A mirror, nothing but a plain old mirror. Or so he thought.

He had run into it incidentally one night, way back in his first year. And he had never understood the meaning of it.

It seemed to be a fluke, but it was exactly what he had wanted his whole life. His emerald green eyes would stare into it for hours at a time and keep him from sleeping each night he peered into the round, shiny object. It seemed so mystifying, but so real at the same time.

He never understood the meaning of it, it seemed to be lying. He'd see his family, something he'd always dreamed of having.

He had his best friend look into it, and he saw something else. A prefect, a quidditch captain, a whole new picture than what the green eyed boy had seen. And he never understood the meaning of it.

His adviser saw him peering into the shimmering object one night, and explained what the mirror portrayed. It only showed what was in the eye of the beholder. That was what his mentor told him.

But that was so many years ago, six to be exact. The Mirror of Erised had returned to Hogwarts, in the same place he had stumbled across it in that first year at the school of witch craft and wizardry. His jade eyes looked at it with such awe and adoration, seeing the mirror that had shown him exactly what he desired. And this time was no different.

He saw a family as always, the family he never had. The family that he had dreamt of, but now it seemed to be mocking him. He couldn't grasp it, not with the future he had in store. Tears formed in his eyes of emerald, and this time he couldn't send them away.

He never understood the meaning of it, why everything wrong had to happen to him. No one could fathom why he had to carry the extra burden of every wizard and witches' lives. And to make it harder, no one ever would.

So he stared at the mirror, trying to find comfort in the one thing that he never possessed. And at one point, he did. He saw it when just one person was looking back at him.

He never understood the meaning of it until it had been explained, but this time no clarification was needed. He gazed at the mirror with watery eyes and saw a girl smiling, a girl he had always seen as a sister, but now he saw her as more. He saw the young brunette haired teenager with the brown knowing eyes. The one witch who was the smartest young woman of their time, and maybe even of the century. The one girl he could have a good time with without being known as the boy who lived. The one who he had known since he came to Hogwarts and had watched grow up, and develop from a tiny flower bud to a blossoming flower. He saw the girl he fell in love with.