I don't own Harry Potter

Hey everyone! Here is my next story. It isn't the one I originally planned on writing, but I got stuck with the other one so I decided to try my luck with another one before going back to the first one. This story will be quite short, I think it'll have about 12,000 - 15,000 words. If you don't like Albus Dumbledore I recommend you not to continue reading, though. I know that he is by no means perfect, but I still like him, and this story will portray him in a positive light.
I'm not a native speaker of English, I hope you'll excuse my mistakes.

I hope you'll like it! And I'm happy about reviews.

Chapter 1

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Harry ran. He knew this was probably a bad idea, he knew that he might be caught by Filch or, even worse, Snape, but just now, he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was getting to the Mirror as fast as possible. To his parents.

Rounding a corner, Harry broke into a final sprint. There was the door! In only a few moments, he would see his mum and dad again! In his excitement, Harry forgot to close the door behind him. Carelessly, he threw the invisibility cloak (which hadn't been of much use anyway, running as he had) into a corner and advanced on the mirror.

"Mum! Dad!" he breathed.

As always, his parents, and all his other relatives that were standing behind the beautiful, red-haired woman and the bespectacled man with the unruly hair, smiled at him without saying a word. It didn't matter, though, all that mattered was that they were here, with him, and that there was no green light to take them away again.

Harry was now so close to the cold surface of the Mirror that his face was almost touching the glass. How he wished that he could join his family inside it! He sighed. He was pretty sure that this wasn't possible, but nothing would prevent him from staying with his parents all night, and the following night, and every single night after that one.

Just like he had spent the last three nights in the cold, unused classroom where the Mirror was deposited, actually. Ever since that disastrous night when he had taken Ron with him in order to show him his family.
Only that it hadn't worked. Ron hadn't seen Harry's family but only himself, himself and some stupid badges, cups and trophies. And when Harry had sighed and asked Ron to move aside so that he could see his parents again, as surely the house cup wasn't as important as family, the red-head had become angry. Not just peeved but furious. Ron had started to shout at Harry that he shouldn't be so selfish, that he had already had the mirror for himself for one whole night and that winning the Quidditch-Cup and being as good as your older brothers was just as important as family.

Harry had backed away as soon as Ron had started to shout – he hated being shouted at. Uncle Vernon had enjoyed yelling and screaming at Harry, too, and normally it meant that he was in really big trouble and that he would spent the next few days locked up in his cupboard.

And now Ron was shouting, too (though he was not nearly as intimidating as his Uncle, Harry had to admit) and didn't even care that it was in the middle of the night and that he and Harry, two first-years, weren't supposed to be out of bed and would surely get in trouble should someone hear the noise and catch them.

Sure enough, when Ron had stopped screaming and only stared at Harry crossly, they could clearly hear footsteps that where approaching at an alarming speed. Ron's eyes had widened and Harry hadn't wasted any time and thrown the invisibility cloak over the two of them. Then, they had inched into a nearby corner, in case whoever was hurrying down the corridor decided to come into the room, careful not to make a sound.

Luckily, though, the footsteps had passed the room without so much as a pause and after another minute or so, Harry's heartbeat had started to slow down again.

He and Ron hadn't spoken while they waited until Harry deemed it safe enough to return to the Gryffindor common room, nor when they had finally re-entered the warm and cosy snuggery.

That had been four days ago and Ron still hadn't forgiven Harry for not understanding the importance of being important. At first, Harry had been determined not to apologize to his friend – he hadn't done anything wrong, he had only expressed his opinion and it had been Ron who had started the yelling that almost led to them being caught!
However, now his resolution was starting to waver. With Hermione being away for the Christmas-holidays, Harry had no one left to talk to. Sure, there were the twins, Ron's brothers, that had tried to engage him into a conversation a few times, but it just wasn't the same. And additionally, you could never be sure whether they only wanted to prank you and that talking was only a means to distract you – that were Fred and George, after all!

Harry sighed. He really wanted his friend back. Even the teachers seemed to have noticed that something was amiss, at least this was what Harry had deduced from the curious glances they were giving him and Ron during meals.

Perhaps he should just go and tell Ron that he was sorry. It didn't matter who had been right or wrong, did it? Taking the blame for their row wouldn't be nearly as bad as losing his very first friend, Harry supposed. And it wasn't as if he had never taken the blame for things he hadn't done before - the Dursleys had made sure of that.

