As December arrived and the leaves continued to fall off the trees, the Fateful Eight continued their explorations throughout the castle, but they were but they were always bound to enter a phase of the regrettable lack of ideas for more adventures. That is, until one Saturday when Nathan had the bright idea.

"Hey, Victoria," he said slyly, one day at breakfast. "We should totally go find the Mirror of Erised later."

She grinned. "Remember what Dumbledore said though? Men have wasted away in front of it."

"Yeah, but we're not idiots, we're in Ravenclaw, Vic. And I don't think the others are idiots. Tom is a literal genius, he'll end up being Minister, I guarantee."

"Ugh, fine," Victoria said, and she went to tell the others.

"So," Eddie clapped his hands together once they were all gathered. "How should we go about this?"

"Well, if we go to the library," said Tom, always the strategist, "because that's where Harry was when he found it, we shouldn't have a problem." They agreed on that, and took off for the Erised room. When they reached the place, Lily, thinking hard, said, "I remember there being a suit of armor. You guys want to split up and look for one?"

This suggestion was warmly accepted, and the eight intuitively split into two's, according to their Houses. The search did not prove to be a tough one. Eddie was mildly and subtly excited, partly desperate to know what he would see in the legendary mirror, and partly unsure about whether he wished the others to know too. He could convince himself that the seven others were to be trusted.

A few corridors away, it was Claire and Sean who found the suit of armour. Claire quickly marked that spot with a hair tie she hung on the doorknob, and the two went to find the others.

After an annoying fifteen minutes of hunting for all of the others, the Fateful Eight finally stood before their discovery, filled with anticipation.

"So… who wants to go first?" Lily squeaked, excitement reflecting in her voice.

"I'll do it," said Nathan pompously. He pushed the door open and he stepped inside. The dusty Mirror of Erised stood in a corner and Nathan strode to the front of it. Engraved on the mirror were the words,

'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.'

On reading it backwards, it said, "I show not your face but your heart's desire."

"What can you see, Nate?" Victoria asked.

Nathan's face flushed, and he stammered for a moment. "Er..I'm...uh...Head Boy. Yeah." Eddie could easily tell he was lying, as he was sweating profusely, but he decided not to say anything.

"Really?" Victoria asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yep," he said quickly, but Eddie noticed the tone in his voice sounded off, as though Nathan was desperate for a change of topic.

"Come on, you can tell us," Claire urged him.

Nathan sighed. "Er… well… Vic… don't take this the wrong way… but… well… I'm married to you."

Victoria blinked. "Come again?"

"I'm married to you," Nathan said a little more loudly, still looking down at his shoes. The following awkward silence seemed to hang in the air like thick gas.

"Well, uh, that's what I saw in the mirror anyway," Nathan muttered. "See, Vic, I know we've known each other for like three months, and I know this is gonna sound totally out of left field, but- I feel different around you, in a good way. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to date-"

"Well, clearly, you are." Tom interrupted pointedly.

"-quite yet…" Nathan finished through clenched teeth.

"Oh..thanks…" She scratched her head. "This… er… isn't what I was expecting."

"Neither was I."

So from that awkward note, they progressed to Tom, who saw himself as Minister for Magic, to Natalie, who saw herself as Quidditch captain, holding the cup, and finally to Eddie.

When the auburn-haired Hufflepuff stepped in the mirror, he saw….

The eight of them.

Exactly as they were.

Without a difference.

But suddenly, the image began to change, like a timelapse.

Moving shapes swirled around the Fateful Eight, and they grew taller, as various members held trophies and earned prefect's badges, until finally the mirror stopped. They were 17, standing on the bridge just like the Golden Trio at the end of Deathly Hallows Part 2. Eddie struggled to hold back a tear as he watched it. He'd known these seven for only a few months, but he'd never had such a tightly-knit friend-group back home.

"What is it?" Lily asked.

"It's… beautiful. We all live, and we're standing on the bridge, like in Deathly Hallows."

"Really?"

"Yep." In the back of his mind, his brain suddenly had a nagging question, but he pushed it away for the moment.

They filed through the rest of the group. Lily saw herself as the first female lead sportscaster, Victoria as Head Girl, and Claire saw her parents reuniting, for, apparently, they'd had a bad divorce a few years previously, and she didn't share the details. Nobody asked, for she had a right to her privacy.

