ruins ; harry potter [1]

forty one ; the dying of the light

Before now, watching Dumbledore disappear over the edge of the tower, she had never felt this level of pain. She had seen death and war and heartbreak and hopelessness; she had lost things, so many things over her years, cursed with a life she never wanted and cursed to deal with all of the pain that came with, and there was a lot of pain in this life, she learned quickly. Living in the shadow of such evil, whether evil yourself or not, was always something that others had come to fear. She had felt pain and sadness and agony and terror and everything in between, and she had been so sad that the first year she was in St. Mungo's, she took a blade to her wrist and tried to bleed herself dry. She had been in so much pain that once, about a year before Dumbledore came to her in the hospital, she once took downed an entire bottle of pain potion. She came to realize soon after that drinking pain medicine when you're not in pain means you're a lot sicker than you thought.

But that pain was different. Here, watching Albus Dumbledore die, she was being ripped apart to the core, piece by piece torn from her body, bone by bone shredded and crushed and broken. This was not pain, surely, this must be death, she must be dying.

And her father, void of all emotion but love for Vera Beauregard, had never seemed more appealing. To not feel this pain, this horrible, horrible pain, would be a sacrifice worth making.

And something Diana realized long ago, solidified in her mind only by this pain, was that it was both a blessing and a curse to feel things so very deeply. Right now, it was a curse; the worst curse of all.

This pain, though, did not stop her from jumping to her feet, her bag at her hip and her wand in hand. It did not stop her from blasting the Carrow twins into the wall, their heads cracking the stone, and it did not stop her from rounding relentlessly on Fenrir Greyback.

"Crucio!" she screamed as Harry ran down the stairs after Malfoy and Snape, Fenrir's screams chasing after him all the way down. The werewolf writhed on the ground and screamed with such force she thought his throat might be bleed, and she laughed. She laughed at his pain, she laughed as she caused him so much agony and terror.

Finally, she had her fill, and she sent a bolt of blue light to him and he remained on the ground like the Carrows, unconscious.

Her legs moved on their own accord as she sprinted down the steps of the tower and into the battle. Death Eaters and Order members were throwing curses left and right, and bodies, dead or alive, littered the floor intermittently between rubble and chunks of wall. Diana sent a jet of blue light at the masked Death Eater Ginny was fighting, and they flew backward into the wall.

"Diana!" Ginny yelled. "When did you and Harry get back?"

"No time!" she yelled back, her brain running on its own accord. "Are the others okay?"

"I think!" she said. "Hey, wait--"

Diana was running down the corridor, her feet first taking her to the first floor near the kitchens. A group of pajama-clad Hufflepuffs were in the corridor outside of their dorm, peering around.

Ernie Macmillan saw her first. "We heard a noise, and someone said something about the Dark Mark--"

"Listen to me!" she yelled, skidding to a stop before the group. "Go back inside your common room and do not come back out until someone you trust comes for you, do you understand?"

Ernie opened his mouth to say something else.

"I said, do you understand?" she yelled, her voice rumbling in the corridor. The Hufflepuffs immediately scurried back inside, and the moment they were shut safely in their common room, she took off again, this time up the stairs, toward Ravenclaw Tower.

She sprinted past rubble and a few injured bodies and others fighting, but she ignored them, and they did not notice her. She arrived at the Tower, and just like the Hufflepuffs, a group of Ravenclaws in pajamas stood outside their common room.

Anthony Goldstein stood at the front of the group. "What's going on--?"

"Get everyone back inside," she said at once, skidding to a halt in front of him. "Do you understand me? Get in the common room, and do not come out until someone comes for you. Do not come out at all."

He did not argue. He yelled at everyone to turn back, and they all pushed through to their common room until they were safely inside.

Outside, Hagrid's hut was on fire, and loud shouting echoed up to Ravenclaw Tower.

Before she knew it, sprinting past windows and curious students and Professors and Order members, she was outside. The Death Eaters were gone, and the still castle bustled to life.

At the bottom of the Astronomy Tower, partially hidden by shadows, was a body. She didn't have to think twice to know who it was.

Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours, maybe days, but she stood, staring at the mass on the ground. Maybe she murmured to Professor Flitwick to tell the students the castle was safe, maybe she didn't. Maybe she walked a few feet until she could see his face, his eyes open and glassy, looking toward the Dark Mark in the sky. Maybe she didn't.

But it must've been a long time. Students began to file out of the front doors, and she soon found herself at Dumbledore's side, her knees buckling until she had fallen right at his side. She ran her fingers over his eyelids, closing them, and by the way his limbs were bent, he could've been sleeping. She straightened his glasses and wiped the small trickle of blood coming from his mouth.

She felt Harry beside her, and she felt the cold chain of the Horcrux spilling out of Dumbledore's pocket, and she heard the murmuring and muffled sobs of the students behind her.

Her eyes burned and tears trickled down her cheeks, glowing now under the light of the many wands of students and teachers alike lit behind her. The Dark Mark was being drowned now by the light of their wands. The evil that was burning above was being conquered by the light of their sadness.

Diana's mind flitted to the the letter she had received from Dumbledore at Christmas, the one attached to her Communication Mirrors. He had written an old Muggle poem.

Do not go gentle into that good night. . .old age should burn and rave at close of day. . .rage, rage, against the dying of the light.

He had written that he would not be going gentle into that good night.

But today, this was not a good night, and even though she had known this was going to happen, she knew that the scars this will leave will never be gentle inside of her. She watched him rage for so long against the dying of the light.

And even with the light emanating from the lit wands behind her, it was so, so dark.