Chapter 1

The faint light of dawn filtered through the blue curtains of the window, projecting shifting shapes and ever-changing images on the opposite wall of the mansion. I stared at them for a moment, almost in an entranced state. They reminded me of a Fiendfire and of the living forms the dark spell took under – or more often than not, out of – the control of the caster. They were almost as fascinating, and had the perk of not being deadly, but I knew the reason why I was staring at them, and it had nothing to do with beauty.

As the galleon in my hand rolled expertly over my fingers, I peeled my eyes off the wall, drew my wand and swished it horizontally in front of my body. The spell immediately cut off the effect of the dazing ward, allowing me to look ahead at the last doorway standing between me and my pay. My mind could have easily endured the magical distraction, but there was no reason to avoid getting rid of it when all I had to do was a sixth-year spell.

I toyed with the golden coin for another brief second before tightening it inside my fist.

"The ward pointed that way," I said, gesturing dismissingly at the wall.

Behind me, someone grumbled irritably.

"One day you're going to tell me how you do that," a gruff voice said. "Shrugging off a dazing ward like that..."

I ignored that, opting to inspect the doorway, instead.

The frame was ten feet high, its dark wood carved elaborately to depict magical creatures of various kinds in a forest setting. The door itself had long since dropped down, inward and into the room beyond. Moss and blades of grass covered its higher half like a pool carpet, while the rest had been destroyed by a combination of time and the wards my group and I were there to disable. I peered over it and at the room itself, where dozens of objects of different origin and size rested abandoned under layers of dust. A musky scent like wet woods and polished wands slithered out of it in a bizarre mix that stung my nose.

I snorted, finally lowering the wand.

"What are you laughing about?" asked the same voice of before.

Turning around, I showed my laziest smirk to the three people waiting expectantly a few feet away.

"Something funny, really," I said. "Whoever did the piss-poor job on the door also wasted time on the scent ward."

Only one of them answered the grin, although his was nastier in both appearance and intent.

"Just great," muttered Marcus Jensen, lifetime cursebreaker. "Now we'll have to make sure they didn't turn such a fine work into a filthy rat trap."

I shrugged and gave one last glance at the door.

"That's your job, not mine." As the hired-wand, I only cared about the other kind of protections these old places had, and it still wasn't time for those. I took a step back to join the little group and waved my hand at the man, galleon resting firmly between index and middle finger. "Coast clear, for now. It's all yours."

The cursebreaker eyed the coin distrustfully, grunted in acknowledgement and approached the doorway, immediately swishing his wand across his body to stop the effects of the dazing ward before they could even take hold on him.

I leaned against the wall and relaxed, ignoring the unnerved glances and the stiff indifference coming from the other two members of the company. Experience made me good at it and I must have looked like a man without a care in the world to an outside looker. Strangely enough, it was the closest I had ever been to it.

The silence stretched for a long time as Jensen waved his wand left and right to first analyze and then bring down the remaining wards. It was hard work and we all knew it. We had been at the mansion for almost a month now, every day moving forward that tiny bit, fighting protections and delays until only the last one had remained. Inside the next room was everything we had been asked to retrieve and more, extra stuff nobody seemed to know about. I could practically feel the eagerness rolling off the Ministry official in waves when one of the wards sputtered and died under Jensen's expert swishing.

I stared sideways at Trenton Augustine, internally glad that the man had stopped shooting glances at me. He was a mouse-looking boy, still young enough to be asked for an ID by a honest bartender, with rectangular glasses pending on the bridge of his nose. He was wearing the dark blue uniform of the Ministry employees without customization of any kind, which was pretty much the clearest telltale sign that he had only recently been hired by the British wizarding government. It also hinted at his rigid, anal-retentive attitude towards work and life in general. The month spent camped outside the mansion had given him bad sunburns all over his usually pale face, even though, after the second day, he had never set foot outside his bunk without white stripes of cream streaking his cheeks, nose and forehead. He was leaning forward slightly, an almost hungry expression evident on his features as he watched the wards unravel before his eyes, gaze shifting ever so often to the magical artefacts beyond. It was quite a haul from what one could see from the outside and also from what one could expect after our findings in the other rooms. Trenton thought they would be his ticket to a higher position at the Ministry and he was probably right. I didn't know what strings had to be pulled for a young official such as him to take part in that expedition, but I had long since lost interest in all the political games going on in the wizarding world.

