Picture a sea full of students. There is an indescribable motion to them that makes their actions quite predictable. When a shark comes swimming their direction, they scuttle to the other side, when someone sneezes, a student breaks out of their daydreams to say bless you, and when someone wears the bumphus hat – well I'm not going to spoil that part just yet.


Daphne walked into the great hall wearing the bumfus hat. From across the hall, Harry shook his head at the girl wearing such a ridiculous hat.

"I can't believe it," said Harry flabbergasted. "Why would anyone want to wear something so ridiculous?"

"Just wait until Professor Snape sees her," commented Ron. "I'm sure it'll give that man a heart attack."

"Well, I remember reading," Hermione began in her usual explanation voice, "that Hogwarts has rules against these things. Ever since an Ilvermorny student tried to sneak in an avada-kedavra 47 wand under his hat the ICW established that no witch or wizard would be permitted to wear a hat on school grounds."

"Figures it would happen in America," said Ron.

Well, no matter what the rules were Harry hoped that someone would do something about that hat. He waited patiently on Professor Dumbledore to enter, but his hope soon went to naught as the wizened wizard took his seat oblivious to the bamfus hat.

Ridiculous! Harry thought angrily.

The old crump just sat in his chair eating slowly while the rest of the school was ready to fall apart at the sight of the bumpho hat.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time that the old gramps neglected the safety of the school for reasons that Harry's moderately and slightly above average brain could not wrap itself around.

Harry paused. What was he thinking of again? Oh right, the bamphus hat.

It seemed to already be working its magic. Across the hall students were reaching and crawling towards that girl. A horde of zombies that were inching to their supposed salvation. Their eyes glazed over, and their brains dissipated in the face of such an alluring hat.

No! Harry's heart screamed. Not Ron too! Ron's fork slipped out of his hand and Ron was dragging himself across the floor towards that evil witch.

"That's enough!" Harry yelled with a strong force. "You've gone too far Daphne!"

Daphne's head snapped towards him, and she fixed her eyes against him. Not the big dopey blue eyes that spoke of charm, but the narrow blue ones that spoke of cunning.

To top off her eerie image she gave Harry a cruel smile.

"And Potter? Are you here to stop me? Stop me like you've stopped anything that could be good in this world."

She didn't give much time for negotiations. Daphne whipped out her avada-kedavra 47 wand and started blazing away with streaks of green bolts that whispered death. She was firing straight for Harry.

Her spells flashed all across the great hall illuminating the hall in a ghastly shade of green. One stray spell accidentally hit the old potato Dumbledore, and Dumbledore's lifelessly face splashed into his oatmeal.

Harry, meanwhile, was on the move. He was quick with his retaliation. He twirled his wand in an arc and sent a breath of fire against Daphne. Daphne sliced it away with her wand.

Already the world had failed them. Already their tombstones had been marked. Already the battle had been decided. With the force of titans on either side, a war such as this could only lead to death.

"I'm sorry Daphne!" Harry shouted. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more! I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you!"

Harry dodged and weaved against Daphne's onslaught of spells. The walls of the castle were crumbling against the weight of two such powerful wizards.

"17 years I waited!" Daphne cried. "Waited in my tower as they tore me down and striped me bare in the face of everything I once had! Stabbed me in my heart when I had nothing left to give! I had nothing! Nothing but the hope of you to save me! I carried that hope like a flame against the endless rain that came upon me."

Daphne stopped her relentless spellfire as her heart trembled.

"But that could only last me so long."

Daphne pulled back her wand and started powering it up with a glowing red energy. Harry watched with despair as he felt his death loom before him. Desperately he placed shield after shield before him as he tried to withstand the weight of a thousand worlds.

It wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough. For who could stand against the power of the bumbedum hat.

No one.


A dying man see's something that us normal folks dont regularly get to see – the world laid bare. The world without its walls and without its constraints. Nothing but what attaches to our hearts and fills it with blood. Very clearly, he can see the things that matter.

Harry saw it too. In that moment, in that instance of time where madness and desperation were crawling up Harry's spine, he saw the rope at the end of the tunnel. Harry saw a glimpse of his escape. Harry took it and yanked as hard as he could. He summoned something in his soul not previously found. With it he gathered it against the tip of his wand and let it escape in the form of a pure white beam of energy.

The two sides sent their spells. Daphne's jagged red lightning bolt, and Harry's beam of pure heavenly light. In a matter of seconds, the tides of battle had turned. Daphne's eyes widened and her heart dropped in the face of a defeat so suddenly found.

A defeat that came in the form of a pure radiant light.

"No." Daphne gasped in disbelief.


In the ashes of what remained Harry walked slowly to Daphne.

Daphne was slumped over a stone block bleeding the last fragments of her life out.

She gave a wry smile.

Leave it to Harry to beat her twice. Stealing her heart wasn't enough, the boy just had to do the impossible and beat her in battle. Even with the bamphungi hat it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough for that man.

"Daphne," Harry spoke. Daphne reached for her wand, but Harry blew it off the cliff.

"Why did you do it?" he asked. "Why did you have to go and destroy Hogwarts?"

Daphne lazily lifted her eyes up and peered at that crumbling heap of a building.

"Well at least I did one thing right," she muttered despondently.

Harry seized her by the throat and bore into her with his angry eyes. He dragged her over to the edge and dangled her off the cliff.

Daphne was only idly aware of the fall. More pressing to her was the pressure she felt under Harry's angry emerald eyes. It hurt. Seeing the man she loved turned against her.

"I'm sorry Harry," she said.

"That's not good enough," Harry responded.

With that, Harry let her go.

Daphne's fall happened in a handful of seconds. Whether 1000 years passed before her or whether it happened in the blink of an eye, Daphne could not tell. All she saw were two moments of her life carefully presented to her.

In the first she saw a tear-streaked girl stumbling through the forest. In a clearing she saw the bungo hat sitting on a perch. Just as she had done then, she now felt the seeds of hate, and the stirrings of evil slither up her body and infect her.

Why did she have to lose?

Later in her fall. The second memory came.

Daphne found herself living in a dream. A dream where Daphne was wrapped in Harry's loving arms, and the three words I love you played upon his lips.

It was in his gentle embrace that Daphne found peace.

And then, Daphne was no more.

Thee end.


AN: just for clarification I hope I did not offend anyone in certain moments of the story. Nothing I put has the intention of being dark, I just know the wording here is a bit vague and such, and in my head if someone is assuming the worst they might take certain moments of the story and draw inferences from them. Let everything be here be pg, and everyone evacuated the great hall safely beforehand :) (except dumbledore of course). Also laid bare like stripped of all her pride not the other kind of laid bare.

Anyhow I dont know if any of this made sense, but I had fun doing it and that's what matters isn't it