"What do you see when you look in the Mirror?"
A simple question, that deserved such a simple answer. And yet it was in no way simple. The briefest glance shows him should have been. Had it been a simple mirror, he should have seen an old man, his wise face wrinkled with age, his silver-grey beard hanging straight and long. But this was not a simple mirror. This was the Mirror of Erised, and simple did not even begin to cover it.
I see myself. The old man thinks. Myself. But I am not alone. All those people who should be there, are. I see my mother, the pain of caring not etched onto her face. I see her love for my father, who stands near. He seems carefree, happy to be here, happy to be in this family. He smiles at a boy who is like me in so many ways. But the ways of the world have yet to hurt him, and he talks o me, his words idle chatter. Un-estranged. I see that my brother does not blame me for something that has ceased to exist. In the mirror, the man I loved stands beside me, and we are accepted – such feeling is not to be frowned upon.
The old man pauses, and if youhad been watching closely enough, maybe you would have seen a small, silent tear, trickling slowly down his cheek.
But if the Mirror was going to show me one thing, and one thing alone, it would be my sister. I see her now: laughing, playing, the opposite of that fragile, delicate creature I once knew. She is happy, healthy, and her eyes seem to glow as she smiles. She is surrounded by love, and love she returns.
The biggest gift the Mirror gives me, however fleeting my glance, is her forgiveness. She forgives me for something – in that world, at least – I have never done.
Albus sighs, and surveys the pupil over the top of his half-moon spectacles. The student is eleven, and could an eleven-year-old really understand the complexity of what the Mirror of Erised shows him? It was a simple question, and it deserved a simple answer.
"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks."
I stayed up way after bedtime to write this. I hope some one likes it...
Em x