Chapter 12
Harry wandered through the castle with his feet walking and his mind off in Harry-land. The castle was so different at night, so quiet but yet so alive. It seemed that the ghosts and the paintings had their get-togethers at night, when noone was there to see or disturb them.

He had seen Professor Sprout once, out on patrol, but she had walked past him completely oblivious to his presence. This had made him bolder and more confident to be in the halls, on his own, at midnight.

He rounded another corner and found himself near the library. He must have been completely unaware of his route to have missed so many sets of stairs but here he was. As he had not brought any light with him, he carried on down the corridor. He could see well in the dark thanks to his room being a cupboard for so long. The corridor got narrower and narrower until it was only one person wide. As he explored further down it, he found that it just stretched on and on although it thankfully got no smaller.

He heard a whistling behind him and spun around. There strolling along the corridor was no other than the Headmaster himself. Harry started to panic - the corridor was seemingly empty but he knew that Dumbledore could not get past him, the corridor was too small.

Dumbledore got closer and closer and Harry started to run down the corridor away from him. The corridor continued but suddenly Harry spotted a door. Opening it gently he slipped inside. It was a large room but contained only one thing: a mirror. Still fuelled by adrenaline from his run but no longer scared that he would be found by the Headmaster, Harry approached the mirror.

"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." Harry read out loud to the room. "What on earth does that mean?"

He looked into the mirror, still wearing his cloak and stared at the reflection. It wasn't nothing, as he expected since he was invisible and it wasn't him as in that the mirror could see through his cloak. What it was however was fantastic and Harry sat down on the floor in front of it, still gazing into the glass.

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Albus often used the narrow pathway beside the Library because it came out near to his office and avoided several sets of stairs. His knees no longer liked stairs, but he'd be blowed if he let anyone know that he was getting arthritis. The symptoms could be relieved but there was still no cure for the ailment itself. He had a position to maintain, people looked up to him and he was still the only one Voldemort feared. If he gave in to this old age thing, then he would lose the respect and the status and the power he had built up over the years.

Especially now Poppy had custody of Harry. Harry needed to be shaped, needed to be guided, needed to be able to give himself up for the greater good when the final battle came. He needed to be there as much as he could in the boy's life and if he told Poppy he was feeling old age, she would be even more reluctant to let him train her nephew. His mind was still as sharp as ever, why did his physical ability matter?

As he brooded on these thoughts, wandering down the corridor, his eyes caught onto something shimmering a little way in front of him. It was the shimmer of something invisible. As Hogwarts Headmaster, he had the power to see everything in the castle, regardless of what concealment it might be under. The tint around the object showed him what said concealment was.

"I wonder..." he thought as he started whistling as he strolled onwards. "Yes! It is!"

Not letting on that he had seen anything amiss, he carried on down the corridor and saw the shimmer start running away from him. Albus followed the running shimmer until it suddenly vanished into the Mirror room. He carried on down the corridor, still whistling, until he was out of earshot and then silenced his footfalls and retraced his steps.

Upon entering the room he was surprised to see Harry hadn't taken his cloak off. He had expected him to drop it as soon as he looked into the mirror. Albus thought he knew what Harry's greatest desire would be: to see his parents. But looking over the boy's shoulder from a safe distance he was shocked. There stood Poppy and Minerva with their arms around him and looks of pride on their faces. Upon closer inspection, Albus could see that the Harry in the mirror had no scar on his forehead either.

Suddenly Harry turned sharply away from the mirror and came face to face with Albus. The two stared at each other for a long moment before Albus knelt down to Harry's level with a grimace.

"Good evening Harry" Dumbledore said

With a look of fear on his face, Harry bolted from the room and sprinted back down the passageway towards the Library. Once there he rested against the wall to catch his breath but then realised he had never taken off his invisibility cloak, so Dumbledore must be able to see through it. It also struck him then why the writing was so familiar - it was Dumbledore's! Dumbledore had given him the cloak!

Hary didn't like the Headmaster, he wanted to send him back to the Dursleys' and wanted to use him in some war or other or so Auntie Poppy said. He wasn't to trust Dumbledore or be alone with him at all. Those rules were easy to follow, Harry had never liked the old wizard especially after that first talk in the Hospital Wing and then learning that it was he who placed him with the Dursleys'.

He was scared of what to do with the cloak now, but he also knew that he couldn't stay here and wait to be caught again. He headed back to his dorm, vowing to himself not to go exploring after hours again and trying to ignore the part of his head telling him it served him right for both breaking the school rules and doing something he knew he shouldn't.