What to say before this one, hmmm...oh, right - Snape survived the war as one of the good guys and became Headmaster of Hogwards instead of Albus, problem? No? Good. xD

Seriously though, flame me if you like but this is the only form of therapy I have after Mrs. Rowling traumatized me by killing off my favourite characters. ;_; Don't be too harsh on a broken mind. Other than that - enjoy! /presuming anyone's reading this _ /

Chapter Three: Winds from the Past

Mimi couldn't believe that she woke up in an unfamiliar bed after such a wonderful night of undisturbed and peaceful sleep. Her dark blue eyes opened to an explosion of light and the girl sat up with a gasp, realizing that all the bizarre events from yesterday were not in fact a crazy dream, but honest to goodness reality. Mimi was in her pale blue nightie, she was squeezing Patchy in her arms the way she normally did, but this heavenly soft bed she was sitting on, the smell of fresh lavender in the air, the breeze that came gushing in gently through an open window full of sky, these were all new.

Mimi jumped out of bed, Patchy still in her arms, and climbed the desk under the window until she was kneeling on top of it and leaning out the window, under the fluttering, white drapes.

The moment she poked her head out into the cool morning air and her silky hair spilled down over her shoulder like black water, Mimi's nostrils filled with the scent of freshly baked bread and the bustle of the streets below reached her ears. Her window, ridiculously high up on the fifth floor, looked right down on the streets where people and cars rushed by to begin a new working day. It was strange to see everything down there so gray and mundane, when Mimi knew that she could but look over her shoulder and see a completely new world full of mystery, adventure and spectacular discoveries.

Bending over the window sill a little more, Mimi realized something.

"Hey!" she said to Patchy as she pointed downward with her finger, "I can kinda see into the entrance hall from here!"

It was true – if she bent down as much as she could without falling out the window, Mimi could just make out a little bit of the entrance hall through the tall windows.

"Look, Patchy, there's Mr. Puppy!" she giggled when Sirius' head of long and messy black hair popped into view.

He extended his hand forward and Mimi thought she saw another one – pale and lean – grasp and shake it. It looked like someone had come to visit…another wizard perhaps?

With an excited squeal, Mimi scrambled back into her room and dove into the dresser in search of something to quickly pull on. She'd spent her entire life not knowing that witches and wizards exist for real (though she had always suspected, to be honest) and now that she had the chance to meet another one, Mimi wouldn't miss it for the world.

She found her black, blue-stripped hoodie and pulled it on hastily, while trying to jump into her warm winter leggings of the matching design and then finally her beloved black skirt with many folds that always looked adorably puffed-up thanks to the generous amount of black, fluttery lace hidden underneath.

Before barging out, Mimi took a moment to examine herself in the mirror. She didn't want to leave a bad impression on her first out of family wizard meeting. All around it wasn't bad, except…

With a determined tug, Mimi pulled the hood over her head and combed out her smooth, black hair with her fingers so it flowed onto her chest by her neck. As always, her hair felt smooth and cold under her fingers, like a black mountain spring, bringing a pleasant chill down Mimi's back.

Now with her hoodie on, the girl nodded approvingly at her and Patchy's reflections in the tall mirror.

"Perfect." she said, "Okay, let's go get that wizard!"

She rushed into the hallway and just barely managed to avoid running into Teddy who was still in his pajamas and his long hair picked up in a tall ponytail, shuffling his feet sleepily to breakfast.

Mimi managed to just brush past him with a quick greeting.
"Mornin', Teddy!" she giggled before disappearing down the stairs, but she immediately popped back up, pointing at him, "Homigosh, you're so CUTE with a ponytail! Okay, bye!"

Then she was gone again and Teddy just blinked at the now empty space groggily. Wha?

Mimi ran both flights of stairs that separated her from the kitchen on the first floor, where she assumed the guest would be received, in the guest/dining room.

True enough, Sirius sat at the kitchen counter with the guest while Remus was a couple of steps away at the stove, making tea for everyone.

They seemed to be engaged in an active discussion so Mimi carefully snuck closer to hear if maybe they were gossiping about her.

"I don't know," Remus sighed heavily as he approached the other two men with a steaming teapot which he held carefully with both hands in thick purple mittens, "she seems to really like that toy."

Mimi froze up, realizing that they were talking about Patchy, of all things. Instinctively, she hugged her friend tighter and leaned in more so she could hear better.

