Your parents had left that morning. Nine months alone in a mansion that felt more like a museum than a home. The only company you had was the stack of takeout menus on the kitchen counter and the remote in your hand.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was playing. The scene where Hagrid bursts through the door of the hut on the rock. You'd watched it a hundred times. Maybe a thousand.

The screen flickered.

The sound cut out. Then the picture.

A white screen. Pure, blinding, absolute white. The kind of white that made you squint even though there was nothing to see. It hummed—a low, buzzing frequency that vibrated in your teeth.

The remote in your hand was suddenly damp. You hadn't realized you were gripping it so hard.

And then, from the center of that endless white, a voice—soft, clear, and utterly wrong for the empty room—spoke.