I moved my eyes away from him, shifting them to the much more interesting fourth member of the company. Padma Patil had not changed much since the last time I had seen her back in school. Still petite and still gorgeous, her hair had been cut short in a more practical style for her line of work. Her features had sharpened into a more mature face, doing the opposite of her body, which had rounded significantly in all the places that mattered. She was standing stiffly just a few feet away and even though her eyes were on Jensen and the wards flashing brightly around the door, I could feel that most of her attention was directed at me. I fought off an eye-roll as I started playing with the galleon, ignoring the woman shifting away nervously. Now, if it had been Augustine or some other pampered boy like him, I could have even gained some form of pleasure from that, but Padma... well, she had a good reason to squirm.

I continued unnerving my former schoolmate until a loud rumble resonated throughout the small corridor. I turned towards the door as violet sparks rained down from the frame, showering both the pavement and the fallen door on the other side. As the sound quieted down, Jensen took a couple of steps back and wiped his sweaty forehead with a sleeve.

"Heh... that was fun," he commented.

"Are the wards down?" Padma asked, stepping forward. She had probably been waiting for an excuse to put some distance between us, I considered.

"Yeah, there were some signs of tampering, but nothing too bad. Bunch of amateurs..." The old cursebreaker spat on the ground, putting his wand away and massaging his neck. "These last wards were better than the norm, better than those in the subfloor, even. It's been years since I had to put out such beauties."

Still not taking his eyes off the artefact collection in the room, Augustine grinned excited.

"Can I go in now?"

I snorted loudly, but Jensen warned me with a look before I could actually speak up.

"Not so fast, lad," he said, then, turning to the Ministry official. "Did you forget the nasties we found inside the other rooms?"

Trenton finally shifted his gaze to glance at the cursebreaker in disappointment, his mind forcefully reminded of some of the guardians that had protected the manor until discovered. His brain must have taken the next inevitable step a second later, because he hastily turned on his heel and stared frightfully at me. I looked back innocently, but the galleon was still rolling over my fingers, and I knew what effect that usually had. Augustine blanched like a sheet while Padma took a step back, inadvertently stamping on Jensen's feet as she did.

"For Merlin… I don't care about the boy, Potter, but at least stop scaring my expert," the old cursebreaker grumbled, gently moving the woman away. He was trying his best not to look at the golden object himself, but he gave in after a second of struggle. "It's downright creepy."

"It's just a coin," I said calmly. "Do you want me to put it away?"

"No!"

Everyone turned to the source of the panicked shout. Padma had backed to the wall and seemed to be wishing for some more room to retreat to. She kept on glancing from my hand to my face, fear marrying her features and eyes. Despite everything, she looked almost apologetic for it.

I recognized the familiar expression easily enough and decided to close the galleon inside my fist, out of sight. A chorus of screams seemed to echo faintly in the back of my mind as I did, but I ignored them expertly.

"Fine."

Augustine glanced with wide eyes between the two of us and swallowed uneasily. With the following look, he pleaded Jensen to do something.

"A-alright," the old cursebreaker finally said. "It's your time now, Potter, if you're ready."

I stared hard at the empty space between the Ministry boy and the doorway, as I stepped closer to the entrance.

"Fine," I repeated sourly, but I knew that I had practically asked for all that when I'd started messing with them. I sighed, then, calming myself. "Usual conditions?"

A grunt was all the answer I needed.

