Disclaimer – I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 6 – Trolls, Friends and Mirrors

Draco Malfoy wasn't too happy to see Iris and Ron arrive in the Great Hall for breakfast, smiling widely, the day after the proposed duel. His trick had shown he possessed a little more cunning than Iris had initially given him credit for, but she wouldn't be caught by him again in future, and she didn't allow him to goad her or Ron into any more fights in the following weeks.

Hermione and Iris had been a lot more civil to one another since that night – Iris didn't know if it was the shared adventure, or what she had revealed of her childhood, but Hermione seemed more patient with her and she tried to reciprocate the attitude. They had even had a couple of conversations pertaining to what could be beneath the trapdoor, but neither of them could really see any way in which they could figure out what it might be without attempting to get past the beast themselves.

Despite their more cordial relationship, Hermione still kept almost entirely to herself, in part due to Ron's even greater dislike of her following the events of that night. Iris had tried to ask him to give her a chance, but the boy was very annoyed by her know-it-all attitude and bossy demeanour, something Iris could understand – Hermione still spoke up to defend Muggles whenever Iris answered questions from her fellow Gryffindors about her upbringing. Ron had even taken to chiming in on Iris' side, although Iris suspected he only did so to have an excuse to argue with Hermione, who so often responded with equal venom.

All this tension between the two of them came to a head in a Charms lesson on Halloween. They had been paired together by Professor Flitwick, and as could have been expected, Hermione managed to successfully cast the levitation charm before Ron – something he didn't look too happy about.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her," Ron said to Iris as they left the classroom. "She's a nightmare, honestly."

Someone pushed past Iris from behind. It was Hermione, and she was in tears.

"I think she heard you," said Iris.

"So?" said Ron, although he looked uncomfortable now. "She must've noticed she's got no friends."

Hermione didn't turn up for her next lesson and wasn't seen all afternoon. Parvati told Iris that she was crying in the girls' toilets and wanted to be left alone. Iris felt for Hermione, she really did. It can't have been easy adjusting from the Muggle world for her, since she actually liked it, and Iris probably hadn't helped with her insinuations that Hermione's parents would turn against her for her magic. By the time they arrived at the Halloween feast, Iris was already debating whether to hunt her down and at least try to help her feel better. Before she could decide what to do, or even start her meal, Professor Quirrell had come sprinting into the Hall up to Dumbledore's chair.

"Troll – in the dungeons – thought you ought to know."

He sank to the floor in a dead faint and the Hall erupted into pandemonium. Dumbledore raised his wand and let out several purple firecrackers, pulling attention back to him.

"Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!" he ordered.

Percy was immediately in his element, bustling up and down and making sure everyone was following him. Iris turned to Ron with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Hey, isn't the Slytherin common room in the dungeons?" she asked, a smirk forming at the thought of Malfoy being cornered by a massive troll.

Ron let out a laugh.

"Maybe it's just Goyle's dad coming for a visit," he suggested, causing Iris to snort. She was about to add another comment when a thought occurred to her.

"Hermione," she said, grasping Ron's arm as they ascended the main staircase. He looked at her questioningly. "We've got to go find her. What if the troll attacks her when she leaves the bathroom."

Ron looked conflicted for a moment, before nodding and following Iris as she broke away from the crowd, running towards the girls' bathroom. The sight they were greeted with when they arrived made her blood run cold. What were the odds? Of all the rooms for the troll to wander into, it picked the girls' bathroom. Any hopes that Hermione was in a different bathroom were dashed as a high, petrified scream sounded from behind the door. Without hesitation, Iris rushed in after the troll, Ron hot on her heels.

Hermione was shrinking against the back wall as the thick, twelve foot troll advanced on her, knocking sinks off the wall with its giant wooden club as it went.

"HEY!" shouted Iris. The troll turned slowly to see where the noise had come from, before starting towards herself and Ron.

"Hermione, run!" she commanded, pulling out her wand. "Locomotor Mortis!"

The leg-locker curse shot straight at the troll but rebounded off of its thick skin, shooting straight back at Iris who failed to dodge in time, collapsing to the floor and dropping her wand in the process.

"HERMIONE, RUN!" she yelled, scrambling around for her wand. "Ron, distract it!"

Unfortunately, Ron's method of distracting it was to throw a metal pipe at it, which it barely even seemed to notice. Just as the troll was about to reach her, Iris found her wand, cast the counter-curse to free her legs then screamed "LUMOS!"

