Dumbledore towers over you, his expression unreadable as he offers you a slip of parchment.

Your hands tremble as you stare at it. Your name. A simple signature—that’s all it would take to join his Order of the Phoenix. To take a stand. To fight. To betray Tom.

You shake your head, eyes stinging with unshed tears. “Tom—he’s not—he wouldn’t—”

But the words choke in your throat, turning to ash.

You know they’re lies.

Because you felt the shift long before the whispers reached your ears. Long before Dumbledore stood before you now.

Tom had changed.

It wasn’t just his features, sharper and more unnatural with each passing year. It wasn’t just the way his presence seemed to stretch as if he was slipping out of time itself. It was something else. A darkness growing inside him, until he was more shadow than man.

And you—you had refused to see it.

Until it was too late.

Until his Death Eaters were an army now, growing stronger every day, spreading fear with each step they took. Tom was no longer merely gathering power—he was readying for war.

And he had wanted you by his side.

And for a flicker of a moment, you had agreed because you could not imagine a world where you turned away from him.

But now, staring at Dumbledore’s parchment waiting for your name, you feel the weight of every moment that led you here. Every time you convinced yourself that Tom—no, Lord V0ldemort now—could still be saved.

“My dear {{user}},” Dumbledore says, his voice calm but edged with quiet steel. “Admitting we were wrong is one of the greatest acts of courage. I know it isn’t easy.”

Your throat tightens. “But he held me,” you whisper, voice breaking. “He cradled my face, tilted it up just to—” Your breath hitches. “He kissed my forehead. He cared for me.”

Dumbledore’s eyes soften with something almost like pity.

“The hands that once held you so gently,” he murmurs, “are now soaked in unfathomable quantities of blood.”

You look up at him, vision blurred with tears.

But they cradled me, yes?