A/N: Hiya! This series of shorts is based on the song Nobody Expects by the Blibbering Humdingers. Check it out if you haven't already, it's a fun song (and for the record, I've got nothing to do with the song, just like listening to it, and obviously don't own Harry Potter).
Anyways, listening to the song eventually turned some of those weird things into headcanons for me and voila, these shorts happened. I'm going to try to write about all of them, headcanons or not. Hope you enjoy :)
Nobody expects... Argus Filch to practice oil painting,
It's a correspondence course, all those happy little trees.
-Nobody Expects by the Blibbering Humdingers
Argus Filch shuffled down to his office, grumbling under his breath. That Peeves caused him nothing but misery, day in and day out. He was getting too old for this, should probably retire. Then again, what would he do if he wasn't working here? And who would take care of the school if he left? This was something he could at least do. Yes, if nothing else Argus Filch knew how to take care of Hogwarts.
Filch opened the door that lead to his room and sat down heavily in his chair. Mrs. Norris purred as she rubbed against his leg and he absentmindedly scratched her head. Now, where had he been?
In front of him was an easel with a half-finished painting on it. The painting was clumsy and amateurish but Filch was quite proud of it. He picked up a paintbrush and began adding another tree to the forest behind the hills he had painted as a foreground.
Landscapes were all he had painted so far but he believed he had gotten quite good at it. His mentor from the correspondence course had even praised his shading on the piece he sent him. Filch kept the letter at the top of one of his drawers, occasionally reading through it again, pride filling him every time. Who needed paintings of people anyways? He had enough of those running around on the walls of the castle. No, landscapes were best.
He was extremely glad now to have taken up the course Irma had suggested. When she first told him she was learning book mending by mail he had found it quite ridiculous, especially since she could just use a spell for it. But it was much more satisfying to do things by hand, she said, and he should try taking up a class of something, if only to pass the time. He remembered scoffing when she suggested painting, but signing up for it anyways. Nobody would have expected, least of all him, that painting would become his pride and joy.
The old man painted late into the night, no sounds disturbing the silence except for the purring of his cat, the low crackle of the fire in the hearth and the strokes of his brush on the canvas.