A/N Second Chapter in a couple of days; if you don't know who Fonce is, look for Courtesy With a Vampire (follow up to the Louvre chapter.) JCWriter

Twenty-Five

Senses and Sensibilities

It wasn't until the next morning that Lucky found out that more paintings had been lost overnight. She was just tossing her books together and wandered out of her dorm on the way to breakfast when she noticed several students standing at the door, looking at it suspiciously, for the painting of the Fat Lady was gone. In fact, there was no painting on the wooden door at all.

Instead, there was a nose.

Lucky blinked, warily coming closer to where the large wooden nose was protruding out from the center of the door, sniffing at every student that came too close to it.

"What the Hell is that?" she asked them.

"It's disturbing, that's what it is," Reggie Weasley said.

"The Fat Lady went to fog just after curfew last night," Tim said grimly.

"Didn't Hufflepuff lose theirs yesterday too?" Lucky frowned. In fact, Pomona Sprout had come in at dinner to escort the students upstairs that night, and she still hadn't gotten a chance to speak to Ambrose about what had happened that afternoon.

"Yeah, I think that's why Snape doesn't want any more paintings for door guards," Tim nodded. "So Craw and Andrew put these Sensors up last night. It won't let anyone pass unless they're staff or smell like a Gryffindor."

"I didn't even know Gryffindors had a smell," Connie said warily.

"They do if you're a charmed door, I suppose," Tim shrugged. "Still, I suppose we'll make the best of it. Anyone for breakfast?" Lucky followed the Weasleys out, just as reluctant to pass the door as they were; especially when it was obvious the door was sniffing her personally.

"I liked the stupid passwords better," Lucky decided, the others grinning at her in complete agreement as they headed down the stairs. "So how many paintings got taken out this time?" she asked, glancing at the walls on their way down the stairs, trying to see if she noticed any missing.

"I didn't hear, but I'm guessing a fair few," Tim said. "I only found out about the Fat Lady coming back from my last patrol before bed count. Professor Andrew and Craw were already inspecting the door when I got there."

"I wonder why they didn't just do statues, like they did on the Ravenclaw door?" Connie asked.

"I got the impression that Professor Craw wasn't keen on them," Tim said in a low voice. "I heard a rumor once that she actually got in a fight with the Rowena statue over one of the riddles and she hasn't trusted them since, short of the Headmaster's gargoyle."

Lucky couldn't help but grin slightly as she imagined Jennifer taking out one of her tempers on the poor statue. As they got to the Hall, Ambrose suddenly jumped up from the table and ran over to her.

"Hiya Lucky! So what does your door do?" he asked.

"What do you mean, Bill?" Lucky frowned.

"Well, I heard Slytherin has a giant ear on its door…and our door has a hand sticking out of it!"

"A hand?" Connie said, not sure she liked that idea. "Does that mean you have to feel like a Hufflepuff?" Reggie and Tim sniggered.

"Yeah we have to shake hands to enter," Ambrose said. "You?"

"We have a giant nose," Lucky said. Ambrose's expression matched that of Connie's a moment before and he shuddered.

"That's got to be the worst yet! I gotta find out what Ravenclaw's does," he said excitedly, rushing off to talk to Laura. Lucky slowly took her place, glancing over now and then at Ambrose until he looked up at her and pointed at his eye.

"Well, an eye makes more sense than a nose does," Lucky said as she sat down, but Reggie sniggered again. "What?"

"They both make sense to me," he said, and Lucky blinked then realized the pun, rolling her eyes.

"I for one certainly don't want to spend the rest of the year having a door smelling us…" Connie scowled.

"I think I have more sympathy for the door," Reggie put in.

"Maybe you should shower more often then," Tim suggested, Reggie making a face at him in response.

"Personally, I'll be glad when they figure out what's happening to the paintings and we get the Fat Lady back," Connie said, looking worried. "Gosh, I wonder what other paintings were infected?"

"I didn't notice any missing in the stairwell, but I haven't been keeping count," Lucky admitted. "Maybe I'll start, though."

Connie sighed and glanced over at Ravenclaw to see Pimra looking over at her, and somehow, Connie knew she was thinking of the same thing. Mimicking Lucky by piling some of her food on her toast, Connie took a couple of bites before getting up, Pimra doing the same

"Where are you going? Aren't you going to eat more than that?" Tim asked with concern.

