The next morning, Harry looked as though he had slept for maybe an hour.
Ron did not notice.
I noticed immediately.
Not because I was particularly observant. Harry sat at breakfast with his hair looking even worse than usual, staring somewhere over Ron's shoulder and stirring porridge he had not tasted once in the past three minutes.
Besides, I knew where he had spent part of the night.
"Harry."
Ron waved a hand in front of his face.
Harry blinked.
"What?"
"I asked if you wanted a sausage."
"What?"
Ron looked at me.
"Something's wrong with him."
"Brilliant diagnosis."
"I didn't sleep well," Harry said.
Right.
That was certainly the whole problem.
Ron shrugged and took the sausage for himself.
I looked at Harry.
He looked at me.
Only for a second.
Then he went back to his porridge.
I did not ask.
I did not need to.
Parents.
Grandparents.
The entire Potter family standing on the other side of the glass.
I remembered enough.
Harry would go back.
Not this morning, obviously. He only had to endure the irritating part of the day known as daytime.
I took a piece of toast.
Not my problem.
It was genuinely pleasant to be able to say that about something.
After breakfast, I discovered that Hermione had probably bought me a book on household magic solely so that one day it might save me from my own stupidity.
The drying charm was brilliant.
Not impressive.
Not powerful.
It did not change the world.
But after yesterday's snowball fight, my boots were still damp, and five seconds later they were not.
I stared at them.
Then at the book.
"Alright," I said.
Granger got one point.
She did not need to know about it.
I turned the page.
A charm for warming bedclothes.
Two points.
Removing ink from fabric.
Three.
A charm for straightening bent book pages.
I looked at that one longer.
Four.
Maybe five.
I was sitting at one of the side tables in the Great Hall. Most of the teachers had already left, and the students had scattered around the castle.
Harry and Ron were playing chess a few seats away.
Or rather, Ron was playing.
Harry was moving pieces.
Those were two different things.
"Knight."
Harry moved a rook.
Ron looked at him.
"That's not a knight."
Harry looked at the piece.
"No."
"Glad we cleared that up."
"Shut up."
Ron leaned back in his chair.
"What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"Mm-hm."
I almost smiled.
Ron Weasley had recognized a lie.
Christmas really was magical.
Harry glanced toward the tall windows.
It was still bright outside.
He sighed.
I lowered my eyes to the book.
Potter looked personally offended by the fact that the sun refused to set faster.
I was not thinking about the mirror.
That was surprisingly easy, if you did not count the moments when I was thinking about it.
Which was roughly every twenty minutes.
I was not going back.
I had no reason to.
I knew what it was.
I knew how it worked.
I even knew what it showed other people.
Harry saw his family.
Ron saw success.
Dumbledore claimed he would see himself holding a pair of thick woolen socks.
Liar.
Good joke, though.
The problem was that knowing how the object worked told me nothing about what I would see.
I turned the page too hard.
The paper crackled.
I stopped my hand.
No.
I was not going to sit there thinking about a magical mirror like someone who had received a mysterious letter from the future.
It was not the future.
Not prophecy.
Not prediction.
Just desire.
Simple.
I went back to reading.
Five minutes later, I realized I was still on the same page.
I closed the book.
"Fuck it."
The old wizard in the portrait beside the fireplace opened one eye.
I looked at him.
He looked at me.
He closed his eye.
Sensible.
Evening arrived far too slowly.
I was not waiting for it.
I simply noticed.
That was different.
After dinner, Ron pulled out the chess set.
I refused.
Harry did not even try to pretend he was interested.
"I'm going to bed early," he said after about ten minutes.
Ron looked at him suspiciously.
"Again?"
"I'm tired."
"You haven't done anything all day."
"Neither have you."
"I played chess."
Harry stared at him.
"Very exhausting."
"If you do it properly."
Harry sighed and stood.
He did not look at me.
This time, I definitely noticed.
I waited.
