Chapter 34 – A Hair Out of Place
It was subtle.
The shift in the air. The faint scent of roses—no, too faint to be the enchanted oils he used. Different. Sharper. Familiar.
Sirius stepped back from the painting, brush still resting in his fingers. Something pricked at the back of his mind, like the echo of a presence that shouldn't have been there.
He scanned the room with quiet, deliberate precision.
The easels were in place. The canvases untouched. The candles burned low, just as he'd left them. His desk, still cluttered with half-written verses in that old, broken language only he remembered, hadn't moved.
And yet...
His eyes narrowed.
A strand of dark hair on the floor—long, curled near the threshold. Not his.
The door hadn't been sealed with magic tonight. He hadn't expected anyone to be bold—or foolish—enough to enter. After all, no one dared.
No one was allowed.
He brushed his fingers over the edge of a nearby statue, and paused.
Smudged.
As if someone had touched her cheek.
A low breath escaped him. Not quite a sigh. Not quite anger.
Not yet.
He turned back to the painting—the one he had just spoken to with all the softness he denied the world. And now the feeling returned: that someone else had heard him. That his voice had not fallen only on painted ears.
Sirius stepped toward the center of the room.
He closed his eyes.
Listened.
And for the first time in years, the quiet did not feel comforting.
It felt... watched.
And he don't like it .