Chapter 327: World in the Mirror
"What?" Dobby stared at him in confusion, not understanding why Dudley had suddenly asked that.
"Since when have I been using my left hand?" Dudley repeated.
He was asking Dobby, but he was also asking himself.
"Er..." Dobby frowned in thought. He could not remember when Dudley had started favouring his left hand. He did remember that Dudley's dominant hand was his right. Yet just now, when Dudley had picked up the card, he had used his left. As for exactly when that change had happened, Dobby could not say.
"I took this Emperor card with my left hand," Dudley murmured.
As he spoke, he turned and walked back towards the door.
"I pushed this door open with my left hand too," he said under his breath.
Step by step, he retraced what had happened. Then he left Lucius's study and returned to the corridor outside.
His gaze fell on the old mirror beside the door.
"Is something wrong, Justiciar?" Dobby asked, still baffled.
"Oh, there is something wrong," Dudley said quietly. "I have been using my left hand without thinking. But I should be using my right. Do you know what that means, Dobby?"
"I... do not understand," Dobby admitted.
No matter how he turned it over in his mind, he could not see the issue.
"Only in a mirror are left and right reversed," Dudley said.
He raised his left hand and ran his fingers across the silvered glass before him.
"Which means we are no longer in the real world. We are inside the world of the mirror," he finished.
"What?" Dobby's eyes went wide.
How could he not be in the real world? How could he be inside the mirror? Did such a world really exist?
"Is it... like the world inside your mirror, Justiciar?" Dobby asked cautiously.
Dudley shook his head.
"The world within the Mirror of Erised truly exists. You can think of it as a portion cut away from this one. At its core, it is still part of reality," he said. "But the world of a mirror like this is different. It is more like a boundary between illusion and reality. A false world."
As he finished speaking, power flared in his hand.
Crack.
His left fingertip tapped the surface. Fine cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of contact, racing across the glass.
Dudley watched the mirror splinter, then looked around.
"Still no change," he said, eyes narrowing.
He had thought breaking the mirror would be enough to escape its world. Clearly, it was not that simple.
Whoosh.
A black shape flashed down the far end of the corridor, vanishing quickly into the distance.
It had looked like a middle-aged man in black robes, moving at great speed.
Dudley did not hesitate. He set off after it at once.
"Dobby, did you see what that was?" he asked as he ran.
"I..." Dobby was still in shock.
There should have been no one else in Malfoy Manor. So what had that been?
What shook him even more was how familiar the figure had seemed.
His great, round eyes turned to Dudley.
"It looked... like you," Dobby said, voice trembling.
"So I did not imagine it," Dudley said calmly.
The fleeting shadow had been identical to the man he currently resembled under the Polyjuice Potion.
"Blazing Flames," he incanted suddenly.
Scarlet fire surged out, washing over the ancient, opulent furnishings on either side.
"Oh!" Dobby yelped, jumping aside, stricken by the sight.
He had never expected Dudley to cast a fire spell out of nowhere. Watching the manor he knew so well go up in flames cut at his heart.
But then his expression changed.
Despite the tongues of red fire licking over them, none of the furnishings actually caught alight. It was as though the flames were only burning their phantoms, not the solid matter.
"Do you remember what I said, Dobby? We are not in the real world right now," Dudley reminded him.
The fire's behaviour only confirmed his suspicion.
"So, should we chase and catch that man we just saw?" Dobby asked, thinking aloud.
"Under normal circumstances, yes," Dudley said. "But I have no desire to waste time here."
His lips curved into a thin smile.
He glanced around, then raised his voice.
"Let us out. Otherwise, I will simply destroy this place."
His words echoed through the empty manor, but no one answered. Nothing around them changed.
"Then excuse me," Dudley said coldly.
The magic item behind this illusion was intriguing, and part of him disliked the idea of destroying it outright. But he did not have the time to humour it.
"Fiendfyre."
He whispered the incantation in Hermes.
Hum.
Terrifying flames erupted around him, far more powerful than the Blazing Flames from before. The heat was so intense that Dobby instinctively scuttled back several steps.
In the blink of an eye, the firestorm roared outward. This time, everything it touched burned. Stone walls twisted and cracked; explosions rang out as panelling and furniture blew apart. In the wake of the cursed fire, nothing remained but cinders.
Dudley watched as the space around him began to warp. The air shook with the sound of shattering glass, and the entire manor quivered.
"This mirror really is impressive. It can even hold up against Fiendfyre for a while," he muttered.
His eyes hardened. He clenched his fist, letting his spirituality surge through his body. Muscles along his back and waist knotted as he twisted and drove his fist down.
Boom.
The blow shook the entire manor. A web of cracks spread out from his knuckles, splintering the floor until it was nearly pulverised.
The Black Emperor Pathway's monstrous physical might was on full display.
Dudley did not stop. He hammered several more punches into the nearby walls.
Crash.
Under the combined assault of Fiendfyre and raw force, the manor of Malfoy's mirror world collapsed. Walls buckled and fell, ceilings gave way, and the structure disintegrated around them.
Hum.
Dudley opened his eyes and found himself once more facing the old mirror in the real corridor.
The glass was now split with deep fractures punched outward from the centre. Through the broken surface, red fire still burned, and the surrounding frame had sagged and warped, half-melted by the heat.