Author's Note: "The Mirror of My Dreams" has been nominated for a Multifaceted Award in four categories: Love, Intelligence, Identity (original character) and Pride (I guess that's for funny fics). Voting began 01/16/05 and I think it ends 02/28/05. Even if you don't feel like voting, you might like searching the nominee page for good fics. I posted the link on my bio page if you're interested.
Chapter Twenty Seven

"I can't believe that you were jealous of yourself," Draco said with a snicker. He grabbed his bag of Christmas gifts, muttered an apology to the head waiter (who appeared dazed and disoriented) and guided me toward the door.

I shot a glare at him. "Yes, well that's almost as bad as being jealous of Remus Lupin!"

To my surprise, he laughed. "Oh, gods, don't remind me of that! I apologized to him about how nasty I was years ago."

"Who are you, and what have you done to Draco?" I asked in astonishment.

"Well," he admitted, "you did make me."

Suddenly, I realized that my hands were empty. "Oh no! I lost my grandfather's book!"

"Don't worry," Draco said. "It's back by the Mirror of Emit. Dumbledore found it after you disappeared." I tried to ask more questions, but he shoved me gently out the door of the restaurant, and towards a silver Lexus parked on the corner. It was evening, and the light from the stores and bars shone down on a blonde figure walking towards us.

"Bloody hell!" Draco tried to push me into the car, but it was too late. The man had seen us. "That man always has rotten timing."

"Miriel, Mirel, Mirel," the man said, approaching the car and flashing dazzlingly white teeth. His deep violet cloak swirled around him as he took my hand and kissed it. A pointed wizard's hat was set at a jaunty angle on his wavy hair. He obviously did not even try to dress as a Muggle, but people could easily get away with outlandish clothing in the French Quarter. The Muggles probably just thought he was some kind of street artist. He must have been at least ten years older than when I had seen his photo in 'The Daily Prophet,' and it took me a few moments to recognize him.

"Gilderoy Lockhart?" I gasped, surprised. What in the world was he doing in New Orleans?

"I know, it's always such a pleasure. You are looking particularly lovely tonight." The man studied me more closely. "Great Scot, have you been testing one of our anti-aging potions? You look ten years younger, you little vixen." He winked. "That stuff must be more powerful than I thought." I noticed that he completely ignored Draco.

"What do you want, Lockhart?" Draco's tone took on a definite chill. "Here for another 'surprise inspection,' are you? Miriel doesn't need you snooping around. She has things at the shop well under control."

"I do?" I asked.

"Of course she does." Lockhart's smile grew even larger, and he refused to let go of my hand. "Miriel is a hard, little worker. Just thought I'd pop on over to the Colonies to spread some Christmas cheer. Do a little P.R. work." He glanced around as if to make sure no one else could hear him. "I do realize I'm not quite as famous among Muggles as I am in the Wizarding world," he whispered. "I'm sure in time, however, they will come to love me as well. I mean, how could they not?"

"Miriel and I were just leaving," Draco said abruptly. He motioned for me to shut the car door. "She deserves time off, especially now that she's expecting." If Draco had fixed that cold glare at me, I would have been looking for some place to hide. Gilderoy Lockhart, however, appeared oblivious.

"Again? Great Scot! What does this make now, number seven? I hope that you two figure out what causes that some day." Lockhart chuckled over his own joke. "Happy Christmas!" He waved cheerfully at me as we drove off. "Look for my photo on the cover of this month's 'Good Housekeeping!"

"He's such an idiot," Draco muttered. "I wish the older version of you would let me hex him. One more good 'obliviate' spell, and he'd be back in St. Mungo's with Pott- er, I mean, he'd never leave St. Mungo's."

"What was that all about?" I asked, a little dazed at the mention of having seven children.

"He's your business partner," Draco informed me grimly. "Since my father helped Severus in the war,my father became quite popular in the public eye. 'The Daily Prophet' hailed him as a hero, and so then you became a celebrity again."

