I made a new friend. She is a painting. Closed

@Wyatt Starkey

Sarah was late for her next class, haven gotten carried away reading in the library and completely losing track of time. It was something which was happening considerably more often than she might like, but she found it hard to put down a good book once she’d started. It was therefore becoming somewhat of a habit for her to turn up to class a few minutes late. “It’s not like it’s making my grades drop,” she reasoned with herself as she cast a quick Tempus and saw that her Transfiguration class had started fifteen minutes prior. “Well, I can’t show up now. There’s fashionably late, and then there’s downright rude,” she said, ironically abhorred at the idea of being rude to a figure of authority as if she hadn’t been doing just that for the better part of her life so far.

She’d just decided to turn back – undeterred by the possibility of being punished for her skipping class – and make her way outside for some fresh air, when he ears zoned in on voices. Ever the curious one, she couldn’t help but turn the next corner to see who else was roaming the corridors. Her eyes landed on a tall brunette who was animatedly discussing something – Paris, perhaps – with a portrait hung on one of the walls.

She could feel a bubble of laughter rising up from her throat, but managed to bite her lip to stop the noise form coming out. It was funny. Seeing the boy stood happily chatting to the cheery looking woman within the frame. The humour didn’t come from a place of mallice, rather that the scene looked rather absurd. It wasn’t often that students here held long conversations with any of the portraits – often due to the lack of interest from the painting rather than the students – so the sight looked foreign to her.

Somehow she could tell the boy wasn’t a Hogwarts student. His accent was the first clue, but he seemed to hold himself differently too, as if he didn't quite know his place here. She found herself more drawn to him, perhaps because of this, both because of her love of interacting with anything new and different, and because the usual prejudices and fears held against Slytherin students – particularly ones who appeared as intimidating as her – might not apply. She opened her mouth to speak, a joking quip about also preferring to speak to portraits over people anyway on the tip of her tongue, before a sudden sigh sounded from beside her. Her entire body jolted at the unexpected sound which with a sharp turn of her head, she realised was from another portrait just to her right. She immediately felt silly for jumping at such a thing and the laughter which had threatened to come out earlier slipped passed her lips – obnoxiously loud, accidentally mocking, and definitely heard by the boy she’d been watching.