Dear Diary (Harry Potter x reader)

Year 5 Chapter 15: A Dance With The Undead

A/n: Sorry this took so long, Y'all know that A03 curse? Yeah, even though i've not touched that website, it got me. My uncle died, schools been kinda killing me, I've had to babysit more because my Uncle died, and my own health has kinda worsened and i've been getting tests to find out whats going on, there hasnt been anything found and I don't want to talk too much about it, but basically, I wrote this after taking pain killers, so it might be a little bit bad, sorry gang :/

"What the Salazar is going on?" Jas questioned as the group was backed into a corner by the decaying figures.

Y/n remained silent for a moment as she closed her eyes, she knew what they were, she'd read about them in a book once, greying creatures with white eyes, clearly having been pulled from the grave, their clothes from another era, as though they'd come straight off the pages of a history book, the strength to drag a living person away... or kill them... inferi.Y/n knew they hadn't been used in years, not since the last wizarding war, theses ones seemed even older. And if they were older, hopefully they'd be weaker- the charms on them fading- she'd have to remember what could do them harm.

They didn't have blood, so slashing them would do nothing, nor would breaking their bones; Y/n wasn't even certain if their brains were working. Thus, they couldn't feel pain, so two immediate options were left: drowning and flames, but she wasn't quite sure if they even required oxygen, for not a single one of them appeared to breathe, so drowning was out of the question too... which left fire.

Fire, a radiant, mesmerising woman, a dancer who could move like no other, twisting and twirling in brilliant pirouettes that made her associates wither with envy, but, like many beautiful things, also wild and untamed, with an unquenchable hunger that consumed and destroyed everything in its path.

Using fire with the Inferi so close was incredibly dangerous, but Y/n had no wand to push them back with- Estella was struggling to wring the decaying hand off of her, desperately tugging and twisting her arm in a life-or-death game of tug of war.

She reached out quickly, grabbing the back of Estella's sweater and harshly tugging her back, suddenly grabbing the wand out of Estella's hand, and rapidly firing whatever spells came to her mind first, not wanting to risk hurting Estella by using Bombarda or incendio, but she struggled to think of any spells, her mind a flurry of stresses and worries as she darted her gaze around, unable to focus properly, and the wand she was using wasn't hers in the first place and-

No, focus Borealis.

She took a deep breath, trying her absolute hardest to focus, but it was hard; she was panicked and scared, and they were coming closer, and she wasn't all too close to the people around her in that moment; she didn't feel comfortable around them- not that it should matter, but it did; it mattered a lot.

She'd been in conflicts before, with Pettigrew and Crouch and a 'few little' duels here and there, but in those times, the only ones really at risk were her and maybe Maia, not a group of people she didn't really know. This kind of thing was more Harry's speed, or Hermione's- if they were here, she was sure one of them would know what to do and-

She reached a hand up to touch the necklace around her neck as it began burning and searing into her skin, shutting her eyes tightly, until a small thought popped into her head.

There was a spell- a protective spell- she'd read about once... well, it wasn't necessarily a protective spell; technically, it was a piece of dark magic, one she'd stumbled upon in the restricted section once when assisting Madam Pince. She'd not used it before, of course; that wasn't who she was, but she knew the applications, knew how it worked- a large, protective ring of fire would surround the caster, doing no harm to allies but destroying every inch of their enemies down to their very soul. But inferi didn't have souls... did they? No, they were corpses, mere memory; in fact, they were less than memory, they were essentially objects, robots made to do the bidding of their captors, destined to wander silently, with not a thought nor question but the will of cruel, evil wizards who came in the centuries before. They were soulless, mindless, hopeless. In doing this spell, she'd do them a favour... right? Freeing them from an eternity of nameless servitude.