HARRY POTTER and the
LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE
by Potter47

— CHAPTER ONE —
NUMBER SEVEN, PRIVET DRIVE

The inhabitants of the quiet neighborhood of Little Whinging had, for the most part, lazed away the first month of their summer in the typical fashion—inside their homes, allowing their top-of-the-line air conditioning units to (essentially) eliminate the season entirely, creating instead the illusion of a continuous temperate climate as unchanging as their front lawns—but on the thirtieth of July, something undeniably unusual happened. Something incontestably inconsistent. Something extraordinary, something outlandish—something strange.

On the thirtieth of July, at precisely five-fourteen in the lazy afternoon, on an otherwise peaceful, unsuspecting street, a most fantastic vision appeared to the residents of Privet Drive: a moving van.

Not one of the housewives of Privet Drive (for they were all, for the most part, standing in their front rooms with their noses practically pressed against the glass of their bay windows, watching intently) could remember the last time such a vehicle appeared on their street. Everyone who lived on Privet Drive had lived there for as long as just about anybody else could remember, except for the children, (who had admittedly lived there for as long as they could remember, to be sure).

Surely, nobody had ever moved away from Privet Drive—why on earth would they, after all? What possible negative opinions were there to be had about such a pleasant, agreeable, charming place to live?

But now, it seemed, someone simply had to have moved away—or else, how could somebody be moving in, right before the Privet-ians' very noses?

Now, try as they might, none of the housewives could quite recall the previous residents of number seven, Privet Drive—but, for one reason or another, this peculiar detail did not particularly bother them. What did bother them rather outrageously was that, somehow, they had all managed to miss the exodus itself. What gossip they might have shared over the unheralded departure! What a wasted opportunity!

Instead, they would have to settle for the inevitable gossip which the new Mr. Number Seven would generate. For it did appear to be a single tenant—male, fortyish, and (best of all) strikingly handsome, from the look of him. Petunia Dursley, for one, who lived directly across the road at number four, first spotted the new resident carting a large, ornate golden mirror out of the van and across the (slightly unkempt, by the standard of Privet Drive) front lawn, and found herself entirely unable to look away for the better part of the afternoon.

Petunia surveyed her new neighbor as he brought box after box from the van to his front door, many of which were tall and flat like the first, and then as he began transporting his smaller pieces of furniture.

"I suppose he doesn't have any help?" Petunia murmured to herself. "No family to speak of…"

He was a blond man, moderately tall, wearing quite the outlandish assortment of clothes—all brightly colored, none the slightest bit appropriate to be worn during the dog days of summer. Ordinarily, this assault on normality would have caused Petunia to sneer at the offender in question with a most unattractive expression of utter disgust… but there was something overwhelmingly pleasant in this man's features, which miraculously managed to overcome his despairing fashion sense.

After the man began to tackle a rather large piece of furniture (a pale purple loveseat with a fancy sort of embroidery upon the cushions) Petunia decided that something simply must be done to help this lonely, lonely, (extraordinarily handsome) man.

"Diddykins!" Petunia called over her left shoulder, curling her long, wrinkly fingers about her mouth in an unsightly imitation of a megaphone. "My big strong boy!"

"What?" came the disinterested reply—the voice belonging to Petunia's teenage son, Dudley Dursley, who was presently in his bedroom lethargically annihilating a zombie on his computer.

"Dudley, I've got a job for you!"

There was no reply—possibly, Dudley was struggling to comprehend her sentence.

Petunia left her position at the window and walked briskly up the stairs, knocking twice, sharply, upon Dudley's bedroom door. When there was no further response, she swung the door open.

"Wha—?" said Dudley, who was not at all used to having his privacy invaded by his mother (or anyone, for that matter) and was unsure of how to react to it now that it had happened.

"I said that I have a job for you, Diddy!" repeated Petunia, her voice positively dripping with motherly enthusiasm.

Dudley stared at her, blankly.

"What… what do you mean?"

Petunia smiled her sickening Oh-My-Baby-Dudley-Smile.

