Pack!

               Chapter Twenty-Six

               When she’d died, nobody remembered her, much. She could have been named an unrecognized talent, but in truth, she wasn’t all that talented. But oh my, how that would change. Virtually overnight she had acquire d skills she’d desperately longed for, skills she would have killed for. Skills she did kill for.

               Magenta Comstock was a late and unlamented witch who had lived from 1895 to 1991. As a young girl, she was always sketching people. Tripping them so they hit their head and passed out, leaving them still enough for her to try to capture a likeness, tying the cat to a chair to hold him immobile, pinning a live butterfly in place so she had the perfect composition. Her budding pathology aside, she had spent years dreaming of becoming a magical portraitist. Her early studies in sketching and color theory had all been for nothing. In fact, her early portraits were often mistaken for flesh toned fruit. Yet all that changed, oh yes it did. She may not have gotten to her goal by conventional means, but by age thirty she was recognized as a competent artist from those very few who’d seen her work. Years spent studying in the cold with the masters. Years spent asking if she could just see it one more time? Years of finding suitable subjects to interest the them. Years drilling herself on technique. Finally, finally she arrived at her goal. Her own works, once activated (which was a situation that mostly happened after her death), were extremely lifelike in behavior. More than one person remarked “Oh, how very like (subject X) that is!” It was nearly always followed by “But that background, oh, dear me. We certainly can’t hang it in the parlor; perhaps along the lower stairway?”

               Her parents had been spell creators, strongly encouraging her to follow in their footsteps. At their insistence, Magenta suffered through learning enough to satisfy them and went right back to her art. Her final triumph had taken her years, and she had been amused to find it had required a fusion of those skills her parents had required she learn, combined with her own special touch. What mattered, the only thing that mattered, was that she was finally an artist. Now that she finally had her skills, she wasn’t going to waste her time quibbling about how she’d managed it. Her parents had been her first subjects for the new technique, and it had been a resounding success. That didn’t mean she wanted to gaze at that miniature portrait day in or out, the tiny six by six frame had hung facing the wall in an unused closet for decades. What was rather peculiar was the fact that her collection of portraits were not discovered until she’d been confined to a rest home in her early sixties. She’d suffered a seizure, rendering her unable to take care of herself and the neighbors had notified the authorities. Her nearest relatives being convicted Death Eaters left her in limbo, until a charity home agreed to take her as a patient. She lived there until she died. Her works were donated to the families of the subjects, most offering a donation for her care in recompense, if only they’d known they’d have cursed at her instead. The land was eventually sold off, and the house destroyed by a magical contracting company, a wealthy family needing the space for a newly married couple, gifting them with a new house.

               Those of her acquaintance had never thought to connect her to the Lestrange family, but the family lines were there, if one looked deep enough. They certainly didn’t socialize, but did, now and again, cross paths. Magenta had liked her young cousin Corvus, he was an exception to her general disdain for the rest of the family. She’d never been noticed to any great degree by his parents, her branch of the family being a bit beneath their highbrow attention, but Corvus liked to draw, and once sought her out for advice. She’d taken him under her wing, giving him access to magical paints and canvas, guiding his hands in correct brush selection and how to hold his wand just so underneath. And, when she realized Corvus’ nature, she taught him her portrait technique.

               Magenta often thought it was a good thing Corvus had died young, he’d have been quite the prolific artist otherwise and she really didn’t need the competition for what few commisions she could secure. Her work was hard enough, and those who hired her often weren’t in a position to pay her upon completion. Indeed, after reflecting on it, she vowed to never teach another her secret. She was unaware that Corvus had already begun his sons lessons and disguised her secret as part of their training. His early demise part way through that training meant they were from then on completely unaware they owned a skeleton in the cupboard. Growing up with an overly indulgent mother and each being a bit of a braggart, they thought nothing of teaching their lessons to a few friends. Not all their friends, because some things you only share with your best friends. And sometimes, just sometimes, those lessons are learned by those who know to watch and copy.

               You are perhaps wondering what Magenta Comstock has to do with the beings in a basement room at Hogwarts. The answer, I’m afraid, is nothing.

               The basement individuals are a result of Hogwarts once having had an art class many years ago and a failure to amend the house elf duty roster. Some time back, an overenthusiastic (read: hooked on Cheering Charms) professor had once offered to sponsor an art club, and the undiagnosed dyslexia of the headmaster for that year had him adding it to the class roster instead of the club roster.

