Prompt 6: Picture
Canvas
Salazar has seen more students pass beneath him than any other painting in the castle. The Headmasters, who invariably have beards and worry lines and warmer smiles than he himself ever had, change his position when they take office – they leave Rowena to guard Ravenclaw tower, Helga is never taken away from her precious greenhouses and Godric balances on the edge of the Owlery (he never quite understood why), but Salazar's place has been changed so often that he sometimes feels as if he's been hanging upside down for centuries. Maybe he has.
The cruelty of it all is that he still has enough conscience to recall that he once knew things, but not enough to remember them. It's frustrating, like how the green-striped ties of some pupils inspire a strange kind of excitement in him and he doesn't know why. He tries to press through the canvas but he is the canvas and he's only tearing himself apart. There's a small moment before he sinks back into his monotony. When he looks up again, he wants to try again. Hundreds of years have finally taught him that it's not possible – he knows he used to learn things much faster before, but that's all he knows.
The last headmaster has put him up on some distant ridge down in the dungeons. Lots of children with green-striped ties pass him and they often nod at him. Salazar doesn't acknowledge them, feels the strange pang of something in his linen body. He's been smeared and streaked and hit with all sorts of potions, but sometimes he still feels his limbs. All he can think of is that he doesn't know the way to Godric's painting from down here.
He leans against the frame, closes his eyes and waits for the next headmaster.