"ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪʀʀᴏʀ ᴄʀᴀᴄᴋ'ᴅ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜱɪᴅᴇ ᴛᴏ ꜱɪᴅᴇ

"ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜʀꜱᴇ ʜᴀꜱ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴜᴘᴏɴ ᴍᴇ," ᴄʀɪᴇᴅ

ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀᴅʏ ᴏꜰ ꜱʜᴀʟᴏᴛᴛ"

― ᴀʟꜰʀᴇᴅ ʟᴏʀᴅ ᴛᴇɴɴʏꜱᴏɴ, ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀᴅʏ ᴏꜰ ꜱʜᴀʟᴏᴛᴛ

Chapter Three: A Cracked Reflection

"Charms, pass, Transfiguration, pass, Potions, pass, History of Magic, pass, Defence Theory, pass. Ancient Runes, pass, Muggle Studies, pass, Divination, pass!" Ruby collapsed onto the bed, waving her exam results triumphantly above her head.

"More like pass out if you ask me," said Harry, watching her melodramatics calmly from a window alcove in the near-deserted Gryffindor dormitory. "Could you not kick all of my sheets onto the floor?"

He wiped some condensation off the window and squinted out at the grounds.

"I can't help it," said Ruby morosely, her limp hand dangling off the bed. "I'm bored out of my wits. No owls, no letters..."

It had been a while since they'd heard from anyone. An entire month. And though the Dementors had been driven from Hogwarts, they weren't by any means gone from Britain.

Do you think they reproduce? Like budding yeast? Lupin had assured them that Dementors did precisely that. Harry imagined a horrible, wet, dark clump of the monsters and shuddered. He'd rather the basilisk any day.

"You could help Professor Sprout with the garden. Or Hagrid with the animals. I'm sure Lupin wouldn't mind help sorting books; he's always swamped―"

"I get the point," said Ruby in an irritated tone, tossing more of his sheets onto the floor as she sat up. "But honestly, if I have to re-pot another Mandrake, I'll scream my head off, too."

Well, beggars can't be choosers, thought Harry. "Hagrid's invited us to tea later, anyway."

She was silent for a few moments. "Think he's given up on trying to crossbreed Manticores and Fire Crabs?"

"We'd be so lucky."

Later on, they did make their trip down to Hagrid's. The sky was a uniform pale blue dotted with white spun sugar clouds, and the leaves sang in the faint breeze. It was odd to think that Hogwarts was now not only Unplottable but unreachable even to wizards and witches who could not prove their affiliation with the school. Harry had gone to the edge of the school limits, where you could just see Hogsmeade beyond and come up against an immaterial barrier which prevented him from going any further. The outer world was nothing but a tableau; Harry couldn't help but feel intensely claustrophobic at the thought of it.

He wondered if Hogsmeade really was as peaceful as it seemed or if Dementors had already overrun it completely.

High above them, he could make out Hedwig dive and soar after her prey; she returned from the skies victorious, a tiny mouse grasped in her beak, to alight upon a tree just ahead of them.

As they drew close, Harry heard Fang scrabbling at the door and barking excitedly. Hagrid opened the door and hauled the massive dog out of the way, grinning, only for Fang to spring back out and make a valiant but thwarted attempt to lick Harry's ears.

Lupin and Sirius were there already; Sirius didn't look quite so starved and spindly as he had upon his arrival at Hogwarts, Harry noticed. Madam Pomfrey had done an excellent job. Now that his hair was starting to grow back, it looked quite healthy, and his face didn't look skeletal anymore, though an unnatural sharpness still lingered about his cheeks.

It was only his eyes that hadn't changed, thought Harry, as the two wizards stood up to greet them, Fang wiggling between Lupin's long legs and making a fresh attempt to lick Harry's face.

After Fang calmed down, Hagrid offered everyone tea and then his infamous rock cakes.

"Dumbledore's offered me the Defence post," Sirius began.

Harry nearly spilt his tea in his lap, looking at Lupin for some kind of response. He only quirked an eyebrow and nodded over at Sirius.

"Dumbledore wanted a special focus on the Dark Arts, especially after the fiasco last year."

