Pomona came to the tiered music classroom. Since it was winter, the frogs of the Frog Choir seemed listless, as though there was no hope of expecting them to perform a chorus at Christmas.
She found a seat and looked at the place where Sirius Black had once sat. Nothing in the school had changed, yet the people were no longer the same.
Listening to the music played in the portraits, she let out a long sigh.
At times, Voldemort appeared in her mind, smiling demonically; at others, Sirius Black appeared beneath the sunlight, even his eyelashes gleaming. Both were extraordinarily beautiful.
Buddha had said that beauty and ugliness were concepts created in our hearts, inseparable from the five aggregates.
Both were Flora, yet Titian's Flora needed no adornments such as a flower crown, as if she herself were a flower.
But in Rembrandt's painting, he had used his own wife as the model, though she was far inferior to the Flora painted by Titian.
In one person's eyes, anything could be considered beautiful, and anything could be considered ugly. A river, a cloud, a leaf, a flower, or a golden afternoon—each possessed a different sort of beauty.
Yet perhaps there was no beauty at all. At least, in Bill's eyes, Émilie Taylor no longer attracted him. Though only in his sixth year, he had already begun reviewing for his N.E.W.T.s. Pomona often saw him at a window-side seat in the library.
If he had merely been an ordinary student, there would have been nothing wrong with that. But as a prefect, he was somewhat neglectful of his duties. Minerva would not enter the Gryffindor common room, but a prefect could. Bill ought to have shown more leadership.
Then she thought of Sirius and James. They had tossed frog-spawn soap