The wind against the three of them as if it was trying to push them back toward the cemetery. It made Diana think of hands pushing them, maybe the hand of Kendra and Ariana Dumbledore or Lily and James Potter. It made her feel guilty, like she was abandoning them.

"Guys, stop."

Hermione had whispered it, holding her arm out.

"What's wrong?" asked Harry.

"There's someone there, over by the bushes. I saw them, they were watching us."

Diana tensed and gripped her wand a little bit tighter. She looked to where Hermione was pointing but only saw darkness.

Hermione pulled them down the street to the opposite end from which they entered. They huddled closely with their wands held tight. They walked as quickly as they dared without stirring any of the villagers, but no matter how fast they went it wasn't fast enough for Diana.

"How are we going to find Bathilda's house?" murmured Hermione, her eyes darting around the lane.

Diana stopped, causing the others to turn to her questioningly.

At the end of the lane from where they stood, large mass appeared at the end.

"Harry. . . I-I think it's your house."

They followed her closely, nearing the mass until they could see it properly.

It was a house---used to be a house, by the look of it. It looked like it had caved in on itself, charred and blackened like it had been burned with more broken planks of wood fallen to the ground than actually on the structure. It was destroyed---only a mere ghost of what it would've been all those years ago. She thought of Lily and James in the cemetery behind them, how they now lay only meters from where they had perished.

They stood at the gate, their eyes peering wondrously at the pile of rubble in front of them.

"I wonder why nobody's ever rebuilt it?" whispered Hermione.

"Maybe you can't rebuild it?" Harry supplied. "Maybe the Dark Magic makes it so you can't repair the damage?"

"Either way," Diana breathed, "why would anyone want to? The place where the Boy Who Lived lived. Why would they tear that down?"

Harry rose a hesitant finger to the gate, but the moment he touched it, a sign rose out of the ground in front of them. In golden letters, it said:

On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,

Lily and James Potter lost their lives.

Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard everto have survived the Killing Curse.This house, invisible to Muggles, has been leftin its ruined state as a monument to the Pottersand as a reminder of the violencethat tore apart their family.

All around the words, scribbles had been made by witches and wizards who had come to visit the place the Boy Who Lived escaped. Some carved their initials, others signed their name or wrote little notes in Everlasting Ink.

'Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.'

'If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!'

'Long live Harry Potter!'

"They shouldn't have written on the sign!" huffed Hermione.

But Harry beamed at her.

"No, it's brilliant, I'm glad---"

He broke off. They were interrupted by the sounds of a figure shuffling toward them in the snow, silhouetted by the bright lights behind them. The figure moved slowly and stiffly, the gait of someone quite old, and judging by the silhouette of their wispy long hair, Diana thought it was a woman.

Then she stopped, standing in the middle of the road facing them. She raised a gloved hand a beckoned them toward her.

Diana stepped forward, though held her hand out for the other two to wait. She was incredibly aware of her wand a her hip.

After getting no response, the woman beckoned again, this time slightly more vigorous.

Finally, Diana spoke. "Are you Bathilda?"

She nodded, and beckoned again. This time, they stepped forward and followed her hobbling figure down the path. She led them past several houses before stopping at an overgrown garden. She led them through the gate and, after fumbling with her key, ushered them through the front door.

Stepping into the light of her house, the woman looked ancient: her shoulders were stooped with age, tall enough to just reach Diana's neck. Her skin sagged and her blue veins glowed under her spotted skin.

A mixture of pungent odors wafted into her nose, and she coughed slightly. The house was compiled of spider webs and dirty floors, moth-eaten couches and clouded mirrors. Everything was old and worn and looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in ages.

"Bathilda?" repeated Diana.

The woman shuffled passed them, pushing Hermione as if the girl wasn't there, and vanished into another room.

"I'm not sure about this," said Hermione quietly.

"Come!" called Bathilda from the next room. Harry gave Hermione an assuring nod.

