He was unable to answer her question for a few moments as he stared at her, his eyes tracing the shimmering highlights through her golden hair, as his mind replayed the few syllables she had spoken in her gentle, silky voice. She was smiling shyly at him.
"No, this seat isn't taken," he finally replied, surprised at the levelness of his own tone. She slid easily onto the Slytherin table bench, and turned her body so that she wasn't facing Pansy across the table, but was looking at Draco.
"What was it that you were reading?" she asked, and Draco found it difficult to concentrate as her green eyes locked with his blue.
"Reading?" he repeated.
"When I arrived, you were reading. Was it this?" she reached across him to the book he had placed next to his plate.
If she closed her eyes, Heather could imagine the book perfectly; she knew that it was old and yet not worn, that the pages were thick parchment, and the dry, stiffness of the pages made them turn noisily. But what would Amber say next? Heather knew what she would say: nothing. She would have never gone up to a boy like Draco, never had the courage to speak first. Although she didn't consciously realize it, Heather more knew what it was like to be Draco. She could identify more with the fictional wizard in her story than with her friends at school.
She flipped to the title page, where he had scrawled his name.
"Draco Malfoy," she read aloud. Draco glanced up at her, his blue ey—
Heather gasped. Her screen had gone black. She hadn't saved. Not only that, but the lights in her house had also gone out.
"Heather?" Her mother's voice came from somewhere upstairs.
"Yeah, Mom?" she called back.
"Did you lose power down there?"
"Yeah." It was before dinnertime, so the house wasn't completely dark. She heard the grumbling of her mother, who was walking down the stairs.
"I'll call the electric company," her mother offered, as she walked into the kitchen, still complaining to herself.
---
Draco could have laughed. He was partially surprised that Amber could read. He was tempted to pick up the book and see what the author had meant by "scrawled", as he signed his name rather particularly when allowed to, but the book had vanished.
"Draco Malfoy," Amber echoed herself, smiling perfectly at him.
"Yeah. Draco Malfoy." It was ridiculous, the only conversation they could have.
Like some parrot, the girl cocked her head and smiled. Draco amused himself momentarily with the image of her in a cage, repeating her own words endlessly.
The Gryffindors had come over.
"Hey, where's Ginny?" Draco wondered aloud.
"She's not in this one," replied Ron, his tone indifferent as he seated himself across from Amber.
"Well, where'd she go?" wondered Draco. Hermione shrugged.
"The author must've forgotten about her," Harry replied. "Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be back for the next one."
They didn't understand. Draco was stuck with them in his twisted purgatory for more than ten years and they still didn't understand him. If there was one thing that any of the fanfiction writers had consistently gotten right, it was how misunderstood he felt.
Suddenly, the entire castle shuddered.
"What was that?" asked Draco. Ron hadn't noticed; he was staring at Amber, so he had an excuse. Harry was tracing the outlines on his fist, "I must not tell lies", and glanced up at Draco's voice. Hermione didn't move.
"The computer," she replied, making as much sense as much of the plot in the latest fanfic.
"What about the computer?" prompted Draco. Would no one speak to him in coherent sentences?
"It must have lost power somehow. The author was mid-word, the narration just stopped; I suppose the computer was either turned off improperly or she accidentally exited."
"And you assume the former because. . .?"
"The surge of electricity. Most likely, she forgot to unplug."
Around them, the students began to fade back in and the torches began to turn back on; and once again the suddenly flickered back out of existence.
"Strange," Hermione murmured. "The author should know better."
The flickering of light and the random jolts of movement continued for another second; finally, the fanfiction world of Heather solidified, and Draco found himself once again forced to pretend that he was seated at a table of friends, and only sixteen once more, and that he was actually in love with the shell-like parrot next to him.
---
Heather stared at the screen in disbelief. It had truly deleted all her past work. She had been somehow hoping it would have saved, but there it was, her story, barely a page long. She glanced over it, sighed, replaced her fingers on the keys, and began to retype her story.
