I do not have the eloquence, wherewithal, patience, or time to explain to you how much I loathe this man.

He is truly a blight in this castle. I wish nothing more than for the caretaker to take his frame to the highest Astronomy tower, set it afire, and let it tumble directly into the lake. I would then prance gleefully about if some enterprising students fished up the sodden mess, threw it on the muddy shore, and jumped on it. I might even make a special trip to the Herbological Society Founding Ladies in the entry hall to watch.

I hate, hate, hate owing someone a favour, and I hate even more that it's him I owe it to.

Four hundred years, I've guarded this doorway. And while I may have been away from my frame a time or two, or perhaps taken a bit of a kip, I have never once truly abandoned my post. At least, I hadn't - but then you have a madman take a knife to you and see how stoic you remain. No, portraits can't feel pain, precisely, but there is still a certain horror implicit in watching your form be destroyed and knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it, save fleeing. And flee I did.

Is it honestly not enough that I must endure that shame? Must I now endure the trauma, the horrible nauseating burden of knowing I owe this tinned twit a favour? Because he did do a passable job guarding the Tower, that I can't deny. Yes, yes, he did let the madman in. There is that. I certainly wouldn't have let him in, even if he did have the password. A password's only half of portrait security; otherwise any gargoyle with half a Guardian spell could do it. Anyone with anything resembling intelligence wouldn't think for an instant that a grown man in ragged robes reading passwords off a sheet of paper has any legitimate reason for being in Gryffindor Tower. But then, we are talking about the Metallic Moron, whose brains could fill a thimble and leave ample space for a thumb besides. If he actually had two mental processes to rub together in that great rattling helm of his, the sparks might ignite those ridiculous moustaches.

I would quite like to see that, actually.

Aside from all that, he was the only portrait willing to cover my absence while the caretaker restored me - though Dumbledore did the more complex spellwork in that, of course - and for that, I owe him. Faugh. Even admitting it makes me feel ill. And I know exactly what sort of favour he's like to ask, too. It'll be the same favour he's been asking since his portrait was installed a century or two ago. I suppose decreased mental capacity makes it difficult to comprehend that "Never" and "Go rub yourself with turpentine, and I don't care where" are not meant to be taken as anything remotely flirtatious.

I tell you this now so that you truly appreciate just how much vitriol is building behind my bland smile as I see him ducking from frame to frame like some deranged gladiator, gradually making his way down the wall toward my frame. Not for the first time since this morning, I wish I hadn't sent Violet to go and fetch him. I could have simply sent him chocolates.

Or a noose.

He slides into my frame in a great clatter, bowing creakily. "My dear Lady," he booms pompously, "I am your most humble servant." He'd burnished his armour recently, possibly this very morning; it shines like a looking glass and smells like an old pot. It is much dented - probably from all the tumbles he took as he tramped gracelessly about the castle or fell off his poor horse - and does not fit him well. As he bows his head, the face guard clanks down and traps his moustaches.

"Rise, Sir Cadogan." Civility never hurt anyone, though I may be the first. "I wanted to thank you for your service while I was indisposed."

"Of course, My Lady!" He thumps his gauntleted fist against his breastplate. It rings like a muffled gong and his fist leaves a small dent behind. "All know that I am but a slave to duty! I would guard a thousand towers from a thousand knaves should my calling ever require such service!"

"Let's all hope it doesn't," I say sweetly. My stomach feels sour. "As a token of my thanks..."

"Ah, My Lady, no such token is required," Sir Cadogan says with a florid bow. "Just that I but look upon you, resplendent and whole once again and returned to your true occupation."

Oh, I should really leave it at that. He's giving me an out and he doesn't even realize it.

Who is the stupider one here?

"Nevertheless, good Sir Knight, it would please me to grant you a boon." Actually, it wouldn't please me at all. Not even slightly. What it will do is make me feel less beholden. A proper lady never lets a debt stand, especially when it is owed to a man who might qualify as animal, vegetable, and mineral all at once depending on which part of his body you're inspecting. (Vegetable would obviously be the mind, here, in case that particular dig was too subtle.)

Sir Cadogan reaches up to lift his visor, his blue eyes glittering in shock. "A boon, my dear Lady?"

"You heard me. Ask." It would be terribly rude for me to tap my foot right now. I do it anyway. It's slippered, and under so many skirts that no one will see or hear it. A little private rudeness may just keep me sane.

"O Lady, you render me altogether speechless!" I wish. "Might I then ask you what I have asked for all these years?"

"I daresay you might. I would even call it inevitable." I steel myself.

"Let us descend, then, upon the Great Feast in the second floor corridor, and we shall dine together like kings!" His face is shining with such delight that he is almost, for a split second, approaching something that could masquerade as charming, if you squinted and had the right light. He pulls off his helm, holding it beneath one arm while he offers me the other.

I take it. Well, what else can I do? I've already set the expectation of myself that I will be polite.

"I can't be gone long," I warn him. "The children will only be in classes for another hour and a half, and I must be back to let them in their rooms."

"Of course, My Lady. Let us not tarry overlong, then, but make utmost haste, that I may drink in your dark-eyed gaze even as I do the wine at table." This nice little speech was slightly spoiled by the clanging of his helm dropping to the ground. He stooped to retrieve it, nearly overbalancing in his unwieldy armour.

Despite his talk of "not tarrying overlong," he sets the pace down to the second corridor at an abominably leisurely stroll, regaling me with tales of foes he has vanquished and hamlets he has single-handedly defended from, using his words, "scoundrels, rapscallions, and rogues." Despite myself, I find myself laughing as he pantomimes a duel between him, a one-legged baron, and the baron's hunting hound. I try to tell myself I am laughing because he has stumbled into a stone railing and gone over it backwards.

I'm not very convincing.

In my defence, there is very little that brings two people together like a hundred years of petty and spiteful bickering.

I am undone as, with a flourish, he presents me with a nosegay of forget-me-nots just before we amble into the frame of the Great Feast. "My Lady," he said, his face shining with well-meaning and absolutely mindless sincerity, "Pray accept this small and poor token of my affection."

I stamp my foot. "Stop it, you great oaf."

"Stop what?" He looks genuinely confused.

"You are the single most annoying, oblivious, and stubborn portrait in the castle. I despise you. I want nothing to do with you or your affection or your empty-headed charm. I accompany you to dinner because, and only because, I wanted to express my thanks for your standing guard while I could not. I will have you know that finally overturning my judgement of you and causing me to fall in love absolutely negates the debt I owe you, and as such, I'm no longer required to dine with you."

He is looking at me as though I've been speaking in a foreign language. I hope I haven't overtaxed him; what I've just said makes as little sense to me as it probably did to him.

"I cannot have heard My Lady correctly," he says. "Did my ears deceive me?"

"You know very well they didn't." I cross my arms. "I'm quite thoroughly put out with you. I'm going to return to my frame now. I think you should return to yours and think about what you've done."

That's done it; I truly have broken the overgrown boy's mind. I turn on my heel and stalk from the frame.

Before I have left it entirely, however, I hear from behind me, "Shall we dine tomorrow, then? Once I have thought about my crime?"

I huff a sigh. "Oh, I suppose."

His helm clatters as he drops it again. I don't look back.

"Where have you been?" One of the children asks as I sidle back into my own frame.

"Never you mind. Password?"

"Forget-me-not."

I swing to allow her passage. I'd wager that the fool didn't even know they were my favourite flowers. Well, if he didn't know, I wasn't going to tell him.

Insufferable dimwit.