I do not own Harry Potter.
After the drama with the unicorns, the centaurs, and Norbert, Aria was glad that Christmas Eve ended up being a quieter day. A snowstorm had sprung up a few hours after the dragon handlers from Wales had left, and so Christmas Eve was spent in the castle either in the common rooms or the Great Hall in front of the large roaring fire. The twins and Ron taught Harry and Aria how to play Exploding Snap and Ron attempted to teach both of them chess, though only Harry seemed to enjoy the challenge. Percy showed Aria the word searches in The Daily Prophet which were a lot more fun than Muggle word searches. Every time a word was found, it disappeared, and more blank spaces replaced it. Percy even taught her how to do the cryptogram though she was nowhere near as good at it as Percy was.
The other students kept to themselves or joined them in front of the fire. The four remaining Slytherin boys kept mainly to the Slytherin dormitories though Aria noted their glances towards her at meals. Teddy Lawrence, the only pureblood of the four, seemed to have either a perplexed or an overly thoughtful look whenever Aria caught him looking at her. It probably had something to do with the whole unicorn incident and the centaurs too. It was a bit weird, having the four's attention. She decided she'd get Percy's advice on what to do about them. Percy seemed like the sensible sort, not at all like Fred or George who, while fun to hang around, were a bit overwhelming in their enthusiasm; and she did not think they would have any useful advice beyond ideas on how to prank them.
Though perhaps that too would be useful information to have.
On Christmas morning Aria awoke to find Christmas presents all neatly wrapped on top of her trunk, which she kept at the foot of her bed. Looking through the labels she found presents from all her friends and, surprisingly, a long thin one from Professor Snape. There were also several presents from her dad in the pile along with one gift that wasn't labeled as being from anyone. She turned it over several times. It had her name on it and it was wrapped in a dark emerald wrapping paper with a silver bow. Who could it be from?
"Aria?"
Harry's voice outside her door had her pulling on her nightrobe and slippers. Opening the door, she found Harry grinning wildly at her.
"I have presents!" he cried, showing her his armful, his voice full of joyful awe. "Come on! Let's open them together! Meet you downstairs." He disappeared back down the stairs to the common room. Aria gathered her gifts and skipped down the stairs to where Harry had claimed the area in front of the Slytherin Christmas tree and the common room's fireplace which was, as always, already roaring and filling the common room with warmth.
"Do you want tea?" he asked, pointing to a table near the tree. Pitchers of juice and a kettle of tea was on the table, along with various breakfast pastries as well as bacon rashers and a cauldron with oatmeal. Aria poured herself a cup of tea and put a few rashers of bacon and a croissant on a plate, settling back down with her presents. Harry too came back, with more bacon on his plate and a muffin, as well as his cup of tea.
Together, they opened their gifts. Harry at first tried to open his gifts carefully, like he wanted to save the wrapping paper while Aria simply tore hers off and, eventually, Harry began to tear through his presents too.
From her dad, Aria received a book, The Hobbit, as well as more school supplies like parchment and ink and quills. The quills came in several colors like black, white, grey, purple, and blue. She liked the blue one the best, the color reminding her of pictures of sapphires she had once seen. Harry had given her a variety of sweets like Bertie's Every Flavor Bean, Honeyduke's chocolate, chocolate frogs, and a box of taffy in flavors she had never heard of like dirigible plum, butterbeer, and firewhiskey. She received Hogwarts, A History and a bookmark with a moving painting of shooting stars from Hermione; Ron gifted her another box of chocolates; Neville gave her a book entitled A Witch's Guide to Being a Lady with a note that said the book was a suggestion from his grandmother, so he was sorry if it wasn't something Aria liked. Aria thought it was very nice, if not a bit old fashioned, but she would probably enjoy reading it anyway. Lavender and Parvati had teamed up and gotten her some wizarding hairclips, similar to the golden butterflies Parvati and Padma wore. These ones weren't just butterflies; there were butterflies, bumblebees, ladybugs, and one was even in the shape of a bird. The colors were all deep jewel toned which stood out beautifully against Aria's dark hair. Daphne gave her some earrings and headbands while Tracey gave her nail polish. Glancing at the clearly magical nail polish, Aria wondered what sort of surprises the nail polish would reveal when she put it on. Lastly, from Professor Snape, she received a wand holster, its dark leather well-polished and her initials A.J.B were engraved on it.
"Hey, we've got the same middle initial!" Harry cried when Aria showed the holster to him. He had finished his bacon and had abandoned his muffin for Honeyduke's chocolate. "Mine's James. What's yours?"
