The Curse of Erised
"It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts… However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."
It was a dark and lonely night, and the ancient halls of Hogwarts were empty, quiet, and devoid of students—just as they ought to be. But Severus Snape found himself almost wishing that this were not the case. He'd almost be pleased to find a student out of bed just so he could vent his frustration and appease his mind of its ceaseless prattling.
For all of his mastery of Occlumency and his exquisite mental control, there were still those highly infrequent yet wholly abominable times when Snape would find himself pitifully at the mercy of his own consciousness. This, unfortunately, was one of those times.
Sleep eluded him. He attempted to calm himself with the reading of a book, but this had only served to make him more restless still. He then took to brewing potions but, failing this (somehow, he had managed to botch a completely ordinary recipe for Dreamless Sleep, something he himself was adamantly refusing to acknowledge and would never admit to a living soul), he had taken to skulking about the castle.
This, in turn, allowed him too much freedom for thought, and Severus Snape had many thoughts weighing on his mind.
He knew Quirrell was up to something, and highly suspected the man was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone. That in itself, perhaps, wouldn't have been unduly worrisome. The enchantments and protections guarding the Stone were extensive, and Quirrell certainly didn't seem to possess any unusually high level of power that would enable him to reach it. It wouldn't do to underestimate the enemy, of course, but the situation was certainly manageable. Or at least, it would have been, if one didn't consider Quirrell's allegiances.
He and the Headmaster were both fully aware that the Dark Lord had not been completely eradicated. Dumbledore was careful to garner whatever information he could on his movements, but that information had continued to be scarce and uncertain. Dumbledore had moved the Stone to Hogwarts with the specific intention of keeping it safe from the Dark Lord's grasp as he sought it to renew his former strength and immortality. It was possible, of course, that Quirrell desired the Stone for himself, as many would. But, given the circumstances, and the fact that the man had given a valiant effort to murder a certain troublesome Gryffindor, it was frighteningly likely that Hogwarts' stuttering Defense professor was in league with the infamous Dark wizard.
This was doubly inconvenient, for while Snape had to worry about guarding the Philosopher's Stone and keeping his former master from returning to full power, he also had to worry about fulfilling an old promise to keep the Potter brat alive.
He supposed, then, that it was a good thing the halls were deserted. It wouldn't do to have either Quirrell or Potter snooping around at night, and he had instructed Filch to fetch him immediately if anyone was found to be lurking.
Snape desperately tried to assure himself that it would not be possible for Quirrell to reach the Stone. First he'd have to get past that monstrous beast of Hagrid's, and then he would still find himself facing an array of obstacles set by the Hogwarts professors, including his very own potions puzzle. He was certain Quirrell wouldn't have the presence of mind to solve it and, at any rate, the man would never be able to get past Dumbledore's final trickery.
Severus Snape had almost choked when Dumbledore told him his idea for the Stone's final protection—or at least, the means by which he intended to execute his scheme.
Snape had no idea how the old man planned to use a mirror to guard the Stone, but that was hardly the point—Dumbledore's actions were frequently beyond his comprehension (he had always known the Headmaster to be a bit—off—but Snape did occasionally suspect the years were beginning to wear on his employer's largely overactive brain). The point was the Mirror itself.
Snape wasn't fully aware of the Mirror's origins. He only knew that several years ago the old man had gone on some spontaneous excavation and dug it up from some long-abandoned crevice in the castle.
"Some of the greatest treasures, Severus, are found when we are not even looking," Dumbledore had remarked with that damnable twinkle in his eye. Snape, for his part, had fought hard to keep from rolling his eyes.
For a couple of weeks, Dumbledore had leapt at the chance to learn more about his unusual find, searching out old records and histories for more information on the mysterious mirror, none of which he shared. The old man eventually had his fill, and for a while, the mirror was again forgotten among the many oddities of the Hogwarts castle—that is, until the day it was discovered by Severus Snape.
It was a day several years ago, yet a time similar to this one, when Snape had been driven by some whimsical urge to meander the lesser-frequented halls of Hogwarts. He came to find himself in an old, rather dusty corridor, untouched by light and heavily coated by wispy cobwebs, that was home to a very old and very deserted portrait of a stormy sea beating angrily against a rocky crag. This portrait, Snape discovered, opened up to a very narrow and completely dark hall-no longer than the width of a Slytherin dormitory-within which he found another passage behind a worn tapestry where two rows of rusty suits of armor stood at attention on either side of a long, dark red carpet. At the end of this passage, he found the room—if one could call it a room at all—where the mysterious Mirror had been laid to rest.
The room itself was not much more than a large abandoned closet with a few empty barrels stacked haphazardly in the corners and barren shelves of rotting wood all but crumbling off the walls. The stone floor was covered in a thin layer of dust and dirt, leaving tracks in Snape's wake and appearing to have been undisturbed for some time. The Mirror itself was in the center, but pushed back at an angle against the wall like the feeble attempt of a Chimaera trying to blend in at a petting zoo. It was completely covered by a smooth sand-colored cloth, and the top of the Mirror touched the ceiling of the small space, pinching the covering against the unyielding stone in a way that it could not be swept off the Mirror entirely.
Snape, out of what he considered harmless curiosity at such an interesting find in such an unlikely place, had thought nothing of sweeping the cover off of the face of the Mirror to examine the artifact.
Naturally he had not anticipated what he did observe in the Mirror's reflection.
He saw himself of course, as he appeared at that time, but with the notable exception of an unusually content expression and, standing close to him, a figure with fingers intertwined in his own.
It was Lily.
