After the battle of Hogwarts, everyone wanted to go back to life as normal. One night though, Harry realizes that some are more desperate than others want to go back. To want is human and to want is what the Mirror of Erised specializes in. Which le...
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He is trudging through mud. Harry literally feels as if he is completely submerged in a muddy trench and is foggy mindedly trying to walk through his day. He would be worried he was asleep on his feet if he had thought he had ever managed to sleep at all the night previously. Rubbing at his aching eyes, knocking his eyes askew, Harry enters the Great Hall.
The Great Hall was heaving with early morning life, like a revving engine that is shifting into 3rd gear. Fresh-faced first years talked excitably, about every new magical detail they just discovered in the last 24 hours, washing out the more mellow slower tones of 7th and 8th years who were more interested in talking to their coffees than relaying the tediousness of their latest 15-foot-long essay due in herbology.
Harry took a seat at the Gryffindor table, his hip giving a disturbingly loud crack as he swung his legs around the bench. Neville, beside him, gave an understanding smile as he chewed on some eggs. Across the table, Hermione was cradling a cup of hot tea, peering at a copy of the prophet, seemingly trying to ignore Ron who was content to play with the frizzy curls of her hair. The pair seemed attached at the hip... no closer, attached at the lungs since they seemed to breathe the exact same breath every second since the battle of Hogwarts. Harry was mildly surprised when he didn't see rings on their fingers when he finally found them on the Platform.
Looking down the table he could see the morning feast that he remembered being so in awe of in the first year. Unfortunately, the awe was gone and with it his appetite it seemed. Instead, he just shifted his gaze between the chatting students at the four long tables of the hall.
At the front of the hall, settled into their seat along with the head table, were the professors. Hagrid sat at the far end, making quick work of a massive stack of sausage, chatting boisterously with a cheery Professor Sprout and an elderly looking wizard by the name of Professor Mot. He had severe cheekbones with little to no fat on them, his body seeming to reject age, and the sagging wrinkles that usually accompanied it. Whether sitting or standing he always seemed to be leaning at a 45 Degree angle, usually placing his full weight onto a polished carved cane.
His eyes were milky white, like thick blinding film-coated his bronze irises. Whispers had instantly started to swim across the great hall the first night when he was introduced to the students as their new Transfiguration professor. "I heard he lost his sight when he botched a Lumos spell." "I heard it was taken from him by a rogue aura." "I think I read somewhere that you could lose it in a trade with a Gorgon in exchange to not be turned to stone." "Pavarti told me it was from a run-in with a witch doctor in America." Were just the start of the whispered statements Harry had overheard in the last few hours.
McGonagall, now sitting in the central Headmaster seat, was having a serious conversation with Renee Auguste, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. She is an elderly witch that was clutched fabulously to her youth, with short coiffed hair, and her square face is half covered by the enormous broad framed spectacles. Each day they were a different color, and always paired with a waterfall of beaded necklaces, earrings, and bracelets that jangled like bells as she moved.
