 Open for Any and All Mom says I have no sense of direction, so I packed my bags and right.
Harvard always passed through this part of the corridor at least twice a day. Once when heading toward his first morning classes, and then again shortly before curfew when the day was winding down. He usually slowed whenever portraits appeared to be conversing among themselves, or whenever one seemed interested in acknowledging him. The young Lion rarely made the first move. That wasn't really the point.
He listened.
It had become part of his routine almost without him realizing when it started. A few extra seconds here. A slower walk there. Lingering just long enough to hear something that perhaps wasn't meant for him at all. Could the portraits be talking about something a professor had said or done? Something a student had gotten themselves into? Had somebody been wandering somewhere they shouldn't? Had one of the castle's countless doors suddenly begun leading somewhere interesting?
Any small detail was information worth having.
Even the useless things. Especially the useless things, sometimes.
He had learned long before Hogwarts that information rarely announced itself as important when you first discovered it. Back home, knowing which members of the household used which corridors, which doors were normally locked, or which adults tended to speak more freely when they assumed children weren't listening had helped him uncover practically every secret Blackwell Manor possessed.
Hogwarts was simply much, MUCH bigger.
And considerably better at keeping secrets. That irritated him.
It also made the castle fascinating.
He slowed again as he entered the corridor, eyes drifting from frame to frame as casually as he could manage. By now, some of these painted witches and wizards had probably seen him enough times to recognize him. That was useful too. He wasn't interested in interrogating anyone. People tended to become considerably less talkative once they realized someone was actively trying to get information from them.
Better to simply be around. Better to be familiar. Better to listen until something worth remembering presented itself.
He slipped his hands into his pockets and continued his deliberately unhurried walk down the corridor. There were hundreds of years of Hogwarts history hanging on these walls.
Surely somebody knew something interesting. |