After all this time, her smile is soft and sweet and beautiful beyond any words he could ever come up with. She looks at him with eyes so blue it almost hurts to look at them. They are the same eyes he sees in every mirror, but in her face they are innocent and bright with vacant bliss. Her hair falls in golden tangles, framing her face. In a word, she is perfect.

Oh, there is some small part of him that knows she isn't really. That part notes the vacant smile. That part can't ignore the lack of a wand in her hand, nor the dazed look in her eyes. But that is the only way he remembers her, and he supposes that magic can only do so much. It's enough just to see her at all, this fair child that makes something inside him twist.

Behind her, a man and woman stand with their hands on her shoulders. The woman is darkly colored, with sharp features and a smile that seems slightly formal. The man is looser, happier, with twinkling blue eyes that Albus can't help but recognize as the carbon copies of his own. Her parents. Their parents, really, but guilt has long since stopped allowing him to think of this lovely scene in front of him as his own. Aberforth stands to the right of the girl. His smile is as bright as anything, and his arms are wrapped around her.

Of course they are; 'Ri had always loved him best, and he felt the same about her. Albus had always been the one that distanced himself, back then. He'd always taken his family for granted, blamed them for shackling him down when he was so brilliant, so ambitious, so ready to take on a world he couldn't reach. He'd hated them all, his parents for leaving him responsible, her for needing to be taken care of, and him for always nagging, telling Albus what he was doing wrong and demanding he do more for Ariana.

But in this scene, it's different. He stands on the other side of his sister, smiling with the rest of them in his 17 year old guise. His arm is intertwined with his brothers as they both hold her in a careful, loving embrace. There is no book in his hand, distracting him, no Gellert convincing him he is meant for greater things. There is no greater good, occupying his time. No death that has separated them. They are together. They are whole. They are happy.

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

And when he answers, a lie slipping from his lips far easier than he wishes to admit, his eyes are locked with hers.

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks."