CHAPTER 6: Through the Mirror
By Lily Tween and Lia Tween
It took Harry the rest of the day and most of the night to finish his essays and when he finished number 14, he couldn't be happier. A person can't exactly spend forever locked away in a small room with a lot of books. Well, maybe Hermione, but she's a little different.
Harry walked over to the little meal tray and placed his work on it, and waited for someone to come and find it. He then walked over to the door and opened the door. He stuck his head out of the door way and looked up and down the hall, checking to see if anyone was there.
Once he was sure that the coast was clear, he walked back over to where he had placed the pensive. He picked it up and walked out the door at a fairly fast pace. He was heading towards his room when he heard voices coming towards him, and one of them sounded like Snape.
"Where'd you say Harry was?" Lupin asked Snape.
"I told him to stay in his room with an assignment; I thought he needed something to do."
Harry started to fume with anger, and then realized that he was still holding the Pensive, and if he was caught with it, who knows what would happen. Panic flooded unwelcomingly into Harry's veins and he started to look for an escape route. There was a door a few feet ahead of him. He went through it and closed the door behind him quickly; he didn't even notice that this was the same room with the mirror that had caused him much trouble.
Harry placed his ear against the door, listening intently, waiting for Lupin and Snape to pass by. A few seconds later he heard them coming closer, and closer, and closer and closer. As they came closer, Harry began to back up rather quickly and soon regretted it when he tripped over some object that was in the middle of the floor, lying there innocently enough.
He fell backwards; the Pensive went flying from his hands, its contents spilling everywhere, mostly on a mirror that just happened to be in the room. As Harry continued his dissent, his body began to turn towards the mirror, and he noticed that the pensive was giving the mirror an almost fluid look, like a puddle.
Harry continued to fall, but instead of falling towards the ground, Harry was falling towards the mirror and there was nothing he could do about it. It was in these few moments that Harry began to hate the ideas of gravity and momentum, and cursed anyone who thought of them.
Harry came closer to the mirror, and it was then that he pondered what would happen when he would hit the mirror. Would it simply shatter into a million pieces and leave Harry with a very sore head? Would it not shatter at all and leave Harry in a never-ending puddle?
What would be in the puddle? Would it be full of memories that were not Harry's? Memories that were Harry's, but would infiltrate his mind once again? What would happen?
Harry then found out. He plunged into the mirror and at first he went through the puddle like surface and he thought that it was an endless puddle. Then, all at once, it shattered. Once Harry's face had plunged into the Pensive puddle, it had shattered, breaking his glasses, entering his eyes, and going past them and into his very brain.
The force of the glass shattering forced Harry backwards and he began to fall in the opposite direction of the mirror, the rest of the Pensive glass falling down at him. Once Harry hit the ground the glass hit his face, and bits of it entered his mouth and eyes before he was able to cover up his face. The pieces went past his eyes, past the back of his mouth, and traveled to his brain.
He lay still for a few moments, and then there was a commotion outside the door, Snape and Lupin coming in to see what the commotion was all about. The door burst open and just as it did so Harry's brain felt like it was twisting inside his skull.
Harry cried out in pain and anguish, the pain was not just wracking through his brain, but his entire body and his soul. Flashes of memories that were not his own began to assault his brain. There were a million images a second, as they became more intense, Harry's scream became louder, the pain began to increase, Lupin and Snape moved quicker over to Harry's side. Suddenly, Harry stopped screaming. The images were still appearing in his head, but his body could not handle it and had fallen into a state of unconsciousness.
Lupin and Snape cautiously made their way over to Harry's side. Lupin kneeled down and touched Harry's neck, searching for a pulse. He found one, although it was extremely faint. Snape glanced around at the things around Harry, saw the bowl, and the broken pieces of mirror.
"Stupid boy." He muttered icily under his breath.
"What do you mean?" Lupin asked as he looked up at Snape's comment.
"He spilt a Pensive on the mirror and then fell on the mirror."
"Where did he get the Pensive from? I know that Sirius didn't have one." At that statement Snape's face fell to the ground.
"It was mine." He said extremely quietly.
"And how did Harry acquire it?" Lupin asked, not really believing his ears.
"I left it in one of the rooms; Potter obviously found and decided to meddle around with it."
"So he's been assaulted with glass." Lupin said mildly, knowing this was easily treated.
"If it had just been the mirror, yes that's what would have happened. But pensive glass is different. If it makes contact with the person it will go straight to their memories. So, in shattering it, Potter's brain has been bombarded with glass memory fragments. So he is in extreme physical and metal pain. My memories have now bonded with his, and he won't be able to tell them apart."
"So basically, even after we rid his mind of glass pieces, he's going to be in pain because everything that's happened to you will have happened to him."
"Exactly. And Merlin knows how we're going to get him to sort them out."
Harry moaned in pain on the ground and Snape stood up. "I will heal him now to the best of my ability. Can you clean up?"
Remus nodded, and Snape rushed off.
