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[HP:Failed Art Student]-Chapter 23: Portal
🕑 Added 2025-07-25 12:03:04 +0000 UTCLuna, my closest and dearest friend,
"I do."
...
As Ethan recalled the moment when the owl carried his letter, soaring into the endless blue sky, a sly grin tugged at the corners of his lips.
For the first time in his memory, he found himself eagerly awaiting Christmas.
Yet, as he counted the days, he realized there were still over two months to go, with Halloween standing in the way.
Ethan had a plan brewing—a small art exhibition at Hogwarts, set for Halloween night.
He hadn’t breathed a word of it to anyone.
His scheme was to blend his paintings among the castle’s enchanted portraits, hanging them along the bustling corridors where students and staff would pass.
A little surprise to spice up Halloween, a touch of mischief to catch the unsuspecting off guard.
Who would be the lucky one to stumble upon his work?
With a wicked curve of his lips, Ethan hefted his art supplies and strode briskly down the corridor.
This afternoon, he was set to repaint A Glimpse of the Great Hall.
The students around him parted like a sea, silence trailing in his wake.
Their gazes, a mix of awe and unease, followed him. Some even discreetly gripped their wands, as if bracing for Ethan to suddenly lose his mind and start flinging curses left and right.
Ever since Professor Snape had disciplined Draco Malfoy that fateful night, Ethan’s name had once again rippled through Hogwarts’ rumor mill.
The term had barely begun, yet Slytherin’s hourglass had plummeted by twenty points—a glaring loss that sparked whispers.
A bit of digging revealed the truth: the platinum-haired Malfoy had crossed paths with a terrifying force, a figure as formidable as a beast, and had been utterly outmatched.
The gossip gained new life at lunch when a Howler arrived for Malfoy.
A Howler!
A crimson envelope hovered in the air, and Lucius Malfoy’s deep, furious voice boomed through the Great Hall:
“Your foolish assumptions are no excuse. The Malfoy name will not be tarnished. Defend it!”
Ethan didn’t quite grasp the meaning, but Draco clearly did.
As the voice faded, Malfoy’s face, already flushed with humiliation, drained to a ghostly pallor.
Beside him, Pansy Parkinson frantically patted his back, as if he might collapse at any moment.
She muttered encouragements under her breath, her head bowed low.
At the Gryffindor table, Ron Weasley’s jaw hung open, a half-eaten sandwich tumbling from his mouth (Hermione Granger, with a grimace, slid her plate away).
“Merlin’s bulkiest breeches,” Ron mumbled. “A Howler? For Draco Malfoy?”
“Pinch me, Harry! This isn’t a dream, is it? — Ow!”
Seamus Finnigan grinned, delivering a sharp pinch to Ron’s arm.
“Cut it out!” Ron swatted Seamus, his eyes gleaming with glee as he turned to Harry Potter.
“It’s a bloody holiday! I’m writing to Dad tonight to share the good news!”
“Hmph, when I meet Malfoy’s father, I’ll rub this in his face proper! Heh!”
Harry burst into laughter.
Nothing was sweeter than watching Malfoy take a spectacular fall.
And it was all thanks to Ethan.
Harry’s mind drifted to his first Potions class—a disaster from the start.
Professor Snape, with his greasy hair and sinister air, loomed like a malevolent bat, bombarding him with impossible questions.
“I don’t know, Professor,” Harry had admitted, frustration bubbling up.
He’d been on the verge of snapping, wondering why Snape didn’t just ask Hermione, when Ethan’s bizarre advice echoed in his mind:
“If a teacher gives you trouble, stare at them fiercely with your green eyes.”
It was absurd, but Harry, inexplicably, followed it.
He pressed his lips tight, widened his eyes, and glared at Snape with all his might.
His eyes stung, watering from the effort, but he didn’t break the stare.
Then, something extraordinary happened.
The menacing bat froze, mouth agape, staring back as if struck dumb.
After a long, stunned silence, Snape flicked his sleeve, stormed back to the podium, and rasped, “Due to Mr. Potter’s… honesty, Gryffindor is awarded two points.”
Harry: What?!
Gryffindor, Slytherin: What?!
Snape awarding points to Gryffindor?
For honesty?
Had someone slipped an Imperius Curse on the professor?
Harry’s mind roared: Ethan, you absolute legend!
Even if Ethan one day stormed into the Great Hall, knocked Dumbledore out of his chair, and declared himself Headmaster, Harry reckoned he’d take it in stride.
…Well, maybe he’d be a bit shocked.
