The red ribbon: a fred weasley story

Chapter 9: The Dead Boggart

Sirius Black. It rung through my ears and I backed up a few paces.
"Harper?" Fred gripped my arm. I felt sick.
"I-I've got to get out of here," I said and ran through the crowd. "Ex-excuse me, please, move!" I said to a few people and then somebody shouted:
"She's a danger to us all!" Tears poured from my face and I fled, pushing over a couple of people on the way.

I ran all the way down the steps, past the third corridor and into a broom cupboard. And I sobbed. And sobbed, curled into a tiny ball. After a while, I lifted my head and looked around my surroundings. A tiny trapdoor lay in the middle of the room. Maybe an adventure was what I needed. I opened it up with a lot of effort and slowly lowered myself down it.

I landed in something squishy and scrambled off of it.
"Lumos," I muttered and found a ginormous, dead plant.
"Ew!" I exclaimed and ran along the corridor. I came up to a room with hundreds of keys on the floor. I was just as confused as confusion itself at this point. I kicked the wooden door down and met an awful stench filling my nose. I gagged and passed a massive, dead mountain troll. I said, "eurgh!" again and moved onto the next room. An enlarged chess board and pieces, lay strewn about the place. I hurried in again, past with a table full of bottles and then into a different room. It was big and had stone steps leading down to a big clearing, like an auditorium. It was lit with fire and I walked down the steps and saw what appeared to be a mirror.

The Mirror of Erised

It looked into it and didn't just see a young girl of 16, wearing a cropped top and shorts but I also saw Sirius and my parents and Hazel and Luke.

Hazel looked exactly like me, down to the last freckle on her sun kissed cheeks. She had soft honey hair with no extensions unlike my new blonde ones and blue eyes. She smiled at me and slipped her hand into mine.
It was like a ghost of a feeling because when I looked at my real hand, she wasn't there.

My mum stood behind me. She had the same colour hair as us, except light and my beautiful green eyes which looked prettier on her. My mum put her hand on my shoulder and smiled warmly. Once again, I felt a tingling as if her hand was there but it wasn't.

And then my dad, Henry. He had Sandy coloured hair and a rough beard, the sort that if he kissed you, it wouldn't be scratchy but comforting, in a way. He had blue eyes like Hazel and was wearing a blue sweater. He looked kind; they all did.

They all did. My family had slipped through my fingers, like that ABBA song. Muggle music.

And Luke was there. I missed him so much. His laugh and smile and hugs. He was away in Romania with Charlie, looking after dragons.

And Sirius. My other dad. The warmth was back in his cheeks, life in his brown eyes and laughter in his smile.

"I miss you," I whispered and touched the glass.
All they did was smile at me. Why couldn't I hear them? Why couldn't I reach through there? I wanted to feel my mums warm hug. A caress on the cheek from Sirius. And a kiss on the head from my dad. And a squeeze of the hand from Luke. And a secret shared by Hazel. But I couldn't. Because they weren't here. They weren't here.
Why was this my life?!
"Come home," I whispered again but to hazel this time and held my hand up against the glass, as a tear slipped out of my eye.

"Miss hunter?" I heard a Scottish voice and turned around in an instant. Professor McGonagall was walking towards me.
"Yes, Professor?" I asked.
"Let's get you back," she said, lovingly and I tuned to face the mirror, again.
"What is this, Professor?" I asked her as she placed a blanket around my shoulders.
"The Mirror of Erised, dear. It shows you what you desire," she said and wrapped an arm around me.
"I see my parents, hazel, Luke and Sirius," I said, truthfully.
"I suspected that," McGonagall squeezed my shoulder.
"Professor? What is it you see?" I asked, looking up at her.
"Me?" She flustered and I nodded, "I see myself as headmistress, eating a biscuit and my husband is next to me," she bridled a bit and regained herself. I smiled at her.
"Do you miss him?" I asked.
"Everyday, like you miss your family," Professor McGonagall smiled sadly. "We need to take you back, dear, the others won't rest until you are safe."
"Ok," I said and we walked away through another passage and up out onto the second corridor.