Disclaimer: I don´t own anything all rights go to J.K Rowling.
Chapter 10: Mirror of Erised
AN: So here´s another chapter. It will be the last chapter I post for a couple of weeks because I won´t have time to write. Hope you will like it
Christmas was approaching fast and the weather became colder and colder for everyday that past. One morning in mid-December, Jen woke to find the world covered in snow and the lake frozen.
The Sunday the same week as the snow came; Jen was done with her homework earlier than Ron and Harry, who had barley started, and didn´t want to help them so she thought that she would hang out with Hermione, who had also finished her homework, but she had disappeared and Jen couldn´t find her in the common room.
Jen guessed she was in the library, so she started to make her way there but halfway to the library she met the Weasley twins, who were dressed in thick cloaks, knitted gloves and knitted hats.
"Look, Fred, isn´t it our favourite little first-year?" George said and slung his arm over her shoulder, turning her so she was walking in the opposite direction of the library.
"It is, George," Fred said and slung his arm over her shoulders from the other side, so she was sandwiched in between them. "And could we get to know where she is going?"
"I´m on my way to the library," Jen said and tried to get away from them.
"To the library –" George said.
"On a Sunday –" Fred continued.
"With snow –"
"And good weather outside –"
"We can´t allow that," they finished together and pulled her out of the castle and on to the Hogwarts grounds.
It was just lucky Jen had put on her gloves and winter cloak when she was walking to the library, otherwise she would have been frozen to the bone by the time they reached the grounds. When they reached the grounds, the twins let her go but when she tried to go back to the castle, they stopped her.
"Oh, come on, I don´t even have hat," Jen said. "Let me go back inside. It´s cold."
George pulled his knitted hat off and put it on her head.
"Now when that´s fixed –" George said, then bent down took up a fist full of snow and threw it at Jen.
It hit her square in the face.
She was so chocked at first that she didn´t react but when she saw both twins´ faces scrunched up in laughter, she brushed away the snow from her face before bending down and taking up a bit of snow in both hands and threw it at them.
The snowball fight continued for about twenty minutes before they stopped to catch their breaths. When they had caught their breaths, they made their way back up to the castle.
"Who would´ve thought the little first-year was that good at snowball fighting," Fred said.
"My siblings and I used to have snowball fights when we were younger," Jen said.
Just then they saw Professor Quirrell walk over the courtyard, looking even more nervous than usual.
"Wonder why he´s so nervous, I mean, more than usual?" Jen said.
"I don´t know," George said.
"Maybe he´s afraid that we will prank him," Fred said with a laugh.
"Yeah, he´s probably afraid that you will hex some snowballs so they will hit his precious turban," Jen said sarcastically.
She immediately regretted her words, though, as identical smirks formed on the twins faces.
"It was just a joke," Jen said hastily.
"Yeah, but it gave us a very good idea for a prank," Fred said as he and his brother started to make snowballs.
When they had made a decent pile of snowballs, Fred said an incantation and the snowballs flew up in the air, flew towards Quirrell, and started throwing themselves at the back of his head. When Quirrell tried to run away from them, they followed him.
The twins and Jen, even if though she knew she shouldn´t, started laughing. But she stopped abruptly when she turned around and came face to face with a very angry looking Professor McGonagall. She swallowed nervously before elbowing the twins, whom she stood in between, in their sides and they turned around still laughing but stopped abruptly as they saw Professor McGonagall.
"What do you think you are doing?" Professor McGonagall asked sternly.
"Enjoying the fine winter day with our favourite first-year, that would´ve otherwise been stuck in a boring library," Fred said with a smile and both the twins slung an arm over her shoulders again.
Jen looked frightened at Professor McGonagall, who glared at the twins. Jen was sure that she would lose house points and even get her first detention.
"Thirty points from Gryffindor for throwing snowballs at a teacher," she said. "And detention for both Mr Weasleys."
It took a couple of seconds before Jen realised that Professor McGonagall had only given the twins detention and not her, but when she did her mouth fell open slightly in shock.
"Hey, why don´t Jen get detention too?" Fred said indignantly.
