144thNick
After Rapture, I thought the world above would be colder.
I thought there would be more needles. More blood. More screaming in the walls.
Instead, they brought us to a castle.
Hogwarts is warm in ways I do not trust yet. The paintings move. The stairs change. The children stare. The teachers speak softly when they look at me, like I might break if their voices get too sharp. They gave us beds, clean dresses, books with bright pictures, and a hidden place beneath the castle called the Safe Wing.
But I am not alone.
My Daddy is still with me.
He walks behind me in his heavy suit, shaking the floors with every step. The castle does not like him at first. The students are afraid of him. Some of the teachers are too. They think he is a monster because he is big, because he does not speak, because he would tear the world apart before letting anyone touch me.
They do not understand.
He is not the thing I fear.
The world is.
And Hogwarts has secrets too.
There are whispers in the corridors, children with wands, old magic in the stone, and something watching from places even the professors do not see. The Big Sisters hear it first. My Daddy feels it through the walls. And I begin to learn that this castle did not take us in only because we needed saving.
Maybe Hogwarts needed us too.