A ray of light brighter than any she had conjured before shot straight into the troll's eyes, momentarily blinding it. Without wasting any time, Iris shot past the beast to where Hermione still cowered. She grabbed hold of the muggleborn's hand and pulled her sharply towards the exit. Unfortunately, the troll wasn't blinded for long and Iris had to shove Hermione to the ground, landing on top of her, in order to avoid a swing of the troll's club. When she managed to extricate her arm from the tangle of limbs, she racked her brain for any sort of spell to cast, but came up blank. The troll raised its club once more, and there was no time for them to dodge this time.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" came a voice from the other side of the room. The troll's club shot straight out of its hand and into the air, turned slowly over, then dropped onto its owners head. As if in slow motion, the troll collapsed forward, with Iris and Hermione just moving out of the way in time. Standing behind where the troll had just been standing was Ron, his wand held high.

Before anyone could say anything, three pairs of footsteps sounded from outside the room and Professors Snape, McGonagall and Quirrell all burst in, quickly taking in the scene.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" said Professor McGonagall furiously. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Snape was looking at Iris weirdly, but that was hardly a new occurrence. The Professor seemed to alternate between those looks and ones of utmost loathing.

"Please, Professor McGonagall – they were looking for me."

"Miss Granger!"

"I went looking for the troll because I – I thought I could deal with it on my own – you know, because I've read all about them."

Ron dropped his wand in shock at Hermione's lie.

"If they hadn't found me, I'd be dead now. Iris pulled me out of the way of its club and Ron used the club to knock it out. They didn't have time to come and fetch anyone. It was about to finish me off when they arrived."

"Well – in that case …" said Professor McGonagall. "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

Hermione hung her head as though ashamed. Iris couldn't believe she was taking all of the blame onto herself.

"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this. I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses.

Hermione left, and Professor McGonagall turned to Iris and Ron.

"Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first-years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."

They did just that, and Iris pulled Ron with her as they hurried to catch Hermione. She turned to face them as she heard their footsteps approaching.

"Thank you," she said quietly, looking between Iris and Ron.

"Thank you," said Iris. "You didn't have to do that, get us out of trouble."

"Yeah," said Ron, sounding awkward. "It was my fault you were there in the first place. I'm sorry."

Hermione smiled brightly at him, an expression Iris wasn't sure she'd seen on her face before.

"You saved me, though, both of you."

Iris felt as though she was seeing a different side of Hermione. She made a split-second decision.

"Friends?" she offered, holding out her hand. Hermione took it, her smile widening even more.

"Friends."

-o0o-

Being friends with Hermione came with many benefits that Iris had never even considered. The first was that it was simply nice to have a friend in her dormitory – Iris got on well with Parvati and Lavender, but they were a little too gossipy for her liking and therefore they weren't close, whereas Hermione was extremely intelligent and very interesting to talk to, even if some of her views differed to Iris'. This intelligence was another benefit of their newfound friendship – not only was the homework help nice, but ever since Iris' spells were so ineffective against the troll, she had been determined to improve and learn new spells, ones which she could also use against the Dursleys in an emergency – something she had learned was legal from Hermione. The bushy-haired girl had been equally eager to learn new spells and they (along with a slightly more reluctant Ron) had spent a lot of time practising spells they found in their textbooks and some library books. This vastly improved her and Ron's performance in class, something which had in turn made Ron more eager to continue with their additional work, no doubt enjoying the praise and finding an area he could try to better his brothers in.

"I'll probably never get as good grades as Percy, but I could get better at magic than him," he said eagerly to Iris and Hermione one afternoon. "Did you hear Flitwick? He said he'd never seen someone learn the softening charm so quickly!"

Iris chose not to point out the fact that all three of them had taught themselves the spell two weeks prior to the lesson, allowing Ron his moment of happiness.

The first Quidditch match of the year had come and gone, with Gryffindor suffering a crushing defeat to Slytherin. The match had been quite equal until Slytherin's Seeker, Terrence Higgs, had caught the Snitch before Gryffindor's new Seeker, Cormac McLaggen, had even noticed his opponent chasing it.

In the wake of the Slytherin victory, Malfoy had become unbearable. He never wasted an opportunity to insult Iris, Ron or Hermione, and it was only the latter girl's patience and mutters to ignore him that had stopped Iris and Ron from trying out one of the new jinxes they'd learned on him.

"He wants you to curse him," Hermione had pointed out after one Potions lesson in which Malfoy had made cruel jokes about Iris' lack of parents and Ron's lack of money. "He knows Snape will take his side, and you two will end up in detention. If you keep ignoring him, he'll get bored eventually."

Iris doubted that, but did her best to heed her new friend's advice, since she was right about a lot of things.