"I need to check on something," Connie said, Lucky frowning in response as she watched the two girls head out of the room. Wondering what they were up to, Lucky did her own fair share of shoveling before heading off after them to see what they were up to.

She quickly caught up with them on the main stairs, but they only went up a level after that and Lucky sighed, wondering why she had been so suspicious. Obviously they were just trying to get to class early…probably to finish some last minute homework, she mused, suddenly wondering if how far she had gotten on her Defense homework herself. Deciding to follow their lead and head to her class early, Lucky flipped through her book as she stepped off the landing and walked into the corridor when she heard voices. Curiously she looked up, blinking when she saw Connie and Pimra standing in the Trophy Room, just as she had seen Dale do a few days before.

"What are you doin' in there?" Lucky asked curiously, the two of them nearly jumping sky high in surprise.

"Oh…well, we're…" Pimra looked nervously towards Connie.

"We're checking to make sure the paintings are all right in here, what else?" Connie said.

"Okay," Lucky said, not quite sure she believed them or not. "You comin' to Defense, or what?"

"Sure, Lucky, in a minute," Connie said. Shrugging, Lucky headed down the hall, feeling like she was missing something. Glancing at Pimra for a moment, Connie turned back to the paintings. "You know, this has really gotten to be dangerous since they closed off those back stairs. I keep getting the feeling someone is going to catch us in here that's going to ask us questions we don't want to answer."

"All the same, maybe we should tell the rest of the Fifth House about it," Pimra said.

"I'd rather you held off on that for just a little while longer, girls," the portrait of Caprica said. "Pimra is right, we need to find a safer place to chat, and I'm afraid the way I used to contact students back in the old days is no longer an option." Just then, the two girls heard hurried steps and looked around with a start to see Dale standing there, stopping short when he saw them. The girls stared at him for a moment until finally he sighed in resignation. They had been having too many bump-ins to deny it now…he stepped in long enough to see Corey and his gang waving back at him. "What's up, Dale?" Dale turned to look up at her.

"I was worried about the reports that the dust might carry the infection. I don't suppose they've been taking any samples in here?" he asked, the two girls gazing at him speculatively.

"No, they wouldn't risk that, Dale. The Headmaster suspects I come down here from time to time, so you shouldn't have to worry about that…right now, I'd rather you three keep low until this latest wave blows over. Something happened last night that has the Headmaster up in arms…oh wait, here he comes, it'll have to wait," she said, fading out of view.

"Brilliant, I love it when she starts to tell us something and just disappears like that," Connie muttered.

"Tell me about it," Dale said with a sigh. "Well, maybe Janus knows something about what's going on. I'm glad it's almost the weekend, trying to do this during the week with everything going on right now is insane."

"You can say that again," Connie agreed, Pimra nodding quietly. "So just how long have you been sucked into this thing?"

"Long enough, apparently," Dale said, and was about ready to say something else when suddenly Caprica's painting appeared again.

"Kids, you need to clear out of there and fast!" Caprica said, the three looking up in surprise. "Hurry, the Headmaster is on his way down, no time for delay, he's taking a short route!" Dale grabbed Pimra by the arm and hurried out, Connie running along side them before suddenly ducking in the gym, beckoning the others to do the same as they heard the stairs grinding to a stop. Severus swept down the stairs with a look of pure irritation on his face and Jennifer right on his heels.

"I don't know what Pyther was thinking, adding him in like that! After six centuries, you'd think he'd have more sense," Severus said in annoyance as he entered the Trophy Room with Jennifer following after. Nodding to the others, Dale headed back out, the three of them taking the first corridor leading towards the main classroom.

"I don't see him, Severus," Jennifer said, studying the card game. The portrait of Corey waved at her with a smile.

"That doesn't necessarily mean he isn't there. Corey, where is Merlin at?" Severus asked, the boy shrugging.

"I don't know, Dad, we haven't seen him. He left right after you told us all to stay put saying he'd do more good out of the painting than in it and hasn't come back since," Corey said.

"In other words, he left to meddle," Severus scowled. "Well, I want him found. I don't care if it is technically 'just' a painting of him, I expect him to follow the same code of non-interference his actual self supposedly follows."

"And doesn't," Corey smirked.

"Thank you, but I don't need your input. Jennifer, we need to contain this painting as well," Severus said.

