23. The Mirror
Harry barged into the Headmaster's office only minutes after his clash with the Potions Professor, still in tears. He had made for the gargoyle as straight as school architecture allowed. Harry needed to talk to Dumbledore now, to get rid of the terrible guilt he felt whenever he thought of Sirius or the mirror, and he was sure that he would not survive another night alone with this horrible feeling eating at his heart and mind.
Luckily, Albus Dumbledore was still up, and did not seem to be expecting other visitors or, for that matter, overly surprised at Harry's sudden visit.
Out of breath, the boy stammered: "Sir... I need to talk to you... NOW... Do spare me an hour… another… I..."
"Sure, my boy, have a seat. What is it that you want?"
The unperturbed serenity of the Headmaster calmed Harry somewhat, but he remained standing, composing himself. He wiped his eyes and cleared his throat.
One thing had to be gotten out of the way immediately.
"I am sorry, sir, for insulting you the way I did – yesterday, it surely must be by now. I had no right to... I just felt that your explanations were some sort of excuse for telling me that Sirius had been wrong, and by inference, that I had been, too... None of it can ever justify insults like those I made, and I would be happy if you accepted me back. I fully realised that I asked for this, to know, and I still stand by that. I do have to know. Will you forgive me?"
Harry swallowed. This had come out in a jumble, but he was sure that he'd gotten his meaning across.
The old wizard had held his hand up even before half of the speech to stop Harry, who had not heeded it.
"My dear boy, I do realise that my manners seem often a bit long-winded to you young ones, and you can better than others appreciate the ...ponderous side to them.
"Let us not dwell on the issue. You could insult me further if you wish: I need you by my side, as a fighter to our cause."
Harry stared into the eyes of the old man who just had relented and made him feel his own powers. He was needed, insults or no!
He was simultaneously proud, and more sorry than ever before. This was all too much!
Harry thought he might faint. The old man did not have to tell him that he trusted him, and Harry knew that he would not ever use the powers he had against him...
"Do sit down now, my boy!"
Harry did, almost slumping backwards when an armchair nudged his calves, and gratefully accepted the glass of pumpkin juice that floated beside him out of nowhere as had become the use in their meetings.
He smiled weakly at the Headmaster, and was quiet for a while, thinking of a way to put his next question.
Which was, foreseeably "Lemon drop, Harry?", and he gave a snort, and declined. Somehow he felt much more at ease right away, even without taking one.
Harry decided to be blunt, since he did not find a more diplomatic way of putting in words what he really needed to know, and he'd asked it already in so many ways... He needed to know how things worked. And the Headmaster had been blunt in the first place, hadn't he?
But then, Harry had gravely and gratuitously insulted him, and this was treacherous terrain, literally. He just had to know all the aspects of it – maybe he'd be fully convinced in the end.
He had noticed that, with the realisation before himself of his biggest secret about Sirius, his grief had let up, and the hatred, too. The issue of his godfather's actions was closed, in a way. It had found an ending which was not very agreeable, but likely a kind of truth. Or truce.
He would not act rash, or all by himself, like that…
"There still is the one question that I will repeat to ask until I fully understand the answer, if you don't mind, sir..."
Albus Dumbledore nodded his assent, knowing what that would be.
"You've mentioned all kinds of proof... Yet...
"Please don't be angry with me, Headmaster, but I've just got to ask that again - are you sure that Snape is really on our side? Why do you do trust him?"
The Headmaster pondered that.
"I gave you several reasons why, but I think this question about PROFESSOR Snape now is of a more... philosophical kind, right? Like, how and when can I trust someone who I know to have been an enemy, and who, by his duties, still is forced to inform said enemy on me?"
Looking expectantly, Harry nodded once.
"Well. I can only answer that, while it is never good to be gullible, or overly trusting of a feeling, mistrust on first sight, or prejudice, can be fatal to relations of any sort. Yet, I never trust anyone implicitly without good reason, and my feelings are as important a part of that as are inquiries in the more difficult cases. It is hard to explain, and not easily achieved for many, the less so the more they tend to see the world in hard contrasts, in blacks and whites only, lacking the greys. Much of it is based on experience, on the effort to find out, instead of dwelling on first impressions, whatever they may be. One can go wrong. I believe that sort of judgement to come with experience... To not trust someone in any way, or to ever give up vigilance even without distrusting them, or allowing distrust become a denominator of one's life or that particular relation, all can be destructive...
"With Professor Snape, there is the added difficulty of his being a spy for both sides. I can only claim that I trust his decision to turn away from his allegiance to Voldemort to be definite if I cannot trust his actions, but am forced to accept them as being in favour of our cause."
The old wizard pondered the boy before him.
"This is not really helpful, is it, Harry?"
Harry gave him a lopsided, still-tearstained grin and shook his head.
"Thank you anyway, sir, for bothering with that question once more. I guess I've just got to stay around and try to learn and obtain such experience, right?"
