A/N: An AU in which Harry returns to Hogwarts with Hermione to finish his schooling. I hope you enjoy it!
Past Life
"Harry, come on. We're going to be late," said Hermione. She bustled with the frantic energy of a Cornish Pixie as she ran around the room, packing Harry's bag while he struggled to simultaneously brush his teeth, comb his hair, and tie his shoelaces.
He hadn't realised the danger of telling his new roommates that he was an early riser. Of course, he'd assumed that he'd be up long before them and had wanted an excuse not to join them for breakfast—not that there was anything wrong with the rest of the Gryffindor seventh-years, but the constant staring would put him off eating.
"It's our first day back, and we're going to be late," Hermione muttered. She snatched Harry's second shoe from his hands and stuffed it into his bag alongside his school books.
Harry could only stare. His comb was stuck in his hair, and his mouth hung open, dripping toothpaste onto his chin, but for all her preparedness, Hermione didn't look much better. The tension running through her seemed to make her hair bristle more than usual, and the busyness of her hands could not belie the vacant look in her eyes.
With a shake of his head, Harry pushed up from his bed, dropped his toothbrush onto the duvet, swallowed the toothpaste, and wiped his chin with his sleeve. In two quick strides, he reached Hermione and stilled her shaking hands before she tried to fit his Broomstick Servicing Kit into his satchel.
"Why don't you go ahead and save me a seat?"
Hermione looked at him as though he were the one acting mad. "Don't be silly. You'll be ready faster if I help."
Harry pulled aside his toothpaste-covered sleeve and glanced at his watch. "Class starts in ten minutes."
Hermione's eyes widened, and she grabbed Harry's wrist to check for herself.
"It'll take us at least that long to get there," he said. "I'm not ready yet, but if you go now, I can check your notes afterwards to see what I missed."
"Ginny could …" Hermione trailed off, gaze distant and lips pursed.
"We've never shared a class with Ginny before. You don't know whether she takes good notes or not." Harry sent Ginny a silent apology for doubting her note-taking skill, but he needed to get Hermione out of his hair, or they'd never get to class.
Hermione nodded. "You're right, but try to hurry." She was out of the room before Harry could make any promises.
He collapsed onto his bed, his back hitting the rumpled duvet, toothbrush digging into his spine, and stared up at the dark canopy with its gold embroidery. His stomach growled, but the thought of food made him wince. If he managed to force anything down, it wouldn't stay there for long. He knew that for a fact, having thrown up most of last night's feast after his roommates had gone to bed.
Regret fed the discomfort in his gut. He wished he'd had the heart to turn Hermione down when she'd suggested returning to Hogwarts to finish their education. Ron had said no, so had Dean and Seamus, Parvati and Lavender, even Neville. Harry and Hermione were the only Gryffindors from their year group who had come back.
Harry had thought that it would help him find his footing and give him purpose now that his life was no longer ruled by prophecy. But the dread gnawing at him suggested he had been wrong.
Hogwarts had once been his sanctuary, but darkness had crept into its walls and spread like ink over paper. A bad memory lurked around every corner, itching to drag him into a nightmare of recollections intent on swallowing him whole.
He heaved a sigh and rolled to his feet. Dark thoughts or no, he had to get to class.
Taking a step, he tripped over his discarded bag and bit back a curse when his sock-covered toes hit the leg of the four-poster. Pain shot through him, making him wince and squeeze his eyes shut.
Inhaling through clenched teeth, he wondered how anxiously Madam Pomfrey would look at him if he showed up at the hospital wing because of slightly bruised toes. She would almost certainly relay her worries to Headmistress McGonagall, and that didn't bear thinking about.
Harry released the breath trapped in his lungs and wriggled his injured extremities. When the ache passed, he grunted and scooped up his bag to extract his stolen shoe. He slipped the footwear on and hopped to the bathroom to run some water over his dirty sleeve and wash away the rest of the toothpaste from his face. He looked semi-presentable by the time he was done, which was better than nothing.
The bell rang as he rushed from the dorm, down the spiral staircase, and across the common room, where a few people milled about. Someone called his name, but Harry pretended not to hear and darted through the portrait hole.
The corridors were deserted, students and teachers hidden behind classroom doors. Only portraits hailed Harry as he passed. He waved at some and forced a smile even as he ducked his head at the sound of their cheering. The squirming in his stomach worsened. He breathed a sigh when he entered the Charms corridor, with its merciful absence of paintings.
Slowing his pace and straightening his robes, Harry tried to remember the new classroom number but realised that Hermione hadn't got that far in her rushed explanation of their timetable when she'd woken him.
