You won't find my name at the end of "Harry Potter is owned by" if you type it in Google...

After that night, Harry went to the library at any opportunity, and spent there as much time as he could. Of course, Hermione would be there most of the times too, and they soon came up with a schedule of doing homework and extracurricular reading. Neville would join them for the homework part, always complaining how useless it would be for him to study in advance if he couldn't even master what they were learning at that time. Hermione would usually tell him that it is better to read up, because even if you don't understand everything, when the time comes, you at least know what to look at to see important points. Harry on the other hand would say that he was selling himself cheap because of his low confidence.

Between homework, classes and Quiddich practices, Harry didn't have much time to find what part of magic Magie fit into. In fact, he only started with that, but number of questions multiplied with every passing minute spent in the library. It is if a child ask simply if people can fly, seeing somewhere a bird, and you hand it books for maths, physics, navigation, modern technology... simply put everything you need to build and fly a plane. So, it wasn't any surprise that even as Christmas break came, Harry didn't accomplish anything more than make himself more and more confused with mass of information that he had read so far.

It wasn't any surprise either, that with his mind trying thing any connection between what he had read lately and what was happening with his magic, he was walking not really looking where he was going. But it wasn't common occurrence when he bumped into someone while doing it. This particular surprise happened when he was leaving Potions classroom, and everyone suddenly stopped moving. Looking around he noticed blocked exit, but more importantly Weasley and Malfoy going at each other.

Fight didn't get too far because Snape showed up, and of course started docking points from Gryffindor, even thou Hagrid told him that it was a provoked attack.

"Be as it may, Fighting is against Hogwarts rules." was all he said at that. All that was done in mid stride, like he wasn't even paying attention. Well until a voice reached him from the silence that spread among the students.

"Fighting is against Hogwarts rules, but insulting others is not?" asked Harry from his spot in the crowd, which immediately parted to let the new character onto the stage.

Snape had to stop his march and grit his teeth when he saw that innocently curious look on Potters face. "Malfoy, 2 points from Slytherin for badly worded opinion." As much as he didn't want to do it, he was caught in the middle of explaining himself from his entire carrier as a teacher and didn't need anything new, no matter how small, on the books. But while doing so he gave a pointed look to the young snake, who understood the hidden meaning as 'Don't be so obvious about it'.

After Snape walked away and Hagrid cleared the corridor everyone moved, seeing clearly that the show was over. When Harry arrived at the Great Hall and saw decorations, he realised that this was in fact last day of classes before the brake. He was staying in the castle, but it was more for the reason of nearly unrestricted time in the library more than going back to the Dursley's.

It wasn't that he hated it. It wasn't even about him having any particular feelings about it. Christmas at Dursley's was more about appearances than about real "Christmas spirit". First one that Harry could remember was like he was included in a battle strategy. Everyone had their positions and jobs to cover for it to work out. Of course Harry would do the chores and stay out of the way at the actual celebration, but he still knew about the plans regarding every event that happened during those days, and after you saw it couple of times, it was like listening to an old squeeze box. And no matter how lovely the tune is at first, when you hear it long enough you begin to notice the imperfections, like when a guest already knew a joke uncle Vernon was saving for that particular moment in the conversation, or when someone scratched holiday service of aunt Petunia, or even not so uncommon occasion that Dudley was too bored with his job to see it through. So, it was to Harry's advantage to be left out of it, having time for himself instead of being there to play part in the show. He heard about it enough as it was. And if he were to be there, he would no doubt be blamed about any mishap.

Staying in the castle during the brake, at least in theory, wasn't much different than going back. He still stayed mostly alone trying to figure things out. But people didn't have the same reasons that Dursleys had to leave him alone. At Hogwarts he was mostly regarded as a mysterious saviour of the magical world, but there was also a part of the community who wouldn't bother him because of the Snape incident. Some couldn't comprehend what was really happening and others were still mad at him because they were caught in the most violent of Potions Masters outbursts. And, obvious reason why Hogwart wasn't the same (totally omitting the comparison between a magical castle and a house in the suburbs) was that he had quite different set of things to think about.

But it all came to an end when he woke up on the Christmas day, and saw a small pile of packages at the foot of his bed. And with every passing present, it was more and more bizzare one. It relatively normal, with a box of Chocolate Frogs from Hermione. Well, if you can call charmed candies "relatively normal". Then it was a flute that, Harry guessed, was handmade by Hagrid. He mused a while at the meaning of this, and had a funny idea of Hagrid performing in a band on variety of instruments. But when he shook his head to clear his mind from that particular idea, he saw that there was a nicely looking Christmas card that the two previous presents were holding down.