Bravely, she peered out from behind the large shelf she was hiding at to see the visitor. It was a tall, pale man dressed in all black, just like his hair that fell around his face heavily. What Mimi's curious, dark-blue eyes were immediately drawn to on his face was his very prominent, eagle-like nose. But after a moment of blinking at it in wonder, she realized he had other distinguishing features as well. His eyes, for example. Unlike anything she'd ever seen, they were pitch black to the point where she couldn't tell the irises apart from the pupils. His mouth was nicely-shaped, but seemed unaccustomed to smiling, as if they had been perpetually frozen in the loose, serious expression the man was currently wearing.

This person had features that would normally intimidate children – he looked stern and severe and his manner of dressing didn't help either. But even so, Mimi had trouble actually being afraid of him, save maybe for the fact that he was talking with her adopted parents about doing something to Patchy, apparently.

Then, the man spoke and his incredibly deep and somehow lazy voice sent shivers down the girl's spine for some reason. It was so soft and yet so powerful that she could hear him perfectly well on the other side of the room, despite the fact that the man was clearly soft-spoken.

"Yes, thank you," he said sarcastically as he accepted a steaming cup of tea from Remus, "we are all aware now that I am a monster who likes to steal little girls' toys. But apart from that, you must consider one thing – this…toy…has managed to keep the girl hidden from the Ministry for nine years now. It is clearly a powerful magical item. We need to make sure it's not a leftover from…darker times."

"I didn't sense any dark magic from it." Sirius declared with a shrug, "I say if it's not bothering us, don't go picking at it."

"Very pragmatic." the black-haired man said dryly, "I'm surprised you've forgotten already that dark artifact can take on pleasant guises for very long periods of time. It could've disguised itself. It would be too hazardous to leave it in the hands of a little girl."

Mimi's heart froze as she backed away towards the staircase in horror. They were talking about taking Patchy away! No! No, no, NO! Not in a million years would she allow that to happen. Patchy had been there for her whenever people who were supposed to be her parents just gave her away as if she were a rag doll herself! In everything she ever did, he was her loyal partner and friend, he listened to her and kept all her secrets and when she didn't have a pillow, he didn't mind acting as one.

And now some scary man wanted to just take him away?

No.

She whipped around and dashed up the stairs again, nearly running into Teddy who'd only reached the landing between the third and second floor.
"Hey, what's the rush?" he snickered as the girl darted past him, but Mimi was gone a split-second after she appeared.

Barging into her room at last, the girl grabbed the backpack she'd packed for last night's expedition and climbed her desk, poking her head out the window.

This morning she'd appreciated the view, but now that she was contemplating actually escaping through it, the sheer height she was at made her dizzy.
"Okay…maybe I'll start off on a smaller scale…" she muttered and drew her head back in.

A couple minutes later, she popped her head out again, but this time from the second floor window.
"Right!" she sighed, "Much better. Hm…it's still pretty high up…and nothing to climb down."

She looked left and right for a possible way down before glancing down at Patchy.
"Hey…you're right…" Mimi said, a look of revelation slowly appearing on her face, "You know, I bet there's a mirror in one of the bathrooms I could use! And let's face it – if that secret passage is anywhere it's somewhere on the staircase leading up to my room. Okay, let's do it!"

A quick dash later, Mimi was on the stairway leading up to her room with a medium-sized mirror she'd taken off the wall in one of the guest bathrooms. It was approximately half her height and wide enough for her to squeeze through, should she manage to find the passageway.

Mimi moved alongside the wall, examining the reflection of every part carefully until she finally reached the top of the stairs and a cold breeze brushed across her face…from inside the mirror.

The girl gasped and looked down to see not the reflection of the beige wallpaper, but a drafty, gaping hole behind the mirror's surface. A constant, cold breeze flowed from it, but otherwise it was dark and silent.

Mimi hesitated for a moment, wondering if this maybe wasn't such a hot idea, but then she heard Remus call her name from the kitchen and gulped dryly. Now or never!

Careful to keep the passage in the mirror's reflection, the girl rested it against the wall and then promptly got down on all fours and extended her hand towards the dark surface. She half expected her fingers to hit the glass exterior, but instead they passed right through and she gasped – it felt like dipping her fingers in icy water.

Jerking her hand back, Mimi hesitated once more, but when Remus' voice called her name again, this time from much closer, she drew her breath in and practically jumped through the passageway.

It did feel like diving into icy water, but it only lasted for a split second where Mimi could not draw in any air and dead darkness engulfed her like black liquid. For that split second, Mimi felt like she had no weight of her own, no gravity to pull her up or down, but then a force yanked her down and she dropped unceremoniously onto something hard which gave under her weight and broke, sending the girl tumbling across a dusty surface.

