Steam filled the room, carrying a scorched smell, as though something had been burned too far.
The flames had not gone out.
McGonagall tried another spell. "Flame Freeze." A blue-white beam shot from the tip of her wand and struck the flames. The light scattered, and not only did the fire show no sign of dying out, it burned even more fiercely.
She lowered her wand and looked at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore said nothing. He slipped the Elder Wand back into his pocket, his hands hanging at his sides as he stared at the black flames still burning on the table. His face was white—not the sickly, waxy sort of white, but something deeper, as though something had been drawn out from beneath his skin, leaving only bone behind.
His lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line. His eyes were bright, but it was not a warm brightness. It was a light crushed beneath something, leaking through a crack, carrying a trace of exhaustion.
The fire burned for a long time. Long enough for the screams to shift from shrill to low, from low to hoarse, from hoarse to nothing but a hissing rush of air leaking through cracks in a throat—and then even that hissing stopped.
Long enough for a fist-sized hole to burn through the tabletop, its edges blackened and still smoking. Tiny black flames still flickered along its charred rim. Long enough for the diary's cover to turn to ash, its spine to turn to ash, its pages to turn to ash, and the ash itself to burn into even finer powder, like flour, ready to scatter with a single breath.
Black flames rose again from the charred cracks along the edge of the hole, small and dark, like a seedling that had just pushed through the