Obliviate

Chapter 15

The Burrow looked like it had swallowed Christmas whole.

From the moment Lily stepped through the crooked front door, warmth wrapped around her; firelight, cooking smells, enchanted decorations that glimmered in every corner. Paper snowflakes floated lazily from the ceiling, dissolving before they touched the ground. Her grandmother's clock ticked steadily on the wall, each hand marked with a family member's face, all pointing firmly at "home."

"Lily, dear!" Her grandmother Molly pulled her into a hug that smelled of flour and cinnamon, planting a kiss on her cheek before bustling back to the stove.

It was noisy, impossibly so. James and Louis were already arguing about Quidditch scores, while Hugo tried to charm the fairy lights into spelling out rude words. Teddy and Victoire appeared arm-in-arm, snow still dusting their hair, and Lily's mum scolded them good-naturedly about dripping on the rug.

Lily loved it. She always had. But this year, she felt slightly apart from it all, like a snow globe shaken too hard. She smiled and laughed where she should, joined the chaos of snowball fights, followed the family into Diagon Alley to browse twinkling shopfronts. Yet part of her stayed distant, still caught beneath golden branches, echoes of voices that weren't hers to hear.

By the third night, she sat curled in bed beneath a quilt, listening to the muffled roar of laughter from downstairs. Her phone buzzed against the mattress.

Scorpius: He's getting worse.

Her heart lurched. She sat up, fingers trembling as she typed.

Lily: Worse how?

The dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. Lily and Scorpius hadn't had a chance to discuss what she'd seen in her latest visions.

Scorpius: He barely talks to Mum anymore. Sleeps in his study. Just stares at the fire like he's waiting for something.

Another pause.

Scorpius: Last night he shouted in his sleep. He yelled her name. Hermione.

Lily's breath stilled.

The phone buzzed again before she could reply.

Scorpius: And sometimes he mutters to himself. I've heard it. Mudblood. Over and over, like he's choking on it.

She pressed the phone flat against her chest, squeezing her eyes shut. Around her, the Burrow carried on being warm and loud and bright. But in Scorpius's messages she felt the coldness creeping in.

The echoes weren't just trapped in the Tree anymore. They were bleeding into the present.

The next morning at breakfast, she couldn't stop watching Hermione.

Her aunt sat across the long kitchen table, hair curling wildly despite her efforts to pin it back, face flushed from stirring an enormous pot of porridge. She laughed when Ron made some bumbling joke, swatted his arm when he stole the serving spoon, and smiled so easily at Rose and Hugo it was hard to imagine her ever as the woman Lily had seen in the vision, patting Draco Malfoy's head, telling him he was brave.

But Lily couldn't stop seeing it.

Hermione leaned close to Ron, whispering something in his ear. He grinned, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pressed a kiss to her temple. They looked solid, steady, comfortable in a way that came from decades together. Yet Lily's stomach twisted.

Why him? she thought suddenly, with a pang she didn't fully understand. Why Draco Malfoy, of all people?

The man who had made her cry, made her feel small, sneered at her blood. The man who had stood on the wrong side of the war.