"Ow…" Mimi groaned when her fall was finally stopped and she could sit up. A cloud of dust filled her nose and mouth and she coughed and sneezed at the same time, "Maaan, I was expecting something a little more…awesome."

She squinted to keep the flying dust out of her eyes as she looked around her new surroundings. Mimi has definitely found herself in some place that looked like an attic, if attics stretched endlessly in every direction and had such tall ceilings that she couldn't make it out in the distance.

Everything was tinted in a very, very pale shade of dusty pink colour, to the point it was almost pale gray. Old boxes and crates were scattered around the place and stocked up precariously on top of each other among ancient sofas covered in once-white sheets and old painting frames and dusty, dusty, dusty bookshelves.

Now that she got a better look, Mimi realized that she was in some kind of an…attic-like hallway, in lack of a better expression. In the far, far distance she could make out a wall made out of wooden planks that were nailed loosely together and, at about the same distance directly opposite from it was another wall, just like it. However, in the remaining two directions which Mimi dubbed 'back' and 'forward' in lack of a better name, the stacked crates and boxes and furniture and bookshelves just went on and on and on until they disappeared into the pale, dusty-pink fog in the distance.

The pale glow that illuminated her dusty surroundings was coming from between the cracks among the wooden boards that made up the both walls to the 'left' and 'right'. That light was probably the source of the odd, dusty-pink shade that seemed to have overtaken everything.

"What is this place?" Mimi wondered as she looked around in awe, "There's no way that this is a part of the house…it's made out of bricks and stuff, not- not planks! Oh!"

Mimi quickly looked around for the passage she'd come through, but it was nowhere to be seen and the girl hugged her stuffed scarecrow to her chest tightly.

"I…I guess we're not going back anytime soon." she uttered softly, a lump forming in her throat at the thought of the life she left behind. She already missed Remus and Sirius and Teddy.

A silent moment passed before Mimi suddenly huffed and straightened up.
"We don't have time for this, Patchy!" she told her friend confidently, "This is an amazing discovery and we have to explore it! Okay…wonder which way to go…let's see if we can check where we are through those cracks in the wall."

In the absence of a clear path through the stacked up old stuff, Mimi began climbing the nearest crate. Every move she made caused clouds of dust to fly up into the air and made it a little difficult to breathe, but she eventually managed to get on top of the crate and then climb the dresser next to it and then finally straighten up on top of it.

The moment she stopped moving, Mimi felt the already rickety dresser under her feet practically heave into the air before it started to fall over, bringing the girl along with it.

As Mimi went down, she witnessed the sea of junk heaving up and piles upon piles of crates, boxes, furniture and a bunch of other stuff moved together like liquid, creating waves of junk that climbed up and then crashed down again, making an unholy racket.

Mimi screamed as she fell, though mercifully she landed on top of an old sofa. She immediately latched onto the lean as the sofa buckled under her and then jumped up in the air, carried by shifting masses of junk piled under it.

"What's going on?" Mimi screamed as the sofa she was on popped up on the very surface of the swaying sea of stuff. It buckled, jumped and fell again but all in all it acted like a bizarre raft, somehow staying on top of the moving mass of crates, boxes and god only knew what.

"We're moving away from the wall!" Mimi cried out, realizing that the sofa was taking her to the middle of what was now a flowing river of creaking, bouncing, crashing and jumping stuff. All the junk was barely recognizable now, the constant crashing against each other having reduced it to a mass of splinters, scraps and rubble, but some items like the sofa Mimi was on right now managed to somehow remain whole and keep themselves on the surface.

A little ways away from her 'vessel', Mimi clearly saw an old portrait floating by and a bit closer there was a box and then a whole piano bouncing on the surface on its back, the legs pointing to the ceiling.

The sheer ridiculousness of her situation left the girl momentarily speechless – she was on a sofa that was floating on top of a sea of junk!

But then…
"Whooo!" Mimi giggled in delight as she did her best to stand up, holding onto the lean of the bed, "Yarrrr, me maties, keep 'er steady as she goes!"

She nearly lost her balance when her sofa collided with a large, wooden crate.
"WHOA!" Mimi gasped out as she barely kept her footing, "First Mate Patchy, we need an oar!"

Looking around, she spotted a long wooden pole that bounced along on top of the flowing mass of junk. Mimi jumped and doubled over the lean of her sofa, grabbing it just when it bounced up again.