The appearance of Heather at Hogwarts changed the atmosphere of the Great Hall. When he glanced up and found that she was gone from the teachers' table, Draco quickly scanned the hall to see where she had gone.
He felt a sinking feeling as he discovered where she had seated herself – at the Gryffindor table. As she spoke to Ron and Harry, he felt his jaw clench not only with the fury he was accustomed to feeling towards Harry, but also a sudden wave of jealousy that surprised him greatly.
Heather smiled sadly, wishing that she could be Amber for what felt like the millionth time in her life.
---
When Heather shut off her computer, Draco was surprised to see that Dumbledore left the other two teachers at the high table and strode out of the cold, dark, ghostly-empty Great Hall. Curious, he carefully got up from the bench.
It was a slight blessing that the story had been re-written; now, Ron and Harry were carrying on a conversation with Amber, as much as they could at least, and Draco was relatively free to sneak off after the Headmaster.
"Where are you going?" asked Hermione. Draco jumped; he hadn't heard her follow him.
"Common room," he lied quickly.
"You can get into yours when Hogwarts isn't awake?" she asked, sounding genuinely interested.
"Uhh, yeah," he replied, hurrying to catch up to Dumbledore.
"Hmm, maybe we just can't because the Fat Lady counts as a person. . ." Hermione mused aloud.
"Uh-hu," Draco replied. "Where are you headed?" he asked, hoping to distract her.
"Me?" asked Hermione. She stopped. "No where. Here is fine."
"Alright," Draco replied, as Hermione stopped to stare at the blank portrait.
"I wonder what this one was," she replied. "I suppose it doesn't matter now." She laughed sadly. "Tomorrow it'll probably be someone different."
She sounded genuinely sad. Draco glanced at her.
"I have to go," he replied slowly, "but I'll come back this way if you want to talk."
"That's alright." She smiled at him with a brightness he assumed to be false. He couldn't tell if it was just an act, or if she could truly change her emotions so quickly. "I rather like looking at blank canvases. They have so much potential."
"But they've already been painted on," Draco replied. He knew he should be catching up to Dumbledore, but, like always, Hermione's words were more than they seemed.
"Technically," Hermione allowed, still staring at the empty painting. "But to me, they just look like they could be anything."
Since he couldn't think of anything to say to that, Draco turned and followed the path he assumed that Dumbledore had gone.
He found the wizard standing in his office (the gargoyle had been frozen, luckily, with the passageway open).
A broken mirror stood in front of the oddly-empty desk. The only times Draco had been in the Headmaster's office had been during the times where Hogwarts was, as Hermione put it, "awake". Now, the desk was without the trinkets and shiny objects. The previous Headmasters' and -mistress's pictures of the walls were unmoving and unalive.
"Strange how much a little thunderstorm can do," Dumbledore mused aloud.
"Professor?" asked Draco, out of habit. He wasn't quite sure how to address the Headmaster when he wasn't truly a Headmaster, devoid of his pupils and much of his staff.
"The thunderstorm, that knocked poor Heather's power out, broke the Mirror of Erised."
Draco stepped closer to the mirror. Shards of the glass had fallen away from the frame, but he couldn't see the wood backing between the remaining pieces of glass.
"What did you call it?" he asked, staring inquisitively at the strange, dark shapes he could see between the shiny bits that were not reflecting him.
"Mirror of Erised," Dumledore replied, sounding distracted. "It shows your deepest desire. A pity it's broken; it was a good plot tool."
But Draco wasn't paying attention to Dumbledore's comments; he reached out towards the mirror. His fingers made contact with the coolness of the remaining parts of the mirror, but left no reflection. As he slid them along, seemingly invisible, he found himself reaching out only into air. Startled, he pulled back his hand. Between the mirror, there was emptiness; and yet, from the other side of the mirror, he could clearly see that there was a wooden backing.
The enigma, however, would have to wait for a later date.
"Come, Draco," Dumbledore murmured. "I do believe that someone else is beginning a story tonight, and it'd be a pity if we weren't there to act our parts in their strange play."