Their watchful eyes
Before Hadrian knew it the next day was there, their fourth day of Hogwarts and the first time he’d be going to his classes with friends. It was a small achievement in hindsight but to Hadrian it was an achievement nonetheless.
Slytherins as a house tend to roam the castle in at least groups of three, of course not wanting to risk any ‘pranks’ being sent their way while they are alone. Hadrian was lucky, had God watching over him or at the very least a set of slytherins, Hadrian had spent the last four years at Hogwarts more or less on his own. At least slightly, though he was never seen with a group of people more often than not a couple of slytherins were either trailing behind him or kept slight watchful eyes on him if they saw him. After All they all knew what it was like to be walking alone, especially if certain houses noticed the lack of friends around them.
Making his way to breakfast in a group was weird. No one noticed though, no stares were directed at them, and Hadrian had certainly looked for them. Hadrian sat in his usual spot on the table, not too deep into the length of the table but not exactly close to the door either. Hadrian made it his main focus to be close to an exit, in case he had to leave, something he’s had to do many times in the orphanage.
It was only a minute after he had taken his seat when he felt them watching him, the rest of them noticed too, having been subtly glancing at the direction of the teachers table. They all, especially Hadrian, knew not to look Not wanting to accidently lock eyes with one of them.
“Wow they're about as subtle as a Dragon aren’t they?” Millicent spoke, focusing on the food she was cutting, slowly turning to face Hadrian who was one of many that had raised their heads when she started to speak.
“Are they always this obvious?” Theodore spoke, sat just to Hadrian's right, leaning in as he did.
“Yes.” Hadrian responded, already annoyed that he couldn’t even start eating before eyes were on him, atleast at the orphanage he knew it was a stare of hate.
“Oh come on guys, as if Black has ever known the meaning of the word subtle.” Blaise said, chuckling slightly as he did from his seat opposite Theo.
“Merlin, it's like the man can’t sit still. It’s a miracle no one else has pointed it out to him.” Draco seemed to feel the same agitation as hadrian had. “ Pathetic “ Draco Scoffed, returning to the food in front of him.
“Pathetic is putting it lightly Draco. '' Pansy all but spat out, grimace on her face as she finished her mouthful. She turned to Hadrian from her place opposite draco. “Make sure to eat Hadrian, you've hardly touched your food.” Sure enough Hadrian had only taken maybe a bite or two in the last seven minutes, he wasn't exactly in the mood to eat, the eyes on him unsettling him greatly.
“I’m not exactly hungry, thank you Pansy.” The rest of the slytherins spared him a slight glance, Bloody light side and their interest in Hadrian. The rest of breakfast passed rather quickly, all of them steadily making their way to their classes for the day, thankful that Lupin and Blacks lesson was their last lesson of the day.
Adapting to the space around him being taken up by so many people was starting to make a feeling grow under Hadrian's skin. Never before had he had so many people so close and not want to- do something to him. He felt on edge to say the least. As if at any moment the other shoe was going to drop. His routine that he had adapted to over the years was becoming messed up.
Hadrian had a way of doing things, things that would keep him from getting noticed, but with the sudden crowd that stayed attached to his side it threatened to fade away. He lived on the fact that he was invisible, no one ever paid him any mind unless they needed him, or wanted to blow off steam or one of the many other reasons people would seek out a useless orphan.
The day was dragging on slower and slower than Hadrian felt comfortable with. To fix this itch he was feelin, when lunch started and his friends had started making their way to the great hall, Hadrian slipped away. He was good at that, going unnoticed. Once he was certain he was out of their eyesight, Hadrian let out a breath and made the slow walk to the library.
During his first few years, Hadrian has come to almost live inside the large walls of the library. The orphanage didn't have many books, the ones they did have had been thoroughly inspected by the sisters before ever making it into their grasp. Hadrian had never known that a library could be so large. By the angels was the Hogwarts library large.
Just like the gates at the orphanage the rows of shelves loomed over Hadrian and every other student. Hadrian found himself not minding the tall shelves, knowing that unlike the gates of the orphanage these looming figures weren’t going to lock him away, no it was quite the opposite. Hadrian at first had wanted to learn everything, having these insane ideas of finding answers in the walls of books. What answer was he looking for? After two years Hadrian stopped asking himself, making himself content on the idea that maybe just maybe not everything in life was a question he needed answering.
