A/N: I've long wanted to write a story about the "Fat Lady" whose portrait guards the Gryffindor common room. So here she is. The story takes place before the arrival of the Trio at Hogwarts - circa 1986.

The Muggles Have a Word for Them

by Kelly Chambliss

- / - / -

"The Muggles have a word for them, you know."

Violet makes this pronouncement as she swans into my portrait space and drops onto my favourite chaise longue, the one I've just spend half an hour plumping the cushions of. It's not easy to plump a two-dimensional cushion that's made of canvas and stiffened with paint, as Violet is well aware. She should have had the delicacy to leave the softest seat for me. It's my picture frame, after all, and she knows how my spine and limbs ache after so many hours devoted to answering the constant summons of all those Gryffindor children impatient to get into their common room.

But that's Violet for you. No sense of propriety, poor dear. It comes from her having spent so many years hanging in the parlour of a Muggle boarding-house. When she first arrived at the castle, Violet wanted us to believe that her portrait used to grace the gallery of some Stately Home, but we soon learnt - - from Colonel Frobisher, who hangs next to Vi downstairs near the Great Hall and who had many late-night confabs with her in her lonely early days - - that "shabby-genteel" was the best that could be said of the place.

Since I am a woman with a sensitive and vivid imagination, it quite pains me to have to visualise such an abode - - tatty antimacassars covering every threadbare surface, dust swept under the carpets by slatternly girls-of-all-work taking advantage of their lack of supervision, and the odour of cabbage permeating all. (Of the many benefits of being a magical portrait, one of those I most appreciate is the fact that I no longer need to sully my senses with all those disagreeable smells of the three-dimensional world.)

But I do feel for what Violet must have endured, so I make allowances for her. I try not to forget that unlike myself, she didn't have the benefit of a sheltered, careful upbringing. Her father made a reasonable living, true, but. . .well. . .I'll simply come out and say it: he was in trade. A greengrocer in Leeds or some such thing. Merlin knows what would have become of Vi if she hadn't had the good fortune to be born a witch. She's told me many times how grateful she was to exchange the shop for Hogwarts.

Well, well. I won't fuss about the cushions. Vi is a good friend to me, after all, and is such an excellent source of information, since she has more freedom to wander from portrait to portrait than I do. (Serving as the Guardian to the common room of Hogwarts' premier House is quite an honour, but it does limit one's mobility.)

"A word for what, my dear?" I ask.

"For them." She nods towards the corridor, where Madam Hooch the Quidditch mistress is talking to the new astronomy teacher, Professor Sinistra, who has the charmingly-appropriate given name of Aurora. But if you'll pardon the bluntness of my observation, she herself does not look terribly charming: she has very short brown hair, like a man's, and her hands look like a man's, too, with short nails, and she wears no jewellery at all. Her robes are plain as plain, and I do believe. . .

"Violet, hand me my lorgnette, if you please," I say. When she does, I take a good look at Miss Professor Sinistra and gasp, "Is she. . .could she possibly be wearing trousers underneath her robe?"

"I fear so," says Violet, pursing her lips in disapproval, though I've told her time and again that portraits' faces are not immune to unsightly lines. Even the highest-quality paint will crack eventually if one stresses it often enough.

"I very much fear so," she repeats.

Trousers on a lady professor! This is unacceptable, and I say so emphatically to Violet, adding, "Madam Hooch has some excuse for such attire, what with spending so much time on a broomstick, but I simply see no justification for trousers on other women."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you," Violet says. "This new professor isn't like other women. She's what the Muggles call a 'butch.'"

"A what?"

"A butch. Madam Hooch is one as well. A woman who acts like a man, wears men's clothes, cuts her hair short. No adornments. Not even the lightest touch of rouge."

Oh, one of those women. Well, I don't know why Violet thinks I need to know some vulgar Muggle term for them. We have such women in the wizarding world, too, of course; we call them "hitches," for "he-witch," a much more tasteful expression, if you ask me. Why Violet doesn't know this, I can't imagine, I mean, she did receive a fine magical education.

In fact, it was because of Hogwarts that she came to have her portrait painted in the first place. In her seventh year, she had a sweet, doomed romance with a Hufflepuff lad whose pure-blood family broke things off as soon as they heard he'd become captivated by a Muggle-born. But he never forgot her. He was artistic, was Violet's dear Edwald, and in later years, when he heard that she'd passed on (around the time of the old queen's death, it was), he attended her wake and painted her likeness as a comfort to her sorrowing grandnieces and nephews.