"Gotcha!" she grinned and straightened up, "Alright, let's tame this sea, Patchy!"

She tucked her plushie into her dark blue hoodie so that only his head poked out under her chin and then grabbed the pole with both hands, using it to push against any large pieces of junk they'd float by.

"To chart these wild seaaaas!" Mimi roared as the heaving sea of junk carried her little sofa-raft away.

Lupin, Sirius and Teddy met up frantically in the kitchen after combing the house for Mimi with no success. Snape was, in the meanwhile, calmly enjoying his cup of tea at the counter.

"I'm telling you, she passed me on her way up when I was coming down for breakfast!" Teddy said impatiently, "She couldn't have vanished from the fifth floor!"

"Teddy, we checked there three times now," Remus retorted exasperatedly, his amber eyes now honestly distressed, "she wasn't there. Oh, I don't understand…why would she run away so suddenly?"

"Well, gee, I don't know," Sirius remarked sarcastically before shouting out the rest of the sentence pointedly in Snape's general direction, "maybe it's got to do with the DOLLIE MURDERER over there!"

"You think she heard-" Remus gasped in horrified realisation while Snape glared at his husband darkly, "oh no! We have to find her! Let's search again!"

"We've already searched everywhere, dad!" Teddy groaned, "Unless she went through that mirror she left in the hallway, I don't know where she-"

A sharp clatter startled them all and all three of them looked over at Snape who'd slammed his teacup on the counter and was already striding over, his black robes whipping around him menacingly.

"She moved a mirror?" he asked Teddy sharply, looking even paler than usually, "How big was it?"

"What-" the boy stared up at him confusedly, "What do you mean how- it was just an ordinary mirror from the bathroom, she left it on the staircase leading to the fifth floo- hey!"

Snape had already brushed past them and was rushing up the stairs, moving impressively fast, even though he wasn't exactly spring chicken wizard anymore. The rest of the guys had no choice but to hurry after him until they were all standing around the mirror that was just large enough for a little girl to pass through.

"Damn it!" Snape snapped, "She went through."

Teddy threw his arms up helplessly.
"It was figure of speech!" he cried, but Sirius suddenly gasped in horrified realization.

"You don't think…" he uttered in horror, "…that she found a reflection portal?"

"What, but that's- how would she even know about them?" Remus snapped.

"That's hardly important now." Snape said grimly as he shrugged out of his black overcoat, "She went through. I'll see if I can track her before she goes in too deep. Ted, go bring me something of hers."

The boy nodded mutely and then rushed off up the stairs, returning almost immediately with a small item and handing it to Snape.

The man nodded grimly.
"Very well, then I'll just…" he trailed off, staring at the thing he was holding, before snapping, "What is this, for Merlin's sake?"

Teddy took one look at the reddish-brown, shriveled, bone-dry apple with a smiley face carved into it so it looked like a bizarre, shrunken head…thing, and shrugged impatiently.
"I don't know!" he cried frantically, "It's the first thing I grabbed!"

Snape rolled his eyes and thrust the atrocity into his pocket, muttering all the while.
"…never mind." he ground out and waved his black wand, making the mirror flex and grow under a powerful non-verbal spell of transfiguration before glancing at Remus and Sirius, "You two wait here and be ready to destroy the portal the second we step out."

"Why don't you stay here and Remus and I go look for our daughter?" Sirius argued angrily, making Snape glare at him.

"Who here has the most experience with Dark Magic?" the man ground out in his silky, dark voice and smirked a little when no one had a retort, "That's right. Just wait here and…"

He trailed off for a bit before giving the distressed family a somewhat less cold than usually look.
"Don't worry," he said, "I'll bring her back safe."

With that, he stepped through the portal without hesitation and was gone a second after.

A moment of silence later, Remus, Sirius and Teddy looked at each other blankly, realizing something.
"He has no idea what she looks like." Remus said.

~TBC

Next Time:

"Miss Huggins!" a dark, deep voice suddenly called out Mimi's name from far behind her and the girl whipped around to see the black-clad wizard from before approaching her calmly from the now still sea of junk, "That's quite enough now, time to go back!"

"Don't you take ONE step through that door!" Snape roared, forgetting his efforts to be subtle as his Headmaster position kicked in, "I'm warning you- don't-"

"Accio brat!"

Oh, the update-thingy is working again. ^_^ Well, that's it for this week - leave a review if you're feeling generous. ;_;