Author's Note: I did the math. Based on the current rate I'm going, it will take me TWENTY YEARS to go through the entire Harry Potter series.
So, uh, if you follow this thing, hunker down lmao.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" grumbled Ron. "I would have liked to see the naked lady pictures too."
"Were you listening to me?" snapped Harry. "Forget the naked ladies for a second! I think that mirror was showing me my future."
It was early morning. Yeah.
"Forget the naked ladies?!"
Ron said this a little too loud, even amongst the general chatter of the Great Hall. It drew the attention of Professor McGonagall who appeared behind them both so fast it was almost as if by magic.
"Not doing anything you're not supposed to, are you, young gentlemen?" she inquired.
"Ron is over here talking about naked ladies while I'm just trying to study, Professor."
"The fuck?" mouthed Ron at Harry.
"What are you studying then, Mr. Potter? Your breakfast?"
"There is art to be studied everywhere, Professor. You see, the golden hues of the scrambled eggs intermingling with the crimson, almost blood-like red of the adjacent sausages and hot sauce create a rich tapestry of color and really imbues a sense of life and death as one constant, one entity-"
"You're eating cereal."
"Oh."
"And you opted out of Art class, remember? You're in Marketing instead."
"I see."
She raised an eyebrow and walked away.
"The Dursleys never taught me to read," explained Harry.
"Maybe that's why you couldn't find the naked lady pictures?"
"Maybe."
Harry had been too embarrassed to mention the book farting on him.
"Let me show you that mirror tonight, okay? We'll wait til everyone's asleep."
Later that night, the slow-moving form of a shrub hiding two boys glided along the quiet, moonlit halls of Hogwarts. At one point they accidentally wandered into a similar but completely different room of mirrors that showed them how they would die. But the correct room was next door.
"Here, this it the right room. I'm sure of it."
They entered the room and slowly shut the door behind them.
"Anyway. You never even mentioned wanting to be a seamstress before," said Ron.
"I talk about it like every single day, Ron."
"I don't know your life, leave me alone."
Harry whipped off the Invisibility Cloak and made a beeline for the mirror.
"It's here, look – stand in front of it!" He grabbed Ron by the shoulders and pushed him front and center of the mirror.
"WHOA! Look at me!" exclaimed Ron.
"What do you see?" asked Harry. "Are you at the tailor boutique with me?"
"No I'm – I'm in bed, asleep!"
"Seriously?"
"This mirror's amazing!"
"Do you not have dreams, Ron?!"
"Dreams?" Ron turned to him. "We're already wizards, Harry. We can literally bend the rules of time, space, mind, and physics. But we still have to be awake to do it."
Mrrrow
Harry's heart dropped. "Quick- under the Cloak again!"
The fast-moving shrub went unnoticed by Mrs. Norris as it passed her in the doorway. She ambled up to the mirror and saw herself unchanged, except… her husband Filch by her side was not malnourished or bitter, but rather handsome and well-groomed with a head of thick hair and full, rosy cheeks. Like on their wedding day two months ago. She sighed. She would ask a staff member with thumbs to cover up the mirror once more.
For the third night in a row, Harry watched himself sew the Kardashian wedding dress. It was coming together quite beautifully; he hand-knit together hundreds of tiny silk flowers to accent the dress, and was in the process of creating a dew-drop look on each one with custom-cut Swarovski crystals when a voice behind him made him jump right out of his skin.
"So- back again, Harry?"
Albus Dumbledore sat watching him from one of the covered antique chairs.
"I – I didn't see you, sir." Harry frantically pulled his skin back on, embarrassed. Dumbledore gave him the grace of some time to make sure he was properly put back together again.
"So, Harry. It seems you've discovered the Mirror of Erised."
"Sir?" Harry's right eyebrow frowned. He hastily pinned his left ear properly to make his face symmetrical again.
Dumbledore stood up and walked to stand beside him and face the mirror. "By now I imagine you have surmised what it does, yes?"
Harry looked back at the mirror. "It shows people what they look like if they worked as seamstresses?"
"No, that would be the Mirror of Ssertsmaes, it's in that corner over there."
"Oh."
"This mirror, Harry, shows our hearts' deepest desires. Men have wasted before it."
"I see. What do you see when you look in it, Professor?"
"Me? Why, I see myself wearing jeans."
"Whoa."
"Indeed."
"What other mirrors are here, sir?"
"Try them out!"
Dumbledore used his wand to uncover the other mirrors in the room – Harry had never noticed them – and they had fun exploring them together.
There was the Mirror of Teppum, Mirror of Ogel, Mirror of Tsriht, Mirror of Ekacpuc, Mirror of Nwolc, Mirror of Muirauqa, and Mirror of Yensid, which showed Harry as a Muppet, a Lego man, a completely ripped man, a cupcake, a clown, a fish, and a Disney princess, respectively.