I stopped walking when I came to stand in front of the threshold, just shy of the carpet of moss covering the door. With the coin in one hand and the wand in the other, I let my eyes roam around the room in search of the best spot. I identified it as the marble statue to my left, whose feminine legs and hips were the only portion of the artefact not covered by a large sheet. It was also facing the perfect direction and seemed shiny enough to be of some use to me. The consequent headache would be bothersome but nothing I hadn't dealt with before and a laughing matter compared to some.

Taking a deep breath, I fingered the galleon some more before flipping it in the air.

"And you assure me this is safe?"

"Of course, sir. The greatest Houses of Britain and beyond have enjoyed my family's services for the past three hundred years."

A shadow walked over the large balcony and peered outside, his features untouched by the bright light shining through the windowpanes and sliding into the room. Behind him another figure, undefined as well, followed diligently, stepping around blurred forms vaguely resembling the artefacts I had observed from behind the doorway.

I shuddered a little at the distorted world into which I had fallen. Even after all this time and experience, the Reflected World, as I had dubbed it, always elicited a harsh initial reaction from me. I knew it took origins from the traumatic events that had followed my coming into these powers, but I still could do very little but try to ignore the sensation and focus on the mirror-images themselves.

I was standing inside the room now, rooted to the ground like the statue I had targeted. There was an unpleasant sensation of cold behind all that marble, as I looked up at the people talking quietly in front of me. As always, the words arrived pretty clear to my ears, unlike the rest. Stone wasn't exactly a perfect reflecting surface, but that applied to images, mostly, not sounds.

"I just don't want the Ministry to find out about this," the figure by the balcony said, sounding like someone believing that it was perfectly reasonable. He used the tone of someone reiterating a concept for the umpteenth time and there was a hint of annoyance, although well-masked, in the following answer.

"Of course, Mr. Quore. I understand that completely."

"The goblins ask too many questions and leave far too many trails," the first shadow resumed, turning around. "There will be none, here, correct?"

"Only the indispensable minimum for the payment," was the immediate reply. "Completely untraceable to this business or yours."

I would have rolled my eyes if I hadn't been but a mere observer inside a chunk of stone. I had witnessed many similar conversations in the past month, all the other rooms presenting similar scenes to this one, the only things to ever change being the name of the clients or the nature of the artefacts they wanted hidden from the eyes of the Ministry.

"Very well," the first figure eventually said. He walked up to the other man and shook his hand. "As long as there are no alterations to the contract or the service, I have decided to entrust this matter to you."

"It will be an honour, Mr. Quore."

The client acknowledged the bootlicking with a grunt and moved to stand right in front of me. Even from up close, it was impossible to discern his traits from behind the marble inside which I was stuck.

"Now, explain to me in detail how the guard of this room is going to work."

"Of cou-"

The scene changed suddenly, jarring me out of my current train of thoughts. The sunlight was nowhere to be seen now and the room was shrouded in darkness but for the colourful sparks of what I immediately recognized as combat spells. Looking down, I saw an indistinct shape at the statue's feet – which were my feet for all intents and purposes, at the moment - a blurry lump looking suspiciously like a fallen body. No colour stayed right in such a distorted world, but it wasn't a long stretch of imagination to reach the conclusion that the dark liquid flowing around the corpse was actually crimson red. Over a terribly loud sound of grinding rocks, I could hear screams of shock and rage, and it took me a moment to fully realize that I was the one producing the former.

The statue was moving.

Curses rammed directly at me, cutting and blasting spells glinting through the air before hitting, their power immediately ricocheting off the marble of the statue and whatever magical defence it was protected with. The construct didn't stop and my point of view started to change accordingly, as the room guardian finally faced the source of the attack – two angry wizards advancing and crying out for their buddy.

"Darren! Hang in there!"

