Written for The Houses Competition

House Hufflepuff

Category: Themed (Rejection)

Prompt: 'Hogwarts'

Word count 998

Beta'd by Dark Angel of Sorrow Returns

Hogwarts was home to many people. To the students that stayed there and learnt their lessons within her walls. To the Professors who lived there most of the year and taught the young. To the creatures in her walls and outside of them; her presence stretching over the forest nearby and protecting it from those that would do it harm. Hogwarts was a safe haven to those that had nowhere else to go; she had been built as a place of safety for the magical community while they were being hunted down and prosecuted. Hogwarts never turned someone away, until one day she did.

She had liked him at first; he was polite and a bit shy. He was like one of her creators, Salazar Slytherin. Thin and gaunt, she nudged the House Elves to take care of him and fatten him up a bit before he left the safety of her walls. As he grew, he grew stronger and more powerful until he was the unspoken ruler of the Slytherin House. Hogwarts was fine with that, he was a Slytherin, why shouldn't he control his ancestor's house?

She saw that he talked with those that damaged other students and assumed he was warning them off. And indeed, he was. By promising them that it would more fun done outside of Hogwarts, on bigger targets. To Hogwarts, the boy was fair. Not kind, but fair. He would dole out punishments and look out for those who were weak. He would bring them out of their shells and make them strong. He was improving the lives of those in her care. She loved him for doing what she could not.

He had cried when Selena, the basilisk in her walls, had killed the female student. He had never spoken to Selena again after that, something which annoyed Hogwarts as Selena was lonely and did nothing but eat and sleep. He wasn't sad for very long, but it was enough for Hogwarts to know that the boy was still a defender. He had argued strongly against closing the school and it seemed to take his mind off poor Myrtle.

He was a curious boy, researching all types of magic in the library. Hogwarts often indulged him. Rowena had seen that Hogwarts respected the pursuit of knowledge; and Hogwarts would never actively stand in the way of one whose goal was to learn. She noticed, of course, that the boy seemed obsessed with those called the Dark Arts, but Hogwarts didn't mind. Her student defended the weak and made them strong. Besides, magic was magic and the students were there to learn magic.

Eventually, the boy left, and Hogwarts mourned the fact that she would most likely never see him again. A few years later, she did see him again. He was older and had lost some of the weight she and the House Elves had managed to put on him. His soul was split, and he carried a vessel that held part of it. Hogwarts happily kept it safe for him; she liked the boy, and she had missed him when he had been away.

Then came another boy, a boy who also carried a part of the other boy within him. This boy was in Gryffindor, although he could have been in Slytherin, and was just like Godric Gryffindor. He also reminded Hogwarts of Helga, the quiet determination to do good and help others, the tortured soul who only wished others wouldn't have to go through what they had suffered.

With this boy, Hogwarts also nudged the House Elves and they looked after him the best they could. So she had both boys in her walls at the same time, she could sense the Slytherin in the Defense Professor and didn't know why he hid. Until she did. She watched in horror as Tom and Harry faced off against one another. How had she been so wrong? How had her Tom turned out like this? He had once been a protector and teacher and now he was threatening to kill an eleven-year-old.

She watched as the body Tom had been using burned away when touching young Harry and the spectre that was all that remained of the sweet boy rose up out of the ashes. She would not allow Tom to harm Harry. Her considerable ambient magic formed a shield around the young boy, and Tom bounced off it, screaming his rage as he fled.

That was the pattern for a few years, Tom would appear and try to hurt her students, specifically Harry, and she would protect them as best she could. Finally, it all came to a head as Tom sent an army against her. She had been his home, if he had repented, she would still have been his home, no more. She burned every trace of him out of her walls and rejected his very presence. He did not exist to her anymore; he would no longer be allowed on Hogwarts grounds. He would not gain any aid from her magic.

The very air around the castle became poison to him, the ambient magic treating him as an infection and fighting against him. Tom fell to the ground as his own curse struck him. He lay there in Hogwarts' Great Hall as his body failed him. He did not feel the warmth he had always felt before; all he felt was coldness. Hogwarts refused to talk to him and he felt alone.

He was not invited to stay as a ghost wandering the halls of his home. His home was not his home anymore. A tear made its way down his cheek as he left his body. He could see the smiling faces of those who had defeated him; could see the way Hogwarts welcomed them with warmth and ignored him. The one place that had always loved him now rejected him fully.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly before leaving; he was no longer welcome.