"Severus is okay?" I asked with relief. "He's alive and everything?"

Draco nodded. "Lockhart then not only wanted you to be a spokes-witch for his hair-care potion company, but he offered you a position as his business partner. He needed you to help him cross over into the Muggle world, and as you can guess, he's pretty hopeless around Muggles. You do most of the work, but he takes most of the credit. He just prances around 'supervising' and acting like a silly git. You opened up Muggle shops in New Orleans, New York and London. You sell hair-care potions, and hair ornaments, like 'The Enchantress' in Diagon Alley, but they're not magical, of course."

"I have a shop? Here? Can we go see it?" I bounced in my seat with excitement. Ever since I was a little girl in my mother's shop, I had dreamed of how cool it would be to have one of my own.

"Sweetheart, someone you know will see you," he said. "The place is packed with Christmas shoppers. It's not a good idea. Time travel is highly illegal, you know, and witches come to your shop all the time."

I sighed. "Where are we going, then?"

"I'm taking you home," he said. "I'll have Twinky and Pinky make us some dinner. It's not exactly Galatoire's, but it'll do."

"Pinky?" I giggled.

"She's Twinky's daughter. She only wears pink tea-towels, and she has kind of a pink bow-thingy tied around her ear. Our girls love her."

The sight of Draco driving a Muggle car was almost too much for me, and I stifled a hysterical giggle. He maneuvered the Lexus expertly through the French Quarter traffic. I looked out the car window. The streets looked exactly the same. There was something quite comforting about that.

"You must have loads of questions," my husband said. "Much more important questions than what Gilderoy Lockhart has been up to."

I tried to pick out a question from the endless list that had suddenlypopped into my mind. "It's just that there's no way that I would have married you of my own free will!" I finally blurted. "You were a spoiled, nasty little turd. Your father must have threatened my life to make me marry you."

"Don't you believe that love can change people?" Draco asked quietly. "Dumbledore told you that love changed your father, didn't he? And I was only sixteen. Is it so hard to believe that deep inside I really loved you? I did, you know."

I was stunned for a moment. "You had a funny way of showing it. You were so angry and controlling. Moony tried to tell me that you loved me, but I didn't believe him." I sighed. "I was just starting to really like you, and you ruined the whole thing." I tried to keep the resentment out of my voice. It might have been years for Draco since that episode, but for me, it had been only a couple of hours.

Glancing out the car window, I saw that we were passing beautiful homes in the Garden District, lined with wrought-iron fences and statues of angels.

Draco reached over and held my hand, running his thumb over my wrist. "I didn't have a chance to tell you," he said. "But the time that Severus' potion had turned me into a little kid, were some of the happiest memories I have of childhood. You, Hermione and that little Unicorn made me happy. You really loved me, and Hermione was even nice to me. Returning to my normal age was a big shock. I had just been happy and loved for the first time in a very long time, and I thought I'd lost it forever. When you returned to Hogwarts from the future, you were so kind and loving to me. I didn't deserve it, after I had treated you. It just started to change me is all. I can't say that I changed all at once or anything, but I guess that's when it really began."

"What happened that day?" I asked. "After I got sucked into the mirror?"

"It was around thirteen years ago. It took me awhile to open the bathroom door, but then I found you gone. I told professor Dumbledore about it, and gave him the page from your book I had torn out. He and your mum used the Mirror of Emit to get you back. You informed them about where my Aunt Bellatrix had been holding Severus. You convinced my father to join The Order of the Phoenix…"

"Uncle Lucius? Joined with Dumbledore?" I never would have dreamed that would happen, after that last time I'd talked to my uncle through the communication mirror.

"Both Severus and my father contributed substantially to the downfall of the Dark Lord. Of course, if you read my father's published memoirs, he gives most of the credit to himself." Draco smiled wickedly. "For some 'mysterious' reason, after you returned from your little trip through the mirror you weren't quite so hostile to the idea of marrying me. As a matter of fact, some might say that you were quite eager to do so. I wonder what I could have done to change your mind?"

