paper chasing (watchfuleye) wrote in from_the_ashes, @ 2010-02-17 23:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | char: pete, char: william, plot: evil painting |
Who: Pete and William
When: Wednesday, midday
Where: That is an excellent question.
What: ...the hell happened?
There had been an alarming number of staff disappearances over the past day. Not deaths, not that anyone knew, but it was enough to make even the most optimistic of Hufflepuffs look solemn over their morning porridge. The headmaster had assigned substitutes to hastily rescheduled classes and declared that every spare minute be spent in finding out exactly what was going on.
William had been buried in books for most of the morning, but so far the only plausible explanation he had come up with was 'Portkey', and both Headmaster Schechter and the Defence experts had sworn the possibly-Cursed painting currently locked away behind wards in an unused classroom wasn't a Portkey. Presumably everyone had also been careful not to touch it, which was further evidence against the Portkey hypothesis, but William hadn't been able to come up with a better suggestion.
There was a spell called a 'compleat bauble' listed in one of the Elizabethan-era texts which seemed to detail the containment of a person or persons within a small glass sphere, but the foundation of the spell seemed far-fetched to begin with, and William hadn't heard mention of anything resembling a glass ornament being discovered in the castle. Surely something would have had to set such a spell in motion, and ostensibly they would have heard about the event.
William was on his way to investigate the suspected instigator of the disappearances now. The timing of the painting's discovery and the first noted absence was suspicious, to say the least, and the resident experts had all agreed that there was Dark magic involved in its conception. He'd seen Pete enter the room mere moments ago, which was a relief. William might as of late be avoiding social interaction for the most part, but he had no earnest desire to be in the room alone with a Dark artefact.
He was, however. When he passed through the wards, it was to the sight of an empty room, no Pete in sight. "Pete," he called uneasily, feeling foolish for doing so but nervous about the distinct absence of Pete's apparent presence, when he knew for certain that Pete had passed through this door into this room - which had no other entrances nor exits - mere moments ago.
"Pete?" he called again, his voice thin and reedy in the echoing room. There was nothing to answer him but the painting on display in the center of the room, still and silent. William carved a circuitous path around it warily, eyes following the carvings on the frame. He'd seen them before, when he'd been in here with the headmaster, and they revealed nothing new to him now. Except...
A flash of colour, and a familiar profile. "Pete?" William repeated, stepping closer to the painting and frowning. He tucked his hands behind his back, careful not to brush the painting with his sleeves or even step too close, conscious of its possible influence.
The features were too blurry for William to be sure of more than nagging familiarity, but it still made him uneasy. He leaned in to look, and the figure in the painting turned a little, caught his eye. It wasn't Pete at all. It was...
William blinked. It was suddenly almost oppressively hot, and he wasn't in the room with the painting anymore. He was in some sort of greenhouse, open to the sky, full of the sounds of birds and insects, and he was...not wearing a robe anymore. He dropped his arm, looking down at the sleeve of the finely-tailored frock coat he was currently sporting, made of heavy canvas with copper buttons splashed liberally across the lapels. A frock coat and a vest, double-breasted, with a pocketwatch chain hanging from a gap in the fabric, and the familiar knot of a cravat at his throat. And there was something on his head. William batted at it instinctively, ducking to get away, before he realized it was a hat.
A noise made him startle, looking up again, where he promptly startled for a second time. "Pete?"