"Because I hope she´s clever enough to not be corrupted by the two of you," Professor McGonagall said before walking away.
Jen breathed a sigh of relief as she looked after the retreating Professor, only ten points lost and no detention.
They made their way back up to the Gryffindor Tower, all the way there the twins were grumbling about unfairness and favourites.
((&))
The weather soon worsened and the few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver post had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again. It was because of that Jen had decided to not reply to her sister´s last letter and instead wait until Christmas to tell her about everything that had happened.
Jen couldn´t wait for the holidays to start. She was not only looking forward to the holidays because she missed her family, but it had also become very cold in the Hogwarts castle and she longed for the warm house at Rose Street. While the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had roaring fires that warmed them, the draughty corridors had become icy and bitter winds rattled the windows in the classrooms. Worst was Professor Snape´s lessons down in the in the dungeons, where Jen´s breath rose in a mist before her and she kept as close as possible to her hot cauldron.
"I do feel so sorry," Draco Malfoy said, one potion class, as Jen was crushing dried beetle eyes. "For all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they´re not wanted at home."
Jen looked up from her crushed beetle eyes and saw that Malfoy was looking at Harry while Crabbe and Goyle chuckled loudly. Jen glared angrily at them before turning back to crushing the beetle eyes with a bit more force than necessary. She angrily slammed the stone she was using to crush the beetle eyes with and yelped in pain as she had slammed the stone down on her thumb, which only made Malfoy and his cronies laugh harder.
Malfoy had been even more unpleasant than usual since the Quidditch match. He was angry that the Slytherins had lost and had tried to get everyone laughing at how a wide-mouthed tree frog would replace Harry as Seeker next. Then he´d realised that nobody found this funny, because they were all so impressed at the way Harry had managed to stay on his bucking broomstick. So, Malfoy, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Harry about having no proper family and being unpleasant to everyone who wasn´t Slytherin, especially Gryffindors.
It was true that Harry wouldn´t go home to his Aunt and Uncle over Christmas. Professor McGonagall had come around the week before, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays and Harry had been one of the first to sign up. Jen felt a bit sorry for Harry but understood as he had told her and Hermione about his awful relatives.
Ron had also signed up because his parents were going to Romania to visit his brother Charlie, but neither Jen nor Hermione had signed up as both would be going home to their families over the holidays.
When they left the dungeons at the end of Potions, Jen nearly walked into a large fir tree that was blocking the corridor ahead. The two enormous feet sticking out at the bottom and a loud puffing sound told her that Hagrid was behind it.
"Hi, Hagrid, want any help?" Ron asked, sticking his head through the branches.
"Nah, I´m all right, thanks, Ron."
"Would you mind moving out of the way?" came Malfoy´s cold drawl from behind them. Jen turned and glared at him. "Are you trying to earn some extra money, Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose – that hut of Hagrid´s must seem like a palace compared to what your family´s used to."
Ron dived at Malfoy, before Jen could grab a hold of him and stop him, just as Snape came up the stairs.
"WEASLEY!"
Ron let go of the front of Malfoy´s robes.
"He was provoked, Professor Snape," Hagrid said, sticking his huge hairy face out from behind the tree. "Malfoy was insultin´ his family."
"Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid," Snape said silkily. "Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn´t more. Move along, all of you."
Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle pushed roughly past the tree, scattering needles everywhere and smirking.
Jen glared after them.
"I´ll get him," Ron said, grinding his teeth at Malfoy´s back, "one of these days, I´ll get him –"
"I hate them both," Harry said, "Malfoy and Snape."
"Come on, cheer up it´s nearly Christmas," Hagrid said. "Tell yeh what, come with me an´ see the Great Hall, looks a treat."
So, Jen, Harry, Ron and Hermione followed Hagrid and his tree off to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were busy with the Christmas decorations.
"Ah, Hagrid, the last tree – put it in the far corner, would you?"
Jen looked at the Hall in wonder, it was spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls and no fewer than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some glittering with hundreds of real candles others sparkling with never melting snow.
"Now I nearly regret going home over Christmas," Jen said as she looked around the hall in wonder.
