Chapter Eight
"Hey, that's not fair!" I cried.
"What's not fair about it?" Ron said, moving his queen. "You're just jealous that I can play chess better than you can."
"It's a stupid game. Besides, in wizard's chess, you can basically only play it once because, look, all the pieces are broken."
"No, watch the pieces. Eventually, they put themselves back together."
"I like muggle chess better. At least if you make a wrong move, the opponent won't smash you to a million pieces."
"That's what makes it exciting. Oh, hi Hermione."
Ron and I were playing wizard's chess in the empty Great Hall with Harry next to us reading and Sara, Mell and Mike playing a game of Exploding Snap. Hermione had just walked in to say goodbye before she left for Christmas vacation.
"Hi Ron." She paused, holding her suitcase. "Now you're all going to help Harry during break to search for things about Nicholas Flamel."
Yeah, they had figured out about Flamel. Hagrid had given them the slip one week in November and they've been searching for his name ever since. We decided not to tell them anything, save little hints. They had to figure out about the Sorcerer's Stone by themselves. We decided to stay and help the two boys during Christmas break because, first of all, it would be stupid to go home in my fantasy, it would be pointless to go all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, and second of all, face it, they needed the help.
"Oh, come on, Hermione, we've searched a hundred times!" Ron moaned. Hermione leaned in close and whispered,
"Not in the restricted section." She straightened up, "Happy Christmas!" and with that she left, with Ron staring after her in amazement.
So began our quest. During the long free days that we had proceeding Christmas we spent in the library, poring over books in turn. I read them out of curiosity while Harry and Ron searched in vain for any sign of Flamel, which I already knew wouldn't be there. Sara, Mell and Mike got tired of pretending to search and started a snowball fight out on the grounds. Eventually, I had to stop too, as my eyes hurt from reading and I wasn't giving them anything anyway. So Harry and Ron were left to put together their pieces. Good, as it should be, we don't want to be too interfering.
"Ann!" a face appeared in my blurry vision. "Come on, wake up! It's Christmas!" I rubbed my eyes and Sara came into view. I slowly sat up and gazed happily at the pile of beautifully wrapped presents on the edge of my bed.
"Come on, Ann! We didn't get presents just to look at them! Open them!" Mell urged. I sat "indian-style" on the bed, wondering which one to open first.
The door opened and Harry, Ron and Mike came ambling in from the boys' dorms. Hermione sat up and gasped.
"Hey! You guys aren't supposed to be in here!"
"So?" Ron shrugged. They came in carrying their own bundle of presents each.
Everyone started opening their own packages. I opened one from each of my friends, mostly candy.
Harry opened a package from his pile and lifted a strange thing from it. It was sort of like cloth, but seemed too light and fluttery to be any type of material. We all looked over.
"Hey, I know what that is!" Ron looked it over. "That's an invisibility cloak." His eyes widened. "Wow, they're really rare."
Everyone was silent. Mike said,
"Try it on." Everyone agreed and there was a chorus of 'yeah's.'
"Okay, okay." He swept the cloak behind him and wrapped it around his shoulders. A round of gasps sounded. Harry's head remained in the air with no visible body at all.
"Whoa." I said. "That is way cool. Put it on over your head."
He slipped it over his hair and disappeared. Another chorus of gasps.
"Can you see me?" we heard a voice from the air.
A chorus of 'no's.' He took it off and his body materialized. He looked at the amazing thing in his hands.
"I think I've found a way to find Nicholas Flamel."
That night, we stayed in the common room extra late until we were sure that no one could be awake in the castle. We sent Harry off on his mission to the restricted section of the library. It looked really scary when we handed the air a lantern and it remained suspended in space.
"Good luck!" we told him. And with a creaky opening of the painting by an invisible hand, he was gone. None of us went to bed; I personally wanted to see if he found anything. Remembering from the book, the restricted section would be the only thing that he would be investigating.
"Do ya think he'll find anything?" Ron asked. I already knew that answer, but answered,
"I don't know."
