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Sage remembers the day she found out what loss was.
She was nine, it was the middle of August, and she'd spent the day out at the park with Arielle and Billy and the family dog Zoe Bowie. The Labrador was getting old but Sage couldn't have known that. All she knew was that Zoe didn't bring back the frisbee as quickly as she used to and spent more time sleeping that playing with Sage and licking at her palms as they ran around the house together. Zoe wasn't a dog bred with magic. But if she was, Sage realises now, she might have lived just a little bit longer. She might not have gotten so old so quickly, her blonde fur turning white around her eyes and her jowls sagging over her teeth.
But Sage remembers the sun setting on that evening in the park, licking jam off of her fingers as they clipped the leash onto Zoe's collar. Billy carried her on his hip, because the little girl was sleepy. Arielle carried Zoe in his arms, because her legs had started to give out around lunchtime and had been lying beside the duck pond all afternoon. Little Sophia Sage couldn't have understood that later that night, when she was tucked up in bed with her nightlight shining solar systems around her room, Billy and Arielle whispered to each other downstairs with Zoe breathing heavily across both of their laps. And when her little heart finally falls asleep, the two men lay her gently on the rug before the fireplace and wave their wands in unison, letting the dog's spirit sit up and lick both of their faces, before bounding off into the back garden and chasing the squirrels back into the trees.
Sage had woken up the next morning and poured Zoe a bowl of biscuits. She'd shaken the bowl to get the dog's attention. She'd placed it down on the floor and wandered through the house, before going upstairs to her dad's bedroom.
"Billy," she whispered, tugging his arm. "Where's Zoe?"
And she'd been gathered into Billy's arms and held tightly. When Arielle woke up, he explained what had happened. And Sage cried.
But when Sage wakes up one morning five years later, she realises that she can recall Zoe in a lot of her memories. She knows that the dog was there on her eleventh birthday, slobbering over her knees as she tore open her Hogwarts letter. She remembers the dog waiting for her at the front door when she got home after her second year back. She remembers crying into her fur after the whole ordeal last year. So how could the dog have passed away?
Dear Dad, she writes. It's a Saturday morning, the morning the Triwizard champions are due to be drawn, and she has a lot of questions. One of them is, how do I stop Cedric's name being pulled out of the cup? She doesn't know the answer to that. But she's slept in as late as possible, and even though the sun hasn't risen, it's still a late start for her.
Dear Dad.
Thank you for the new trousers, I love the little paisley patterns on them. And yes, Flick's package of tennis skirts and pretty frilly blouses arrived yesterday. But it's okay, I just let Conner tear them up and make nests.
