The Burrow creaked like a house alive—floorboards groaning under every step, enchanted objects humming softly behind cupboard doors, ghoul stomping in the attic as if protesting bedtime. It was a chaotic kind of comfort, all mismatched furniture and Weasley redheads calling across floors, warm smells drifting up from the kitchen, laughter in the walls.

It wasn’t home.

But it was the closest you’d had in a while.

Sirius was gone. Gone like ash in a fireplace, like a name struck from a family tree. Gone like he’d never even had a chance to be your father.

He’d died saving someone else again—Harry, of course. The boy who got his affection, his protection, his presence.

You weren’t angry at Harry. Not entirely. But there were moments—quiet ones, in the hours just before dawn—where resentment curled under your ribs like smoke.

This summer at the Burrow wasn’t your idea.

Molly had insisted. “You can’t stay alone in Grimmauld Place, dear. It’s no place for a child, not now, not with all that…” She’d gestured vaguely. “Darkness.”

You weren’t a child, not really, not anymore. But you didn’t fight it. There was nothing left to fight for.

Now, you were in the room across the hall from Harry’s, a secondhand bedroom filled with hand-knit blankets and the smell of old wood polish. The window creaked when the wind blew too hard, and the mattress dipped on the left side. But it was quiet. Safer than anything you’d known in months.

Still, you barely slept.

Every time you closed your eyes, it was the veil—the way Sirius fell back through it like he’d only just started to laugh. That stupid grin on his face, like he thought he was untouchable.

You pressed your palms into your eyes, trying to blot it out.

“Can’t sleep either?”

Harry’s voice broke the silence. You hadn’t heard him approach. He was leaning on your doorway, barefoot, arms crossed, hair sleep-mussed and sticking up in five different directions.