Title: Silas Barnaby and the Green-Eyed Dragon Boy
Author: suitesamba
Other pairings/threesome: None
Rating: Everyone
Word count: 13,240
Content/Warning(s): Intentional use of magic against an unwilling subject for his own good.
Prompter/Prompt: No. 23 from Anakletos: Severus would love to think that once night falls exhibits come to life, but no, night and day they never shut up. And colleagues think him crazy because they don't see it, refuse to believe him. But it's true. Especially the green-eyed man inside a painting, who winks at him when he passes it by.
Summary: Silas Barnaby enjoys a perfectly ordinary life as a museum guard in York and – until these last weeks, at least – did not see spectacled cats, ghosts in graveyards or heads in fireplaces. What’s more, the green-eyed man in the portrait is definitely not winking at him. A tale of sacrifice, forgiveness and people who aren’t at all what they seem.
A/N: Thank-you to my friends accioslash and badgerlady for the pre-reads and SPaG and for helping me keep my mind off politics while I wrote about a blue bicycle. Thanks also to AlessNox, my beta from the Fandom Trumps Hate 2020 Auction, who was instrumental in helping me put this story together coherently and in keeping the characters in character. And of course, thanks to the mods, who (I presume) did not drop dead when I turned this story in early and who should not expect that this surprising pattern will continue.

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(Silas Barnaby and the Green-Eyed Dragon Boy)