"We have a new neighbor across the road in number seven," she said, "and he is unpacking all of his things from the van all by himself—do you believe it? Now, wouldn't it be a nice thing for a big strong boy like you to do… to help him a little bit?"

Dudley blinked, and then: "You want me to—"

"It would make such a wonderful impression after all, and we want to be good neighbors, don't we?"

"Help him yourself," said Dudley, turning back to his computer screen. "Or tell Potter to do it."

"Ha!" said Petunia, and then paused, shivering at the thought. "What a disgrace it would be for that… that boy to be this nice man's very first impression of our family!"

The Potter in question was Petunia's nephew Harry—the son of her late sister, Lily—who had lived with the Dursleys for the past fifteen years.

Petunia continued: "Oh, goodness no… he would think we were all—freaks!" she spluttered, eyes bugged out in her revolting excitement. She added: "But you would make such a delightful impression! Who could resist your adorable little face—"

Dudley groaned, slamming the space bar of his keyboard with a great deal more than the required force, and sending a zombie exploding off into the distance. "Come on, Mum— I'm busy!"

Petunia sighed, disappointed, and moseyed back down the staircase, furrowing her brow, unquestionably attempting to formulate some alternate plan for the proper introduction of the Dursley family into this new neighbor's life. She returned to her post by the window, and was surprised to find that the man was pulling shut the door on the back of the van—he had finished? It must have taken a prodigious effort, but somehow, yes, he had managed to empty the van in the time it took her to speak with Dudley. There were now only a handful of boxes left, scattered across the front lawn.

"What an admirable work ethic," Petunia mused to herself, as she heard the key turn in the lock on the front door. A moment later, the door opened to reveal her husband, Vernon Dursley, who let out a groan which sounded both extremely frustrated and astonishingly relieved.

"Good evening, Vernon," Petunia said, still watching the man across the way. He had begun on the final boxes, now.

Vernon mumbled a greeting, walked into the kitchen, unfastening his tie as he went, and then stomped back into the front room, aghast.

"Where is dinner?" he demanded.

Petunia blinked. "Oh—well—I haven't started preparing it yet, actually—"

"What!" exclaimed Vernon. "I come home after a long, ungodly day at the firm and you haven't even begun to make my dinner—"

"We have a new neighbor, dear," said Petunia, attempting to steer the subject away from her neglected duty. "You see, I've been—"

"Oh dear god, Petunia, don't tell me you've been watching the neighbors and forgetting entirely about my dinner? Who is more important, hmm? This new—neighbor of ours, or your own husband? Who buys you all of your clothes, hmm? Not that rotter, no sir!"

Petunia glanced from the handsome, sprightly man across the road (who was now quite nimbly carrying a large box under one arm) to her husband, who then plopped in a garish display of corpulence onto the sofa and flicked on the television, harrumphing in incredulity to himself as he did so. She sighed, took one last glance at the charming stranger, and set off to prepare dinner.

Upstairs, in the smallest bedroom of the Dursley household, next door to the room in which Dudley was still blasting away at his zombies, a teenage boy sat on his bed, staring out of his window at the summer evening—rather like all of the housewives were doing in all of their neighboring households, actually. This boy, however, had no interest to speak of in the moving van, or in the new Mr. Number Seven. This boy was Petunia's nephew, Harry Potter—who had recently finished his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—and he was watching the skies.

July the Thirtieth, in addition to being the day that the moving van turned up on Privet Drive, also happened to be the day before Harry Potter's sixteenth birthday. Harry was hoping that a number of owls might turn up outside of his window, left wide open to spite the Dursleys' air conditioning, bearing birthday presents—even if it was a few hours early. In the past, the owls had never arrived until after the clock had already struck midnight, but that did not stop him from anxiously awaiting their appearance, and wishing that they might hurry it up a bit.

