To Want

The Barter

The bruises on his knuckle only just start to heal, turning from inky black blue into bile yellow, when Harry starts to monitor the hallway to the Room of Requirements. He begins to carry the Marauders Map around with him wherever he goes. Pulling it out whenever given a free moment to seek out one name, Draco Malfoy.

He didn't want to admit it to anyone, even himself when he started to notice a pattern. Whenever Malfoy wasn't expected to be in class he would be loitering around the Room of Requirements. Meals were flexible, only going to the Great Hall once in the morning at least and he didn't seem to go to his room to sleep for days on end.

It was also his own newly budding patterns of behavior that bothered him to his core.

Harry was disquieted by his own lack of interest in anything not pertaining to Malfoy or the mirror. Every night he would try in vain to get a few hours of sleep when all his mind wanted to do was stare at the map. It raced with questions about what was happening, what was going on, who was awake, where the teachers monitoring the hall, had they caught on to Malfoy going to the 7th floor, was Malfoy okay?

That last question was the one that always tripped Harry up. He asked it far too often in the middle of the night. In those soft morning hours, he would, with a foggy mind, circle around this question for what felt like years.

The slamming of a massive book on his table mocked Harry out of his contemplations. "It took me a while to remember where I read it," Hermione sat down across from him, pulling the book closer to her, "but I finally found the Book." Whosits, Whatits, and Thinga Magicabobs: Magicing the Everyday object by Regin T. Hephaestus was a massive leather-bound tomb that looked almost brand new. It must not have been a book that many students used, it was a wonder how Hermione even found it in the first place, though it would honestly be more shocking if she hadn't read every book in the library by now. Pulling at a purple ribbon, Hermione opened up the text to the exact page she needed, tucked between that pages were several sheets of parchment with her quick and neat notes on them.

"So, there wasn't much to go off of," Hermione pulled her hair back into a messy bun, "but I think I found a reference to the mirror itself in here." She pointed to a block of text, "Harry can you remind me again, what exactly Dumbledore told you about the mirror."

"He had said something along the lines of the mirror shows you your deepest desires, that the happiest man in the world could look in and only see himself and that men have wasted away before it."

"See I would have assumed that Dumbledore meant people become addicted to the mirror and slowly die simply from not taking of themselves, but look here." She pointed to a bit of small dense text.

Once crafted, objects of this group become almost like parasitic organisms in their own right. They have a limited magical store and will seek out magical sources to empower and ensure their own continued existence. Replenishment spells may work but most objects of this style require a nearly constant source of power. For this reason, few objects of this nature have been made and maintained throughout history.

There are few examples of such objects but one fascinated myth tells of a queen so concerned about losing her husband to younger women, she magicked a mirror to keep his eyes from wandering; as he would meet no other woman more desirous than that which he saw in the mirror. In the darker version of the tale the King, and any of those who look into the mirror, are driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

Harry reread the first part of the passage to be sure he understood it, "This makes it sound like the mirror is alive."

"That's what worries me." Hermione looked grim, "Harry, it sounds like the mirror is draining Malfoy of his magic for energy while simultaneously making him so obsessed with it that he would rather die in front of it than actually take care of his body. Harry, whatever is happening to Malfoy needs to be stopped soon." Hermione was worried. She wasn't saying what would happen but Harry could tell that it was going to be terrible. He pulled out his map again, already looking at the areas he knows he would most likely see the name tag Dracon Malfoy floating down the halls.