               The teacher had required twenty mid sized blank but magically prepared canvases always be ready to receive paint, and all the related paraphernalia one would find in a generic artists studio was sourced for her. Being of no mind to complete the tedious work of prepping the canvases herself, nor to undertake what would have been a mind boggling expense, the professor had added it to the house elf duty roster, from which it has never since been removed. The house elves have ever since checked the stock of canvases, carefully preparing new ones when needed, moving completed canvases to the storage room they’d designated, despite the class having been a miserable failure. The teacher for the class had been sacked half a semester in and the class was dropped, never to be thought of again.

               Now and again, though, and it was just now and again, the elves would have to prepare a new canvas. They never asked questions, they were tasked with ensuring twenty canvases were always ready, so twenty canvases were made ready.

               You may want to ask why we began with Magenta Comstock if she had nothing to do with the mysterious portraits. Well. For that, we need to discuss her secret. It began with the fact that Magenta was a terrible artist. She was always going to be a terrible artist. Until that wonderful, blissful moment she’d had her idea. It was a terrible idea, but Magenta was also a terrible person, so she didn’t mind that part much. Magenta had just read the phrase “eyes are the windows of the soul” and had an epiphany. If she wanted her art to have a soul, she should be able to give it one. She went straight to the Masters, armed with a dozen hired guards who were Patronus qualified and Imperious bound. She burned out one after the another as she forced them to hold a Patronus, time she spent watching the Masters at work. As each faded, she’d have the next cast a Patronus and feed the first to the Masters. It took her several years and several dozen “guards” to finally catch the knack for how they withdrew the soul.

               Back in her studio, she dove into her parents’ books and her half remembered study of spell creation. There was only one curse that would do, but it had to be adapted to complete the process she required. For this, she supplied herself with a standing order for a dozen live rats a week from various pet supply houses. All her many years of work condensed themselves into a tiny flourish of the wand at the end of the adapted spell.

               Once cast, the original intent was for the spell to withdraw the soul of the victim, sending it to the nearest magically prepared canvas, held there to await activation. The actual result of her manipulating the spell was that the soul refused to leave the body and forced the magic to encompass both, but as it mimicked the intended result, Magenta never bothered to refine the spell. Once installed on the canvas, the soul would “bleed” a background into place. Often the backgrounds were nonsensical, the product of a traumatized id, perhaps a nightmare location of fantastical colors and threatening shapes, or as stretched and distorted as a Dali painting. Those few from her studio that made their way to a relatives hands at some point and were activated spent the entirety of their time in whatever other frames were made open to them. Those forced to remain in their own for any length of time were living in their own suffering, eventually going quiet and then non-responsive. The blessing was that none of the paintings realized they were an original soul.

               Corvus had initially loved the technique, the lack of a body to dispose of was delightful, and he adapted easily to the addition of the wand flourish with the Avada Kedavra spell, as well as teaching his sons to do the same. Corvus would, at first, ensure he had a ready canvas nearby, but soon lost interest, finding the many step process tedious. Preparing an expensive canvas, transporting it, killing his victim, and collecting the canvas to take home and the like were fun for a while, but he found he had no use for the canvases and soon resented the expense. Soon he stopped bringing a canvas, leaving the incorporeal soul to drift at the whims of a magical breeze.

               Perhaps predictably, he died relatively young, and before telling his sons why they’d been taught to incant the killing curse the tiniest bit differently from their friends. Growing to adulthood, the spell became just one amongst many in the boys’ repertoire, consequently using it far less often than their father had. They much preferred torture, without resorting to the swift end of the curse. But now and again, and it was just now and again, the spell with it’s little flourish would be used and the elves at Hogwarts would need to ready a new canvas. And now and again a friend would cast in imitation, admiring the flourish only to be surprised at the lack of a body. One or two tried it and decided it felt silly. One or two would use it when being particularly dramatic, but be a bit more lazy when no one was able to appreciate it. And this is the story of how the beings in the basement came to be.

               It could be called lucky that the process of readying a canvas for a magical painting takes time and expensive resources. And fortuitously for the souls that had come to Hogwarts, the forbidden forest was a wonderful source for many of those resources. Had that not been so, the budget cost would certainly have alerted someone to the ongoing task and the beings would have wound up elsewhere, or perhaps nowhere at all. Magical artists very rarely had a stock of prepared canvases, the expense generally limited them to preparing one only when they had a commission. And during the war there wasn’t a portrait artist to be found in the United Kingdom, having all moved as quickly as possible to safer climes. It should certainly be supposed that there is a limit to how far a soul can travel before dissolving into the ether, their soul never knowing it was forever denied it’s afterlife. It was fortunate chance indeed that a failed art class and a never removed house-elf task provided a home for some few souls that made their way to the Hogwarts canvases.

               Which is the story of how a number of beings were in the basement of Hogwarts castle. It’s perhaps not the entire story, but tales must be told in their own time and in their own way.