DISCLAIMER: Since I'm writing fanfiction and not bestsellers, it can be safely surmised that I'm not J.K Rowling and consequently I do not own any of these wonderful people I'm writing about. By the way, the mirror spell used is my invention, so..You Know What You Oughtn't Do!

-Chapter Nine-

Behind The Mirror

Mirror, mirror on the wall,

Reveal your secrets to us all!

" This is a magical mirror, Harry. There is no doubt about it. The question is, how does it work?" said Hermione, crouching on her knees in front of the newly mended mirror.

"There seems to be no clues in runes or codes in the frame. But there must be something, some inscription or some charm or.."

"Will you stop talking to yourself?" asked Ron, " Its really annoying you know."

"Fine!" snapped Hermione, " why don't you find out how it works?"

"I get it guys," said Harry tiredly, " you two will probably end up fighting on the alter. But can you defer it now?"

Ron and Hermione suddenly became extremely busy in looking away from each other, which gave him time to walk around the mirror and exclaim gloomily, " Stupid mirror, why doesn't it reveal its secret?"

Hermione jumped, startling both Harry and Ron. "I think I've got it," she said excitedly, "you've given me an idea." And drawing her wand, she said, "Eikono Revealio!"

The images disappeared, the golden shimmer increased and they found themselves looking at a flight of stairs that descended downwards.

"Ooh!" said Hermione, "these are called trysure-glasses. I've read about them, should've recognized right away."

Ron opened his mouth to say something, obviously not polite to go by his looks, but changed his mind after a hasty glance at Harry, his face as red as his hair.

" Let's go in." said Harry matter-of-factly.

"But Harry, it could be dangerous!" Hermione exclaimed.

"Dangerous?" repeated Harry. "Honestly Hermione, this was my parents' house!" Without waiting for them he descended down the stairs and heard two pairs of footsteps following him. At the foot was a very small chamber with roughly hewn stonewalls and a single small vault on the wall facing the stairs.

"These were used to hide treasures in the medieval period," whispered Hermione, " there are more effective widgets in modern times though, so these are really not much worth unless one is interested in historical stuffs. Harry? Are you all right? "

Her voice roused Harry who had been lost in thoughts. " I'm ok," said he, " I was only wondering why they didn't hide here when.." his voice trailed off.

" Voldemort must have come suddenly you know, so they wouldn't have time, and anyway if they had hid here Voldemort would find out, I told you these are not really very effective hiding places, so we can't really expect to find anything valuable here." Hermione finished and added as an afterthought, "But off course, anything that belonged to your parents must be valuable to you."

A blackened silver key was dangling from the keyhole of the vault. Harry stepped forward and turned the key. Nothing happened. He tried a second, third, fourth and fifth time without any result. He took the key out and observed it in his wand-light. It was rather broad. On one side, he noticed the engraved signature of his father and a runic inscription which Hermione translated as a 'the right person'.. The other side resembled a muggle number-lock with the exception that it had letters instead of numbers. A five-letter code, that was what he needed to find out. He tried J-A-M-E-S, then H-A-R-R-Y. 'LILY' had only four letters, so it couldn't be the solution. He tried again: E-V-A-N-S, B-L-A-C-K, L-U-P-I-N, R-E-M-U-S, M-O-O-N-Y, P-E-T-E-R; what was it?

"Don't you think these are pretty obvious?" said Hermione, watching over his shoulder. "Anybody who knew your dad would try these solutions. I think it has to be something unexpected."

Unexpected! Now that was a real hitch. How was Harry supposed to guess the password? He could see Hermione had a point, everybody knew who his dad's friends were so anybody would think of them. Suddenly an idea occurred to him, everybody would think of the friends first, but what about the enemies? He quickly rearranged the letters into S-N-A-P-E. The vault opened with one slight turn of the key. Feeling slightly amused at his father, but with his hatred against Snape reawakened at the same time, Harry stepped inside.

Inside the vault was a cloth folder, a coil of strange looking rope, a few dusty crystal bottles containing unknown potions and some strange looking gold instruments.

"WOW!" Said Ron, "What are these things?"

"I think I know," said Hermione, "Harry, were your parents veroudostoffs?"

"No idea, and what exactly does that mean?"

With a typical "oh don't you ever read?" look Hermione began her explanation.

"Veroudostoffy," she said, "deals with the discovery and study of magical objects having historical value, similar to muggle archaeology, yes I was right, here look." She pointed at the folder. On it was embroidered in gold the words: The British Society of Veroudostoffy, a Ministry of Magic Organization. Harry opened the folder. Inside were rolls of parchments, documents, and official-looking letters.

"Let's take these things from here, its stifling hot." Said Ron.

They had reached the end of the village. Harry was leafing through the parchments in his hands while Hermione was talking about the nature and use of the potions they had discovered.

"Harry," said Ron suddenly in a tense voice. Startled, they both looked up.

They were standing within a few metres of a new group of people who had apparently just apparated there. Lord Voldemort and his deatheaters had arrived.

Chapter10:The Lost Locket

N.B: horcrux coming soon!