They left, rather in a good mood. Victoria seemed to have gotten over the shock of Nathan liking her and Nathan over the embarrassment.

Eddie told him,

"Hey, that takes a lot to admit what you saw. Proud of you, mate."

"Thanks. I do hope I wasn't too blunt…" He chanced a glance at her, but it was poorly timed. Victoria, who was huddled with the other three girls in what looked to be an intense conversation, noticed and burst into giggles, which turned Nathan's shade of red into Gryffindor crimson.

"Nah. You'll have to wait a bit before she likes you back though, trust me. Girls are weird."

They had a good laugh all the way back to the Great Hall, at which point they split up with their house pairs.

"Good luck walking back with Vickie," Eddie teased. Nathan grinned. "Shut up." The eight of them then returned to their dorms, happy with how the day had gone.

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Snow soon descended upon the castle, and with it, a sense of Christmas cheer. All around Hogwarts was having its traditional decorations put up, including the twelve Christmas trees that Hagrid dragged in.

The news that Nathan had a crush on Victoria sent a strange ripple throughout the group, and as such, the pair was the subject of much teasing among when they were seen remotely close to one another. Natalie suggested (jokingly, she'd claim later) that they should hang some mistletoe over Nathan's head and then lure an unsuspecting Victoria under it. Lily wholeheartedly agreed. The boys, for their part, rolled their eyes at the two girls' bubbling enthusiasm for such a prank, but decided to join nonetheless, a decision they'd soon regret.

They hatched their brilliant prank. Eddie was going to be seen talking with Lily at breakfast as usual, and then convince Nathan to meet him in the Room of Requirement. To ensure Victoria didn't hear, Natalie would start up a conversation with her in the Great Hall when she walked in, making sure to wake up super early so that she got to breakfast before Victoria did.

And it all went off without a hitch, for a while.

Natalie woke up at around seven o'clock which was plenty early for a Saturday, and well before anyone else in her dorm. Eddie and Lily pretended to be making plans for the day, which successfully piqued Nathan's interest. He walked over to the Hufflepuff table.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Hey, if it's not too much bother, do you want to have a one on one Quidditch game in the, er- Room of Requirement?"

"Oh, yeah, sure! Let me go get my broom!" He took off for Ravenclaw tower when Eddie called him back

"Sure, Nate! Meet me there, I already got mine!"

"Where?" asked Nathan, turning around, looking suspicious.

"Oh," replied Eddie, thinking fast, "It's… already there!"

"Really?"

"Really."

Nathan looked like he was about to dispute this, but just shrugged and didn't say anything.

When Nathan left, Eddie dashed over to Natalie.

"I told him I'll play him in Quidditch, you?"

"I just asked her to meet me, saying it was a surprise. She bought it."

"Okay," Eddie said. "She is a Ravenclaw, are you sure you couldn't have done anything better?"

"Probably, but," Natalie shrugged, "Oh well. Nothing much I can do about it now."

"Okay, let's go." They sprinted to the Room. Eddie walked past it three times, thinking of a Quidditch pitch. When the door appeared, he wrenched it open. He then thought of mistletoe, which appeared right into his hand. That was the easy part. Now where to hang it?

It was at this point that he began to debate with himself whether doing this was right or not, and it was a harder argument than he'd thought. However, he came to the conclusion that this wouldn't cause any harm, and that if anything, it would be a fun experience they could all have a laugh about, one day.

And he was brought back to the task at hand by a short nudge from Natalie.

He thought, 'Give me an archway door leading to the pitch.' The room complied. He opened the door and hung the mistletoe. He then wished for bushes to appear, giving the door an innocent, festive look. He then exited the real door and dashed off to Ravenclaw tower to head Nathan off and distract him while Natalie lured Victoria into the Room.

When Victoria got to the Room, she met Natalie, and the two girls opened the door. Victoria passed under the mistletoe-laced archway and gaped at the Quidditch pitch.

"So this was your surprise?" She asked. "Quidditch?"

"Yep!" said Natalie brightly. "I needed the practice!"

"And… you're going to practice against me, the least fit of all of us?"