Dumbledore smiled at him warmly. This boy was really brave... He was much relieved that Harry's attention was not on his grief and anger anymore. He was also sure that Harry would eventually stop blaming Snape for his godfather's death, particularly since he had to face what the Potions Master's beliefs, and the reasons for his hate, had been.
Dumbledore knew, and had said so before, that Severus had grasped the message Harry had thrown him and, upon verification that the children really had gone, relayed it instantly to Dumbledore while they still were hurrying for the Ministry to look for Sirius Black, to enter into that fateful battle.
Over steepled fingers, the Headmaster continued to speak. "Trust him, not trust him – I might not believe his each and every word, yet I am sure he does not even think to try and deceive me. To have Severus Snape around, and deal with him, is not easy at all, but always a kind of fight, a war that is always on, quite beyond Tom Riddle and his dark aims. This has become a fixed way with him since Idane's death, but her death is not the reason for it. It is in his fierce, quarrelsome, and, at its base, insecure nature. He's not had a loving family …either, as you might have gathered in your lessons with him.
"There is not much choice here. Yet, I do even call him a friend occasionally which you will have noticed as well.
"I am still trying to find out whether he faked any of his memories, not that this would be easy or all that important; and I do not know nor care if he ever tried to find out what I put in the Pensieve, but would wonder if he hadn't tried though. There are two facts, though: that Idane Groenbergsdottir is gone, dead, and that he, Severus Snape, has loved her, if ever a man loved.
"I make sure on my part that I do not leave anything he is not to see in there before returning it to him, particularly if that memory concerns Order matters – there are certain things that would be of no use in there anyway. Sometimes, the full weight of a memory is needed. Be that as it may – again, I am sure that Severus loved Idane, and was deeply wounded, wounded to the core, by her death, Harry. Someone like the Professor will not remain loyal to a master who has done such a thing to him."
There was a pause, not awkward though, in which Harry tried to contain feelings of anger and grief as they welled up in him again, to return to more pressing business at hand.
He would just have to confess up, but the time was not right yet. Soon though, tonight, he would.
"Professor, do you think Snape believed all the time that Voldemort would return, or even that he did still live somehow?"
Dumbledore lowered his head for a moment, collecting his thoughts. He fully realised that Harry Potter, this time, was inquiring into himself.
"I would not know, Harry... Do try to call him Professor, though. Well, considering all, I actually am sure that he never did believe Voldemort to be dead. Neither did I, for that matter, but he had more proof than I did, by his Dark Mark. Severus insisted on keeping his cover all the time after he came back to teach at Hogwarts for good.
"It seems that the Dark Lord does not consider him to be his most trusted follower these days... I was sure at first that Professor Snape was the one Voldemort referred to when he said, in your presence, that one of his Death Eaters had probably left him forever, but then... Voldemort did not address all Death Eaters present at his resurrection while you were there, did he?"
Harry shook his head in bewilderment.
"You do realise, then, young Potter, that I must not know?"
Harry did not, but he was sure that this was quite beyond his understanding for the time being – and also that he, unless he wanted to play a really big game of his own which he did not, and was sure he couldn't, had to trust and hang on to Dumbledore and, by this, implicitly trust Severus Snape.
"I hope Voldemort will never be sure too, until he's been done with!"
"Oh yes, Harry, that I dearly wish for, too..."
They remained silent for some time. Even though what had just been said had not been in the least reassuring for Harry, or answered his questions really, the boy apparently felt greatly relieved. The Headmaster was sure that Harry would fully understand in the end that the matter of trusting the Potions master was an issue of life and death – for Severus Snape in the first place, but also for everyone in the Order, and, not least, Harry himself.
But… There was something else. Harry would not have barged in like that just because he'd confronted Severus Snape late at night. Probably the boy was about to come to terms with his guilt… Severus had said that there was more to it, and mentioned the word 'mirror'.
The Headmaster waited patiently for his student to come forward with it in his own time.
Harry found it almost impossible to broach what really was on his mind. Now…
"Sir, you said, some time ago, that Sn... Professor Snape buried his own pain deep within himself, and would not for his life ever think of going about profiting from it... He's so snide about it, as if I enjoyed the popularity, from being the boy-who-lived, or asked for it – after all, my parents had to die so that..."
Harry was on the verge of tears again, more about the injustice of the treatment that he felt than the loss, this time.
"But I do not go on about mine either, most of the time – everyone gets at me! They come to me with it and ask! Try and touch the scar, my head – as If I bring them luck!
"But you did, you did, Harry!" Dumbledore interjected.
Harry did not listen. "Or they think I am crazy and a liar! They don't care how I feel about that! Their pitiful troubles, as if a scar could solve them... a scar like me... I can't even help myself to get rid of it! That damn scar – If it wasn't there, I would not be recognized by everyone, or, at least, not right away...
"That scar... If I could just remove it!"
"Hm... You tried, did you?"
Harry nodded. This was embarrassing, a bit at least. He had tested everything from magical remedies of the most dubitable kind when known spells would not work, to hair bleach, to some hydrochloric acid he had found in his uncle's gardening shed in the backyard at Privet Drive. Most of it had hurt something awful, nothing had worked, and all of it had made his nightmares worse. The best so far still had been Muggle make-up, but he could not bring himself to put that on regularly.