Ah, but there won't be as many owls this year…

Harry couldn't help but think once again of his godfather, Sirius Black, who had been dead for nearly a month and a half. Sirius certainly would not be sending Harry a birthday present this year—how could he, from behind the veil in Death Chamber of the Department of Mysteries? The last present Harry had received from Sirius had been a two-way mirror that would likely have been entirely capable of preventing Sirius' death, if only Harry hadn't been stubborn enough to ignore it completely. He closed his eyes; he got a headache just thinking about that night. Not a pain in his scar, not anything magical—just a headache, an awful, pounding reminder, and to be honest, he didn't even mind the pain, because he was positive that he deserved it.

"POTTER!"

Harry groaned softly, stood, and (rubbing his palm against his forehead in a half-hearted effort to dull the ache) opened his bedroom door.

"YES?" he called down the stairs.

"FOOD, NOW OR NEVER!"

It was his Aunt Petunia who was doing the shrieking. Harry glanced at the clock on his bedside table—it was about seven o'clock, rather late for dinner in the Dursley household—and then back out the window, one last time. The owls would not be arriving for a few hours yet, anyway, so he marched resolutely down the stairs (which he noticed were beginning to squeak rather more spectacularly than they had in the past) and into the kitchen, where Uncle Vernon and Dudley were already seated at the table, impatiently awaiting supper.

"About time now," muttered Uncle Vernon, spearing a fork through his steak with a bit more force than was entirely necessary.

Petunia slid a plate bearing a few exceedingly thin slices of steak in front of Harry and returned to her work at the counter, while Dudley and Vernon ravenously gorged themselves on their heaping hunks of meat. Harry glanced at his pitiful serving, shrugged, and ate them without complaint—he was certainly used to this sort of treatment, and he had not been feeling exceptionally hungry, anyway.

"Izzat puddin?" gobbled Dudley, referring to the dessert that Petunia was working on at the counter.

"Yes," said Aunt Petunia, "but it's not for us."

Dudley—who had been glowing quite blissfully, both from his current feasting and the from added prospect of dessert—was positively outraged.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT FOR US?"

"Come now, calm down, dearie—it's a housewarming present," said Aunt Petunia. "When someone moves onto your street, you're supposed to make a good impression, you know, and so I thought I might whip something up—"

"Not that bloody new neighbor again," said Vernon, shaking his head. "Why don't you just—"

"Oh, please, Vernon, you just know that all the other girls will have made something, I don't want them to think I'm… slacking off…"

By this point, Harry had had enough, and silently excused himself from the table. He headed back up to his bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time—and preparing himself for the disappointment he'd be facing in just a few moments when he would find his bedroom just as inexorably owl-less as it had been when he'd left…

But when he threw open his bedroom door, he found his room wasn't owl-less after all—there, sitting upon the perch in the cage on Harry's desk, was a most pleasantly familiar snowy owl.

"Hey, Hedwig…" said Harry, smiling rather half-heartedly. He hadn't been feeling very much up to smiling lately. He furrowed his brow, looking at the owl quizzically. "But… what've you brought—?"

He had last sent the owl to Hermione with a letter—surely she would have, at the very least, sent back a reply, if not a gift for his birthday?

Harry glanced around the room, seeing no immediate additions in the form of envelopes or packages, but finally he did spot something new: the tiniest of boxes, which had clearly been dropped by Hedwig onto his bedspread en route to her cage. He quickly snatched it up, tore off the ribbon and unwrapped the brown paper to find a small, scarlet box patterned with thin golden designs all around the edges. In the very center of the front was a clasp in the shape of a lion's head, its infinitesimal teeth locking the top of the box into its bottom. Overall, it was about the size of the jewelry boxes Aunt Petunia attacked ravenously every twelfth of July, when she and Uncle Vernon celebrated (or perhaps more accurately, endured) their wedding anniversary. But why would Hermione have bought Harry a piece of jewelry?

Harry unclasped the box, opening the lion's mouth to find inside it not a ring or a necklace but instead a piece of paper, folded up very tightly into a minuscule little square which sprang open slightly now that it had more room to move about.

