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▌CASTLES CRUMBLING ▌
prologue

𓆩:*¨༺✧ ♛ ✧༻¨*
"I AM NOT AFRAID.
I WAS BORN TO DO THIS."

She whispered; Frostholm's Grand Hall so eerily silent, she could hear snow batter against the castle walls. Her father, His Majesty King Eddard the Kind, had just died in his sleep. She stood before his throne.

She had always known this day would come. But she only wished someone would hold her one last time. Call her a doll, a lamb. An innocent little thing.

But no.

No one was kind anymore; no one was gentle. The Kingdom wasn't protecting her anymore; instead, she had been asked to protect it.

And no one would ever call the Queen of the Wizarding Kingdom a lamb.

"You were born for this, Sansa." A hand fell on her shoulder — steady, firm and reassuring. "Your people are waiting for you to show them strength."

She knew they were waiting outside the doors. The iron crown sat heavy in her trembling hands, its edges piercing into her skin. As she lifted it, her reflection flickered in the polished iron — pale face, sharp eyes, the ugly scar across her face. She looked so much like her father.

She thought of him, his kind smile, how he had held the world together. "I'll never be strong like him, Albus. He made it seem so... easy."

"The King was strong in his own way, yes," her Godfather said. "But strength doesn't always come from kindness. It does not always come as mercy. Sometimes, strength is found in the choices no one else dares to make."

She imagined it all. Sansa, the Strong. The first Queen of the Wizarding Kingdom, the Protector and Ruler of all Witches and Wizards.

There was greatness, but she could still taste blood. Feel the sacrifices. See the hollowed faces of her people, as she made the choices no one else dares to make.

"And what if i cannot make those choices?" she whispered. "What if they hate me because of them?"

Dumbledore took the crown from her trembling hands, his movements slow. The man who had guided her father, and would now become the Hand of the Queen.

She watched him, her breath caught somewhere between her chest and her throat.

"No, wait—"

The word slipped out before she could stop it. For a moment, she thought of running — of fleeing the hall, the castle, the kingdom. But then the iron settled on her brow.

The throne was hers.

"These are troubled times, Sansa. The Kingdom does not need a lamb to follow. It needs a wolf to lead it."