(That's why Violet always looks so pasty and sunken-eyed; Edwald wanted her family to remember the woman she had become, but he had only her death-visage to go by, not having seen her in life since they'd left school. He did his best to give her portrait some energy and animation, but just between us, I don't think Edwald had much talent with his brush; she still looks rather corpse-like to me. But Violet insists that she's just "interestingly pale," and of course I humour her. I'm lucky enough to have been painted when I was in the full flush of earthly health, and it would be petty of me to make poor Vi feel too much of the difference between us. Sadly, not long after my own painting was finished - - it was commissioned by my dear papa - - I went into a gentle decline and died a most affecting death, surrounded by my loving family and several devoted, grieving admirers of both sexes, but that's a story for another time.)

As to how Violet ended up on the wall of a Muggle boarding-house: well, it seems that not long after she passed into the 2D realm, the greengrocery failed, and the family's effects were put under the hammer. Violet was purchased by a Muggle landlady looking to smarten up her parlour. She didn't know the portrait was magical, of course; she just put it above her mantel, and there poor Vi hung for the next forty years or so, watching sad Muggle clerks come and go until the landlady's daughter took over her mother's business during that big Muggle war and rented the entire place to women "munitions workers," whatever they may be.

That must be when Vi learnt about Muggle hitches. It can't have been any later, because in 1945, her portrait was rescued from the boarding-house by Headmaster Dumbledore himself, who happened to be visiting (he had to go into many dodgy places during the war) and recognised the magic and bought her. I remember the year exactly, because it was not long after he defeated that dreadful maniac Grindelwald.

When the castle portraits heard the news about Grindelwald (Headmistress Derwent brought it from her portrait in St Mungo's), we had a lovely celebration. Several of the knight-portraits liberated the champagne from the still-lifes in Gryffindor Tower, and we all made so very merry that by the next morning, some of us had only hazy recollections of the jollifications.

Now, it should go without saying that I comported myself like the lady I am, so I will declare here once and for all that Sir Cadogan has no - - absolutely no - - cause to wink and smile at me in so knowing a fashion, the way he has done ever since that night. It's not gentlemanly behaviour. Not gentlemanly in the least.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, however. I don't care how many titles he affects: Sir Cadogan is inot/i a gentleman born. According to the Knights of Merlin whose portraits are near Ravenclaw Tower, in his 3D life, Cadogan was no more than a lowly thane - - a servant. In a royal household, true, but a servant all the same. He was no more a Knight of the Round Table than I was. And as for that tale of his having fathered seventeen children. . .well, if you'll pardon my unladylike diction, I say, "hogwash!"

Apparently he always yearned to be a knight-at-arms, and once when the royal household was summering at its country estate, he talked one of the duke's knights into letting him - - Cadogan, I mean - - try on a suit of armour. The fool man rode out on a farm pony, tried to impress a local maiden by jousting - - and broke his neck!

The duke paid to have Cadogan's portrait painted in his borrowed armour - - cuirass, double visor, jousting lance, farm pony, the lot. And no matter what Cadogan insists, the painting was not done in his honour: it was done to hang in the duke's children's nursery as an object lesson against pretension and forgetting one's place.

However. Be that as it may. Yes, Cadogan wrongs me with his winks and nudges, but he is incidental to my point here. My point is that Violet has been a Hogwarts Castle portrait for forty years, and it is high time that she put her unfortunate Muggle days behind her, including her knowledge of their arcane terminology.

(Mind you, I have nothing against Muggles themselves. Poor dears, they mean well. They do their best to cope without magic, and, given their limitations, the things they accomplish are little short of miraculous. In my own 3D youth, for instance - - when I was the merest child, carrying my first real-fur muff (dark-brown niffler fur, it was, and softer than soft) - - I was taken to London to see the Crystal Palace, and what a wonder it was: quite as interesting as many magical structures. So you see, I'm not one of those narrow-minded sorts who maligns Muggles merely because they are Muggles. But in the Muggle world as in ours, there are people who - - well, not to put too fine a point on it - - are just not Our Sort, if you understand me. And the sad clerks and strong-minded women of Violet's boarding-house days were most definitely in that unfortunate category. She needs to put them and their words out of her head.)

"'Butch,' indeed," I say to Violet. "What a sadly unmellifluous expression."

