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Professor Hanneman's locks are better than Professor Manuela's, in that he usually remembers to put them back into place. Regardless, Claude has met and picked better.
Byleth, Unknown crest begins the document. Much of it is technical, diagrams and notes referring back to books and essays that Claude hasn't heard of, and doesn't have time to cross-reference.
When he's done, he puts every scrap of paper back into place, tucks away the notebooks and locks the drawers back up. It's not a lot of information to go on, even when combined with the medical files Claude peeked at.
Even so, there's enough to tell that something is wrong about Byleth. Very wrong. He thinks there's been something wrong ever since he and the two lordlings first ran into soft-spoken and stone-faced Byleth all those months ago, lurking only just out of sight.
Archbishop Rhea is hiding something big. He knows that from Jeralt's diary, and that she's also not very subtle about her suspicious interest in Byleth. She might have more information, better information, but Claude gets the feeling that she won't have much left lying about the way Hanneman and Manuela did. Being discovered snooping by her is a risk he isn't willing to take.
Seteth perhaps...? But he's not likely to be any more unguarded, and his loyalty to the Church means he might report Claude's indiscretions.
So. Straight to the source it is.
People are creatures of habit, though grief tends to distort even the most steadfast. Claude looks around the dining hall, then the fishing pond, and even pokes his head by the greenhouse. He finds Dedue silently tending to a pot overflowing with pale star-shaped flowers, but not much else.
It's entirely by chance that he spots the back of a pale green head of hair in the corridors by the lecture halls. They... don't look not okay, Claude hazards. The same as ever, really, except for the fact that they haven't realized that he's just rounded the corner. That is perhaps most telling of the fact that there's anything to worry about.
"Yo, Teach!" Claude waves Byleth over. "Everything okay? How are you feeling?"
Emotions are... a new thing for Byleth, he's gathered. Even for a person with what he'd call a healthy and longstanding relationship with emotions, the burden of the past month would be enough to break under. For someone whose first exposure to the full depth of feeling was every darkness that the heart was capable of, a heady mix of sorrow and rage and vengeance and fear... Well.
Toss in a spontaneous and an as yet unheard of magical transformation, and nobody can blame Claude for wanting to know if he's still in the blast zone for the breakdown that's likely incoming.
Byleth takes a while to answer, which is mildly concerning. When they do speak, they only shake their head and mutter, "Not my bones," which is actually utterly terrifying.
Claude laughs, and hopes his nervousness isn't obvious. "What was that?"
Their fingers curl around the hilt of their sword. They've started doing that a lot. It's the same way that a lot of the students from Faerghus – and, huh, Edelgard too, now that Claude thinks about it – cradle the careworn handles of the knives they keep at their belts.
Byleth shakes their head again. Their hand doesn't leave their sword, grip white-knuckled. "Never mind," they say, turning away. "It will pass. All beginnings have an end. All will be well."
"Wait!" Claude calls, but they've already departed like a ghost, the fading echo of footsteps on stone the only remnant of their presence.