I do not own Harry Potter, the Wizarding World, or any canon characters.
Extended Family
Chapter 138 – Mirror Mirror
Takes place before chapter 139 of Family.
"Hey Harry!" Sirius smiled at Harry's image in the small mirror. "What's up?"
"I had a question. How did you get the two-way mirrors?" Harry asked.
"Your dad and I made them," Sirius said proudly. "We were thinking of a way to communicate on the sly since a popular detention was to separate us. I think McGonaMum said that if we were in detention together, the person watching us for the detention was the one being punished and not the other way 'round."
Harry snorted. "That's funny. Do you remember how to make them?"
"Honestly? Not off the top of my head. But I'm sure I could probably figure it out again. Actually, I'm pretty sure I have the notes somewhere. You want to make some more?"
"If it's possible. I thought it'd be a good gift for Hermione and her parents and Auntie Andi," Harry said.
"Yeah you're right. Not to mention if we figure it out proper like, we might be able to make it a thing for sale and the like. Let me go poke about and look for the notes. See if you can come by one afternoon and evening and I bet we can figure it out. Let me get Remus in on it too. He might have helped us way back."
"Thanks! Sounds like a plan."
"Sure does! It can't be that hard if James and I did it when we were kids," Sirius laughed.
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"I take it you were unsuccessful?" Remus asked dryly.
"What? No, I found my stuff. I'm surprised it wasn't burned to ashes or something like that," Sirius said. He saw among piles of parchment and notebooks and dust and debris. "The problem is that none of it was really organized and all my stuff from all seven years was mixed together, so I'm trying to find the relevant bits."
"Sounds like you," Remus snorted. He opened a notebook. "Ah, this was from fifth year."
"How do you know?" Harry asked. He and Remus had left Hogwarts for the afternoon for Grimmauld when Sirius told them that he had found his things. Harry brought his mirror as well as his rune kit.
"Because there is a drawing of Felicity MacDonald in this notebook," Remus said with a small smile.
"Oh right, we dated during fifth year," Sirius smiled.
"I didn't know you drew," Harry smiled. "Can I see?"
"You shouldn't, it is rather risqué," Remus said and closed the notebook.
"Oh yeah, I did that too," Sirius said with a sheepish expression. "In my defense, she wanted to be my model."
"I recall," Remus said. He picked up another notebook. "Oh wait, I think this has promise." He showed the other two. "Pictures of the mirrors and some diagrams."
"Yeah, those are it!" Sirius took the notebook and put it on the table, opening it completely.
"That is some messy handwriting, and for me, that's saying something," Harry grinned.
"James had some terrible handwriting too," Remus said fondly. He narrowed his eyes. "That looks even worse than what I remembered, however." He leaned over the notebook. "So is yours."
"Yeah, I wonder how that happened." Sirius frowned. "There's some water damage. Maybe they got wet somehow and it ruined the paper."
Remus sniffed a few times. "Or maybe you two were drinking?" Remus sighed.
"Ohhhh you know, that would explain some things," Sirius said with dawning realization. "No wonder I barely remember how we made the mirrors."
"Really?" Harry asked, eyebrow raised.
"Hey, lots of people drink at Hogwarts," Sirius said indignantly. "You're a prefect and Head Boy, you should know."
Harry laughed. He looked back at the notebook. "Looks like you two were mad at Remus too."
"What?!" Remus looked and he frowned deeply at Sirius. "Really? 'Remus is a petulant prefect who doesn't know how to have fun'?"
"I mean, we weren't wrong, you weren't helping us obviously!" Sirius said, crossing his arms and frowning back.
"I was probably busy being a prefect!"
"Hence the petulant prefect part!"
Remus shook his head. "Well I'm here now. Let's get this underway, shall we?"
They spent the next hour pouring over the notes and trying to decipher them. "If I'm reading this right, and I don't know if I am or not," Harry said slowly, "looks like it's a lot of runes with some permanent transfiguration and charm spells mixed in."
"Sounds about right." Remus conjured a blackboard and began writing on it. "We will need a combination of things: mimicking charm, sound repeating charm, transformation spells, and the runes to keep it stable and to not make the bearer cast the spells."
"Which we'll need to figure out which of the spells of each of those we picked," Sirius said. He opened the back of his mirror and looked at it. "Huh, well, that's not good."