"People would at least have to know what my – my father looked like... If I really do look so much like him. But they can always recognise that damn scar, never mind who it is on!"
"Enough people still know what James looked like, Harry, if only from papers and books... Just let me say two things: first, you are not your scar, and second, more important, not 'a scar' at all, either. Do not never ever think about yourself in those terms! You are better than that, and do deserve better than that!
"Also, you have had some publicity all by yourself in the past years, deserved and undeserved, don't ever forget that... That was because you are brave and stand up for what you believe to be right and true!"
This felt good.
"And the scar does get you sympathy and some sharing of the burden, does it?"
Harry had to admit that.
"That scar even made you some excellent friends..."
"No. NO! Ron and Hermione are not my friends just because of that! To Hermione, it was just something she'd read about, however exciting, it didn't mean much when we met! You... you are only saying that to provoke me, aren't you...?"
Dumbledore smiled ominously.
"So let's say then that you made wonderful friends in spite of it, right?"
The Professor looked at him, head cocked.
Harry stared back, realising the old wizard was right. The scar was not the reason for either his happiness or his misery in that area, nor was it even important there.
He felt somewhat relieved.
"So, this is where you are free, Harry. See, my boy – Professor Snape does not have that chance. He cannot have such popularity, or the mere relief of sharing details of his underground activities, not even with me, and even if ever this war is over, I think he would not have it, of himself. He has to bear on – alone, being the man he is. But I know that he stumbles under the weight occasionally, and that he tends to have such weakness out on others. He is not a just or kind man.
"He has never made many friends due to his abrasive manners... He didn't need a scar for that either, see? Such a scar would not make him more likeable, approachable, or despicable, or made him friends. Had he had your fame, he would still be haughty and abrasive. He would very likely still appear to be acerbic, and his manners, cold. You can't compare your situation to his, and neither can he, no matter that he seems to do just that, or seems to spite your popularity. Consider that a test of your own use of it.
"His reasons to treat you to his contempt – if such a sentiment it is indeed – are of a different order.
"Severus Snape has lost the one love of his life. He feels guilt because of that, and is not able to share that terrible loss (with anyone but me, which he bitterly rejects) – if mainly for strategical reasons, or so he says, and that is not quite untrue... Can you understand, Harry, what that means? It's not like with you, or Neville Longbottom, that he was really too young to remember... What is more: what happened was largely his own fault, the result of wrong decisions he alone made. Severus knew what he did – or thought he did..."
Harry remained silent, thinking.
Dumbledore's speech took another tack.
"Pity, to Professor Snape, is a most despicable and suspicious emotion, and that's another aspect: I think he hopes that you might detest pity like he does, thus sharing some part of the suffering... And I think that you do, most of the time."
Harry was amazed. It was true that he detested to be approached and pitied because of his scar, or loss of parents rather, but Snape feeling the same?
"But – Professor Dumbledore, Sn- Professor Snape had it coming to him – he was a Death Eater, and he surely has committed outrageous crimes in their name?"
"Yes, he has, indeed. That is just what I said, see? And without Idane, without her death even, he might never have changed his ways... Which, as I do believe, does not make that burden of his easier to bear, don't you think? Or her loss less of a loss to the world in general."
Considering the old wizard's words, Harry nodded.
"But I still cannot feel – well, much sympathy, or pity, or..."
"Which is just as well. You do not have to. Remember what I just said about pity, or sympathy! You just have to work hard, trying to give your best, when you are learning with him. That is the one and only way for anyone to earn his respect.
"I do think Severus is right about pity, in many respects. Consider this, too, Harry: if Professor Snape was a more, well, likeable, person – like, say, Hagrid, or Arthur Weasley – don't you think it would be very easy to feel for him, like you do for Neville, who is, or seems to be, very weak, and a kind enough boy, right? No matter whether the person in question has been, or could be a Death Eater, or not?
"Severus Snape is strong and hard; a survivor; not a companionable man, and does not on any account allow for sloppiness, or bad work.
"Do you think what makes a person precious is their likeability, or a pretty face?"
Harry sat quietly to that, thinking about Snape's fierce pride and secrecy, his unforgiving attitude toward any kind of mistake – mistakes he might once have made himself – any mistake really, as if any mistake, however small, could lead to ruin and to darkness. And it could… Mistakes were made, of course. Some were there to be made, the saying went, but to learn by them, and to avoid them in the future. There was more than a hint of bitterness in the man. The abrasive manners... His innate strength. Would it not be good to have that – well, as an ally?
He ventured: "Snape's not one for sympathy, you said."
"True enough, Harry. So, what do you think he deserves or should try and do, instead of being what he is? You could try and accept him the way he is..."
There was nothing to say about that, but –
"I still do not think I like him, even if I understand some of this, Professor Dumbledore, sir. I can respect him, or his attitude, some of it at least, I'm sure I'll try, but he will have to respect mine, too; accept me, to use your own word, if we are not to fight and quarrel among ourselves all the time."
