James woke with a start and blinked a few times. His face hurt, and his hair felt slightly damp. He realised he had fallen asleep with his glasses on and they had imprinted themselves on his face. He took them off, rubbed his eyes, put them back on, and looked around stupidly.

His room. His desk. And he had one arm wrapped around a large stone bowl with a swirling mist in it. He must have been asleep facedown in it, hence the damp hair…

He peered into the bowl. Pensieve. He'd borrowed it from Dumbledore. Well…borrowed. Sort of, er, borrowed without permission. But he was planning on returning it, so that counted as borrowing. He just wanted one night, just for his birthday, just to see her face one more time. He would return it in the morning.

He yawned and stretched and rubbed his eyes again. It was—he squinted at the clock—a little past eleven. Ravenclaw Quidditch practice tomorrow morning, early. He should get some sleep. He would just collect the memory…he'd dropped his wand on the floor.

James froze as he suddenly became aware of the odd sound that had woken him; it had been lingering on the edges of his semi-conscious hearing. It was a short, high-pitched tone, repeated over and over again. And it undoubtedly issued from the wand, which was flashing bright red.

The Stone.

He leapt to his feet and snatched up his wand.

He'd set that alarm to monitor the door with the boggart behind it. If someone opened it, the alarm was supposed to go off…

Quirrell.

"Revelio!" he said, and from his wand issued a large, moving picture. But it wasn't what he expected.

"It's a mirror," said Draco blankly.

The room they had entered reminded Harry of the one with the Dementor. It had two doors, one in and one out; it had stone walls, a dirt floor, and absolutely nothing else, except the ornate mirror standing on little clawed feet in the exact middle.

"Not just a mirror," Harry said. "That's the Mirror of Erised."

"The which?"

"Check out the inscription."

"Is that some kind of language?"

"Oh, honestly, you wizards…it's backwards."

Draco's eyes darted back and forth and he mouthed something to himself and looked puzzled. "Is…how…not…?"

Harry sighed. "The Mirror shows you the thing you desire most."

Draco frowned. "So if you really want to get through it'll show you how? That doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe you have to be pure of heart or something."

"You pure of heart, then, Snape?"

"Er, I can find out, I suppose." He closed his eyes, stood in front of the mirror, and opened them again.

"Okay, one other thing."

Dumbledore smiled with ultimate patience. "Yes, Professor?"

"About that mirror. I mean, what if someone is just going to fetch the Stone? I mean, someone who doesn't want to use it. What if it's not like their heart's desire, but they're just supposed to go get it…?"

"Don't worry. I placed an additional charm or two. As long as they want the stone at all, and not to use it, that's what they should see."

Harry wanted to cry.

Standing in front of him was his own reflection, flanked by relatives stretching back out of the frame, even more people than before. And right in front stood his mother and father, smiling and crying and waving and nodding.

"Well?" said Draco.

"It's…I don't see the Stone," said Harry.

"Let me try."

"No offence, Malfoy, but if it's looking for purity of heart you haven't got a chance."

"Just get out of the way, will you?"

Malfoy peered into the mirror. He brushed his hair out of his face and his eyes widened slightly, then he looked down and reached into the pocket of his robe.

When he drew his hand out again, clasped in his fingers was a small, brilliant, blood-red stone, about two inches across.

"Er…wow," he said, gazing at it blankly.

"It must not be purity of heart, then," said Harry, also staring at it.

Draco blinked and then hastily put it back in his pocket. "Come on," he said, "we've got what we came for, let's get out of here."

"What about Ron and Hermione?"

"They'll wake up and get through, it's not like the tests are particularly hard, not with that troll knocked out…"

"Malfoy, we made a deal! You swore—only when we all get out! We're going back." He pointed at the door they had come through.

"Come on, Snape, you don't seriously expect me to go all the way through all that rubbish again just for those two imbeciles, do you?"

"Yes," Harry said, perfectly calmly, "I do. 'On your honour as a Malfoy', remember?"

Draco sighed rather theatrically. "Fine," he said. "Can we at least take the precaution of doing whatever it was you did to make yourselves invisible before, in case we meet something nasty coming back toward us?"