I went into deep thought about anything that happened to enter my head. Oh, yeah, quidditch. No games had happened yet. The day before the first match was supposed to take place, I "accidentally" spilled some of our potion mix that cured boils on Hufflepuff's seeker, who happened to be my partner. The player was laid up in the hospital wing for a week and the match was eventually canceled. And then the bad weather had caught up and there would be no matches until February. Oh, well, my stupid nerves got the better of me. Though that did not stop our practicing. Wood kept us in shape by bringing us to the field four days a week, rain of shine. My limbs shuddered with the memory of it. Man, quidditch was much harder playing it than reading about it. I guess that's what brought my nerves up. And Wood was a teensy bit mad at me for getting the opponent's player in the hospital right before the match and said it was all my fault. Well, I couldn't argue with that, but I must admit, with that Scottish accent, Wood looked pretty good when he was angry. I pondered over all these quidditch things for who knows how long. It must have been long because all of a sudden, maybe an hour later, someone hissed, "Harry's back!"
Harry was back and he threw off his cloak in excitement.
"Did you find out about Nicholas Flamel?" Mike asked.
"No, but I found something better! It's so cool! My family's there! Come on everybody!"
He dragged us all out the painting again and tiptoed down the corridors, stopping a little ways off from the library in front of a door. He beckoned to us to follow him and opened the door quietly.
"It's over there! Look, you'll see my parents!"
"But Harry, you're parents are, well, um, they're dead." Sara said gently.
"I know, but they're still there."
He ran over to a giant mirror, looking in it eagerly.
"It's the Mirror of Erised!" I bumped Mike with my elbow.
"I know." He said, stepping over to it with interest.
"Can you see them" Harry asked excitedly, "My mum's on the lef-
"No, I see something different." Mike said, standing in front of it.
"What?"
"I'm not going to tell."
Sara and I looked at each other uncertainly. That didn't sound okay.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because, I'm not. That's all. Here, Miss Ann, you look in it and see if you don't want to share what's in it."
I stepped cautiously in front of it. My eyes were shut tight. I wasn't sure if I wanted to see the greatest desire of my heart. To be truthful, I had no idea what it would be.
"Well, open your eyes, Ann. What do you see?" Mike protested. I squinted slightly. He cleared his throat, meaningfully.
"Ok, ok, calm down." I let my eyes fly open, terrified. I saw-I saw, me. I raised an eyebrow. I looked the same, with a smile on my face. I didn't seem any different. I looked over my reflection carefully. I seemed taller and proud of something. This was confusing.
I paused, then left from the standing spot, feeling rather disappointed with my choosing. I thought it was going to show all these things I didn't know about myself, that I would want to find out. Oh, well. We each took turns. Nobody said anything about their reflection, but I didn't really want to know. I sat against the wall, pondering over what I had seen. Then I shook it away, thinking maybe I was happy with my life.
Everything got kinda silent. One by one we silently left to go back to the common room, including Harry. I couldn't tell whether everyone was happy about their findings or sad. Everyone seemed a bit confused, like they weren't sure what it exactly meant.
I decided to go back the following night, just to make sure. Harry didn't go with me, sensing it had been a wrong idea to bring everyone to see the Mirror of Erised. Oh, well. I went without the invisibility cloak. I reached the little room and approached the mirror carefully, like I had the night before. I gazed at my reflection still smiling back at me. Then I got angry. Why didn't I see anything but myself? Was there something wrong with me? What did the others see? No one revealed theirs either. Was I the only one who saw just me? Just me? I sat down, staring hard-faced at the girl in the glass.
"Back again?" a voice behind me made me jump. It was Dumbledore. Of course it was.
"Yeah." I sighed.
"Harry's not here?"
"No. He brought us all last night, but I think it was a failure." Then I gasped, knowing what I had just revealed. Now I was trouble.
"I know."
"You do?"
"Yes. I think Harry figured it out by himself about this mirror. Tis a dangerous object. I suppose you know about it, yes?"
How did he know? I nodded.
"Do you know what your reflection means?"