Harry was amazed at his own words.
Dumbledore hurt in premonition of what he'd have to do now, but it all had to be out. Would this day never end? Severus had been right once more when he said that he expected Harry to show up at the Headmaster's office within the hour, and he was very likely to be right as well in that there was a deeper pain still behind that guilt the boy felt about his godfather's death, and probably connected with it. He had to get at it. Harry had to make a clean breast of those things; he would never be able to fight to the full if he bore such weights. There was no time to let the pain fester, ripen, and spring open of itself.
"Right, that he will have to. If you just cared to listen and think before you acted, I am sure he might...
"If you had heeded your Professor's words, many things might not have happened – and the Ministry might still be able to convincingly cloud over Voldemort's return, whichever the Ministry's reasons for that may be... The price for this truth coming to light that you, that Sirius Black had to pay, was high. Just like the price Severus had to pay to turn back from Voldemort and his ways."
Harry stared at the Headmaster in terrified surprise. Dumbledore was getting to the subject Sirius again, as if he knew what Harry felt!
"Now, Sirius's death... He was flamboyant, your godfather, and all the waiting-around for clearance by the Ministry was hell for him. He was sure it would never happen. I've said it before: Your godfather was ever one for action, to act rash, and could never be stopped once he had set his mind on a course. You should not blame yourself for what happened! It was a death he'd have chosen for himself, in a battle, and something like this was to be expected sooner or later..."
Remus Lupin had said much the same thing. Harry was shaken and had to swallow hard, his eyes wide with a kind of terror, but he managed to keep his composure for the time being.
Dumbledore was destroying his defences! There also was now more than pain: the need to know.
The Headmaster admired how Harry fought to keep his defences up, but he would not have it. Whatever it was, it had to come to light now.
Harry tried bravely anyway.
"But how, Professor Dumbledore, can Sn- Professor Snape order me to calm my feelings or to control my emotions, to forget them and let go of them? If just those feelings turned out to be my strength and saved me in the fight in the Ministry?"
Harry knew that in the Ministry, only one thing had saved him, and that had been the Headmaster's interference! Although Voldemort probably would not have bothered, had Albus Dumbledore not been present...
"And while Snape always and ever again shows me his hate for me, his contempt? – Snape – the Professor does not control himself at all, at any time! He himself does not hold anything back! He has so many feelings and emotions, and they are all negative!"
"Well, Harry – or are they? How can you possibly know? What does he show you? How dare you judge his feelings at all? Can you be sure he does not control himself? After what I told you, how can you really believe that he does hold nothing back, or that what he shows you is all there is to him, or that what you see is what he is at all? If you can believe that, is it not proof of his accomplishment and mastery of the Mencies? Do you see what you want to see, or what he wants to show you? Or do you see what is real? Could you show him as little of yourself?
"In short: can you, with honesty, claim that do you have any truthful idea of what you would see if you could really see him? Of who Severus Snape is?
"In a way, it's just too bad that he could not possibly have participated in that fight in the Ministry – for what you would have seen then would have amazed you, I am positive!"
Harry swallowed hard. He did not want to talk about this –
The Headmaster felt the storm drawing nearer. So it had to do with that fated fight. And Severus was wrong about Harry's lack of resistance to Legilmency or other forms of intrusion. Or was that just him once more, with his weak spot for the boy?
But quite besides keeping Snape's cover, he had to be here at the school, to maintain the wards...
"In any case – if you, just for once, had obeyed Professor Snape that day, and had done what he ordered in your lessons, you'd not have come to be in the Ministry yourself to start with, right?"
Nothing. Harry was motionless. The Headmaster wondered if the boy was still breathing.
This now was the stillness before the storm. A final blow…
"AND SIRIUS WOULD STILL LIVE, THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, ISN'T IT?"
Harry shouted, half-rising from his chair while scrambling to escape his terrible crushing feelings of guilt.
Close, but no, that was not it. Dumbledore continued as if he had not heard Harry.
"Cornelius Fudge would still believe I was after his position as a Minister – and that all of your experiences were just lies, figments, conjured up by a pained, maddened young mind... This, Harry, is GOOD. Only the price to be paid was terribly high.
"Voldemort would have gotten the Prophecy into his hands. Not that it would have mattered all that much. He knew it; he just did not know, and still doesn't, that he knows enough of it or, rather, that his mistake has long been made."
Harry had settled down again, if uneasily.
"We did not guard the Prophecy so much in order to keep Voldemort from it, but to maybe catch him while he was trying to get it, in order to be able to give proof of his return, and even defeat him right there... And that did happen, if not in the way that was intended at all.
"We now have no place we know of that he'd have an interest in to visit – besides Phoenix Order headquarters and your head, Harry, both of which is BAD. But we achieved one of our objectives – if at a very high price: to make his return known.
"If I say GOOD or BAD here, you do understand that to be strictly strategical reasoning and not a judgement of your person or actions, don't you?"