Harry was just admiring his stunning jade-green ballgown and luscious black locs in the last mirror (and wondering if it was possible to combine it with the Mirror of Tsriht, and the Mirror of Nwolc) when Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder to tell him it was time for bed.
"And I do not mean the Mirror of Deb either, Harry."
"Aw."
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to wake up and go to the restroom once in a while, remember that."
Harry slowly shuffled back to the dorm, lost in thought. Did Dumbledore really see himself wearing jeans? They were highly illegal in the wizarding world, after all…
The shrub stopped at a corner hallway when it heard something. It peaked its tip over the corner to see two dark figures standing in the, um, dark.
"I know what you've been up to." Snape's voice was low and venomous, like a baby turtle with snake fangs.
"I d-don't know w-what you're saying, S-Severus-"
Beneath the shrub, Harry gasped. Why was Snape meeting with Quirrell at the dead of night like this?
He saw Snape glance down the hall at him; but Snape only saw a sliver of moonlight shining over a little shrub. He turned back to Quirrell.
"You've been leaving the toilet seat up."
"B-bollocks." He gasped and clasped his mouth.
"I shall be watching you."
"Arse."
"No – not – I mean, I'll be watching your movements!"
"Shit."
"No!"
"Heheheh."
"Great, now you woke up the shrub."
"What?"
"What?"
"… It's too bad you couldn't find out about Dorothy."
"What?"
Hermione had returned the day before term started, glad to be away from her Aunt Gail, who could not figure out why the crosses hanging in each of her home's rooms made Hermione feel ill.
"At the Restricted Section. That's why you snuck in there. Right?"
"OH! Oh, um, yeah. Couldn't find anything about her."
They kept searching the library between classes, but with little luck or hope. The stress was getting to Harry, who had also had Quidditch practice every other evening. Wood spent half the time having his team stand in the icy, muddy field while he tackled each of them one by one. He did explain why it was necessary for training, but of course he remained unintelligible through his helmet and mouth guard. They could not understand why he was more hysterical than usual until news reached them that Professor Snape was to referee the upcoming match.
"WHAT?!" shouted George Weasley, gripping the school newspaper which will likely not be mentioned ever again.
"Snape?!" sputtered Harry while Wood had him in a chokehold. The 11-year-old protagonist was turning blue from the hypoxia.
"There's no way we can win with him refereeing!" bemoaned Kathy, or Katie or whoever.
"Seriously," said Fred, "he's gonna foul us for wearing the wrong underwear or something."
"There's no way we're winning," said I dunno, Angelalina.
"HRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMFFFF!" It was all too much for Wood, who benched-pressed Harry and threw him straight through the air where he was caught by a pterodactyl and tossed violently through the Gryffindor tower window.
(I was going to have Wood throw Harry directly through the window from the field, but that would be ridiculous).
ZZZT
"MY CORNEA!"
CRASH
Harry's foray through the (closed) window went unnoticed in the Gryffindor common room, where Ron and Hermione were locked in an intense round of Wizard's Operation.
Hermione nearly threw the tweezers into the fire out of frustration. She could memorize the path of each major and minor blood vessel throughout the human body, but she couldn't pluck out an eyeball for the life of her.
"My turn."
"YOU GUYS!"
"Harry, watch it, this is a sterile field-"
"Snape is referring the next Quidditch match!"
ZZZT - "MY BALLS!"- "What?!"
"I know!" Harry sat by them.
"You can't play," said Ron at once. "What if he sneaks another real horse onto the field?"
"But-"
"Get a note from your parents saying you're sick," continued Ron. Hermione smacked Ron's head.
"I have to play, guys! I can't let Wood down. Ever."
At that moment, Neville walked into the Gryffindor common room. At least, it probably was Neville; he was only recognizable by the fish in his front pocket and the Void following him. There was a butt where his face was supposed to be. The entire house of Gryffindor laughed uncontrollably at the sight of him.
"Neville! What happened to you?" cried Hermione.
"Malfoy," spluttered Neville. His Void spewed out a roll of toilet paper that bounced off the top of a cheek. The roar of laughter intensified.
"Here, let me help you – Assio Reverso!"
The spell that had switched Neville's face with his butt was now lifted.
"Thanks, Hermione."
"That spell was supposed to give you a donkey's head. I suppose it hasn't aged well."
"That wizard prince guy is a big jerk," gasped Harry, still coming down from his laughing fit.
"Yeah!" sputtered Ron, wiping tears from his eyes.
Hermione glared at the pair of them.
