RUN - James Potter

Chapter 18

Walking down the corridors aimlessly, Antonella had nowhere to be for the next hour and decided admiring the Hogwarts paintings for the millionth time would be a worthwhile adventure. Her nose was fixed, and her teeth no longer bloody, but her mind was still spinning, even after Madam Pomfrey informed her that her head sustained no major issues.

She had an hour until dinner, where she would be on full display for the school to scrutinise, to question and to stare. For them to wonder the consequences of Ravenclaw's most 'well behaved' students received, to beg the question of what was said, and if what was said was just speculation or fact.

The shame she should carry was as prominent as Antonella originally believed it would be. She wasn't swarmed in guilt for initiating the fight she wasn't feeling apologetic for potentially ruining Elizabeth's career. She felt power, and the taste on her tongue was addicting.

She felt guilty for enjoying the feeling she got in watching Elizabeth's eyes grow in desperation in Dumbledore's office, and she loathed herself for it... but she couldn't get herself to regret it, to banish the feeling. It was as if, every time she told herself she was bad for enjoying hurting Elizabeth, a new sensation came over her body, as she relived it.

Scanning her eyes over the paintings, she tried distracting her mind, to stop thinking about the power, the dominance, and the crippling taste on her tongue. She would focus on studying the paintings, learning all their names as she once wished she did when she was younger. She would focus on her studies, she would become not someone better than Elizabeth, not someone more powerful than Elizabeth, but her greatest fear.

If she couldn't beat her, she will become what she feared most.

With her hands swinging to her side, eyes staring over her shoulder as she admired and conversed with the paintings, she hadn't realised how much time had gone by, until she heard a rush of students break free from a charm's classroom (a Saturday catch up class) down the corridor. Luckily, the staircase was in the other direction, and Antonella was left to peacefully speak to the painting, Sir Savon Bizets, an olden aristocratic man who funded the herbology course in the early days of Hogwarts.

"I've heard many interesting things about you, Miss Fortescue," said Sir Savon, his hair was a glossy blond, his smile stupidly wide and dressed in an interesting assortment of purples and green rags. Supposably it was the height of fashion in his times.

"Do tell," Antonella responded curiously, "Is the saying true? That walls can talk?"

The painting let a small laugh loose from his mouth, and it exposed impossibly white teeth for a man who didn't have access to toothpaste, "My, my... aren't you like dear Rowena."

Her eyes lit up, "Do you mean Rowena Ravenclaw?"

He nodded his head, as his elbow rested onto his knee. The green flowery behind him glowed an unusual violet, a violet that matched nothing but her eyes, a violet she didn't believe existed in paint during his time... when it was painted.

"How?", her eyes grew.

His crooked teeth was the only imperfection Antonella could find in him, "I did know dear Rowena, but at las this paint stops me from speaking from my time, instead I can only recite what the books say. My purple is not what it used to be, I used to be my house colours... but atlas, I was remodelled."

His riddle was strange, but Antonella hadn't spent 6 years in Ravenclaw to not be able to decipher a terrible attempt of a riddle. The painting was telling her that he had been repainted, that someone was changing the narrative, and somehow that unnerved her more than anything. If it is that easy to change the narrative in wizarding culture, what else has she been lied about?