The next day passed in the usual blur of routine.
Lessons resumed with their characteristic monotony — the fluttering of quills, the murmuring of incantations, the rustle of parchment and sighs of students still half-dreaming of the holidays.
Yet for Cassius Snape, the rhythm of the day felt subtly off.
He noticed it first during Transfiguration.
McGonagall's voice, normally sharp as a blade, sounded distant — as though heard through water.
His eyes kept drifting toward the corridor windows, to the flicker of torchlight on stone.
There was a pull in the air, a whisper of direction that pressed gently against his thoughts.
By the time Potions ended that afternoon, the sensation had grown impossible to ignore.
He could feel it — like a faint tether around his consciousness — tugging him toward the far side of the castle.
He recognized the signs immediately: a Confundus charm.
A subtle one, woven with purpose and care, just enough to guide rather than control.
Cassius should have broken it.
He could have, easily.
But instead, he allowed it to pull him onward.
If someone wanted him somewhere, he was curious enough to see why.
The castle's halls grew quieter as he walked in a daze.
The students were elsewhere, clustered in the Great Hall or their respective dormitories.
Cassius's footsteps echoed softly through the vast, empty corridors as the light dimmed.
The tug guided him through a forgotten archway near the north tower — one that had not been used in centuries.
The air inside was still and cold.
And in the center of the chamber stood a tall, gilded mirror.
The Mirror of Erised.
Cassius recognized it instantly — the inscriptions along its edge, the faint hum of the enchantment encased within, the subtle shimmer in the glass that made its surface seem deeper than it should be.
But it wasn't the mirror that drew his attention.
It was the boy sitting cross-legged before it.
Harry Potter.
Cassius stopped in the doorway, his gaze flat and unreadable.
"Figures."
Harry looked up sharply, green eyes narrowing.
"What are you doing here?"
"I might ask the same," Cassius replied calmly, stepping closer.
The glow from the mirror cast long shadows across the floor, and for a moment their reflections flickered together — two faces that could almost have been brothers, though one's expression held a maturity the other lacked.
Harry's hands clenched.
"This room's private."
"Not so private," Cassius said mildly. "I was invited here afterall."
Harry glared, turning back toward the mirror.
"Go away."
Cassius tilted his head slightly.
"Why? Because you'd rather stare into that mirror?"
The younger boy's voice cracked slightly when he answered.
"You wouldn't understand."
Cassius arched an eyebrow. "try me?"
Harry gestured toward the mirror, eyes glistening.
"My parents. I can see them here. Alive. Smiling. Together." His voice broke on the last word. "It's like they're real."
For a long moment, Cassius said nothing.
His gaze softened in pity.
this poor boy has already been driven half mad by this relic, what he see's is just his desire, but he doenst yet know his mother yet lives...
"So that's it," he said quietly. "You'd rather cling to an illusion than learn who they truly were."
Harry's head snapped around.
"Don't talk about them like that!"
Cassius didn't flinch.
"You think you're the only one who's ever lost something? You think you're special because you're the Boy Who Lived?" He laughed softly, but there was no humor in it. "You survived a curse that killed your grandparents. Congratulations. But instead of learning why, or how, or what that means — you sit in front of a mirror hoping it'll tell you what you want to hear. Showing you visions of a time that never was, longing for it so greatly that you give up your chance to make what you see possible"
Harry's cheeks flushed with anger.
"At least I care! You walk around acting like you're better than everyone — like you don't need anyone at all!"
"Maybe because I learned early that depending on others only makes you weak, why expect others to do things for me that i can do myself?"
Harry stood abruptly, fists balled.
"You think you're so smart, don't you? Everyone talks about you — how you're the best in every class, how Dumbledore watches you like some chosen one. You think that makes you better than me?"
Cassius met his glare with the same cold detachment that always unnerved his professors.
"No, Harry. You think it does. That's your problem."
For a moment, the two stood in silence, tension coiling between them like a drawn bowstring.
Then Harry turned away sharply, his reflection blazing in the mirror — surrounded by the spectral images of his parents, the image itself had changed however now a fourth appeared in the mirror, Cassius who lay on the ground defeated before Harry and his smiling parents.
His jaw tightened.
"You'll never understand," he muttered.
"Perhaps," Cassius said softly, stepping closer to the mirror now, his tone distant. "But maybe I already understand too well."
Harry didn't respond.
He stormed past Cassius, shoving the door open with more force than necessary.
The sound of his retreating footsteps echoed down the hall until it faded into nothing.
Cassius stood alone in the chamber.
Or almost alone.
He felt the presence the moment Harry left — a shimmer in the air, like the faint bending of light around an invisible form.
"Still playing games, Headmaster?" Cassius asked quietly, not turning around.
Silence answered him for several seconds.
Then, softly:
"You noticed."
Dumbledore's voice.
Calm, warm — but laced with that ever-present undercurrent of calculation.
He materialized from the shadows, the shimmer fading to reveal his tall, robed figure, half-bathed in waning sunlight from the window.
"I had hoped to bring the two of you closer," Dumbledore said after a pause. "you both need more friends your own age."
Cassius gave a soft, humorless laugh.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled faintly — though tonight, the light behind them seemed tired.
"Harry needs guidance. So do you. I thought, perhaps, you might find strength in each other."
"Harry's path and mine are not the same." Cassius finally turned to face him, eyes gleaming with quiet amusement. "He's a boy chasing ghosts. I don't have time for illusions."
The Headmaster's gaze drifted toward the mirror.
"And yet, here you stand before one."
Cassius said nothing.
His reflection waited in the mirror's surface — but as he looked, the image wavered, blurred, and shifted.
But what he saw did not shock him, infact he almost expected it, and while a tear threatened to break from his eyes he resisted.
"What did you see?"
Cassius smiled faintly. "Nothing. I have all i desire already."
With that, he turned and strode for the door, his robes whispering softly against the stone.
At the threshold, he paused and glanced back, smirking faintly — though his gaze flicked not to the Headmaster, but to the mirror itself.
"Be careful what reflections you chase, Professor," he said quietly. "Some of them might start looking back."
And then he was gone.
The door closed with a quiet thud, leaving Dumbledore alone before the Mirror of Erised.
He exhaled slowly, looking at his own reflection — one that, for the first time in many years, seemed faint and uncertain.
"Perhaps," he murmured to the empty room, "I already have."