[Dungeons] Aesthetics

[Linus Wells]

"You look much better this way."

Linus assured the portrait gently, his voice a thick silk with deceit. The young vixen with her archery bow was not convinced and she wailed loudly into the corridor.

Her change was rather simple, really. Linus had erased her dainty, rosy cheeks and made them more gaunt - her outfit had attained a gothic appeal with deep, purple lace. "Really, Madam Helena," Linus said with mock-sympathy in his voice. "You can't expect to lounge in the dungeons looking like a misplaced princess. This is much more appropriate."

He didn't look back even as she shrieked and sobbed within the shackles he'd drawn around her wrists. The noise was oddly comforting to his ears - the welcome back song Hogwarts rewarded him with.

One of the portraits he'd forced into acting his messenger, threatening to wipe out its existence if the canvas refused, piped up suddenly.

"Sir! Sir!" The portrait was of an impressionable young boy. A Slytherin who had caught and died from a deadly plague in his second year at least two centuries ago. "Someone's coming - from the Ministry!"

Linus blinked, tucking his paintbrush in the front pocket of his robes. Ink seeped through the material, staining the shirt burgundy over his heart. The Ministry never did quite like Linus and the trouble the sinister man had gotten into was the reason behind it.

"Don't look so panicked. This could be pleasant." Linus' lips stretched into a thin smile as he slammed a hand over the small boy, causing him to skitter away.

[Mafelda Hundar]

The entrance doors to the dungeons swing wide as a burst of magic propells them open; a lone dark figure stands at the top of the stairs, the bright castle light blinding all the dungeon dwellers to her features, save her shadowy, cloaked outline. She takes the stairs down slowly, the portraits on the walls acting shifty, and smiling more fakely than usual. The doors slam behind her and her icy features solidify in the dim light. She watches as one of the younger subjects runs ahead of her through frames of dignitaries and alumni and dark scenes of the Slytherins who so comfortably inhabit the dungeons through which she walks. Her gaze moves every so slightly right and left, head never moving, eyes ever watchful.

A chill runs down her spine and her ears perk as noise at the end of the hall drifts against the walls to her. All she can gather is a watery muddle of voices; one uncomfortable, agonized, and feminine, another nervous and young, and a last voice... raspy, deep, melodic. Her eyes show a hint of malicious merriment, thought the rest of her features remain solid, stoic, and chill.

The immaculately manicured nails of her left hand brush against the stone wall, across mould and grime and slime of ages gone by. Her nails drag with a tapping noise across the carved edge of a picture frame, gently drawing a line in the paint across the canvas. A gasp and shudder catch her attention. She turns her head and sees a villanous looking wizard, standing in front of a burning village scene, millimeters away from having his throat slit by her french tips. She tilts her head and leans in towards the man in the picture, "Why would a picture not speak up when he's about to be ruined?" she questions him. The wizard stares in horror at her nail, but swallows his tongue and shakes his head. She nods placatedly, her hand unmoving. "I see... not going to talk to an official?" her nail moves incrimentally, insistantly toward the wizard's throat. He whimpers, then bangs his hand against the canvas. She stops moving again and stares at the little man, "Care to change your mind?" The wizard looks at her imploringly and points to his mouth. It takes Mafelda a moment to understand, "My, my... someone does take pleasure in his work, doesn't he?" miniscule stitches are painted all along the wizards lips. "Shh, I won't tell."

After removing her threatening manicure from the portrait she continues to make her way down the dank dungeon hall. She sees a shadow moving in the doorway of the farthest room and her gaunt features almost break into a smirk, almost, but remain placid. She stops a foot from the entrance and says solidly, "Tidy up your indecents, Wells. I'm not here for a peep show."

[Linus Wells]

"See? I was right." Linus spoke to no one in particular as he dropped his arm. The portraits avoided his gaze, nervously wringing their hands as Mafelda entered the hall. "Miss. Hundar is quite the enjoyable visit."

His shadows flickered against the stone wall as he walked nearer, making a show of tidying his robes. He feigned a smile when he thought she could see. "Have you met my friends?" Linus didn't move his gaze off the woman as his hand swept across the walls in a single, inky gesture.

One of the portraits protested loudly. His young, irrational, voice mixed with the weakening cries of his latest project. Linus leaned in toward Mafelda, spindly fingers landing on her shoulder companionably. "Don't mind him," He whispered.

The paint still soaking his shirt began to drip, and a large, rounded drop landed clumsily onto one of Mafelda's manicured nails. Linus' head curved downward to stare at it for a moment before he smiled. "I'm sorry, Mafelda," he continued in an apologetic voice. "Burgundy is not quite your colour."

[Mafelda Hundar]

"...Miss Hundar is quite the enjoyable visit."
Mafelda manages to hear from her vantage point. Her stoic expression remains unchanged, despite her newly sparked interest in the school's portraiteer. 'What does he think he knows about me?' she queries herself musingly. She wipes the thought from her mind promptly. Best to start tabula rasa with this specimentality of human. 'Probably only as familiar with me as my usual exploits.'
"Have you met my friends?"
She is ushered in and watches him gesture elegantly, and somewhat sickeningly towards the canvases on the walls around them. Decadently detailed portraits of witches and wizards and creatures in lascivious scenes and situations peered back. Some of them wept silently--their poor painted vocal chords having been worn out by ages of distress, or painted out when the screams no longer satisfied their maker. Some of the portraits glared maliciously out of their frames, furious to have been placed in such demeaning figurations. And then there were a few--and a very few indeed--who had seedy expressions of mirth plastered across their pale, pasty features.

