The Headmaster's Only Mistake

The Mirror of Erised

Anubis stretched out his hand, allowing Harry to link their hands before the nauseating feeling of soul travel took over him.

···

'We really shouldn't be doing this, what if we get caught?'

'Don't be such a worry-wart, nothing is going to happen.'

'I am not a worry-wart.'

'Are too.'

'Am not.'

'Are too.'

'Am not.'

'Are too.'

'For Morgana's sake, will the two of you shut up? You're giving me migraines.'

'Sorry Harry.' 

Harry rolled his eyes as he, Draco, and Neville quietly creeped through the halls of Hogwarts. It had been a week since the Quidditch game and he had finally been allowed to exit his dorm. 

Naturally, the first thing he did as soon as he set foot outside of the room was get roped into finding a dangerous magical artifact by his brothers. 

They had all but shoved his invisibility cloak into his hands and dragged him in search of empty classrooms as soon as curfew began. Harry had a vague memory of where to room was found, but it had been a long time since he had last wandered around Hogwarts and the sense of urgency and want he had once related to the mirror were now gone. He no longer felt the attachment to the mirror, but he was still curious. What would he see?

Harry though he saw a familiar looking suit of armour, but the suits were known to move around when no one was looking and Harry was sure that there were at least three copies of the same suits around the castle.

They passed another corridor and a painting of what seemed to be a congregation of every painted person coming together to gossip.

"You should've seen them as they ran past my portrait! How indecent!"

"You'd think that students would come up with more inventive jinxes to cast at each other in the hallways, the ones they use are getting boring."

"Did you hear about that Rosier boy? Yes, yes, Hortacious' great-great-great-great-great grandson. He's going out with a Travers girl! Can you believe it? Yes! The half blood."

"So you're telling me nobody else has noticed the tension between Professor Sinistra and Professor Bathsheda? Honestly, those two have been skirting around each other since they were schoolgirls."

"Did you see the latest shenanigans those beastly twins have been up to? I heard they were behind the explosions in the potions lab."

"You know, I overheard Professor McGonagall talking with Headmaster Dumbledore about the Defence teacher, do you think anything is wrong?"

Harry would've loved to stay for a while and hear about the happenings of Hogwarts, but his brothers' nervous and excitable energy was practically tangible and he didn't want to give them away.

Harry forged onward, taking another left and two rights before finally stopping in front of a door. He let out his magic, grinning when a taste of the Mirror's magical trace was detected.

"Here."

The feral grins he got from Draco and Neville would've scared anyone, but he was used to their thirst for knowledge. Harry opened the door, ignoring the wards on the door, and stepped in. Harry knew that Dumbledore wanted to know when he had seen the mirror, and he didn't really mind. After all, once he told Harry how the mirror worked, he would move the stone.