"Aren't you worried about the curse?" asked Ruby finally, recounting the Hogwarts legend that continued to prove itself true. "There hasn't been a Defence professor who lasted more than a year―"

"―Since the sixties, yes," Lupin cut in. "We never had a professor suffer a serious injury during our time at Hogwarts, though."

"We've had two out of three die," said Harry dryly. One of which was directly my fault.

"Well," said Sirius, "I'm not working for Voldemort, which was the commonality between Quirrell and Lockhart, so I suspect I'll be more or less alright."

"An' how have yeh two been amusin' yerselves?" asked Hagrid, gently nudging Fang away from the rock cakes.

Ruby set her cup of tea down and began to answer. "Oh, nothing much, just sorting Potions ingredients and repotting Mandrakes, trying to catch up on some stuff I missed last year. Harry's been―"

Harry shot a pointed look at Ruby.

"―Exploring."

"Brilliant!" said Sirius, leaning forward. "Find any secret passages yet?"

"Oh, not that kind of exploring," said Harry hastily. The last thing he wanted was a lecture about why he shouldn't be stalking Riddle around the castle. "We're supposed to have a Careers Advice meeting fifth year, so I've been trying to... get prepared."

"If you do alright in your core subjects, Auror's not off the table," Sirius suggested, a thoughtful expression on his face. Harry considered this. He remembered the Aurors from first year, Tonks and Moody in particular, but didn't really know much about what they usually did or, in fact, anything about magical careers.

Lupin's eyes lit up. "Well, what are your electives?"

"Divination, and―"

"How are your marks in Divination?" asked Lupin.

Harry shrugged. He didn't have the gift; that was for certain. If Trelawney could be trusted, Ruby was the one who showed promise as a Junior Seer.

But being a Seer sounds like more of an ability than a job, anyway.

"He's takin' Care o' Magical Creatures with me," said Hagrid proudly. "Speakin' of, I've got a surprise fer yeh." He got up and beckoned for everyone to follow him, beaming.

Harry's stomach lurched. There was a highly observable and reliable correlation between the dangerousness of magical creatures and Hagrid's excitement to show them off to his guests. It could only mean one thing ― that he'd succeeded in breeding Manticores and Fire Crabs into some terrifying amalgamation. Given that the Manticore was classified XXXXX (a known wizard-killer, like the basilisk), Harry could only hope Hagrid's invention took after Fire Crabs, which, though they could shoot fire, were at least less likely to cause a school-wide catastrophe.

Ruby prodded his arm with a finger, and his head snapped up.

"―Blast-Ended Skrewts!" Hagrid was saying, gesturing towards a box from which ominous scratching noises emanated.

"Very... nice, Hagrid," said Lupin as he peered down at the box of Blast-Ended Skrewts, green in the face.

"It's alright," Hagrid encouraged. "Why don' yeh take a look, Harry?"

Nervously, he swallowed and chanced a look into the box. Harry relaxed instantly. Blast-Ended Skrewts were more Fire Crab than Manticore, though still indeed utterly grotesque and downright revolting to look at. They looked somewhat like lobsters but pale and headless. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches. Worse yet, they gave off a pungent scent of rotting fish.

One of the Blast-Ended Skrewts chittered unintelligently and insultingly, raising its fleshy claws in his general direction as if to strike out at him.

"They're... interesting," Harry managed, stepping back. When Ruby went to have a look, she noticeably gagged at the smell and then coughed afterwards so as not to hurt Hagrid's feelings.

"Well, I suppose they'll be useful for warding off intruders," Sirius offered, slipping his hands into the pockets of his robes uneasily. "What do they eat?"

Hagrid scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"I've been feedin' 'em mostly rats, but they don' seem ter like it much."

Ruby flinched. Harry could almost see the thoughts printed on her face: I hope they don't happen to have a strong preference for human flesh.

"Are you really going to teach as yourself?" Ruby asked Sirius incredulously after they'd bid their goodbyes to Hagrid, Lupin and Harry trailing slightly behind.

Harry could see her point. It had taken a great deal of evidence for him to trust Sirius, and the fact he'd survived Azkaban with his mental faculties mostly intact suggested that neither Legilimency nor Veritaserum would be sure to reveal the truth if Sirius truly wished to hide it. Why would students who knew of him only as a mass murderer trust him enough to teach?