The three of them had also spent a lot of time deliberating what the three-headed dog on the third-floor corridor was guarding. Whatever it was, Iris was sure that Professor Snape was trying to steal it. After Halloween, she had noticed he was walking around with a bit of a limp, something which made little sense as surely Madam Pomfrey could have healed whatever his injury was. The only theory which made sense in her mind was that he had sustained the injury from the three-headed dog and therefore couldn't get it healed without revealing to Madam Pomfrey how he had received the wound. That would also explain how the troll got in, to serve as a distraction while he attempted to steal whatever was being guarded. The fact the troll had been in the dungeons when Quirrell had spotted it only served as additional evidence – Snape's office and classroom were in the dungeons too, after all.

Ron was very receptive to her theory when she filled him in on it, whereas Hermione was more reserved, denying that she believed a Hogwarts teacher would try to do such a thing. Nevertheless, she did admit that it was strange that nobody had figured out how the troll had gotten into the castle yet.

Despite Iris enjoying her newfound friendship with Hermione, they certainly still butted heads about some things. The subject of Muggles came between them fairly often, with Ron now taking the middle ground in such arguments. Iris tried to refrain from bringing anything to do with Muggles up, but Hermione seemed insistent on proving to her that not all of them were as bad as she 'made them out to be'. Iris truly felt bad for the girl when she would inevitably realise Iris was right. Now that she had spent significant time in both the Magical and Muggle worlds, it was clear to her which was better, and had more respectable people.

"Surely not every Muggle you've met was awful?" Hermione asked exasperatedly, after one such argument.

"I suppose Mrs Figg wasn't the worst," said Iris slowly, after racking her brains for a while. "Dreadfully boring, though. The Dursleys used to send me to her while they went out to do something fun. She'd mainly just make me eat cabbage soup and look at pictures of her cats."

"Well, there you go," said Hermione, a little more gently. "Your relatives sound like terrible people, but not all Muggles are like them."

Iris chose wisely to drop the subject, biting her tongue at the slightly smug look from Hermione, who probably thought she'd won the argument.

As well as this, the two girls also disagreed about the types of spells they should learn in their free time. Hermione insisted on at least mostly sticking to the curriculum, whereas Iris made a point that they would learn those spells in class anyway, so they should instead focus their efforts on spells that wouldn't be taught in class, most notably jinxes, hexes and curses which she found in the library. Hermione only relented in this argument when Ron took Iris' side, pointing out that spells like those would help them defend themselves if they ever came up against a troll again. Iris suspected Ron mainly wanted to know the spells so he could use them on Malfoy, but she wasn't about to call him out on it.

Therefore, they had taught themselves some basic hexes and jinxes together, such as the jelly-legs jinx and the full body-bind curse, but Iris was determined to learn more. The Restricted Section in the library intrigued her greatly – it was no doubt full of more powerful and complex curses and she yearned desperately to find out what they were and how to cast them. She had asked Professor Quirrell for a pass, thinking him to be the teacher most likely to hand such a thing over to a first-year, but he had instead looked terrified at the suggestion and refused, meaning she had no way of getting in there without being kicked out by Madam Pince.

Nevertheless, the last few months had been the best of Iris' life and she was thankful to learn that she could sign up to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays, something Ron did too. Malfoy had mocked her about this, but she couldn't bring herself to care – she wouldn't have to see the Dursleys until at least the summer, so her good mood prevailed.

As it turned out, Iris and the Weasleys were the only Gryffindors staying at Hogwarts over Christmas. Percy, who would sit his OWLs at the end of the school year, spent almost all of his time with his nose buried in his textbooks, studying, while Fred and George seemingly did anything but study, sometimes involving Iris and Ron in their activities (these included bothering Percy, pranking Filch, bewitching snowballs to follow Professor Quirrell around and smack him in the back of the head, and attempting to sneak into the Forbidden Forest – Hagrid had to chase them off several times). Ron and Iris took part in their fair share of goofing around too, but Iris made sure they kept up their previous routine of teaching themselves new spells.

"But Hermione's not here," Ron had initially bemoaned when Iris had first insisted they continue their habit. "She won't want to miss out."

"Hermione not being here just means we can try out some spells she doesn't deem necessary," Iris replied, grinning deviously, and winning Ron over.

That was why the two of them spent the evening of Christmas Eve in an abandoned classroom, finally heading back to the common room just before curfew. They had finally just got the hang of 'Densaugeo', the teeth-growing jinx, with Iris taking some extra time to learn how to reverse it – something that was more difficult than the jinx itself.