I was glad that Draco's eyes were fixed on the road, because I blushed furiously. I watched his elegant hands on the steering wheel. Was the older version of me aware that I was here, lusting after her husband? She must be. Wasn't everything I was experiencing right now embedded in her memories?

"Well, didn't I tell you?" I asked.

Draco shook his head. "No, you refused to talk about what happened to you. Dumbledore and your mum gave you a huge lecture, of course. I think you just liked knowing more than I did."

We finally parked in front of a two story mansion, with slender, white columns, tall windows, and lined with delicate wrought-iron fences. Branches of the tall oak trees tangled above us.

"This is the Wizarding part of the Garden District," Draco said. "The Muggles can't see it. The Department of American Magic has very strict rules about where wizards live. You couldn't have a family of six little witches and wizards without Muggles seeing something strange."

"Oh, yeah, six kids," I said weakly. "I've been… busy." I couldn't imagine having so many. "I could barely handle you when the potion turned you into a little boy!"

"We just found out about the seventh one," he said with a smirk. "So really, it's more like six and a quarter. Father always jokes that we must have taken lessons from the Weasleys."

"Ick! That's an image I didn't need in my mind," I said with a grimace. "But why are we here? Why are we living in New Orleans and not in Britain?"

"To get some distance from my parents," Draco said. "You and Mum were not getting along very well in the Manor. Father has mellowed out since the war, but you know he was always a control freak. They hate the fact that we live in a Muggle city, and Mum refuses to visit us here. She insists we have Christmas at the Manor every year. The kids are there, now, waiting for us to join them. I've just been doing some last minute shopping."

The house was much larger on the inside that it was on the outside. It was beautiful, filled with dark, polished furniture, antiques and old mirrors. It looked exactly like the kind of house I had always dreamed of having when I was a little girl. The first thing my eye caught was a family portrait of Draco, the older me, and our tow-headed children. The younger children were definitely having problems standing still. They kept poking each other, and one of the boys was holding Ambrosius!

"My painting instructor painted that one for us," Draco said. "As you can see, you are still as beautiful as you've ever been."

Actually, I thought, the older me looked a bit tired and frazzled.

"Hi, Mama!" A little girl in the painting hopped up and down and waved at me. "Where are my Christmas presents?" Something about her greedy, little face reminded me of Draco.

"Hush, Mirabel," the older me said. "You'll get your gifts when we join the other portraits at Papa Lucius' and 'Cissy's mansion."

"They really are your children!" I told Draco with an astonished laugh. "You don't have Harry Potter locked up in a dungeon, do you?"

"What?"

I smiled. "You used to make a joke, that I'd have cute, little kids who'd look just like you, and you'd be busy torturing Harry Potter in the dungeons."

Draco smiled, a little sadly, I thought. "No. Harry's not in the dungeons. Don't have any dungeons, actually. This is America."

"What's wrong," I asked. "What happened to Harry?" I had been so lulled by how happy my future life seemed that I didn't stop to think that not everybody's must have turned out so well.

"Look, our families were really lucky," Draco told me. Your mum and Severus are married, and Severus worked on your grandfather's potion, the one that I tore out of his book when we argued. Sebastian Silverthorn had been researching the cure for Lycanthropy. Severus further developed it until it worked, so there are no more werewolves in Britain.Your parents are happy, we're happy, even bloody Remus Lupin is happy. But there were a lot of casualties in the war. Lots of people that you knew died at the hands of the Dark Lord. Or were driven insane."

"But Harry was supposed to be the hero," I said. "Wasn't that prophecy about him destroying Voldemort?"

"Let's not talk about it," Draco said. "Especially not before dinner. I know you, sweetheart. If you go back to the past knowing everything about the future, you'll stew about it and feel obligated to save people. You can't save everyone. Besides, the more you know, the more likely it is that you could change the course of time. And I, for one, am perfectly happy with the way that things turned out."

