had been living anywhere nearby, she would have known that Christine was just a visitor.

Twillfits-- that name she knew. Twilfit's and Tatting's, the fancy-robes store. Susan had never really gone in there-- her parents hadn't wanted to spent money on it when they could get cheaper-for-longer, and Susan had never taken her children in there, because Malkin's served well enough. She knew well that Amelia liked going there on her father's coin, because that fucker could afford it easily now. Also afforded it at Hogwarts, she was pretty sure. Ernie afforded it, Justin afforded it because exchange rates worked easily. Technically, she supposed, she did have enough money to go buy a few pairs, if she could get into the Finch-Fletchley bank accounts in the Muggle world-- but she and Justin had never married. Probably he might've set something up, but carefully-- because Death Eaters might suddenly grow brains and check there.

"No, visiting the McKinnons. I'm in Somorset." She gave a sort of smile-- tried, at least. "One of them was my godmother, but I never knew her. Oh, you're from London? Which part?" Fuck, this was coming out wrong, so very wrong, but-- well, she'd lived in London with her Aunt Amelia for a few years in her apartment, knew that particular area. Justin had rented it out for some time, but when he'd gone on the run-- well, others lived there now. Justin's safety, after all, was more important than some fucking apartment, no matter how sentimental.

Well, they'd both said they were magical-- or so she assumed. Twilfitt wasn't really a Muggle name, was it? then again, some of Justin's relatives had ridiculous names.

Little more than a year ago, Christine supposed she wouldn’t have had much of a reaction upon hearing the name McKinnon. They had been a rather large wizarding family once, but as far as she knew they had all died when she was still a little girl. She knew why they had died, maybe her mother had even gone to school with one - at least Christine thought she remembered her being upset about some death, but there had been so many people dying back then. More than nowadays if the newspaper was anything to trust. Apart from that very first day. Where they had murdered innocents at random… where her husband…

It wasn’t fair. Not just. She wasn’t that sure anymore whether she was more sad or angry. She felt so often just guilty that she hardly knew how she thought back to her husband. Maybe that was why she had come to the graveyard, to figure out what she should do. Or maybe not as she didn’t seem to be the only one who had felt like they needed to be near long dead relatives’ graves. ”Somerset, then your way is not that long. I live in Diagon Alley, above Twilfitt and Tatting’s. It’s been co-founded by my grandfather… here…” She gestured towards the grave. His parents had died long after him, her great-grandmother, the last remaining Twilfitt, having only passed some ten years ago at the proud age of 118. ”Do you come here often?” Maybe it wasn’t wise to have asked the question. The woman had admitted to visiting a family whose name more or less stood against what was currently happening. But then, everybody was allowed to be a private mourner without a political agenda. She didn’t want to appear to sound her out. But then again, it was a perfectly normal question to ask. Or it would be if times were not what they currently were.

"Not as often as I'd like." She usually did after visiting Silas and Aydrien, but she went to the McKinnon in her cemetery more. She'd hoped they'd understand. Surely Aydrien and Silas visited somethings-- but after years of friendships, she knew that her notions about cemeteries were not usually the common things. Still, they'd known her long enough to know how important they were to her, how she felt them in her bones. "Yourself?"

A Tatting? She half-wondered if they'd been named by a Seer-- then again, said the Bones. A mark of similarity-- the Tattings made robes and sold them, the Boneses died in great numbers. That had kept them from begin a larger family-- every time they'd started to be, wars or battles came up, and they died. In peacetime they flourished as lawmakers, law enforcers, lawwriters. Did Tattings change in wartime? she wondered. She'd never visited the store during the last War, even as her daughter swore by it, preferring it to almost any other, for the name and history behind it.

"Diagon, closer, is it not?" She. . .thought. Maybe. Fuck.

She was a rational woman, one who had always preferred figures and numbers and facts to overflowing feelings. She cared little for sentimentality, and yet here she was. Standing before the graves of people who, while family, she had never known. How explain that when she was half smirking at herself? “Rarely, Godric’s Hollow is a little out of the way,” she said vaguely. “Today offered itself though and…” Today, the day of the takeover. The day of her husband’s death. It was foolish of her to have come here. She didn’t think that the graveyard was watched though, and the other woman was here for the McKinnons, which was significant enough. There couldn’t come any real harm from it — but neither any good. All it would result in was a cold. The people buried here had nothing to do with the takeover. Nobody in her family had been political. Opportunists? Yes, she supposed that was what they were — what she was. It wasn’t a nice word. Nothing to be proud of.

“We’re in Diagon Alley,” she said, feeling slightly puzzled as to what the other woman meant. “London was the obvious location for the shop, with the Tattings being from Hogsmeade and the Twilfitts from here. But when my grandfather died, his parents wanted him and his wife buried here. I’m Christine Tatting.” She offered her hand to the other woman.

Godric's Hallow was that odd sort of village where it was. . .it was always somewhat distant, very hazy. She guessed it was all the spells on the village that made it more distant to pin don on an actual map, for all that she knew it wasn't Unplottable, it was in the West Country. Which Somorset also was, making her question completely fucking--

No, she couldn't blame the bits of magic. It was her own brain-- her own fucking mistake, like everything fucking else. Maybe her pregnancy, but that was still hidden, sill secret, so not something she really could blame. Swirling up geography, mixing up East and West-- it hadn't been this bad the other times, because she'd still been able to keep the job as long as she was allowed, still been able to sit on the Wizengamont. But not with this fucking one, and she didn't know why it was so different, because she wasn't that much fucking older, it should be easier by now. . .

She gave a nod of understanding when her companion offered her reason for going. he day, and. . . Susan's fingers flexed around her wand. She'd been on a mission at that time, some immense stroke of fortune. By the time she'd came back from her hunt, murderer disposed of, she'd been intercepted by a coworker who'd remembered she'd been out, and told the Ministry had been fallen, and Durant and others murdered. She was still puzzled why the Law Enforcement didn't put up more of a fight; she also knew that if she'd been there, she would have gotten killed. A handful of Death Eaters, perhaps about thirty, against the Ministry? They'd taken down more at Hogwarts. They'd won at Hogwarts, mostly schoolchildren with . . .how many reinforcements was it? Fifty at most, against so many more Death Eaters and their allies. It seemed impossible to her that everyone had simple allowed it to happen. They were fucking trained for invasions, after all. Trained to put the lives of others before their own, trained to kill. She knew that a fair amount of her coworkers had, and she couldn't quite bring herself to despise those who hadn't. She wasn't in the Order, after all.

"Yes, of course. I ought to have remembered. My apologies." A half-smile on her lips, Susan glanced further down as if the nearby flat marker caught her eye. It very well might have; she'd always had a sort of softer spot for deceased kids. They'd been her first friends, after all.

"Susan Bones." Her less dominant hand forward, Susan shook the woman's hand a bit less firmly than she usually would. No use in accidentally shaking too firmly, after all.