Previous Chapter - Tom introduces Harry to the Hidden Room and confirms that the presence of a Horcrux causes him to lose contact with Harry. He is now sure that Quirrell is possessed in some manner by Voldemort. After explaining that Harry's magic is not up the task of taking him on he alters his training priorities. A charm is cast on Harry during dinner that leads Harry to find the Mirror of Erised and Tom declares that it's Dumbledore that must have cast the compulsion.

Chapter 22 - Mirrors, Charms and Traps

-my-friend-tom-

It was during Harry's third visit to the mirror that Dumbledore made his appearance. Harry hadn't gone back the night after his first visit and had discovered that the compulsion charm was still pushing him to visit the room and actually got stronger if it was ignored. Tom had been rather concerned about that. He didn't think Dumbledore was the type of wizard to cast compulsion charms of such strength even though being his headmaster made such magic technically legal, it was a grey area.

Harry took his customary seat legs, folded on the floor in front of the mirror. He started clearing his thoughts as he prepared himself to look into it. It would not do to get lost within its depths. After Tom's explanation of the dangers he hadn't wanted to go back to the room at all as he could still feel the pull. However Tom had pretty much insisted. Not only was it the best way to work out what Dumbledore was up to it was also a good way of testing his mental strength in a way that Tom couldn't.

So focused was he that he probably wouldn't have noticed the second magical signature appear in the room except for the fact that it was so powerful. It took all his willpower to not react immediately as he the sharp spike of magic registered behind him. Tom always has suspected that he was being monitored or watched whilst he was at the room so it wasn't a total surprise. Still it was disconcerting to know that Dumbledore had been in the room waiting for him whilst concealed from all his senses magical and normal.

He opened his eyes and looked into the mirror once again to see his family, friends and most importantly, Tom.

"So - back again, Harry?"

Harry jumped up and spun around. He thought he should have got an award for his acting skills.

"Eh.. Professor Dumbledore. I didn't see you. I…"

Dumbledore smiled as he stood up from the desk he had been sitting on, "Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you."

'Might have been helped by the fact that he was invisible and concealing his magical aura.'

"Shush Tom"

Harry didn't reply. Tom had coached him to say and give away as little as possible.

"So you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."

"I didn't know it was called that, Sir."

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

Harry nodded slowly, "It shows me my family and friends."

Dumbledore nodded, "Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?"

Harry gave a small shrug, "People we care about?"

Dumbledore gave Harry a small smile, "To some indeed that would that be the case. Let me give you a clue. 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 already knew perfectly well what it did but he didn't think he should be too cavalier with his knowledge. "What do you think I should say Tom?"

'Give him a answer close to being correct. I want to know where he is taking this.'

"It show us what we want to see?"

"Yes and no," said Dumbledore quietly. "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. A starving man might himself in front a banquet. A poor man might see himself with an expensive house and enough money to live comfortably. 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?"

'Ask him what he sees Harry.'

"Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask what you see?"

"I? I see myself holding pair of thick, woolen socks."

Harry stared.

"One can never have enough socks," said Dumbledore. "Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books."

'Good poker face. Let's get out of here.'

Back in his room Harry confirmed that the charm had been removed.

'No idea Harry. If he did it whilst he was concealing his aura that shows a level of control that even I never had. Whilst concealing such a powerful an aura it's difficult to cast even the simplest spell. More likely is that he caught you as you were leaving the room. A finite on your own magic is quite difficult for others to detect at the best of times.

"So why do you think he wanted me to learn about the Mirror?"

'I think the key thing he said about that was 'if you ever do run across it.' He's setting it up so that when you see it next you'll know what to expect. Why, I'm not sure. However unless he detects and removes our tacked on tracking charm it will lead us to the Mirror's new home and we can learn more from there.'

-my-friend-tom-

Two days later Harry stood and stared at the door on the third floor.

"Oh joy."

'So he means for you to get past that creature. Obviously not using any of the methods I was planning so there must be an easier method. I wonder if he's going to provide more clues or if in fact he has already done so.'

"The broom?"

'I don't think so. Even if the trap door isn't enchanted against summoning open, also a spell that he knows you won't be taught till later years, I doubt he'd expect even you to attempt such a daring maneuver.'

"I could do it."

Tom chuckled, 'I've no doubt you could but until we know what's past the trap door I wouldn't suggest it.'