Harry nodded, unconvinced, shivering a bit. Too much, too much… Sirius… If you just were here…
"For reasons by now obvious to you yourself, young man, I cannot let you in on actual Order matters and plans until you prove to me the mastery of Occlumency; what is more, you might not even want to know. This is not a mere matter of age anymore at all! The story I've been telling you here in instalments, and which is far from over, should be proof of that. Consider what my narrative is already doing to you...
"But everything that is to do with the past, you shall know."
The boy was absolutely shaken, and Dumbledore could feel that there were neither tears nor fight left in him – he was facing his own terrible feelings of guilt, something he'd have to get rid of, and soon, to live on. The cure would be terribly hard… And still, Harry was resisting – by passively holding on to the concept of himself that he was familiar with, and to his guilt as a major, if relatively fresh, foundation of that picture. A bit of the fatherless victim was there.
The old wizard felt quite some admiration for such strength.
It also meant, though, that he would have to shatter the boy… now.
Guilt was not for wizards - they generally considered, and knew, what they were doing, before they did it. It was a matter of strength: To stand up for one's own actions, whatever the outcome, not denying a bit of it.
"Things have to happen as time goes along! No, probably not – not that it would have done Voldemort any good – there was nothing new in that prophecy really, was there? Voldemort would have tried to force you to do his bidding again and again, with fading success. He would have tried to get the Prophecy and, with increasing strength, into the Ministry again which, as long as he has no hold over the Minister himself in his hands, would have been impossible – regardless of gits like Percy Weasley...
"And the quietist front had already cracked, not everyone did still believe Fudge – or the Daily Prophet, for that matter...
"What happened then was very tangible proof, and for our good.
"I say it again: There is no blame on you, Harry. I should have told you many of these things earlier; things I still do not think fit for a boy to hear, and there were so many other ways this could have gone...
"One thing you can do is to try to not feel guilty, or proud, or afraid, of any of that, but instead take these things as the facts they are or could be – deftly, with determination and sensibility, AND MOVE ON. Not resigning yourself to them, either, but, well... vigilantly. Like Moody says."
Dumbledore grinned.
"Try to take events as things given, not to be worried about. There are so many other things to worry and grieve over..."
In that moment, Harry fully realised that, regardless of how much the old wizard claimed to like him, he, Harry, would always also be a pawn for him. He clearly saw that such calculation were something that probably existed in each and every relation, be it among wizards or Muggles, but mostly, usually, in a dishonest, underhand manner... That he, by destiny, by being what he was, was prone to live in such calculated relations – at least as long Voldemort lived. That most people, even wizards, preferred it that way, even if wizards were rather more straightforward about it. Harry also saw that keeping those facts out of one's conscious considerations did not mean that one was not doing those things, wasn't playing the game, or that one was being more honest, or acting without such premises... The only thing he had left to do was to try and really play that game himself. Harry hated it.
It was a lot. Harry sighed heavily. Who could he trust? HOW could he trust? Was that a matter of common aims? Then he might as well approach Snape, who always had been most straightforward in such matters, and was reliable in his dislike of him... He'd not expect anything but to be played in that quarter...
And could he still trust himself?
For a long time, neither of the two wizards spoke.
Then, Harry said: "Oh well. I guess I understand. I... I do trust you again now, sir, as I've done implicitly right from the day I came into the wizarding world. That obviously does not mean that you need trust me in a similar way. There are many ...incalculable factors connected with me, right?"
He did not wait for a sign of affirmation.
"One of them being that I am, in a way that I cannot understand nor control - yet, connected to Voldemort... Do you understand how, now? Does he, the wise Potions Professor, by any chance? Can you explain anything about it that I've not heard yet, or that you did not consider me fit to hear so far?"
Harry could not keep the bitter edge out of his voice. He felt utterly worn, as if he'd somehow aged twenty years at least in the last few hours, something that not even Dumbledore's report on the background of Sirius's history with Snape had been able to do to him.
But he was in control of his own affairs. He was no pawn anymore, and would never be again, to anyone. People might try to play him, and even succeed sometimes, but not as a mere pawn. He would need to play them, too. Harry still hated the thought. He would try to do it as openly as possible, and avoid it wherever he could!
The Headmaster was amazed how the boy, instinctively, had steered clear of the dangerous waters where that old monster Guilt lurked, of the existence of which both he and the Potions Professor were sure. Harry even seemed composed again, and almost fresh... To have these tremendous capacities trained, and by a man like Severus... Carefully, Dumbledore moved the rudder back.
Piquing him with the fact that he was not only a beloved young man, but also a pawn, should have done the thing... Dumbledore decided to be straightforward.
"No, Harry. I've not been holding back anything in that respect. We do not know. None of us does, nor do the Aurors, Harry, but we all agree that you do have to learn Occlumency, whatever the cost. If you ask Professor Snape, you will find that he agrees as well, which is why he is willing to give it another try.
"You may now feel to be used by me, or the order, for purposes that you cannot discern and feel you might not like, but in no case, Harry, with all the power you wield, must you become a puppet of Voldemort!"
"But I would never..."