Working backward, as it turned out, was much easier than working forward. Hermione had woken up and treated her own head injury by the time they got back, as well as summoning the floating broom down from the ceiling. They already had the key for the troll door, the troll was knocked out, and they already knew which potion was the burn insulator. Ron was just stirring as they entered the Chess chamber, and Hermione ran over to help him as well. The chess men didn't require a game to head backward, the boggart was still regenerating, and the door back into the key chamber wasn't locked from this direction. The only tricky part, in fact, was getting Ron to take more of the Invisibility Potion.

When they reached the Devil's Snare, they mounted their brooms and looked up at the square of light far, far above.

"Now," said Harry, "Fluffy might be awake, so one of us should play the pipe. Probably me, since I can play and fly at the same time…"

"Yeah, right," said Draco's voice. "I heard you, ah, 'playing', before. Give it to me."

"What, like you could do better?"

"My mother forced me at wandpoint to take music lessons," snarled Draco. "Give me the blasted thing." It materialised as Harry took it out of his pocket and he felt Draco yank it away.

"Okay, okay, start playing on three, and that's when we all take off. You all right, Hermione?"

A faint whimper came from Hermione's direction. "It was bad enough when I could see the broom," she said.

"You'll be all right," said Ron. "Ow."

"I told you not to talk, Ron, you'll just hurt your head more…"

"Ready, everyone? Malfoy? One, two, three!"

James leaned against the wall and contemplating the wide-open door and the wide-open trapdoor beyond it. Fluffy's six yellow eyes glared out into the darkness and he growled out of his three throats. Really, thought James, it was a miracle Filch or Mrs Norris or some young rule-breaker hadn't come by and noticed already.

When he heard the music coming up through the trapdoor and saw Fluffy collapse, snoring, he tensed and leaned forward. The music grew louder and so did the voices.

"You go through first, Malfoy," said a boy's voice, "and then Hermione, and then Ron, and then me. Say when you're through to let the next person know to go, except you, Malfoy, give a blast on the flute or something…"

The music, James noticed, grinning in spite of himself, was a rather flute-y version of a Weird Sisters song, hastily and inexpertly rendered. It was suddenly interrupted by a short blast, and then continued.

James frowned and waited for someone to appear, but no one did. Then, to his surprise, he heard a girl's voice whisper, "I'm through, thank goodness." And, after a moment, a third voice: "You can come through, Harry, it's clear."

"I'm through," said the voice he had heard first. "We can close it now."

The massive trapdoor began to swing downward and finally shut with a soft click.

James leaned back against the wall and looked at the empty room contemplatively. He heard a flurry of whispered conversation and swift shuffling footsteps, and then the door closed, obscuring the sleeping dog from view. Only then did the music stop.

"Right then," said Malfoy's voice. "You said this stuff wears off in an hour? Brilliant. I'll just have time to get back to bed without being caught."

"Hang on a mo, Malfoy," said Harry. "We've got to talk about what to do with the Stone. Remember? Part of the agreement? You insisted on having as much say as the rest of us."

"There's nothing to discuss at the moment. We keep the Stone away from Potter and we…don't use it."

A long silence.

"What?" said Harry.

"I changed my mind," said Draco's voice, sounding impatient. "Granger had some good points. I was convinced; I only even bothered to go through with the thing because I gave my word. Here, take the thing. It's stupid, anyway." The blood red stone appeared as he drew it from his invisible pocket. Harry took it. "I'm going to bed," said Draco.

"Er, Malfoy…"

"We'll talk about it later," said Malfoy's voice, already half a hallway away.

Harry turned the Stone over in his hand once then slipped in his pocket.

"Well," he said.

Hermione and Ron were silent, probably from shock.

"We should…er…go to bed," said Harry.

"Right," said Ron's voice. "Ow."

"Don't talk, Ron," snapped Hermione. "We'll have to get you to Madam Pomfrey tomorrow; I think you might have a concussion."

"What about you? Ow. Harry said that troll dropped you on your head."

"Self-healing is surprisingly easier. I think the magic in you realises what you're trying to do."

"Well, you should get checked out, anyway," Ron insisted. "We have to invent some kind of accident to get us to the hospital wing together. Maybe you tripped me and we fell down the stairs."

The voices faded as the footsteps headed away down the hall. After a moment, James straightened up and took off at a brisk pace toward his own room.

Protect the Stone from Potter, eh? Well, let them think that.

If four first years could get past all those chambers, maybe they were more qualified to guard the Stone than all the teachers in the school put together.