The Hallows of Hogwarts

Chapter 11: The Mirror of Erised

Across the room from her was a ghost. But that wasn't the frightening thing about it. It was taller, looming over Elora, and it had no nose. She felt the chill run up her spine as she noticed that it's skin was whiter than any ghost she had ever seen before. Was it even called skin anymore if you weren't solid? And the eyes. Blood red slits stared at her, taking in the small figure of a soaking wet girl in a Gryffindor uniform. The water dripping from her hair sounded magnified, a thousand times louder, striking the ground.

"Who are you?" the ghost hissed softly. She opened her mouth but didn't respond, she simply gazed horrorstruck at him. The ghost began to float towards her, picking up speed before she cried out.

"Elora! I'm Elora Longbottom!"

He stopped, hovering, his eyes narrowing even more if that was possible.

"Longbottom," he spoke, dragging it out slowly.

"Yes," she gasped. He opened his eyes wider now, taking in her face. His lips turned up into a mirthless smile.

"Are you in Gryffindor, Elora? Your uniform says you are." She nodded. She didn't trust herself to talk. "What year?"

"First." She said it quietly but he heard it anyways. He smiled at her and Elora noticed then that his voice sounded quieter and calmer than she had thought. Huh, it must have been her own fear.

"What are you doing in here, Elora? I have been here a long time and I've never meet anyone." She paused before she said anything. How had she gotten here?

"Peeves, he was chasing me and I needed someplace to hide, so I turned around and the door appeared so I opened it and ran in." She finished in a jumble but he didn't seem to care.

"Ah…" the ghost sighed. "A place to hide. Of course." Elora must have looked as puzzled as she felt because he shook his head and smiled again.

"Elora Longbottom, I am very pleased to make your acquaintance." He smoothly said as he floated towards her again, but she stepped back away. "Elora, please do calm yourself. I haven't had any company in years and I do miss it." She did stopped moving, digging her fingers into her palms to resist the urge. "Well, Elora, why don't you tell me about yourself?"

"Why?" She asked him bluntly. "What do you want to know?" He seemed surprised but smiled at her still.

"I've never had a real friend before Elora. I'd like to know more about you so I might be your friend." She stepped back again, shaking her head.

"No, sorry, I don't think I want to be your friend—"

The ghost floated close and quicker than she thought it could have.

"Why ever not?" Her mind raced and she blurted out the first thought that came to mind.

"Friends know who each other are." He smiled even more. He floated causally, almost absentmindedly in front of her and the door before he turned back to her.

"How about I tell you about me and then you tell me all about yourself?" Elora didn't answer, she just stared straight ahead at him, but not looking him in the eyes.

"Why not? Are you afraid of me Elora?" She flinched. He laughed slightly. "How can I hurt you Elora? I'm dead. Look," he raised his hand and stroked her cheek. It felt like an ice cube against her skin, but there was no pressure.

"Now then," The ghost said as he withdrew his hand. "About me….Well, I'm an orphan. My parents died long before I knew them, and I was raised in an orphanage. When I was eleven, I came to Hogwarts. I was a very good student, I'm sure you are too. Yes, Elora, are you a good student?"

She shrugged. "I'm not bad…But my friends are better." The ghost looked intrigued.

"Who are your friends?"

"Oh, well, there is Albus Potter, but we usually call him Al for short and there's Rose. Rose is actually Al's cousin because she's a Weasley and Al's mum is one too. Then there's Scorpius Malfoy."

"A Potter, a Longbottom, a Malfoy and a Weasley," the ghost murmured softly.

"But we are all in different houses, Albus is in Slytherin, Scorpius is in Ravenclaw and Rose is in Hufflepuff." She continued on, not hearing his words. She stopped then and stared at him more boldly than she would have thought herself capable of when she walked in the room.

"We were talking about you."

"Indeed we were. But then we got on the subject of you and I found it much more fascinating." He replied smoothly. She stared stonily still at him, lips pressed together. He smiled and continued to talk, hoping to entice her into speech.

"Elora, tell me, what do you want, more than anything in the world?" Her eyes widened a bit as her expression turned from determined to reflective. But she didn't answer. The ghost grinned even more floating towards her.

"You don't know? Well, why don't I show you?" As he hovered even closer, the girl took a backstep into something very large and solid.

Clumsily, Elora stumbled backwards and then forwards while trying to look over her shoulder at whatever she had bumped into when she saw herself.

She spun around now, forgetting the malevolent ghost behind her to look at this Elora Longbottom.

This Elora Longbottom was taller than herself, and much prettier too. She was dressed in her uniform still, proudly bearing Gryffindor colors. This Elora was framed in an elaborate gold frame that rested on two clawed feet.

Then Elora realized, it was a mirror. Relieved, she waved her hand at her reflection, but shockingly, her reflection's hand did nothing, except protectively hold Elora's own apple wood wand.

Elora's hand dropped and so did her mouth as suddenly, her parents walked into the mirror and a bubbling cauldron popped up. Mumsy was smiling happily, as she kissed her daughter's and husband's cheeks and admired the potion concocted inside the cauldron. Daddy proudly handed her a lovely blossom and then hugged her.

Elora glanced behind her, but her parents were no where in the room, just the ghost staring at her hungrily.

"What did you see?"

"Me. And my parents. We were really happy and they were so proud of me. I was wearing my uniform too." She tore her face away from his glowing red eyes and back to the Mirror. Now the cauldron was gone but Al, Scorpius and Rose had joined them, laughing joyously, grinning out at their friend. Mirror-Elora smirked at her, the vine on the plant entwining her wrist lovingly.

"Is there anything new?"