"That's I why I say 'a puppet': you might be unable to notice yourself that someone is pulling your strings – for instance, if the Dark Lord ever gathers some kind of deeper understanding about what connects you to each other that we don't have. I will not allow that to happen!"
The Headmaster's determination was unmistakeable.
Neither would Harry, he wouldn't! But to avoid it, he'd have to learn so much…
"Right now, Voldemort might be most concerned about excluding you out of his mind, but that might change again, Harry!"
Harry hung his head. He remembered well enough his idiotic rashness in reacting to the terrible vision of Sirius tortured in the Ministry, never for a moment suspecting that the images could be mere conjecture by a very powerful wizard. He had been so stupid!
Whenever he thought of Snape now he had to think of the insults he'd thrown at the man an hour ago, and thinking of pawns made him think of Sirius and his rashness, how his godfather also had fallen for false impressions more than once. Whenever those thoughts coincided, there was pain… There it was again – fundamental grief.
Harry couldn't help himself now. The memories that had brought him to the Headmaster's office tonight were threatening to overwhelm. The terrible guilt he had felt when he insulted Professor Snape for something that had been entirely his own fault – as he had to admit to himself when – even when he had found the little mirror... And images of that mirror and of irrevocable mistakes had brought him here tonight...
Would he care at all if Snape died tonight and he'd not, once more, apologised? No, he decided. But then, Snape was not Sirius... what was he thinking!
Harry's mind clouded, and he felt tears starting to fall. Again. He'd become some wet blanket, and in mere hours! Luckily, it mainly happened here, with Albus Dumbledore, who seemed to be making a sport of provoking them. And with Snape, of course, but that was to be expected.
If he'd at least bothered to look at his Godfather's gift earlier! That would have spared them all many a thing! Finding it at the bottom of his trunk at the end of the year had been the final straw for him, a nagging pain in the back of his mind all summer: Had he just had that little mirror ready when time came, nothing of all that would have happened. He'd never have had to bother with intercepted owls, that toad Umbridge's office, Snape's thick-headedness, and...
He was in tears, finally. Oh, his bloody mistakes! Rashness, unreliability, obstinacy... No wonder Snape did trust him as far as he could throw him! Which still, considering the physical realities behind that stupid old proverb, was likely to be a bit further than he could throw Snape.
The pointless silliness of that thought made Harry snort, and his tears shot forth once again. He was inane, not a wizard at all…
Dumbledore said: "You do wish to look into my eyes again, outside of a setting like this, don't you?"
And Harry nodded to that.
"Harry, Harry – stop torturing yourself about things that cannot be undone. Try to count your losses and gains, and DO go on! Be sure that there are people who love you – fallible people, all of them, but they love you regardless."
But Sirius was not one of them anymore. He had to look into one mirror now.
"Oh sir... I can't take it... anymore…"
This was obviously not about what they'd been talking about all these days, but some more private grief.
"What is it, Harry? Will you tell me?"
The storm was about to break loose.
The boy nodded and, without looking at the Headmaster, pulled up his nose.
Dumbledore would hate him so! He'd been so stupid that last year! None of this would have happened had he just bothered to open a small packet – a gift of love, too! If he'd merely looked at a gift from the very man who'd been all the family he still had!
But Harry would make a clean breast of it now. In a small voice, he said:
"I have to say it, I think… What almost killed me... kills me, is Sirius' leaving gift, after Christmas holidays last year... the memory… I only found again it when I packed to leave, before the summer holidays... I had to think about it all summer...
"I'd never opened it, or bothered to unwrap it before then. I put it away because I was sure it only would get Sirius into trouble. So I didn't know what it was, and had never realised that it was a perfectly safe communication device with him! I've no idea if he tried to contact me, he might have, a thousand times! He'd even said as much, but I put it aside because I did not want him to get into more trouble after that stupid incident at the Hogwarts Express where he was recognised by Malfoy, and I forgot about it completely..."
Harry's voice rose steadily in pitch and volume, and was losing its quiver. The Headmaster detected unmistakeable signs of impending breakdown coming on.
"I didn't look at it… The memory of it did not even come back when you said that order members had safer methods of communication than floos in badly-warded offices... Had you just let me in on that! Only the night after you told me about the Prophecy I found it, when, when, when I packed..."
Harry swallowed hard. His distress was obvious.
"What gift was that, Harry?" Dumbledore said gently, nothing betraying his curiosity. A mirror…?
"Oh… sorry… It was a little two-way mirror that Sirius wrote he and James had used often... He'd written on its back that I just needed to say his name to see and speak to him; he would always keep his about him. So it might be with him behind that veil, but he won't answer.. Nearly-Headless Nick said that he went on…"
Harry was out of breath, sobbing, but would not be stopped now. Unperturbed by his own crying, he inhaled.
"I'd but have to have used that thing, and I would have known instantly that Sirius was nowhere near the Ministry! No Kreacher to get between us... Hermione still doesn't believe that, by the way, you know?"
Harry gave a mad giggle that was dreadful to hear for the old wizard. But finally, the story was coming out.
"Oh sir! His death was all my fault, no matter if I try to blame it on Snape, or you, or...