Harry frowned, now he really wanted to give it a shot. He was already visualizing the move. He would need to start moving outside the room with both door and trap door already open. A backwards loop above and out of the reach of the heads of the Cerberus would line it up and he could do either a straight dive or twisting dive if need be and make it through with at least a handspan of clearance above and below him. Excluding the creature it would be easier than the move he used during his race against Davies. Maybe once they had figured out what was behind the trap door he'd be able to convince Tom to let him try. He'd already read up on everything he could find out about the Cerberus and whilst they were fast runners their reflexes weren't supernaturally fast. They depended more on their innate resistance to anything actually hurting them and their supernatural endurance to outrun their prey.

As he was walking back to his practice room he almost jumped when Tom suddenly spoke.

'Hagrid.'

Harry ducked to the side of the corridor and looked frantically around, invisible as he was he didn't want to get stepped on by the half giant. "Where?"

'Not here. You need to talk to Hagrid about the Cerberus.'

"Because he knows all about magical creatures?"

'That and because he's friendly with you and Dumbledore knows it. He must have also set up your first meeting.'

"That means I need to speak to him alone unless I start telling Hermione, Neville and Ron more than I have. Not a good idea."

'Indeed.'

It was a week later that Harry decided on a plan to see Hagrid alone. It was going to be after his next defence practice with the rest of the Gryffindors but after Tom asked him to try a certain spell on his friends that plan was temporarily forgotten.

-my-friend-tom-

Harry swore again as he blew apart a second desk. As he turned his wand towards a bookcase Tom spoke up loudly in his mind.

'Enough Harry. You need to contain your anger.'

Harry hesitated but his trembling hand didn't lower the wand.

Tom gave a small sigh, 'Well, if you must blast something else take it out on the four poster rather than the bookcase with the possibly valuable books on it.'

Harry snarled and flicked off a reducto that sent pieces of the four poster flying in every direction though mostly into the stacks of outdated furniture that took up most of this corner of the hidden room.

As smaller pieces rained down around him Harry limply plopped down on the cold stone tiles and let his wand tip rest on his boot.

"On everyone that I thought was my friend. More lies. Maybe everything is a lie. Damn it, Damn it, Damn it. We should ever have come to this place. They all probably hate me. I hate it here. Lies Lies Lies." Harry switched back to swearing for a little while and Tom didn't interrupt until Harry started slowly down.

'On the other hand possibly the charms are preventing them liking you more.'

That caught Harry's attention and he cut of his latest curse abruptly, "That ar… What?"

'Then again maybe they have nothing to do with you at all and they've been cast on everyone.'

"But.. then… how…"

'Put yourself together Harry. If you have a thought or a question ask it. You're sounding like Crabbe at the moment.'

It took a few minutes during which Tom was mercifully silent until Harry had finally got his emotions and thoughts back into some semblance of order.

"Alright. Sorry Tom. You're right I shouldn't have acted like that or lost control. I had been bottling my anger up since we finished practice. Ehh… why didn't you tell me those ideas whilst I was heading up here? I could have calmed down before blasting anything"

'You need to learn to control your emotions yourself. I'm not going to be around forever.'

"I do wish you'd stop reminding me of that."

'Voldemort is not being idle here. Whilst here he has unfettered access to one of the few libraries that he most desires. You've already seen..'

Harry switched back to speaking aloud, "Yes yes. He's even spends most of his time studying books whilst our education suffers. I know, I heard you and I understand. I just don't need reminding all the time that at some stage you're going to abandon me."

'Harry!' Tom didn't hide the irritation and really Harry couldn't blame him. They'd had near this same discussion many times though somehow it felt a lot more immediate after what he had learnt this afternoon.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." Harry took a deep breath. "So what do we do? Do you really think they've been cast on everyone? How can we check without alerting everyone what we're doing and how do we remove those charms?"

'Slow down Harry. You're sounding like Granger.'

Harry opened his mouth to reply then stopped and brought his hands up to his face. "Tom! Do you think that's why she's been acting so.. so.. well bloody annoying? We have to help her."

'Actually she's probably the easiest to help. But first we need to find out if there have been more charms cast on you first.'

"What? On me? But don't my shields protect me from them?"

'To a degree Harry. I've always monitored your emotions and actions looking for signs of anything too overt so I'm confident that nothing too dangerous has been cast on you but such charms are insidious little things. Unless you notice them as they are cast then it's possibly that they are sitting there outside or even inside your shield doing their best to influence you. Your mental defences should mean that at worst their influence would be very minimal otherwise I would have had you undertaking cleansing rituals more frequently.'