Not because I wanted to make sure he left first.
There was simply... no point going immediately.
Ten minutes later, I closed my book.
Ron looked up.
"You going to bed too?"
"No."
"Then where?"
I looked at him.
"Nice of you to ask, Mum."
He grimaced.
"Forget it."
"That was exactly my plan."
I left.
This time, the route took less time.
I did not need to search.
I remembered.
The castle was even quieter than the previous night. Snow was falling outside, but through the thick windows it looked more like shifting white patches than weather.
I did not run into Snape.
I considered that a personal Christmas gift.
I did not run into Filch.
Even better.
When I reached the corridor, the door was closed.
I stood in front of it.
Alright.
Yesterday, I could have told myself I had stumbled across the place by accident.
Today, I had crossed half the castle.
It was harder to lie to yourself when you had to climb several moving staircases to do it.
I placed my hand on the handle.
Cold.
I pressed down.
The door opened.
The room looked less impressive than it should have.
That surprised me.
In books, places like this always had the proper atmosphere. Dust hanging in perfect shafts of light. Silence heavy with secrets. The sense that something had been waiting there for centuries specifically for you.
Here, it was simply cold.
A little dusty.
Old benches and chairs pushed against the walls.
And the mirror.
It was difficult to look at anything else.
It was enormous.
Several times taller than me, set into a heavy golden frame standing on two carved feet. Across the top ran an inscription I had known for years.
I did not read it.
There was no need.
I closed the door.
I was alone.
For a moment, I stood sideways to the mirror.
That was stupid.
I had come here to look.
So I looked.
At first, I saw myself.
Of course.
I stood in the reflection exactly as I stood on this side. Dark robes, hair slightly messy, black eyes with white light deep within them.
Nothing strange.
Then the reflection changed.
Not suddenly.
The room behind me simply stopped being this room.
I frowned.
It was warmer.
That was the first thing I noticed.
I did not recognize the place.
The walls were light. One was almost completely covered with books. A window on the left. Some painting I could not make out properly.
A table stood in the middle.
I stared for several seconds.
A table.
Seriously?
I stepped closer.
My reflection was not standing in front of me.
It was sitting at the table.
I was sitting at the table.
I looked a little older.
I think.
It was difficult to tell. The face was mine. The eyes too. The same black irises, the same pale light in the pupils.
Nothing else.
No crown.
No Elder Wand.
No mountain of Galleons.
No Voldemort lying dead at my feet.
Not even a proper library.
A table.
"Brilliant."
My reflection did not hear me.
It was not even looking in my direction.
It was talking to someone sitting beside it.
Only then did I really notice the others.
There were several people.
Four?
Five?
Maybe more.
I could not count them.
One sat opposite me. Someone to the left. Another figure leaned against a chair farther away.
Their faces were...
Not blurred.
Not exactly.
I knew where the eyes should be. The nose. The mouth.
But whenever I tried to focus on one of them, the details simply would not stay.
Like the face of someone you had once seen in a crowd.
Dark hair.
I think.
A smile.
Maybe.
I focused harder.
Nothing.
I leaned closer to the mirror.
The person across the table said something.
I could not hear the words.
My reflection rolled its eyes.
Someone sitting beside me laughed.
A hand reached over the table and stole something from my plate.
My reflection immediately slapped the owner's wrist.
Too late.
The food disappeared.
Someone else laughed.
I watched.
My reflection said something.
More laughter.
One of the figures kicked the leg of my chair under the table.
I kicked back.
I could not hear anything.
That was irritating.
Not because the conversation had to be important.
It looked like the exact opposite.
Completely meaningless.
And that was precisely why I wanted to know what they were talking about.
I looked at the person beside me.
Tried again to catch the face.
Nothing.
My left eye stung faintly when I instinctively focused harder.
I stopped.
No.
This was not a spell structure to take apart.
It was a mirror.
"Who are you?"
No one answered.
Of course.
