Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I do not own.

The library was pitch-black and very eerie. Harry lit a lamp to see his way along the rows of books. The lamp looked as if it was floating along in midair and, even though Harry could feel his arm supporting it, the sight gave him the creeps.

The Restricted Section was right at the back of the library. Stepping carefully over the rope that separated these books from the rest of the library, he held up his lamp to read the titles. They didn't tell him much. Their peeling, faded gold letters spelled words in languages Harry couldn't understand. Some had no title at all. One book had a dark stain on it that looked horribly like blood.

The hairs on the back of Harry's neck prickled. Maybe he was imagining it, maybe not, but he thought a faint whispering was coming from the books, as though they knew someone was there who shouldn't be. He had to start somewhere. Setting the lamp down carefully on the floor, he looked along the bottom shelf for an interesting looking book. A large black and silver volume caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open. A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence. The book was screaming!

Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, earsplitting note. He stumbled backward and knocked over his lamp, which went out at once. Panicking, he heard footsteps coming down the corridor outside. Stuffing the shrieking book back on the shelf, he ran for it.

He passed Filch in the doorway; Filch's pale, wild eyes looked straight through him and Harry slipped under Filch's outstretched arm and streaked off up the corridor, the book's shrieks still ringing in his ears. He came to a sudden halt in front of a tall suit of armor. He had been so busy getting away from the library, he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. Perhaps because it was dark, he didn't recognize where he was at all. There was a suit of armor near the kitchens, he knew, but he must be five floors above there.

"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody's been in the library Restricted Section." Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. Wherever he was, Filch must know a shortcut, because his soft, greasy voice was getting nearer.

To his horror, it was Snape who replied:

"The Restricted Section? Well, they can't be far, we'll catch them." Harry stood rooted to the spot as Filch and Snape came around the corner ahead. They couldn't see him, of course, but it was a narrow corridor and if they came much nearer they'd knock right into him. The cloak didn't stop him from being solid. He backed away as quietly as he could.

A door stood ajar to his left. It was his only hope. He squeezed through it, holding his breath, trying not to move it and to his relief he managed to get inside the room without them noticing anything. They walked straight past and Harry leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, listening to their footsteps dying away. That had been close, very close.

It was a few seconds before he noticed anything about the room he had hidden in. It looked like an unused classroom. The dark shapes of desks and chairs were piled against the walls and there was an upturned wastepaper basket, but propped against the wall facing him was something that didn't look as if it belonged there, something that looked as if someone had just put it there to keep it out of the way. It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

His panic fading now that there was no sound of Filch and Snape, Harry moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at himself but see no reflection again. He stepped in front of it. He had to clap his hands to his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He whirled around. His heart was pounding far more furiously than when the book had screamed. He had seen not only himself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind him. But the room was empty. Breathing very fast, he turned slowly back to the mirror. There he was, reflected in it, white and scared-looking, and there, reflected behind him, were at least ten others. Harry looked over his shoulder, but still, no one was there. Or were they all invisible, too? Was he in fact in a room full of invisible people and this mirror's trick was that it reflected them, invisible or not?

He looked in the mirror again. A woman standing right behind his reflection was smiling at him and waving. He reached out a hand and felt the air behind him. If she was really there, he'd touch her, their reflections were so close together, but he felt only air. She and the others existed only in the mirror. She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes... Her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green, exactly the same shape... But then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time.

The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses and his hair was very untidy. It stuck up at the back, just as Harry's did. Harry was so close to the mirror now that his nose was nearly touching that of his reflection.

"Mom?" He whispered. "Dad?" They just looked at him, smiling.

And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry's knobbly knees... Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life.

The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness. How long he stood there, he didn't know. The reflections did not fade and he looked and looked until a distant noise brought him back to his senses.

He couldn't stay here, he had to find his way back to bed. He tore his eyes away from his mother's face.

"I'll come back." He promised in a whisper and hurried from the room.

Phoebe and Thomas were thunderstruck when Harry told them about the mirror. As Harry had expected, they insisted on going back that night to see it for themselves.

As for Harry, he couldn't concentrate on anything that day, not even what had consumed his thoughts for the past several weeks. He had seen his parents and would be seeing them again that night. He had almost forgotten about Flamel. It didn't seem very important anymore. Who cared what the three headed dog was guarding? What did it matter if Snape stole it, really?

As night finally fell and the last of the Weasley boys drifted upstairs to bed, Harry grabbed his cloak. The three of them fit under the cloak together, but not without some grumbling about the close proximity required, and they set off. What Harry feared most was that he might not be able to find the mirror room again. They tried retracing Harry's route from the library, wandering around the dark passageways for nearly an hour, according to Thomas's watch.

Just as Phoebe was whispering about the dangers of frostbite and how they were going to have to saw her feet off at the ankle with rusty knives, Harry spotted the suit of armor.

