#shacklebones

Kingsley: So...this might come out of left field.

Kingsley: but does Weasley have a thing against me?

Kingsley: he's being a right...dick. i just went to his office and he wouldn't look me in the eyes.

Kingsley finally convinced Amelia to stop and take a photo on their picnic

“So I was thinking...” 

“Well that’s never a good way to start a conversation.” 

Mysterious footage from the security cameras in the Auror office.

Discovered and removed by Amelia Bones, shared and secretly kept by Kingsley Shacklebolt

Kingsley finishes the second of his drinks, alone, again, because Frank had to leave early, again. It’s the third time Kingsley has to stand alone until he’s done nursing his beer, forcing the thoughts that usually come with this amount of beer hidden. 

He glances around at the general depravity of the bar he was standing at: several groups of wizards were watching a Quidditch game between the Appleby Arrows and the Falmouth Falcons, both teams he doesn’t care for. He sips the stout he did not order (for he preferred beers of the lighter variety) and makes a chance turn of his head towards the door.

As if he hadn’t already gone through turmoil that week.

Amelia Bones, dressed as if she’s coming directly from the office, practically gliding into the bar as if the smoke and the heavy laughter did not affect her.

She does not initially meet his eyes, and for that he is eternally grateful. Because just at the moment she entered, his stout-bearing glass drops to the floor and shatters. Beer cascades around him and soaks his very nice jeans.

And there is a half a second where he doesn’t know what to do. He glances at the bartender, who gives him neither pity nor a reason to launch himself over the side of the bar so he can evade her. He turns to the rowdy gentlemen who are not paying attention, as the Arrows just scored a massively-desired goal. 

Amelia Bones then, winning in some sort of sick way, focuses her gaze on Kingsley and approaches. Quickly, he composes himself, sending a cleaning spell to both the glass and his wet pants in the hopes that he can gather the marginal bit of his dignity he can muster before she gets within smelling or seeing distance of the atrocity that he has become in her presence.

“Uh...hi. Why are you here?”

Auror training didn’t leave a ton of time for romance, but Kingsley somehow still found the way.

Amelia Bones is, and always has been, too practical. This is what occurs to her when she sits on the floor of her- their- kitchen one evening while Kingsley is working late. 

This happens to be, to her recent memory, one of the only times where her heart and her head are in agreement about the practicality of their lives and the choices that need to be made. 

Voldemort was back. It was a shock to them all, and then not-- his defeat had been too easy, too quick, and returning to “real life” (as many had deemed it) felt hollow and uncertain. But those early days turned into substantial years and it seemed easy enough to get swallowed into the minutiae of her life-- which often seemed complicated enough without a war to top it off. 

But with his return promised one thing for them all-- uncertainty. In many ways Amelia is wondering why this hadn’t occurred to her previously, given that their missions were always in some way precarious. Even harder still was the fact that while she sat on a bench, ultimately safe in the soulless walls of the courtroom, Kingsley still ventured out into the world...without her to be by his side. 

The box in front of her is nondescript and blue, picked up as an afterthought by Amelia on the premise that it matched the tile in their bathroom. But it suited her needs, so she plucked it, emptying the candles into another part of the house to be forgotten about among the Christmas lights and coats that didn’t fit. 

But what to add to it? 

She starts with a picture, the first taken of them. That is perhaps one of her biggest hurdles of their relationship to her-- the secrecy of it all. How she wished every counter and wall in their home was littered with photos of the memories that sit in her head. 

The picture is soon joined by several more duplicates of their originals-- the majority of them taken on missions, where asking a stranger to take a photo of you and your husband is a normality, and not a societal scandal. 

Next comes a handkerchief, sprayed with the perfume that Kingsley prefers her in. She breathes it in, deeply. 

Then a bundle of letters, covert notes sent back and forth between them in the office, on missions, in day to day life when that is what connected them to one another across the Aurory floor. She’s collected them for years, unable to discard a shred of their life together. 

This is followed by some legal documents, she cannot bring herself to read them. The division of her assets, as limited as they are, is perhaps too substantial for her to face after a glass of wine.

Finally, she places a letter on top, written two nights previously when sleep evaded her and she was able to sneak out of bed without waking him up.

She hesitates, wanting to open it, but afraid that if she reads it it will seal the fate that he might some day need to come across this box at all. 

Years later, he does. When she dies, it materializes quietly in the corner drawer of his desk at work. 

Love, 

It’s my deepest hope that this is something you never read. I hope that I’m able to, many years from now, throw it into the fireplace on top of a log and pretend that it is nothing more than a bit of scrap paper when you ask me what I’m doing. 

If you’ve received this box, I can be incredibly certain that I am not there to hand it to you, and for that I am sorry. Know that it was my wish to stay with you until our hands were wrinkled and our hair was greyer than grey. Know that I love you. 

Oh, how I love you. 

You will forever and always have my entire heart. The messy bits, the dusty bits, the parts that were oh so reluctant all of those years ago. I have always doubted the value that you bestowed in me, but for what I am worth, I am yours. 

You are a beacon of hope, Kingsley. For me, for our friends, for all magical people.  I know that with or without me by your side you will set this world on the right path. Everything I know about being good or choosing what’s right is reflected in you. 

Thank you. For loving me, for building this beautiful life with me, for allowing me to keep it tucked quietly between our hearts when it might’ve been easier to shout it from the rooftops. I could ask for nothing greater than a life spent with you. 

Stay strong-- I am always with you. 

Love, Devotion, and all things in between, 

Amelia