Twice Chosen | Esmerelda Potter

21. The Mirror of Erised

I can barely see through the darkened hallway, even with the lantern in my hand. However, I know the way to the library by heart, after going there with Hermione and Neville so many times during the last few months.

"That door," I tell Harry. He reaches out and turns the doorknob. The door creaks open. We both move through the library to the Restricted Section in the very back of the library. I pull the latch and push the door open. Once we're inside, we throw the cloak off of us and put the lit lantern on top of it.

"I think it would be under 'Flamel' over there," I say. Harry walks down a little ways and pulls a thick book off the shelf and opens it.

 A face appears in the book and it begins yelling and shouting, making an incredible amount of noise, making me nearly fall over in shock. Harry instantly closes the book and slides it back onto the shelf.

The only thing that is audible is our heavy breaths.

"Who's there?" I recognize the voice immediately. From all the way across the library, I can see Filch looking around with a lantern. I also hear a loud 'meow' and know that Mrs. Norris is accompanying Filch.

"Hurry, take the cloak!" Harry picks up the cloak, knocking down the lantern in the process. It shatters into a thousand pieces and flickers off.

"Show yourself!" Filch yells across the library. "You can't hide!"

"Actually, we can," I say, throwing the cloak over us both. We both snicker as we slip past Filch, undetected, and leave the library.

As we turn the corner to go back to the common room, there is a loud bang. On the other side of the corner, Professor Snape presses Professor Quirrell against the wall and has his wand on Professor Quirrell's nose. Quirrell is stuttering something awful.

"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell." Professor Snape threatens. Harry and I move just behind them in order to eavesdrop.

"Now he's threatening Professor Quirrell!" I say to Harry.

"What a monster! How can he threaten someone who stutters like that!" Harry replies. 

Snape yells at him again and Quirrell stutters an incomprehensible response. Snape suddenly flips around and stares directly at us. 

"Stop breathing!" I think to Harry. He listens and I hold my breath. As Snape steps back, we back up, almost to the wall. He stretches his arm and grabs at the air, but nothing is there. He turns back around and interrogates Quirrell.

"You need to decide where your loyalties lie!" Snape shouts through the silent hallway.

Filch suddenly appears, scaring us both. He is holding up our lantern that we smashed in the library.

"I found this in the Restricted Section. This lantern is still hot. That means that there is a student out of bed!" All three of the teachers rush around the corner. Harry and I move into an abandoned classroom at the other end of the hallway.

It is completely empty, except for a large mirror at the back of the classroom. There is an inscription on the top that reads:

Erised straeh ruoy tub ecaf ruoy ton wohs I

I slide the cloak off and go up to the mirror, with Harry beside me. I can see us, but two more people come into view: a man and a woman. The man looks oddly like Harry, while the woman looks oddly like me. 

Wait...

I look toward Harry, who is already looking at me.

"You think..?"

"Is it really them?"

I know, deep in my heart, that those are my parents, looking straight back at me. They are smiling.

"Mom..?" Harry asks. The woman nods.

"Dad..?" I say. The man smiles and nods.

A single tear runs down the side of my face. I can't believe it.

==========

Both of us run back to the common room, after deciding to show Ron our discovery.

Harry races into the boys dormitory and returns a minute later with a very confused and overwhelmed Ron.

All three of us make out way to the same abandoned classroom inside of the Invisibility Cloak, after getting lost only once, since we didn't have the lantern.

"Here, stand here," Harry tells Ron. "It's our parents."

"I don't see anything!" Ron complains.

"Look in properly," Harry pulls Ron in front of the mirror and Harry stands off to the side.

"Don't you see them?" I ask.

"Look! Look at me! I'm Head Boy! I'm even the Quidditch captain! I just won the Quidditch Cup! And bloody hell, I look good!" 

Harry and I exchange confused looks. 

"Do you think this mirror shows the future?" Ron asks.

"It's not possible," I say. "Our parents are already dead."

"We need to get back," I say. "It's almost three o'clock."

==========

Harry and I return the next night to the mirror. We don't even say anything to each other, we just sit in front of the mirror and think how different our lives would be if our parents were still alive.

I would play in the flowers with my mother and play Quidditch with my father. They would both pick me up and tell me how much they loved me. Every day, we would do this and I would just never get tired of it. I would get to know the rest of my family too. If only my parents were never killed...

"Back again, I see?" I turn around quickly and stand up. Professor Dumbledore is standing in front of the door.

"I see that you have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised," Dumbledore speaks calmly for someone who just discovered two students out of bed in the middle of the night. "I expect that you know by now what it does?"

I turn to look at the mirror. More than ever, the inscription sticks out to me.

Turns out, if you read it backwards, it says:

I show not your face but your hearts desire.

"It shows us our heart's desire," I say.

"Good work, Miss Potter." Dumbledore says.

"Yes. It does. It is why you see your parents, neither of you knew them for long, and just want to get to know them better. But it does not show knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away in front of it, being driven mad, not knowing if it shows what is even real or possible," Dumbledore says.

"It will be taken to a new location tomorrow. I ask that you don't go looking for it. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Do you understand?"

We both nod.

"Now, why don't you both go to bed?" Dumbledore says.

I pick up the cloak and put it over us both. 

"Night, Professor," Harry and I say together as we walk out of the classroom.