back of the kitchens
saturday 12 january 1974
9:44 a.m.
Santiago hated Hogwarts, and now that winter had come, he hated it even more.
Everything was cold,
all the time—his hands, his face, the damn stone floors. The air bit at his skin the second he stepped outside, so he’d chosen to set up in the kitchens. Not because he liked them, but because it was warm.
The heat was constant, thick with the smells of butter, roasted meats, cinnamon, and sage. It was the closest he ever got to smells of home in this miserable, frozen castle. He liked the way he could always smell a hint of wood smoke too, and how it curled into the cool, earthy scent of old stone.
That morning he’d set up in what was becoming
his spot—right by the fire, but still close enough to the tall windows where streaks of pale January light filtered through the fogged up glass. He’d angled his easel to catch the widest of the sunbeams, not just for lighting, but for warmth, so his fingers would not stiffen up.
The wooden palette resting on his left hand held muted grays, raw umber, titanium white, aged gold, ivory black. There was bustling going on behind him, house elves scurrying around, clattering of copper pots, the smell of roasted chestnuts, and something sweet drifted through the air.
He ignored it.
Santiago focused only on dragging his brush in broad strokes, carving out a fog; a dense, swirling void on the canvas, the place the hands would emerge from. Some hands were already there, outlined faintly in charcoal. Some hands dissolved at the edges, frayed and smudged, while others were painstakingly lifelike in their detail. Almost too solid, too real—
too familiar. Santiago had painted the knuckles, the veins, the soft half moons of fingernails all in sharp contrast.
All the hands were reaching out.
Vaguely, he registered a house elf shuffling over to him, a mumble of hot chocolate, and the elf was away again. He didn’t look up. But maybe he’d thank them later.
His focus stayed on the canvas, on the hands stretching out from nothing, reaching for something that wasn’t there—or someone—that wouldn’t come back.
(
Except she had.)