Nod.

There's not much left to get ready then before they head out, through the Chamber tunnel and to the Apparition exit.

Time to go kill a horcrux.

It takes a little bit, but - 

They track the Diadem soon enough. He's clearly waiting for them, leaning against a wall with an amused expression and his wand in hand.

They don't exactly see any traps, but...

Always better safe than sorry. Wands out.

"Such a big welcoming party... Just for me," he teases, voice almost purring. "My picking of prey, at least." He's watching them, eyes tracking even the members of their group he doesn't have line of sight on.

She opens with a wordless cutting hex.

Anathema's already humming - quickly turning into a roiling song, of clarity to her allies, confusion to her enemies - luck and unluck, reversals of fortune - 

Fay starts setting - 

Not the Diadem. But several points around him on white fire. Runes flare under her blazes, disintegrating.

And Bellatrix dives forward, a rapid cluster of curses flying from her wand - a shield over herself at the same time - Transfigure the ground under him - 

The Diadem laughs, flowing like liquid out of the way of their attacks. "My, my. Such passion."

- There's a whisper. He's infuriating of course. They should destroy him. He's destroyed everything else, after all. They should focus on nothing else other than that rage.

Elodie's chant hedges out that influence, outside interference with emotion, getting too angry to think. Her song reaffirms their purpose and provides the focus to see it through.

Bellatrix weaves around him, spinning a complex web of magic - a lot of outright attacks, at a variety of speeds, patterns - 

And Fay weaves with her. 

(She's - building something, maybe.)

The Diadem sends out waves of shadow and flame - hissing, snapping snakes - to attack all of them - whirling ice storms that can't be melted, the ground under them transfiguring into yet more snakes - 

He's weaving a massive number of spells together, that omnipresent push at their mind only intensifying - 

(There's a crack in one of them, isn't there?)

(Ellie's head starts feeling like it's being pried open.)

She grits her teeth and keeps dispelling as many of his attacks as she can. Nothing they didn't expect.

He keeps fighting - 

And he tilts his head, eyeing Ellie as her scar pain spikes dramatically. "There's something odd about you..." he hisses in Parseltongue. 

Her answer is a wordless hiss of pain and a combination freezing-blasting curse.

He knocks it aside, and, still hissing - "Something familiar about you."

"That day I failed to take your mind... Your mother's shield hurt me, but there was something already there, wasn't there?"

"You don't know shit. Stop hissing at me."

He laughs - and does something, a twist of his magic - 

And Ellie's head explodes with pain.

She cries out and drops to the ground.

Does the Diadem want everything around him saturated with Fiendfyre, pouring up into a pillar in the sky - furious, starving tigers - 

Because that is how you end up breathing the concentrated essence of I want you to BURN.

Anathema screams -

And Fay's Fiendfyre surges. 

Bellatrix isn't in the circle currently being eaten but she gets the fuck away regardless, sprinting over to Ellie with a vague intention of Apparating away with the girl -