"Don't let these boys get you down," said Hermione gently.
"Here, Neville, have this half-melted Frog Chocolate I sat on earlier," said Harry, starting to feel a little bad.
"Is it still wrapped?"
"No."
"Eh, I'll take it." Neville accepted the chocolate and slunk away upstairs to write in his diary. His diary was exceedingly depressed.
Harry scratched his butt and found that the toy piece from the Frog Chocolate was stuck there.
"Awww look, it's a tiny wand with a star at the end." He waved it around and it made tiny little pink sparks.
"Which famous figure is this from?" he asked Ron.
"I think that's Glenda the Good."
Hermione's eyes suddenly went wide and she smacked herself on the forehead.
"What? What is it?"
"I knew I recognized the name Dorothy from somewhere!"
Hermione dashed upstairs and brought down what looked like a VHS tape. Harry saw that it was a copy of The Wizard of Oz.
"Why do you have that?" asked Harry.
"I was gonna write an essay on magic-based sexism in Muggle media. For a bit of extra homework."
"You mean extra credit?"
"No."
"What is it?" asked Ron.
"It's about a Muggle farm girl who gets caught in a tornado and transported to a magical land. It's a classic."
"How do you read that?" asked Ron, reaching out to touch the tape.
"That can't possibly be the same Dorothy," said Harry.
"Why not?" asked Hermione. "Sometimes wizard stories are so powerful they seep into Muggle culture. Like The Lord of the Rings."
"The Lord of the Rings was based on a true story?!"
"Do we not take the same History class, Harry? We just learned about it!"
"I was sick that day."
"No you weren't."
"Then I was busy."
"I saw you there."
"You didn't see shit."
"My dad told me that Hobbits went extinct when there was that foot fungus outbreak," said Ron.
"Okay so let's pretend that The Wizard of Oz is based on a true story," said Harry, "which is stupid because no witch or Muggle in their right mind would choose Kansas over Oz - what does that have to do with what Richard is guarding?"
"What the hell is Kansas?"
"It's like, the opposite of Hogwarts."
"Sooo, farms, fast food, and religion?"
"Yeah. It really is incredible that Dorothy voluntarily decided to click her ruby red slippers three times and go back… back to…"
Hermione and Harry both gasped as realization hit them.
"What? What is it?" asked Ron.
"The ruby red slippers!" exclaimed Hermione. "Of course! Magical shoes with the power to transport you to another realm!"
"Whoa," said Ron.
"No wonder Snape wants those shoes," said Harry. "He could jump to any dimension!"
"And finally the fic title is making sense. It only took eight chapters of stupidity," thought the reader, who was wonderful and beautiful and clearly very smart for choosing this fic.
"That's a dangerous power, even for a wizard," said Hermione darkly. "He could do anything – he could go to a dimension where he's the ruler of Britain and switch places with him and leave us stuck with a dictator Snape. Or he could open portals to places where dangerous objects are secured away, or - what's so funny, Ron?"
For Ron sniggered.
"It's just- can you imagine Snape wearing ruby red slippers?"
Harry burst out laughing.
"This is serious you guys!" scolded Hermione.
"Hey, maybe we could steal it and switch our Hermione for one with a sense of humor." Harry laughed even harder at this.
"And who's also hot!"
Hermione gave them a wrathful scorn and shot them both with the Ass-Face Jinx. She spared their ears so they could look extra ridiculous, and hear the laughter erupt in the common room again.
And then she stomped back upstairs to write in her diary. Everyone had a diary.
"How are you just covered in freckles, Ron?"
"Shut up, Harry! You should have that mole checked out."
"That's leftover chocolate, it's for later."
There was a tiny pop as the Wizard Operation game's inflamed gallbladder burst and covered everyone in pus.
"The author should scrap this entire scene and do it again," said Ron.
"Ain't nobody got time for that. NEXT!"
The Gryffindor team felt quite nervous as they changed into their uniforms in the locker room for Saturday's game, but no one more so than Harry. He was pretty sure Professor Snape was out to kill him, and soon. He found himself wishing he had tried harder to be a teacher's pet to Snape, but when Neville had given him an apple on the first day of school, he made Neville track down the tree it had grown from and apologize to it for wasting its child. Everyone knew that Snape preferred pears.
When he walked out on the field, he made double-triple sure that his Nimbus 2000 was still a horse stick and not some wild animal. His heart beat fast against the inside of his chest, but he remembered Oliver Woods' words of comfort during training while he had cuffed him on the shoulder; 'Mrrfg-ffrg."
But it turned out that Harry needn't have worried at all. He ended up manifesting the Snitch with his mind and so the game was over quite fast. Relief washed over him as he dropped his Nimbus 2000 off at the Gryffindor horse stick stables with cheers still ringing in his ears.