Countless spells left their wands in the next few seconds, an impressive lightshow of destruction that finally started taking its toll on the statue. Chips of marble and stone started flying off in all directions, but the construct was upon the wizards now, much swifter than one would have expected, and one arm came crashing down like a cleaver on the nearest man. The blow seemed to bypass his shield charm as if it hadn't even been there. It hit him right on the head and a squirt of that strange dark blood splattered on the statue and on me, further hindering my already-blurred view. Through that spotted vision, I watched as the last wizard standing turned around and ran. He had just about reached the door when something appeared out of nowhere, a black form decking him with the force of a wrecking ball. Even with the sound of stone grinding on stone coming from so close, there was no way I could have missed the inhuman screeches that followed or the agonizing screams after that.

As soon as I caught the coin from the air, I was back in reality. To the people behind me, two seconds at most had passed, one of the many perks of my unusual power. At times, if I was in a particularly good mood, I could almost convince myself that they outweighed the drawbacks, occasionally.

This wasn't one such time.

I ignored Padma's sharp intake of breath, a clear sign that she was expecting the worst. Truth be told, her view of my ability was vastly askew because of the happenings during our run at Hogwarts, especially the fourth year. Things had admittedly gone out of hand at the time, but they had also been blown out of proportion, if I had to be honest. I wasn't nearly as dangerous as the wizarding world had been led to believe. Not when I didn't want to, anyway.

I toyed with the galleon for a few seconds as I pondered on how to proceed. While the first scene had been as identically useless as many others I had gotten from the other rooms of the villa, the second one was what I had been looking for.

Clutching the golden coin more firmly inside my fist, I drew my wand and stepped into the room. The tickle of the only ward Jensen had left in place – the one not allowing anyone or anything from leaving through the doorway – was swiftly ignored, while I immediately fired a bunch of metal chains at the statue. The construct wasn't any different than a couple of others I had already encountered in the lower floors, and I knew that destructive curses hardly affected it with all the protective spells every artefact had been given. Blocking its movements was definitely the best solution, as its only power consisted in walking up to its targets and smashing them with physical strength and weight, maybe waiting for its best chance to hit by taking advantage of the element of surprise.

My power had taken care of that and a couple of heavy chains had already wrapped around it when it finally activated, the grinding sounds highlighting every movement even from underneath the sheet it was covered with. It could only take one step before the chains were firmly secured to ceiling and ground, stopping it from advancing further. The painful noise didn't stop, though, and I could easily picture the statue moving its head about beyond the sheet, as if in search of a way out.

As I restrained the construct, my eyes kept on checking for the second room guardian the mirror-image had shown me. My gaze passed over a number of different artefacts, some covered by white sheets much like the statue was, but none of them actually looking like the thing I had seen through a blotch of discoloured blood. None other sound but the statue's could be heard, either.

I kept my wand high as I peered around the room. Now that I was actually inside, the remaining two corners were visible to me as well, but they didn't present anything different than the rest. A dark cloth was draped in front of the balcony, an impromptu curtain that went from one wall to the other and let a bit of sunlight filter through, but not actually enough to go by without risking to bump into something.

"Luces," I murmured then, and a bright yellow glow started from the tip of my wand and raised to the ceiling.

That's where I first saw the insect.

Instincts kicking in, I barely had the time to jump out of the way before the creature's long legs flexed and pushed down. A dark, hairy monster dropped not five inches away from me as I twisted around to take aim while landing uncomfortably on the hard concrete floor.

The insect moved faster.

It had already turned fully towards me, twin pincers snapping at the corners of its mouth, as a yellowish, web-like substance shot from it and towards me. It splattered on my right side and arm with enough force to push me back, redirecting my blasting curse to a wooden cabinet nearby. Only the covering sheet blew up into nothingness as whatever lay underneath was magic-protected like everything else in the room. The substance on my arm was disgustingly sticky and constricting beyond what one would have expected just by looking at it, and when I rolled out of the way of the next spray, I found myself cursing angrily as it stuck to the ground and tried to pull me down again.

