"Thump!"
Tom had no idea what was happening in the outside world. All he registered was that he and Ariana had tumbled together onto a soft carpet in an undignified leap, his paws were tangled with her ghost in a way that defied both physics and common sense.
Lifting his head, he found himself gazing at a warm, comfortable room that radiated the kind of coziness you'd expect from a well-maintained country estate.
Before them, a fireplace crackled merrily in the hearth, flames were dancing in shades of amber and gold as they radiated waves of pleasant heat.
The room itself was furnished with elegant period pieces with a writing desk in one corner, shelves lined with leather-bound volumes, Persian rugs covering polished hardwood floors.
"Oh? Visitors? Wait... oh dear, Merlin above, where on earth did you two come from?!"
A surprised female voice rang out from behind them, cultured and refined with that particular accent that spoke of centuries past.
Tom twisted around, his tail swishing for balance, to see a noblewoman in elaborate Renaissance court dress seated regally in a high-backed chair by the window.
Her gown was the color of deep burgundy wine, trimmed with gold thread that caught the firelight, and she held a delicate feather fan in one jeweled hand. She was examining them with a mixture of curiosity and genuine astonishment, it was the very same lady from the portrait on the corridor wall outside!
'(￣▽▽￣) Good, good! Even though I can't speak human language properly, my ability to enter paintings is still intact~'
Rather than responding immediately to the portrait lady's question, Tom instead peered through what appeared to be a 'window' behind her though he knew it was actually a painted view that showed the real corridor outside the frame.
The scene beyond was quite entertaining in a schadenfreude sort of way.
Filch was frantically examining the fallen bedsheet on the floor, turning it over and over in his hands as if trying to determine whether it had been enchanted with some sort of charm.
His face had gone red with frustration, veins were standing out on his temples.
Peeves was having an existential crisis, phasing in and out of the stone walls with increasing desperation, his ghost form was flickering like a faulty light as he questioned everything, he thought he knew about ghost existence.
And Mrs. Norris—oh, Mrs. Norris was the worst. She remained at the exact spot where Tom had been standing moments before, body was hunched low to the ground, sniffing the stones with an expression of greedy obsession that made Tom's fur stand on end.
'(´-ω-`) Phew! Thank goodness I escaped quickly! If that love-crazed cat had caught me, my reputation would have been completely ruined!'
Filch and Peeves he could handle, they were merely annoying obstacles in the grand tradition of cartoon antagonists. But if that obsessed cat managed to catch him? Tom would never be able to show his face in public again!
The humiliation alone would be worse than any punishment Dumbledore could devise.
"Excuse me, but could you perhaps answer my question?" the portrait lady prompted again, her fan was fluttering delicately before her face in a gesture of polite but persistent inquiry.
"Meow~" Tom replied courteously, because he was nothing if not a gentleman cat.
However, judging from the woman's increasingly confused expression, she clearly hadn't understood a single word of his cat eloquence. Her eyes darted between him and Ariana as if hoping one of them would suddenly start speaking comprehensible English.
'Still no good, huh? So my earlier ability to communicate with Ariana was either because that space between life and death was special, or because I was in soul form at the time?'
With this thought, Tom pulled his trusty whiteboard out from... somewhere on his person (the spatial physics of cartoon characters being what they were), and scribbled quickly with his marker.
[My apologies, madam. We've disturbed you, I know. We're simply hoping to use your portrait to temporarily evade some trouble.]
"I see. I am Lady Margarita, and you are most welcome here." She inclined her head graciously, every inch the proper Renaissance noblewoman, though her eyes sparkled with curiosity.
"However, dear one, allow me to correct a small point: this is my home, not merely a portrait. Though I suppose to those in the physical world, the distinction might seem abstract."
She paused, using her fan to conceal the lower half of her face in that coy gesture women of her era had perfected, though her scrutinizing gaze remained visible as it traveled over both visitors.
Her attention lingered particularly long on Ariana, and Tom noticed her expression shift subtly that suggested recognition of something unusual.
"To be able to enter the painted world from outside, though... you are most extraordinary beings indeed!" Lady Margarita's voice carried a note of something that might have been concern mixed with fascination.
[Thank you for your understanding. Please don't worry—we have other matters to attend to and won't be staying long in your home.]
Noticing the change in her demeanor, Tom raised one eyebrow and prepared to escort Ariana out of the portrait. Peering through the window again, he could see that Filch and Mrs. Norris had given up their search in frustration and departed.
Only Peeves remained, still obsessively phasing through walls with the determination of someone who refused to accept defeat.
As long as that wretched cat wasn't around, Tom had nothing to fear! He could handle one poltergeist easily enough.
As for Lady Margarita and her concerns?
'(￣ω￣) Well, portrait people are all just paint and canvas anyway. Once I leave, she'll naturally reset to her original state, just like when Jerry and I encountered portraits in our adventures~'
(Obviously, he had overlooked about the unique nature of Hogwarts portraits.)
"Wait, dear one." Lady Margarita hurried forward just as Tom was preparing to leave, her gown was swishing silently across the floorboards.
For someone who claimed to want nothing to do with them, she'd become remarkably eager to keep them around. "Could you tell me what business brings you wandering through the castle at night? Perhaps I could offer some assistance?"
Her interest in this magical cat was clearly piqued, and Tom could practically see the questions forming behind her eyes.
'And that girl... if I'm not mistaken about what I'm seeing...' Lady Margarita's thoughts went unspoken, but her gaze kept returning to Ariana's unusually vivid ghost form.