"Next time Malfoy or Parkinson insult Hermione's teeth, we'll cast that on them," said Ron happily, as they climbed through the portrait hole. "See how they like it."

Iris grinned at the thought before wishing her friend goodnight and separating off into the girls' dormitory.

For the first time, Iris was actually looking forward to Christmas Day and fell asleep quickly. Nevertheless, upon waking up, she wasn't expecting to see a small pile of presents at the end of her bed. Who would have sent presents to her?

Unfortunately, the first present didn't exactly fill her with warmth.

We received your message and enclose your Christmas present. From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Sellotaped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.

Iris scowled, tossing it away. She wondered what message they were referring to – she had certainly never sent them one. Maybe it was standard procedure for school owls to be sent to Muggle families so they could send off presents to their kids. Either way, Iris didn't care, screwing up the note and moving onto her other gifts.

The next couple of gifts were much more pleasant surprises. Ron's mother, Mrs Weasley, had sent her a hand-knitted red and gold jumper (which she immediately pulled on) and a large box of home-made fudge, whilst Hagrid had given her a wooden flute. Iris doubted she would ever have much use for it, but was grateful for the thought behind it regardless, and mentally vowed to visit the gamekeeper more often.

The next gift was a large box of Chocolate Frogs from Hermione. Iris felt a rush of affection for the girl in a way she never had before, mixed with a slight feeling of guilt that she hadn't sent anything back – although, she reasoned, she didn't really have any way of purchasing anything to send to her.

A smile still on her face from her friend's thoughtful gesture, Iris turned her attention to the final gift, unwrapping it to reveal a shining, silvery cloth. Examining it closer, she realised it was a cloak, albeit a strange-looking one. Without too much thought, she threw it on. It was so light she could barely feel it. Shrugging, she stood up to gather the rest of her gifts, when she noticed something – she couldn't see her hands. Blinking in disbelief, she rushed to the mirror. Staring back at her was her own disembodied head. The Cloak, she realised. Slowly, she moved her hands up, lifting the hood of the Cloak over her head. Sure enough, no part of her was visible in the mirror any more.

Turning back around, Iris noticed a piece of parchment lying on the floor close to her, as though it had fell out of the Cloak. She picked it up and read the narrow, loopy writing.

Your father left this in my possession before he died.

It is time it was returned to you.

Use it well.

A very merry Christmas to you.

Iris stared at the note in confusion. Who sent this to her? It had to have been a friend of her father's, but she didn't know anyone who had been friends with either of her parents. If they didn't even know her, what made them send this to her? If the roles had been reversed, Iris thought she would be more inclined to keep this incredibly useful magical item to herself, not send it to somebody she'd never met.

Shaking her head and thanking her luck for once, she left the dormitory and headed up the boys' staircase, intent on showing the Cloak to Ron. Entering his dormitory, she saw that he was opening his gifts too, holding a hand-knit jumper of his own.

"Happy Christmas!" she said loudly, suppressing a laugh as he jumped to his feet in shock, looking around the room in confusion.

"Iris?" he asked slowly.

"Ron?" she said back, grinning wider as his head turned to the spot her voice had come from.

"Where are you?" he asked, his brow scrunched.

Iris tiptoed across the room until she was right next to him, before whipping off the Cloak quickly. Ron let out a high-pitched squeal, jumping backwards as Iris roared with laughter.

"That– how did you get an Invisibility Cloak?" he asked, his face looking torn between embarrassment and wonder.

"I don't know," said Iris, "It was on my bed when I woke up, with this."

She handed him the note, his eyebrows raising as he read it.

"I'd give anything for one of these," he said. "Anything. They're really rare, and really valuable."

"Well, if you're extra good this year, I'll let you borrow it from time to time," Iris teased. "Can you thank your mum for the jumper and the fudge, by the way?"

Ron's ears reddened.

"Sorry," he said. "I told her you didn't expect any presents – I didn't expect her to send you a Weasley jumper."

"Well, I like it," said Iris.

"I should think so," came a voice from behind her. Fred and George had entered the room wearing Weasley jumpers of their own. Iris quickly stuffed her Invisibility Cloak in her pocket. "Yours looks nicer than ours! She obviously makes more of an effort if you're not family."

"Why aren't you wearing yours, Ron?" George demanded. "Come on, get it on, they're lovely and warm."

"I hate maroon," Ron moaned half-heartedly as he pulled it over his head.

"You haven't got a letter on yours," George noted. "I suppose she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid – we know we're called Gred and Forge."

"What's all this noise?"

Percy had poked his head through the door. He was carrying a jumper of his own. Iris laughed as the twins forced him into it and frog-marched him down to the common room. This had already been her best Christmas ever.