"I like it," Violet says. "It sounds honest and plain and stout-hearted, just like Madam Hooch herself. And her butch friends. . .you know, Madam Bones and that animal-lady, Madam Grubbly-Plank. I like the way they look. I wish you could have seen them in their dress robes last Yuletide, when the Headmaster gave his dinner for the staff and their friends."

(I confess, I think it rather unkind of Violet to mention this, since the Headmaster's Yule dinner takes place in the small antechamber near the Great Hall where her portrait hangs, so of course she gets to attend all the parties while I languish up here looking after the children who remain over the holiday. Then again, Violet does generously share with me the liqueur chocolates that the Headmaster always gives the ground-floor portraits at Christmastide, so I will forgive her for reminding me of what I miss. And it's not as if I'm forgotten at Christmas; Professor McGonagall is a good lass who doesn't neglect the Guardian of her House. She gives me a lovely painted bottle of Veuve Corneille every year.)

"Madam Grubbly-Plank was there as Professor McGonagall's guest," Vi chatters on, "and she wore a black dress robe with a white tie. Quite fetching, she looked."

I turn my lorgnette on Violet to see if perhaps she's beginning to develop a case of portrait rot. It happens, you know, even in the most well-regulated of castles. Dampness breeds mould, it's a sad fact of life whether 2D or 3D, and mould is not kind to painted canvas. But Vi looks normal (well, as normal as a picture based on a corpse ever looks), so she must be serious.

"Why, Violet," I say, and I can tell from her face that she hears the note of hurt in my voice. "I thought you preferred someone daintier and more lady-like."

In any event, that's what she always tells me when we're sitting cosily tête-à-tête on my chaise longue of an evening, and I'm allowing her to steal kisses behind our fans, like the dear-and-forever friends we are. Despite her regrettable origins, we have become quite close and often share caresses and body warmth in my bed on cold nights. (Even a portrait feels the draught during a Highland winter.) Violet and I are not like Madam Hooch - - we haven't either of us a manly bone in our bodies, and I haven't had short hair since I was nine years old and had to sacrifice my beautiful locks to dragon pox - - but we do generally find women more to our romantic taste than men.

(It took me many years to understand myself. I was most carefully raised, of course, sheltered and petted; it wasn't until I arrived at Hogwarts as a portrait that I discovered that a woman could love a woman as more than a schoolgirl crush.

The discovery came about in lovely romantic fashion. In my early years, before I was promoted to Guardian of Gryffindor, I had the good fortune to hang next to the portrait of Vrunhilde the Valkyrie. Talk about an education! I probably shouldn't say so, but in certain ways, I learnt more from dear Vrunhilde than I ever learnt from my Hogwarts professors. The day her portrait was incinerated by a student's mis-aimed hex was one of the saddest days of my 2D existence.

But time heals, of course, and eventually I mended my broken heart and moved on, so that by the time Violet arrived, I was quite ready to fling myself into the arms of Eros once more - - or the arms of Vi, which amounts to the same thing.)

She and I have been bosom companions for many year now, so it doesn't please me in the least to find that after all this time and all her many compliments about my darling curls and my becoming pink silk gown, she actually prefers hitches.

She hastens to reassure me.

"Oh, I do, I do love a lady-like lady," Vi says, patting my cheek and adjusting my lace. She's too decorous to do more, not with the professors standing there in the corridor. "Don't be cross, dear, you know that no one will ever supplant you in my heart. But you know yourself how aesthetically appealing a dashing set of dress robes can be!"

Well, she has the right of it there, I must admit. We've both mentioned more than once how nicely Phineas Nigellus Black fills out the ceremonial headmaster's robes in his portrait.

So I squeeze Violet's hand, and we turn our attention back to Madam Hooch and Professor Sinistra.

"You'll probably find Hogwarts a bit of an adjustment at first," Madam Hooch is saying. "I did. To tell you the truth, I never expected to spend my post-Harpies career knee-deep in children. But it's turned out to be very rewarding in its own way."

Professor Sinistra shoves her hands into her trouser pockets and rocks back on her heels. (Not the most attractive stance, I'm sorry to report. But Madam Hooch doesn't seem to mind. I haven't seen her smile like this since she and Professor McGonagall got box seats for the Quidditch World Cup.)

"Well, the stars tend to be the same no matter where one fetches up," Professor Sinistra says. "But Hogwarts does seem a little isolated."

Madam Hooch runs a hand through her hair to spike it up, and Violet nudges me. We've seen Hooch do that before, when she's seen a lady who catches her interest. You see, although Violet and I prefer women, we can appreciate an attractive manly man, too. Girls like Madam Hooch are different, however. I don't believe there's a man alive who has ever set her heart a-flutter.