Hadrian scoured the walls nearly every day, at first it had been for religious texts or something that resembled a religion, he had yet to find something. The library at Hogwarts was insanely big, classes and homework took up a lot of his time, he was new to it all of course hence trying to absorb in as many books as he could to try and stand a chance against his classmates.
In a way Hadrian felt a sort of need to be smart, his life at the orphanage was surrounded by limited knowledge afterall. Plus it was in his name sake after all.
On rare occasions that a child was abandoned on their doorsteps without so much as a birth certificate, the sisters would take it upon themselves to name the children that would live in their walls. Over the years many children had been given such names from Teresa to Augustine to Joseph and Francis, each named after a saint that each sister had thought of at that moment. Hadrian's name had been chosen by sister Anne who was an older woman, who left the orphanage not too long after Hadrian arrived. Sister Anne had spent many years as a traveling nun, she had spent her youth however in Canterbury,that was where she had learnt of Saint Hadrian more commonly known as Adrian. The man was of african descent much like sister Anne herself and had played a vital role in shaping the english church, bringing his teachings to Canterbury. That was how his name came to be, sadly there had already ben an Adrian in the orphanage, Making sister Anne inclined to add the ‘h’ and in doing so solidifying his name as Hadrian.
Before sister Anne left when Hadrian was just roughly six years old the woman explained how his name was linked with great knowledge and that in her heart she knew as she laid her eyes on Hadrian the day he arrived that he was meant for wonderful things. Hadrian felt an urge to make the woman proud. Hence his frequent habitation of the library, he was sure that the woman wouldn't have encouraged this behavior had she known Hadrian's true lineage but that was besides the point.
Roughly twenty or so minutes later, once Hadrian was crammed away in a nook in the middle of the library far away from the others in the library, a figure appeared at his side, taking the seat open next to Hadrian at the small table. Hadrian turned to face the person.
“I noticed you had ran off, I thought I'd find you here.” Draco spoke quietly to Hadrian, a small smile on his face.
Hadrian felt sort of guilty for just leaving as he had.
“I just needed some time alone.” Hadrian said, having grown far more confident in speaking since their first conversation the night before. Draco only smiled.
“I’d thought as much, don't worry sometimes we all need a moment away from each other.” Draco reassured, knowing just what to say to calm Hadrian's nerves.
“Maybe I could join you? I missed a bit of reading during the summer.” Part of Hadrian truly believed that if he declined Draco would have happily left, leaving him alone, but company was a nice thing and it was the library so the noise wouldn't be a problem. He smiled, sitting up even straighter than he had been before.
“Sure, some company would be nice.” And so that was how they spent their remaining lunch time, a break before the inevitable lesson with Black was to come.
When the time came Draco and Hadrian made their way out of the library, the rest of the group being just around the corner as they made their way to their final class of the day. Hadrian was rather happy that as fifth years they had more free periods to study, and recover from Black's stares.
Hadrian and the slytherins took up the back rows of the mandatory class, spreading out as they did so. It didn't take long for the gryffindors who they sadly shared the class with to come bursting through the door, alerting their presence with an incredible amount of noise for such a small set of people. Longbottom and his two tails leading the loud bunch as always, claiming the seats directly in front of the teachers desk as they always did. The gryffindors made it their mission to always be close to Black during class, as they were more likely to get his attention that way, that day however they were going to be disappointed.
This lesson was their first official lesson, the one on their first day had been nothing more than a summer review which Black never attended citing that it was far too boring to sit through. Meaning that this lesson was the first in which Hadrian had been at best a few meters away from the man.
Black was about as obvious as a hippogriff in a china shop, His eyes were immediately on Hadrian the second he entered the room, the man was eerily quiet which was very unlike himself. No, unlike his usual itching to speak self, the very same person who would walk and talk as Lupin tried to teach and sit on the front desks as he regaled some insane story was now sitting behind the desk he barely even acknowledged biting at his lip. Everyone had noticed, the only thing stopping the trio at the front of the room from commenting was the stare from Lupin and the slight fact that whatever was wrong with Black wasn't something they wanted to declare in a room full of ‘death eater scum’ as they would say.
Lupin himself while glancing every few minutes quickly to Hadrian spent the majority of the lesson snapping Black back to reality as he seemed to zone out while staring directly at Hadrian at the back of the class and growing more embarrassed with every time he did.
