AN: I'm sobbing. Picture Perfect is finally done! Well, it wasn't that long, anyway, but I did have loads of fun writing it. Thank you very much to those people who read and reviewed this! But now, I think I'll shut up and save my speech for later. On we go!
That's Sir Cadogan to Ye
The Fat Lady was silent. She wasn't quite that hungry, so she sat on the stale weed meadow and watched the knight eat a cupcake painted from charcoal and tube paint.
"Why are you so mean to me anyway?" she asked curiously.
The portly knight interrupted his feast and looked at the Fat Lady, her eyes wide and innocent. Her cheeks were flushed and the top button of her festive blouse was unbuttoned. After a while, he realized that he was staring. "Er, excuse me. What did ye say?"
"I asked why you were so mean to me." The Fat Lady said patiently.
Sir Cadogan ate the rest of his cupcake in a pensive silence. After a while he shrugged. "I don't know," he said simply. "I reckon 'tis because 'tis so fun to tease ye."
"But why me?" the Fat Lady persisted.
"Ah—" Sir Cadogan was lost for words. Honestly, he didn't know why he chose her anyway.
"It's because he fancies you!" hooted the portrait of Gunilda the Gossiper, right across the wall. Her large, hulking cronies behind her stated their agreement.
At once, every single portrait in the corridor seemed to be buzzing about the Fat Lady and Sir Cadogan.
"I do not fancy her," yelled Sir Cadogan defensively. "'Tis just—'tis just—'tis just because she art fat, 'tis all. 'Tis always fun to have a go at fat maidens, and there art none anywhere nearest except her!"
At once, the corridor became deathly silent. Even Gunilda did not have anything to say to this, and the Fat Lady just sat there, her mouth slightly open.
When the portly knight finally felt it was safe to sit back down and continue eating, he noticed the Fat Lady's face and noticed the hurt in her eyes.
"Listen, fat maiden—"
"It's not my fault my artist painted me this way."
"Yes, I know that—"
"Why do you have to have a go at me every now and then?"
"I don't have to—"
"Yes you do! I was trying to be nice to you; I tried to stop fighting with you!"
"Let me—"
"Sometimes I don't know why I try to make peace with you. I know why you fight! There are two possible reasons: One, it's like you said earlier, I'm fat and—" here, she lowered her voice to a gruff snarl, imitating the knight—"'tis always fun to have a go at the fat maidens!' or, two, it could be because you're a stupid knight who can't fight in a battle to save his life, and you do this just to live the glory days you never had!"
Here, Gunilda the Gossiper started to insert an ad lib here, but a monk who had come to visit the portly knight from the North Tower admonished her severely and gestured to her cronies to keep silent.
"There shouldn't be any fights, we're paintings—"
"…And yet here we are."
And with a sob, the Fat Lady fled from the painting, disappearing once she turned at the portrait of the Black Forests of Germany.
"Excuse me," said a small voice from the floor. Sir Cadogan looked down, hastily wiping away sweat that was in his eyes. "Er, where's the Fat Lady? I need to get in the Common Room."
"Er, I'm filling in for her, lass!" Sir Cadogan said, trying his best to evict the sound of tears from his voice. "Password?"
"Echans—no, Estchanthsmemfus Spikactaleria. I think." The small first year girl finished uncomfortably.
Sir Cadogan, still lost in the reliving of the previous fight, simply nodded and said, "Ye are correct." Then crossed into the Fat Lady's portrait and swung it open with difficulty.
"Thanks," said the small girl, and the knight shrugged and let the portrait slam shut, pushing the small girl into the Common Room.
--
"He said that?" Violet, the Fat Lady's friend, asked in disbelief.
The Fat Lady nodded sadly. "And I've tried to be nice. Just when I thought everything was calm between us, stupid Gunilda yelled something, Sir Cadogan yelled that I was fat, the whole corridor went quiet, they all stared at me—and… honestly, Vi, I couldn't help being fat this way; my artist made me fat!"
Violet patted the Fat Lady's arm sympathetically. "I understand how you feel. My artist was originally going to paint be large as well, but just as he was about to dab on the extra skin, he decided not to and left me this way."
Obviously, it was not the right thing to say at the moment, because the Fat Lady wailed and sobbed into Violet's shoulder.
"What did Gunilda say?"
"She said… she told Cadogan that he fancied me."
"And so?"
"Well he doesn't, that's what! And—"
"You want him to."
"No I don't!"
"Then why are you so head over heels over being called 'fat' by Sir Cadogan anyway?" asked Violet. "I call you Fat Lady all the time. In fact, it's even your name!"
"I dunno, but—"
"You got hurt by the one person you cared about most." Violet stated, nodding wisely.
"What are you talking about?" the Fat Lady demanded, her cheeks coloring up of their own accord.
"Admit it, Fat Lady," Violet said, throwing a consoling arm 'round the Fat Lady's large shoulders, "you like everything about him, no matter how rude he acts toward you."
"No I don't…" the Fat Lady protested.
Violet immediately removed her arm from the Fat Lady's shoulder, wrinkling her newly powdered nose. "You remind me of that Granger girl. And that Weasley boy. I ask you, those two—" Violet coughed. "Good shot getting me to change the subject, Fat Lady," she said. "But not sly enough."
"What—?"
"The point is, Fat Lady, you can't keep evading him. You love him and you know it."
"But Vi, love is such a strong word," the Fat Lady protested.
