Just Another Dead

Just Another Dead

AU, POV, Arabella Figg

It's just another dead, Arabella's mind insisted. Just one more body to add to the burning pile. The voice in her head was firm. However, her heart seemed to stop beating. Ice flowed through her veins. She was frozen in time. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to think of anything but that one body, as the scent of charred flesh reached her nostrils.

The flaming red hair of the corpse fluttered slightly in the chill wind. Arabella shivered, involuntarily, and, again, checked the pulse of her school friend's husband. Arthur Weasley was indeed dead.

It's just another dead. Just one more body to add to the burning pile. She knew it was not. It was different. She had known Arthur for years. Molly had, after all, been her best friend all through her pre-teen and teen years.

Arabella stood up, silently, stretching from her crouched position; her back ached something dreadful, and she rolled her neck about, hearing it crack, rhythmically. I'm not nearly as young as I used to be, she thought to herself. Look at this hair! It's completely gray. Her long, curly, once-blonde hair was now almost white, but for the time a silvery gray. It whipped around, into her face, as the wind began to pick up. She pulled a bloodied handkerchief out of her pocket, and tied it around her hair, in place of a rubber band. As she secured it in place, she realized that the initials MW were embroidered on it. It had been Molly's.

It's just another dead, her mind persisted as she gazed wearily down at the aged, lanky, and lifeless body of Arthur Weasley. Just one more body to add to the burning pile. Why didn't her mind understand what her worn out heart and soul knew so well?

From her position upon the hill, she could look out at the silent battlefield. She did not see anyone else alive. There was no movement. The deed was done. There were many who had taken their final resting place here today. Why had she survived? She didn't know. She just didn't know. Arabella saw the bodies of Mundungus Fletcher, Garret Abbott, Rwanda Patil, and Erin O'Toole-Finnigan very near her. Checking each body she passed for a pulse, a sign of movement, the flicker of an eyelid, a gasping for breath, she wondered why no tears came to her now. Her heart was carved out of stone. Her eyes were as blank and lifeless as marble. Everyone was dead.

It's just another dead. No, no it's not! her heart insisted. Just more bodies to add to the burning pile. Stop it! Arabella shook her head, chasing away the argument. It's never a good sign to hear voices, even in the wizarding world. Carefully, so as not to tread on one of her fallen comrades, she made her way back to the red-haired figure she'd looked up to as a hero her whole life.

Oh Arthur. Sweet, silly, crazy Arthur. How did we all get ourselves caught up in this mess? Why, oh why? No matter what anyone said, you always stood up for what you believed in, my dear, dear friend. I wished I had your courage then; I wish for it now. I suppose apathy is just as good. I have hard work to do, yet.

It's just another dead, her mind whispered to her as she slowly wend her way down the hill, around and over the bodies, towards the half-destroyed castle where she'd gone to school for seven years and taught at seven more. Her husband, Justin, had died there, of some unknown disease in the care of Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore, himself. Arabella pulled her worn-out Gryffindor tie from her workbag. She had carried it with her all over the world; it had never been away from her since she graduated. She'd never been a sentimental or emotional person, but one memento she could not help but keep. Slowly, she turned back around, and climbed steadily up the hill she'd just descended, her arthritis-ridden joints complaining as best they could.

When she reached the body of the eldest-living (well, not anymore, of course) Weasley, she kneeled beside him. Arthur had always been very proud of being a Gryffindor. He was on the house Quidditch team, a prefect, then Head Boy, and overall an active member of the house. For the first time since the war began, Arabella allowed herself to cry. There were no sobs, no choking sounds, no heart-wrenching screams of 'God, why did you do this to me?!' Just tears. Just salt-water. Arabella had never liked crying, and she always referred to it as 'leaking sea-water'. She didn't approve of emotion, really.

It's just another--Arabella silenced the thought. She gently lifted up Arthur, and looped the tie around his neck. With well-practiced, slender fingers, she quickly tied it in place. Gently replacing the lost Weasley where he had fallen, she stood, and turned her back on him forever.

Deftly, she made her way down the hill, again. At the doors to the castle that had once been known as Hogwarts, she sat, and leaned against the solid oak. Arabella wiped her eyes and face of the sticky trails made by her 'leaking sea-water', and sniffed, briefly. Pulling her wand from the voluminous sleeve of her robes, she pointed it at herself. "Avada Kedavra," she murmured, in an almost loving voice.

A smile alit upon her lips as she was finally enveloped, and finally welcomed by that dark and beautiful bliss called death. The last thought to cross her mind as she was blinded by a jade-green glow was: It's just another dead. Just another body to add to the burning pile.

She was finally at peace with her house, husband, and heroes.

*

OC, POV, Elisa Gray/Remus Lupin's Girlfriend

"Remus!" Elisa shouted into the still, frigid air, a trickle of rain began to fall, and the smell of burnt, human flesh sickening her and filling her with dread. "REMUS!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

A pair of lithe, young arms wrapped around her from behind, and a voice, hinting at a French background, muttered, "Silencio," and Elisa couldn't speak. The voice, she knew now that it must be a young girl, then said, "Don't scream." It was then she seemed to recognize me. "Bien, si ce n'est pas la chienne du werewolf's." Then, to allow me to retort, she said, "Finite Incantatem."

Elisa gritted her teeth. Nobody called her Remus' bitch. Except maybe her. So, to throw the woman off, Elisa replied in perfect French, saying, "Je suis un Auror, vous sais, aime. Vous vraiment ne devriez pas salir avec moi. Mangeur De la Mort. Bien, bien, bien," while shaking her head, slightly, as if disappointed. "Si ce n'est pas la chienne du quart-veela de Lucius."

"No one calls me Lucius' bitch, you damn Auror," Fleur said with her strong,