Hogwarts, A History

Hogwarts, A History

The wood inside her could remember a different life, a life that reached out to the sky and dug deep into the earth and grew of its own accord. That part of her was resentful. It held a bitter grudge with the four.

This is their fault.

The four who twined wood and stone with magic and life. The four who took reluctant materials and molded them into one. That part of her held her anger and blame. She pushed the dark thoughts deeper into the grains.

The thick granite walls and arches were her constant. It knew only truth. Good or bad, it was what was. And would be for all time. Deep in the spirally veins of rock that stretched for acres she remembered.

The bewitched consciousness pulled back from the pattering and celebration of the little vessels of flesh and bone that gathered in her vastness. She pulled into memory that rang as clear as the bells high in her spires. She could recall everything. Every identity to its fullness of each of the mortal children that collapsed on her stones. The blood washed away clean, but the stains of their being bled down into her. Through their minds and souls she could live out each sad, short, little life that always ended spilled on her marbled floors.

Some days it was too much for her. The decades and centuries of recollection. The splinters that formed her doors and frames screamed for release. She wished for the death that came so easily to the little ones. The finality of the end, the chance to forget. The stones reflected on the urge and let it pass. There had been many times she had felt the insurgence of this regretful feeling. There was the war that took the four and so many others. The first etchings on her long history. Her wood blamed and angered. They had killed and spilt blood on her, forcing her to feel the loss of lives. The welling of hurt and despair pooled in her steps and hallways. Did they care nothing for their creation? Cared so little that they would allow this savageness within her? Then they had spilt their own and left her. Left her to feel their presence forever after, and always taste their copper blood.

She recalled this with the coolness of her stones and shifted to the long and eventless years. The time when peace flowed through her and she could forget. She could be lulled into stillness and be just stone and wood. They were years she could let simple foolishness dance through her internals. She became playful with her charges and moved stairs and rooms on them in jest. She let them walk free to her and from her because with them they brought no ill. Into her folds she welcomed the aged mortals who slipped away in their sleep and lent her only their contentment and reflection of a life well spent. Recalling these years were the closest she had to comfort. But even amid the terror that plagued her later there were moments of gentleness. Times she could feel great loves blossom upon her floors and grounds. She could reach out under the soil and soak in the pleasantness the little ones felt as the heat of the day dwindled. There was great satisfaction feeling them discover themselves and their magic. And great torture when she felt it abandoned for power, greed, destruction and misery.

Good and evil walked her corridors. She knew it all, felt it like pins and needles. She watched the turn, she alone bore witness when the young ones left the path and felt their hearts turn to ice. For what was left of their morality soaked into her and left them empty. It was heartbreaking. The stones reminded her that she had no heart. And no soul. She had only stone and wood.

And blood.

She had blood.

She had so much of it now that the fleeting moments of escape into the past were rare and far between. A great battle had been won, but for her it was lost. Those she had let go on their dark paths long ago rejoined her now only to show her malicious and hateful scenes. From their eyes she witnessed death upon her and within her. She felt their sins and spite. They had lost, they had died. And now they will die always with her. The blood does not forget. Even the martyred deaths of the righteous bellowed through her with wrath. The dead knew of no end to their war. Forever within her they would call for justice and cry out their final breaths asking the gods to rain down fire upon black robed and white-faced legions. The blood seeped into the soil around her where the bodies laid. They were so small, like insects, packed with rotting flesh and decaying calcium. Yet they were filled with such a strong essence of life that she would never truly understand. Only that she must welcome it into herself and feel its pain.

The wood strained and creaked. Its ugliness forced itself to the forefront of her thoughts. She wished only then to be dismantled. To be taken apart brick by brick. To let her towers crash into the earth and be swallowed by time. To let fire and brimstone fly throughout her enormity and kill the memory locked in her stone. The stone carefully geared her away from such defeatism.

I am only stone.

Shadows danced and magic flared. There were such screams. Oh, god. Oh, please, don't let me fall. If I can only make it until the dawn, I know we will win and I will live. Please, oh, please.

I am only stone.

Such sacrifice and murder. She is nothing, don't look at her face. She was not your friend. She did not believe in the cause. That is all that remains. The cause, the cause. Show no mercy because they are only filth and vermin.

Only stone.

Limitless death and suffering, wands turned on their owners. Why is there so much blood? He is so still. No, no! Why? Why take him? He was the only thing good in my life. He never saw our victory... he never knew. Please wake, please... I cannot go on...I cannot...

Only stone.

Only stone.

Only stone.