Everyone was well and truly sick of cleaning the headquarters for the order and Hermione, Harry, Ron and Ginny were all relieved to get a break. Hermione had planned on spending the afternoon reading but she had been out voted by the other three who all wanted to explore. Although she could have chosen to let them go and explore by themselves, she chose not to because she thought that maybe some exploring would do her some good and the house was huge and very old, maybe she could find a lovely book or some interesting artifacts in there.

After a quick lunch they headed up the dusty staircase. They avoided Mrs. Weasley and they were even silent on the stairs which prevented Sirius' mother from having a lovely scream. The house was enormous and the stairs seemed to go on forever. Ginny had wanted Fred and George to come but had been unable to talk to them because they're room seemed empty except for a huge lot of blinding smoke. Fred and George had told them the day before that they were working on a new product from the joke shop and that not to enter their room under any circumstances but they'd completely ignored the warning. Ginny who was leading the group on their exploration showed them into a very daunting old room. The room was full of the most peculiar of objects from old curtains full of dust to large vases full of what Hermione thought looked like rotten flowers with dust for extra flavour. The room looked like it had been an old study but had not been accessed for a very long time. There was also a bookshelf full of massive books that Hermione would have loved to read front to back. Besides the disgusting objects in the room there was an old mirror with a peeling gold frame. Hermione thought it looked rather pretty besides the fading and rather enormous amount of dust covering it. The mirror didn't look dangerous but it did look like nobody had been near it in a long time.

'A mirror,' Ron said, staring at the mirror in awe. 'Looks kinda nice actually.'

'Hang on, there's writing on it,' Hermione said as she looked at the tiny writing on the bottom of the mirror's stand. The writing was so tiny that Hermione had to stand right up next to it and squint to read it and Hermione had perfect eye sight.

'What does it say?' asked Ginny, curiously. Everyone's attention was drawn to the mirror and they all were shocked by how this beautiful object was in such an evil, daunting house.

'It reads: If you wish to travel out there, you must have a heart that's fair. Split you will be when you arrive, but friends you'll find keep you alive. Challenging it shall be, though in the end you will see. So do not be scared or afraid, for where the mirror leads is where you will be made.'

'Huh?' said Harry who like Ginny looked completely confused and was looking at Hermione in attempts to get an answer. Ron, however was looking completely dumbfounded and Harry found it hard not to laugh at his completely stupid and confused expression.

'It's really weird,' Hermione looked at it with a very confused look on her face and squinted her eyes in attempt to find more writing on the mirror but there wasn't any. She reached out to touch the glass on the mirror but she didn't feel anything. Instead her fingers went straight through as though the mirror was liquid. The feeling was creepy, it felt just like putting her hand in jelly and that's when she got the feeling that this mirror wasn't just in a dark house by coincidence but that the object would be very dangerous.

'Wow!' said Ron looking at Hermione with excitement. 'Maybe it's a teleport or something. I dunno but it looks pretty cool. Maybe you like just walk through it!'

'Even if it is we can't try it,' Hermione said and the others looked thoroughly disappointed. Hermione did her common look to try and give the impression that she knew something they didn't and from the disbelieving looks on their faces it seemed she did realize something the others didn't.

'Why not?' Harry asked, 'It'd be cool.'

'Whether it's cool or not is irrelevant,' Hermione said in her usually bossy tone. She was hell bent on making sure they didn't try it out. She's couldn't see how the mirror could be safe. How many mirrors were there that you could just walk through and come out okay? Like usual she was wishing everyone else could just see things from her point of view for once.

'And why is that?' Ron asked while looking at her rather stupidly.

'Well we found it in a dark wizard family's house, so it's probably full of dark magic and incredibly dangerous. Secondly, even if it was a teleport what would we do if we get teleported somewhere and get lost, my parents would kill you for coming up with the idea and yours would do the same to me and we may not be able to get home again.'

'Spoilt sport,' Ron said and Hermione looked at him with deep disgust while he added, 'Well we'll never know if we don't try it.'

'That's beside the point!' Hermione knew she was beaten but she was still going to try, 'Do you not realize how much danger you'll be putting yourself in if you go in that?

'Yeah,' Ginny said, 'Let's just do something incredibly stupid, just this once,' Harry laughed. The comment was usually something Fred and George would come out with and Hermione hoped Ginny wasn't turning into someone like them. She admired Ginny as an intelligent friend not a stupid joke maker.

'Who's with me?' Ron said and he looked from Ginny to Harry then to Hermione who looked completely defeated. She couldn't believe they were actually planning on doing this. What did they hope to achieve other than pain and suffering?

'I'm in,' said Harry with an excited tone.

'Me too!' Ginny said and both her and Harry looked toward Hermione who now wished she'd just stayed down stairs and read a book. She really had no intentions of being a part of this but it didn't look like she had much of a choice. They needed someone to get them out of the mess they were putting themselves in and to Hermione none of them seemed capable to do it themselves.

Hermione honestly did not want to go anywhere near that thing and was ready to go dob them in to Mrs. Weasley. She didn't have the chance to run though or to scream for help or even to lecture them, she didn't have time for anything as just at that moment Ron took one big step into the mirror and disappeared. It hadn't been the sudden disappearance of that of apparition but more of a fade into the mirror, like he was becoming part of it only there was no Ron visible in the mirror but it was a rather terrifying sight. There was absolutely no sign of him, not even a sound coming from the interior of the mirror, it was like he had said, and it seemed he had teleported. Harry followed him and although Hermione felt like yelling out to tell him not to she didn't because she got a sudden urge to want to go in herself, just to see what was on the other side. Ginny followed and Hermione went to follow her but then got the sudden thought that her friends might be in danger there and even if they weren't that it might be a good idea to tell someone where they'd gone. If she just left what would everyone think. They might think Harry had been taken by Voldemort or that they had left off on some stupid adventure, which Hermione told herself, they had. Hermione walked toward the door of the room as she decided that she was going to tell someone just in case something bad happened to her friends when she heard a scream come from the mirror. It was very faint but it sounded as if the person who had screamed was either scared, in pain or both. It had sounded like an urgent scream and Hermione thought that it would be better to save her friend's life then to tell someone where they were going and have no friend to find. So without a second thought Hermione tore across the room and walked straight through the mirror. As she did she got the sudden feeling that she was walking through ice and then the liquid disappeared and she saw where she was. It was a beautiful sight.