Did she run out of envelopes? Harry wondered, hastily unfolding the paper to its proper size—he was surprised by his own eagerness. He had last heard from Hermione only a few days before, and had heard from Ron shortly before that, but he found himself with an uncanny hunger for the words of his best friends; he missed them painfully.

The letter read:

Dear Harry,

I hope you like the box! I found it in an antique shop in my town, this lovely old place that my dad is rather crazy about, and I thought of you. I know you must be thinking that it's an awful birthday present, what are you going to do with a box, and so on and so forth, but you'll have to admit, you are a tremendously difficult person to shop for. What to buy for the wizard who never asks for anything?

Anyway, I think it's just a beautiful little box, Gryffindor colors and all, and although it's not quite as practical as I might have hoped, I'm sure you'll find some sort of use for it. If you'd like, I could experiment with some sort of a space-enlargement charm on it when we get back to Hogwarts. I would have done so already if I'd had the nerve to risk doing magic at home. (Next year you can expect a proper, spectacularly magical sort of gift, I promise.)

I do hope your family is not treating you too terribly. I know that you've said that they're not, but to be completely honest I'm not sure I believe you. You recall when you didn't report being tortured by Umbridge to Dumbledore? I rest my case.

Let me know how you're doing. Really. I mean it.

With love from,

Hermione

P.S.: I've just gotten a letter from Ron, he thinks we'll be able to go to the Burrow soon!

P.P.S.: Happy birthday! I completely forgot to write it, how foolish of me!

Well, that was certainly Hermione. Harry quickly read through the letter again, and then one more time, imagining Hermione's voice reading them out loud in his head. His chest ached rather uncomfortably—he missed his friends.

Harry placed the letter down on his desk and turned his attention back to the box it had arrived in. It was a nice box—as far as boxes went—and he could see why Hermione had liked it so much. The scarlet and gold would certainly match his dormitory at Hogwarts—although that only made Harry think of the last time he had been in his dormitory¸ when he had found the two-way mirror—which in turn led him back to thoughts of Sirius—which were not the sort of thoughts he liked thinking all that much.

"YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THIS HOUSE!"

The voice, his uncle's, had erupted so suddenly that Harry nearly dropped his birthday present onto the floor. He glanced towards his bedroom door—Vernon couldn't possibly be yelling at him, could he? What on earth could he have done to prompt such a shout? And why would Vernon want him to stay?

"I will go where I want, Vernon!" came the shrieking reply from Aunt Petunia. "And I won't even be gone for more than ten minutes!"

So Uncle Vernon had been yelling at Aunt Petunia? This was practically unheard of in the Dursley household—Harry had always thought his aunt and uncle were so perfectly suited to one another that they agreed on every topic known to man. What could possibly have caused such a row between them?

Harry heard a door slam—the front door, presumably. She must be taking that pudding to the new neighbor, Harry thought idly. It seemed a silly thing for Uncle Vernon to get so upset about—but then, Vernon had never restricted his tantrums to only reasonable things.

Harry looked out of his window, watching as Petunia scuttled her way across Privet Drive with her elaborately prepared pudding, to impress the new neighbor. Harry couldn't remember there being a new neighbor on Privet Drive for as long as he had lived there—as far as he knew, no one had moved there since he himself had been left on the Dursleys' doorstep as a baby. Still, he couldn't muster up very much excitement at the prospect of a new neighbor.

He watched as Aunt Petunia attempted to neaten up her appearance while managing the pudding with her other hand—tugging at her blouse, fluffing her hair to no noticeable effect—and finally rang the doorbell. Harry could tell by the way she straightened her shoulders that she was putting on her Friendly Neighborly Petunia look—which Harry had seen more than enough of over the years, so he turned his back on the window and back to his birthday present.

Technically he was still only fifteen, but this present—as impractical as it was—marked the real beginning of his birthday. He was nearly an adult now—only a year off from officially being of age, from being able to leave the Dursleys forever. He could not wait for that day—and when he thought about it, it amazed him at how fast the years had gone by. It seemed only yesterday that he was living in the cupboard under the stairs, hardly daring to wish he might ever have a friend, let alone that he was really a famous wizard. The very idea would have seemed absolutely ridiculous.