"I don't recognize that runic alphabet," Harry said, staring at the etched runes. He opened the back of his mirror and looked carefully at the etchings there too. "Not these either. Good thing I brought my dictionaries."
"Right, you start looking it up and see if you can find them while Remus and I experiment on these mirrors that I bought," Sirius said.
"You don't remember which runic alphabet you used?" Harry asked, astounded.
"Uh, well, we didn't technically take the class," Sirius confessed. "We just grabbed a dictionary rubric from the library. Also, it was your dad's idea so blame him."
Hours passed and Harry poured through his books, constantly comparing the runes on the mirrors to the ones in his dictionaries. He went through page after page, rotating the mirrors this way and that in an attempt to decipher them and figure them out.
Remus and Sirius cast spells on the two mirrors that Sirius had bought and walked about Grimmauld, testing the charms they used. They went to different rooms and different floors to test the repeating spell and the transformation spells, trying to solve the inevitable problems they found such as delay in sound coming through and when the images were not working properly.
"Thanks, Kreacher," Harry sighed when Kreacher poured a large cup of tea for him. "This is giving me a headache. You wouldn't happen to know anything about runes, do you?"
"Kreacher does not, many apologies Master Harry," Kreacher croaked. "Kreacher only knows how to care for them."
"That's okay, I appreciate it." Harry looked up at the ceiling when he could hear Sirius shouting. "Something must be going wrong with the test."
"Oh, is Master Harry involved with what Bad Master and Bad Master's Friend is doing?" Kreacher asked.
"Yeah, we're trying to figure out how to make more of the mirrors," Harry said.
"Ah." Kreacher snapped his fingers and Sirius' shouting diminished in volume, sounding vaguely confused.
Harry looked up and then back at Kreacher, noticing Kreacher's look of faint embarrassment. "Were you messing with them?" Harry asked, smiling.
"Kreacher was unaware Master Harry was involved," Kreacher said apologetically. "Kreacher assumed Bad Master was being annoying and Kreacher was not helping. Kreacher is very sorry."
"I'll take a bacon sandwich and you're forgiven," Harry smiled. "That is funny, but no messing with them right now please. We're trying to figure this out."
"Of course, Master Harry. Kreacher will make you many sandwiches." Kreacher walked out, mumbling softly.
"Okay, we have the spells out, we think," Sirius said later when he and Remus returned. "We tested it all over and we got it mostly synced properly."
"Still terribly unstable," Remus said. "Not the most reliable, which makes the original two that much more astounding."
"I really wish I could remember how we did it," Sirius groaned. He reached out for a sandwich.
"Sandwiches are for Master Harry," Kreacher exclaimed, appearing and glaring at Sirius.
"We need the brain power, all of us," Harry soothed.
"Bad Master needs more power for small brain," Kreacher grunted.
"Takes one to know one," Sirius retorted, munching on a bacon sandwich rebelliously and trading ugly looks with the House Elf.
"Any luck with the runes?" Remus asked.
"None, it doesn't make any sense," Harry said. "They don't look like any of them. They look really backwards and…" Harry blinked a few times.
"You look like you got a thought," Sirius said excitedly.
"I think so…" Harry took one mirror and held it over the back of the other. "How did you etch the runes backwards?!"
"Well I'll be. That's the normal spell rune alphabet, but reflected," Remus said, staring into the mirror. "That's…why did you do that?"
"Uhhhh oh!" Sirius snorted. "I think we thought we were being clever and thinking that mirrored runes would work better for mirrors. You know, that magical theory that similar bases or environments work better if they're like what you're intending?"
"Like transfiguring the same material of one type into the same material of a different type, like wood to wood," Harry said.
"Yeah that! As far as how we did it, I think we traced it while looking at it in the mirror and then did the actual etching after," Sirius said.
"No wonder some look really wonky," Harry said. "Especially if you both were drunk."
"I think that makes it more impressive," Sirius sniffed.
Fortified by the sandwiches and the knowledge of what they did, the trio replicated the runes by reflecting the mirrors and like before, drew the runes in before etching them properly. When they finished, they tried to use the new mirrors but their performance was still not at the level as the original pair. The images were choppy and the sound came through was not steady in volume or cadence.
"We must be close," Remus sighed. They had tried redoing the runes and tried different combinations but they had not found success.
"We've tried everything," Harry groaned.
"Not everything. We still have one thing we can do," Sirius said, jumping to his feet. He ran out of the room.
"What is he doing?" Harry asked.