The figure opposite me lifted a cup with both hands.
There were books on the table.
One open.
Several plates.
Cups, none of them matching.
A robe hung over the back of a chair.
My cup stood beside my elbow.
I did not need to know it was mine.
It simply was.
I frowned.
Home.
That had to be it.
My own home.
A place that belonged to me.
Not the orphanage.
Not a dormitory.
Not a castle full of hundreds of people.
Something of my own.
That, at least, sounded reasonable.
I looked at the table again.
The people only complicated the theory slightly.
But a home without people would look stupid.
Probably.
One of the indistinct figures said something to me.
My reflection looked toward them.
Not at the eyes.
Not at the hands.
Not at the magic.
Just at the face.
It answered.
The figure smiled.
Nothing more.
I stood before the mirror and watched.
After a while, I noticed something else.
No one there was looking at my eyes.
Not in that way.
No one avoided them.
No one lingered on them.
No one fell silent.
There was none of that brief second I knew from Hogwarts, when someone truly met my gaze for the first time and remembered that something about me did not look normal.
Here, there was not even a reaction.
As though they had seen them a thousand times.
As though it did not matter.
I did not know why that was the thing I noticed.
I looked away.
"Home," I said.
It sounded reasonable.
The mirror, irritatingly, did not confirm it.
I looked at the inscription on the frame.
I knew it.
I did not need to solve it.
The deepest, most desperate desire of the heart.
I looked again.
A table.
Several faceless people.
Cups.
Someone stealing my food.
"This is my greatest desire?"
My reflection laughed again at something I could not hear.
"Seriously?"
Nothing.
"A little disappointing."
The person sitting on the left said something.
My reflection raised its middle finger.
I froze.
Then snorted.
"Alright."
At least I was still myself.
I sat down on the floor in front of the mirror.
I had not planned to.
After a while, standing simply started to feel stupid.
The image did not change.
No answer suddenly appeared.
I did not see my parents.
I did not see my previous life.
I did not see Death.
Only that room.
Maybe that was exactly why it was difficult to leave.
There was nothing grand there.
Nothing that could be solved.
I sat.
I watched.
At some point, I stopped trying to recognize the faces.
It did not help much.
I did not know how much time had passed.
Eventually, I stood.
My knees objected.
"Yes. Brilliant idea."
I dusted off my robes.
My reflection was still sitting.
When I stepped to the side, I expected it to move with me.
It did not.
I knew it was not supposed to.
It was not a real reflection.
Even so, I stopped.
That other Oliver was still sitting at the table.
Someone on his right said something.
He turned his head.
Smiled.
He did not look at me.
Not once.
As though he did not even know I was standing on the other side.
Strange.
I backed away.
The image disappeared only when I looked away.
I opened the door.
The corridor was empty.
Good.
I left.
I did not look back.
For the first twenty steps.
Then I did.
The door was closed.
"Home," I muttered.
It still sounded reasonable.
I kept walking.
A table appeared in the Room of Requirement.
Not the same one.
Ordinary.
Small.
With one chair.
I stopped in the doorway.
"You're funny."
The Room did not answer.
I sat down.
I pulled out my notebook.
It was reflex.
I flipped through several pages already filled with notes.
Troll.
Quirrell.
Broom.
Traces.
Different things that had questions and answers.
I opened to a blank page.
Put the quill to it.
Wrote:
Mirror.
I stopped.
Then:
House?
I stared at the word.
Added:
People unknown. Faces unclear.
The quill hovered over the parchment.
I could write more.
That the eyes had not helped.
That my reflection had been older.
That the people behaved as though they knew me.
That they had not reacted to my eyes.
That I could not hear the conversation.
That...
I closed the notebook.
No.
Not everything needed a list.
I put the quill down.
A moment later, I opened the notebook again.
I added one sentence.
Probably home.
Better.
I closed it again.
This time for real.
Ron looked offended by the world the next morning.