"Under a false name, of course," said Sirius. "Dumbledore thinks I'm fairly unrecognisable, especially since the students are much too young to have read my front-page spread at the time."

"And I say it's a bad idea," Lupin interrupted, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I knew who you were the second I saw your face, Sirius, and you were skin and bones then."

"I'd be offended if you didn't," Sirius reparteed.

Having seen pictures of Sirius at school with his parents as well as the aforementioned newspaper clipping, Harry personally agreed with Lupin. And beside himself, Sirius also bore an unmistakable resemblance to the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange, in bearing as well as likeness, as he'd observed during the Siege of Hogwarts from his hiding place under the Whomping Willow.

Sirius coughed. "It's better I take a chance on no one looking too hard than to explain a Transfiguration or Polyjuice wearing off."

Harry could see sense in that, but he frowned. At the very least, Sirius would be the best Defence teacher they'd had in three years.

"The third-floor corridor," Mordred pointed out as if Tee didn't know what they were currently looking at. He supposed Mordred might be forgiven for that assumption, as it had been damaged beyond all recognition.

To start off with, there was a gaping hole that had decimated half of the corridor's floor and through which the second floor could be seen. The edges of the rubble were coal-black and smouldering, and the walls were covered in black, swirling, ominous patterns.

"Harry Potter's handiwork, I s'pose," said Tee, eyeing the damage uneasily. He took two steps and launched himself across the gap, flying rather than foolishly attempting to make the jump. Mordred was right behind him.

An oleaginous, black stain that closely resembled crude oil trailed out of the corridor and past a door which seemed to have been violently blown off its hinges. Tee gave it a wide berth, taking care not to step in it. He didn't know much about Obscurials, as they'd been rare enough by his time to be considered irrelevant even as an extracurricular subject.

The uncertainty that surrounded Harry Potter was disconcerting.

What happened here? Other than Potter, I mean.

The day he'd officially moved back into Hogwarts Castle, amongst other things, Dumbledore had suggested that he avoid the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side. Tee had found this strange and unexplainable; in his recollection, the only thing that corridor contained was rows of very standard and mostly-abandoned classrooms.

Or so he'd thought. Dumbledore had quarantined the corridor due to (aside from the falling hazard) the Dark magic residue that seemed to have resulted from Potter's Obscurus going rogue.

He snapped his fingers. "Lumos."

A small, glowing ball of blue-white light appeared above his palm. He flashed the light cautiously around, peering into the room, and seeing no movement or apparent danger, went in and instantly gagged at the stink of rotting flesh.

Pulling his shirt up over his nose, he ventured closer to the awful smell. Even Mordred inhaled in shock at the sight, lit eerily by Tee's light.

"What's that?"

"Cerberus, by the looks of it," said Mordred, inspecting the great, fly-ridden mass of flesh.

"Do you think Harry Potter killed it?"

"No, look closer. It doesn't have his marks."

Tee gagged again and peered closer. Mordred was right; Potter hadn't killed it. Then who? Defeating such a creature was no mean feat.

He began to step back, then stopped. The boards under his feet creaked strangely.

A thought came to him; Tee bent over, holding his light close, and pulled at the hollow-sounding board to reveal a trapdoor. Once more, he flashed the light around. Another putrid, rotting stink emanated from whatever was below them. Nevertheless, he levitated himself down.

"Devil's Snare," noted Mordred once they got to the bottom. "Looks a bit singed."

"It's a bit of an expert job for Potter, isn't it?" asked Tee. That was what he would have done. Ruby had never mentioned her brother going rogue while he was in the diary. That meant this must have happened in their third year or, more likely, their first year.

Maybe this is my handiwork.

There was no way out but back the way they'd come; or through. Tee chose the latter, emerging into a blindingly bright chamber. Above them was an assortment of keys of crystal, gems, or precious metals fluttering around. A few brooms were leaning against the wall, collecting dust. Tee had never favoured broomsticks as a method of transportation; he found them obsolete due to his unique ability for unassisted flight.

