A Mirror and a Necklace

A middle-aged married couple was fighting with magic. Wands out, the two screamed at one another in a language that he had never heard before, until a young girl, one could only conceive to be their daughter, walked into the room. The parent's froze as the girl took a step of bravery and asked them if she could have a snack because breakfast was over and she slept through it. The couple's eyes turned from the girl to one another and simultaneously that if she wanted a snake she would either make it herself or ask her elf to make one for her. Lowering her head, the girl tried again.

"Mommy, please?" She said with tears in her eyes. "The house elves don't talk to me; all they do is nod and do what I say."

Her mother's anger contaminated the air in the room while she said in a semi-calm voice, "You don't want to talk to the servants as if they are your friends, darling. They are here to serve you, not to be you best friend. Now go and make yourself a sandwich. I am talking to your father, do not interrupt me again or I will punish you for it, I promise."

The daughter wiped the tears from her face and left to go back to the kitchen where a house elf had already made her a turkey sandwich and a glass of red juice.

"Mommy and daddy are mad at each other and it's all because my Jake and Andrew are gone." The four-year-old sobbed.

The elf patted her on the back, "Other masters should not treat young mistress this way. Ceri thinks that you should hide for now. Ceri thinks your room is not safe so Ceri says if it's alright with young mistress, young mistress could stay in hidden room that other masters know not of."

"It's okay if you call me by my name when no one's around, Ceri. Ceri is my only friend here." The little girl said smiling through excess tears from the earlier excursion.

Ceri looked at the child sideways, tilting her head is such a way that it looked as if her head was going to fall off. Eyes open wide and smiling largely, the house elf said in an excited whisper, "Only if master wishes. Ceri dusted the room specially and hope that young Desi can take comfort there."

Desi laughed. "You remembered to shorten it too! Thank you!" She, then, hugged the elf and to much surprise Ceri hugged her in return.

RRRRRRRRRRRING

Harry Potter fell off the bed and hit his head on the bedside table. "Ouch!" He exclaimed rubbing his head. He wasn't specifically in this dream. Why, then was he having those dreams or who was causing them? Those questions he asked himself over and over again, but, there was no answer to that. He didn't have that kind of information . . . yet. Then, he turned to the two small mirrors attached to each other that Jennifer Anomy had given him. He looked directly into them and, of course, his reflection was not what he saw. The looking glass, which is what he could only imagine this was, showed a muggle kitchen setting: tiled flooring, plates piled in the sink, and a table in the center of the room a good bit from the cupboards and pale blue countertops. In one of the four chairs surrounding the table was a muscular man with blond-white hair wearing a black t-shirt was holding the Daily Prophet.

"Desiree! Hurry up! I'm getting to the obituaries!" The man, Harry could only estimate to be eighteen, shouted.

Harry also, then, came to the conclusion that the woman who came into the room and answered him was Desiree.

"Slow down Rion! I want to hear!" She exclaimed and put her hair up into a pony tail before she sat in Rion's lap. "Okay, go on."

"Demetrious Scour."

Desiree shook her head. "Nope, don't know him."

"Jerry Stewart."

"I think he was a schoolmate of Andrew's." She said slowly, racking her brains to find something more of him.

"Oh, your twin actually has some friends?" said Rion looking bemused.

"No, I think Jerry did Andrew's homework. His Divination homework and who knows what else. Andrew never told me anything about him except that he helped him in some school related situations the Omnipotent Andrew couldn't handle and he was positively horrible at Divination. Next please."

"Josephine Dwindles."

"Oh! I remember her! She was that sweet old lady that worked in that shop in Diagon Alley! Do you remember her?"

Rion furrowed his brow. "Which shop? I've been to too many to remember just one of the old ladies that work there."

"Oh come on! We met at her shop! She sold you those books you gave me," explained a hopeful eyed Desiree who touched her necklace.

Rion sat there for a moment to think about poor old Josephine Dwindles. She was really old then and he bought those books about a decade ago. He was surprised she lived so long, but if he said that out loud he be asking for it. So all he let on was an, "Oh . . . poor Ms. Dwindles."

She looked at him with disappointment and anger for a moment, opened her mouth and let out a sigh. "Do we know anyone else?"

Rion looked for someone they knew, but apparently he was taking too long and his lady friend got up and started on the dishes. He stopped reading long enough to see he stand, if anyone thought that he was crazy for being friends with Desiree they would cut off their tongues for moments like these; especially, the men who found her logic too wild for someone sane. He shook his head, she was perfect.

When he got to the bottom of the page he stopped; froze more like. Rion just couldn't believe his eyes, there was no way he would tell her something this extravagant so early in the morning. So he thus closed the paper and told her that they didn't know anyone else.

Harry blinked at the two. He understood Rion's way of thinking, well sort of. Anyway, he felt bad for him. The man was going to have to tell her who it was eventually, but he probably wanted to make sure that she was prepared for the terrible news, at least a little bit. Wondering how close the victim was to Desiree, Harry moved the mirror around to see more of the kitchen and found the child who had been haunting his dreams but she wasn't solid.

She looked at the couple and smiled, then turned her view to the spyglass. Still smiling, the translucent four-year-old vanished while Rion and Desiree started talking about her editor Larry Visage and how well they get along.

"Who does that distasteful pile of dung think he is!" Desiree ranted.

"Perhaps something other than a pile of dung?" suggested Rion who flinched as if he foresaw something heavy coming in his direction.

Harry closed his eyes, he was tired. Closing the compact spyglass and laying back down in his bed, he then found himself a comfortable position, away from the edge of the bed, and slept again.

Authors note (A/n): I started this story with the characters but without their names. And I have to say it was really fun finding them. Unlike cats who appropriately "need no names" and are given them anyway for humans' sake. Names help define who people are and what a part of their future will behold. :D So I'm going to be gone next week, for the laughs non-reviewing people of American and possibly other English speaking parts of the world. I shall update in two weeks time (hopefully). ;-)