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Part Four

"I think it would be dreadful to have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. Imagine having no family to go to..."

Harry rolled his eyes and kept on eating. Malfoy had mostly been taunting him with words ever since Harry had dueled him and won. It was fine, and Harry could ignore it. Dudley's words hurt worse because he was family. Malfoy was nothing.

"Why are you staying, Potter?"

Harry eyed Nott sideways, but the question seemed pretty neutral. Harry shrugged and put more butter on his toast. "My Muggle family don't like me and I don't like them."

Nott went silent and stared at him. Harry sighed into his bread. He supposed he should have known better than to think any question from one of his roommates was truly neutral. Now he had reminded Nott he lived with Muggles, and Nott would be thinking about dirtiness and dirty blood and how Harry was—

"You live with Muggles?"

Oh. Huh. Harry had thought they knew that. He took another bite of bread and nodded. "Yes. You didn't know?"

"I thought—so many people said you grew up in the magical world, hidden for your own safety—"

"I suppose I might have been hidden for my safety." Harry wasn't really sure what to think of that. Were wizards more dangerous than Muggles? All the time? He could have died falling down the stairs while he was carrying a huge load of laundry or when Aunt Petunia swung a frying pan at his head, and no one would have ever known.

"You don't know?"

"I mean, I didn't know magic existed until I got my Hogwarts letter. Maybe someone hid me for my own safety, but then they never checked on me. I don't know."

"You—you didn't—"

Harry had a hard time keeping a straight face. It was funny that he'd reduced Nott to spluttering with basic facts.

"What dearest Theodore means," Zabini cut in, leaning over and staring at Harry, "is that we both thought you would be aware of magic."

"Well, that was sort of stupid of you."

Zabini bristled, but Nott put a hand on his arm. Zabini looked at him and nodded. Harry watched a little wistfully. He would probably have that same kind of silent communication with Ron and Hermione someday, but even then, they wouldn't be sitting at the same House table while it happened.

"We expected something different from you."

Harry shrugged and looked up to see Ron motioning to him across the Great Hall. He was staying for the holiday, too. Harry picked up a napkin and tucked away the sausages and hard-boiled eggs that he hadn't had time to eat.

"You and everyone else who thought I'd be a Gryffindor and a spoiled hero," he said, and then almost laughed at the looks on their faces. It seemed that Zabini and Nott were offended more than anything that he had compared them to "everyone else."

Harry walked away from the Slytherin table, ignoring a taunt from Malfoy behind him, and caught up with Ron near the entrance of the Great Hall. "Did you want to go out to the pitch and fly around?"

"Yeah!"

Harry smiled. He didn't have friends in his House, but he had people in other Houses he liked, and that was all he needed.

"Cool, mate!"

"Isn't it?" Harry grinned and shook out the Invisibility Cloak. It draped over him and made starlight seem to shimmer and ripple up and down his shoulders. "The only thing that worries me is that the note didn't say who it was from. I almost didn't open the package at first." And he'd hit it with some detection charms he'd started looking up after someone tried to poison him in the common room, but that wasn't something he needed to worry Ron about.

"Why would someone give you something this useful if they hated you?"

Harry did have to sort of admit that, but—"It doesn't mean that they wanted to help me. The Cloak could have a curse on it."

"But it doesn't?"

"No. And the note did say that my dad used to own it. I'm glad to have something my dad owned."

Ron turned pink for a second and looked away. Harry was glad. He hadn't really meant to say that part out loud.

"You told me about a mirror you found?"

Harry shook himself out of the daze of feeling. "Yeah. Come on. I'll show you."

Harry listened to Ron's story about seeing himself with the Quidditch Cup and the Head Boy badge in the Mirror, nodding. It made sense with the motto that was written along the top of the mirror, about the mirror showing your heart's desire.

He was surprised when Professor Dumbledore popped out of a dark corner and talked about the dangers of the mirror to them. Ron was red-faced and stammering by the end.

"So that—that wasn't real?"

"It is what you really and truly want, Mr. Weasley," Professor Dumbledore said gently. Harry looked at him. He hadn't got a good look at the professor before, except sometimes at meals, but he seemed a lot kinder than the Slytherins tended to talk about him as. He had a sad smile and warm blue eyes. "It doesn't mean that it will happen in the future, but it might. If you want it enough and if you work for it."

Ron stood upright and threw his chest out a little. Harry hid a smile. "I can do that!"

"Yes, I do believe you can," said Professor Dumbledore. Harry had to wonder; had the professor ever heard Ron moaning about homework? But before he could say something stupid, the Headmaster turned and looked at him. "And you, Mr. Potter? What did you see?"

Harry had seen his family the first night. He glanced back into the mirror now, expecting to see the same thing.

And he did. Mostly. There were his parents near the front of a crowd of other relatives, ones who had messy hair and green eyes and the thin wrists that he had. His mum and dad both had tears in their eyes, and his mum had one hand resting on Harry's shoulder.

But Harry also saw that he was taller than he was now, and he had a bright, confident smile. He didn't have the Quidditch Cup or the Head Boy badge that Ron had had—maybe because Harry hadn't known they existed to want before he came to Hogwarts—but he had a shiny cloak that shimmered with spellwork. Sort of like the Invisibility Cloak, only cooler.

Somehow, Harry knew that that cloak meant no one could ever damage him with the kinds of jinxes and hexes that Malfoy kept trying. And when he looked back into the crowd of his family, he could see Ron and Hermione standing there, both smiling.

I want that.

"Yes, sir," Harry said after a moment, tearing his eyes away from the mirror to look at Professor Dumbledore. He respected the man's words about the power of the mirror a lot more at the moment. "My family and friends, and they're happy for me."

Professor Dumbledore's smile was sad again. "I believe the mirror can at least give you a glimpse of the past, if not the future."

So my family members might really have looked like that. It soothed something in Harry. He'd worried that the mirror showing his heart's desire meant that it was lying.

But on the other hand, Dumbledore was pretty old, so…

"Did you know my grandparents, sir? Or any aunts or uncles of mine?"

Dumbledore blinked and blinked again. "I did indeed," he said at last. "Any number of Potters passed through these halls while I was Deputy Head and Transfiguration professor here."

"Could you tell me about them? I know a little about my parents, Hagrid told me they were brilliant and how they died and Mr. Ollivander told me about their wands, but I don't really know anything about my other relatives."

Dumbledore's face was softening. "Of course, Harry. It would be my honor."

Harry nodded. He thought of asking what the professor saw in the mirror, but he thought it was probably pretty personal, and Dumbledore might not tell the truth. Harry wouldn't have told the truth if it was something sadder than what he really saw.

He and Ron got out of the mirror room, and Ron cleared his throat a few times as they went down the corridor, but didn't say anything. Only when Harry would have to turn to go down to the dungeons, and Ron would have to go back to Gryffindor Tower, did Ron clear his throat again and say very fast, "D'you think—"

"Yeah?"

"D'you think I could really have the Quidditch Cup and be Head Boy someday?"

Harry blinked, and then smiled and reached out and patted Ron's shoulder. "I think you can do anything you want."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You're not your brothers. You're younger than them, but you can be better than them."

Ron's face shone, and Harry went back to the dormitories and to bed feeling pretty good about himself. He hoped the possible part of the vision in the mirror came true, and he could stay friends with Ron and Hermione all his life, even when he was grown up and knew enough jinxes and curses so that Malfoy would never dare bully him again.