"Try that brass one there," said Mordred, pointing up at the only drab key. As Tee floated up to get it, he groused: "Who came up with this? Who did they mean to keep out? Eleven-year-olds?"

They went through the following rooms quickly, as the stench of rotting troll followed them throughout. Eventually, Tee found himself in a cold, dark room in the dungeons. He fumbled out a few straifs with a piece of chalk he had in his pockets to light the sconces, then turned towards the centre of the room once more.

He started instantly, his hand wrapping around the edge of a sconce to keep himself steady. His own eyes stared back at him, dark and knowing. The wizard in the mirror was as perfect a copy as the Boggart had always been, but this one blazed with a terrible aliveness. He wore simple black robes cut from a lush, expensive fabric, and two signet rings sparkled on his fingers.

The reflection turned his back to Tee, the light still cupped in Tee's hand reflecting off of his hair. He walked back into something that looked like an office. His shoulders moved slightly with each breath.

"My father was a great wizard, as I am." His breathing stilled, calmed. Ice ran through Tee. The reflection pivoted a quarter of a turn and glanced back at Tee, an easy smile upon his lips. "His name was Tom Riddle, as I am." He paused. "Isn't that what you want?"

Tee squirmed, like a bug impaled by a pin. "No!" he snapped, but the weight of wanting pinned him to the wall. He wanted to launch himself forward into the mirror, become one with the reflection, whole. It was a horrible, disgusting, choking want, wriggling inside of him like a bellyful of squids.

"My father wanted me."

The back of his throat was burning, and his eyes smarting. "My father was a filthy Muggle who left me!" he spat viciously.

"You wanted him; you want him more than anything," the reflection insisted. "Before you came to Hogwarts, you never knew who he was, but you wanted him still. Why do you cling to the trinkets stolen from his house if not for the fact you cannot cleave yourself from the wanting? You may have done so to your soul, but you cannot separate desire from the bone. Tom Riddle is dead, but the yearning survives. Who is Lord Voldemort if not that great wizard of your personal legend?"

The reflection changed, no longer a perfect copy of himself, but older, older than Mordred but younger than Voldemort, the beginnings of crow's feet around his eyes and grey brushing his temples. He spoke four terrible words, words that had played themselves over and over in his imagination.

"I want this one."

A strangled sob escaped him, and Tee launched himself at the mirror with a cry of anguish; whether to destroy it or to join with it, he could not tell. His fists slammed against the glass, and the reflection disappeared, but it did not shatter. He slumped to the ground, filled with exhaustion.

"This is the room where it all happened," said a voice. Mordred had followed him in. He was inspecting something in the ground. "Funny that Dumbledore would hide something here. Perhaps he knew."

Then, he noticed Tee lying on the ground.

"The letters," noted Mordred, once Tee had collected himself somewhat. "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi."

"Old Norse?" asked Tee as he squinted at the engraving, grateful for anything else to focus on.

"No..." Mordred lingered. "Mirror writing. I show not your face but your heart's desire."

Tee's own heart sunk to his feet at that statement.

"I must see it for myself." But Tee reached out for him, forgetting he wasn't fully corporeal.

"Don't. It'll drive you mad. It nearly did me."

Mordred did not answer, instead going to the mirror and inspecting it. It was baroque-style, with ornate gold filigree worked on and around the glass. At the top, an eagle peered angrily down at them, and two snarled dragons were placed below. A large crack had formed on the surface, and glass dust lay about the floor, sparkling in the light.

I hadn't noticed it before. How can it be damaged and still working? Is it my own madness at work?

After all, Mordred didn't seem to see anything. Tee peered into it, too, and saw only his reflection, the same as in any ordinary mirror.

"Do you think it's another one?" asked Mordred, running a questioning finger along the crack.

"It's broken," Tee pointed out. He'd gone to the trouble of charming the diary to be impervious to damage and evidently the locket, too, it not being so much as scratched.

"But not beyond repair."

Tee pressed his palm to the cool mirror, frowning. He took out a piece of chalk from his pocket, and drew a simple isaz (a simple vertical line) and a hooked rune representing the ash tree for good measure.

He shut his eyes, feeling along the crack as Mordred had and brought the appropriate rune poem to the forefront of his mind, intending to tweak its interpretation slightly.

