To you this tale refers,
Who seek to lead your mind
Into the upper day,
For he who overcomes should
Turn back his gaze
Toward the Tartarean cave,
Whatever excellence he takes with him
He loses when he looks below.
Boethius, The Consultation of Philosophy
Great Hall, Hogwarts, Scotland
May 2, 1998
"You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured."
The students gathered around the body. It was the same as it was before, as it always was, with its smooth skin as white as parchment, a tumble of thick and glossy dark curls falling freely across a high forehead. Once bright eyes full of mystery were now staring lifelessly heavenward, the long lashes casting shadows against her high cheekbones. Even her face - the sheer image of a proud, elegant, aristocratic young woman - remained free of grime and blood, as though the girl had died in a hospital room in Paris instead of plummeting to her death towards a blazing battlefield.
None of the crowd would have admitted their thoughts, but they had been suspecting an inhumane corpse, of only burns and slashes like whip marks. But instead they found the same tall, junoesque body they had known for seven years, peony lips pressed in a frozen kiss forevermore, and the only two scars she had presented proudly on her skin...I MUST NOT SPEAK OUT OF LINE...BLOOD-TRAITER...the both of them true.
It shouldn't have surprised them to find the girl in perfect condition, that's how she was: always end forever perfect. They were all immersed in their drowning thoughts, of their fellow peer striding up to the stool and ignoring the heated whispers as her name had been called, still upon the infirmary bed looking as though she had expected the attack, resembling greatly to an avenging angel as she deuled in the halls, gliding across the dance floor, returning from the battle with a steely glint in her eyes, revealing to the school her true self. The people and ghosts of Hogwarts might not know who the young woman was anymore, but they knew she could be an extremely loyal friend or powerful enemy, and that was all they needed to know. They knew what side she was on, despite being both light and dark, and so they knew where her loyalties had lain.
The students - mainly Dumbledore's Army - stared down at their friend and comrade's body with identical glazed eyes, as if expecting and hoping for the heroine to blink her eyes and wake.