"No, it confuses me. I thought I was gonna see all these great things there, but it's just me and I don't know why."
"Look closely at yourself. What do you see?" I leaned forward, so that my nose was an inch away from the glass.
"I see myself."
"And that's all?"
"Well, I seem taller and proud about something."
"Exactly. You wish to be satisfied with yourself."
"What?" this guy clearly made no sense.
"You always want to succeed in everything. A good quality. You are quite hard on yourself though. Not always a good quality. You see before you a person who is completely happy with themselves for being who they are capable of being."
"Really? All that?"
"Yes. You wish to be able to amount to great things, but feel that you as a person can never get to amounting those things. You lack in self- confidence."
"No I don't."
"I mean thus: You want to be able to prove yourself worthy of being the great person that you are. You want to feel satisfied with yourself. You cannot go all your life, measuring yourself up to others. You have to feel comfortable with yourself."
I had heard this said to me a hundred times, but coming from such a wise man as Dumbledore, it made more sense.
"Do you understand now?"
"Yes, I think."
"And will you go through with getting yourself to where you want to be?"
"Yes." I stood up. "Thank you, Professor."
"You are most welcome, dear. Now go off to bed."
I ran back to the common room feeling strangely lighter than I had before. I saw Harry waiting in one of the armchairs.
"Oh, you're back." He said, standing up.
"I am."
"Look, Ann, I don't know if you should go back anymore."
"I know. I'm not. Anyway, it's being moved to a new place." I said, knowing a line from the book. "None of us are to look for it again."
He looked at me curiously, then sighed.
"I suppose you're right. I felt so happy going to see my parents. It felt like they actually alive and that I could step right into the mirror and be with them."
"I know how you feel." I smiled at him and left through the girls' dorms door.
Getting into my nightgown, I looked at my companions sleeping peacefully in their beds. This fantasy seemed more like one of those moral adventures than anything. It was so incredibly different than going to Avonlea. I had learned so much more and met so many new friends. And I felt better about myself. That part could never be taken away, fantasy of not.
"Hey, that's not fair!" I cried.
"What's not fair about it?" Ron said, moving his queen. "You're just jealous that I can play chess better than you can."
"It's a stupid game. Besides, in wizard's chess, you can basically only play it once because, look, all the pieces are broken."
"No, watch the pieces. Eventually, they put themselves back together."
"I like muggle chess better. At least if you make a wrong move, the opponent won't smash you to a million pieces."
"That's what makes it exciting. Oh, hi Hermione."
Ron and I were playing wizard's chess in the empty Great Hall with Harry next to us reading and Sara, Mell and Mike playing a game of Exploding Snap. Hermione had just walked in to say goodbye before she left for Christmas vacation.
"Hi Ron." She paused, holding her suitcase. "Now you're all going to help Harry during break to search for things about Nicholas Flamel."
Yeah, they had figured out about Flamel. Hagrid had given them the slip one week in November and they've been searching for his name ever since. We decided not to tell them anything, save little hints. They had to figure out about the Sorcerer's Stone by themselves. We decided to stay and help the two boys during Christmas break because, first of all, it would be stupid to go home in my fantasy, it would be pointless to go all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, and second of all, face it, they needed the help.
"Oh, come on, Hermione, we've searched a hundred times!" Ron moaned. Hermione leaned in close and whispered,
"Not in the restricted section." She straightened up, "Happy Christmas!" and with that she left, with Ron staring after her in amazement.
So began our quest. During the long free days that we had proceeding Christmas we spent in the library, poring over books in turn. I read them out of curiosity while Harry and Ron searched in vain for any sign of Flamel, which I already knew wouldn't be there. Sara, Mell and Mike got tired of pretending to search and started a snowball fight out on the grounds. Eventually, I had to stop too, as my eyes hurt from reading and I wasn't giving them anything anyway. So Harry and Ron were left to put together their pieces. Good, as it should be, we don't want to be too interfering.
