Harry wandered, unsure if he was through his own Looking Glass or not.
Lost lost lost.
His Circle worried for him. They hadn't seen him like this before.
He hadn't seen him like this before.
He dreamt of silver and blue eyes.
Which was even more strange, because the silver-eyed girl did not have blue eyes.
Just as Harry did not have crimson eyes.
Yet he did.
She was playing with him.
He could not pull her through his Looking Glass, not when he couldn't delve beneath her fake fake mind. Anytime he tried, she slipped away, walking and skipping through his illusion without a care in the world.
He saw her from afar, in the Great Hall, or across the Entrance Hall, always too far to catch her.
He thought he heard her laugh, once, as she skipped away.
It was beautiful.
Alice?
He was sure she had a name. Sure, his Circle could find out for him, if he asked.
But he called her Alice, to himself.
For the first time, he felt like he was wandering in her dream, rather than the other way around.
It was glorious.
Pretty pretty Alice.
He had a feeling that she was the only one that he couldn't force a heavenly symphony from, unless she let him.
He had a feeling that she made her own beautiful music.
How he longed to bask in her melody.
One night, as he dreamt of blue and silver eyes, he felt them open, not just in his dreams, but in the castle.
He stood and summoned his invisibility cloak.
Maybe he could finally follow her, down the rabbit hole.
…
He sent his magic to carefully delve through the layers of locks on an abandoned classroom door.
So he could hear through the silence.
"...ring around the Mary…"
He drew closer. He could hear whimpering sobs under the high, eerie melody.
"...you thought that you were scary…"
He carefully dismantled the wards, silencing the door as he eased it open.
"...ashes, ashes…"
He slipped through and smiled.
In the center of the room, a girl with red hair was tied to a chair with silver chains. Her eyes bulged and she looked like she was trying to scream, but she was having some difficulty due to the tight stitches holding her bloody lips closed.
The silver-eyed girl was skipping in a circle around her, her gray school skirt and white button-down shirt speckled with red dots.
"...We all… fall… down."
Infinite blue eyes in the walls opened and Harry found himself pulled through someone else's Looking Glass for the first time.
Alice spun to face him with startling speed, shining silver stars gathering around her and rocketing towards him with unerring precision. Her magic was vast and blindingly light just as his was endlessly dark, her sapphire eyes bearing down on his soul as he fell into them.
For a brief moment, Harry wondered if this was where he finally sang his own joyous melody. If Alice would be the one to make him scream so sweetly.
But the thoughts of slip slipping into the light passed and he opened his ruby eyes in turn, gathering the dark to him as a cloak to fend off the searing light and shooting stars that threatened to tear him into little, tiny pieces.
He was mostly successful.
The dark flowed around him like a deadly river, but one of the brilliant stars managed to catch his face at an angle before he could counter it. He was barely able to step quickly sideways so that the terrible diamond didn't blow his head off.
As it was, his right eye exploded in a shower of beautiful gore.
Such a lovely melody! He knew that Alice would be rapturous! He laughed wildly into the dark while he held her at bay, not trying to strike back with his teeth.
They regarded each other, across the infinite plane of Alice's dream.
His dark flared behind him, a great tower of magic that stood indestructible and terrible even within her light.
She was frozen, her head cocked to one side curiously, her endless white light and deadly stars streaming around them while the girl in the chains sobbed.
Then she smiled brightly at him, as his blood drip drip dripped from his empty eye socket.
Harry giggled to himself.
Now he was the one with the empty eye. How ironic.
"You have so many eyes, Harry Potter!" She exclaimed, spinning around to admire the crimson eyes intermingling with hers around the room.
Harry giggled out loud this time.
"Less now, than I had before," he said.
She skipped over to him, across her dream and across the actual classroom.
She stood directly in front of him, a bit too close for comfort.
Well, for most people. Harry was so excited. Would she make him sing a beautiful melody, now?
She reached up and dabbed at the blood dripping from his empty eye with her thin fingers.
She smiled and drew a classic happy face on his other cheek with the crimson paint.
Perfection.
"Are you empty?" Harry asked.
Alice bounced up and down, her hair fluttering, as she pressed the bloodstained finger to her lips and considered seriously.
The Thing behind her continued to make lovely noises with its stitched-up mouth.
"I was, Harry Potter. But less so, now. My empty cup is full, full of eyes. Isn't it wonderful?"
He looked around at the blue eyes in the walls and in her dreams.
"Yes, it is…" Harry said. "Such pretty pretty eyes. Whose eyes do you have?"
"My mother's."
Interesting.
She also looked around at his crimson eyes before continuingin her high, clear voice. "What about you? You don't feel like your cup is filled yet, but your eyes are much more powerful than mine."
"I have Tom's eyes, I think."
She nodded seriously. His single remaining eye fell into her silver orbs as he stared at her.
"What's your name?" He asked.
She smiled brightly and bounced again.
"I'm Luna! It's so lovely to meet you, my Mad Mad Hatter."
Harry smiled wider.
"I'm so very happy to meet you too, Alice."
…
"Were you finished making beautiful music with the Thing over there?" Harry asked, sitting beside Luna on the teacher's desk in the abandoned classroom.
She looked very serious. "Certainly not! I had barely started. Mary Mary Marietta decided that since I'm so Looney she was going to steal my shoes. I need to at least steal her feet; it's only fair."
Harry laughed. "All of her little piggies will be gone to market."
Luna's tinkling bell chime joined him. "To market, to market, to slaughter!"
"Exactly. I have somewhere better we can go, if you want."
"Oooooh. Very exciting. Down the rabbit hole we go then, Mr Potter."
…
They each held one of the Thing's feet as they dragged it across the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. It was funny to watch it try and flop away, with its chained hands and legs.
"I didn't think it would actually be a hole in the ground! That slide was so much fun, can we do it again?"
"As many times as you want, Alice."
"Yay!"
Harry's blood still dripped from his chin, sliding down like ruby tears from the empty socket.
He liked the happy face. Lovely artwork.
"If you manage not to permanently silence her, I have a surprise for you, if you're willing to wait a few days. You can still steal her feet, of course."
Luna considered him, her head tilted and her wide eyes staring.
"I do like like surprises. Alright then, my Mad Hatter. I'll put this symphony on hiatus, but only because you asked so nicely."
She skipped over to him and touched his bloody face again.
"I'm terribly sorry about your eye, by the way. I feel like I owe you one."
"I have too many eyes as it is."
"But not very many green ones!"
She tilted her head again and looked like she was deep in thought.
"Yes. Yes, it's only fair. We can't have an odd number of eyes."
Her happy smile never wavered as she reached up and slid her thin, delicate fingers into her own right eye socket and pulled out her eye in a shower of ruby rain.
Harry was in love.
"Here!" She chirped, holding up the silver orb and letting it swing from the detached nerve like a pendulum. "We can share this one!"
Harry's smile had never been wider.
"Do you want to do the honors, then?" He asked.
She giggled and reached up, sliding her wayward eye into his empty socket. He felt a small burst of blinding light magic flood through his empty head as she healed him, her silver eye connecting to his brain and suddenly he could see from that side again.
He did enjoy the metaphor, and he loved the crimson drip drip drip from her ruined eye socket, but he couldn't do that to his Alice. Even if she was exquisite, like this.
He reached up and used her blood to draw a happy face on her cheek to match his while she laughed and laughed.
He let his power flow into her pretty face and healed her empty eye, letting his power make a new one for her. One that matched his remaining eye.
They smiled and stared, diving into the endless oceans within each other, one emerald and one silver eye each.
…