Disclaimer: Not mine, I only own the plot of this fanfic and Carya, some parts are copied from the book, you might notice that some people got into different houses than in the books by JKR; this has only minor reasons, but I need them to be where they are now ^_^
Author's Notes: I'm actually back to normal by now. Sorry for the delay though but I have a bit of writers block on this story though I got some ideas for the next installments (Books 2, 3 + 4). This is a bit short (only about 2000 words) and will eventually be revised in the future but for now it has to do.
Although no one's reviewed until now for Chapter 08 I'll continue. I know online-time is expensive but please hit the little review button at the bottom and leave me a few words!
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Chapter 09 - The Mirror of Erised
'Use it well', the note had said. He had to try it, now. He slipped out of bed and wrapped the cloak around himself. Looking down at his legs, he saw only moonlight and shadows. It was a very funny feeling. Use it well.
Suddenly, Harry felt wide-awake. The whole of Hogwarts was open to him in this cloak. Excitement flooded through him as he stood there in the dark and silence. He could go anywhere in this, anywhere, and Filch would never know. Carya ... should Harry wake her?
Something held him back -- their father's cloak -- he felt that this time -- the first time -- he wanted to use it alone. He crept out of the dormitory, down the stairs, across the common room, and climbed through the portrait hole.
"Who's there?" grumbled the portrait of Salazar Slytherin which guarded the entrance to the Slytherin common room.
Harry said nothing. He walked quickly down the corridor. Where should he go? Perhaps the Restricted Section in the library? He'd be able to read as long as he liked, as long as it took to find out who Flamel was. He set off, drawing the invisibility cloak tight around him as he walked. But he didn't get that far. On his way to the library something glittered through a slightly ajar door.
It looked like an unused classroom. The dark shapes of desks and chairs were piled against the walls, and there was an upturned wastepaper basket -- but propped against the wall facing him was something that didn't look as if it belonged there, something that looked as if someone had just put it there to keep it out of the way. It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet.
There was an inscription carved around the top:
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi
He had no idea what that could mean. It seemed to be written in some strange language he couldn't understand. Harry moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at himself but see no reflection again. He stepped in front of it. He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself from screaming.
He whirled around. His heart was pounding far more furiously than when he had won his first quidditch match -- for he had seen not only himself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him. But the room was empty. Breathing very fast, he turned slowly back to the mirror.
There he was, reflected in it, white and scared-looking, and there, reflected behind him, were at least ten others. Harry looked over his shoulder -- but still, no one was there. Or were they all invisible, too? Was he in fact in a room full of invisible people and this mirror's trick was that it reflected them, invisible or not? He looked in the mirror again.
A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, he'd touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air -- she and the others existed only in the mirror.
She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes -- her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green -- exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was very untidy.
It stuck up at the back, just as Harry's did. Harry was so close to the mirror now that his nose was nearly touching that of his reflection. Harry noticed that his sister was also standing there right besides him. That couldn't be. She was in her dormitory. That meant, no, he just couldn't believe that he was seeing his family. "Mom?" he whispered. "Dad?" This can't be true Harry thought.
They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry's knobbly knees -- Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life.
The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness. How long he stood there, he didn't know. The reflections did not fade and he looked and looked until a distant noise brought him back to his senses. He couldn't stay here, he had to find his way back to bed before he got caught.
He tore his eyes away from his mother's face, whispered, "I'll come back," and hurried from the room. "And next time I'll bring Carya along."
The next morning Harry told his sister about the mirror. And the next night they went together. At first Carya saw the same picture as Harry but then it shifted an became foggy and after a few seconds there was her family again. Carya too had noticed the strange inscription at the top of the mirror and decided to write it onto a piece of paper.
They came back every night over the next week. Just to sit there and watch their family. Harry's reflection always stayed the same but the more often Carya looked into the mirror the shorter was the period she could see her family. The foggy picture was visible most of the time. Carya didn't know what that meant and told Harry that perhaps it would be better not to come back here.
Harry of course didn't want to listen but at the same time he knew that his sister might be right. With sadness in their hearts got up. When they left they decided not to come back and they didn't even notice the smiling figure standing in the shadows behind them. Out of the darkness stepped their headmaster. He was actually smiling and murmured quietly.
"Ah, I see the Potter twins have discovered the Mirror of Erised," he whispered.
Dumbledore was quite surprised at Carya's reaction. She seemed to be weary about the mirror and had enough influence on her brother to make sure they both wouldn't come back. He suspected that they didn't really know what the mirror did or how it worked but he was sure they would figure it out eventually.