"Severus, are you sure that's wise?" Jennifer frowned, Severus looking over at her quizzically. "I mean, I don't know what sort of effect the Paradox painting might have on an incomplete picture. We might be either be cutting the Merlin portrait off from his original painting or dragging him in, and who knows where he's been or what he might have been exposed to?"

"I don't know either, all I know is we need to secure that rogue painting as soon as possible, especially considering who it is. That's the last thing I need right now," Severus brooded.

"I'm sure Pyther will have some ideas on how to restore it when he gets in, Severus…"
"Restore it? I think I'm more tempted to have it destroyed…"

"No!" shouted everyone in the painting at once in pure horror. Suddenly a figure burst through the painting, and the two of them stepped back in surprise as Icarus appeared with a terrified expression of his own.

"DON'T DO IT!" he screamed. "You can't do it! If you do, they'll be lost to you forever, Severus!"

"They? Who's they?" Severus demanded, but Icarus began to weep. Severus rolled his eyes and let out a noise filled with such frustration that Jennifer decided to take a few steps away from him. "How do I keep getting myself into these damned positions in the first place! Which Hell did I enter that forces me to have to even deal with manic depressive ghosts, rogue paintings, an under-aged wizard with the power to blow craters in the school? Not to mention a school board designed purely to torment me with baseless allegations and insane expectations when they should be helping me do something about the hole in this castle…that they helped create with their idiotic recommendations based on nothing if not pure spite. Why is it that all these countless years of doing nothing except keeping this damned school from disappearing off the face of the planet from one threat or another are completely meaningless and earn nothing but distain and criticism? Perhaps I did die that day after all, and this is the way they've found to punish me for my early years. In some ways, that seems better than the alternative of living all these years and having nothing to show for it!"

As Severus stormed off, Jennifer merely closed her eyes for a moment and leaned against the wall, attempting to shut out the look in his face before he left the room. She tried to gather her own thoughts as the room grew quiet; Icarus looking even more somber than before as he faded away.

"Mom?"

Jennifer sighed and opened her eyes, glancing at the card game and at the worried expressions coming from Corey, Essie and all their companions.

"You all right?" Corey asked once he saw he had gotten her attention.

"It's just stress talking, he doesn't mean it," Jennifer said quietly, standing up again. "But I should be getting ready for class. Just do me a favor? If Merlin returns, try to keep him there?"

"Easier said than done, but I'll try," Corey promised. Jennifer nodded and gave him a wan smile before slipping out of the room, unaware that all the paintings in the Trophy Room watched her leave with deep concern.

Jennifer had more than her fill of the Trophy Room from her experience that morning, but knew it was inevitable that she return to it once Pyther arrived. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't realize anything was troubling him, even missing the fact that he was going out of his way to keep her from getting a good look at him. After a quick dusting, Pyther took the painting of the card game down; putting it on an easel in the old art room and began to clean it, hoping to draw Merlin back into the painting in the process. Jennifer looked on for a few minutes until it began to get tedious, but she found she wasn't really ready to head upstairs yet, either. She wandered out and over to her office for a moment, bringing back a stack of papers for next week. She settled down at her desk in the classroom, using the time to get a jump on the paperwork and free herself from worrying about it before the Hogsmeade trip. Neither one of them spoke, both absorbed in their work in their own thoughts. Jennifer didn't even remember quite when she began to nod off.

It was Carnegie's blaring horn that forced her awake, causing her to lift her head off her desk with a gasp of surprise, and found herself staring into an elaborate bouquet of alchemist's roses. She heard a thud in the room and looked over to see Francis had fallen off his stool.

"Oh, are you all right?" Jennifer said, managing to get up to try and pull him up. "I'm so sorry! That damn horn!"

"No, it's all right…that's what I get for dozing off," Francis protested, getting up. "I'm very grateful it's there with the way I've been running myself into the ground lately, it's loud even behind the doors of the Containment Room. To be frank, it's probably saved my life a time or two," he admitted, Jennifer blinking at him in sudden realization that perhaps that was what Severus had in mind all along. "Speaking of which, I had better get out of here before it gets any later," he added, glancing over his work with a sigh. "No Merlin. I wonder where he is?" he murmured more to himself than to her as she gazed in the painting a moment before he picked up his things. But Jennifer's mind was elsewhere as she wandered over to straighten her desk, glancing every now and then at the roses thoughtfully as she did so. Once Pyther took his leave, Jennifer gathered up the bouquet and made sure one of the ghosts was watching the room before slipping up the stairs to her sitting room.