"Ann!" a face appeared in my blurry vision. "Come on, wake up! It's Christmas!" I rubbed my eyes and Sara came into view. I slowly sat up and gazed happily at the pile of beautifully wrapped presents on the edge of my bed.
"Come on, Ann! We didn't get presents just to look at them! Open them!" Mell urged. I sat "indian-style" on the bed, wondering which one to open first.
The door opened and Harry, Ron and Mike came ambling in from the boys' dorms. Hermione sat up and gasped.
"Hey! You guys aren't supposed to be in here!"
"So?" Ron shrugged. They came in carrying their own bundle of presents each.
Everyone started opening their own packages. I opened one from each of my friends, mostly candy.
Harry opened a package from his pile and lifted a strange thing from it. It was sort of like cloth, but seemed too light and fluttery to be any type of material. We all looked over.
"Hey, I know what that is!" Ron looked it over. "That's an invisibility cloak." His eyes widened. "Wow, they're really rare."
Everyone was silent. Mike said,
"Try it on." Everyone agreed and there was a chorus of 'yeah's.'
"Okay, okay." He swept the cloak behind him and wrapped it around his shoulders. A round of gasps sounded. Harry's head remained in the air with no visible body at all.
"Whoa." I said. "That is way cool. Put it on over your head."
He slipped it over his hair and disappeared. Another chorus of gasps.
"Can you see me?" we heard a voice from the air.
A chorus of 'no's.' He took it off and his body materialized. He looked at the amazing thing in his hands.
"I think I've found a way to find Nicholas Flamel."
That night, we stayed in the common room extra late until we were sure that no one could be awake in the castle. We sent Harry off on his mission to the restricted section of the library. It looked really scary when we handed the air a lantern and it remained suspended in space.
"Good luck!" we told him. And with a creaky opening of the painting by an invisible hand, he was gone. None of us went to bed; I personally wanted to see if he found anything. Remembering from the book, the restricted section would be the only thing that he would be investigating.
"Do ya think he'll find anything?" Ron asked. I already knew that answer, but answered,
"I don't know."
I went into deep thought about anything that happened to enter my head. Oh, yeah, quidditch. No games had happened yet. The day before the first match was supposed to take place, I "accidentally" spilled some of our potion mix that cured boils on Hufflepuff's seeker, who happened to be my partner. The player was laid up in the hospital wing for a week and the match was eventually canceled. And then the bad weather had caught up and there would be no matches until February. Oh, well, my stupid nerves got the better of me. Though that did not stop our practicing. Wood kept us in shape by bringing us to the field four days a week, rain of shine. My limbs shuddered with the memory of it. Man, quidditch was much harder playing it than reading about it. I guess that's what brought my nerves up. And Wood was a teensy bit mad at me for getting the opponent's player in the hospital right before the match and said it was all my fault. Well, I couldn't argue with that, but I must admit, with that Scottish accent, Wood looked pretty good when he was angry. I pondered over all these quidditch things for who knows how long. It must have been long because all of a sudden, maybe an hour later, someone hissed, "Harry's back!"
Harry was back and he threw off his cloak in excitement.
"Did you find out about Nicholas Flamel?" Mike asked.
"No, but I found something better! It's so cool! My family's there! Come on everybody!"
He dragged us all out the painting again and tiptoed down the corridors, stopping a little ways off from the library in front of a door. He beckoned to us to follow him and opened the door quietly.
"It's over there! Look, you'll see my parents!"
"But Harry, you're parents are, well, um, they're dead." Sara said gently.
"I know, but they're still there."
He ran over to a giant mirror, looking in it eagerly.
"It's the Mirror of Erised!" I bumped Mike with my elbow.
"I know." He said, stepping over to it with interest.
"Can you see them" Harry asked excitedly, "My mum's on the lef-
"No, I see something different." Mike said, standing in front of it.
"What?"
"I'm not going to tell."
Sara and I looked at each other uncertainly. That didn't sound okay.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because, I'm not. That's all. Here, Miss Ann, you look in it and see if you don't want to share what's in it."