Bathilda tottered around the place and lit candles all around the room like they were summoning ghosts. They cast flickering shadows against the wall, dancing and twitching around them as if they were dancing to a ceremony the three of them were involved in. Underneath the smell of mildew, there was something putrid and rotten that made Diana crinkle her nose. Something reminded her of decay and death.

"Let me do that," offered Harry. He carefully took the matches in her hand and began lighting the rest of the candles. Diana took notice a chest of drawers with picture frames on top, and she quietly began to examine them as Harry continued to light the candles.

Nearly half were empty, but there were a few: a handsome blonde boy with sharp features, a picture of what looked to be Bathilda many years ago, an old Muggle Polaroid of a beautiful black haired girl and a beautiful girl with icy blond hair, familiar---

Harry picked up the frame with the picture of the boy.

"Who is this?" he asked her.

She didn't reply.

"Who is this, in the frame?"

Again, silence.

"Please, Mrs---Ms---Bagshot, please who is this?"

Wordlessly, she pointed at Harry and Diana, then herself, then up to the ceiling.

"You--you want us to go upstairs with you?" said Diana slowly.

She nodded.

The three of them started, but with surprising vigor, Bathilda shook her head and pointed at Hermione.

"I-I think she only wants us to come," said Harry quietly. "Stay down here---we'll be down soon, I promise."

"I don't think---"

"It'll be okay," said Diana quietly. "We'll be quick."

Diana wrapped her fingers quickly around the frame. She stuffed it in her pocket.

The two of them left Hermione and followed the old woman up a set of creaky stairs. When Bathilda looked away, Harry snuck the frame into his coat pocket.

They entered another musty room that was dark and damp like the ones below, though the putrid smell had intensified. On instinct, her hand tightened around her wand. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise.

She led them into a room even more disgusting than the last. When she closed the door, they plunged into a thick darkness.

"Lumos," said Diana, but gave a start: Bathilda had moved soundlessly so she was only inches away from them.

"You are Potter and Riddle?" she whispered.

Diana felt her stomach knotting in a way that only meant danger.

"Yes," they told her.

She nodded slowly, solemnly. 

"Have you got anything for me?" said Harry hopefully.

At once, Harry began to sway, his eyes closed. Diana furrowed her eyebrows and seized his arm to keep him from falling.

"Harry---"

"Have you got anything for me?" he repeated abruptly, much louder.

"What happened?" Diana whispered to him. "What did you see?"

He furrowed his eyebrows, just about to speak, but he was interrupted by Bathilda.

"Over here."

She pointed to a small dresser in the corner beneath the curtained window. Harry edged to it, though Diana stayed frozen. Her heart thumped, louder and louder, she could feel something was wrong, something was wrong---

In an instant, her wand extinguished.

In the split second before she muttered "lumos" again, there was a loud crashing sound and a yell, Harry's yell across the room---

The light flooded the room once more, though the sight made her bite her lip to keep from yelling out: where Bathilda had been standing, there was now only a deflated carcass of the woman, eyes dead and body crumpled and contorted terrifyingly. 

Nagini reared at Harry, his tail hitting the contents of the dresser. Shards of glass cascaded down, and it was only sound and light and pain as she covered her head with her arms. She felt each small pierce of each shard and she saw the snake in the air.

She watched Harry get smashed to the floor by the snake, curling around his neck---

"Relashio!" she yelled, but it only seemed to slow the snake slightly.

"RELEASE HIM."

She had spoken without thinking, but the snake halted and loosened its grip just enough.

"Relashio!"

Hermione, at the top of the stairs, caught Nagini off guard. The snake hit a clouded mirror on the wall, though it was just enough time for Harry to scramble to his feet, shards raining on them, and they heard a loud crack of something breaking---Harry's wand---

He snatched the two halves from the ground, but all of a sudden he clutched his head in agony---

"He's coming! He's coming, go!"

