She had awoken at the usual time, ready to face the day with her recently negative outlook, and had been straightening her tie when Bellatrix heard a faint, odd noise. It had never been anything she'd heard before and passed it off as something in the room trying to distract her when, again the sound repeated and came out as more of a croak.

"Duke? Is that you?"

Another sound, this time even stranger. She paused in what she was doing to listen intently and yet again it reached her ears. This time, it was definitely the familiar croaking of her behemoth toad, but she couldn't understand he sounded so awful. Bellatrix took a knee underneath her bed to find her toad blinking its eye at her in an amazingly slow fashion. A long, resigned whine came from the toad before, suddenly, he keeled over unable to support himself any longer.

"Duke?" There was no answer. "DUKE!"

Bellatrix scrambled underneath her bed, snatched the toad from his resting place, and hurriedly sat him upon the bed. He didn't move. His body was ice cold to her touch. That was a horrible day. She couldn't leave him there, but she had classes and skipping them would only make matters worse for herself. Quickly, so that no one would notice, Bellatrix took one of her many bland t-shirts from her trunk, wrapped Duke within, and hid it under her pillow. She did everything she could to fight back tears, snatched up her robes and bag, and left the room...

[4:15 P.M.]

After classes had ended, Bellatrix returned to her dorm, took the wrapped toad, and went down to the grounds where she dug a grave with a spell she'd looked up in the library earlier that morning. Still in her school outfit, the 5th year stood staring at the mound where he was buried near a tree at the edge of the lake out of the way of the usual cheerful moods and activities of the students. Not a word of her loyal pet's death had been spoken to anyone and she had done her level best to avoid showing signs that something was wrong, something worse than being dumped. Bellatrix had to congratulate herself on learning how to act as well as her sister: no one had so far asked her any stupid questions like "what was wrong?" or "what's got you in such a dark state?" As if that was even funny at all...

"I'm going to miss you, y'know," she felt her nose tingling oddly and tears trying to well up. "I know I was always irritated at you, but I-I did enjoy having you, Duke..."

She couldn't stand it anymore. Bella had to cry. The shameful thing was that she had spent a whole night over Christmas break crying because of Xavier, but this was different. This was so very different: she had to let it out before she burst. All she could hope was that no one would see her.

Erin had been worried about Bellatrix recently.  Though not the most perceptive person on the planet, even she could see that her favorite sister was having a rough time of it recently.  Even though they did not cross paths too often, Bellatrix looked like she could use a friend.  As much as she hated to admit it, Erin wished that Beatrix was here.  The two of them were thicker than thieves, and only slightly less cunning.  It pained her to admit it, but Beatrix probably would do a better job of cheering up her favorite person in Hogwarts.  Then she saw what happened.  Though she had never been particularly fond of Duke after her sisters tricked her into kissing him to try to turn him into a prince (and she had not yet outgrown such childish things) she knew that Duke had been with Bella for a long time.  Though she wanted to make a pun about the frog finally croaked, she could not make one in Bella’s obviously distraught state.

Deciding that her words would probably be fairly useless right now she just went up and hugged her sister.  She figured that was what normal sisters would do.  Racking her brain for Bellatrix’s favorite food, Erin smiled.  She had a bag of those in her room.  She had originally been planning to give them to her for her birthday, but figured that the occasion warranted it.  It was a bit of a stretch, but Erin figured she might be able to accio them from here.  After realizing that the box would probably come up beneath the lake, she decided against it.  She made a mental note to do weather-proofing on all of her gifts for Bella, but figured she might as well at least offer them.

Figuring there was no need to announce their presence to the world – especially in Bellatrix’s state- Erin kept her voice down.

“Come on Bella- I’ve got something to cheer up my favorite sister in my dorm.  And besides, it would probably do you some good to come out of the cold,” Erin stated.  She had wondered why all of her professors seemed to have their outdoor classes in the middle of winter recently.  Though that thought did seem odd to her, she was not here to ponder the idiosyncrasies of her instructors - though they did have a lot of them. 
Once more trying to figure out something Bella needed to hear, Erin came up with a complete blank.  Why am I such bollox at this comforting stuff she wondered, and just continued to hug her sister.