With a sigh and sagging shoulders, Harry started down the long corridor, pressing his ear to each door.
Through the newly installed stained glass windows on the other side of the hallway, Harry spotted the construction crew in the courtyard below. Four months hadn't given the builders enough time to return Hogwarts to its former glory, but little by little, with every restored window and mended wall, they erased the passage of war from Hogwarts' memory.
If only it were that easy for people, Harry thought with a half-hearted bitterness tainted by longing.
He would have welcomed the sour, ridiculous anger of envying a renovated building, would have embraced the heat of indignation and the satisfaction of a planned reprisal because resentment and fury were less draining than his unstoppable and unfulfillable yearning for wholeness.
His mind wouldn't give him the purposefulness of rage. It had to corrupt it with want.
Harry stopped in front of a door on the other side of which rang the sounds of laughter. He stared at its wooden surface without seeing it, too focused on the feeling of an invisible hand tightening around his heart. His breath stuttered in his lungs. With a shake of his head, he stumbled away, his thoughts bursting with jets of green light and the sight of falling friends. He fled, trying to outdistance the darkness looming over his mind.
With every step, his lungs burned and his heart ached. A stitch pulled at his side, and he focused on that sharp pain, gradually turning his sprint into a walk until the mad beating of his heart steadied and his erratic breathing settled. When the panic cleared, he stopped in his tracks and chastised himself for acting like an idiot.
Running through the corridors as though he were being chased by an invisible assailant … He could already see the Daily Prophet headline.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and checked his watch, choking on a curse when he realised that Hermione was going to kill him.
If he hurried, he could catch the second half of Professor Flitwick's lesson. He spun on his heel but hesitated when his gaze fell on a door that had caused him no end of trouble and curiosity during his first year at Hogwarts. He hadn't found his way back here since that fateful night down in the underground chambers where his first memory of defeating Lord Voldemort lay. Yet now, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the door.
Logic and reason insisted that he hurry back to the Charms classroom, but a compulsion he couldn't name pushed him towards the door.
He'd be back in time for Transfiguration, he told himself. He only wanted to sink into the past for a moment, to remember a time when things had been less complicated and victories had felt less bittersweet.
He pressed down on the handle, and the door creaked open, unlocked because there was no longer anything behind it worth guarding.
The corridor beyond was long and dark, and a draught blew through the scars in the castle walls from where the builders had yet to work their magic. The torch flames behind Harry's back licked into the unused hallway, casting a flickering glow over cracks and scorch marks that marred the flagstone floor.
Harry pushed the door open wide and stepped through.
A chill that had been chased away from the occupied parts of the castle lingered here. It crept beneath Harry's robes and bit into his skin. Goosebumps pimpled his flesh, and his breath fogged in the cold air. He moved slowly, yet still, the slap of his feet against the broken floor bounced off the stone walls and echoed down the long hallway.
He felt as though he were walking through a crypt, like a ghost haunting a place that no longer seemed like home.
He was half-inclined to turn back, but by the time the thought occurred, he'd reached the edge of the glow that spilt through the open door. At his feet, half-hidden in the corridor's dim light, lay the trapdoor.
With a brief glance over his shoulder, Harry bent down and pulled the door open.
He used a Cushioning Charm this time before jumping feet first into the pitch-black abyss. The fall seemed shorter than he remembered, and he landed painlessly in the passage below.
Torches sprang to life the moment his feet touched the floor. They lit a hallway untouched by war, with not a stone or sconce out of place. The only thing that had changed in the last six years was the Devil's Snare, which no longer crept over the corridor's floor.
It was somehow warmer here than it had been on the floor above, and the tension slowly eased from Harry's shoulders.
He followed the same path he had when he was eleven, down the slanting stone passageway and past each of the four chambers. The Devil's Snare was not the only thing missing from this place—the flying keys, giant chess set, unconscious troll, and potion riddle were also absent.
Without the complicated obstacle course, it took Harry minutes to reach the fifth chamber. The door seemed bigger than the others had. The ornate strap hinges twirled over the old oak like flowering branches, the dark metal gleaming in the golden firelight. They didn't make a sound when Harry pushed the door open.
Fires burnt within the many alcoves lining the walls, lighting the way down the stone steps, which dust covered like a thick, grey blanket. The chamber looked smaller than Harry remembered, but beyond that, it was unchanged, even the mirror remained.
Every other obstacle had been cleared until not even a trace was left behind, but the Mirror of Erised stood as it had all those years ago.