"Yep. Er… well, I wanted to go against another girl, Lily didn't want to, she was reading one of her nerd lists, and Claire was doing a Charms essay for Flitwick. Come on, it'll be fun!"

Eddie met Nathan just in time.

He knocked, which was their pre-organized signal.

Natalie rushed a bewildered Victoria to the door, positioning her just right before answering.

Eddie said to Nathan, "You first."

The blonde-haired Ravenclaw opened the door and walked right into the trap.

"Oh hi, V-Vic,"

Victoria, with a rather calculating expression, turned to Natalie.

"This was all very excellently devised. However," she tugged once on the bushes, causing the elusive mistletoe to fall within their view.

Nathan was in shock.

"Wait, it - it was a - a prank?" His face had gone very white, like a sheet.

Meanwhile, despite the failure, Natalie and Eddie were laughing uproariously.

"Nathan, you should have seen the look on your face!" Natalie exclaimed.

However what happened next wiped the smile off their faces. Nathan looked on the verge of tears.

"Oh, Nate, don't…" Natalie said, "We didn't mean to, we thought it was a harmless prank…"

Nate was still standing there, with his face in an ugly spot between anger and embarrassment, unable to say anything. He turned and left.

"That was a real jerk thing to do, you know," Victoria piped up. "Bye." She followed him.

When Victoria returned to the Ravenclaw common room, she found Nathan standing just outside the bronze door knocker, staring at it. She gave the day's riddle ("What has to be broken before it is used?-An egg") and coaxed the inconsolable boy through the door.

"Hey," she nodded to him. "Sorry about that."

"What do you have to be sorry for?" Nathan snapped. "You didn't do anything."

"Sorry," she attempted a smile. "Force of habit."

"Stupid Eddie and Natalie."

"It wasn't their fault," she said. "They thought it was harmless. If anything it's mine for revealing the mistletoe. So you can scream at me if you want."

"If I didn't decide to go see that stupid mirror…"

"Hey," Victoria put a hand on his shoulder, speaking more firmly now. "It's not your fault. I've told Eddie and Natalie it was a jerk move to do and they felt bad. Come on, the holidays start tomorrow."

Nathan turned to her and smiled.

"Yeah, you're right."

As though on a second note, he added:

"Hey… you want to get back at them?"

Victoria grinned. "That's the spirit. Let's wait a bit so they don't expect anything."

Meanwhile, back at the Room of Requirement, Eddie and Natalie were still standing around in a stunned silence. Finally Eddie spoke.

"Shit, I feel awful. Hey, you know what, we need to get them a Christmas present, I'll ask Tom how to order from Diagon Alley by owl."

"Nah, I'll do it, I'll see him tonight in the common room."

"Alright, tell me tomorrow. See you."

"See ya."

They waved bye to each other and departed for their own common rooms, Eddie still feeling extremely guilty.

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The following morning, Eddie saw Nathan in the Great Hall. To Eddie's great surprise, Nathan didn't immediately start yelling at him, but he did take a glare from Victoria, a look that plainly said "You were such a jerk."

He went over to the Gryffindor table, and Natalie told him that there wasn't an easy way to order from Diagon Alley and still have it reach Hogwarts in time for Christmas. Eddie groaned. He decided to go to the Room of Requirement himself and see if he couldn't make a present of his own. Natalie agreed to help him, as the prank was her idea in the first place.

All afternoon they worked and worked. They summoned tools from the Room when necessary, but tried to make the present themselves. And when they were done, it looked as though it would suffice. When they had wrapped it up, in blue-and-bronze Ravenclaw-style paper, Natalie scribbled a note.

Nate, Vic,

We're sorry. We tried to pull off that prank as fun but now we see that was not fun at all. And you, Vic, as a Ravenclaw, would obviously have noticed the mistletoe. We really didn't think that through. Please take this present as an expression of our apology, and hopefully you don't hate us forever.

From,

Natalie Rogers, Eddie Pattinson

"Let's hold onto this until Christmas, we can give it to them then. Might be able to sneak in their dormitory on Christmas Eve. We'll leave it with Nathan."

With a definite uptick in mood, the pair departed the room, Eddie with Nathan's present in hand.

However, the atmosphere within the group remained icier than the weather outside. Victoria wouldn't talk to anyone in the group but Nathan, making for a long few days following the prank.