"Ice is very cold and immeasurably slippery," he mouthed, trying to hold fast to the mental image of the smooth reflectiveness of fresh ice. "It glistens as clear as glass and most like to gems."

Under his hands, the glass flowed together like water and became smooth and whole, even seeming to have a purer surface than before. Now, to make sure it didn't happen again, his thoughts turned to the proud ash tree, imbuing the glass with the strength of his intent.

"With its sturdy trunk it offers a stubborn resistance, though attacked by many a man."

The mirror glowed under his fingertips, and then the light quickly faded. The glass felt sturdy against his palm.

"I didn't know we'd become so adept at wandless magic this young," said Mordred archly.

Still somewhat shaken, Tee did not respond to his question. Besides, he found performing magic the 'longhand' way a nuisance most of the time and generally useful only for pedagogical or exotic purposes, especially for everyday spells for which a perfectly suitable one-word equivalent existed.

"This was the room where I..."

"Yes."

Tee remembered keenly now the pain of being torn apart. How frightened must he have been to suffer that again, and possibly a third time?

He rapped his knuckles against the mirror; it rang clear as a bell, not tinny as an ordinary mirror should be. Could it really be? Tee couldn't think what motive he would have had to turn an enchanted mirror into a Horcrux. Compared to the protections on the locket and the imperviousness of the diary to damage, this seemed amateur-ish, rushed.

Mordred cocked his head to the side, his lip curling in displeasure.

"I recognise the mirror; I've been forced to acquire an unpleasant and unwanted... familiarity with antiques. It's the Mirror of Erised, a creation of one of the French artificers of the seventeenth century. This particular one belonged to Magdelaine de La Grange, who was also a clairvoyant and enchanted the mirror with her powers shortly before her execution. But it might not be one of ours... it was only a thought." He stretched languidly. "If you don't mind, I think I'll turn in for the night. I have much to think about."

"Night," offered Tee, but Mordred had already disappeared.

He remained deeply disturbed, unable to shake what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised from his mind.

He waited in the Hospital Wing, looking out one of the tall windows with his arms folded, until Poppy Pomfrey entered, her arms filled with fresh bandages.

"Could I trouble you for some Calming Draught?" asked Tee.

Poppy startled, nearly dropping the bandages.

It was the first time they'd seen each other since his return, after all. Tee had been studiously avoiding her for as long as possible.

Out of everyone, Poppy had been steadfast in her civility towards him at Hogwarts.

I wonder what she thinks of me now?

"Yes," said Poppy uneasily, seeming to collect herself, "just a moment." She returned from the storeroom in the back of the Hospital Wing with a vial of the familiar blue potion and passed it to him wordlessly.

When he uncorked it, the peppermint scent that wafted from it flooded him with a thousand memories, most of them unpleasant and marred by his inexorably growing rage all those years ago.

He tipped his head back and swallowed every drop; the discomfort the Mirror of Erised had wedged in him faded, leaving only numbness.

It was a wonder I used to feel anything.

Poppy was watching him intently; it dawned on Tee had although peoples' faces changed drastically with time, their eyes remained the same.

"Sorry to bother you," said Tee. "I'd make it myself, but I don't have a wand."

"That does not fool me," said Poppy warily. "Professor Dumbledore told Minerva and I about you after you went well and truly bad. I know that you're a Parselmouth, that accursed gift, that you were a skilled Legilimens even as a child, that you cast wandlessly and at will long before anyone in the magical world knew of your existence. We'd have all been better off if Dumbledore left you to rot―"

"And your Boy-Who-Lived has the accursed gift!" spat Tee, despite the fact that he hadn't come in here for the purpose of losing his temper. "He, too, bears the mark of a Dark Wizard!"

He relaxed suddenly, the Calming Draught relieving the tension in his muscles.

"It's true," Poppy agreed, her voice level. "Dumbledore thought you might have insight."

Tee shook his head. "Haven't got the foggiest." He thought for a moment; it was both strange and uncanny that his fated enemy should share so much with him.