On the back of it was written "We received your message and wish you a Merry Christmas." signed by Dursley's family as a whole. Harry thought that if anybody saw this card, it would be quickly dismissed as one that you send to a friend or relative that couldn't make it for the celebration, so completely normal. But it was quite a shock to see something like that, when at every other time it would be something closer to "If you know a way to completely vanish, do it.". And the weirdest part was that when he opened the last package, he was in possession of something that allowed him to do just that.

From the start he didn't know who it was from, so he opened it carefully, finding a note on the top of a strange looking material. Seeing that it was his fathers, he picked the cloak up and put in on his shoulders, just to see how it would fit him, if he was similar in build to his father, forgetting for the moment that he was only eleven years old. But when he looked down to tie it in place, he couldn't pull up the sleeves that were too long for him, because he couldn't see his hands. Moving to the mirror, he saw that everything that was covered by cloak, wasn't reflected.

He took it off, like always not wanting to use anything he didn't know about, and getting into trouble over some stupid mistake. But then he remembered that it was a present, and after hiding the cloak in his trunk, he looked at the note once more trying to think who might have sent it. But he didn't get too far with that because a half hearted "Merry Christmas" reached his ears.

Looking up, he saw that Ron Weasley, the only other boy from their year to stay for the brake, finally woke up. After yawning widely, he began to tore into his own pile of presents, considerably larger than Harry's. When he was done, he started to change into his things, his mood worsened by another maroon sweater. Ron was from the group in the castle that didn't like Harry because of what happened at every Potions lesson, and as he was in the same class, he was caught in the epicentre. Seeing a opportunity to take a jab at him, he said "Your presents are waiting in another room, so normal people don't get overwhelmed right?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Harry who looked up being suddenly pulled out of his thoughts.

"All that fan mail have to take loads of space..."

"What fan mail?" Harry was getting more and more confused, not making out what it really was about.

But whatever Ron was about to say, he didn't get to it as the door to the dormitory was flung open and the Weasley Twins bounded in with a loud "Merry Christmas". Then commenced a brotherly banter in which Percy got somehow caught in. Harry on the other hand minded his own business readying himself for another day, until "...even Harry will sit with us right?" which turned out to be Twins trying to convince Percy to sit with the common men instead of the higher ups. Not waiting for an answer the Twins shouted at everyone to get ready and went along their way.

Harry just shrugged, now that he couldn't do anything about him, and went back to his trunk to pick up wearable clothes, from everything that he got from Dursley's. But when Twins mentioned him, Ron remembered that Harry was in the room too, and he looked at Harry like he saw him for the first time. Why would saviour of the world be dressing in rags? Even his clothes that he got from his brothers didn't look that worked and patched up. The only new things that Harry had, seemed to be the things that every first year student bought. And only three presents for Christmas? If you could call what was now on Harry's bedside table presents, more like tokens really, while there were thousands wizards practically singing prayers about him. Even someone as hard headed as Ron could see that things weren't adding up with what he thought.

When Harry finally was ready to leave, he noticed Ron staring at him strangely. Taking a while to see if he wanted anything from him, he left confused at what really happened. Because how he was to know that Ron tried to find a way fit his imagined vision of pampered hero, getting whatever he wanted and getting away with doing anything he liked, into what he just now noticed about Harry.

Sometime during the day, Harry had to duck from the festivities, because if muggles were crazy with all the preparations, shopping, and decorating to be too stressed out or tired to make the fullest of the actual free time, wizards were crazy with what they did to celebrate, because everything before didn't take any time at all when done with magic. If they didn't eat, they played games, when they didn't do that, they were probably too tired to do much, so they rested until they could move again, but until then, they still had fun with magic. It was craziest variant of normal Christmas that Harry could think of.

So, when everyone else went for another round of snowball fighting, he lied that he forgot his gloves, and looked for somewhere to take a longer rest, from all that working out after heavy food that he could hardly eat any more of.

That's how he ended up in a room with the strangest mirror he had ever seen. There he saw himself among other people, some of which he guessed were his relatives. It was quite moving, and somewhat shocking, seeing his parents for the first time. The shocking part was that they were talking with Magie, and among other people in the mirror there were more of those peculiar conversations. Muggle's, wizards, friends of Magie were all mixed among each other talking to one another about something or other that he couldn't hear through the glass. And at whatever group he looked, they stopped and looked at him, probably waiting to hear his point of view on the actual subject.