"How many days you got left until yer holidays?" Hagrid asked.
"Just one," Hermione said. "And that reminds me – Harry, Ron, Jen, we´ve got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library."
"Oh yeah, you´re right," Ron said, tearing his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree.
They started walking; Jen cast one last glance at the beautiful decorations as they walked out of the Great Hall.
"The library?" Hagrid said, following them out of the Hall. "Just before holidays? Bit keen, aren´t yeh?"
"Oh, we´re not working," Harry told him brightly. "Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel, we´ve been trying to find out who he is."
"You what?" Hagrid looked shocked. "Listen here – I´ve told yeh – drop it. It´s nothin´ to you what that dog is guardin´."
"We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that's all," Hermione said.
"Unless you´d like to tell us and save us the trouble?" Harry added. "We must´ve been through hundreds of books already and we can´t find him anywhere – I know I´ve read his name somewhere."
"I´m sayin´ nothin´," Hagrid said flatly.
"Just have to find out for ourselves then," Ron said.
"Yeah, and we will find him," Jen said. "His name has to be somewhere in the library."
They left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.
They had indeed been searching books for Flamel´s name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. Jen had looked through so many books that she had lost count of them. She had found many interesting books during their search, but none of them had Nicolas Flamel´s name in them. The cheer size of the library didn´t help either as there were tens of thousands of books in rows of rows of shelves.
When they reached the library, Hermione took out a list of subjects and titles she had decided to search while Ron strode off down a row of books and started pulling them off the shelves at random and Harry wandered over to the Restricted Section. Jen went into a row they hadn´t looked through before and started scanning the shelves for interesting titles before pulling them off the shelves.
Jen looked through the books she had chosen but unsurprisingly she didn´t find anything about Flamel. As she closed the last book and went to put them back on the shelves again, she started wondering if someone had taken all the books about Flamel out of the library. It would actually be quite effective if someone didn´t want anyone to know anything about Flamel.
Just as Jen put the last book back in its place in the shelf the librarian, Madam Pince, came around the corner wielding her feather duster at Jen.
"What are you doing?" Madam Pince snapped.
"I just put the books I borrowed back," Jen said.
She threw a quick glare at Jen before walking up to the shelf and inspecting it, she didn´t seem find anything out of order though as she huffed in irritation before glaring at Jen.
"Well, then you can go," Madam Pince said.
Jen hurried away towards the entrance of the library with an irritated huff. Madam Pince was more interested in books than humans and if you talked too loudly (or at all) in the library or if you put a book on the wrong shelf you were thrown out of the library immediately. Madam Pince knew the library like the back of her hand and knew instantly if anything was out of order and her hearing was incredible as she always seemed to hear if someone was talking in any corner of the big library.
Jen was convinced that if they had asked Madam Pince about Nicolas Flamel she would have been able to tell them where to find information about him but she, Harry, Hermione and Ron had decided that they wouldn't ask her as they couldn´t risk Snape hearing about what they were up to.
Jen walked out of the library and found Harry in the corridor outside. She shook her head at him, indicating that she hadn´t found anything and judging by Harry´s downcast expression she understood that he hadn´t found anything either.
She stood beside him and they waited for Ron and Hermione in silence. She hoped they had found something but hadn´t much hope. They had already been looking for a fortnight without founding anything, but as they only had odd moments between lessons so it wasn´t that surprising that they hadn´t found anything. Jen wished that they could have had a long undisturbed search without the threat of Madam Pince discovering them, then they were sure to find something.
Two minutes later Hermione and Ron walked out of the library and joined them, shaking their heads. They went off to lunch.
"You will keep looking while we´re away, won´t you?" Hermione said. "And send us owls if you find anything."
"And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is," Ron said. "It´d be safe to ask them."
"Very safe, as they´re both dentists," Hermione said.
"I´m not sure I can ask my parents," Jen said. "Peter is going home too and it´s a possibility that they will tell him." They had decided to not tell any family members that were magical about Flamel as Dumbledore wanted to keep it quiet. "But I can check the books in the house, if he has done anything of note in the muggle world there is a chance he will be in one of those."
