Andromeda had loved that owl. Mercury had been a friend to her for a long time. She'd even talked to him, sometimes, when she'd had things to work out that didn't involve blasting trees into bits. She loved owls in general, but she loved this one the most.
When he had arrived in her room at Sirius' flat, it took Andy a moment to realize he was dead. Bella had killed him without even opening Andy's letter. Her stomach twisted. Her heart broke. Not just for Mercury, but for what he symbolized, too. He had been a gift from Bellatrix, and Andy knew what this meant. Her sister had answered her without even reading her question.
Andromeda had lost Bellatrix.
She'd flipped through her journal a bit, feeling numb at first, but she knew that wouldn't last long. The pain was simmering with a hard knot of icy heat deep in her chest, sharp and painful. She knew it would bubble up to the surface soon, and even before she'd written back to Ted, she'd known she couldn't stay there at Sirius' flat. She needed to let out her feelings at losing her sister, and she needed to bury Mercury, who was a casualty of this broken relationship. She needed to do that alone, and she knew where.
The place Andy had been going for years. The place that Bella had joined her, so many times. The place that seemed to symbolize all the things Andromeda and Bellatrix had in common. That seemed a fitting place to bury Mercury.
When she got there, carrying his lifeless, feathered body, she could hear Bella. The cracking of the trees covered the crack of Andy's apparation, and she set Mercury down so she could approach. She had a feeling Bella knew she was there, but maybe that was just because Andy knew how powerful her sister was, knew what she was capable of. In so many ways, Andy had always looked up to her sister, for all that their relationship had always been tumultuous, for all of Bella's flaws and Andy's too, and for all that it was over now anyway. Looking at her, intense and full of the same rage Andy could feel straining to burst our of her too, Andy thought... Maybe she would try one more time. After all, Bella was here, in a place they shared. That had to mean something.
"Bella," she called out, her wand in hand and ready, but not raised. "Did you know I'd come?"