"It's here... just here... yes!" They pushed the door open. Harry dropped the cloak from around his shoulders and ran to the mirror. There they were. His mother and father beamed at the sight of him and he smiled back.

"See?" Harry whispered as his friends hurried over.

"I can't see anything." Phoebe protested bitterly; any excitement she'd had about the mirror had disappeared during their hour long trek through the castle.

"Look! Look at them all... There are loads of them..." Harry pointed.

"I can only see you, you moron." She snapped.

"Look in it properly, go on, stand where I am." Harry stepped aside, but with Phoebe in front of the mirror, he couldn't see his family anymore, just Phoebe in her black nightgown and combat boots.

Phoebe, however, finally saw something in the mirror. But wasn't her family, or even Harry's. It was herself, older, tall, better looking. But that wasn't all. She saw dark cloaked Death Eaters cowering in fear; she had her wand out and she seemed to exude power. Phoebe stepped closer and saw it wasn't just faceless Death Eaters that were cowering. One of them was a man with familiar black hair and grey eyes. Her father. Sirius Black. He was where he belonged, below her. She was a hero, taking out Death Eaters and murderers...

"Can you see all your family standing around you?" Harry asked excitedly.

"No."

"What do you see?"

"Me. And I'm... amazing."

"Let me see." Thomas shoved her out of the way to stand in front of the mirror.

He saw himself, his father and his mother together. His father was healthy and strong, his mother alive and well. Everyone looked happy. He reached towards the mirror to touch his mother's hand, but only felt the cold glass beneath his fingers.

"Let me have another look." Harry whined.

"You had it all night." Phoebe reminded him pointedly.

"I want to see my parents." Harry protested.

"I want to see my mom." Thomas shot back without tearing his eyes away from what the mirror was showing him.

"I want to see them cowering in fear of me." Phoebe said excitedly, trying to shove her way back in front of the mirror.

"You wanna what now?"

It quickly turned into a three way shoving match between the friends, which then turned into a full-on wrestling match on the floor. They kept saying 'don't shove me' while bodily shoving and hitting each other. A sudden noise outside in the corridor put an end to their fight and they froze, Phoebe still holding Harry in a headlock, Harry still lying on top of Thomas while the other boy finally stopped trying to bite him.

"Crap!" Phoebe cursed and the boys agreed. They untangled themselves from each other and ran for the cloak. Phoebe managed to get there first and she grabbed it from the floor. They threw it over themselves and froze again.

The luminous eyes of Mrs. Norris came around the door. Phoebe, Thomas and Harry stood frozen, hearts pounding, all thinking the same thing: did the cloak work on cats? After what seemed an age, she turned and left.

"She probably went for Filch." Phoebe whispered.

"We gotta go." Thomas said reluctantly. Harry looked back towards the mirror one last time and then they ran for Gryffindor tower.

The snow still hadn't melted the next morning, so the Gryffindor's stayed in the tower. They played games and made each other laugh, but Harry couldn't stop thinking about the mirror. It was too dangerous, even with the cloak, to go find it during the day. So he waited until everyone was asleep that night, which seemed to take an eternity.

He thought maybe he was being selfish, taking the cloak and leaving Thomas and Phoebe behind. But he wanted the mirror to himself again, without having to fight over it. He'd take the two of them under the cloak another time...

That night he found his way more quickly than before. He was walking so fast he knew he was making more noise than was wise, but he didn't meet anyone.

And there were his mother and father smiling at him again, and one of his grandfathers nodding happily. Harry sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying here all night with his family. Nothing at all. Except...

"So, back again, Harry?" Harry felt as though his insides had turned to ice. He looked behind him. Sitting on one of the desks by the wall was none other than Albus Dumbledore. Harry must have walked straight past him, so desperate to get to the mirror he hadn't noticed him.

"I didn't see you, sir." He admitted, scrambling to his feet.

"Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you." Dumbledore mused and Harry was relieved to see that he was smiling. "So you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised." Dumbledore stood up and walked over to stand next to Harry.

"I didn't know it was called that, sir." It seemed the least dangerous thing to admit.

"But I expect you've realized by now what it does?"

"It... well... it shows me my family..." Harry stammered.

"And it showed your friends other things."

"How did you know-?"

"I don't need a cloak to become invisible." Dumbledore told him gently. "Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?"

Harry looked back at the mirror, at his mother's smiling face and his father's gleaming eyes. He shook his head.

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help?" Harry thought. Then he said slowly:

"It shows us what we want... whatever we want..."

"Yes and no. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Thomas Lupin, who lost his mother too young, sees her standing before him once more. Phoebe Black, who has been put down her whole life, sees herself with the power to make others too afraid to hurt her. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?"

"Sir... Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?"

"Obviously, you've just done so." Dumbledore smiled. "You may ask me one more thing, however."

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks." Harry stared at him. "One can never have enough socks. Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Harry that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful. But then, he thought, as he stored his cloak away in his trunk once more, it had been quite a personal question.