IX:
Reflections

Thanks to it I'm stuck with secret number three – My dreams, I dream of him, every night and the sight.
Especially of the sight.
I do not understand why it can't be real?
Lily

***
And with that I closed the book, laid across my bed. I thought about Jacob that kissed me a couple of nights ago, thought of my future, thought of my pale reflection on the alarm-clock in silver, I even thought about a certain someone that avoided my mind since I moved to this flat but mostly I thought about Lily. I thought about Lily a lot, about her hair, her eyes, her smile, her dilemmas and found peace in that they resembled mine more than I thought. Above all I thought about her courage, her future marriage with James and her admiration of Severus – especially of her admiration of Severus and about her future, the features we did not share. I lived when she didn't.

I was troubled in the darkness with Lily running around in my mind while I fell into a troubled sleep. It was the diary – no, the book's – fault that I dreamed of golden details, candle reflections and a vague, happy less smile that didn't belong to me or Lily.

All because of what I couldn't see – what nobody besides them could see – couldn't be a reality.

--- --- --- --- ---

14 January 1945
***

Dear Secret book, as I've decided to call this book from now on. Sev had his birthday as usual at the ninth; I do not know why his spooky friends (And Tibby of course) didn't mind his special day. I didn't neither (because he hates it) but that's not the point.
Point is, Sev did end up in the infirmary at his birthday because of those sickening and immature boys and it was his birthday… and I am a Gryffindor, and he was alone and… Oh, I can't justify what I did!

Secret number one -- I snuck OUT.
But it didn't stop there, when Sev finally got out WE snuck out (or I forced him too) but I had to show him my findings.
***

"Quietly" Lily whispered.
I was at a dark corridor in Hogwarts all the sudden, running and being hushed at (or not directly but that was how it felt) by Lily. Severus looked stricken by their mischief's but Lily clutched his arm tightly when she dragged him behind statue to stature and crossing the corridor we stood in an unnecessary amount of time. It was clear that she didn't do this daily although she had some skill in her.

"Lily, this is above the teachers room – if we get expelled" Severus started but Lily hushed him another time and this time even louder than before.

"It's just around this…"

Finally Lily had brought Severus – and me – to a door resembling all the other doors in Hogwarts. It couldn't hide anything special I guessed. Lily whipped her wand in the air with a kind of grace I never had and the door clicked to reveal the room hidden.

Lily stepped in first followed by Severus and I snuck in before Lily turned around, with me only inches away and locked the door with the same movement of her hand.

"You are getting good at the non-verbal's" Severus said impressive and Lily blushed.

"I read that book you told me about and oh, it's just those two spells…"

"I haven't got hold of it yet" Severus said stiffly and Lily mumbled something I didn't catch.

I was busy absorbing the environment I was standing in, I had never seen this room in Hogwarts, and never less thought that there was a room like this. I've heard about the Room of Requirement but that was destroyed in the Second War – my father is Harry Potter I should know – so this had to be something else. I couldn't even imagine why Lily would wish for a huge mirror with golden details at the thick frame either so the thought of standing in the Room of Requirement was quickly abandoned. There was not much to take in, just the flicker of the candles that played spookily against anything that reflected the light. The mirror glimpsed mystically in the middle of the room with some kind of aura sucking everything in the room towards it.

After a while of whispering and chatting at the door Severus started to approach me with Lily as his leader into the center of the room right in front of the mirror. I however was confused by the weird sentence on the golden frame.
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi

When I tried to hide from professor McGonagall (I would defiantly lose my badge for lurking around – especially after scolding Potter for losing 100 points last night).
I found this room with a mirror that showed the future. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. (So naturally I had to show him, him being Sev, as a birthday gift – although we don't do birthdays mainly because Sev of course). I know, just a mirror right? But I do not think that anything in Hogwarts is just a"just". Everything has its own magic I guess, just like this mirror.
***

"Happy birthday!" Lily said happily when she stood in front of the mirror and pointed at it.

I thought granny lost it.

"Birthday gifts? Why celebrate birth and not death?" Severus remarked and raised his eyebrow suspiciously but added

"What's the gift with the mirror anyway?"

Lily looked rather oddly at Severus and then at me, or at a spot left to Severus I assumed because I wasn't there, well not really.
She hushed him for being negative. We stood suspiciously a couple of meters away from Lily and the mirror, me observing the actual frame and the room and Severus observing the girl standing and pointing with eyes sparkling.

"You'll see. Come closer, stand here, right here!" Lily said and pointed on a spot on the stone floor.

"Here?" Severus said after approaching Lily.

"No, little more to the left. As close next to me as you can!"

Somehow I knew that Severus didn't mind standing so close to Lily. He stood so close to Lily that their arms were pressed together and it took about a second before he got the same thrilled expression on his face that Lily already have.