"But aren't I caught in a time loop?" I asked him as he continued walking down the hallway. "I didn't think you could change things in a time loop."

"Time travel theory is a pain in the arse," Draco said. "But I'm not taking any chances. The less you know about the war, the better. I'm going to put away these packages, and change into something more comfortable. Would you like to look around a bit before dinner? I'll be right back."

I nodded, but I was troubled that were things he wouldn't tell me. I wondered who didn't survive the war. When Draco had disappeared further down the hall, I walked swiftly through the house, looking for clues about what might have happened during the years I missed. Everywhere I looked, I saw magical paintings. For a moment I felt like I was at Hogwarts. Finally, I called Twinky.

"Oh, Missy," she said, her huge eyes even wider than usual. "You is being from the past. Master Draco and Master Lucius was wondering when you'd show up."

"Yes, and I'd like to know what happened during the war," I told her. "When the Dark Lord was destroyed."

The house-elf squeaked with excitement. "Master Severus can tell Missy much better than Twinky. Master Severus was there!"

"Severus is here?" I asked, surprised.

"In here, Missy!" Twinky immediately led me toward the back of the house, and opened a door. It was a huge painting studio. The room was filled with canvases and half-painted portraits. Cups that were filled with brushes dotted the tables. The paints appeared to be more like potions than mere pigments, and they swirled in glass vials. Some of them were smoking, and smelled as sweet as incense.

"Missy hired a painting master to tutor Master Draco in painting as a wedding gift," Twinky explained. "Master Draco is making much money now."

"They're beautiful," I breathed, looking through the portraits. Then I saw it. It was a portrait of my mother and Severus. Painted in the background was a castle, with a purple and green banner hanging from the tower. It appeared to be the Silverthorn coat of arms. Under the rampant unicorn were the gold letters, "Amor Vincit Omnia."

"Love conquers all," I translated the Latin words into English. "That's not very Slytherin," I told the painted Severus. He was older, but somehow the years only made him appear more distinguished. Now more than ever he reminded me of Heathcliff from 'Wuthering Heights,' or perhaps what the character would have looked like if he had finally been reunited with Catherine and found some measure of peace.

The painted Severus glared at me. "The quotation is trite, but it is accurate. At least in my particular case." He glanced down his long nose at my mother, who beamed at him. She was obviously very much in love.

"I don't understand this," I said, indicating the gold plaque at the bottom of the frame. "It says, 'The Silverthorn Family,' but aren't you supposed to be 'The Snape Family?"

"Severus took my name," the painted version of my mother said. "He hated his father and that side of the family, you know. And our family name would have died out without male heirs." She looked behind her, moving so that I could see a scene in the distance. Under a tree, two little black-haired boys played with a small unicorn.

"How cute!" I said. "I have little brothers?" Maybe witches could have children at an older age than Muggles could. "Are you protecting the unicorns, now, Mama?"

"Oh yes," she said. "I'm very busy. Sr. Angela moved back into the Wizarding world, and she's helped me organize many different charities. Severus and I also continue to work on developing magical mirrors."

I wanted to ask her a million questions, but I stayed with the one that most burned on my mind. "Tell me what happened during the war," I said. "What happened to Harry Potter?"

Severus snorted. "He was weak. That selfish brat could only think of himself…"

Obviously, being married to my mother hadn't made Severus totally warm and fuzzy.

"His idiotic, sycophantic, little sidekick almost lost us the war," he bit out.

"You mean Ron Weasley?" I asked.

"The students' weekend excursion to Hogsmead was cancelled," Severus continued. His black eyes glittered with anger. "The headmaster decided that it was too dangerous. Of course, Potter and Weasley were always above following the rules. They snuck off to Hogsmead with Potter's invisibility cloak. They were separated for some reason, and Weasley got himself kidnapped by those who were loyal to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord, if you remember, had been searching for a chance to hurt one of Potter's friends."

