ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴛᴛᴇᴅ ʟɪʟᴀ ʜᴏʟᴍᴇꜱ || ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏ ᴍᴀʟꜰᴏʏ x ᴏᴄ || ʏᴇᴀʀ 4

it's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams

"You shouldn't have gone."

Rain beat against the window. I was standing in the corner of my own living room. Across from me, Dumbledore sat in our rocking chair. His presence irritated me to a surprising extent — why was he here? To my left, my mum was just coming in from outside. She was soaked to the bone, and even in the dim light I could see her eyes were red from crying. I realized with dread that it was Halloween, and she'd just returned from the Potter's.

Her face twisted in fury at seeing Dumbledore. "And done what? Sat here and waited for the news to reach me? What are you even doing here? You're going to wake my husband, or the baby."

"It's the baby I'm here about," Dumbledore explained. "I wanted to make sure she was safe. Sirius was the Potter's secret keeper, too."

Emilie scrunched her brow in confusion, a moment passing before she realized what he was implying. "He wouldn't have. He was there! I saw him." She shook her head. "They must have switched at the last second without telling anyone. It's something Sirius would do — a bluff."

Dumbledore's face was hard and unchanging — I wasn't used to seeing him like this. "The Ministry will have a hard time believing that alibi. Witnesses watched him kill Peter Pettigrew and twelve Muggles with a single curse."

Emilie shook with fury. "And you let this happen? If anything, the proof is there! He must have switched with— with Pete, and Pete-" she paused as the reality of her words sank in. Dumbledore watched her carefully as she grabbed for the wall, grounding herself. Her next sentence was barely above a murmur. "Pete betrayed us."

"No matter what happened behind the scenes, Peter is dead," Dumbledore said resignedly. "Sirius has no way of clearing his name. No matter what I may try to do, all of the evidence points to him."

"So you're just going to give up?" Emilie hissed. "After all of this? At least give Harry to me, to Remus, to Mary. To anybody!"

"Nobody is safe, Emilie," Dumbledore stood now, irritation breaking through his calm demeanor. "Pettigrew's betrayal has done all it can to show that. You, especially, aren't safe. You can't raise Harry and Lila in the same house. She's too dangerous."

"She's ten months old!" Emilie's voice cracked. "Isn't that what you want? To have them side with each other in the end?"

"That's the whole point. She's too young to tell," Dumbledore insisted. "It's best we keep them separate. Even then, your time is growing short. You won't be able to protect them much longer. Harry will be staying with his Aunt and her husband."

"Petunia?" Emilie scowled. "That miserable wench? She'll make him hate Muggles more than any of us ever could."

"If he's anything like his mother, you know she won't," Dumbledore said sagely. "It's better he grows up away from our world. He shouldn't know about any of this yet."

"He'll find out eventually, you know," Emilie reminded him. "And so will Lila. She's a Seer, just like me and just like Anne. She could be watching this conversation right now, just like I've seen Anne and Tom."

"I agree, it's only a matter of time, but we must delay it as long as possible," Dumbledore said firmly. His expression was grim, as though he suspected precisely what my mother suggested. "The sooner Lila finds out about the prophecy, the more likely she'll find herself on the wrong side."

I was the first one awake. A look at the clock told me it was five in the morning. My head was spinning. The dregs of sunrise streamed in through the window.