Everything you recognize is property of J.K. Rowling and I make nothing from this. Just practicing my writing skills and playing with her toys.

This pairing was a request from Madbrat and I took it as a challenge. Hopefully they enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have any special pairing or challenge, feel free to PM me. Madbrat, thank you for the prompt.

The Mirror of Erised

Yet another night of sleeplessness plagued the headmaster as he lay in bed. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually slept as he pushed off the covers and tucked his feet into his slippers. Very carefully he pulled on his dressing gown, straightening the sleeve over his crippled hand before he slipped down the stairs from his office. He knew his tenure was coming to an end, and he trailed his long fingers over the stone of the walls and brushed an inlaid crest.

Albus didn't follow a set path through the school as he allowed his feet to chose the way but he wasn't surprised to find himself on the third floor. It seemed that he always ended up here, staring at the door to a corridor that used to be forbidden but was now only forgotten. Fluffy had long been removed and the sickly Devils Snare had been relocated. The headmaster smiled to himself as he recalled how three first year students had penetrated the Sorcerer's Stone protections, then he shook his head as if to clear it. Those children were no longer so innocent and it was his fault.

Harry Potter was destined to face the Dark Lord until only one remained. There would be nothing anyone could do to change that fate. Ronald Weasley was a follower. He would follow his chosen leader over the brink if needed, and perhaps even if it wasn't. But then there was Hermione Granger. She was good and pure, hungry for knowledge and power. She should never have been involved in the machinations of madmen.

She should never have been placed so prominently in his sights because now, as he watched her grow into a young woman, he was amazed that her innocence and purity remained. He wondered what it felt like to be touched by that power, to be surrounded by it. He glanced up and saw the source of his insomnia standing tall and proud before him. The Mirror of Erised shone unassuming in the torch light, seeming to draw the aged headmaster closer until he stood directly in front of its smooth surface.

Albus could remember telling Harry years before that the man who had everything would see only his reflection in the glass, but that was only a partial truth. The mirror would show the deepest desires of the average viewer, but it could be manipulated to show how to achieve that goal or what would happen in that eventuality. Unable to turn away, the headmaster faced his dark desire and asked 'what if?'

What if he reached out to the voracious teen and taught her things she would never find in books. He watched the looking glass reveal his office, Hermione studying one of the silver instruments found around his room and his mirror self came up and ran a hand over her hair. She looked up adoringly at him and rose to her feet, gently touching his ruined hand.

A wave of his good hand and the scene changed. They knelt in front of the mantle, performing a complex and dangerous ritual, healing his wound and saving his life. Another wave of his hand and they were in his bed, she cleaved to him, moaning his name silently behind the glass. Oh how he wanted this reality to be true. He wanted to feel her young body under him, giving up her entire innocence to him.

But then things turned dark. The final battle loomed and she was captured by Death Eaters, brought before Lord Voldemort where she was tortured. The masked men laughed as the last of her lifeblood leaked from her pale body. Without her, Hogwarts fell to the Dark Lord. No. This was not a future he would allow. Without the cleansing ritual his life was still forfeit, but she spent his last nights with him, opening herself to him. When he lay still and breathed no more, she was broken and threw herself from the astronomy tower in her grief. That couldn't be the future either.

Albus asked 'what if' over and over, but each time he reached out to the brunette, there was detrimental loss in the future. After watching the beautiful woman meet her end in a hundred different ways, he asked one more 'what if.' What if he kept his distance, didn't try to reach out and teach the young woman, didn't try to taste that purity, and let her innocence grow. Hermione smiled at him from the glass, older and thinner for the trials required to end the war. But it was over, and she was alive and relatively unharmed. The headmaster sighed in relief at finding some future that shone brightly on the clever witch, even as it pained him to watch his own mortality.

He imagined he could hear his heart breaking as he finally accepted the future in store for him, and the brilliant witch. There would be no harm then, in watching what could have been. Albus let the mirror do what it did best, display his deepest desire.

Hours later he barely had enough time to make it back to his office and change before going to breakfast. He carefully made sure to appear well rested to the other professors, and piled his plate with food despite not really feeling hungry. No one noticed anything amiss until the meal was almost finished and Minerva leaned close to him.

"Is everything alright Albus?"

He knew that the transfiguration professor had long been in love with him, but he couldn't bring himself to look in her direction. Hermione was laughing heartily at the Gryffindor table. Finally he responded to her question. "It will be someday for those that matter most."