That caught my attention because usually he needed Malfoy for that.
Harry, meanwhile, looked even worse than the day before.
I sat down opposite them.
"Good morning."
Ron muttered something.
Harry nodded.
I looked between them.
"Wonderful. I see the Christmas spirit is still alive."
Ron stabbed his fork into an egg.
"Don't even start."
"I wasn't planning to."
Harry stared at his plate.
Ron lasted maybe three seconds.
"That was stupid."
Harry looked up.
"It wasn't."
"It was."
"You didn't understand."
"I understood enough."
I looked at them.
Right.
Harry had taken Ron.
Ron had seen himself as Head Boy.
Quidditch captain.
Trophies.
Everything his brothers had not already managed before him.
I did not remember the exact details.
Enough.
Ron noticed me looking.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You're staring."
"It's one of my better-known traits."
Harry looked at me a little too quickly.
"Were you somewhere last night?"
That was interesting.
I picked up my tea.
"I was."
Ron frowned.
"Where?"
"Around the castle."
"Why?"
"To see the castle."
Ron stared.
"You're weird."
"That coming from the man who talks to chess pieces."
"They talk back."
"That doesn't help."
Harry did not smile.
He was still looking.
Had he seen me?
Probably not.
The cloak was good, but it did not let him see through walls.
Maybe he just knew I wandered around at night sometimes.
"Did you run into anyone?" he asked.
I looked him straight in the eyes.
"Snape."
Ron grimaced.
"Ouch."
"Yes."
"What was he doing?"
"Reminding me that school rules exist."
That was true.
Harry relaxed a little.
Good.
I had no desire to explain that his wonderful invisibility was not particularly invisible to me.
Not yet.
Ron ate a piece of egg.
"Snape is everywhere."
"Probably a skill developed over years of hating children."
Harry snorted.
For the first time that morning.
Ron did too.
Good.
Then Harry went quiet again.
I stared at my tea for a moment.
I did not ask about the mirror.
He did not ask where I had really been.
Perfect arrangement.
All day, I told myself I was not going back.
This time, really.
I had already seen everything there was to see.
There was nothing to investigate.
The faces were not getting any clearer.
The mirror did not answer questions.
There was no point sitting in front of it for hours.
Apparently, people could waste their lives staring into the Mirror.
Dumbledore had been right about one thing.
It was dangerous.
Not because it did anything.
Precisely because it did nothing.
It only showed.
A person did the rest themselves.
A very impractical design.
I lasted until late evening.
I read.
Practiced two spells from Hermione's book.
Fixed a button that was not broken.
Broke it.
Fixed it again.
Sat down.
Stood up.
Sat down again.
Eventually, I looked at the clock.
"One thing."
I said it aloud to make it sound more convincing.
I wanted to check one thing.
Whether the people were the same.
That was all.
If the image showed desire, maybe the faces changed each time.
Maybe their number.
Maybe the room.
Maybe I had missed something.
It was almost reasonable.
I put on my robes.
The door was where it should have been.
I opened it.
Took two steps.
Stopped.
The room was empty.
Not completely.
The chairs still stood against the walls.
Dust still covered the floor.
But the mirror was gone.
Where it had stood, only a lighter rectangle remained on the stone and a few marks from the heavy feet of the frame.
I stared.
Right.
Dumbledore.
I remembered.
Of course I remembered.
He moved the mirror.
Harry was supposed to find it later with the Stone.
I had known that for years.
And yet, for a moment, I stood there like an idiot.
I walked over to where the Mirror had been.
Empty.
There was nothing to check.
Wonderful.
That actually solved the problem.
I could not keep returning to something that was no longer there.
Very practical.
I looked at the dust.
"One thing," I said.
Silence.
"I only wanted to check one thing."
No one looked convinced.
Especially me.
I stood there a little longer than necessary.
Then I turned around.
"Fine."
I closed the door behind me.
And went back to the dungeons.