Tika Dravite Shafiq

Backstory

Tika Dravite Shafiq arrived at Hogwarts one drizzling September evening, alone among a sea of noise and trunks and cats and fluttering owls. She did not cry when her parents disappeared into the barrier behind her, nor did she gape at the scarlet train or the floating boats. She had seen stranger things, and earlier than most.

Though a first-year like any other, she carried herself with a kind of quiet precision, as though every movement had already been rehearsed. She spoke little, smiled rarely, and when she did, it was the sort of smile that made people wonder whether she knew something they didn’t.

Her surname—Shafiq—was met with puzzled looks from most students, but not all. A few older Slytherins raised their eyebrows when they heard it, and one or two professors gave her a second glance on the night of the Sorting. The name had not been spoken much in recent years, and then only in hushed tones, among the kinds of people who still remembered the old bloodlines and the families that had quietly withdrawn from the world after the last war.

There had been Shafiqs at Hogwarts before, long ago, though none in recent memory. Some claimed the family had vanished entirely, others that they had simply gone elsewhere—farther, deeper, to places where maps blurred and magical customs followed older, stranger rules. What was known for certain was that they had never disgraced the name; they had merely disappeared.

Tika did not speak of her family, nor of her upbringing. She showed no desire to make friends, but seemed content to observe, listen, and disappear into the corners of the castle when lessons were done. The Sorting Hat had barely touched her head before shouting “Slytherin,” though it hesitated for the briefest of moments beforehand, as if brushing against something it did not quite recognise.

In class, she was competent—exceptional, even, when she thought no one was watching. She had a gift for Care of Magical Creatures, and moved among Hippogriffs and Mooncalves with an instinctive grace that suggested she had been around such things long before arriving at school. She was never boastful. She never needed to be.

Some nights, she would sit near the glass in the Slytherin common room, staring into the murky green-black waters of the lake. The giant squid passed occasionally, and she alone seemed to notice it before it surfaced. Once, another student asked how she always knew it was coming.

“I hear it,” she said simply, and returned to her reading.

She wore no family crest, bore no obvious heirlooms, and offered no explanations. But every so often, a glint of something would catch the light at her hand when she reached for her quill—something dark and subtle and very old. It vanished as quickly as it appeared, and if she noticed anyone noticing, she never said so.

Rumours began to circulate. That she knew spells no one had taught. That she walked without leaving footprints in the snow. That she could speak to birds. None of these rumours were ever confirmed, and Tika never encouraged them. She had the air of someone waiting—for what, no one could say.

She was not loud, nor cruel, nor showy. But there was a gravity to her, as though she were stitched through with a kind of old magic that didn’t need to shout. Most students forgot her name by the end of the first week. A few remembered it much longer.

The Shafiq family, it seemed, had not vanished after all. They had only been quiet. And now, through her, the name had returned—not with fanfare, but with footsteps so soft, they might have gone unheard.

Unless, of course, you were listening.