Now that she was settling into her third year and Obderedria was more comfortable with aspects of living in a magical boarding school, there was a certain coziness to Hogwart's hallways now. Mostly. No place she'd been within in could match the coziness of Hufflepuff house which was just perfect in her eyes. And not the dungeons, or the corridor before the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, or generally any area Obderedria associated with something dangerous. But for a regular run of the mill corridor, especially those that connected to the grand staircase and thus had a lot of portraits on the walls, those were a close second to the warmth of Hufflepuff house.

Though, when the paintings could stare back that could understandably make anyone self conscious. And they could talk, most times there was the muttering of some figure in a frame as students went along the halls. It was an odd dichotomy for someone like Obderedria, who most of the time during summers off caught up on telly programs; the allure of watching the portrait figures go about their scenes and landscapes and passing between frames was an old habit, but then again nothing on the telly watched back.

So one night, on the way to dinner in the great hall Obderedria passed a well trodden hall, the paintings largely glossed over when out of nowhere she heard something.

"Psst."

She turned but averted her gaze upon recognizing a hooked nose man, a character that could be rather rude to those outside of his frame. Yet the 'psst' continued as Obderedria continued further. Up until she dared peek about again but there was still nothing. There was something actually wrong about the hall until she put her finger on it. The portraits that moved about in the paintings were not moving!

Needlessly to say, the corridor got a lot less cozy after that.

Obderedria twisted her head to look at several paintings, green splotched brown hair swishing about. There were elements of the scenes that were still moving: the wind blowing through the trees of a landscape, the sway of what must have been a ship, antsy brooms that were bucking without any riders. But the normally expressive figures of the paintings were all still as in regular muggle photographs.

"Ahem." Then something cleared its throat in a louder but more polite fashion. And there, hard to spot but just leaning into one frame was a wizard with a white beard. A very long white beard, dressed in red robes and with a blue floppy hat.

"I would hide before it comes back, my girl," said the wizard in the painting, gesturing with a striped walking stick that reminded Obderedria somewhat of a barbershop pole.

"Before what comes back?" Obderedria asked, truly frightened.

"Avert your gaze lest you suffer the same fate as the rest," replied the wizard. There was something oddly familiar about him. "Confound it, where did I leave that scroll?"

Obderedria made to hide behind a plinth, worriedly looking over the pictures for whatever the 'what' was, making for an odd sight outside of the paintings.