We're both Parselmouths, both half-bloods, both orphans. We even look something alike—

"Perhaps we're distant relatives." It was well-known that Parseltongue tended to run in families, all known Parselmouths being believed to be descendants of Herpo the Foul.

"Perhaps. But his mother was Muggle-born, and you know what everyone used to say about the Potters. You were in Slytherin, after all."

He casually repeated the old gossip he'd heard tossed around the common room, mainly by the likes of Abraxas Malfoy and Walburga Black. "What, that the Potters are so Muggle-loving that they must have come from tainted blood?"

Poppy flinched almost imperceptibly, hyper-aware of Tee's gaze.

"Yes, as have many so-called pureblood families. One thing is for certain — James was in and out of my Hospital Wing while he was at school — I knew him well, and he was not a Parselmouth. Nor was Lily, for that matter."

"What about Euphemia?" Tee recalled the intriguing witch he'd once met on the Hogwarts Platform; she must be James's mother.

Poppy shook her head sadly. "No, neither her nor her husband. If only we knew what happened that night... we've searched for answers, but all that seems to remain is yet more questions."

Uncomfortable, Tee scratched the back of his neck. He couldn't help but wonder if it was strange to speak to a would-be murderer about how they'd grieved for his victims.

"There were marks under the crib," he said suddenly, remembering the floor of the wrecked nursery. "I couldn't recognise the language, and Bathilda didn't seem to want to talk about it."

"Dumbledore already knows of them," said Poppy in a quiet, accusing tone. "He'd like to know about the marks you put on the floor in the room where the Mirror of Erised is stored."

It was Tee's turn to startle. His stomach churned.

"How did you know I was there?" She was no Legilimens, after all. Perhaps there'd been a tracking spell placed upon him; he wouldn't put it past Minerva.

"Lucky guess, I suppose." Poppy shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. Her face was unreadable. "Decades as a nurse will give you a nose for rooting out trouble."

So you think you'd have caught me back in our day? Tee didn't voice that thought and folded his arms instead.

"Yes, I was in the dungeons. And?" He raised an eyebrow.

But like any good Slytherin, he could smell the beginnings of a devil's bargain. If I want her to tell me about Lily's marks, I'll have to tell her about mine. It all depends on whether Dumbledore already knows I'm a Horcrux and hasn't told her.

If he doesn't know I'm not fully human, I must not tell him. Better for him to think I'm merely an ordinary time traveller, not that those are so common.

But if he knows I'm lying...

I'll have to risk it. It'll be too messy to tamper with Poppy's memory without a wand; she's a reasonably competent witch, after all.

He rolled his shoulders back and said unblinkingly: "Fifty years ago, I was messing around with a time spell I found in the Restricted Section. The result..."

"I see."

She seemed to have bought it.

"We don't know, but it seems to have been a protection spell involving blood and a willing human sacrifice. Whatever it is, it led to your demise." Poppy looked straight through him, and Tee shuddered. "We all agree it's of Lily's invention."

Was that a threat? His fist tightened as if around a wand, yet, it was not there. He found its absence unsettling.

"Like a blood pact," he mused under his breath. "A blood pact with Death."

How would one make such a contract with the Grim Reaper without fearing retribution? Most didn't believe in Death (and most didn't suffer the misfortune of seeing the Thestrals pulling the school carriages until long after they graduated), but Tee had seen him, first in the black curtain whilst he had been in the grip of scarlet fever, and then again in the red fires of the war.

Who is Harry Potter... Who is Lily?

"She was Muggle-born?"

"Yes," said Poppy in an offended tone.

Tee scowled. "I was only asking."

There's that Muggle-raised ingenuity, he thought, not without a touch of spite, both for himself and Lily.

And when did Poppy become so cunning? It's not befitting of a Hufflepuff.

Poppy looked him directly in the eyes for a long time, perhaps on accident. Seizing the opportunity, he peered deeper. Not much he could uncover without alerting her, so he made do with what was in her working memory.

She was an Unspeakable... perhaps that explains things, at least partially. But it's not as if I can get my hands on Ministry records.

"Goodnight," he offered, handing her back the empty vial. Poppy returned the sentiment, and he turned on his heel and left the Hospital Wing quickly and quietly, the soft scuffs of his footsteps the only sound in the night.