The creature's screech was enough of a warning as to let me avoid a direct hit, but it was a close call. The insect barrelled past me with speed defying its size, and a glancing blow from one of its legs was enough to send me tumbling down and against one of the artefacts of the room. The monster pounced on me before I could completely right myself, but this time I was ready. Wand flicking quickly in a circle, I went down again under the weight of the creature, while my severing curse impacted it from point-blank range.

The insect screeched in agony, blood spurting out of a deep gash under its head, but it had enough momentum to effectively slam and then pin me against the ground. The wand slipped from my fingers as a particularly hard kick of its legs twisted my wrist, and the monster seemed to finally regain its bearings when I grunted in pain. Its eyes met mine, widened in hate and then narrowed. The pincers at the corner of its mouth trembled for a moment before straightening out with a click, something like foam or spittle forming around them as they prepared for the final attack.

I had definitely had enough.

"Die," I snarled at it and I dropped my galleon and stared into its eyes.

It was instantaneous. As soon as I opened my left fist to let the golden coin roll onto the floor, my mind pierced through the insect's like a bullet, shredding like paper whatever mental defence it had. I didn't pay any attention to the scrambled images playing behind my eyes, memories of a life of wait and hunt in a dusty old room and in a dark forest before that. I just kept on pushing until the stream ended and the body on top of me shivered once more before growing still.

Then its head exploded, splattering blood and brain matter against the ceiling above and the artefacts around.

I blinked, mostly untouched by that gory shower, and tiredly pushed to the side what remained of the creature. I saw the galleon only a couple of feet to my right and picked it up immediately, cleaning it from blood and flesh alike. Then I recovered my wand.

"You okay, Potter?"

Marcus Jensen was staring at me warily from the doorway, his own wand held at the ready. Squirming behind him, Padma and Trenton were white as ghosts and doing their best not to look at me.

"Sure," I said nonchalantly, using magic to get rid of the web-like substance on my arm, but I was actually nursing one hell of a headache after using my power so extensively and for such a purpose. It had been a while since I had had to resort to it to get rid of something, but the room guardian had managed to get the drop of me and I hadn't expected it to be that fast.

Prodding the headless insect with the tip of my boot, I silently gave it the finger.

"C-can we come in?" Trenton stammered.

I looked at him and shook my head, holding back the first answer that came to my mind. Even scared shitless as he was, his eyes never strayed far from the prize. It was almost commendable in a way – greed winning over fear.

"I'm going to make a sweep first," I said, almost slipping on brain matters as I tried to move. I feigned interest in some of it while I tested my foothold and turned away to hide a grimace. Damn. I needed an aspirin… or better yet, some shut-eye time.

I sighed tiredly, looking around the room before approaching the thick curtains hanging in front of the balcony. After a moment of indecision, I brought them down and endured the glare of the morning sun, waiting for my eyes to adapt a little before moving. The light wouldn't do anything for my migraine, but at least I could see what lay in the two darker corners of the room, now, beside being able to navigate it without tripping over something. I wandered around the countless artefacts, occasionally taking off the large sheets covering them and whistling impressed at some of my findings.

I was about to green-light the Ministry official, authorizing him for access, when my eyes fell on a half-covered cabinet nearby. My gaze went at once to the clear runes carved at its stone base, running upwards and disappearing underneath the cloth covering it.

"What the…"

My heart skipped a beat or a hundred, as I made my way towards the object and yanked the sheet away.

Then I stared at Dumbledore's old Pensieve. Hard.

It was all I could do for what felt like minutes, before my fingers started brushing the familiar ledge almost on their own volition. For a moment, a trick of the light almost convinced me that there was actually a residue of the misty magical potion swirling inside the basin. But it was empty, of course, a harmless bowl carved in stone, only containing dust.

I shuddered.

I hadn't seen it in so many years, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was Dumbledore's. I recognized the runes – so different from the other Pensieves' I had stumbled upon in my job. The slight scratch I had caused myself during one of my worse temper-tantrums was there as well.