Free from dust, its gold frame caught the dancing light and seemed to glow from within like a treasure chest in a Muggle film. Hypnotic and mesmerising, it drew Harry closer. He reached the final step and was close enough to see the mirror's intricate gilded carvings when a voice whispered in his mind. Dumbledore's words from many years ago rang through Harry's head, reminding him of the dangers the Mirror of Erised posed.
Suddenly, getting any closer seemed as unwise as running into a nest of Acromantulas.
What the mirror had shown Harry when he was eleven had been addictive enough that he had returned to stare at it every night for weeks, but now … Now Harry feared that if he looked into its glass surface, he might never be able to look away.
"I knew you'd show up here eventually," said a voice behind him.
Harry spun so quickly that he stumbled from his perch and staggered onto the open space beneath it. With his heart rate sky-rocketing and his wand pointed in the voice's direction, Harry asked, "Who's there?"
A shadow within the shadows shifted and out stepped a man with steel-grey hair and an ageless face. Smooth skin stretched taut over a thin, crooked nose and jutting cheekbones that looked sharper than glass. White teeth gleamed in the low light as the stranger grinned.
"Who are you?" Harry asked again, gripping his wand tighter.
"Not someone you would know." The stranger ambled down the steps, taking a serpentine route and stopping on the first landing, halfway between Harry and the door. "I doubt your rocky Defence Against the Dark Arts curriculum covered things like me."
Harry's stomach dropped. "What are you?"
"Depends on who you ask," he said, straightening his suit jacket. He was dressed like a successful Muggle businessman, except his shirt was unbuttoned to his navel, his tie hung from his neck like a scarf, and his feet were bare. "A name you might be familiar with is Trickster, but I find that term diminishing and insulting."
Harry racked his brain but came up blank. "What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for you, Harry Potter."
Harry tensed. It was never a good sign when the possible monster knew your name.
The Trickster didn't notice Harry's unease. He swayed on the spot like a cobra in front of a snake charmer, his dark eyes never leaving Harry. "Did you know there was a betting pool running for the past sixteen years? Creatures and beings would gamble over whether you'd win or lose your war."
Harry clenched his jaw to keep in an angry huff that might have ended with an insult. He and his friends had risked their lives while others had treated the war like a game upon which to wager.
"I bet against you," said the Trickster with a one-shouldered shrug that flowed like water.
"Thanks," said Harry through gritted teeth.
"You've got to admit, the odds were not in your favour." He stopped moving. The intensity in his eyes doubled, making his stillness more unnerving than his swaying had been. "But you defeated probability and proved me wrong."
Harry kept his wand arm steady and tried to think of a spell that might work against a Trickster. "So, what? You're looking for your money back?"
"We didn't play for money." For a second, his smile widened into something animalistic, flashing a couple of golden teeth. Harry didn't want to know what they had played for if not money. "But no. You won fair and square and showed me an unexpected outcome. I think that deserves a boon."
The Trickster walked down the remaining steps as slowly as a cat stalking unsuspecting prey. Harry shifted to the side to keep some distance between them without getting too close to the mirror. When the Trickster reached the landing, he sidestepped, smirking as Harry did the same in the opposite direction. They repeated this dance and circled one another.
"I'm good, thanks," said Harry. His right arm started to cramp from holding his wand up for so long.
The Trickster's smile never faded. "You haven't heard what I have to offer."
"I don't care. I don't want anything from you."
"Not even a chance to start anew?" Harry's brow furrowed, and the Trickster's grin faded into a smaller smile that softened his sharp features. He cocked his head towards the mirror. "Take a look."
Harry didn't move.
For the first time since stepping from the shadows, the Trickster's gaze left Harry and went to the mirror. His chin tilted upwards with pride, and his eyes lit with wonder. "I built this centuries ago."
Harry blinked and resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder, as though looking at the mirror would confirm that its creator stood before it.
The Trickster's grin returned. "Don't look so surprised, Harry Potter. I wanted to make something that would reflect the human soul, your inherent and insatiable desire. It was all for fun, and I forgot about it soon after, but then came Albus Dumbledore."
A tingling ran over Harry at the sound of his former headmaster's name, and his grip on his wand loosened a fraction.
"That man was clever," said the Trickster. "I designed this mirror to reveal things, but he used it to hide something. The novelty caught my attention and got me thinking that there was more potential here than I'd initially thought."
He stepped up to the mirror and scrutinised it as one would a lost masterpiece.
When he turned back to Harry, the mirror's golden glow shone in his black eyes. "I can change your fate"—he cocked his head, and a touch of mischief dug crows' feet at the corners of his eyes—"or at least make the journey smoother. I doubt that hero complex of yours will let someone else take the burden from you."