((&))
After breakfast at the first day of the holidays Jen put the last things in her trunk and wrestled Silver into her basket before she dragged everything down to the common room where she said goodbye to Harry, Ron and the twins. After she had hugged them, they helped her and Hermione get their trunks through the portrait hole and down to the Entrance Hall where they met Peter.
As they walked out of the castle Harry, Ron and the twins waved them off.
Hermione, Jen and Peter followed the crowd of students who were going home over Christmas down to the Hogsmeade station where they boarded the train which would take them back to London.
The train ride was fun as Jen talked with Peter and Hermione, played card games and ate sweets, and when they arrived at Platform 9 ¾ it didn´t feel like any time had passed at all.
They pushed their way out of the train and on to the platform where they had to wait in a long queue before they were let through the ticket barrier, which separated King´s Cross Station and Platform 9 ¾, by an old wizened wizard.
When they had gotten through the ticket barrier Jen and Peter started to search for their parents while Hermione searched for hers. Hermione spotted her parents first and they walked together up to them and Hermione hugged and kissed her parents on their cheeks.
"Mom, dad, I hope you remember Jen and Peter," she said. "They helped us through to Platform 9 ¾ the last time."
"It´s nice to meet you again Mr and Mrs Granger," Jen and Peter said as they shook their hands.
"It´s nice to meet you too again," they both greeted.
They talked for a bit when suddenly something collided with Jen and nearly knocked her off her feet. When Jen had regained her balance, she realised that it was her sister that had run into her and were now hugging her.
"Olivia!" Jen said as she hugged her back. "I´ve missed you so much!"
When Jen and Olivia finally realised each other, Peter stepped forward and hugged Olivia too. When Peter and Olivia had finished hugging the three siblings turned and saw their parents politely talking with the two older Grangers.
"Well then," Jen´s mother said as she saw that her children had stopped hugging. "I think it´s time to go home. It was really nice meeting you Dr Granger and Dr Granger; I really hope we meet again."
"Goodbye, Hermione!" Jen called over her shoulder as she and her family walked towards their car.
Hermione called goodbye as she waved after Jen.
The car ride home would have been quiet if Olivia hadn´t spoken in an endless chatter while the rest of the family looked out of the windows and only answering now and then. When they were finally home Jen grabbed her trunk and Silver´s basket before running up to her room where she let Silver out and dumped her trunk at the foot end of the bed before she hesitantly went down to the living room where the rest of the family was gathered.
"How was the school?" her mother asked a bit stiffly.
"It was great," Jen said excitedly. "I´ve got a lot of new friends and I learn a lot of new things."
"So, you´ve not changed your mind about the magic?" her father said.
"No, and I have decided that I want to stay in the magical world," Jen said. "I want to study magic and I want to work with something in the magical world. The magical world is my world now, not the Muggle world."
Her parents looked at each other before sighing heavily and then looked back at Jen.
"So, you will do the same as your brother?" Mrs MacAvity said.
"Yes, I will stay in the magical world," Jen said.
There was a heavy silence as Jen and her mother looked at each other.
"Well then," Mr MacAvity said. "Unfortunately, we have to go, we got to finish up some things at work and then we will have the whole holiday free. We want to celebrate it with our children even if you have decided that magic is more important than your family."
Mr and Mrs MacAvity stood up and started to walk towards the door while their children said goodbye. When the door closed behind them Jen turned to her siblings.
"Tell me everything about Hogwarts," was the first thing Olivia said.
Jen and Peter told her everything that had happened at Hogwarts, Jen leaving out the troll and the Cerberus and what it might be guarding.
"Magic seems so amazing," Olivia said when they had finished their stories. "I really hope I will go to Hogwarts. I want to learn how to make things fly and change shape!"
"Yeah, I know, it's amazing," Jen said and looked at the clock on the wall. "Well we better start to make dinner so we can eat together when mother and father comes home."
They made dinner and when Mrs and Mr MacAvity came home, they ate the dinner under a heavy silence, that were only broken by Olivia´s usual chatter, before going to bed.