She didn't realise she had walked past the Room of Requirement three times until after she had. And, of course, the wooden door had appeared on the wall, true to form. Her pacing hadn't been for it, but nonetheless, she walked towards it. Perhaps there would be something inside that would help her stop pondering, if only for a little while. She could hear Ron's voice in her head, "You're overthinking this, Mione. We won! It's over."
She knew he was right. But it was in her nature to overthink as if the ability to conjure a whirlwind of thoughts constantly would remain even if she were stripped down to the very bone. She pushed the door open, terrified and yet, excited. There was something exhilarating about the prospect of knowing the depth of her own thoughts, depths that her mind would not otherwise let her reach. The Room of Requirement was built for it, after all.
It slowly creaked open, leaving her to stare at a dark room, albeit a darkness she knew. Her familiarity with the Room did not, however, fill her with confidence. She looked around, trying to remember if the rubble had been their fault from the previous visit.
"Perhaps not," she told herself, "given that it is rubble and not ash. Perhaps it only reflects the state of the rest of the castle or the mind of the summoner." The thought was a terrifying one. Her mind was her most prized possession. The idea that it could fall into ruin... no, she would not think of it.
Something caught her eye, a slight glint in the yawning darkness. She turned to it.
"Hello," she said softly as she walked towards the Mirror. Despite the dark, dusty room that it was placed in, it gleamed with an almost otherworldly glow. She knew she didn't have to speak to it, but something told her to.
There wasn't a reply, of course. She continued to walk towards it. She was still too far away for the image to be clear, but she saw her own shape come into view, a hazy outline on the silvered surface. The outline walked closer as she did, but the shape remained blurred, almost as if it were shifting.
The shape morphed as she kept looking, transfixed, while it twisted and writhed and became something else entirely. . The chestnut hair, scraggly and dirty, shifted to smooth silver, a reflection of moonbeams. The petite frame morphed into a tall, lean one. Her own features distorted into someone else's.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her rational mind told her to run, but she stood rooted to the spot, as if entranced. Perhaps she was. The man in front of her looked familiar. But he could not... could not… be who he seemed to be. Why would the Mirror show her an image of him?
He smiled at her. He paused, as if to savour what he would say next. "Hermione." he whispered.
She swallowed. Every fibre of her being told her that something was wrong. The images of the Mirror could not speak.
"Hermione," he said again, imperceptibly louder this time. "Are you afraid?"
She felt goosebumps rise on her skin, but not from fear. Perhaps it was the chill that seemed to have radiated through the air from the glass, or the piercing gaze of the man across the glass from whom the chill seemed to emanate.
"No," she said. Her voice steady, her eyes reflecting her words, full of curiosity, but not fear. "I know who you are too," she added. Something in her wanted to bridge the advantage he clearly possessed.
"I wouldn't expect anything less from the brightest witch of her age," he replied. His smirk infuriated her; It was the smirk of a man who knew what he was doing, who knew more than he was letting on. . And all you have are books and facts from centuries ago.
"But you have met all the biased accounts, wouldn't you say? After all, history is written by the victors," he cut into her thoughts with words as sharp as a rapier, knowing precisely what she was thinking, slicing through her musings effortlessly.
"Legilimency," she frowned. There was accusation in her tone, a fact she realised only after her utterance had slipped out.
"Yes," he admitted. "One of the few amusements I am allowed in my prison. Though, of course, the art still requires that I be able to see my mark, a luxury I am not allowed often."
The word "prison" ricocheted across her mind, colliding with the phrase he had previously said. "History is written by the victors." Had she really only read falsehoods about him for her entire wizarding life?
"Lies? Hardly. If you were to ask them, they would call it an embellishment of the truth. A dramatisation, if you will."
She remained silent, looking at him intently. There were shivers down her spine, the kind she hadn't felt since the first time she had found out about magic. It's like the doorway to a new world.
"Act One. Four friends decide to spread their knowledge, make the world a better place. An ideal goal, after all."
She knew this part of the story. A tale told many times, and a warning for what was to come. She took a deep breath and nodded, urging him to continue.