The Trickster stroked the mirror's gold frame and then took a step away and made a grand sweeping gesture towards the looking glass. "Your boon, Harry Potter, should you choose to accept it, is the opportunity to change your past."
Harry frowned, his gaze flicking from the Trickster to the mirror. "I don't understand."
The Trickster's shoulders slumped as he sighed and rolled his eyes. "Humans are an ingenious bunch, but they can be so dim at times." Before the insult could linger, the Trickster straightened his posture and explained. "With the right spellwork, the mirror can reshape reality as Albus Dumbledore did when he hid that silly little stone."
Harry's frown didn't ease, and a hint of suspicion crept into it. "Reshape reality into what?"
The Trickster pointed one long finger at the gibberish engraving at the top of the mirror's frame. "Into your heart's desire. You could change everything."
The mirror flickered even though no one stood in front of it. Harry glanced at it and caught glimpses of faces and events that haunted his nightmares. He tried to look away but couldn't tear his eyes from the glass surface.
"You could save those lost in the final battle," said the Trickster. "You could destroy every Horcrux before Voldemort gets the chance to rise again. You could reveal the real traitor long before he flees and free your godfather. You could save your parents."
As the Trickster spoke, the images in the mirror changed to show what he described, things Harry could scarcely dream of. Harry no longer tried to look away. He stared, transfixed, and took a step closer.
"What do you need from me?" he asked, taking in his mother's smiling face.
"I need you to want it." In his confusion, Harry managed to snap his gaze towards the Trickster. "That's how the mirror works. It's powered by the rawest desire. That's why it shows me nothing at all, but serves its purpose flawlessly with humans."
Doubt crept up Harry's spine. "Why would you help me?"
"Can you not just accept a gift from a stranger?" Harry said nothing. The Trickster sighed. He leant a shoulder against the mirror and crossed his ankles. "I'm not evil, Harry. I'm not good either, but that's beside the point. Neutrality is my watchword. I don't pick sides; I don't fight battles. I have no agenda. I do only what pleases me. That nuisance of a poltergeist that lives in this school is more chaotic than I am."
Harry swallowed past the lump in his throat. "This isn't a trick?"
The Trickster shook his head and brushed back a lock of hair that fell over his forehead. "It's merely a gift, although I admit I am curious to see it work."
The Trickster held Harry's gaze as the boy studied him and spared only a soft smile when Harry nodded.
Harry stepped fully in front of the mirror and stared at the smiling faces of lost friends and family. "I could change everything?"
The Trickster stroked the golden frame. "Yes."
Thoughts of the lives he could save and the heartache he could erase ran through Harry's mind. He saw the people he had lost—his parents, Sirius, Remus, Fred, Tonks, Cedric, Colin, and so many others—but one stood out among the rest. Dumbledore lingered at the back of the crowd. His blue eyes twinkled, but a worried wrinkle creased the space between his eyebrows.
A memory whispered in his head. "It does not do to dwell on dreams."
"What was that?" the Trickster asked when Harry said the words aloud.
Harry's eyes widened with a dawning understanding, and he turned to the Trickster. "No."
"No?" The Trickster cocked his silver brows, and Harry stepped aside, away from the mirror before he drowned in it.
"I can't accept."
The Trickster's eyebrows crept further towards his hairline. "Why not?"
"Because it wouldn't be real." Harry wasn't Dumbledore. He couldn't articulate his ideas as the former headmaster had, but he could try. "Life isn't supposed to be that easy. If everything always goes the way people want it to, no one will appreciate it because it'll be what we expect." Harry looked back at the mirror, but he did so without longing. "Whether we like it or not, being alive is supposed to be complicated and sometimes painful because that's what gives value to the good in life."
Harry turned to find the Trickster's gaze still on him, his head cocked, and his expression inscrutable. "Do you truly believe that?"
From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Dumbledore smile. "I do."
"Interesting. I don't believe many of your species would have turned down that offer." He uncrossed his legs and pushed away from the mirror. "You're an oddity, Harry Potter. Perhaps that's how you beat the odds." His movements slowed, and a frown crossed his features at the thought, but he shook it off. "Regardless, I promised you a boon, and I do not break my word."
The ache in Harry's chest that had been a constant companion these last few years loosened its hold—not fading, but no longer suffocating him. "You've already given me something."
The Trickster's frown returned, and Harry's lips tilted upwards, his first smile since the end of the war that was neither forced nor tinged with sadness. He gave the Trickster a nod and spared a single farewell glance for the ghosts in the mirror before starting up the steps back to his friends and back to his life.