Closer.
A month had passed.
The church was quiet, the summer heat settling over the stone walls like a heavy blanket. Harry had almost convinced himself that nothing strange had happened. That the night in the corridor had been his mind playing tricks on him. That the presence watching him in the potrait wasn’t really there.
But then the portrait moved.
It wasn’t in the hall anymore.
It was closer.
Hanging just a few doors down from his room.
Harry stood in front of it now, heart thudding in his chest.
The nun’s face was the same—pale, hollow, staring. But something was off.
The shadows around her looked deeper.
The black void behind her seemed to stretch further into nothingness, like she wasn’t just painted on the canvas, but inside it.
Harry swallowed.
Had the background always been that dark?
Had the edges of her habit always looked like they were shifting?
His fingers curled into fists.
This wasn’t normal.
He had never seen anyone move the painting. The nuns at the church didn’t even acknowledge its existence, and he was sure it hadn’t been here before.
His magic stirred, restless.
It recognized the presence in the painting. It was the same force that had pressed against him in the dark, the same suffocating weight he had felt in his bones.
She was watching.
Waiting.
Harry forced himself to step back. He turned, walking toward his room, but he could still feel it. The weight of her gaze.
It didn’t matter if he wasn’t looking.
She was still there.
And now she was closer.