Portrait of Mrs. Norris

I hate my portrait on the staircase wall.

Every time I venture to think that Filch has finally realized his place in my domain, he does something so intensely moronic that it sadly affects my entire view of humanity.

One would like to experience a less jaded outlook once in a while.

What of it, you say? Just don't look at it, you suggest? Oh, how very enlightened.

Have you never had a picture of yourself that you absolutely loathed, but were unable to destroy out of a misplaced emotion that some would call affection?

Oh, of course, one may say that draping oneself artistically against an artificial backdrop is an achievement for all the world to see; but then, immortality really only matters to humans. And one usually tends to be asked first.

Pity Filch never caught on to all that.

It was quite unwarranted, that day I had to go in search of him, only to find him lurking near a heavily-traveled staircase. For a moment, I had actually been concerned. For an instant, I had actually cared.

At least twenty-seven rules were broken around the castle as he stood there beaming at the wide, thin parcel he held in his scaly hands. The moth-eaten velvet obscuring the object shone dully in the torchlight. Glimpses of an inexpertly-painted gold frame winked out from beneath the chewed holes.

That it was a portrait was no doubt; scattering pink and green polka-dotted tools (an unfortunately long-lived student prank) around the steps and on the floor, he crouched down and painstakingly measured the sole blank spot in the midst of the other portraits. I could not be unaware that this area was rather close to my eye-level.

It was just after supper; packs of students had been drifting aimlessly past for some time. All it took was for one group to stop out of misplaced curiosity, and soon we had a right old gathering of clever trousers.

Filch became aware of me at about the same time he became aware of the crowd of vagrants. He looked taken aback for a moment, which wasn't easy with that face, but quickly recovered.

"I was just about to call you, my pretty," he wheezed unconvincingly. "Just wait one moment, and you'll see what I have for you." He became intent on applying Perma-Stick to the back of the portrait, paying no heed to the forty liberties taken in the Astronomy Tower alone.

The cloth was now billowing in fits and spurts; Filch made disgusting cooing noises.

"Not too long, now, not too long," he soothed as he carefully lined the frame up against the wall.

He never noticed that he missed at least four opportunities to create rules that two hapless third-years had just broken. No, he was too busy showering all sweetness and light no matter what anyone would say, and kept on adjusting and readjusting the angle at which the portrait hung.

He finally finished tinkering, took a deep breath, and smiled down at me. Filch really shouldn't smile.

"I present to you - Mrs. Norris!" he cried in his cracked voice. With a quite unwarranted flourish, he whipped off the covering and stood back.

It was a cat.

It was cute.

It was me.

The crowd around me gave a collective cry of surprised admiration. There sat a plump cat with a pink button nose and fluffy, silky fur, blinking in the middle of a sparsely-decorated room.

I saw it become aware of its audience. It wrapped its tail coyly about its legs and started to preen in the warm accolades. Filch was beside himself in ecstasy, tears streaming down his face.

"They captured you to the life!" he rasped.

It got up and stretched, earning another burst of depraved joy from the watchers.

It lay down and rolled on its back, looking limpidly from upside-down eyes.

It got back up and nonchalantly posed with its feet and paws placed just so.

They captured me to something, that's for sure.

It now turned its dewy-eyed gaze on each individual person, soaking in the love and affection emanating from the whole lot of execrable beings.

It lowered its eyes to my level, sure of finding the same welcome and abject slavery there.

It took one look at me and paled. It backed up into the edge of the picture, gradually becoming half a cat, then a fourth, and then an eighth. And then it was gone.

Filch was beside himself with horror. "Come back, my pretty, come back!" he cried, arms gesticulating wildly at the surrounding students.

Several miscreants galloped off in the direction the dusty furball seemed to have fled, judging by the jolted expressions of indignant portraits.

"They swore this frame had no exit points!" Filch wailed, tearing at his scanty hair.

It was at that point that a modest inscription in the lower right-hand corner of the frame began flashing somberly to itself.

Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes.

It all came out then. Filch blubbered to the students left trapped against the stairs all about the idea he had gotten from the back of his "Witchcraft for the Castle-Bound Squib" magazine. There blazed an advertisement for Weasleys' Caricature Portraits, a new sideline of Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes.

"Immortalize your favorite person, animal, or object!" it caroled.

"Perfect for reciprocating unexpected gifts!"

"Send one to your great-aunt - sure to increase your inheritance!"

"With free Perma-Stick backing!"

And instead of recalling just what those Weasleys did to his beloved school, or lamenting that rules 146 to 325 were made expressly because of their existence, or declaiming that they had escaped their long overdue punishment in a highly illegal, vainglorious fashion - the wretch up and sent an undercover order to them. As a surprise.

I hate surprises. Filch knows that.

Filch thought that "Caricature" was just another spelling of "Character." Filch was wrong.

And those bastards called me a crat.

"Mr. Snorris, Argus Filch's Glorious Crat," reads the placard, all self-important in the middle of the bottom frame.

And the reprehensible thing has a Claw-Repellent Weasley Ward on it.

* * * *

I've never really seen the creature since. Sometimes there's just a glimpse of a quivering nose peering around the frame, and then nothing.

Better if it hid from the start. It has cat toys in the foreground.

I can hear the students cooing over it whenever I approach.

"How adorable!" a Hufflepuff will sigh. "How silkily-soft!"

"How friendly!" croons a Ravenclaw. "What an intelligent look in its lovely eyes!"

Bah.

Today was no exception. Everyone scattered as I appeared, though not as hastily as they used to. More than once I've espied a smirk half-hidden behind an unwashed hand; that kind of behavior seems to have shown up more often, lately.

Filch has been lurking around here a bit too much for his health. It's drafty here by the staircase; wouldn't want him to catch a chilly claw in his ankle, would we.

There's the vacant portrait that I know a little too well. There's the hint of a whisker trembling from the frame. From somewhere, it got a comfy chair and a fireplace with a roaring fire and - what? - catnip!

What about my affection for Filch, you say? Affection be damned. Let's see how long it can stay away from such homey comforts.

I'll show it what a crat really is.