"Juniper," Aria replied. "Did you like my gift? I know it's not much." She had had Professor Flitwick help her animate several homemade cards. She had spent a few of her galleons on the materials but hadn't wanted to spend too much even though Professor Snape had said she would receive a few more galleons through the scholarship fund to help her with any necessary school supplies for the second semester.
"I love your card," Harry assured her, opening up the card in question.
"What else did you get?" Aria sked.
"Hermione got me Hogwarts, A History," Harry said, "and Ron got me some sweets as did Dean and Seamus. Neville got me A Wizard's Guide to Being a Gentleman, apparently his grandmother suggested it?"
"Yeah, I got a similar one but for ladies."
"Anyway . . . Hagrid gave me some rock cakes, Theo and Blaise also gave me food though Theo's seems to be a sampler of cookies, and Blaise's seems to be some sort of Italian pastry . . . oh, and Remus sent me a photo album to put all my pictures in!" He glanced at Aria's pile of presents. "What's that one?" he pointed to the mysterious present.
"It doesn't have a name," Aria said. "I thought maybe I'd have Percy take a look at it when we went to lunch."
They went back to the breakfast table. Henry, Robert, Teddy, and Frank were all up now and were also helping themselves to the food and drink on display.
"I see you've both got quite a haul," Frank said, leaning over the couch to eye their treasure trove. "Good stuff?"
"Very good stuff," Harry replied.
"You two are going to make yourselves sick with all that candy," Henry commented.
"Want some of my taffy?" Aria asked.
"He's just trying to mooch off you," Robert said, digging an elbow into Henry's side. "He's got enough of his own sweets to go through."
"Does the firewhiskey taffy have alcohol?" Aria asked. "Like rum balls?"
"What are rum balls?" Teddy asked. Aria tried not to show her shock. Rum balls seemed like a natural sweet that would be in both worlds, but apparently not. A lively discussion of sweets between the wizarding and Muggle worlds ensued. Apparently, there were lollipops in the wizarding world called Acid Pops and Blood Pops though the Acid Pops were more prank candy and Blood Pops were used a lot as prank candy, but really could only be consumed by vampires. At the same time, there was no such thing as jawbreakers in the wizarding world and no one had ever had a Cadbury bar!
Around noon, after having taken their gifts up to their rooms and gotten dressed, Aria and Harry headed up to the Gryffindor common room. The holidays were the only time that going into another house's common room was allowed, Percy had explained.
At the Fat Lady Aria knocked and the two waited patiently for someone to come let them in. After a moment the portrait swung open and Ron grinned at them, a scarlet homemade sweater with the letter R in gold yarn giving him a casual look.
"You're here!" he cried. "Finally. I hope your appearance keeps my brothers from killing each other." Behind him Aria and Harry could hear the raised voice of Percy yelling at the twins,
"Give me my prefect badge!"
"Oi!" Ron shouted. "Harry and Aria are here!" The three entered the common room and immediately the three older red-headed brothers froze in their spots, Fred and George climbing on the furniture, a prefect badge held aloft in George's hand from his spot teetering on the back of the couch.
"Welcome," Percy said, smiling at the two Slytherins. He turned to George, yanking him off the couch. George fell to the ground with a thud and Percy yanked the badge out of his hand.
"Stay out of my room!" Percy snapped, disappearing up a stairwell and returning, without the badge, within a minute. Aria and Harry settled on the couch in front of the fire.
"This is nice," Aria commented. "You've got a lot of tapestries."
"It's very red," Harry stated.
"It's scarlet," Fred corrected with a grin, giving Harry's head a rub with his knuckles.
"These are for you," Ron said, handing Harry and Aria lumpy packages. "They're from our Mum." Aria and Harry hurried to open the presents, revealing that they had each received a handmade, knitted sweater in Slytherin green. Aria's had an A on the front in silver yarn, while Harry's had an H in the same colored yarn.
"This is amazing!" Aria cried, running her hands over the soft material. "I'm going to have to remember to write her a thank you note!"
"We've all got them," George told her. "Mum makes everyone in the family one every year. Bit of a tradition. Though one year she accidentally mixed mine and Ginny's up."
"A Weasley sweater basically means Mum's adopted you two," Fred explained. "She doesn't even make one for Lee!"
"Ron's obviously been telling her all about you two," George added. Ron's face went red with embarrassment.
"Oh, Percy!" Aria said, pulling everyone's attention from Ron just as she wanted, "I got this present this morning, but there's no note from who sent it. Can you see if it's safe to open?" She handed the still wrapped box to the prefect who pulled out his wand and began waving it around the box, muttering a few spells.
