A Mystery in Watercolor

nylora

 It wasn't school wide, but Leah considered it a catastrophe.

Either she'd managed to get even further onto Nylora's bad side by trying to apologize, or she was just easily bullied, because a group of students (three Slytherins and a Gryffindor) had caught her in the halls and before she'd even had time to gasp they'd bundled her into a broom closet and slammed the door.

She lit her wand, chest heaving, taking the painting out of her bag. With Nylora claiming to be watching her, she'd thought it would probably be a good idea to keep moving Ginge's portrait. She wasn't sure if she regretted that now or not.

"What happened?" He squinted in the light from her wand. "Did we make it?"

"No," she huffed. "I--"

A thump on the door made her jump back. Muffled snickers filtered through the wood.

"We've been shoved into a closet," she said, quieter.

"Oh," he said. "Cool."

Taking a few cautious steps forward, she set her wand against the door. "Alohomora."

Nothing even clicked. So either the door was locked with a kind of magic the charm didn't work on, or it didn't even lock and they were holding the door shut. Either way, that wasn't going to work.

"Damnit."

"Language."

"Is now really the time?" She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand, freezing when she felt the ghost of a touch on her ankle. "Oh my god."

"Oh my god what?"

She didn't want to, but she looked down.

Vines wound around both ankles, tightening with every moment.

"Oh my god what?!"

"Devil's Snare," she whispered.

The vines yanked her off her feet.

The impact knocked the painting from her arms. Her concentration wavered and her wand went dark. "Shit!" She lit it again, trying to peel the plant off her foot but it just tightened its grip like an angry snake. "You okay?"

"Don't worry about me," he said.

"Watch me!" she snapped breathlessly, snatching her hand back as the vine tried to wind around it too. "How do you fight Devil's Snare?!"

"You don't know?"

"It's not an American plant of course I don't know!" Heart pounding in her throat, she jabbed it with her wand and it seemed to recoil.

"It hates sunlight!"
"Well I'm shining my light at it!" A vine coiled around her chest before she could push it away.

"So try heat!"

"In--"

A vine seized her wrist and the wand fell from her hand. The light went out.

Sound went dead as she scrabbled on the floor, trying to bat the plant away and find her wand. She could cast nonverbal but she couldn't do wandless, she had to-- she had to-- it was winding around her arms but she had to-- she wrenched her arm, pulling, leaning--

She had her wand.

But she couldn't fight the Devil's Snare, not like this, with the vines shoving her wand into her face-- if she cast Incendio she'd burn herself more than the plant, she couldn't--

Her eyes landed on the painting.

They'd never tested it before. They'd discussed it in passing once or twice, whether he could visit other paintings. He said he thought he might be able to, but his painting wasn't flush against the wall. They'd decided that was probably the limiting factor, but never confirmed it (it hadn't seemed important; that was after the incident with Professor Potter and they were scared if he was spotted wandering the castle it would draw attention).