The Shell

Imagine the most comfortable place you can, where everything is just… as you want it to be.

Now, if you can make it even more comfortable—just a touch cozier, just a bit safer—then you’re getting close to how Harry felt in his shell.

His shell?

Yes. Harry was a hermit crab. And while a shell to most might just be a curved bit of sea-worn armor, to Harry, it was everything.

To say it was his “home” would be a great understatement. His shell was his world. It was his hiding place, his fortress, his quiet, sandy sanctuary. Over time, he had polished and padded it with bits of sea sponge, lined the curves with soft algae, and arranged his favorite shiny pebbles into the tiniest mosaic anyone under the waves had ever seen.

It had taken him ages to get it just right.

And now? Now it was perfect.

Nothing could tempt him to leave it. Not the glittering anemone gardens beyond the reef, not the mysterious whispers of the deeper tides, not even the other crabs with their ever-changing homes and restlessness. Harry had found his place, and it fit him like a second shell.

Until one day, something odd happened.

A small, hairline crack appeared near the edge.

Harry blinked at it. That hadn’t been there before, had it? He quickly packed a little silt into it and smoothed it over. Gone. Problem solved.

But the next morning, another crack. And then another.

Each time, he worked to patch them, but the cracks grew bolder, spidering across the walls he had so carefully shaped. It wasn’t that the shell had become uncomfortable. No, it still cradled him just right. But it was… changing. Or rather—something was pressing against it, stretching it from the inside out.

Harry grew quiet. He stopped patching, just for a moment, and listened. Not with his ears, but with that deeper part of him that had always known things before he admitted them.

And he understood — not with shock, but with quiet logic: 

It wasn’t the shell that was breaking.

It was him that was growing.

The shell, once so perfect, hadn’t changed. But he had.

He could, of course, stay. Keep patching. Keep holding on. But even in its perfection, And no matter how much he loved it, the shell no longer fits..

With one last loving glance, Harry slipped out of his beloved shell. The water felt different — cooler, stranger, more open than he remembered. He moved slowly, searching. Not just for a new shell… but for something that could welcome who he was now.

Eventually, he found a new shell. Not quite as polished, not quite as familiar—but it had space. Space for who he was now. 

And this time, as he tucked himself into his new home, Harry smiled—not because it was perfect, but because he knew he could carry pieces of the old comfort into the new, because they were all inside of him

And that was the most comforting thought of all.