But somehow, the thought of apologizing to Ron made Harry feel sick in the stomach. He hadn't cared much about his relatives and the fact that they didn't love him – well, actually he did care, but he had long since mastered the art of suppressing his feelings – but Ron, Ron was different, Ron was his friend, Ron liked him. Did he?

A sole tear rolled down Harry's left cheek. He quickly wiped it away. Crying wouldn't make things better. Crying wouldn't make Harry feel less alone.

How he wished that his parents were here. How he wished to have a relative, a guardian, any adult who was there for him. Who didn't care whether he was famous or not, whether you was friend with their son or not... because this was the only reason Mrs Weasley had sent him the jumper, hadn't it? If Harry hadn't been friends with Ron and if Ron hadn't written his mother about the Dursley's refusal to give Harry any presents at all, Ron's mother wouldn't have feel obliged to knit an additional jumper. Pity. That was the reason Harry had received that gift.

It wasn't as if he didn't appreciate the effort she had probably put in the jumper. It must have taken days to finish it! Aunt Petunia had sometimes knit clothes for Dudley, so Harry knew that knitting was really hard work. And there simply wasn't a way magic could make this easier, he was sure of this.
However, despite the happiness Harry had felt when opening the package with the jumper and the home-made sweets, it had also opened Harry's eyes and he had realized something he had, until now, successfully avoided thinking about: He, Harry, didn't have anyone who really loved him. He was alone. And that thought was simply unbearable.

"Mum... Dad..." Harry whispered through the tears that, despite his best efforts, had started to leak from his eyes. Suddenly, he thought that he caught a slight movement in the Mirror and he whirled around. If someone had found him, if someone had caught him crying, if this someone was Snape... Harry had a difficult time to breath, but when his eyes scanned the room, he didn't see anyone. But then, who – or what – had moved?

Frowning, he turned around again. And then his heart stopped.

There, inside the Mirror was – was he! He, Harry, being hugged by both of his parents, being cuddled as he had seen his Aunt cuddling Dudley. Mesmerized, Harry watched his mother placing a kiss on the Mirror-Harry's forehead and his father caressing the boy's unruly hair, a huge grin on his face. They had exactly the same dark, messy hair and briefly, Harry thought that perhaps his father would be really proud that Harry had inherited his hair, that there might have been someone who wouldn't have been annoyed by his hair but who would have liked it.

A wave of despair threatened to drown Harry. It wasn't just his hair. It was – everything! He didn't want to be alone any longer, he couldn't be alone any longer, he simply couldn't bear it, he would break, he would go mad, he would-

Harry gasped. Inside the Mirror, his mother had looked up, looked straight into his, the outside-of-the-Mirror-Harry's eyes. She smiled warmly at him, her look full of love, all the while keeping an arm around the Harry inside the Mirror.

"Mum!" he gasped. Without thinking, Harry dashed forward.

The noise from the Mirror of Erised breaking into thousands of tiny pieces, unable to withstand the sudden impact of the solid body of an eleven-year-old boy should have been enough to wake up the entire castle.

But no one came.

If it hadn't been long after midnight, Harry might have been found earlier, but as it was, only a single teacher (plus Filch) were still roaming the castle, and both had been in completely different wings of the large building when Harry had jumped right through a thousand year old mirror.

A groan escaped the semi-conscious boy as he rolled on his back. Blood was seeping from several cuts on his face, neck and hands. The robe Harry had thrown over his pyjama before leaving the dormitory was torn to shreds and there were various places where the glass of the mirror had cut right through the fabric of his pyjama bottoms. Slowly, flecks of red started to form on the grey cloth, steadily growing .

"Mummy..." Harry mumbled, not able to really comprehend what was going on. He only wanted his mum. When he opened his mouth, a warm, iron-tasting liquid started to drip into his mouth. Gagging, he tried to spit it out, only to discover that moving his head hurt an awful lot.

The room was mess. Shards of the Mirror were scattered across it and the frame of the legendary artefact had only narrowly missed Harry's face when it had fallen to the ground. A few inches more right and the little boy might as well have been dead by now.

A small pool of blood had began to form next to Harry's head and another trail of the red liquid was slowly running down his throat, dripping onto one of the many silvery splinters he was lying on.

If Harry would have looked, he would have seen the face of a young, green-eyed and red-haired woman being reflected countless times, in each and every single shard that had once comprised the Mirror of Erised.

As it was, though, no one saw Lily Potter crying for her only child.