"A cleansing ritual, to cleanse the body of charms, curses and dark magic. But wouldn't that affect you?" More than a little worry entered Harry's voice.

'No. Only a cleansing ritual conducted by a sizable coven of very powerful wizards would have a chance of working on soul magic. A self cleansing, which is what I'll lead you through, doesn't. It still will however quite effective on other types magic cast on you such as charms. It will also wipe out all your self protections and Dumbledore's trackers so you'll need dismiss yours and transfer his whilst you cast it so you can put them back afterwards.'

Harry groaned. It had taken ages to get all his personal wards cast to a point where Tom had been happy with them. For all that effort he had been rather disappointed to learn that at most, they'd give him just a little extra warning that ill intent magic was being cast at him.

'Don't be like that. It's good practice. However the first step is to determine if such charms have been cast on you. For that we need to revisit diagnostic spells.'

Harry groaned even louder that time.

-my-friend-tom-

The following month was difficult for Harry. Though he tried to act naturally around his friends it soon became obvious that a few of the more observant had noticed something and he had been questioned more than once if everything was okay.

Strangely though, spending time around Hermione had actually been easier. He found it very easy to excuse her behaviour understanding that it could easily be influenced by the numerous compulsions that he had detected on her. He had also managed to sneak in a few casts of the diagnostic charms on other students when he had caught them dozing in the library or common room. In every instance he found compulsions charms though never as many of those on Hermione or the rest of his friends.

As it was awkward around his friends Harry spent even more time than normal training under Tom's guidance. He didn't even complain that much when Tom pushed him to the levels of his endurance.

Tom had quickly given up trying to teach Harry how to unwrap a compulsion charm to understand the purpose. It turned out to be one of those things they you really needed to have a physical body to teach. He had quickly moved on to preparations for the ritual. Tom didn't just want him to follow instructions so Harry had to learn the fundamentals of ritual structure, creation and casting. Whilst there were similarities to wards and it used a lot of runes there was still much that was new to Harry.

It was three weeks before Tom judged Harry ready for the ritual and one late Friday night he was preparing the same corner of the hidden room than Tom had once used for similar purposes. After an hour of scratching runes out with the magical wax crayons he had crafted Tom was finally satisfied. Harry slowly fed his magic into the runes, entered a meditative state and then rather anticlimactically it was over. A quick diagnostic charm and he was happy if rather underwhelmed by the experience.

Knowing that it would be very simple for Dumbledore to check and detect their absence he cast the same number of compulsion charms on himself. It was the easiest way to deal with it and it wasn't as if a few very minor compulsions to tie his shoes after putting them on or brush his teeth in the morning was going to do him any harm.

He had also managed to make it to visit Hagrid alone. That had been a rather enlightening visit. It had taken almost no time to learn its name was Fluffy. After assuring Hagrid that he had no intention of going anywhere it without someone who knew how to deal with the creature, which wasn't even a lie, polite interest in how you could possible control such a beast had Hagrid explaining how, whilst Hagrid was raising the creature he had taught it to calm down and even sleep to music. Both Tom and Harry were surprised how easy it was to get Hagrid telling his self declared secrets. If it wasn't for Hagrids honest and open nature they would have assumed that Dumbledore had actually told Hagrid to pass the information on but they quickly guessed that Dumbledore was just taking advantage of Hagrid's inability to keep a secret.

-my-friend-tom-

Harry took out the hand carved flute Hagrid had given him as a late Christmas present. Coincidence or not it was turning out to be quite useful. Harry had already enchanted it so that it could learn and repeat songs played on it. He was a bit surprised and amused that his music lessons in primary school had actually turned out to be useful.

After a few deep breaths he bypassed the alarm and basic locking charms on the door and entered the room to face Fluffy. He was greeted by a trio of growls and the sound of massive claws scratching on the hard stone slab floor as the beast moved into position to face him properly.

The tune he played was that of an old a wizard nursery rhyme that he had found in the library. The song was quite short so he had the enchantment play it repeatedly after his first play through. He carried it with him as he edged closer to the Cerberus as he played. Tom had shot down his idea of leaving it in the room. What if someone took it leaving him on the other side of the trapdoor with no way of calming Fluffy down again?

Fluffy was yawning within moments though it wasn't until halfway through the third repeat till he actually went to sleep. Harry let the song play through a few more times till he was happy that it was working properly and Fluffy wasn't likely to wake.

