Beginning at 2:02AM on Sunday, June 12, 2016, the United States experienced the worst mass shooting in its history. Orlando, Florida, a place of childhood memories, family, friends, and sunshine, became the setting for a heartbreaking scene.

29-year-old Omar Mateen killed 49 human beings from ages 18 to 49 and injured at least 53, with six still in critical condition.

Typically, I read the news on Facebook first. Either something is trending or one of the news sources I follow posts an article, but on Sunday, I woke up without checking my phone and turned on the morning news. This is when I saw that something horrific had happened at Pulse Night Club, a club that “served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ [Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer] community.”

To be honest, I was a bit numb at first. It didn’t quite sink in that someone had targeted the gay community and brought about a death toll that was quickly rising. Then, I was angry. How is it that someone feels they are so superior to someone else that they can pass judgment and kill scores of people?

I have always been an ally to the LGBTQ community and I felt sick that despite the many strides toward equality and acceptance the community has made, this level of violence could still take place.

Still, I never felt the impact as much as when I noticed that J.K. Rowling was trending on Facebook. Rowling tweeted about a Wizarding World of Harry Potter employee, Luis Vielma, whose life was stolen during the Orlando shooting.

A video of a tribute for victim Luis Vielma, “a team member, a brother, a son, a friend”, surfaced online where Vielma’s friends and co-workers gathered before the Hogwarts Castle at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. In an act reminiscent of the display of reverence in Rowling’s story, attendees raised wands, candles, and phones to the sky. Tears and expressions of deep sorrow filled the crowd as silence quieted the group.

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This is the moment that my heart broke for the lives lost. Perhaps Harry Potter is merely a character in a children’s book series and set of eight movies, but our generation grew up with his story. We grew up learning that good and evil are not always easily distinguishable, that “it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be,” that slurs like “mudblood” are not just words, but hurtful and dehumanizing. “It’s no wonder our generation is so accepting, understanding, and politically involved. We champion for equality because it’s what we learned from a young age. We rail against homophobia because we’ve learned that each person has so much to provide other than their sexual orientation,” wrote Millennial Manifesto writer, Hope Racine.

Perhaps it was seeing this unifying piece of culture that so many of my peers in my generation carry close to their hearts. Perhaps it was that I stood in front of that castle only weeks ago on a visit to Orlando. Perhaps, it was realizing that the battles that Harry, Ron, and Hermione faced in combating the hatred in the wizarding world, are playing out in real life between our religions, sexual orientations, and races.

Either way, at this moment of literary analog, the mass display of violence became real.

So, what can we do to help? Pulse Night Club has started a Go Fund Me to support the families and survivors of the shooting. Since the creation of this fund, “Go Fund Me has contributed $100,000 toward this campaign, essentially waiving their transaction fee and ensuring [that] every single penny donated will go towards supporting the victims and their families.”

Now, as our country struggles to find a solution to this violence and makes decisions on how to respond, we must remember what Albus Dumbledore, yet another soul lost in a battle of love versus hate, said, “happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”