Suspicion surfacing in my brain, I peeled my eyes off the Pensieve and looked around. I started uncovering the objects nearby, sure enough revealing a number of Dumbledore's magical belongings, feeling ever more baffled as I tried to think through my head-ache.

What were all these things doing there? As far as I knew, the Pensieve had gone to the Headmaster's brother after his death, together with most of the old wizard's possessions. But Aberforth was still alive and well, managing his dirty pub in Hogsmeade. Why would he give such a priced artefact away? And to such a shady organization to boot? What about all this other stuff?

"What the hell," I whispered, scratching the scar on my forehead in confusion. "This doesn't make any-"

I completely stopped on my tracks, then, as I turned around and saw the impossible. I wasn't in control of my feet, when they brought me to a tall artefact nearby, nor my hands, when they reached for the cloth covering it almost to the ground. I could see the lowermost corners peeking out of it, two clawed paws carved in a gold frame. It was a horribly familiar sight, one I would never ever forget.

"No," was the whisper leaving my lips before I could stop it. "It can't be…"

When I pulled the sheet off, I found myself staring at the Mirror of Erised.

"Potter?" Jensen suddenly called from the door, out of sight. "Potter, are you alright?"

My fingers slackened entirely, a deep sensation of dread freezing them completely as the cloth slipped down and onto the floor where it lied forgotten.

"S-stay where you are!" I said eventually, swallowing loudly and cursing my failing voice. I tried again. "Stay where you are and don't come in until I say so, alright?"

If the old cursebreaker answered me, I simply didn't hear him. In front of me was something I had long thought lost, knew destroyed, down in a remote chamber underneath Hogwarts. It was the object that had started it all, that had given me what I had and made me what I was. I loathed it and was thankful to it at the same time, was both scared and glad to see that it was somehow intact and functioning. And I couldn't understand how it was even there.

My eyes rested on the gold frame only for a second, lingering on the inscription once more before inevitably travelling to the image reflected inside the mirror itself.

Perhaps eleven-years-old, a scrawny, pint-sized and so-young-it-was-scary Harry Potter stared back at me from behind a pair of round glasses. Oddly enough, the first thought surfacing over the storm in my brain was about how weird it was to see myself wearing glasses again. I had had to get rid of them at the end of my first year at Hogwarts, when looking through their lenses meant triggering an unwanted and traumatic vision every single time, but I had always remained fond of them - thinking them a remnant of my lost, innocent life - to the point that I still kept them somewhere, stored inside 12 Grimmauld Place. Occasionally, I would even take them out and clean them, as absurdly and silly as that was.

I never ever wore them.

As my brain went past the glasses, it finally processed what I was seeing. Me. Young. Innocent.

Smiling.

There was such a serene smile playing on my lips that I couldn't help but stare at it, transfixed, wondering about the last time such an expression could have found space on my face.

I couldn't remember.

I glowered, frustrated beyond words by what I was seeing and the hot pain in my skull. I felt like I was staring at a lie. It had been so long since the day my life had changed, that I couldn't even believe that there had been a time in which I had actually felt peaceful, or even worse, happy, like that boy seemed to be in the mirror. There was no way I had ever smiled like that, actually smiled, instead of grinning, smirking and grimacing. What was the little twerp happy for, anyway? Why did he even look so serene, when the shit around him was just about to hit the umpteenth fan of his life?

And just like that, I realized I wanted to know. I longed to understand, to remember. My temples pulsed continuously under the force of the migraine, and the odd wave of excitement suddenly surging through me didn't help the matter. The galleon in my left hand cut into my palm as I closed it, squeezing until the knuckles turned white and the whole fist shook. I looked at the boy's smile – my own? – and let out a long, calming breath.

Then, before I even realized what I was doing, I flipped the golden coin in the air, diving into the Reflection World of the Mirror of Erised.