Closed Fresh Paint, Old Ideas

[Lysander Summers]

Since his first Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Lysander decided he was not Professor Styx's biggest fan. The man was just...unpleasant, to say the very least, with his stony expression and intimidating demeanour. Lysander got the impression that he didn't like kids at all, which begged the question as to why the man was a professor, let alone the head of an entire house, and not doing something else. It reminded him of Emmett, who would always complain about the children he sold wands to instead of doing something else. It didn't make any sense to him. From what he had heard, Professor Styx had always been a bit of an unhappy and dark person, who Sander's own dad had tried and failed to bring a splash of colour to. But now it was his turn to do things, to go out on his own adventures or pull his own pranks, just like in all the stories he'd heard from when his parents were kids. Only this time, he'd do them right.

For Lysander's plan, he had searched around the castle for some supplies, eventually landing on a room labelled with a big word he didn't understand. What was a conglomerated? It sounded totally made up. What he did recognise however, was the word "arts", which was exactly what he was after. Sander pushed open the door, his mouth falling open in wonder as he took in the room's contents. There was a glint of brass and silver in one corner, where a handful of musical instruments lay, and the whole place was littered with easels, some appearing to contain half-finished paintings, or ones blacked out in creative frustration. Further still were a selection of creepy mannequins, which for a moment Lysander had thought were people already occupying the room, until he realised they had no faces and weren't moving. Merlin, he hoped they weren't going to move. He'd watched enough of Silent Hill with Wendall to know just how scary they could be.

The boy glanced around, scouring the room for something, anything he thought would come in handy. His tiny fingers danced over some of the easels as he wandered by, unintentionally collecting a dollop of paint that had been caked on and refused to dry from whoever had last been there. "Yuck." He muttered, pulling a face at the coloured slime on his fingertips. He spun around to find something to wipe them clean on, knowing how annoyed his father would be if he got paint on his new uniform, but encountered only one of the faceless mannequins nearby. Shrugging his shoulders to himself, he reached up to its blank face and drew on two large, derpy eyes and a silly smile. There. It wasn't that much less creepy, some might argue he'd made it look even worse, but he could at least chuckle to himself now. Giving the inanimate person a gentle slap on the shoulder, the boy stepped back to admire his masterpiece, but the smile on his own face quickly sank into a frown as the mannequin started moving. Both its head and the arm he had slapped began to rapidly expand, and Lysander continued to take multiple hasty steps backwards, watching in horror as the face he had drawn bulged out toward him, that painted mouth suddenly looking quite ready to devour him whole. "It IS just like Silent Hill! Someone help!" He shrieked, in a voice far more shrill than normal. He stumbled on an empty paint can, almost falling flat on his face before he managed to steady himself and pick up the metal bucket to use as a makeshift weapon. If he was going to go down to a killer mannequin in a schools arts room, it wasn't going to be without a fight.​

 

[Alec Tricity]

Alec was still trying to get used to the whole witch thing. The girl had spent her whole life with her grandmother, looking after her garden and helping to cook her dinners after school, that suddenly being in a space with many different people with many different personalities had been a bit of a shock to the system. She was like some of her friends who had grown up about magic either, and finding out she had to move to one of these big castles with little creatures that took care of you was still something the Gryffindor was trying to get used to.

The brunette had been sat outside in the courtyard by herself, debating whether or not it was time to sit with her peers in lessons or whether being by herself was still the preferred option, when she spotted one of her new friends headed into a separate room just up ahead. Lysander was one of those kids who seemed to know everything, and already be fully versed in what to expect around of the school. He even had a dad and a sister here so it wasn’t like he’d had to leave his family behind either. The first year jumped up from the bench, wandering idly in the same direction, curious to know what he’d found this time and what he was up to.

The Gryffindor rounded the door frame and peered into the room just inside to see Sandy fall backwards over a metal paint bucket, and she let out a small laugh of amusement while quietly hoping he hadn’t hurt himself. It wasn’t like he was Wendall. As he suddenly called out for help, she followed his line of sight to see what on earth had caused him to stumble, her own brown eyes meeting those that belonged to an oddly drawn mannequin. She’d never quite seen anything as ugly looking as that one, those she’d seen in shops didn’t usually even have a face at all. She narrowed her eyes, frowning as the thing was moving a little, although Alec was quickly convinced this was some sort of joke. Either he knew she had been following him or someone was playing a joke on him. Of course mannequins didn’t actually move! She chuckled harder this time, slowly taking a few more steps into the room, only coming to a stop when she was a few feet away and she watched the things head to instead look directly at her.

 

[Lysander Summers]

Laughter tore Lysander's eyes momentarily away from the expanding mannequin, instead narrowing on the source, who was none other than Alec. How could she laugh at him at a time like this? This was a wholly serious situation, and he was absolutely positive he was only a few moments away from being devoured whole by a murderous model. "Don't just stand there! Help me!" He shouted at her, voice still shrill and incredulous. The mannequin's head swivelled to the side, the weight of its expanding head pulling it one way, and Lysander took the opportunity to leap forward and swing his bucket while he assumed it was distracted. "Hyaah!" The boy brought the bottom of the pail down on top of the monstrosity's head, striking it numerous times with a prolonged yell, until it finally collapsed to the floor in a defeated heap. Its distended limbs deflated with a hissing sound, and it returned to a generic mannequin once more, albeit with a rather large dent in its head. With a satisfied sigh of relief, Sander settled back against the floor to catch his breath. "Gee, you really had my back there. Thanks for standing around laughing while I almost died." The boy complained with a huff. It was only then that he realised that quite a few of the inanimate mannequins were different shapes and sizes, with one poster instructing people on how to change them to suit a garment. He realised he must have simply set the charm off, and wasn't actually in any danger at all, though he wasn't about to voice that to his friend. Trust his overactive imagination to think it was actually trying to attack him. ​