"Act Two. They build a haven for themselves and others like them. The beginnings of a society for their kind. Everything is perfect. Their knowledge is invaluable to others, each of their visions fitting together into a perfect whole."
Hermione felt her brow furrow slightly. The tales of the disagreements between the Founders were oft-told, but those of their harmony were not so common. She supposed it must have been, since Hogwarts, a relic of their combined magics, still stood. She found herself wondering what they may have been like, before they were revered as the Founders, before they had fallen apart. Did they ever laugh together?
His eyes, still scouring her mind for thoughts, fell slightly. She thought she saw a slight nod in response to her question, a movement so slight she may well have imagined it.
"Act Three," he began, and then paused. She waited patiently, not breaking her gaze. "They disagree. They fight. All the innocent moments of before are now painted with malicious motives. Actions of the past are twisted ever so slightly, just enough to add suspicion and weight to an argument."
"You were framed?" she asked, more than a hint of disbelief in her voice. "The Founders wrongfully blamed you?"
He winced in mock offence. "You call them "The Founders," as if I were not one of them."
"You haven't answered my question," she retorted, adamant about getting her answer. "And you haven't explained how you are here, in the Mirror."
"I was framed for a crime I did not commit, yes. Had the one who was truly to blame been accused, the few pillars of the Wizarding world of Britain that we had worked so hard to build would have fallen apart. So, I kept my silence, and accepted a punishment that was not mine: an eternity in this mirror, until someone approaches it with the right thoughts in their mind."
"You expect me to believe that they all lied; they were all complicit? Salazar Slytherin would lie more convincingly." She felt angry. Not at him, but at herself. His words were fluid, simple enough to drown in. But even so, there could not be any possible way that everyone but him had lied. Could there?
"Perhaps…" he began, but trailed off, a pensive expression almost caressing his sharp features.
"Perhaps?" Hermione prompted. There were few things that irked her more than unfinished sentences: a promise left unfulfilled.
"Perhaps, Hermione, I could show you. Will you take my hand?" He extended his hand, and it passed through the glass as if it did not even exist. Even the gesture looked elegant, regal, even. His long, wand-calloused, fingers curved slightly, forming a perfect space for her own.
She felt as though someone had stolen her breath. Objects that were simply reflected in the Mirror could not cross the glass! He was telling the truth, at least in part. But to believe Salazar Slytherin… that would be against every instinct she had cultivated as a witch.
"Hermione," he spoke again, but this time it felt like a plea. He stepped forward, the rest of him almost completely passing through the glass. "Will you trust me?"
She let out her breath, unaware she had been holding it in the first place. No. I can't. I won't. I shouldn't… "Yes," she whispered, acutely aware that she did not know why she was agreeing.
In one fluid motion, he stepped close enough for her to breathe him in. Her eyes widened as she recognised the scent of freshly mown grass and new parchment.
"I spent an inordinate amount of time between the library and grounds," he answered her unasked question. "Hermione," he said again, caressing the syllables of her name.
"You promised me an explanation," she reminded him, a gnawing feeling in her stomach. She could not, for the life of her, tell whether it was a pleasant feeling.
"Indeed," he agreed. "But, I believe there is something else I wish to show you first." He dipped his head, such that their lips were a hair's breadth from touching. "May I?"
She nodded, almost instinctively.
The feeling of his lips on hers was only matched by that of his arms snaking around her, pulling her close, closer, but still not close enough.
"Hermione," he smiled against her.
"Yes?" It was barely a word, closer to a gasp.
He said the last words she would ever hear. "You made a mistake."
Notes: For the HP Rare Fest on Tumblr/AO3.
Prompt: He's been trapped in the Mirror of Erised all this time, and finally someone has come with the right thoughts in mind to see him.
I did intend the story to go a bit along the lines of Salazar influencing her thoughts, but I'm not sure how that came around. Also, the conditions of the curse were something like "You have to get someone to trust you to truly escape the mirror", but I'm not sure if I should have been more explicit.
I did have a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much.
A big thank you to my beta, bugstellensatz