Tom looked at her with mild confusion, his whiskers were twitching. Hadn't she just been maintaining polite distance? Why the sudden enthusiasm?
Still, he didn't overthink it and simply wrote his straightforward refusal.
[This matter is beyond your ability to help with, I'm afraid, madam. We're planning to go to the Headmaster's office to find Headmaster Dumbledore. Oh, you do know about Hogwarts, yes? The castle where your portrait resides?]
"...Dear child, I have lived in this castle far longer than you could possibly imagine!" Lady Margarita's face took on an expression of hurt dignity, though there was humor in her eyes. "Apart from the Four Founders themselves, I daresay no one knows this castle better than we portrait residents do!"
With that, she rose from her chair and walked toward what had previously been a blank corner of her painted room.
As she moved, a small door simply... appeared in the wall where nothing had been before, materializing as naturally as if it had always been there. The door was carved from dark oak, medieval in style, with iron hinges that looked authentically ancient.
"Come along then. I'll take you to the headmaster's office!" she announced.
"???"
Tom stared at her actions with complete bewilderment, his jaw was literally dropping open in that classic cartoon fashion.
Wait, hold on—he wanted to find the REAL Headmaster's office in the actual castle, not some painted version of an office inside the portrait world!
And what was the deal with that door anyway? Where had it come from? That wall had been completely blank just seconds ago! He'd been looking right at it!
Hesitating over whether to follow, Tom glanced back toward the 'window' showing Peeves still frantically searching the corridor outside.
The poltergeist was growing increasingly agitated, his form was flickering with frustration as he phased through the same sections of wall over and over like a broken record. After a moment of consideration, Tom decided to follow Lady Margarita after all.
Peeves alone wouldn't be a problem, the poltergeist was annoying but ultimately harmless to someone with Tom's abilities.
The real danger was if Peeves managed to summon Mrs. Norris back to this location. And Tom definitely, absolutely, under no circumstances wanted to deal with that love-struck feline again. The very thought made his tail bush out involuntarily.
'(￣ω￣) Worst case scenario, I can just backtrack the way we came~'
With that reassuring thought, he guided Ariana to follow behind Lady Margarita, and together they passed through the mysterious doorway.
Behind them, the portrait became nothing more than an empty background.
To Peeves, still desperately searching the corridor, the portrait appeared unchanged except for the absence of its usual occupant.
Portrait residents visiting each other was common enough that he didn't give it a second thought, continuing his futile wall-phasing search, completely unaware that his target had escaped through the very painting network he was ignoring.
'Wait... this is a completely different portrait? The portrait people can actually travel between different paintings?!'
Stepping through the doorway, Tom found himself in a completely new room and stopped dead in his tracks, his tail went rigid with shock.
Through this portrait's 'window,' he could see they'd left the previous corridor entirely and now overlooked a different passage in Hogwarts—one several floors higher, judging by the view.
The magical portrait network was far more complex than he'd imagined!
"Dear Lady Margarita, to what do I owe the honor of such a late visit? And who, might I ask, are these companions?"
The voice came from a knight in full armor who occupied this particular portrait. He'd been in the middle of practicing intricate sword forms when the unexpected visitors arrived.
Now he stood at attention, his blade held in a formal salute position as he observed the newcomers.
He could sense immediately that Tom and Ariana didn't belong to the painted world.
"My apologies for interrupting your practice, Sir Knight. These two young ones wish to see the headmaster, and I'm merely helping them find the way. I trust you don't mind if we pass through your domain?" Lady Margarita's voice carried the perfect blend of courtesy and confidence, she clearly knew how to manage portrait social dynamics.
"But of course! The honor is entirely mine. Please, do proceed." The knight executed a perfect formal bow, the kind that involved sweeping his plumed helmet down nearly to the floor while keeping his spine straight.
With his free hand, he gestured toward a corner of his room where another door had mysteriously appeared, its frame was adorned with crossed swords and a shield bearing an ancient coat of arms.
Lady Margarita returned the gesture with an elegant curtsy befitting her station, and then led Tom and his companion out of the knight's portrait and onward through their magical journey.
As they were leaving, Tom thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure in the background of the knight's portrait. But before he could focus on who it might be, Ariana was already pulling him through the doorway into the next portrait, and the moment was lost.
They continued like this, passing through portrait after portrait in quick succession. Each painting was its own complete world.
After traversing six different portraits in this manner, they finally stepped through one last doorway.
Tom looked up at the back of a white-bearded old man's head and knew with certainty that they had arrived at their destination. Because the elderly wizard standing before them, surrounded by his office full of whirring silver instruments and sleeping portraits of previous headmasters was none other than Albus Dumbledore.
"Headmaster Dumbledore, there are two rather unique visitors here who wish to see you, so I took the liberty of bringing them through the portrait passage." Lady Margarita's voice carried through from the painting, formal and proper.
Then she added, with notable gravity, "Also... one of them appears to be an Obscurial."
"An Obscurial?!"
Dumbledore, who had been calmly reviewing some parchment with his back to the wall of portraits, shot to his feet with such force that his chair went skidding backward.
The quill in his hand clattered to the desk, splattering ink across his paperwork unnoticed.
'Merlin's beard, how was this possible? How could there be an Obscurus within a portrait? '
He hurried to the portrait that Lady Margarita occupied on his wall, his heart was racing with concern and confusion.
But when he actually saw the figures depicted in the painting, when his eyes focused on exactly WHO stood there, his entire body went stiff as though struck by a Stunning Spell.
"Tom? Wait a moment... and who is that beside you?! (;ﾟДﾟ)"