"Well," he finally said, "there's nothing I can detect."
"What did you do?" Aria asked.
"I cast a few detection spells on it," Percy explained. "Our older brother, Bill, taught me them, mainly so that I wouldn't get pranked by these two hooligans." He glanced at Fred and George who stuck their tongues out. "Basic stuff really, only picks up the standard schoolyard jinxes and hexes so if it's something really dark then we won't know until you open it."
"You don't think it's something to hurt Aria, do you?" Ron asked, alarm evident in his voice. "The Slytherins haven't done anything to her so far."
"Yet," Fred muttered. Aria eyed the present, unsure if she wanted to open it now.
"You can always wait until Christmas Dinner," Percy advised, "and let one of the professors take a look at it."
"Wait!" George cried. "I got an idea! Put the present down." Percy set the present on a side table and George pulled his wand, pointing it at the package.
"Dadlapio," he murmured, waving his wand in a circle. The present jumped and the ribbon was pulled off and the gift unwrapped, almost as if an invisible person was pulling the wrapping off. The white box underneath gave another hop and the lid opened.
Nothing happened.
Everyone looked at Percy.
"It's probably safe," he said. Everyone inched forward and peered into the box.
"Macarons?" George questioned.
"Macarons," Aria repeated, picking up the card that lay on top of the pastries. La Petite Macarons. The flavors of the macarons were written on the inside of the cover in a flowing purple ink: Dragonfruit, Pistachio, Chocolate, Coffee, and Lavender.
"You don't think they're poisoned, do you?" Ron asked.
"Shall we feed some to Scabbers and find out?" Fred suggested. Percy slapped his brother across the back of his head while Ron scowled and swore at him.
"Who'd give you macarons?" George asked, "and fancy ones at that?"
Harry gave Aria a strange look.
"What? Do you have an idea?" she demanded. Harry hesitated
"Someone from our study group," he finally said. "Those are the ones you tried, aren't they?" Aria looked at the box, thinking back to the study session that Draco had joined, bringing the macarons with him. Harry was right, she had tried the Dragonfruit, Pistachio, Chocolate, and Coffee macarons, but had not managed to try a Lavender one before those had been eaten.
"It wasn't you who sent Aria the box was it?" Ron asked Harry.
"I'd have said something," Harry said. "Plus, I've never been able to give presents before at Christmas, and I'd want my friends to know that I got them something."
"If these are flavors that only your friends know, then I'm going to guess that these are safe to eat," Percy told Aria. "Do you want me to try one before you?"
"No," Aria answered, picking up a lavender macaron. She bit into it, waiting for the other shoe to drop before she chewed the bite and swallowed. Nothing happened. She breathed a sigh of relief as did her friends.
Fred and George, now that the danger was over, immediately decided that they needed to begin a game of Exploding Snap and bullied Percy into playing with them while Ron and Harry got out the chess board and Aria sat and watched both games, giving her support to both Harry and Percy as they were clearly the underdogs in both competitions.
With Christmas over, Aria set about exploring the castle with Harry and Ron. They discovered many corridors full of empty classrooms, draped with dusty sheets over the furniture, cobwebs in the corners and between the sheets, chalked lessons long forgotten still on the blackboards.
A quick inquiry to Percy, who seemed to have an answer ready at all times much like Hermione, explained why there were so many empty classrooms.
"It's because of the Dark Lords," Percy had told them. "Most recent being He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but a few decades before him was Grindelwald on the continent. Both of them decimated the European wizarding populations. Plus, during Grindelwald there was a Muggle war going on which killed many wizards and witches too."
Several times, the three of them dared each other to go into the forbidden third floor corridor, but most of the time they chickened out, too afraid of what might be there, and too afraid of Snape and McGonagall's wrath. The one time they decided to go together Mrs. Norris appeared and they decided the third-floor corridor wasn't worth exploring if it meant getting a detention with Filch. Plus, Aria and Mrs. Norris got along, and Aria hated to think, strangely enough, about disappointing the cat.
Just before the New Year the three of them came across a classroom in one of the abandoned corridors of the castle, one that overlooked the Greenhouses and the vast meadow which stretched out beyond before dipping down into a small valley towards the farthest edge of the Forbidden Forest. Aria had not even realized how expansive the meadow behind the greenhouses were and decided that once the snow melted, she and her friends had to go exploring that area of the castle grounds.
"Hey, guys!" Ron cried, waving Aria and Harry over from the window to the one object in the room. He yanked off the white sheet, revealing a tall mirror with ornate metal carvings at the top. Dust flew up from the floor.
"A mirror?" Harry questioned.