"My friends." Her voice was filled with longing as she clutched the mirror's frame. The ghost floated to her and grasped her wrist, the one that Mirror-Elora's flower clung too. With a gasp like she had been doused in another bucket of ice-cold water she dropped her hold on the mirror and stepped away. Instantly, the figures vanished, leaving only her reflection there. Elora didn't see it however, she was too busy looking at the ghost in surprise.

The ghost now took her place in front of the mirror and sighed awfully, studying the blank surface.

"What do you see?" Elora asked in a blunt manner more worthy of Rose.

"I see myself and only myself," came the reply. "I am alive once more and he is dead." She hesitated, then plunged in.

"How did you die?" He hissed at the question, dropping his smile, making Elora turn pale again.

The ghost seemed to retreat into himself as he looked back at the girl.

"I…was murdered." She looked fascinated.

"Like the Bloody Baron? Why?"

"No, there was a wizard. He was the reason many people died and he even took my soul and destroyed six parts of it." Now Elora looked horrified. He took some satisfaction from it and continued with his story. "He tried to kill me too, but I could not die without the rest of my soul so I became a ghost. I knew that the wizard would come looking for me and would try to destroy me for good if he knew I still existed, so I hid here, in my favorite place when I was at Hogwarts. I have stayed here ever since and I will until I find a way to return to my self."

Elora Longbottom didn't speak, but gazed at him in utmost shock. Finally she whispered to him.

"What was his name?" He shook his head firmly.

"No, I cannot tell you that, you are too young to know what horrors this wizard has committed." She wanted to argue otherwise, but she didn't.

"How can you return to yourself?" He smiled cruelly in way that chilled her.

"I have been studying for many years and the only way I think it could happen would involve help. But it would be too dangerous to involve any more than one person and I have not seen anyone except you now." He held his breath, not that he needed to breathe, and waited.

"Maybe I could help." The ghost released his breath and smiled even wider now.

"Maybe you could."

He floated farther away, pretending to ponder this before he returned to her side.

"Very well, Elora, I believe you can help me. But there are a few things you must know first. Nobody outside the room, not your family or friends or teachers or anyone can know about me or this room." She opened her mouth to argue this point and his smile vanished. "It's not because I don't trust you, but for your own protection. That wizard is still alive and very powerful, and if he heard about you, your family and friends could be hurt, Elora. I'm trying to protect you." She nodded resolutely. "The second thing is," the ghost continued. "that in return for your services to me, I will help you achieve your dream of making your family and friends happy and proud of you." Now Elora nodded excitedly.

He began to drift away farther, leaving Elora before she called out again.

"Aren't you going to tell me what you need me to help you with?" He turned back to her silently.

"Not now. Tomorrow, I think, yes…..Come back here everyday to see me, Elora. I'm quite lonely, having spent nineteen years alone in here. I need company, someone to talk too. We will start on my plans soon enough." The ghost began to float away again before she called out again.

"What is your name?" He turned again and smiled genuinely, but it chilled her strangely.

"My name is Tom Riddle, Elora Longbottom."

It was Scorpius who found Elora, out in a corridor, looking pale, wet and dazed.

"Where have you been?" She gave him a startled look.

"Sorry?"

"The Qudditch match! We were worried about you, Elora. But Gryffindor slaughtered Hufflepuff, Rose was in hysterics practically. The match is over, and we've been looking for you over half an hour!"

Elora gasped, the memory of this morning returning as they set off down the stairs to find Albus and Rose.

"Oh, the game! I forgot—I had to return a library book, and then Peeves was chasing me and I only just got away when—"

"Peeves? Is that why you are so wet?" She paused, staring at him blankly before she realized there was a damp patch on the shoulder of her robes soaking through to her skin.

"Oh right, he had water balloons. Look, I'm sorry I didn't make it—"

Scorpius shrugged it off lightly.

"Wasn't worth it to see a terrible team like Gryffindor win because another team's worse. They didn't even catch the snitch, they just scored more—no offense, Elora." He added in quickly with a glance at her uniform.

"None taken," she said wryly. "I don't like sports much," Then he noticed her discomfort as her sleeve grew damp too. "Oh, hang on," Scorpius muttered something, waving his wand loosely and a jet of warm air hit Elora's hand as he directed it carefully. Within moments, she was warm and air-dried.

"Thanks," Elora said gratefully as Albus and Rose hurried around the corner to them.

Elora retold her story various times, both Al and Rosie interrupting with sudden understanding when she got to the part of Peeves. They could understand completely about her troubles with Peeves. She was immensely grateful for that. That ghost, Tom Riddle had scared and fascinated her in a way that she didn't understand and didn't want anyone to tell her not to try to.

That night, Elora had a dream.

She was back in that strange room and Riddle was there too. He was pleading her to help him, that she couldn't leave him in this room.

She turned away from him and there was her parents and her friends sneering and jeering at her cruelly. Then as they abandoned her shaking their heads with disappointment. Elora screamed for them to come back when her parents left her at last, her father absentmindly shredding the plant he had named for her..

She awoke in the middle of the night broken out in a cold sweat, unable to remember what had happened in her dream.

GASP! Nobody even guessed what Elora would encounter...But I bet none of you would have thought Lord Voldemort! Just to clear somethings up, yes, I did read that one interview out of the many where Jo stated that Voldy's now stuck in King's Cross limbo, but if I went with her word, well, then I wouldn't have a plot, now would I? My belief is that the soul pieces used to make horcruxes are all stuck in limbo, seperated from Voldemort who could have made the desicion to move on or not. Voldemort's last remaining soul bit became a ghost, being afraid of death. Had he felt remorse, then yes, that little piece would have tried to pass on. No, he cannot make anymore horcruxes.

I apologize for the long wait for this chapter, but this was the hardest for me to write so far and the most difficult for me to complete as I had to rework some of the finer details out, nothing has been too drastically changed though!