"Knowing him? Something stupid that somehow makes sense and it might work," Remus sighed. His sigh deepened when Sirius returned with a large bottle of firewhiskey. "Really?"
"I was drunk then, and I remember things better when I'm drunk," Sirius said, taking the top off.
"That's the opposite of what usually happens when you're drunk," Harry protested.
"No, he means he remembers things he did when he was drunk, when he is drunk," Remus said wearily. "Sadly, he is not wrong."
"Remus gets me. To your health!" Sirius guzzled the firewhiskey from the bottle.
"Not yours, however," Remus groaned.
In a surprisingly short time, Sirius did become somewhat inebriated. "Right, think," he said, blinking slowly. He screwed his face with intense concentration.
"Well?" Remus and Harry asked after a few moments.
"James owes me five Galleons!" Sirius said indignantly.
"Why?" Harry asked while Remus groaned.
"I…uh…oh right! I bet him he wouldn't be able to get that date with Lily and he lied and said he did but she put him straight!" Sirius laughed. "Charged him double I did!"
"I'll pay you back for him," Harry said, deeply amused.
"That won't be necessary," Sirius said, waving a hand. "I just remembered it is all. Right, mirror mirror mirror…" He swayed in place. "I remember us using the mirrors, reflecting the runes."
"Wish you remembered that sooner," Remus muttered.
"Remembered Remus being a right prat," Sirius said, glaring at Remus. "Dropping us to go on a date. You prat."
"Really?" Harry asked, looking interested.
"Wait, what?" Remus asked, wrong-footed. "With who?!"
"That Leslie girl, from Hufflepuff," Sirius slurred.
"Ohhhh yes, she was very sweet," Remus said, looking soft.
"Also we learned Remus is a big hypocrite," Sirius continued. "Saying he cared more about how they were and not how they looked when she had the biggest br-"
"Sirius, focus!" Remus shouted and poured more alcohol down Sirius' throat while Harry laughed.
After some more slightly drunken rambling, Sirius grew disgruntled. "Fuck me, I don't remember! Dammit Sirius, you dumb arse!" He flung his arms wide and knocked one of the new mirrors to the ground.
"Oh look what you've done!" Remus scolded. "You broke it!"
"Do magicals consider it bad luck?" Harry asked as he helped pick up the broken mirror.
"Not really, we can fix it," Sirius said expressively. He waved his wand haphazardly and the mirror repaired itself.
Harry looked at it. "Hey, it looks a bit different. Kinda like the original mirrors now."
"It does," Remus said, looking over. "Wait a moment. I have an idea." He broke the two new mirrors again with a flick of his wand and repaired them, but used pieces of both to repair them. "Here Harry. Take one and go to the rooftop garden."
Harry did as he was told and went to the roof. He held the mirror and said clearly, "Remus Lupin." He cheered when Remus' image appeared in the mirror. "It works!"
"And your voice is clear and there is no delay in your image," Remus smiled back. "Well done! I think that's it!" They tested it some more, with Remus apparating out some distance and the mirrors worked just as well as the original pair.
"See, told you me getting drunk would help," Sirius said, sober from a potion.
"Somehow," Remus sighed.
"Now we know how to do it," Harry said, writing the instructions onto a new piece of parchment with clear handwriting. "So we can make more."
"And I have an idea of how to add more in the future more easily," Sirius said. "We make a central mirror holding all the runes and we basically meld a sliver of every mirror we want to add to it and to the others."
"Hey yeah, that would make things more stable with more mirrors," Harry said enthusiastically.
"Brilliant! Well done lads!" Sirius cheered. "We deserve a celebratory drink!"
"You only just sobered up," Remus said with a wry smile.
"I've got more potions," Sirius laughed as he poured a glass out for all of them. "To teamwork!"
"To teamwork," Harry and Remus toasted and their glasses clinked together.
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LifeIsAGreatAdventure - Hedwig chapters are my favorites. So silly and fun. Thank you for reading and looking forward to more.
Arnie1701 - Guaranteed.
poka - It is a lot of fun revisiting past chapters and adding a spin to things. She's so sassy and opiniated and it's just plain fun writing for her.
alix33 - You know what you are getting when you ask Hedwig for something specific: spectactularness.
TheSphynx - Not sure if I will do that. Some bridges cannot be rebuilt sadly. Hedwig chapters are the best.
Ghostwriter - Thank you.