Soon, Harry's reminiscing led him into a fitful sort of sleep—one rooted, like his waking thoughts, in his memories, but not nearly so benign in nature. He dreamt that he was back in the Department of Mysteries, running from the Death Eaters, and then suddenly Sirius was beside him, running as well, but they were so fast, the Death Eaters, and no matter how quickly Harry and Sirius ran, it seemed sickeningly inevitable that they would catch up. Without warning, they reached the Death Chamber, and Sirius was standing in front of the archway, in front of the veil, and Harry was screaming, screaming with all the air in his lungs, and then Sirius began to fall—but then he wasn't Sirius at all, he was Aunt Petunia, and the archway wasn't the archway, it was the doorway to number seven, Privet Drive, and she was falling to her doom with a freshly prepared pudding in her hands—and then, instead of disappearing into nothing, she fell out the other side of the doorway, but she was still on the outside as well, so the arch—for somehow, it was still the arch, even though it wasn't?—was like a bizarre sort of mirror, reflecting her and her pudding back at one another—and then a great big scarlet and gold box appeared from nowhere, stampeding onto the scene, and the lion clasp ate both Petunias in one gulp—and Harry woke up, barely remembering anything at all.

"Oh will you just give it up, Vernon, he was a perfect gentleman… unlike some people I could mention…"

The voice was Petunia's, once again—and once again, Vernon hollered in response:

"I will not have him in this house! I won't have it, Petunia!"

"It's just a quick bit of breakfast, Vernon, it's the neighborly thing to do…"

Harry opened his eyes, not entirely sure of how long he had been asleep—it had felt like just a quick sort of nap, but his bedroom was bright with morning sunshine, so he must have slept through the night.

Groggily, he blinked a few times and propped himself up on his shoulders—he was still in his jeans and t-shirt from the day before, which always brought an unpleasant, uncomfortable sort of feeling in the morning.

"He's here! Please be civil, Vernon!"

Another moment, and Harry heard the front door open.

"Good morning, my dear!" came a distinctly non-Dursley sort of voice. (Vernon harrumphed loudly at the neighbor's choice of words.) "Thank you so very much for inviting me, you're too kind…"

"Oh, no trouble at all, no trouble at all…"

"Here, I brought chocolates!"

Harry furrowed his brow. The voice sounded strangely familiar.

Harry listened, half-awake, to the small talk which wafted its way up the stairs of number four, Privet Drive—something about this man's manner seemed so very familiar that Harry could not help but grow intently curious as to who exactly the man was. Certainly he had never met him before—anyone that would willingly move to Privet Drive did not exactly sound like the sort of person who travelled in the same circles as Harry—but still. It was uncanny.

Harry rose out of bed and creeped silently down the hallway, and began to descend the stairs in a similar stealthy fashion when one of the steps gave an enormously audible SQUEAK! and the small party in the Dursley's front hall looked immediately in his direction. Aunt Petunia looked furious—clearly she had not been anticipating such an intrusion—but it was the other face which Harry could not take his eyes off of.

"Well, hello there! And who might this fine young man be?"

Petunia opened and closed her mouth a few times before formulating a proper introduction.

"Ah—well. This… this is my nephew, Harry. He's an orphan, you see, and Vernon and I took him in when he was a baby." She paused, smiling her proud, Aunt Petunia smile, clearly satisfied with the philanthropic light she had managed to cast upon herself and her husband. After a moment, she added: "Harry, this is our new neighbor, Gil."

Harry did not respond—he merely stared at the man, who smiled winningly back at him in with a cheerful, Nice To Meet You sort of smile. But this was not the first time the man had met Harry Potter—in fact, they knew each other rather well. Harry wasn't sure what to make of it, but there it was, right in front of him:

Gilderoy Lockhart was standing in the Dursleys' front hall.