Obliviate

Exam Period

The weeks passed like petals falling from an unseen flower, slowly at first, then all at once. By the time the Triwizard Tournament was whittled down to its final task, the Tree had more than doubled in height. Its trunk was the thickness of a cauldron now, branches arching in graceful curves toward the magically high ceiling. The Room of Requirement had expanded to accommodate it, as if it too wanted to cradle this impossible life.

Lily visited almost every day after lessons, sometimes with Scorpius, sometimes alone. The air was always warm here, tinged with the soft golden glow of the leaves. But lately, she'd caught herself worrying. What would happen to it when she left for the summer? Would it miss them the way she already dreaded missing it?

The Tree seemed to sense her thoughts. Your roots are mine as much as mine are yours, its voice thrummed in her mind, slow and melodic. I will not wither in your absence. Goodness has taken hold here. Darkness cannot drink from me now.

And it was true, the news had shifted. The string of killings had stopped; whispers in the corridors spoke of the Death Eaters losing ground, their influence waning like a candle starved of oxygen. Lily wanted to believe it would last.

She and Scorpius still spent long hours together, but they hadn't kissed since that night months ago. Oddly, she didn't mind. She liked the quiet steadiness between them, the way his hand sometimes found hers without thinking, the way his gaze lingered when he thought she wasn't looking.

It was during one of those quiet afternoons that it happened.
They'd been sitting cross-legged on the couch near the Tree, their conversation drifting between the tournament and end-of-year exams, when Lily felt the air change.

The warmth drained from the room. The light dimmed, shadows bending in strange directions. The Tree's leaves rustled without wind.

"Do you feel that?" she asked.

Scorpius sat up straighter. "Yeah... it's like-"

The far wall rippled, its stone surface melting into something else entirely. Through the wavering air, Lily saw a boy, maybe seventeen - with pale hair falling into sharp grey eyes. Young Draco Malfoy. But not the one she had met, not sneering or scowling. This Draco looked... hesitant. His expression soft, uncertain.

A voice floated in, faint as mist, a woman's voice, quick, intelligent, familiar. Lily's heart jolted. 

She took an instinctive step forward, but the Tree's voice burst into her mind, urgent now. Stay where you are, young one. This is an echo, not of your making. Not safe.

The image flickered like a candle guttering in a breeze, and then the wall was stone again, the golden warmth returning all at once.

"What the hell was that?" Scorpius breathed.

Lily's pulse was still hammering. "I think... I think it was the past. The Tree's magic, maybe it's strong enough now to pull time in around it."

The Tree's voice came again, quieter but heavy with warning. And if time can reach in, others can reach out. Guard me well.

Lily sat back down slowly, but the image of Draco's expression wouldn't leave her. Gentle, open, nothing like the man she'd met.
And the voice beside him, almost... fond.

Lily's thoughts reeled on what she had witnessed. Was the Tree going to be safe during the summer? Why now were they catching these glimpses of echos, as the Tree proclaimed it? Why did Lily want to see more? Draco Malfoy looked so similar to Scorpius now, his eyes a harder silver, but his face vulnerable, unguarded. And that woman's voice... Lily knew it. Not well enough to name it, but enough to feel it under her skin, a memory she couldn't quite place.

The questions tangled in her mind until they became one long, knotted thread she didn't have time to untangle. End-of-year exams forced their way in, pushing the vision from her focus whether she wanted it gone or not.

"I could barely keep my eyes open that last exam," Kara groaned as she and Lily stepped out of the Astronomy Tower into the cool night air.

Lily rubbed her temples; her head still throbbed from staring at star charts for hours. She'd avoided the Room of Requirement for two weeks now, telling herself it was to keep the Tree from feeling her stress. But the truth? She missed it, missed the way the golden light wrapped around her, missed the calm that seeped into her bones the moment she stepped inside. Without it, her days felt hollow, as if she were walking around missing a part of herself.

"Our professor has seriously overestimated our initiative for teaching ourselves this semester," Lily laughed, though it came out a little weary.

Kara grinned. "At least it's over now. You can relax... well, until your next obsession."

Lily smiled faintly, but her mind was already drifting to the Tree, to the vision, to Draco Malfoy's unfamiliar expression and the phantom warmth in that mystery woman's voice. She didn't know why, but she had the sinking feeling this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

By the time they reached the Ravenclaw common room, the fire was still roaring despite the late hour, the air thick with parchment dust and the faint scent of sugar quills. A few determined students were still hunched over books, quills scratching frantically as if they could cram an entire year's worth of Transfiguration into one night.

Kara dropped her bag onto the nearest sofa with a dramatic sigh. "If I don't turn into a teapot tomorrow morning, I'll consider that exam a personal victory."

Lily smirked, sliding down beside her and pulling out her own notes. "If you turn into a teapot, I'm making tea in you."

"Rude," Kara shot back, already flipping through her scribbled diagrams of vanishing spells. "So... speaking of rude, are you going to tell me if you and Scorpius are actually a thing yet? Or do I have to keep reading between the lines every time you two look at each other?"

Lily's quill hesitated over her parchment. "We're... close," she said carefully. "But no. Not... officially."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "Not officially? That sounds suspiciously like yes-but-you-don't-want-to-say."

"It's not like that," Lily protested, though her cheeks were warming. "I like how things are. It's... slow. Easy. We're not rushing it."

Kara hummed knowingly. "Right. Slow. Easy. Meanwhile, I've seen him watch you like you're the last Chocolate Frog in the packet."

Lily tried to focus on her notes, but Kara's words tugged at something deep in her chest. She hid her smile behind her quill. "You're imagining things."

"Sure I am," Kara said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she leaned back against the cushions. "Anyway, I give it until the end of the Triwizard Tournament. If he doesn't ask you out before then, I'm hexing him into next week."

Lily laughed, the warmth of the fire wrapping around her like a blanket. For a moment, the Tree, the vision, and all the questions waiting for her could stay exactly where they were, on the edges of her mind. Tonight was for friendship, and for pretending the world outside these walls wasn't quite so complicated.