"And... and all we got for it was HALF AN ADMISSION THAT VOLDEMORT IS BACK FROM THE MINISTER – PEOPLE STILL DON'T BELIEVE IT, AND..."
The floodgates had opened. The boy was screaming now, letting out all the pain, his loss, the months of inner torment, and the raging anger.
"AND SIRIUS, HE'S DEAD!"
Dumbledore was startled. This was really bad! Once again, Sirius Black had acted without telling anyone. Had he himself known as much... But he'd never even suspected as much as his students being in the possession of such a precious thing. This was Sirius Black's fault, no-one else's, and for all Dumbledore felt right now, probably his worst.
The existence of such mirrors did solve some little mystery or other, too, as to how James Potter and Sirius Black had wrought certain kinds of mischief while they still were in school.
The old wizard went over to Harry's chair quietly, scooped the crying boy up in his arms, and held him gently, steeling on the arm of the chair. Harry was still too light for his age… A weight settled on his shoulder. Fawkes the Phoenix rubbed his soft feathery head on Harry's cheek in a familiar gesture, caressing him and trilling, almost bursting into song.
Very slowly, the pain receded, and the bitterness of guilt left Harry.
He smiled up faintly under his tears at the man who was holding him.
"It's good to have… told someone."
"I should think so, Harry. This is not your fault! Really, you are too young to have to bear all this... You could not know! You should have come earlier to me about it... I should have told you... No, leave an old man to his ruminations! But I do understand that you could not come to me, not even after my words to you before you left. I should have realised it was my move to make. I'll never be able to forget that – or to forgive myself... Most of us have such secret pains."
"But mostly, they haven't cost a life!"
"Some have though, young one, some have..."
Albus Dumbledore waited for the boy to look at him and said, with a small sad smile, looking away instantly:
"As long as you can learn to live with it, Harry – please do live..."
The boy snuggled to the old wizard's thin chest nodding, almost falling asleep, but crying all the while.
After a long pause, the Headmaster asked: "What happened to the mirror?"
Harry was awake. The flow of tears had stopped.
"See, sir, I first was so sure that I could reach Sirius behind that ... Veil with it... I tried and tried... it did not work. I even asked Nearly Headless Nick about the people who become ghosts."
Harry sniffed, and tried had not to cry again.
"I think I was half mad then. I smashed it in my trunk, in anger... when it didn't work..."
"A pity..."
"Yes, but I reassembled it as far as I could, and whenever I feel great, and wise, and the need to do something without further thought …or council…, I look at it. It's almost as if Sirius was with me then, sir, and mocking my careful attitude... But that merely reminds me to pay more attention – to what people do when they do it, and how, and why they do it, and what is said about all that, even in the back pages of shoddy gossipy newspapers, and not to jump to conclusions... It helps… I do try to take council... If I look into it now, I still only see myself, scattered…"
The boy snug into the old man's beard, crying again, and Fawkes jumped into Harry's lap, wrapping him in coppery wings of gentle fire, trying to touch as much of him with his soothing presence.
"Have you tried Reparo on it, young Wizard?"
Looking up, Harry grinned faintly under his tears.
Better. Much better.
"No, and I didn't even think of that for a long time. It was only when my glasses broke again one day that I remembered the spell. But I decided I'd rather have the shards, stuck together the Muggle way, for now... 'Cause that's what is left: shards, right?"
They said nothing for a long time, staring into the embers of the grand fireplace in Dumbledore's office.
Much later, Harry whispered: "I hardly ate, or bothered to leave my room during holidays, or what time of them I spent at the Dursley's, the first time ever that I was allowed to do as I please, and eat as much as I wanted to, and I never reacted to their baiting and shouting anymore... It made them desperate when I never responded, and still refused to eat. They were so very much afraid that Moody might come back! They did provide me amply because of that, and of course called me an ingrate when I didn't take to it. In the end I did eat, of course, but still not enough, it seems."
His voice changed to something like hardness for a moment.
"Everyone told me how thin I was when I came back... But I'd made my mind up to kill the bastard first."
Through his tears, he smiled at Dumbledore, who said, eyes averted: "You do have to eat to be strong to fight him, you know?"
A faint grin answered that.
"You see, sir, no-one knows about that mirror, I think. It was very good to tell someone who can understand my stupidity, and might not judge me though..."
The Headmaster smiled at his hands, quietly.
"Believe me; I won't judge you, my boy. You're doing too much of that yourself already, and I forced too much of it on you..."
"You can't help it, I guess..."
Albus Dumbledore did not react to that.
But a little while later, when Harry was starting to doze off rather peacefully, he rose, and carried the young one over to a corner where he summoned a couch. Let him have a few hours of peace after making a clean breast of that... What a terrible story! As if Harry Potter had not enough of a burden to carry! It was always the small things that hurt most.
That mirror would have been useful indeed. Again, Black had not said a word about it to anyone, it seemed, which was just like him. Nor had he apparently tried to use it, but then, its counterpart had been sitting at the bottom of a trunk, still in its gift wrapper. A final, a fatal mistake.