When he finally got his mind back on track and started to look around to see if by some coincidence this vision wasn't true, he noticed the carvings on the to, gazing into the mirror and up again, he had to smile how a stupid mistake in grade school with letters wrote wrongly and teacher bringing a hand mirror to show you mistake, helps with answering a riddle in a magical world. After realising that it was getting late and one last look into the glass, he walked out of the room, just to bump into the Twins at the end of the corridor.

"And we so much wanted to come to your rescue." they said together.

"Well, thanks. I think that at some point I walked through a short-cut or something like that and I didn't know where I was." he quickly lied. "But how did you guys know where to look for me?" he asked first, not wanting to explain himself why it took him such a long time to come back.

"That, our young friend..." began one of the two.

"...is a pranksters secret." finished the other.

"If you will prove yourself... maybe one day... we'll share it with you." they continued speaking in similar fashion, saying the last part together with mischievous grins. As everyone else, Twins knew that Harry was responsible for the situation that Snape was now stuck in, and they couldn't wait what else could he come up with, because it was a true revelation to them that you could pull something like that, not only without breaking any rules, but without even trying very hard.

"Maybe later, now we still need to go back." answered Harry, after which they went to continue the celebration.

Late into the night, finding himself unable to sleep after all the heavy food, he at last had time to reflect on the events of that day.

'Have any good bedtime stories?' at which he immediately looked on his headboard, but he didn't find her there. After checking every possible place, he had to roll his eyes at where she would be now. But while doing that, he spotted Magie lying upside-down on the roof of his four poster bed.

'Why do you usually show up when I'm alone and assume the most ridiculous position imaginable?'

'Well, for the first one, It would be weird if you had to concentrate what to say out loud and what to say to me, if we were to talk in a crowd. And for the other, it's only ridiculous to you, to me, its quite comfortable... But I asked first if you had any bedtime stories for me.' at which Harry begun to describe events of the day.

'So, what's going to happen with the cloak?' she asked after he was done.

'I think I will leave it where it is, hidden in my trunk. If it is some lost forgotten relative or friend, then it looks like he just found this while cleaning, and remembered to return it. That someone don't really care what I do with it, and it can really get me in trouble. But if it is someone who really know that it is time and I am ready to have it, then he was checking on me, at least from time to time. Why not give it to me in person? Or maybe even someone needs me to do something with it... Its just so confusing, and I don't want to make it worse by doing something stupid.'

'And why didn't you find the mirror interesting enough to stay longer?' was her next question.

'Because if you put two mirrors near each other, like you have to do to read the writing at the top, and make them reflect one another, you can see something similar to a tunnel. And the nearer they are together, the further down the tunnel you can see. If you press them flat against each other, it would be safe to assume that you can see as far as infinity goes, but then you can't see the reflections... so the infinity looks the way you want it to, because you have no way of checking if it is true, and no proof that it isn't.'

'But there should be two mirrors put together.'

'And there were.'

At her confused look, he had to explain once again.

'People are mirrors, but not flat ones. If you pick one person and quiz about the world, some matters will be closer to them and some things won't interest them at all. Different people have different "reflections" on the world. That's why they can't pick one greatest thing in the world, because there is always someone who will think otherwise. That mirror just shows what I would like most.'

'And what would you like?'

'Like you said it yourself, just to be accepted.' he said with a smile on his face, and with the vision from the mirror, he at last fell into peaceful sleep.

AN. If you want to bash me that an eleven-year-old shouldn't say thinks like in the last part, then I say to you that "age" doesn't really have anything to do with when you were born, just when and how you start to grow up.

Now, the part about Christmas at Dursley's was written while I was watching a re-run of Chamber of Secrets in the TV, so it should be obvious from where I got the general idea.

Christmas card. They never got him any presents, so a Christmas card wasn't such a bad start indicating that what he said before had made (even slightest) impression on them. And besides, in canon they sent him fifty pence, how much more would you pay for a Christmas card? I bet it was more difficult for them to receive and send back the message, probably delivered by owl.

In canon, Harry was shy and kept to himself because of his upbringing. In this story he will still keep to himself (at least as long as it will suit me), but from different reasons. Its because if you leave children to make rules of the society just by observation, and show to them people who say one thing and then do something else, you don't get a trusting people as a result. And as I wrote before, Harry in this story is just the case.

Now, Harry by himself is fine by me for now, because ideas that I have don't fit into this time period. I have things planned a little for every year but mostly for the third and fourth, at which I don't know if to continue this story, end it (that's why most plans regard this point) and write sequel, or write totally different story. But back to the point. For now I will have Harry to read and study on magical theory. But that gives me another problem, one that if I do a theory, I like for it to be a good one. Complications right and left, but in the end, its more fun this way.

Can anyone guess what I mean by "just being accepted" in regards of this vision in Mirror of Erised?