Okay, I have recently started watching The Tudors. Though I have not gotten to the point of Anne Boleyn's execution and Henry VIII's marriage to Jane Seymour, I have devoured upwards of thirty historical fiction novels and biographies detailing the lives of Henry VIII, his wives and children. I will identify this as being the incarnation of Henry VIII from The Tudors because I like to think I have a decent grasp of his character; complain if you want.
To Swampflare, I can't seem to contact you, so please tell me if you're reading this: what is TF2? If I'm familiar with it I might write for it.
I hope my characterization comes across as genuine to you.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or The Tudors.
Henry Rex, Eighth of that name and second King of England of the Tudor line likes to think that, by now, he is reasonably familiar with Whitehall Palace. Familiar enough to know that the door in front of him ought not to be there.
Curiosity piqued, Henry presses open the door.
The room is large and generous in its area, flooded with hot summer sunlight and completely empty, devoid even of wall hangings or curtains, except for a large, ornate floor-length mirror standing directly opposite Henry at the other side of the room.
He frowns.
From this distance he can't be sure, but Henry is seeing something in that mirror that he's certain shouldn't be there, running shapes, vague and blurred. He cranes his head around but, sure enough, he is alone in the hall.
Once again curiosity is insatiable and Henry takes a step forward, then another, then another.
When he gets close enough to the mirror to see what it was that caught his eye, Henry stops dead in his tracks, face blanching bone white. Sorcery… Witchcraft, it must be witchcraft. That can be the only explanation for what he's seeing.
He sees himself, seated next to his wife, and around them run two boys. Their spectral laughs and screams of excitement make the air feel tight.
Henry's expression of horror melts into the warmest of joy. Sons. This mirror… It must portend the future. My Jane will give me sons. Fine, healthy sons for England. Fine, healthy sons for me.
Henry goes away from the room feeling lighter than he has in months, a great weight lifted from his shoulders. In future, he tries to find the room again, but to no avail. It has been swallowed into the ether, along with that wondrous mirror.
If Henry had managed to find the mirror again, perhaps his joy would have been muted when he finally noticed that the hair of the woman sitting next to him, looking on their children with love was not golden, but raven dark.