A Portrait for The Bravest Man Who Ever Lived
Part One of Two
There was a portrait in the Headmistress's office that rarely moved. He didn't speak often, only when directly spoken to, and only to certain people.
The portrait's artist was on of those people.
You see, it wasn't like the other portraits, painted with magic and charmed with the regular spells.
No, the former Headmaster in the portrait had one of those "regular" portraits and it sat in his former rooms, closed off from everyone else.
After all, the Artist didn't trust anyone else to do the former Headmaster justice. Seeing the portrait someone else had made of him was proof of why.
The first time the Artist saw the original portrait, she cried.
She knew the man better than anyone else, even The Boy Who Lived to Save Them All.
Though he was often wearing a sneer, that wasn't the man. That was the mask, and one he had rarely had the opportunity to take off.
So she painted, though she hadn't painted in years. She painted with muggle paint and worked off memory and what little photographs of him had been taken and survived the war.
When she was done, she cried.
The day the painting arrived at the gates of Hogwarts was the last day of the Headmistress's first year as such.
She had not known what lie beneath the carefully wrapped brown paper, nor known the sender.
She knew nothing about what lay behind the wrapping.
She opened it in the Great Hall after the final staff meeting, surrounded by her collegues and friends.
Seeing that face, that one she'd seen after a late night of chess and theory, that solemn yet introspective face. The face he made when he was deciding where to move his pawn or bishop.
That was the real him.
The one she'd abandoned, and the one who saved them all really.
She cried then, seeing her friend truly brought to life.
And she wondered who knew him well enough to capture the man and not the mask he wore for too long.
Because until she saw the portrait glance over at her, she had forgotten the man and remembered only the mask.