Lily kicked at leaves that had blown through the corridor's open window.
"Stupid Divination taking forever," She muttered to herself, "I'm going to be so late for my date with James…"
She paused at the fork in the hallway. It was about a 5 minute walk to get from the Divination classroom to the common room followed by a 20 minute walk to Hogsmeade. And she was already 30 minutes late. She looked down the corridor, both ways. There was a shortcut here, or at least she thought there was. Or it could've been the corridor from the Astronomy tower that had the secret passageway. Lily sighed, cursing her un-photographic memory. She'd only gotten a glance at The Marauder's Map twice while James was showing her a way to get to the owlery in half the time. Not nearly long enough to learn all the passages in Hogwarts.
She looked at the corridor again. It had to be this one… the statue of Merlin looked so familiar. She turned into the hall and started checking each door, looking for the room with the trapdoor in the corner. It was in the corner, wasn't it?
Her train of thought was broken when the door she opened led to a steep staircase and almost caused her to tumble down the steps unexpectedly. She peered into the darkness, but she couldn't see past the curve in the stairs. Lily's foot stepped down onto the first stair cautiously but there didn't seem to be any jinxes on it so she continued down. The stairs ended in a large room. Huge actually. But it was empty. She squinted into the shadows. No, not empty. There was a mirror pushed up against the far wall. She crossed over to it and noticed something written along the top border of the mirror's frame.
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi
Gibberish. What a waste of my time, she thought bitterly. Her eyes fell to the mirror's surface and she let out a startled gasp.
"Severus?" Because that's who was in the mirror. He was looking at her sweetly and his arm was wrapped around her shoulders. She reached out to touch the mirror, "Severus?"
"Lily?" The voice came from behind her, not from the Severus in the mirror who remained silent, with a sweet smile on his face. Lily whipped around to face another Severus, standing in the middle of the room looking completely confused.
"Wha-?" Lily glanced back at the mirror. The smiling Severus hadn't moved. She turned back to the Severus that she assumed was real. "What are you doing here?"
"I was walking back to my common room. And the door was open. I wasn't," he blushed awkwardly, glad that the darkness obscured his face, "following you or anything."
Lily cocked her head to the side, partially due to confusion, partially to keep the mirror Severus in view. "Why would I think you were following me?"
Severus blushed deeper. If she hadn't known that he'd followed her before she could probably guess at it now.
"What's that?" He pointed at the mirror in an attempt to change the subject.
"What? It's nothing." Lily didn't want Severus to see what was in the mirror. How would she explain that? She didn't even understand it. How could Severus be in the mirror? How could he be holding her in a reflection, when he was nearly halfway across the room? And why did her heart flutter whenever she saw them in the mirror together, so close to one another. She nervously shook the thoughts away. "Really Sev, it's nothing, just a mirror."
Severus walked towards Lily, "Why would there be mirror down here? That just seems biza-" He stopped dead in his tracks. The reflection from the mirror had come into view. But he didn't see just himself in the reflective glass. He saw Lily. She was holding his hand and her head was rested against his shoulder. He looked at Lily, who'd moved to the side of the mirror and was trying hard not to look in it. And then he looked back into the mirror. And the reflection of Lily tilted her head upwards and kissed him softly on the cheek. He could practically feel it; her lips were so soft…
"Yeah, it's just a mirror." Severus looked hurriedly away. Lily let out an audible sigh of relief.
"Right. Just a mirror." Lily let her gaze wander back to the reflection of her and Severus. He was running his fingers lightly through her hair. No, don't be silly Lily, she thought, Sev is standing right there. Get it together. Why would he be doing that anyway? It's not real.
"I need to get out of here." Lily whispered.
Severus whipped his eyes away from the mirror, ashamed that he'd been looking at the fantasy reflection again. "Huh?"
"I... mean… I have date!" Lily remembered suddenly. Of course! Her date! James. She was dating James Potter. James Potter. James Potter. "I'm really late so… I've gotta go. I'll, uh, talk to you later, right Severus?"
"Um. Right." He nodded as Lily hurried to the stairs. He followed slowly behind her. When she reached the stairs she ran up as fast as she could, she didn't want to look back at the mirror, she couldn't. That wasn't real. Her and Severus wasn't what she wanted to see. She was off on a date with James Potter. James Potter. James Potter. James Potter.
But that didn't stop her from waiting for Severus at the top of that stairs. He was quite a ways behind her because he'd paused to take one last look at the mirror. When he reached her at the top she thought, for just a second, maybe James could wait just a moment longer. Maybe her and Severus could walk down the stairs together. Maybe she could look into the mirror again and match the reflection with their actions. Maybe that's what the mirror had been trying to tell her.
But no. It was just a mirror.