"Do you see us? We are so grown up!" Lily said so exited. I however saw nothing; I just saw the reflection of the Lily with her auburn hair braided into two, not looking a year older than fourteen and the thin Severus with a body that was slim and childish but started to turn into a man. I did as Lily said; stood closer behind them and something flashing of vivid red and black that I couldn't identify presented itself across the mirror. The candles that lid up the room flickered teasingly around the mirror and caused the illusions but there was something, something vivid red and black.

"I see us! Do you think it shows the future?" Severus stated, so chocked by the sight he saw in the mirror that his face locked his suprised expression.

Lily wrinkled her nose a little, "I don't know, I think so. Do you see the house over there?" Lily said, pointing to the left of the mirror.

"The light yellow one next to the forest?" Severus asked and stared at the same point.

"No – The white one where the black haired boy is playing with the snitch, that's home… I guess" Lily said and Severus nodded uncertain.

"I don't see the boy" Severus confessed after a while but Lily didn't look disturbed by this.

"Oh, don't worry he went into the bushes to find the snitch, but look how old we look! I have to be forty at least and you too" Lily said smiling. Severus looked stricken.

"Were not forty, we are twenty years and the house is yellow… I am certain that it's yellow" Severus said surely.

"Yellow? What do you see in the mirror?" Lily said now curious but somehow Severus felt preserved about what he saw.

"You tell me what you see first Lily" Severus said and observed Lily who didn't let her eyes leave the mirror for a second.

"I asked you first" Lily said simply and Severus was defeated by logic.

There was this silence, a silence Lily or Severus didn't think of because they were absorbed by the vision they had in front of them, the sight I couldn't see so I stood there and watched them dream away in private.

***
It was amazing magic. I saw my future or something that I wished was real, the sight was even better than magic (and magic is one of the best things there is).
I was all grown up, mature and I had a beautiful life. I lived in my own house and I was old, almost forty and Tuney was over for tea in my garden, there were daffodils, roses, lavenders and even palm trees in my garden (and I know that is impossible…almost). Tuney was so happy and she held with a wand in her hand, she was a witch too! Oh, and my son – he had black hair so I assumed that it was Sevs son too.
Were we really going to married?
I do not know but he was there at least and Tuney too, both happy in my garden.
***

When I heard Lily Evans voice fill the memory I understood why her eyes were so glossy and dreamy in front of the mirror. Lily stared into the mirror and saw a alternative universe of some kind and she had seen her actual son, my father playing with the snitch in a white house.
Happy.
She was old, heck – she lived, of course that was her dream.

"Please tell me" Lily pleaded with a voice that was absent. Severus regained some poise after a while, an ability he seemed to master and cleared his throat before speaking.

"Uhm, okay. I see a yellow house, next to the forest and I see Potter hovering by his ankles. So I did manage to make my own curse at least. Your turn" Severus confessed mostly to hear Lilys confession of what she saw.

Lily frowned. "Is that all?"

Severus nodded but it resulted with Lily laughing.
"How do you know that we are twenty – tell me what you see Sev and I will tell you"
Severus hesitated another second.
"I promise I won't laugh" Lily pointed out and grabbed Severus hand into her own, pressing it gently. This small gesture made Severus get some courage to start to speak, still standing and with eyes fixed longingly at the mirror in front of him.

"I see a lot of things, we -- we live together in the yellow house but I do not see a boy, it's a girl and she has red hair like you and she has your eyes. I think that's it's your daughter. She tears our -- the garden of lilies apart to put them in her toy cauldron and we sit on the porch, looking at her and drinking tea with my mum and mum is happy. For me, Tobias is nowhere and…"
Severus voice trailed off.

"And what?"
"And you – and you -- that is all" Severus ended rapidly but Lily didn't believe that his story ended.

"I won't laugh Severus" Lily assured him and pressed his hand even harder against her own. This was the first time I heard Lily refer to Sev as Severus and I realized that it was her interest, her curiosity or her seriousness in reminding him that she wouldn't laugh at him that provoked Severus real name out of her. Severus was a bit flushed by this and stared from the mirror towards Lily that hadn't moved her gaze from the mirror.

"You -- kiss me on the cheek and the little girl hugs me. I think she is my daughter too and… I think we live together because we are married… You have a ring on your finger, like the one I have" Severus ended and looked at his fingers that Lily had a grip on. His face turned gloomy when he realized that there was no ring on his or hers and the redness spread across his pale cheeks.

