Midnight at Hogwarts tasted like dust and saltwater, and Niki Lensworth walked its corridors as if the badge on her chest could hold her together.

The castle had gone still, the kind of stillness that felt like it was listening. Torches burned low in their brackets, their flames coughing up thin smoke that smelled of tallow. The stones under Niki’s boots were damp and cold, echoing each step as if the walls wanted to count her heartbeat.

Her prefect badge glinted at her chest, heavy for something so small. She always polished it before rounds.

Shine the badge, hold the line.

It had become a litany. If she repeated it enough, maybe she could drown out the other voice — the one that still screamed her name across the waves.

The badge meant order.

Order meant she didn’t have to think about the chaos behind her eyes.

Her frayed bag dug into her shoulder: rolls of undeveloped film, a half-scribbled editorial, her patrol logbook.

She liked the weight; it gave her something to fight gravity with.

At the end of the corridor a window opened onto the Black Lake, a sheet of dark glass under the stars. She paused, breath misting. The night smelled of algae and cold stone. Even from this high up she could taste the memory of saltwater and blood, of a wave breaking over her face while her brother’s hand slipped out of hers.

Her stomach turned.