Walk Much?

As a third year, Aleta could leave the castle to go to the village that she had heard so much about. Instead of going today, she stayed to get some homework done. It was only the beginning of the school year and she was already worrying about her grades. It was still difficult to do school work because of French not being her first language. She still found herself looking up words or asking her roommate what the word meant. She also had to worry about quidditch practice and being a good captain. So far, she was doing alright with everything.

Once her homework was complete, she decided to have a nice walk around the castle. She wanted to stay clear from the paranormal that the castle held, ghosts freaked her out. She was frightened easily and she disliked anything that she considered scary. So when she thought she saw something move from the corner of her eye, she quickened her pace and moved to the other side of the hall. She hadn't been paying attention to what was in front of her and she bumped right into someone. "Sorry!" She felt like such a clutz.

Despite it being a nice day and all, Haruhi decided to remain at the castle, rather than going to Cheval. It was exciting to the third year at first, but after a few visits, it had already lost it's novelty so Haruhi decided to only go when she had someone to go with. Instead, she planned on exploring the castle that day.

She had heard from some upperclassmen about how on the sixth floor, there was a portrait that marked a secret passageway. The story sounded cool enough to her to investigate and didn't have any downsides besides it not being real, so she set off to the sixth floor in search of it. Unfortunately, she hadn't heard enough specific details so she had no idea where to look on that floor or what the portrait looked like. She decided to ask them all.

"Excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt you, sir," Haruhi started, tapping on the frame of a portrait of an old looking wizard with the most bizzare looking mustache that seemingly defied gravity with it's multiple swirls of hair. He must've been dozing off for he was startled by the third year and fumbled around in the frame to find his glasses.

"Good evening, Mademoiselle," the portrait greeted. The man seemed like a good-natured, jolly fellow. Haruhi giggled in response.

"It is just past breakfast, Monsieur," She replied, still chuckling. "I believe the saying is 'good morning,'" she corrected and continued to laugh along with the man in the portrait. This was much more fun than going to Cheval. That was, until suddenly someone came from seemingly no where and knocked right into her. She caught her fall on the ground and rose again, wondering if she was instead pushed, but the familiar looking girl apologized right away.

"That's okay. Try to be more careful next time, okay?" Her eyes traced over the girl. She recognized her as someone from her year, for she definitely had classes with her before. "Do you know about a portrait that has a secret passageway behind it?" Haruhi asked the girl and then turned towards the portrait she was talking to to see if he knew of one.