Disclaimer - I own nothing you recognise.
Written for the Auction - Cauldron.
Word Count - 867
In The Words Of The Homeless (Searching For Their Home)
...Argus Filch...
It's eerily silent in the castle these days. The students fear talking with their friends. They no longer run around the corridors, screeching and laughing and calling to one another.
They march, from lesson to lesson. They hold their tongues. They no longer behave like the children he once loved to complain about so much.
Argus hates it.
He wants to punish wrongdoers again. He wants to catch them in the act of harmless pranks that he can give them detention for. He wants to complain about the mess they bring in on their boots, and the noise they make when they are supposed to be locked up in their dorms.
He wants Hogwarts back.
He wants Snape to tell him that he has piles of cauldrons to be cleaned, if there are any detentions that want serving.
He wants Minerva to tell him off for being overly harsh on her lions.
He wants Mrs Norris to run around a corner with the expectation that he will follow her to an unknown destination where he can catch someone in the act.
He wants Peeves to taunt him, if only so he has some semblance of normality.
Argus wants Hogwarts to be Hogwarts because Hogwarts is home.
Except… now it's not.
...
...Irma Pince…
She keeps the shelves in perfect order. The Library has never been so tidy, and yet, she continues to move and replace because what else can she do.
She holds her silence, and the silence of others, as she always has. She enforced the rules of the library, though she no longer needs to.
Because the children are scared now.
They ghost through the stacks of her books, searching for that one book that will help them get the perfect grade, because they are terrified of the punishment if they do not.
She helps more now than she ever did before.
She points at shelves, and offers tiny smiles, because that is all she can do.
She can no longer shout at them for being noisy in her domain. She thinks that she would welcome the noise, because it would mean that the students were students once more and not prisoners of war.
She wants to hush them. To eye notes suspiciously, because students are sneaky little blighters with too much curiosity for their own good.
She wants the life to return to her library.
Irma wants Hogwarts to be Hogwarts because Hogwarts is home.
Except… now it's not.
…
...Severus Snape…
He sits in the Headmaster's office with his head in his hands.
He feels like a fraud in this chair, because this chair is not his. This chair belongs to the only man who ever saw fit to give him a second chance, who believed in him when nobody else did.
This chair belongs to a man who ordered Severus to execute him.
His teachers, those now under his command, hate him. He does not blame them for that. He hates himself more.
He wants to be back in his dungeons, coaching the little brats into not killing themselves.
He wants to be brewing for the hospital wing, because his potions are the only ones that Poppy trusts to give to her charges.
He wants to stand over his cauldron, to count stirs because it calms him, to finely chop ingredients to make a potion that has never been made before just because he wants to; and because he has the time to do it.
He wants to be called for tea by Albus, to discuss Potter and his merry band of troublemakers.
He wants to rewind the clock.
Severus wants Hogwarts to be Hogwarts because Hogwarts is home.
Except… now it's not.
…
...Poppy Pomfrey…
She heals in secret, because she has been forbidden from helping those that are being punished. She slips potions made in the dead of night to the students who are leading the silent rebellion inside the walls of the castle.
She bites her tongue when she sees the Carrows gleefully laughing at the limping, bleeding, broken students who are forced to attend meals despite barely being able to stop themselves from collapsing.
She cries into a handkerchief when she covers a students body with a white sheet because they finally went too far.
She wants her ward to be a bustle of activity again, with minor illnesses and Quidditch injuries.
She wants Minerva to be free to pop in in the evenings for a cuppa and a gossip.
She wants to be able to trust Severus to make her potions again, because his were always better than the substandard ones she is now forced to use.
She wants the students to be free to come to her for anything.
She wants to do her job.
Poppy wants Hogwarts to be Hogwarts because Hogwarts is home.
Except… now it's not.
…
It takes a war, and a battle.
It takes death and pain and suffering.
It takes a brave young man who saw death and returned anyway.
It takes children fighting a war that should never have been theirs.
It takes many people…
But Hogwarts is found…
And Hogwarts is fought for...
Because Hogwarts is Home.