I stepped cautiously in front of it. My eyes were shut tight. I wasn't sure if I wanted to see the greatest desire of my heart. To be truthful, I had no idea what it would be.
"Well, open your eyes, Ann. What do you see?" Mike protested. I squinted slightly. He cleared his throat, meaningfully.
"Ok, ok, calm down." I let my eyes fly open, terrified. I saw-I saw, me. I raised an eyebrow. I looked the same, with a smile on my face. I didn't seem any different. I looked over my reflection carefully. I seemed taller and proud of something. This was confusing.
I paused, then left from the standing spot, feeling rather disappointed with my choosing. I thought it was going to show all these things I didn't know about myself, that I would want to find out. Oh, well. We each took turns. Nobody said anything about their reflection, but I didn't really want to know. I sat against the wall, pondering over what I had seen. Then I shook it away, thinking maybe I was happy with my life.
Everything got kinda silent. One by one we silently left to go back to the common room, including Harry. I couldn't tell whether everyone was happy about their findings or sad. Everyone seemed a bit confused, like they weren't sure what it exactly meant.
I decided to go back the following night, just to make sure. Harry didn't go with me, sensing it had been a wrong idea to bring everyone to see the Mirror of Erised. Oh, well. I went without the invisibility cloak. I reached the little room and approached the mirror carefully, like I had the night before. I gazed at my reflection still smiling back at me. Then I got angry. Why didn't I see anything but myself? Was there something wrong with me? What did the others see? No one revealed theirs either. Was I the only one who saw just me? Just me? I sat down, staring hard-faced at the girl in the glass.
"Back again?" a voice behind me made me jump. It was Dumbledore. Of course it was.
"Yeah." I sighed.
"Harry's not here?"
"No. He brought us all last night, but I think it was a failure." Then I gasped, knowing what I had just revealed. Now I was trouble.
"I know."
"You do?"
"Yes. I think Harry figured it out by himself about this mirror. Tis a dangerous object. I suppose you know about it, yes?"
How did he know? I nodded.
"Do you know what your reflection means?"
"No, it confuses me. I thought I was gonna see all these great things there, but it's just me and I don't know why."
"Look closely at yourself. What do you see?" I leaned forward, so that my nose was an inch away from the glass.
"I see myself."
"And that's all?"
"Well, I seem taller and proud about something."
"Exactly. You wish to be satisfied with yourself."
"What?" this guy clearly made no sense.
"You always want to succeed in everything. A good quality. You are quite hard on yourself though. Not always a good quality. You see before you a person who is completely happy with themselves for being who they are capable of being."
"Really? All that?"
"Yes. You wish to be able to amount to great things, but feel that you as a person can never get to amounting those things. You lack in self- confidence."
"No I don't."
"I mean thus: You want to be able to prove yourself worthy of being the great person that you are. You want to feel satisfied with yourself. You cannot go all your life, measuring yourself up to others. You have to feel comfortable with yourself."
I had heard this said to me a hundred times, but coming from such a wise man as Dumbledore, it made more sense.
"Do you understand now?"
"Yes, I think."
"And will you go through with getting yourself to where you want to be?"
"Yes." I stood up. "Thank you, Professor."
"You are most welcome, dear. Now go off to bed."
I ran back to the common room feeling strangely lighter than I had before. I saw Harry waiting in one of the armchairs.
"Oh, you're back." He said, standing up.
"I am."
"Look, Ann, I don't know if you should go back anymore."
"I know. I'm not. Anyway, it's being moved to a new place." I said, knowing a line from the book. "None of us are to look for it again."
He looked at me curiously, then sighed.
"I suppose you're right. I felt so happy going to see my parents. It felt like they actually alive and that I could step right into the mirror and be with them."
"I know how you feel." I smiled at him and left through the girls' dorms door.
Getting into my nightgown, I looked at my companions sleeping peacefully in their beds. This fantasy seemed more like one of those moral adventures than anything. It was so incredibly different than going to Avonlea. I had learned so much more and met so many new friends. And I felt better about myself. That part could never be taken away, fantasy of not.