"And that's why I'm using it," said Violet, winking. "How long have you liked him?"
"I don't know. A really long time, I guess," the Fat Lady admitted. "It's just—he was so rude, but oddly charming. It was—"
"It was his Olde English, wasn't it?" said Violet sympathetically. The Fat Lady shrugged. "Yes… I fell in love myself with a painting of a man in green who called himself one of the 'Merry Men' or something of that sort. But he broke my heart by—there you go again, Fat Lady! Stop making me change the subject!"
The Fat lady merely rolled her eyes.
"Listen, Fat Lady. It doesn't matter how long you've liked him or how he thinks of you." Violet smiled. "Tell him how you feel. Don't be like Weasley and Granger. It took them a bloody seven years, but they managed it. Jump in and do it."
--
"I can't believe I did what I said and didn't say what I meant to say and did what I didn't mean to say, but I did." Sir Cadogan said mournfully to his pony. The pony merely stared at his owner with doleful eyes. "How now, I've got myself into quite a fix." At this, the knight's pony reared and nodded its head, as though it understood what he was saying. "The fat maiden was trying to be nice." The pony neighed. "I must say, the maiden is a quick thinker and good at the comebacks. Against all of the foes I've defeated, she could probably vanquish them all." The pony seemed to shake its head. "Ah, I see what ye mean. She was not a foe was she?" The pony reared and promptly nosed a few stale weeds. "Yes, 'tis sweet of her to give ye some food, it 'twas. I do wonder why I am so mean to her. She's—"
The pony neighed, as though egging him on.
Sir Cadogan flung his visor up in annoyance. "If I didn't know any better, I'd still think you fancied her," called Gunilda from across the wall.
"Oi! I wasn't talking to you!" the knight yelled back, brandishing his overly large sword in Gunilda's general direction, but falling down.
Gunilda and her cronies roared with laughter, however thankfully, Sir Cadogan's other neighbors were nicer, and simply rolled their eyes. With his large sword lying flat on his back, and Sir Cadogan lying sprawled on the weedy meadow, the poor knight couldn't move a muscle. "Oi, my comrades? Would thoust lay a helping hand on a poor soul?" However, at this, even his nicest neighbors decided it was a better time than any to play deaf and simply ignored him.
"Are you okay?" asked a voice in his ear. In alarm, Sir Cadogan almost cricked his neck craning it to see who it was.
"Oh. Fat maiden. Why art thou helping me when I so unjustly hurt thy feelings?"
The Fat Lady shrugged and effortlessly picked the sword up off his back with one hand. "It was unjust of me to just run away like that. So I'm fat. My painter made me this way. My name is the Fat Lady." She shrugged. "If it's just my name, I don't know why I made a big scene of it."
She helped Sir Cadogan up, and she could have sworn she heard the monk whisper, "Hush! If you make fun of them now, they'll never be together, and he'll drive me and the congregation up the wall by muttering darkly about how they never got together!" and one of Gunilda's cronies hissing back, "Well, they need to get on with it—we don't have all day."
"Fat maiden?" called Sir Cadogan hesitantly, as the Fat Lady turned to go back to her own portrait, "I'm, er… I'm really sorry about calling ye fat."
"It's fine, Cadogan. As I said; even my name is the Fat Lady. I'm peachy with it." And with that, she turned to return once again to her portrait, but heard Sir Cadogan yell out, "Wait!"
"Yes?"
The knight shifted his visor down, then consciously pushed it back up. "I, er, know why I picked you to fight with."
"Why's that?" the Fat Lady asked curiously. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see Violet sharing a portrait with one of Sir Cadogan's more friendly neighbors. Noticing the Fat Lady looking, she waved cheerily and gave a thumbs-up.
"I, er…"
The Fat Lady looked at him expectantly.
"I…"
It seemed as though one of Gunilda's cronies could not contain themselves, and the majority of them yelled out, "Aw, get it the hell over with!" Followed by the monk severely showing them his disapproval.
Sir Cadogan put his visor down and turned away. "I love you."
After a silent moment, Sir Cadogan turned his head only to see the Fat Lady looking back at him, a confused look in her eyes. "I knew you wouldn't be pleased."
The Fat Lady shook her head. "You don't know how long I've wanted to hear you say that."
Sir Cadogan's fat dapple-grey pony reared and neighed happily, thinking about more treats coming his way.
Violet smiled and clapped, shaking her head, happy that her best friend wouldn't be so stubborn at their three o' clock P.M. tea sessions whenever she brought up the topic of knights in shining armor and whether Sir Cadogan would be the one for her, muttering that the two were 'picture perfect'.
The Fat Lady sighed happily as her knight swept her into his arms, relieved that she finally let him know how she felt, as well as the assurance of no more major fights.
Sir Cadogan grinned like a madman, knowing that he had become the bravest knight in the castle, because he had let the Fat Lady know that he loved her.
When the too finally stopped hugging, the Fat Lady pulled back and whispered, "I love you, Cadogan."
Sir Cadogan smiled and pushed up his visor, leaning in to kiss her. But not before their lips met, he said, "That's Sir Cadogan to ye."
Ye Olde End.
AN: So, what do you think? Long, I know, and it probably wasn't my best work. Now it's up to you readers! Should I do a prologue, or leave it where it is? Whatever you choose, thank you very much for reading. And now, don't forget to read Arithmancy and my other oneshots that aren't getting much reviews hint. So now, as I always say, see you when I see you, da!