The Prefect and the Portrait
Hermione tried resolutely to focus on her homework. She'd thought that it would be much easier to focus on studying once she had her own room at Hogwarts. She'd been looking forward to it all summer once she'd learned that she'd been awarded the position of prefect.
But she hadn't realized then what came with the room. A portrait. That portrait. The one she was determinedly not looking at.
It wasn't the subject of the portrait that was disturbing her. No, the subject was ideal, really. It featured Hypatia standing in the Library of Alexandria. Hermione simply adored the subject. She had had many scintillating conversations with Hypatia. Not too many, they both had quite a heavy workload. But in the evenings, over a nice cup of tea, they would discuss philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, literature, all sorts of things. It was quite refreshing. And Hermione was certain never to discuss mobs or seashells, which Hypatia was understandably nervous of.
But her friendliness with the painting only made her feel worse about her desires. She'd suppressed them for so long, ever since her first year, her first day, at Hogwarts. And now she had the perfect opportunity.
With a start, Hermione realized that she'd stood up and was running her fingers lightly over the ornate frame of the painting. Hypatia was sending her an odd look from over the top of the scrolls the woman was re-shelving.
Hermione gulped and jumped back guiltily. Her face flushed as she realized how close she'd come. It was just ...
She needed to know!
Hermione had read everything that she could about the subject matter, but none of the books seemed to say anything. She'd asked Ron and hesitantly approached a few Ravenclaws with whom she was friendly, but they only gave her puzzled looks, as if unsure of what she was asking. She'd even brought it up with the paintings themselves, but they'd only laughed and skipped away, or stared at her suspiciously.
Wizard paintings were fascinating. They were mysterious. Not like wizard photos, which just replayed scenes, rather like a looped video clip, only occasionally interacting.
No, the paintings held conversations, interacted with people. Which was delightful, and thoroughly explained in Hudmungo's treatise on the image as signified and signifier and the function of organic dust in paint. It was wonderful, it was fascinating. But it was thoroughly explained, reproducible.
No, what tempted Hermione. What made her wake up trembling, distracted her from her homework. Tantalized her during Professor Binn's long lectures. Whispered to her over the steam of potions in Professor Snape's class, was the relationship between paintings.
The way the subjects slipped so easily from one portrait to the next. It raised so many questions. Could a subject take objects between portraits? Was there a time restraint? Was there a distance limit? And, most easily solved, most tantalizing, most tempting,
What happened if you removed the painting from the wall?
It wasn't that that particular question was more complex than the others. It was that it would be so easy, so simple to find out. The only answer that she could find out on her own, without a painting's cooperation. Just a simple nudge, a little spell.
It had become an urge, an obsession. Hermione hurried through the halls, hands clenched, every day, avoiding looking at any of them. She rather thought that the fat lady might have noticed her looking lustfully at the frame in which the large woman reclined. Was she imagining that quiver in the woman's chins every time Hermione let her eyes drift to the rococo frame?
But here, in her room, Hermione was finding it increasingly difficult to control herself. Staring at the painting, night after night as she fell asleep. Waking up to the painting every morning.
Nothing expressly forbade what she wanted to do. It was just, it was that it would be inflicting her own interests on another sentient being that had no way to resist. That was wrong. That's what she'd started S.P.E.W. to object to. It went against everything that she believed in.
Hermione felt something snap and sighed, staring down at the broken quill in her hand. That was the third one this week.
Hypatia shot surreptitious glances at the portrait behind her as she walked down the pristine aisles of her library. The new subject was ... odd. The girl had seemed quite pleasant at first, but she was growing increasingly disturbing.
Hypatia wondered if she ought to take the portrait off the wall.
A/N: The product of too many Art History lectures and falling asleep to Harry Potter movies.