"That was amazing," said Fred.
"Bold move," said George. "Risky. But it worked!"
Harry spoke in tongues for an hour before the effect wore off and his eyes rolled back facing forward. It was indeed a powerful bit of magic, but all in all it was worth shortening his lifespan.
"… We have to ask him what is protecting those slippers aside from Richard."
Later that evening, Harry, Ron, and Hermione traipsed down the front lawn path to Hagrid's trailer.
"But we aren't supposed to know about the ruby red slippers, are we?" asked Ron.
The night before, Hermione had improvised a magic projector to play the Wizard of Oz tape against the wall of an empty classroom. It provided useful information for all of them, particularly on how to activate the ruby red slippers should they ever find the opportunity and need to do so. Ron, though, also found the whole movie experience absolutely delightful, and so insisted they play Jesus and Friends as well. Ron went to bed in tears that night, convinced that the goats on his family's tiny lot were all evil and encouraging him to touch his wand at night so he would go to hell.
"You wouldn't even burn," Hermione had said. "You're immune to fire!"
"And we all touch our wands at night," Harry had added. "It makes us feel safe."
Hermione gave him a look of utter disgust.
"What? It's true! I wrap mine up in a little wool sock so it won't get cold at night-"
"Harry-!"
"That's not the point!" Ron had wept. "I just remembered that my wand is a hand-me-down, so it was probably touched by each of my brothers before it got to me!" He'd started full-body sobbing. "My wand isn't pure! It never was!"
Hermione gave the metal door of the trailer a few hard knocks. Hagrid opened it to only about an inch, wearing an apron and looking awkward.
"Hi you lot, listen, now isn't a good time-"
"Hagrid? Are you all right? What's going on?"
Hagrid blushed in embarrassment.
"N-nothing."
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah everything's fine."
"Why is Fang in your garden? He looks terrified."
Indeed, Fang was hiding behind a giant gourd, chattering his teeth and clanking his knees together in classic 70's cartoon fashion.
"A'right a'right come in and I'll show ya. But you have to keep it a secret!"
Hagrid let them inside and they stared about in absolute shock; every piece of fabric was torn about. There was food splattered everywhere and the table and chairs were on their sides, one chair missing a leg. The whole area smelled of pee. On Hagrid's bed, violently whipping a pillow to and fro at lightning speed, was –
"A pitbull? Is that a pitbull, Hagrid?" said Hermione, incredulous.
"Shhhhh! I don't wanna alarm him."
"You know they banned Muggle dogs from the Wizarding World, Hagrid!"
"Hang on," said Ron. "What's a 'peeboo'?"
The dog dropped the pillow immediately ran to Ron and started to rip at his robes' hems.
"NORBIE, DOWN BOY!"
"Hagrid they're gonna kick you out if they find this dog here!"
"I jus' have to get him neutered again, it'll be fine."
"That's what my aunt said every time I did something weird with my magic," said Harry nostalgically.
"Thank god for Britian's National Insurance," said Hermione, unfazed.
"To be fair, I probably shouldn't have also humped the leather Chesterfield."
"What?" now she was fazed.
"I'm just saying, maybe it shouldn't have such sexy legs- "
"IS ANYONE GOING TO GET THE 'PEEBOO' OFF ME-"
They heard movement outside. All four glanced up to see Draco Malfoy's face staring through the window looking gleeful.
"Malfoy! He saw the pitbull!"
"Oh no!"
But Norbert jumped through the window, snatched Malfoy's wig, and ran into the dark forest.
CHAPTER EPILOGUE
Neville tiptoed with a dim lantern through dark hallways, door after door in search for that mirror in vain. It had showed him as an all-powerful, tall, muscular wizard who defeats Voldemort and takes his place as the most powerful and feared being alive, with Trevor at his side, transfigured into a massive floating shark which swallowed his dissidents whole, and Kim Kardashian in a gorgeous, flowing wedding dress at his other side.
When Neville finally found the correct room, he ran past the other mirrors, paying no heed to the Mirror of Teppum, Mirror of Ogel, Mirror of Tsriht, Mirror of Ekacpuc, Mirror of Nwolc, Mirror of Muirauqa, Mirror of Yensid, Mirror of Ssertsmaes, Mirror of Deb…
But when he made it to the correct mirror and whipped off the cover, it took a moment for him to realize that the Mirror of Erised was in fact replaced by the Mirror of Teliot, which showed the viewer their exact likeness except what they would look like sitting on a toilet.
"I should get that mole checked out," wept Neville.
Author's Note: Kim? Kim Kardashian? Are you reading this? I hope you're reading this.