Lily, with her dark red, wine-colored hair; her captivating, mischievous smile; and her radiant, sparkling emerald eyes filled with life and mistaken trust in the rightness of the world. She was wearing a dress, white and overlaid with a pattern of small, royal blue flowers. It was one of her favorites that Snape had seen her wear on several occasions over summer holidays of years past.
She was standing in front of him. She was alive. She was happy. He was happy. They were together.
He hadn't removed enough of the cover to read the cryptic inscription, nor had he taken an undue amount of time pondering the Mirror's methods. He knew, of course, in the reasonable part of himself, that it was, after all, only an image of his own making reflected by the magic of the Mirror, but that didn't stop him from valuing it as if it were real.
The first time, it wasn't too unbearable to draw himself away. But he returned to the small dusty room soon after for a second visit, unwilling, or perhaps incapable, of having such a treasure ignored. He kept up the nighttime visits, wasting away hours upon hours entranced by the image and the world just a pane of glass away. It wasn't long before he started growing ill and distractible in his time away from the Mirror, always with his mind keenly focused on returning to Lily and caring less and less for anything else like a drug addict desperately anticipating his next fix. That was probably what alerted Dumbledore to his crisis, and it was shortly afterward that his mentor found Snape hidden away with the Mirror and confronted his bereft disciple.
It hadn't been one of Severus Snape's better moments, to say the least.
Dumbledore had explained with unbearable calm the ability of the Mirror to show one's deepest desires, and the potential danger of it, making some proverb about dreams and forgetting to live. He made a point of apologizing profusely, in typical guilty-Dumbledore fashion, for having brought this curse upon Snape and for not having noticed it sooner. In retrospect, Snape was able to recognize the clear sorrow, regret, and profound sympathy in the old man's eyes, but he had become all but blinded by the Mirror.
He had yelled at length, refusing to give up his fictitious reality, unwilling to be forced to let her go once again. Dumbledore had been surprisingly patient and understanding but wholly unmoved. He removed the Mirror and hid it elsewhere—where exactly, Snape never found out. He went through a phase of severe withdrawal, mad with a desire to gaze at his desire, wasting away even more than before and practically starving himself of all food and rest. He spent the first two days searching tirelessly for the Mirror, desperately certain that he'd be able to find it somewhere as he had before, and failing that, he pleaded with Dumbledore, begging him to glimpse it just one more time. Dumbledore continued to deny him, explaining sadly that it was for the best.
Snape couldn't remember being so enraged at the man at any time before nor since. He grew to be consumed by a raw, unjust hatred nearly as powerful as the strength of his original desire, and he thought to himself that he would never forgive Albus Dumbledore.
Thankfully, he was wrong. His bitterness slowly ebbed away at his mad longing, and as the desperate longing diminished, he soon realized he had no basis for his ire. He didn't forget about the Mirror or the image within it, but in its absence its destructive hold on Snape's mind disappeared, leaving guilt and shame in its wake.
Dumbledore seemed to notice when Snape's mental torment had passed, and he promptly resumed their former status by way of offering Snape a lemon drop, which was promptly refused. He wouldn't hear any of Snape's self-recriminations, however, attributing his temporary insanity to the powerful effects of the Mirror, and both wizards made the unspoken agreement to never speak of it again.
And so the Mirror hadn't been mentioned in years, and probably would have been forgotten about entirely, if it weren't for whatever scheme Dumbledore had hatched now.
Try as he might to ignore the Mirror's presence, Snape couldn't stifle the prickling in the back of his mind. He knew where it was currently stashed—in a disused classroom on the fourth floor across from a particularly aged suit of armor, only a couple of halls away from the Library. Snape now felt himself unconsciously walking in that direction but barely noticed until he was peering in at the dark forms of piled desks and chairs.
He took slow, measured steps into the abandoned classroom, moving cautiously as though he were sneaking up on a dangerous adversary. He stopped only three feet in, halted in a moment of indecision.
Snape tried to tell himself that he already knew what the Mirror would show him. There was nothing novel in it now, nothing new to discover, and certainly nothing to be gained. Another glance at the image wouldn't help him anyway, and there would be no excuse for falling into its trap a second time.
But he couldn't help feeling its strong pull on him. Strangely, it wasn't the helpless longing he felt from before, but a faint curiosity. It beckoned him to come closer, to gaze into its depths once more.
Snape considered. He decided, at last, that if it came to a test of wills, this time he would win. Surely he would be able to look once and pull himself away. It wouldn't be like before.
Confident in his own self-control, Snape took another three steps forward to stand in front of the towering, gold-framed glass.
It took a moment for him to register the reflection. When he did, he was only able to stare, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
A sudden, blood-curdling screech pierced the air and echoed down the many corridors of the castle.
Snape tore himself from the Mirror and swept out of the room with a sneer, cloak billowing angrily behind him.
He would find Filch and catch whoever was skulking about. He would not think any more on what he had seen in the Mirror. He'd wasted enough time on the piece of garbage. He would not fall for its tricks, he resolved, stuffing the new memory into the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind.
Procrastinator:
What did Snape see in the Mirror?
Will he ever return to it?
Did the readers like?
Will Procrastinator get any reviews?
Will we ever know?
At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this. I myself much prefer this story to my other work.
My inspiration for this was quite interesting. It started with me finding some deviant art pictures of Snape being all depressed and heart-breaking while looking into the Mirror of Erised, and then I thought about the Three Brothers tale and how the one, like Snape, was driven mad with longing. Then, light-bulb moment, I remembered that quote from Dumbledore: "Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad..." And I had this ASDFJKL moment when I was like, GASP! He was speaking from experience! About Snape! Well anyway, I've no real idea if that was a connection Rowling intended, but it has now become my head-canon. I'd love to hear what you think. :)