Most people would never notice unless they knew exactly what to look for, but the castle bore clear signs of age along its walls and corridors. Little things such as discoloration, hairline fractures, and patches of mold in dark corners that no one ever seemed to notice. For all that he was the castle's caretaker, Filch did very little actual maintenance or cleaning, and it showed. Julian let his hand trail over an old crack in one of the stone walls, lost in thought for a moment. Even with generations of witches and wizards living here, this place still feels the weight of time, he thought. He could not help imagining that one day he too might age in much the same way as the castle, still standing firm but marked by countless small imperfections.
He had already made peace with the fact that his body would stop aging once it reached its prime, but his mind would continue to grow old. What he feared most, however, was something Celebrimbor had warned him elves often suffered from, time blur, where vast stretches of existence seemed to vanish while one simply moved through the motions of daily life. To fight against that, Julian intended to stay connected to the rest of the world and keep himself constantly stimulated by it.
That was the true reason he planned to reveal his immortality to the world someday in the future, because otherwise it was unlikely he would be able to hide it forever anyway. As the people inside it woke, the castle itself seemed to wake with them and begin moving through its final day of the school year. Julian watched friends spend time together one last time before a long separation, saw students rushing either to finish borrowed books from the library or return them before leaving. Even enemies appeared to be avoiding conflict, as if all of them understood that any grudges acted on now would be meaningless.
Julian himself spent some of that time chatting with the portraits he had come to know fairly well during his year at the school. He was caught off guard, though, when a male ghost approached him, one covered in blood, with messy brown hair and dressed in old fashioned noble clothing.
"Where has she gone?" the ghost demanded, as though he already knew Julian had the answer.
Julian fixed the ghost with a cold stare, partly because the question was rude and partly because those bloodstains belonged to Helena herself. The ghost standing before him was none other than the man who had killed her, Slytherin's house ghost, the Bloody Baron.
"And why would the ghost of Slytherin House want to know where the ghost of Ravenclaw House has gone?" Julian asked mockingly.
The Baron frowned and looked down at him as if weighing him, but Julian made sure to stare directly back into the ghost's eyes without yielding an inch.
"Do not trifle with me, boy, or you will regret it. Tell me where Helena went," the Baron threatened.
Julian only laughed and deliberately walked straight through the ghost, making it clear just how little he cared about the threat. The Bloody Baron could do nothing except watch him go with clenched teeth and an angry glare before floating away, no doubt to vent his frustration on Peeves.
Julian had come to think of Helena as family, so he disliked the Bloody Baron intensely because the ghost had murdered her before turning the same knife on himself. Helena might speak of her death as if she did not care anymore, but she still went out of her way to avoid Slytherin's ghost even now because of it. Julian was strongly tempted to use the Nazgul ring on the Baron, but he resisted. Whatever the ghost had done, he still did not deserve what that ring would do to him.
...
Julian refused to let the confrontation sour his mood and continued his walk through the castle without any further trouble. Along the way he saw the twins pranking as many people as possible, as if trying to get in as much mischief as they could before summer began, and he even spotted Peeves helping them. The twins knew better than to try anything on Julian, but the poltergeist did not, and it hurled a water balloon at him with a wild cackle.
Julian only smiled and pointed his wand at it. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he said with a swish and flick, stopping the balloon in midair.
Then, with a sharp upward motion, he sent it flying back the way it had come, straight into Peeves's face, where it burst and drenched him. Unlike ghosts, a poltergeist like Peeves could both interact with physical objects and possessed a kind of physical body itself, so the water balloon worked perfectly.
"GAH! How dare you do this to me!" the jester-like creature screeched furiously.
"Waddiwasi!" Julian said, aiming his wand at Peeves.
A bolt of red energy shot out, struck the poltergeist, and made it vanish. The spell only banished beings like Peeves temporarily, since as an amortal creature it could not actually be destroyed.