The snake had recovered from its hit to the glass, and it was all chaos: smashing of wood and glass and colored beams of light flying through the room and their cries of spells and the hissing of the snake, the room exploding as spells hit furniture and glass crunching under their feet---

Suddenly, two of their spells hit each other: the room was plagued with light as fire erupted around them, and explosion of heat and magic. Her hand was seized by Harry and the three of them were thrown out of the open window which had now become a large hole in the wall, and Diana, their hands in each of hers, twisted herself in mid-air, and they were being squeezed into a tunnel and Harry began screaming and she felt it, she felt him, she felt her father watching them as they disappeared, and his yell of fury mingled with Harry's yell of pain. . .

And then she could see it, she could see him, his snake-like eyes and his yell of fury, the way he burned with a fury that could kill with only a look, she could feel the way he wanted them dead, wanted her dead, and she felt his anger and his rage and power. . . .

She could see him in front of the Potter's house, kids dressed like fairies and pirates and ghosts with small baskets that looked like pumpkins. She could see the house, and all of a sudden she could hear James telling his wife to take Harry upstairs, he'd fight him off. . . then she could see him, his eyes blank, and she watched a door get blasted open. . . Lily Potter, begging for her son's life, please, just spare him, please, not Harry, anyone but Harry. . . then there was green light and the sound of something hitting the floor and all there she felt was pain, each bone each nerve each vein on fire---she was being ripped apart, and all she was was pain and all she had ever been was pain and this was her life, this was her eternity, agony with every twitch of a finger, pain and sadness and agony and lost glory, this was all she was---

"No, no, please stop. . ."

She pleaded for the pain to stop, for the pain to end, she couldn't live with the agony she felt, each bone cracking in each place, each vein rupturing beneath her skin---

"Oh, God, please stop. . ."

She cried, but it wouldn't stop it wouldn't stop it wouldn't stop---

"Please kill me. . . "

The pain he had felt, Dumbledore, in the cave, the want to die rather than feel this, she pleaded like he pleaded, she felt the pain he felt, but what good did it do? Only an hour later he was toppling off of the Tower, gone forever, and she noticed that he truly got his wish, and she wondered if she'd ever get hers. . .

"Diana, wake up, wake up, it's okay!"

She opened her eyes.

And there was no pain. She was numb. Each bone she had felt like had been being cracked apart were normal, and each vein seemly healed. The light hurt her eyes, but she didn't succumb to the burning sensation.

She was in the tent, lying on her bunk.

"You got us away," said Hermione. She was next to her, her eyes ringed with blue from exhaustion. She held a damp rag, and she seemed to have been wiping her face. "Just is time, too. Harry's only just woken up as well---"

Diana looked over, and he was heaving himself off of his bunk on the other side of the tent and he stiffly made his way to her side, next to Hermione.

"How long were we out?" she croaked, and she stiffly tried to pull herself up.

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning. You've been shouting and yelling. . . and sometimes, you--you'd scream like you were being tortured. . ." said Hermione tearfully.

She glanced at Harry, and he had a large, rectangle wound peeking from under his shirt.

"What happened---?"

She reached her hand and brushed it lightly with her finger, slightly light-headed from her dreams, and he stiffened for a moment under her touch.

"Hermione couldn't get the locket off of me," he said quietly. "She had to use the Severing Charm. . ."

Her fingers dwelled for a moment before she dropped her arm, and her eyes drooped.

"The morning. . ." she slurred, her eyes nearly shut. "I'm leaving. . .the morning. . .mother. . ."

The last thing on her mind before she fell unconscious was the picture she had seized from Bathilda's night stand. The Polaroid of the beautiful brown-haired girl and the stunning girl with icy blonde hair.

Vera and Narcissa, it was scribbled on the bottom white portion. Then, underneath, in a different handwriting, it said something else:

Answers aren't hard to find with Light.

hello everyone! I was wondering if any of you would like me to do a q&a type of thing? if i get enough questions, i'll answer them in the next chapter!

comment questions down below according to who you'd like to ask!

Questions for the author, aka me, aka heidi! {ask me anything you'd like to know!}

Questions for Diana! {ask her anything! they'll be answered in her POV!}

feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like to either section and if you'd like to, check out my pinterest and my tumblr, both are linked in my bio!