They wander down the hallway leisurely. Since it is their first Saturday in Hogwarts, they decide to explore the castle some more. With every turn they take, they step deeper into the heart of Hogwarts, descending staircases they are not sure whether they are allowed to or not. But if there are neither warnings nor locks what is to stop them.
They reach a dark hallway down at the end of a small staircase. As they step into it, torches flicker into bluish flames. The darkness turns into an endless tunnel, much boarder then they had expected it to be. The walls are built over ancient arches that are carcked in odd patterns. There are no windows nor light. And yet, deep within the castle, they hear the wind howling through and feel it brushing past their faces. Over the whistle of the wind, the quitest sounds of whispers can be heard.
The hallway is flanked with paintings. Albus and Scorpius approach them keeping close to each other, noticing the painting noticing them. These are very different from most of the paintings in Hogwarts. They look less like brush strokes but more skin gleaming in the bluish light. Their eyes follow them quietly.
Scorpius stops, and carefully approaches the painting of a woman with black hair and a cold expression. She stares at Scorpius intensely, and Albus watches her in turn. She leans over as he does the same to read what is written underneath her. She looks as though any moment she can fall out of the painting.
She wears silky robes, which move like water as she leans back again. The scarf that loosely falls over her head contains the same, slowly moving patterns.
Scorpius gasps softly, and Albus jumps at the sound. "THEY ARE THE FOUNDERS!"
Albus glances around him, feeling the eyes of an entire hallway lined with paintings, pinned onto them.
"The founders?"
"This is Rowena Ravenclaw," Scorpius says. His voice rolls over the hallways, returning in oddly deformed echoes.
Albus stares back at the woman, who arches her eyebrow at him. Unlike the other paintings in the castle, these do not speak to them. There are only incoherent whispers, which crisscross into each other like mice behind the walls.
Across from Rowena is a stout man with a beard, and a very real glint in his eyes. His face betrays a hint of amusement as he watches them, and Albus imagines him to have a very deep and throaty laugh. For a moment Godric Gryffindor glances at the painting diagonally across from him. The other man glares back stoically. Albus almost does not recognise him, Salazar Slytherin. He has delicate features. Scorpius however barely pays him attention. He has moved on to Helga Hufflepuff. She is a small and round-faced, probably the youngest of them. There is knowing look on her face. Albus has the feeling she knows far more about whats going on than they do, even though she is a painting. She too does not say anything.
"Lets keep going."
Scorpius' voice sounds unpleasantly and sharp.
They pass the paintings of all the past headmaster and headmistresses, all chronologically ordered. Each of them has a label underneath them that states their full name, and rather than their year of birth and death, the years in which they served Hogwarts. The wind grows stronger as they walked further down, and Albus shivers involuntarily. Even though they walk next to each other, hands tapping occasionally, neither of them say another word. They glance at each other sometimes, or slow down to take a good look at people they have already heard of, but they do not speak.
Albus' eyes fall upon one of the longest name tags he has ever seen. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. He looks up slowly, and an old wizard looks back. This Albus has snowy white hair thats falls over his shoulders in waves, and robes in rich, purple colour. His half-moon-shaped glasses sit at the very tip of his nose, behind which his small kind eyes stare back. A warm smile broadens the old mans lips. Albus takes a step back.
This is the man he is named after. A wise old wizard who had skills and knowledge that frightened even the darkest wizards. Many of the paintings hint at infinite power, but this one is the very image of infinite peace. And it is much more powerful than all the other ones together.
It frightens him, because this man is more than Albus can ever hope to be.
They move together to the last painting. He does not need to read the name tag to know whom he is looking at. After having passed many previous headmasters and headmistresses, often royally dressed and peculiarrly looking paintings, the last one stands out because of its simplicity, but not necessarily in a good way. Severus Snape is an eye sore. His sallow skin his a corpse-like quality in the bluish light of the hallway, and his clothes are plain black robes. Upon their silent staring, his glare only intensifies. But his death has written history, he died without fear but love. Love to those who died for love. Thats why he is great, And one day Albus Severus Potter wants to be great too. He realises, with no little bitterness, that he will never bring his own name, only theirs. And he will always be compared, not only to his fathers greatness, but to theirs too. He will always bound to two men he never knew.