The hour and a half class dragged on, everyone all but itching to leave, Lupin included. Absentmindedly writing down the necessary information that Lupin was saying, the man finally dismissed the class, wanting more than anything for it to end.
The slytherins calmly packed away as usual unlike most of the gryffindors who had all but ran out of the room, all beside the nosey three. Now the three of them quickly moved to approach Black, blocking the exits from the stairs and benches as they did, leaving only a small gap between the desk and them to move past them in the direction of the door.
“Are you okay Sirius?” “Has something happened?” “You were out of it all lesson” The trio all mumbled out to Black, the man who had moved to stand in front of them had no words, still very conscious of the Boy left in the classroom and the words of Dumbledore in his mind. Black spared a glance to Lupin, “Uhh.” He spoke.
At That moment the slytherins moved to leave, Hadrian the first of them trying to squeeze past Weasley, the one next to the only gap in their way to the door. Hadrian tried to shimmy past only to be side shoved quite harshly by Weasley. Hadrian's side hit the edge of the desk with quite a bit of force, his hand unclasping just outside of his pocket as he moved to grab himself, not wanting to fall. “Watch where you're going” Weasley spat, glaring at Hadrian as he did, his friends eye rolling at the rest of the slytherins as he did.
“Don’t take up the entire walkway then Weasel” Pansy spat back, pushing past him as she did, equal amount of disgust in her voice. The rest of the group of slytherins followed suit soon after, Hadrian insanely annoyed he hadn't noticed Weasleys movement as he usually would have, he had been too focused in trying to leave the room and get away from Black to pay it any mind.
Lupin and Black watched them all go, the trio sparing them a quick glance.
“So? what's wrong Sirius? you can tell us,” Longbottom happily said to Black, a smile on his face, the man and him always told eachother everything.
“Yeah Sirius, what is it?” Weasley chimed in with a smile, Granger at their side adding an encouraging nod.
“Oh it's nothing, just reminiscing is all, nothing important i promise.” The man laughed back, pulling himself together to act as he usually did, He moved to usher them out as he finished. “Now come on, why don't you three go cause chaos somewhere else, me and Remus need to sort out our next lesson.” Sirius chimed, trying to get them to leave as soon as possible, and he knew how much like him the kids were, always wanting to cause chaos just as he and ja- oh wasn’t that gut wrenching to think of.
As Sirius moved to all but force the children to leave, Lupin turned to go sit at his desk, suddenly feeling exhausted. With his eyes more focussed on his steps he noticed something sitting on the floor by the slightly moved desk. Without wanting to draw any attention, Remus spared a look in Black's direction, once he was sure he wasn't looking Remus quickly bent down and grabbed the object in his hand. Luckily for him, the kids were a hard bunch to get rid of, giving him time to really look at the object in his hand.
He knew that the only person this close to the desk had been Hadrian, meaning that as he was shoved he must have unknowingly dropped what was in his hand. Lupin knew what the object was, he was more confused on why Hadrian had it more than anything. What he did know however was that he couldn't tell Sirius or anyone else. For one the man wouldnt understand what it was let alone what it meant or symbolized and he’d have to prepare thoroughly to have that conversation with the man. Lupin quickly placed the thing in his pocket, hearing the goodbyes the trio were giving to Sirius.
The man in question all but dragged himself to his seat behind his normally unused desk. He dropped into his seat with a sigh, resting his hands on the desk and then placing his head on them. After a second Black turned to Lupin, a look of defeat in his eyes.
“What are we going to do Remus? This is so much harder than I thought it would be moony, I just want to walk to him. Dumbledore won't let up on his word though. I just want to talk to him moony, is that so bad?” Sirius said, a cry making its way into his words ever so slightly. Lupin was in disbelief, he didn't know what to feel. Anger? No, that didn't fit. No, he was disappointed and overwhelmed. He couldn't believe what Black had just said. Slowly, his chair scraped loudly against the floor in the quiet room as he did, he slowly turned his head to look at Black.
“Where was this in the past two years Sirius? He’s been a stone's throw away from us for two years and you haven't once tried to talk to him.” Lupin shook his head, turning to walk out of the classroom door, not wanting to look his friend in the face. Black was too stunned to speak, frozen in place as he watched Lupin leave.
As he left, Lupin couldn't help but slightly hate the man he shared his classroom with. Slowly he made his way in the direction of his room, trying to clear his head.
As he did, the weight in his pocket grew heavier. The rosary in his pocket almost weighing him down with each step he took.