Harry Potter One-Shots

Broken | Crown

[this got really long... sorry. The story of Alastor Moody] 

"...and I told her not to love you, and I begged her not to go. But she did, and it's your fault."

1973

Diana Ashwood

Diana found herself in her usual position, a position she formed when she needed to think: upside down in the tall, oak tree that grew in the courtyard of her friend's home. All the blood from her body was more than likely clotting her brain from her prolonged hanging, but Diana refused to move. She did this frequently when she needed to have an epiphany. It was a superstition of hers; she felt it would help her gather her thoughts easier.

Some time passed before her friend found her, merely hanging by one of the low branches. Diana's friend, Elenora Dusk, sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, finding her friend's contemplating rather odd.

"Diana, why are you hanging upside down?" Elenora asked. "If you are trying to kill yourself, there are better ways."

"Very funny, Nora," Diana wheezed out, not realizing how dizzy she truly was until she'd spoken, "I'm attempting to think."

"Very dangerous, indeed, Diana," Nora chuckled at her strange friend, patting down a crease in her pastel, cotton dress skirts. For an eighteen year old, Diana felt that Nora was too old to dress in little girl clothing. In turn, Nora felt that Diana was too old to be climbing trees.

"One day you will thank me for doing this, Nora."

Nora rolled her eyes at her friend and stepped under Diana's small frame, dodging her dirty blonde curls as they cascaded down from her scalp. While Elenora always kept her hair up in fashionable styles, Diana always settled to keep her locks down and occasionally decorated in posies, or other assortments of flowers.

"What are you thinking about?" Nora tried, wanting to coax Diana down from the branch before her head exploded from the pressure. Waiting for a response, Nora tugged on a lose strand of her shoulder length, chocolate colored hair.

Diana's cloudy, grey eyes locked with Nora's light, wood eyes and she frowned. "I'm considering what I want to do now that we are out of Hogwarts."

"My parents don't want me to do anything; they want me to stay home." Nora sighed, craning her neck to stare up into the eyes of her best friend since childhood, attempting to ignore the purple hue Diana's face and neck had begun to take. "You do realize there is a war going on, Diana?"

Diana shot her friend a glare, one filled with contempt and annoyance. "Of course, nitwit. Why do you think I am staying at your home? Because I enjoy the view?"

Diana watched as Nora ducked her head with an embarrassed blush on her cheeks. Immediately, remorse swam up the pit of her stomach and Diana sighed, hanging lower on her branch, taking in the upside down world with dismay. "S'rry, Nora. I don't mean to be rude. I like it here."

"I know you like my tree," Nora sniffed hotly, re-crossing her arms over her chest and tearing her gaze from Diana's. "I can see that you only like me for my thinking tree. It's okay, you can tell me."

Diana rolled her eyes at her friend's ridiculousness and swung her frame from the bow of the tree, doing a summersault before landing on the pebbled ground of Nora's courtyard. Nora flinched away from the shower of rocks caused by Diana's landing and she smirked as her friend straightened herself out.

"So, have you decided what you want to do?" Nora asked, noting that Diana had dismounted from her thinking position.

Diana nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "I believe so." Diana swooned a bit, an elated grin on her lips. "I want to do whatever you're doing."