Author's Note: I've decided to keep the short chapter thing going, as it allows me to update more often. That, and the song lyric thing is just too much fun.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.


Chapter 4 – Two Minutes to Midnight

The killers breed or the demons seed,
The glamour, the fortune, the pain,
Go to war again, blood is freedoms stain,
But don't you pray for my soul anymore.
Two minutes to midnight
The hands that threaten doom

-Iron Maiden

Harry regarded the simmering cauldron with suspicion. Between the two of them, the potion had been made perfectly, but he was still a little apprehensive about casting the spell. If even one thing was off, the entire thing could blow up in their faces.

But Draco didn't seem worried, so Harry was determined not to let his own uneasiness show. He couldn't, after all, let Malfoy get the impression that he was weak or scared.

Draco looked up at the clock.

"Two minutes to midnight. We'd better get started."

Harry nodded, silent, as Malfoy added the final vial of dragonshide oil and took up an ornamental dagger. He laid the blade along the palm of his left hand and closed it, holding both hands above the cauldron. Drawing the blade down, he sliced open his palm and counted as one, two, three drops of blood fell into the brew, which turned from sickly green to deep brown. Quickly he drew his hands away, wiping the dagger on a handkerchief and handing it to Harry, who repeated the actions. After the third drop of his blood hit the surface, the potion changed to a deep crimson. Harry cleaned the dagger again and both men muttered healing spells at their hands. Draco picked up the cauldron, extinguishing the flame with his wand, and a horsehair brush and together they moved to the large, oval mirror on the wall.

The two men took a deep breath and looked at each other, then at the clock. Midnight. Time to go.

Draco dipped the brush in the brew and began chanting the spell, painting the mirror crimson with long, even strokes. He left a brush-width clear between each stroke. When he finished, he handed the brush and cauldron to Harry, who picked up where he had left off without missing a beat – chanting in Latin, his brush strokes filling the spaces between Draco's. As he finished the chant, Draco's voice joined his, and as the last clear spaces were covered in red, their voices spoke the final words as one. There was a flash and then the red seemed to evaporate, leaving behind in the mirror an image which was not a reflection.

It was the living room of a Muggle house. At the door was a man, tall and well-built with shaggy black hair, his back to the mirror. Harry blinked. From the back, the man could have been his father.

"Is that him?" he asked in a whisper. Draco ignored him, his eyes fixed to the mirror.

The man handed something to someone on the other side of the door and accepted a stack of large, flat boxes with the words "Papa John's Pizza" printed in garish red letters along the side. As soon as he turned to face the mirror, both Harry and Draco gasped. The man's left eye socket was covered with a black eyepatch.

He set the boxes on the coffee table and disappeared from the room. A few moments later he was back with several bottles of various soda pops in his hands and a stack of plastic cups under his arm. He set down his burden and went to the foot of the stairs.

"Girls!" he yelled. "Pizza!"

Immediately there was a thunderous noise as about a dozen girls, ranging from twelve or thirteen to nearly twenty, stampeded into the room from upstairs, downstairs, and the halls. They fell on the pizza boxes with wild abandon, laughing and talking and pouring each other glasses of pop. The man rolled his good eye.

"You're welcome," he said, his tone amused. Immediately there was a chorus of "Thank you, Xander" from the girls.

"Xander." Draco said softly. "That has to be him. Look, he has my mother's mouth and nose."

"I wonder what happened to his eye?" Harry said. Draco didn't answer, apparently enthralled with watching their brother interact with this gaggle of Muggle girls. For Muggles they certainly were; no sign of anything magical was anywhere in sight.

Harry tore his eyes away long enough to let Hedwig out of her cage. Settling her on his arm, he brought her over to the mirror.

"That's Xander, Hedwig," he said quietly. "Could you find him if we had letters for you to carry?"

The snowy owl hooted softly, bobbing her head in an owly approximation of a nod. She turned her head towards his and began grooming the hair behind his ear with her beak, obviously done watching. Harry smiled at her and let her position herself on his shoulder, reaching up to smooth the feathers on her underside as he turned his attention back to the mirror. Draco had summoned the ottomans over, and the two of them settled down to watch and learn about their brother.