Dumbledore stretched his long legs walking about a bit, musing about the fact that even wizards had to suffer from limbs going to sleep separately, and that, after all, the boy had put on some weight since the holidays, regardless of the ordeal those feelings of guilt must be – have been, hopefully – for him.
Oh Harry, this would have been so important to know! Had he but known, he could have reminded the boy of the mirror... If this had been anyone's fault, it was Black's own, for the worse because of the weight it put on Harry. What a godfather to have… Dumbledore had seen more than enough lately to share much of Severus's view of the Gryffindor, as much as he disliked it.
The Headmaster wondered if Sirius even once in his life had considered what kinds of pressure he bestowed on others, on this boy, with his peculiar type of attention and care. He'd always been like that, valiant and careless. A brilliant fighter, not a strategist – and not a family person.
----------------
"Good morning! Did you sleep well, young man?"
Harry stretched. He realised that he was still in the Headmaster's office, and on a very comfortable couch, too. A level golden ray of sunlight hit the wall above him, illuminating a deserted portrait with nothing much but a worn armchair in it. Judging by the light, it must be morning, and really early still... He felt well-rested and refreshed; better than he had in days, or weeks, rather.
Gradually, the events of the evening before came back, and he blushed, feeling deeply ashamed. The pain about the loss of his godfather was still numbing, but Harry was also very relieved to finally have told the story of Sirius' mirror to someone.
He'd insulted Dumbledore, yesterday, and later on Snape, for no reason at all...
"Thank you, sir. I hope it was not too bad for you, last night..."
Albus Dumbledore merely shook his head, dismissing the issue.
"Do you have any more questions, or do you want to get ready for breakfast?"
Harry also shook his head, insecure whether he ought to apologize again, or what else to do.
"My boy, do get in over there and clean up. Then go have breakfast – if I'm not mistaken you've had no real food since lunch yesterday, and must be hungry. Do you want a cup of tea and a bit of chocolate right now? Life will stare back kindlier..."
While Harry washed his face in the tiny cabinet bathroom that Professor Dumbledore had surely conjured for just this purpose, he realised that the Headmaster apparently was not in the least angry with him anymore, if he'd ever been, that was; and stepping out into the light-flooded office, Harry suddenly noticed how beautiful a morning this was.
He smiled at Dumbledore who avoided eye contact. This annoyed Harry, but he realised that even last night, when he had barged in unannounced, the wards that were set for their talks must have been down.
The chocolate and tea were great.
Then the thoughts of Sirius came back, and he felt guilty again. Dumbledore, seeming to read him even without looking at him at all, said: "You see, Harry, there are things that you'll have to cope with in addition to all this, mistakes that seem so very stupid and unnecessary – we all make them –, but I am sure that Sirius would not have wanted you to grieve, but to fight – to get ready to fight..."
Harry took that to be his leave and nodded. He got up, stretching some more, but then realised that the old question of trusting Snape still bothered him.
"I do think I have to apologize to him again... This gets boring," Harry said in an attempt to make light of the matter, but blushed again immediately at feeling so relieved, and felt silly for his behaviour...
"If I just could felt I could trust him… Oh, and I do think he still has my wand!"
Harry blushed with embarrassment.
Dumbledore did not need to ask who Harry was talking about.
"I am sure it is perfectly safe with him, Harry, but if you wish me to I will ask him about it – you don't have Potions today – no?
"No – but I do have a… a detention with him, in the afternoon. I think I'll ask him myself, sir. I'll just have to do without it until then, I guess."
"Very well. Not to worry, Harry. If it is with him, it is as safe as it can be. You've got lessons to catch – you should run if you want to shower, and get some breakfast, and be on time; I've got things to take care of, too.
"You don't need to mention to your friends what this all is about if you don't feel up to it yet."
Harry looked at the Headmaster who looked away quickly. There was no stirring at all of the Snake. It appeared that Voldemort was not on alert at the time.
"But that would..."
Be a betrayal of trust, he'd intended to say. Harry stopped in mid-sentence, suddenly realising that the Headmaster was probably right in assuming that he was nowhere near ready to even tell just bits of what he'd come to learn, and that this had nothing to do with trust at all.
Some of his considerations of last night came back to him. He did need time to think.
"But that would be lying or betraying their trust, wouldn't it?" Harry asked, just to hear another view on the matter.
Dumbledore shook his wizened head.
"I don't think so, my boy. Just consider what damage might be done if you tell things that you don't know the full story of, like right now, or have not entirely digested... Take it slow – those facts you learn here are not needed anywhere else but in your head and heart at the moment, to be made good use of. There is a time to speak, and a time to be silent. The time to speak will come."
The old wizard smiled.
"You may want to see Silva Snape, though."
Harry tried and indeed managed to honestly smile back, feeling unaccountably relieved again by the manner of Dumbledore's mentioning of what was a grave matter, and a mistake he'd made – more than once, after all. He decided to take the advice.
"Got to run now, sir... thank you for letting me stay over!"
"Do try and have a good day, Harry!"