“Oi, mate, what’s got you so lost in thought?” Ron’s voice snapped Harry back to the present.
“Come on, we’ve got our first Flying lesson soon!”
“Let me tell you, I was on my family’s old broom once and nearly smashed into a Muggle airplane…”
“Did you just say you flew your family’s old pig into the sky?” Dean Thomas cut in, smirking.
“Oh, sod off, Dean!” Ron shot back.
“Oh no, my gran’s Remembrall is glowing again…” Neville Longbottom mumbled nearby.
Harry laughed and bantered with his friends as they left the Great Hall, their excitement for flying lessons quickly overshadowing the Howler incident.
Not long after, Ethan, free from afternoon classes, leisurely wiped his mouth. Instead of heading off to his usual commissions, he gathered an assortment of bags and headed in the same direction as Harry and the others.
“Ethan, where’re you off to?” Michael Corner called, gulping down the last of his juice and scrambling to his feet.
“Painting on the lawn outside the castle,” Ethan replied. “One of my pieces got damaged, so I’m redoing it with better materials.”
He hefted a canvas frame nearly as tall as himself.
“I’m in! Let me carry some of that!” Michael said eagerly, snatching up some of Ethan’s supplies and jogging after him.
Miss a chance to tag along with Ethan? Not likely! Michael thought. This guy’s a genius—only an idiot wouldn’t try to befriend him!
Their other roommate, Anthony Goldstein, pushed up his glasses with a sigh. Glancing at the unusually clear sky, he grabbed a book and decided to study outside.
Not that he was curious about what Ethan was up to.
Definitely not.
…
Outside Hogwarts, the sky was a vivid blue, dotted with fluffy white clouds, and the grass rolled like gentle waves underfoot.
In the distance, the dark, dense Forbidden Forest loomed at the edge of sight.
Ethan picked a soft slope, set up his easel, and positioned his canvas.
He arranged his palette, turpentine, and paints with care.
A sudden wave of emotion hit him.
These art supplies, so ordinary in his past life, were now treasures he’d worked hard to afford.
With a new perspective, he picked up his brush, feeling a rush of passion and excitement well up from deep within.
Beyond the brush in his hand, he’d purchased others of varying sizes, thicknesses, and lengths, all in preparation to transfigure his wand into the perfect paintbrush.
Though he’d been the first to master turning a match into a needle in Transfiguration, his wand had stubbornly resisted transformation.
Professor McGonagall had explained that objects with magical properties, like wands, were far trickier to transfigure and demanded precision to avoid permanent damage.
Ethan’s plan was to experiment with different brushes, feeling their strengths and flaws, to envision the perfect paintbrush he desired.
He began with a pencil sketch, then mixed paints with turpentine to lay down broad strokes.
Swathes of black swept across the canvas, but under Ethan’s careful control, subtle shifts in depth and brushstroke direction transformed the darkness into a void—directionless, boundless, perhaps the shadow of the real world.
Then, within this desolate emptiness, a white door began to emerge, slowly creaking open.
Ethan painted with fierce focus, his pupils dilated, a ring of white around them giving him an eerie, almost otherworldly look.
Not far off, Gryffindor and Slytherin students shouted “Up, up!” during their Flying lesson.
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff had already had their turn, with only a few wobbly fliers and no major mishaps.
Most Ravenclaws, save for the Quidditch fanatics, preferred solid ground for their studies.
Well, except for those still dreaming of soaring into the common room on broomsticks—a tradition that persisted until new “victims” inevitably landed in the Hospital Wing.
Every year, the Ravenclaws tackled this challenge with relentless ingenuity, treating it as a house rite.
The lawn basked in warm sunlight, the weather perfect, the mood light.
But Michael and Anthony were slowly breaking out in cold sweats.
A chilling, unnatural aura seeped from Ethan’s canvas, like a Portkey forming, its invisible tendrils reaching out to drag them toward an unknown realm.
A realm devoid of joy, of warmth—only a cold, silent void.
Ethan, what in Merlin’s name are you creating at a proper wizarding school?!
This is beyond creepy!
Michael and Anthony exchanged glances, their eyes mirroring shock and dread.
It was pure torment.
Finally, as a scream erupted from the Flying lesson and the class reached its midpoint, Ethan set down his brush.
“It’s done,” he murmured, staring at the painting with intensity.
A faint blue light shimmered before his eyes, and words appeared:
Congratulations! You have completed another extraordinary work!
“A Glimpse of the Great Hall” has been upgraded to “The Portal”!
Grade: First Order · Golden Legend!