"Oh no!" I drew my breath in sharply. "How awful. What happened to him?" I dreaded the answer. I loathed Ron and his mother, but I would never wish that fate on anybody. I still felt remnants of guilt that I almost cursed him.

"He was tortured, of course," Severus said. "It was impossible to identify his body when it was found on the Hogwart's grounds. The only way we realized it was Weasley was from the letter that Voldemort had left on him. Potter went mental with grief. Somehow he discovered where Voldemort was to meet next, and foolishly went after him. The Headmaster was forced to act against the Dark Lord prematurely to save the brat."

"We had the mirrors that Miranda and I had been working on, that repelled the Unforgivable curses," Severus continued. "The Ministry of Magic had also formulated a potion that would remove the Dark Mark. With these tools, Lucius and I managed to get many of the Death Eaters on our side against the Dark Lord. But the Headmaster called the Order into action to save Potter, and we were not quite prepared. Some of the mirrors needed more testing. Not all of them worked. There were a lot of casualties. Yes, Potter destroyed the Dark Lord, but there were many more casualties than there could have been. Dumbledore…" Here, the painted Severus' voice grew hoarse, and his eyes glittered wetly. "Moody, Shacklebolt, Diggle, Tonks…"

"Harry Potter," my mother added, "ended up in at St. Mungo's, in the psychiatric ward. It was just too much for him to take. He had a horrific childhood, you know, being locked in a cupboard all those years. And then Sirius Black died…"

"Poor Harry," I said. "He's just like Frodo in 'The Lord of The Rings.' He saved the Wizarding world, but not for himself."

"You and your mother have an extremely annoying habit of comparing everything to that damned novel!" Severus tried to look down his nose at me, but it was difficult to do so as I was standing outside the painting. "This is not some ridiculous, Muggle fantasy story. This is reality. Many of us have had 'horrific childhoods," Severus snapped at my mother. "And we still managed to carry on and perform our duties without acting like spoiled, selfish children!" Severus left the painting in a huff, his black robes billowing behind him.

"Sorry," my mother said, sighing. "He is one to hold grudges." She looked at a point over my shoulder. "Oh, hello Draco."


Many thanks to my reviewers! Thank you, ice-princess42!

Arsinoe de Blassenville: Thank you for you review! I have never actually been to Galatoire's, but I faked it for my story. Thanks again for all the encouragement and great ideas you've given me.

MoonJasmine: Yes, I think Draco has mellowed out some. The love of a good woman, you know. (heh) School is finally over, and now I have a lot more time to write. Now I just need a job to pay off all my student loans! I'm hoping I can get a job where I pretend to work, but really just write fan fiction! (Yeah, right!) I remember reading an article about JK Rowling where she worked as a secretary, but got fired because she kept writing stories on her computer. My role model! HA!

Escaped: Thanks for your (as usual) great review! Yeah, I tried to have kind of a theme for the story. Something like 'the power of love' (without sounding like a song by "air supply!" You know that I'm a sucker for happy endings (which is why I love Jane Austen so much) and Sevvy has to be happy. I'm not much for Angsty fics.

Harrypotterfan2604: Thanks so much for reading my story and reviewing! I'm glad you liked it. I haven't checked the books, but I thought that Professor Dumbledore only moved the mirror of Erised after Harry found it. I hope I didn't goof up. Oh well, after "HP And The Half Blood Prince" comes out, I guess this story will be AU anyway. Thanks again for reading!

Bulletproof Dork: Thank you for reading my story, too! I tried to make the characters multifaceted, because I was tired of reading clichéd stories that had no surprises. It's nice of you to plow through all 26 chapters!

Sophierom: What a nice review! Thanks a lot. Yes, I haven't read any of my chapters since posting them, and I probably have tons of mistakes! I wish I had a beta. I'm planning to clean up the grammar soon.