But it looks as if Professor Sinistra might be doing so.

"I know what you mean," Madam Hooch nods. "I felt the same way at first. But you'll find all our colleagues very welcoming and friendly." She grimaces. "Well, I should say, most of them are. Severus Snape isn't exactly a barrel of laughs, and Irma Pince - - have you met her? She's the librarian. She can be a little prickly. But Pomona Sprout and Filius Flitwick are delightful, and Poppy Pomfrey the matron is a lot of fun, and so is Minerva. Minerva McGonagall, you know. The deputy headmistress. You've met her."

Violet and I exchange glances. We haven't heard this level of chattiness from Madam Hooch in years.

Professor Sinistra laughs. "I confess, 'a lot of fun' aren't the first words that come to mind when I think of the Deputy Head. To tell you the truth, she rather scares me."

Madam Hooch laughs, too. "Believe it or not, I think she'd be shocked to hear that. She honestly doesn't realise how intimidating she can be. But when she lets her hair down - - well, figuratively speaking - - there's no one funnier. She's been through a rough patch this last year, though. You know that her husband died back in the summer?"

"I'd heard something about that, yes," Professor Sinistra says. "Freak accident, wasn't it? Sad. I'm sure it must be hard for her."

"It is. We've all been trying to look after her - - well, to the extent that she'll let us, I mean. Minerva's pretty independent. But she did go to the headmaster's Yule dinner last month, which I thought was a good sign."

"Does he throw a lot of parties, then, the headmaster?" asks Professor Sinister, grinning. "Or is it just a once-a-year thing, and the rest of the time he lets his sparkly robes be the party?"

Madam Hooch gives a great guffaw - - frankly, a far heartier response than that rather pitiful joke warrants. Violet nudges me again.

"The Yule dinner is his only official gathering," Madam Hooch says, "but it's definitely not the only social event you'll find at the castle. You'll have to join our Fortnightly Coven - - just the ladies on the staff plus a few good friends from outside. We meet on alternate Saturdays in different people's rooms. We'll be at Minerva's this week, you should come. . ."

They've been wandering slowly down the corridor as they speak, and now they disappear beyond the statue of Godric Gryffindor, and we can hear no more.

"Oh!" Violet breathes, clasping her hands in front of her like a young girl. Sometimes that gesture grates on my nerves, but tonight, I understand completely. "The Fortnightly Coven is meeting at Professor McGonagall's this week! Can't we go, dear?"

"We really shouldn't," I say, but not very forcefully, and Vi presses her advantage.

"Please? We haven't been in simply ages. Not since the start of autumn term."

It's true. You see, we aren't on the official guest list for the Coven Fortnightlies, and we're hardly the sort of ladies who show up at parties uninvited.

Well, not very often, at any rate. And in this case, I think one could easily argue that we have what might be called a "standing invitation." At least I do. You see, as Guardian of the Gryffindor Common Room, I have access to Professor McGonagall's private quarters. If an emergency arises - - the wee firsties overeat themselves at a feast and have upset tummies, or students forget their dignity as Gryffindors and hex each other - - I can summon their Head of House. There are empty portrait frames for me in both her sitting room and her bedroom.

Of course I try not to take advantage of this privilege - - the professor deserves her bit of privacy - - but then again, I do feel a certain responsibility to remain informed of castle goings-on. Although I would never stoop so low as to spy on 3D people, we portraits are in a good position to see and hear things that the Headmaster or a Head of House really need to know about. For the health and safety of the students and staff, you understand.

And if Violet and I do attend the Coven Fortnightly at Professor McGonagall's this week, it's not as if we'll really be intruding. We'll be quiet as mice, of course, and we'd never presume to enter the conversation. Why, they'll never even know we're there. Indeed, when you think about it, we should count as members of the Coven anyway. Aren't Violet and I, for all intents and purposes, part of the Hogwarts female staff?

I squeeze Violet's hand again. "Of course we'll attend, dear. We have to make sure that Professor Sinistra is settling in well, and as the Guardian of Gryffindor, I have a positive duty to keep an eye on Professor McGonagall, the poor thing. I don't care how independent she is, a widow needs support. Call for me on Saturday, and we'll go together.

"And now," I finish, "I think we could both do with a little restorative, don't you? Fetch the painting of the elf-made wine, if you would be so kind. I'll pour."