The small, gilded frame rested precariously on the dark green duvet. Inside the oil-painted canvas, the miniature Gilderoy Lockhart stopped admiring his reflection in his painted mirror and finally registered the change in scenery.
He looked around the dim, enclosed space of the four-poster bed, his painted brow furrowing in profound confusion. He saw the dark velvet curtains, the shadows, and finally, the twelve-year-old boy staring down at him with an expression of cold, predatory calculation.
"I say," the painted Lockhart began, his voice tinny and somewhat muffled, like listening to a phonograph through a pillow. "Where exactly am I? The lighting in here is atrocious. It does absolutely nothing for my complexion. This is certainly not my office."
Orion didn't answer immediately. He observed the portrait, noting the sheer, staggering lack of situational awareness.
If it were me trapped in a foreign environment, Orion thought clinically, my first instinct would be to assess threat levels and locate an exit. His first instinct is to complain about the lighting. His reflexes are absolute garbage.
Orion knew he couldn't afford to let the painted fraud have a moment to panic and flee. It was a well-known fact within wizarding portraiture that subjects could travel between interconnected frames, often using the painted borders of their canvas as doorways to other portraits they inhabited.
Orion raised his Hawthorn wand, his eyes narrowing. He had read a fascinating, highly obscure theory in a restricted text regarding the metaphysical boundaries of magical artwork. Portraits didn't just walk off the canvas; they required the structural integrity of the painted border to maintain a continuous dimensional link.
"Let's test the theory," Orion murmured.
He pointed the tip of his wand directly at the ornate, gilded edge of the small painting.
"Incendio."
He didn't unleash the roaring inferno he used on the training dummies. He modulated his magical output perfectly, casting a low-level, intensely focused ribbon of flame.
The fire caught the very edges of the canvas where it met the wood. The painted Lockhart shrieked in terror as real smoke began to billow within the artificial environment of his painting.
"What are you doing?!" the portrait yelled, dropping his painted mirror and scrambling backward, pressing himself against the painted wall of his armchair. "Stop it! You're ruining the frame!"
Orion ignored him. With surgical precision, he dragged the tip of his wand around all four borders of the painting, letting the low-level fire crisp and blacken the very edges of the canvas, severing the painted lines that connected the art to the frame.
He watched closely. The painted Lockhart tried to run toward the left edge of the canvas, intending to slip out of the frame and likely travel back to one of the hundreds of other portraits in the Defense office.
But as the painted man reached the blackened, charred edge of the canvas... he hit a wall. He literally bounced off the scorched paint, unable to pass through the destroyed boundary. The dimensional link was severed.
Orion had effectively sealed the room.
"Finite," Orion commanded, extinguishing the flames with a flick of his wrist.
The smoke cleared, revealing a terrified, soot-stained painted Lockhart huddled in the center of his chair, trapped within a canvas that was now entirely cut off from the rest of the wizarding world.
"Hello, Professor," Orion greeted smoothly, lowering his wand but keeping it visible.
The painted Lockhart coughed, looking up at Orion with wide, panicked eyes. "You! You're that student! Malfoy! What are you doing with my painting? This is highly irregular! It's vandalism!"
"I have a rather delicate experiment to conduct, Professor," Orion said, his voice polite but carrying an undercurrent of absolute authority. "And I require your assistance to execute it flawlessly."
"Assistance? With an experiment?" The painted Lockhart scoffed, trying desperately to regain his trademark swagger, though he kept a wary eye on the charred edges of his world. "Absolutely not! I do not assist students who set fire to my wardrobe! Return me to my office immediately, or I shall see you in detention until you graduate!"
Orion let out a soft, dark chuckle. He leaned closer to the painting, his blue eyes cold and flat.
"You misunderstand your position, Professor," Orion whispered, the menace in his voice palpable. "I am not asking for your permission. I am offering you a choice."
He tapped his wand lightly against the charred wood of the frame.
"There are several dozen other portraits of you currently residing in your office. All of them share your memories. All of them share your... unique personality traits."
Orion's smile was razor-sharp.
"I am fairly certain that at least one of you will be willing to help me, sooner or later. Especially once I return to your office, hold up this scorched, ruined canvas, and demonstrate exactly what happens to the Lockharts who refuse to cooperate."
The color drained entirely from the painted man's face. The bravado shattered like thin glass. "You wouldn't dare."
"I am a Malfoy," Orion stated simply, as if that explained everything. "Dare is a word for Gryffindors. I calculate. And right now, the calculation says you are expendable."
The painted Lockhart swallowed hard, his painted chest heaving with simulated panic. "What... what do you want from me?"
"A performance," Orion said, his tone shifting back to business-like efficiency. "I am going to provide you with a few specific lines of dialogue. I want you to sit in that chair, look anywhere but directly at me, and recite them. I want it to sound natural. Confessional. Authentic. And while you speak, I am going to record your voice."
"Lines?" The portrait looked suspicious. "What kind of lines?"
"The truth," Orion murmured cryptically. "But we are not doing the recording here, in the dark, on a bedspread. The acoustics are terrible, and the visual context is wrong. Tomorrow morning, when the dormitories are empty, I am going to use an Engorgio charm to enlarge your painting to life-size. I will place you in a setting that looks remarkably like your actual office."
Orion stood up, smoothing his robes.
"I am giving you the night to think over your life choices, Professor," Orion said, looking down at the trapped, terrified painting. "Consider the script I will provide you tomorrow. Rehearse it. Because be aware: if you decline to perform, or if your delivery is unconvincing... I will burn this canvas entirely, banish the ashes, and simply replace you with another Lockhart who is more accepting of his fate."
He didn't wait for an answer. He waved his wand, casting a heavy, opaque piece of dark silk over the gilded frame, plunging the painted man into absolute darkness.
"Sleep well, Gilderoy," Orion whispered to the covered frame.
"That was ruthless," Sparkle commented softly, her blue interface hovering nearby. "You essentially put a painting in solitary confinement with the threat of execution."
"He's paint and memory, Sparkle," Orion replied, pulling back the velvet curtains of his bed. "He doesn't have a soul. He has self-preservation programming. I am just exploiting the code."
He walked over to his trunk, the thrill of the impending operation buzzing in his veins.
"Tomorrow," Orion smiled, a genuine, chaotic grin. "We record a confession. And then, we burn a fraud."