"Hell, his paw weighs as much as I do." Harry complained as he struggled to shift Fluffy's paw from the trap door.

'Their bones and muscles are as dense as a giants hence they weigh proportionally more as well.'

Harry didn't answer, his full attention going to sliding the huge paw off the trap door. Once that was done he started casting charms on the fully revealed trapdoor.

"No wards, spells, locks or anything."

'Still be careful. It would be an arrogant wizard who would trust only to ward and alarm the front door.'

Harry eased the trapdoor open a fraction and cast a few more spells but found no spells, no wires nothing but darkness which he soon banished with a simple lumos on his wand. Well below him he saw a patch of plant that shifted slightly as he turned his lumus into a beam and waved it about.

"Devil's Snare?"

'I would say so. Easily avoided.'

Harry grinned and after a quick scout of the rest of the large chamber extracted his broom and enlarged it to full size. It was a simple matter to drop into the room and close the trap door behind him whilst hovering beneath it.

He flew over the devil snare and after a few more spells continued down the downward sloping corridor happily flying. Soon after the he found himself flying into a large brightly lit chamber occupied by small flying objects that on close inspection turned out to be winged keys.

'Tailor made tasks to make it a little challenging but not impassable for you.'

"Devil Snare is not quite tailor made. I've made sure not to stand out in that class."

'Maybe he expects you to bring Neville along with you.'

"You think the compulsion charms on him might be connected to that? He's been acting a lot braver and self confident recently."

'Possibly but I think his budding confidence is more a natural result of you and Hermione's support.'

"That's rather complimentary for you."

'When you've sunk as low as Neville the only way is up. Oh hell. Truly he's not a bad sort.'

Harry smiled and turned back to his task. He soon had spotted a single key that was different from the rest. It was a simple manner to catch it on his Nimbus. He was even more glad he had was using it, the four school broomsticks conveniently left in the room would have made it a lot more work.

The next room held a huge chessboard with massive carved chess pieces. The pieces literally glowed with the magic that had been poured into them after he cast a few detection spells from the doorway.

'Carefully Harry. It's likely this room has a no fly ward on it.'

Harry nodded and hovered a little lower as he continued casting spells. Tom was correct. He sound found a simple no-fly ward. However it was conveniently located on his side of the room and under Tom's instruction he created a simple hole in the ward for his broom. Flying over the board didn't trigger the charms that would have animated the rooms defenders.

The next room stunk from the troll that inhabited it. However it was sleeping and as Harry had disarmed the alarm ward that was set to waken it he had no trouble passing it by. He did cast a powerful sleeping charm on the Troll. It's effect would be reduced on the Troll but given that it was already asleep it would hopefully keep it asleep a little longer.

Sadly the next room had a much more potent defence setup. The doorway had a flame ward that was set to trigger once it was passed that Tom refused to allow him to cross. Inside the room atop a table stood seven bottles of various sizes filled with various liquids and a roll of parchment.

'I don't like that ward Harry. The flame that it produces is rather nasty and more than a touch dark. Are the potions bottles and the notes warded against summoning?'

A moment later Harry was grinning, "Nope."

After reading the note and conjuring some seven small bottles Harry took a sample of each of the potions and was surprised to see that each bottle automatically refilled to it's full level after a few minutes.

'Damnation. We forgot to check the bottles for alarms or wards. Quickly Harry check now. We might need to flee.'

Thankfully however apart from the refilling charms and some standard unbreaking and preservation charms neither the note nor the potions were warded or charmed and Harry soon had them all replaced correctly.

'I think that's enough for tonight Harry. It shouldn't be too hard to duplicate the potions you need to bypass the flame wards.'

"Okay Tom."

It took no time at all for Harry to fly back past the obstacles until he was beneath the trap door. Luckily he was able to ease it open and allowing the music to play through the crack for a few minutes he was rewarded with the sound of three deep snores.

"Thanks Tom. That was actually a lot of fun."

'You're welcome Harry. You did well. Go get some rest now. Tomorrow you can introduce the cleansing ritual to Hermione.'

"Yay."

-my-friend-tom-

Author Notes: Hope everyone had a good Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year. I had a break from fanfiction and have only just caught up on all the stories I've been following.

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Replies to reviews posted at wwwfanfictionnet/topic/135718/89507238/1/ (and yes, behind on these again, sorry)