They both thought very often about that strange mirror. Harry silently longed to see his family again but he was sure that his sister had been right. Carya too thought about the mirror. But her thought were focused on the strange inscription at the top. She had written it down as soon as they got back the second night.
She couldn't find anything about that in the library. It was Ginny who accidentally helped her with the answer. She, Hermione and Carya where once again sitting in the library studying when Ginny knocked over her cup of tea. The slip of parchment on which Carya had written the inscription was soaked.
The girls desperately tried to dry it without smearing the words. Soon the front was okay but when Carya turned the parchment over she gasped. The words were visible on the other side. They were of course mirror written now but Carya had an idea. They had been written at the top of a mirror frame. She tried to read them backwards. Soon the words:
'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi'
became
'ishow no tyo urfac ebu tyo urhe arts desirE'
"Hmm, this is much better but it still doesn't make much sense either. Ginny, Hermione can you please look at this and help me figure it out?" Carya asked her friends.
And help they did. It took the girls nearly thirty minutes of combined wit to get it right. Soon they had the sentence:
'I show not your face but your hearts desire'.
"That's it. Now I know what it does or rather how it works," Carya murmured excited. "Arrgh, we have been so stupid. This was really obvious. How could I not notice this before. Oh, well done Carya, so much for your so called wit," she continued angry with herself for some reason Ginny and Hermione didn't know.
They just stared at Carya because the girl had never insulted her own intelligence before, quite the opposite. There was an absolute and uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Then Hermione and Ginny asked their friend what was wrong Carya told them everything about the mirror and what she and Harry had seen in there. In the evening Carya told her twin about the deciphered inscription and what she thought about it's meaning.
"That could be true, you know? I've always wanted to be with our parents. Not that I don't like Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. It's just not the same," Harry said sadly. "But that doesn't explain why it went all foggy when you looked into it, does it?"
"I know it's strange. Perhaps my heart doesn't know what it wants most right now? I don't know. It's too confusing. ... I'm off to bed. Good night, my dear brother," she said and left towards the girls dormitories.
The next day they decided to do something to distract them from thinking about the mirror. Ginny had a helpful idea. They still had to work on some essays. Especially on those for Potions, Charms, Transfiguration and History of Magic. Only McGonagall and Snape were desperate enough to assign them homework over the Christmas holidays. And Professor Binns?
He just didn't know better. He was a ghost. What did ghost's know about children and holidays. Flitwick just had been angry with the Slytherins. They had accidentally knocked him over when a Levitation charm went wrong.
Carya started on the Potions essay. It was about the efficiency of the different healing draughts they'd already covered this year. The potions themselves were not that difficult but the topic was. There was so much to read and most students dreaded this.
Harry began the transfigurations essay. They had to describe the differences between the Transfigurations they'd done so far in last term. He had been one of the first Slytherins ever to get some house points from McGonagall for a successful transfiguration.
Hermione did the History of Magic essay. She was quite interested in History and if it wasn't in class she was really good at it. And Ginny who was really good at Charms took this one. It wasn't that difficult but the required length was difficult to achieve without thorough research on the topic.
When they'd finished their assignments they gave their scrolls to each other to read and then to write their own one in each of the remaining two subjects. This was okay because they didn't copy each others works. They just 'compared notes' or rather essays.
Hermione always told them this was like cheating but she didn't mean it, not really anymore. Over the last few weeks she had found out that they could learn so much more if they shared parts of the work. The three friends were snickering when they thought about the first time they'd done this. Hermione had freaked out and berated them. She had been that loud that Madam Pince nearly threw them out of the library.
But it wasn't the same this time. Draco was missing. Although Carya and Harry were still a bit weary about him because of his parents and Ginny and Hermione because of his attitude towards muggle- borns and those who weren't participating in the 'pureblood-nonsense' as Carya called it. But they still missed him since he had almost stopped to act like that around Hermione and Ginny.
Only sometimes he slipped and then he got some severe berating from Carya. The Potter girl could be quite sinister and devious if she wanted to. Draco didn't like to be the recipient of that particular treatment at all. But he didn't change because he was afraid of Carya.
He just wanted to be friends with Ginny Hermione and the twins. He had been brought up that way and it was hard to stop behaving like that. And in addition to that there were his parents who didn't like the fact that he had them as friends. Draco just hoped his parents would see it his way sometime in the future. He really hoped but knew that they would hardly change.
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Thx ^_^,
Carya