She took only a moment to freshen up before heading to his own sitting room to find it unoccupied. Picking up the roses again as she went to the Study door and opened it. But then she blinked in surprise when she realized he already had a visitor, gazing at Andrew curiously where he stood by the desk. He immediately looked up when she opened the door.

"Come in, Jennifer," Severus said without looking around. Jennifer quickly discarded the flowers on a side table by the door before walking the rest of the way in. "Tell me, did Pyther mention that anything unusual might have happened on his day off?"

"Um…no, not really," Jennifer said even more intrigued as she walked over to the desk, wondering from Andrew's face what Halbert had to do with it. "Except for a brief discussion as to how we might trap Merlin back in his painting again, neither one of us was in the mood to talk much."

"Trap him?" Andrew said in disbelief. "Good luck with that."

"No luck then, I take it," Severus said, but sounded unsurprised.

"No, although he did say it was unusual for elements of a painting not to appear at some point during a cleaning, especially one by the original artist," Jennifer said.

"Yes well, if he hadn't put him in there in the first place we wouldn't be in that predicament," Severus said irritably, "but at the moment I'm a bit more concerned about what Pyther's been doing on a personal nature. It appears that he and Alicia decided to visit Paris and had a run-in with Marquis Foncé."

"What?" Jennifer said, instantly alarmed. "Where's Alicia, is she alright?"

"Jennifer, do you really think Pyther would have come last night if she wasn't?" Severus said tersely.

"It was at the Pâle, Mum," Andrew interrupted quickly, sensing his father's tension and seeing his mother's reaction to it. "They were hardly alone with him at any time, and Halbert happened to be in the area and stepped in before things got too far out of control…" he said, trailing off when he noticed how she was looking at him, her face whitening by the second as she gleaned out the details. "Anyhow, Halbert took her back to the research center, no worse for the wear for the incident."

"More's the pity," Severus said broodingly, the two of them glancing at him in surprise.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Jennifer asked him, biting back anger.

"It means it would have been a lot better off for everyone concerned if Alicia had been more shaken up by the incident. The fact that Pyther showed up at all after something like that sends me chills that neither one of them are taking the event as seriously as they should be," Severus snapped. "It would be foolish not to believe this is the only encounter he's going to have with his clan now that they have some idea where he is, and it doesn't help that he's living outside the boundaries of his territory. It's very likely we may see some trouble in Hogsmeade as well.

"What?" Jennifer said with even more alarm. "Wait, how are you so sure they know where he is?"

"It made the paper," Severus said with extreme irritation, handing her yesterday's copy of La Mystique, folding it over to the special interests column that translated to: Famous Vampire Painter Visits the Louvre. Jennifer groaned loudly at the photo of Alicia standing at the right side of the photo, every now and again looking over at the blank space as they signed autographs, noting the mention of both Polaris Town and Stanley as his current studios in the article. Grimacing she handed it back only to have Severus hand her a copy of the Oracle folded to the gossip column with the headline Famous Daughter Seen with Vampire Lover in Paris. Jennifer cringed, handing him back the paper.

"No more, I've seen enough," Jennifer said, wishing she hadn't witnessed it at all.

"You sure? I find the quote in here by Alicia rather fascinating," Severus said. "But I am not henpecked." Andrew looked amused, but quickly hid it when his father's eyes flicked over to him again. "The only good news in this perhaps is that I have already begun to put certain safety nets into place in case things get as out of hand as I believe they will, considering which clan we're dealing with, but we must be very careful with how this is handled. I don't want the ramifications of this coming down on the school. It will be bad enough if it spreads next door. Professor Craw, since you're in charge of the Hogsmeade trip today, I want you to make sure you touch base with Rosmerta, Brogan, Corey, and Honeydukes on the subject. Just make sure they're aware of it and to contact us if there's any trouble."

"Yes, Professor," Jennifer said with a nod.

"As for the family response in this, Andrew, I want you to get with Aurelius, make sure he knows the situation has escalated and maintain daily contact in case he needs anything, and also you should get Alex up to date as well. Alicia may not be taking this seriously, but as far as I'm concerned this family is on high alert. I have no intention of letting that clan touch any one of us ever again."

"It's the same clan, then, that you've dealt with before," Andrew asked cautiously, "Isn't it, Father?"

Severus gazed at him steadily.

"Was there any doubt of that?" he asked in reply.