Asher was walking up the staircase on the first floor. As he walked by the portraits he waved to them. As he moved higher up the staircase he noticed a piece of parchment taped to one of the portrait frames. He approached it and pulled of the parchment and it.

O_o

Do your Hufflepuff menfolk know that your hearts beat the hissing slither of a snake?

The slytherin roared or mmm slithered with laughter. Seriously that was the funniest thing ever.

Haha he felt that the aparecuim had hit an all time low or high which ever way you look at it.

The next stop for Alyssa was of course the most obvious place where portraits would be. The Portraits on the First Floor. She hated to disturb the portraits by tapping on them...and considering the positions some of the people were in the portrait, she could be tapping their behind, or their face or their eyes, but she knew that she had to make sure that she tapped as many portraits in the castle as she possibly could in the hour that was given to them.

So calling out to all the portraits, she said, "Hello everyone. I'm really sorry that I have to bother you, but I'm going to have to tap each and everyone of you to see who is hiding the secret passage way that leads to the blank portrait in the room to the left of the staff table." Alyssa knew that she could have easily asked the portraits themselves but she had a feeling that if they were helping to hide an emergency exit, that they wouldn't volunteer that information that easily. So she took out her wand and began with the first portrait on the left.

Locating the center, she tapped the canvas three time up....TAP..TAP...TAP and then two across...TAP...TAP....before apologizing. "Sorry, I'm really sorry." to the offended person in the portrait. Not waiting to see whether the canvas ripped open or not, Alyssa moved on to the next portrait tapping out the proper sequence with her wand before moving on to the next, each time apologizing to the portrait once she was done tapping on it.

There were some portraits that were placed too high and out of her hands reach that Alyssa wasn't able to tap on but she figured that if it was an emergency exit, that it would have been low enough for people to climb through. So she decided that she would leave those alone. When she reached the end of the row of portraits and had finished tapping each and everyone of them, Alyssa bowed to all of the portraits.

"Thank you for your patience and understanding. Oh by the way, there may be more students doing this to you." she told them before running off to find the next batch of portraits to bother.

Jake was preeeeetty sure there was a portrait hall around here somewhere. He'd never been to it... he didn't think the idea of a bunch of dead people talking to him sounded very appealing. Sure, he talked to Nearly Headless Nick and whatnot, but portraits were different. He didn't want to stand around talking to them. And he had the feeling that a lot of people might feel the same way. So that fulfilled the description Scabior had given them of where the second passage!portrait might be.

"I don't even know where to start..." Jake mumbled to Anya as he looked at the portraits. He narrowed his eyes at one of them before taking out his wand and giving it the series of taps shown in class. This was weird. These portraits were of people, not just food, like the ones by the kitchens.

Oh well. Moving on. Tap. Taptaptaptap.

He glanced back at Anya, grimacing slightly. Well?

Anya munched on her apple as she followed Jake. This idea was all his. She was far too occupied with her mid-lesson snack to pay attention to where they were going.

She laughed when they ended up the portrait hall.

"You'd think there'd be more students here..." she said getting to work tapping on the closest one.

She shrugged. "Maybe if we asked...? You think they'd answer? Or... is that cheating?"

Not that she cared if it was. She really was tempted to just be like 'Oi. Which of you lot have got a passage behind ya?' But maybe that made portraits uncomfortable? Like asking a lady her age or weight.

Jake laughed lightly, nodding. "Seriously. A room full of portraits and nobody's here to poke them..." It was the students' loss. Or maybe not. Because who knew where the other entrance was. There might be students in another part of the castle that had found the right place and Jake and Anya were just wasting there time here.

He sighed to himself, poking some more portraits. Come out, come out wherever you are...

...Could they just ask? Jake looked at Anya, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully. "You think they know?" He asked, his voice lowered so the portraits hopefully wouldn't hear him talking about them like they weren't hanging right there. Would the portraits know that they were the lucky one that got the rip down the middle to form a passage way? Would they want that? If so, who got to choose which portrait it would be? Maybe there was a competition. Like... So You Think You Can Be a Tunnel. Or maybe they flipped a coin or something.

... Moving on.

Taptaptaptaptap.

Anya laughed. "Or maybe it's too obvious... so that's why they didn't hide one here." she suggested. "Of course... if it was me... I would put the other end in an obvious place. So people wouldn't look there. Like... reverse psychology... you know?"

Meh. Now she was thinking. She hated doing that. That's not why she opted to do this instead of the essay.

She wanted to POKE! things. Tap. TapTap. Taptaptap.

Like that. She did it again on the next portrait for good measure.

"I would think so?" she replied. "Like... the fat lady knows she's got a common room behind her..." That's what made sense to her. ...not that she was a portrait expert or had ever been a portrait before.

There were lots of portraits in this room. Sarah liked to gaze at the portraits, yet this time she decided to add a portrait of her own. A portrait of Shirmer, contained in a poster. She hoped they would not mind having company. They as in the old portraits.

"You have company!" she told the other portrits. She then casted the duplicating charm again. Yes she as going to keep the original, she hoped that okay with the professor.

She then stuck up the poster next to another portait.

She ran before someone would find out, incase she got into trouble for that.

Hop. Hop. Hop.

Lex made her way down the corridor hopping with the occasional skip as she went. This was the time of day where she went back to her common room and got herself some extra candy before even bothering to think about her afternoon lessons.

Her skipping stopped when she came to the portraits. It'd been a while since she stopped to talk to any of them...the last time she did there was a really rude one that blamed them for stealing a boat. Boats were cool but they were much too big to be made off with. With a curious look she walked up to one of them that wasn't doing anything in particular. "Hello."

No answer.

"I said hello."

Still no answer. This time she pulled out her wand and began jabbing away at it. "Are you sleeeeeping? I said hellooooo."