On the twenty-fourth of June in 1996, a small group of masked Death Eaters, led by Fenrir Greyback, rained terror upon the habitants of Diagon Alley after storming through Charing Cross Road and the Leaky Cauldron.
When they arrived, they made for Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. In the midst of the chaos, tables and chairs were overturned as Death Eaters set their sights on the fleeing customers that were trying to scramble away, fearing for their lives.
It was reported in The Daily Prophet that the Death Eaters ransacked the establishment, pushing over many of the storage shelves, before coming face to face with Florean Fortescue himself. In an unmerciful act, the Death Eaters aimed a Killing Curse at the shop owner, murdering him in cold-blood before fleeing the scene.
Their next stop was Ollivander's, and they thoroughly shocked the old man who owned the shop. They threatened him with death, among other horrible things, so Ollivander went with them quietly as their hostage. After acquiring stacks of wands to arm their fast growing colony of followers, the Death Eaters returned to Malfoy Manor, locking Ollivander away in the cellar, before setting off once again.
After depositing their victim, leaving him in the ruthless hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eaters Apparated to Muggle London, this time, heading for the Millennium Bridge. They spiralled around the long structure, creating a twisting and buckling movement on the bridge walkway, and proceeded to fire seven, according to Muggle witnesses, blasts onto the bridge.
With the cables snapping, the bridge undulated and twisted intensely, pulling free of its piers, until it ultimately split in half and crashed violently into the Thames below, killing many Muggles who hadn't been able to get to safety on time.
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It was a massacre of unjustified death and the streets were painted with blood, yet the Death Eaters hadn't blinked an eye to the damage they had caused. In fact, the twenty-fourth of June of 1996 was considered a good day to be a Death Eater... well, not for one boy in particular -
Charlie Hawthorne was wide awake. He hadn't slept in weeks. He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had not once felt a wave of exhaustion fall over him.
The truth was, he was scared to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, nightmares flooded his head, haunting him over and over. He would shudder at the horrific sensation and jolt awake, gasping for breath, before looking down to his left forearm as if he was trying to convince himself that what had happened to him had merely been a dream.
His stomach would turn, his pulse would quicken, and his heart would shatter every single time he caught sight of the jet black mark branded on his arm. The horrors that Charlie saw every time he looked down were profound. It got to a point where he had decided to wrap his forearm tightly in a white gauze bandage to shield it from view.