She watches as the messenger, who had heralded her entrance, attempts a plea with the artisan, who promptly pulls her attention away from the boy.
"Don't mind him."
Is crooned into her ear as a gentle, icy hand curls over equally cooled shoulder. Whether the warning is to save her embarassment from what the impressionable child might've said, or to keep her from hearing a confession about her... host, she doesn't care. "I never planned to, Mister Wells. I'm not here to listen to idle chatter, nor busy chatter that might require me to report you." A questionable response from a Ministry worker to be sure. She flicks her nails when the paints is dripped on them, and the paint disappers as if an invisible cloth were wiping it away, "No, I suppose it's not my colour. Neither is it your," she snaps her finger in front of his left shirt pocket and the same spell cleans the dripping paint. "Pretending to have a heart will win you know points with me, Linus. Let's just cut to the chase, shall we?" she daintily, or disgustedly, removes his hand from her person and faces him, her steely blue gaze burrowing into his. "I need your... help," her statuesque expression breaking momentarily into a sneer as she spits out the last word, then resolving to its unreadable and cold fix.

[Linus Wells]

The chill that cloaked Linus when the woman spoke felt foreign - not many had managed to evoke such a reaction from him, and even less had succeeded in reasoning with the painter. Her gaze alone caused him to keep his lips shut firmly, though it wasn't enough to stop the small smirk from flickering onto his exceedingly pale face.

The expression disappeared when Mafelda's fingers cracked loudly in a snap that echoed through the hall. He watched the thrill of magic as it cleansed his chest of the damp stain, and his gaze grew frigid, mouth pressing hard into a jagged line.

"When you were alive, could you do what she does?" The squib murmured to the watching portraits, though his voice carried through the dungeon in a resonating tone. None dared to answer him, and those who wanted to, clutched at their throats in agony.

His smile returned at seeing their desperation, and he felt instantly well-nourished. "I'm a busy man, Hundar." Linus' smile grew dark as he brushed a thumb across his newly dried shirt pocket. "Lilandra's portrait is due for a bit of... refurnishing." He paused, gaze flickering to the nearby paintings as they scrambled to warn the poor girl of her soon-to-be demise.

"So make it quick."

[Mafelda Hundar]

A sense of boredom hangs over the woman as she watches the man interact with his portraits. 'And I bet before he got hired here he lived in his mother's cupboard.' It takes all her effort to keep from rolling her eyes. This is the sort of guy she eats for breakfast, and now she was having to ask for his assistance. It's as close to humiliated as she's ever come.

"I'm a busy man, Hundar. So make it quick."
And now he even dared to tell her to keep up with his schedule! She remains ever placid, though; like a motionless, frozen lake. "Mister Wells," she says calmly, "There are a few portraits around the castle that I need for my first Dark Arts lesson and I can't retrieve them myself. I was wondering if you could gather them for me... and I am in need of a, hrm... special portrait. And I need you to paint it." Her eyes narrow at him. "Interested?"

She could tell by his wiry fingers twitching that the idea of painting a custom portrait intrigued him, but she also knew it would cost her. "I'll compensate your efforts." Her eyebrows raised, almost daring him to say no.

[Linus Wells]

A still silence captured the corridor and, suddenly, Linus' cryptic smile dissolved. His penetrating gaze swept from Mafelda and stared at one of the portraits behind her, before it flickered down the corridor. He realised with rancid displeasure that the paintings looked more alive than they had in weeks.

Linus walked past his companion, their robes mingling for a brief second, and placed a spindly finger on the flush of a young woman's cheek. In vague detail, he remembered how long it took to make her face look swallow with grief and grew irritated at her defiance. She had always been difficult.

He scowled gently, trailing the digit down to her lips before pressing her mouth shut with firm pressure. "Make sure you nor your friends repeat this discussion, to anyone." Linus spoke in a fine whisper, and the liveliness of the dungeons dissipated at once.

Turning back to Mafelda, Linus' smile reappeared and flourished. "I'm afraid the only thing I want in this world is something no one can give me." The words almost created the illusion that he was vulnerable; human.

Linus broke the facade and grinned widely. "I will only paint for you, if you allow me some freedom in what I draw."

[Mafelda Hundar]

Even Mafelda can feel the rise of spirits in the room; almost as if the portraits are looking forward to the new creation themselves. Perhaps hoping that with a project to start from scratch, the dreary painter would have no time to alter them. Or possibly, knowing the artist's skill, becoming anticipatory as to what he might create instead of destroy. In any case, a quick threat to one of the livlier portrait's in the room killed the mood. A welcome relief to the Dark Arts professor.

"I'm afraid the only thing I want in this world is something no one can give me."
Mafelda almost smiles at such a challenge, but thinks better of it. If he doesn't want to come right out and ask her for his most desired wish, she isn't going to try and fulfill it out of the goodness of her heart. Or more correctly, the lack there of. She makes a mental note to remember there's something else he wants though. In case she needs use of him later.
"I will only paint for you, if you allow me some freedom in what I draw."
"Of course, Mister Wells. I wouldn't dream of restricting your artistic... genius," she says, almost cruelly as her gaze drifts around the room.

Her sight returns to the painter, and that creature in the back of her mind roars. 'Not now,' she thinks harshly. 'Not yet!' The creature howls, 'So much to harvest...' She cracks her neck and takes a deep breath to try and keep herself under control. "Well, it's been lovely, Linus, but I've got... other places to be. I'll send you a list of the portraits I need, and the details for the special portrait I hope you'll help me with. For now... I'll let you get back to your business." The people behind the picture frames shift uncomfortably when they realize the guest is leaving them, placing them back under the control of the maniac artisan. "Good-bye, Linus. I'll be in touch." She turns on her heel and the -tap tap tap- of her boots echoes her exit of the dungeons.