"Whoa!" Ron cried, turning from side to side and looking at his reflection in awe. "This is so cool!"
"What's so cool about a mirror?" Aria asked, stepping beside Ron. She too gasped, eyes widening in surprise as she stared at the picture reflecting back at her. Beside her, instead of Ron and Harry, were her parents. Both of her parents smiled and looked so proud of her. Her mum even placed a hand on her shoulder. Aria had to touch her shoulder just to see how real the reflection was; unfortunately, her mother was only in the glass of the mirror.
"What do you see?" Ron asked.
"My parents," Aria and Harry answered. They glanced at each other, Aria's face growing hot and she was certain it was as pink as Harry's.
"Oh," Ron murmured.
"What do you see?" Harry asked.
"I see myself as Quidditch captain and Head Boy," Ron replied. "I look much older though. I think I make a very handsome Head Boy."
"I wonder what this mirror is," Aria said, peering around the backside of the mirror. "What's it for?" She gazed up to the top of the mirror, noticing the inscription at the top.
Erised stra ehru oy tube cafru oyt on wohsi.
"Erised star ehro oy tube cafru oyt on wohsi?" Harry read aloud. "Is it Welsh?"
"How would any of us know if it's Welsh or not?" Aria asked. "None of us are Welsh."
"We should get Percy," Ron stated, "he'll have an answer."
The three raced out of the room and found Percy in the Gryffindor common room trying to do extra credit homework. They dragged him off to the abandoned corridor and to the mirror, even though he protested most of the way there. Once in the room they shoved him in front of the mirror.
"Well?" Ron demanded, "what do you see?" Percy stared, slack jawed, at his reflection. His hands wandered to his chest, as if he were running his fingers over his reflection's robes. He glanced down at his left hand for a second before looking back at his reflection.
"Percy!" Ron cried, his voice taking a whining edge. "Tell us what you see!"
"I . . . I'm Minister of Magic," Percy stuttered. Ron rolled his eyes.
"Of course, you'd see that," he muttered.
"What do you think this mirror is?" Aria asked. Percy studied the inscription at the top of the mirror for a moment, looked at his reflection once more, then stepped out of the mirror's line of sight.
"You all said you saw things too?" he questioned.
"I saw myself as Head Boy," Ron replied, "and Harry and Aria saw their parents."
Percy was silent, a deep frown on his face as he studied the object. Aria shifted impatiently.
"I don't know exactly what this mirror is," Percy finally said, "but I think it has something to do with what you really want."
"Like, it shows us what we wish for?" Ron asked.
"Maybe. Or perhaps something deeper than that. Desire perhaps?"
"You'd be correct, Mr. Weasley."
The students whirled around to find Dumbledore standing in the doorway of the classroom. Percy pulled Ron closer to him and Dumbledore chuckled.
"Apologies, I didn't mean to startle you. I just happened to see all of you go off to some place in a such a hurry that I felt the need to follow and ensure you weren't getting into too much mischief." He smiled at Aria who grinned a little nervously. Were they somewhere they weren't supposed to be?
"Are we not supposed to be here, professor?" Harry asked.
"You are not anywhere off limits," Dumbledore assured him. "Now, I see you four have discovered the Mirror of Erised. It's a powerful magical object."
"What's it doing here then?" Ron asked.
"Hogwarts is a very ancient castle," Dumbledore explained, stepping towards the mirror. "It has many secrets hidden within." He looked the mirror up and down.
"Does it really show us what we wish for?" Harry asked.
"I think Mr. Weasley had it correct when he used the word desire. Desire is much different than a wish. You might not realize you desire something until you stand in front of this mirror."
Aria frowned. That seemed a little weird. Shouldn't she know herself well enough to know what she did or did not desire?
"What do you see, sir?" Ron asked.
"I see myself wearing the warmest pair of brightly colored wool socks."
"Wool socks?" the first years laughed.
"Yes. Everyone seems to think I want books, but all I really want is a nice pair of socks. You can never have too many pairs." He gave them another smile before he pulled his wand and sent the sheet back over the mirror.
"I will take care of the mirror," he told them, ushering them out of the classroom. "Now that I know it is here, it is best if I move it."
"Move it?" Harry cried.
"Yes, Mr. Potter. It is a powerful object, as I said. Many a person has wasted away staring into its depths, staring at their heart's desire, and forgetting to live."
Percy hurried them away from the classroom, taking them back to the Gryffindor common room where the first years settled in front of the fire while Percy attempted to get back to his homework, only none of them spoke, only staring into the flames of the fire until Fred and George barged into the common room sometime later, interrupting each person's own musings.