Like A Flower Blooming

Chapter 17

We ate breakfast and spent the whole day having a snowball fight with the rest of the Weasley siblings who were at Hogwarts. 

We spent the rest of the day doing more research on Nicolas Flamel. But nothing. 

“ Hermione. I give up. We’re never going to find anything about Nicolas Flamel. I’m not ever sure that the guy exists!” I said, closing a huge fat book.

Hermione pouted. “ The guy has to exist. I mean... he has to be famous otherwise Hagrid wouldn’t know about him.”

Ron closed his book and huffed, his large blue eyes looking tired. “ Hermione, it’s Christmas. We’ve been in the library for hours. We skipped lunch. Let’s not skip dinner! Please!” he pleaded.

I tried not to laugh. Ron could eat as much as a horse sometimes. Hermione nodded and we packed up our stuff and headed to the common room. 

I took a bath and took a first real look at myself. My hair was long, really long. I made a reminder to myself to get it cut soon. My eyes were bright green and I’d taken to wearing contacts a lot lately. My scar wasn’t visible at all through the dark red hair. 

I was a bit taller than before and I’d filled out from all the great food I’d been getting here. I braided my hair into a long braid down to my waist and headed downstairs to the Great Hall. 

The feast was amazing like the night before. Ron had brushed his hair for once and Hermione ate as much as Ron tonight. She refused to think about the possibility that Nicolas Flamel didn’t exist and I was sick and tired of trying to open her eyes. 

When we went upstairs, I laid down in my bed but felt too excited to fall asleep. So I thought about the cloak. Who sent it? How did they know my dad? I’ve never met ANY of his friends before, not one. Most likely because the Dursleys hated him.

Use it well, the note had said. 

As quietly as I could, I drew off the covers and put my feet in my fuzzy slippers. I grabbed the Cloak out of my trunk and wrapped it around me securely. I grabbed a lamp and hurried out of the common room, ignoring the Fat Lady’s “ Who’s there?”.

I need to find out about Nicolas Flamel and why something of his would have been stolen. So Restricted Section in the library, it is! 

I tiptoed to the library as fast as I could and into the Restricted Section. I’d never been there before and for good reason. It was constantly guarded by Prefects during the day and had horrible books that gave me the creeps just by looking at them. I took the lantern from under the cloak and started reading the titles of the books. I gulped as I read many of them. 

I grabbed one book and opened it. A screaming face came out and I closed it and stuffed it back in. 

“ A student out of bed. Sniff them out, Mrs. Norris and we’ll get them in a lot of trouble!” I gulped and drew the Cloak around me tightly. Filch! Just what I need right now!

Filch came into sight and saw the lantern I’d accidentally left , sitting next to the bookshelf. It was still lit unfortunately and I backed away as he hurried forward. 

“ Student’s lantern. Still hot and lit. A student’s out of bed!” A satisfied smirk crossed his face and I hurried away from him as quietly as possible. I ducked into the first door outside the library hallway and removed the Cloak once I saw I was safe. 

I was in a room, an empty room. How many rooms does Hogwarts have? Eight thousand? 

The only thing that stood in the center of the room was a shiny glass mirror. I looked around, sensing someone was watching me but there was no one in the room. I dropped the Cloak on the ground and left it there as I walked towards the mirror. 

It was big with strange words etched into the frame on the top: erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohs i. Luckily, I managed to unscramble the words so that it said: I show not your face but your heart’s desire. 

My heart’s desire? I walked up closer, close enough to touch the mirror’s face and jumped back in shock. The mirror showed a whole room filled with people. I looked behind me and saw nobody. 

I looked back at the mirror... and my terrified-looking reflection and started studying the reflections. There was me and standing a bit behind was a woman with dark red straight hair and big green eyes. A man stood next to her: dark black hair that stuck up in the back with big hazel eyes and lopsided glasses. One of his hands were stuck in his pocket while the other was wrapped around the woman’s waist. 

My focus went back to the woman’s face and I studied my reflection and hers. We looked really alike, too alike. Our hair was the same color except mine was extremely curly while hers was straight. Maybe she straightened it? Her eyes were the same shape and color as mine which was really freaky. 

The man had some habits that I also had: biting my lip when I was nervous, running his hand through his hair to make it more messed up, and his foot kept tapping, most likely from nervousness.

“ Mom? Dad?” My voice cracked at the words. My real-life parents had never spent that much time with me, making me feel like I’d been abandoned for my whole life. In Harry Potter world, I was an orphan with a huge amount of fake memories to prove it. 

I stared back into the faces of my ancestors. I saw similar curly red hair, green eyes, facial structures, noses, etc. 

I’m looking at my family. Or Harry’s family. Whatever’s the difference! It was too hard to explain but when you had a ton of extra memories and emotions, you started feeling like you actually were that person but at the same time, you. Your personalities mingled until you became a new you, maybe even a better person than before.

After thirty minutes of just staring at my family, I grabbed the Cloak off the ground and tied it around me.

“ I’ll be back. I promise,” I whispered to the mirror and my family and vanished through the door and into the shadowy castle.