***
But Sev didn't see any of it, I thought that we would see the same things.
Instead, he saw Potter hovering by his ankles by his own spell "Levicorpus" (A sight that let Sev know that he accomplished to perform his own – evil – spell)
I didn't like the thought of Sev doing that kind of … evil magic in his future image. Besides hovering Potter he saw a yellow house, a girl and his mum. And me of course.
I thought the theory behind the mirror was like this; maybe, maybe he saw us with a daughter that had grown older and moved and then came this little boy I saw and that Tuney didn't visit Sevs reflection because well, she doesn't like him. Oh, and Sevs mum didn't visit my reflection because… She just didn't.

I really, really thought that it was a future mirror.
***

"What do you see?" Severus asked Lily. I saw how Lily thought quickly and then smiled.

"I see us too, we are forty. The boy is almost eleven and Tuney is sitting with us on the porch. She is happy too. For me, for us. I think that the boy is our son because he has black hair but I don't know Sev, I do not see the rings on our fingers" Lily paused, looking gloomy she added "but I don't see the girl"

"She is beautiful" Severus said dreamingly and didn't catch Lilys explanation in them not being married or much of her words overall. I assumed that he thought that she too saw them married or that he was so wrapped up in the sight in front of him to react. The ladder was probably the most accurate by the look of him, his eyes were feasting on the mirror ahead.

"The boy too. Oh, how sweet! Tuney just charmed his snitch back! I wish you could see how happy he is" Lily said dreamingly.

All the sudden Severus face broke from the dreamy stare and his voice sounded broken. As someone had broken him from the insides out and then repaired him to break him again.

"Did Petunia have a wand?"

I couldn't help myself so I laughed, to even consider Petunia with a wand after the stories I overheard Dad tell to Ron when they sipped too much Firewhiskey was funny but it was even funnier when I thought of Uncle Dudley with any drip of magic in him or of my annoying cousins levitating things. Lily however didn't see the flaw in that sight.

"Well, yes." Lily said simply.

Severus face twitched rather unpleasant in front of the mirror "So this mirror doesn't show our future, I reasoned that I saw the boys elder sister and… you know… saw her little brother" he said and broke his gaze at the mirror too look at Lily, standing next to him and taking a firmer grip of his hand.

"I thought so too, but why isn't it the future Sev?" Lily said with the same broken tone as Severus. "It might be"

"Because you saw Petunia perform magic" Severus said stiffly,"Petunia will never perform magic".

I didn't know why but I felt as heartbroken as they did and I knew that I couldn't have seen a more broken face than Lilys in that room, Severus pain was badly hidden in his twitching features but Lilys mostly warm eyes looked so, hurt and dim.

'… and I saw my mother happy." Severus added and with that Severus overtopped Lilys cold eyes with his dead ones.

***
But I realized that it wasn't and I should have known better than knowing that the future can't be foretold. But here is the biggest secret, secret book. I did know that the future couldn't be foretold; no magic could to that, I just wished that if Sev said it was possible… it might be real. I really wished, I really wished it to be true from the bottom of my heart. All of it.
But future can't be foretold and the vision hurt. It was beautiful but it hurt.

***

"We can pretend" Lily finally reasoned, still hurt but some of the hope flushing back to her face and mostly her eyes. "Let us pretend that it's the future and that your mum is happy and Tuney is happy and that there is this little boy and girl and that they are our and we are married – if you want to pretend that too -- and that we have a white house and …"

"It's yellow" Severus corrected, his eyes regaining some life by his suble remark and his lips playing a little smile, vaguely but there was a small smile that Lily replied with a nod.

"Yellow" Lilys soft voice said and smiled, just as vaguely towards Severus.

"It might be white if you want to" Severus added, reminding me that he was only fifteen.

"I like yellow" Lily said, still smiling that small tortured smile.

I saw how Lily sat on the stone floor with eyes feasting on her reflection, still holding the standing Severus hand. Severus observed the sitting Lily for a while before he became dragged with her in sitting position, both their eyes turned glassy by observing a reflection I couldn't see. They spent minutes in front of the mirror, admiring the sight in front of them still with their hands locked and shoulders pressed. When the candles burnet halfway and the glimmer in the room stared to fade away Lily kissed Severus on the cheek. Slowly, friendly and tenderly.

"I know I kissed you like that that in your reflection earlier" Lily whispered softly and rested her head on Severus available shoulder. "You kissed me like that too"

Severus looked stricken but Lily didn't take notice.

"It might not be the future but it is the best thing I've ever seen" Lily added with the same soft tone in her voice.

Severus looked at their joined fingers on his lap and nodded. His greasy head rested on top of Lilys auburn red hair. They both smiled to themselves, their bliss over each other's company shining with clarity in the little light left in the room. Severus sighted, yearning, and let his deep blacks go as glassy as Lilys passionate greens.

--- --- --- --- ---

A/N: My favorite piece, I adore this piece of memory very much. I hope I did the idea justice though. Thank you for reading yet another one.