-o0o-

The rest of the day went swimmingly too, but when she finally returned to her dormitory, Iris was far from ready for the day to end. Ever since she had received the Cloak, the possibilities of how she could use it had been running through her mind, and she had decided her first call of action would be to sneak into a place she had wanted to enter for a while now.

Therefore, twenty minutes later, Iris found herself entering the Restricted Section of the school library, her heart pounding with excitement and nerves.

"Lumos!" she whispered, shining the light from her wand on the various books which had been deemed too advanced or dangerous for the regular library. She was unable to read the majority of the titles – they seemed to be printed in a variety of foreign languages Iris didn't recognise, although there were a few in English dotted around. She also noticed some even stranger tomes – one book was padlocked shut (Iris tried 'Alohomora' to no effect), faint whispering came from a few books as though they were calling out for someone to share their secrets with, and one book had a large stain on the cover that looked an awful lot like blood.

With a hand trembling slightly in anticipation, she pulled this bloodstained book off of the shelf. It had no title on the cover, so she tentatively opened the book to a page at random. To her surprise, it was in English. She didn't have to read many words for the realisation to hit her. It was a book on blood magic. Iris had only heard of this branch of magic from Hermione, who had referred to it as very dark magic. To back her friend up, the page she had opened to was about blood curses and even gave some loose guidance on how one could go about casting one – it seemed extremely complicated, but Iris still couldn't believe a book like this could be found in a school library, Restricted Section or not.

Nevertheless, she slid the tome into the bag she had brought with her.

For the next half hour, Iris perused the shelves of the Restricted Section, adding books which looked interesting into her bag, until it was almost too heavy to carry. Heaving it over her shoulder, she left the library. She wondered if Madam Pince would notice all the missing books – but even if she did, there was no reason she'd suspect Iris.

Moving more slowly now, Iris crept back in the direction of the Gryffindor common room – that was until she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the corridor in front of her. Filch. Turning on her heel, she hurried away, ensuring the hood of her Invisibility Cloak did not slip down. When she felt she was a safe distance away, she allowed herself to breathe again. Intent on taking another route back to the common room, she headed past a suit of armour and down another corridor before she suddenly froze.

A door along the corridor was ajar. This shouldn't have been out of the ordinary, but Iris could swear there was some sort of magic coming from inside the room, compelling her to enter. She obliged. Inside was a perfectly ordinary unused classroom, except for a giant golden ornate mirror propped against the far wall. Without thinking about it, Iris approached the strange-looking mirror. The bag full of books dropped off of her shoulder, landing on the floor with a dull thud. Staring back at her in the mirror was herself, only she was smiling, rather maliciously, and in the background was Number Four, Privet Drive. Oh, and it was on fire.

The sight was mesmerising. The Iris in the mirror looked older than her current self, and her bright green eyes seemed to shine with both glee and power. Although no sound emitted from the Mirror, Iris swore she could almost hear the Dursleys screaming in pain, pleading with her for mercy, admitting they were the freaks, not her. For one horrible moment, a smile spread across Iris' face, matching her counterpart's from the Mirror.

Then, like a dam being broken, realisation over what she was seeing washed over her. Sure, she hated the Dursleys with every fibre of her being, but she wasn't a monster like them – she didn't revel in the pain of others. She wondered if this was the future, shown to her by the Mirror. It was only then she finally paid attention to the frame of the Mirror itself, rather than the image within it: carved around the top was an inscription that looked like complete nonsense – at least, until she read it backwards.

I show not your face but your heart's desire.

A cold feeling took hold of Iris, and her stomach started to feel slightly queasy. Was this really her heart's desire? She had detested the Dursleys for her whole life, and even more so since she discovered the reasons for their mistreatment of her, and the secrets they had kept from her, but she didn't detest them enough to want this to happen to them … did she?

The idea of exacting revenge on the Dursleys appealed to her greatly. They deserved it, didn't they? Wanting to hurt them back for all the times they'd hurt her didn't make her a bad person did it? Still, what the Mirror showed went beyond simple revenge. Was Iris a bad person?

She snapped herself out of her thoughts. There was no guarantee the Mirror wasn't lying with its inscription – it could easily be just a dark item designed to trick people into believing they are monsters. There was one surefire way to find out for sure, but that couldn't be resolved tonight, so she shook her head clear and picked her bag back up, resisting the urge to look back into the Mirror.

However, even when she was back in her bed, the image of her childhood house up in flames did not fade from her mind, and neither did the sadistic smile Mirror-Iris had worn, which real Iris had involuntarily mirrored.