A corner of the corridor.
Here stood a gleaming suit of armor, and atop it, an ink-black cat.
The black cat sprang lightly and changed into a small wizard, slipping away without a sound.
Sir Cadogan's pony believed in chivalry even more than he did; when he wasn't entirely sincere—or rather, when he wasn't fully displaying knightly virtue—Sean suspected he couldn't even mount the pony.
So he'd come to take a look, and hadn't expected the knight to have swindled the prefect instead.
In the Hope Nook.
Sean lit the magic candles at his seat.
For two days straight he read and sorted through those notes.
It had to be said: though they were piecemeal—and sometimes oddly off-topic (like whether the water conjured by Aguamenti in ancient rune studies could be drunk…)—they included advanced runic material that Tayra's notes lacked.
In Professor Tayra's notes—perhaps out of fear Sean would attempt dangerous experiments—there was very little on advanced runes.
Like Columbus finding a new continent, Sean discovered those crucial runes in other people's notes.
They were, in truth, records of failures; but failure wasn't meaningless—at least Sean learned some useful ancient runes. For example, in the Elder Futhark rune poems, g stands for gift, positivity, miracle; o for possession, for gaining things beyond conscious knowledge and experience.
Such runes would be helpful for transforming a wizard toward a magical creature.
Relying on these notes, Sean also formed ideas about runes and materials.
Once Professor Tayra returned, he could begin preparing trials for a Kneazle Biscuit.
Dusk on the third day of the Christmas holiday.
Harry and Ron suddenly rushed into the Hope Nook.
"Sean, you've got to come see this with us!"
Harry was very serious.
…
Night.
The castle slept. From a corridor on the fourth floor came the sound of whispering.
"Do you want to wear it, Sean?" said a patch of air—actually Harry under the Invisibility Cloak, with Ron shivering beside him.
Sean shook his head and casually cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself.
[You practiced Disillusionment at an Adept standard. Proficiency +10]
He never missed a chance to practice a spell.
"What's that…?" Harry's eyes went wide.
"I think I read about this somewhere—is that Disillusionment?!" Ron blurted, then clapped a hand over his mouth.
And the three began to move.
Sean hadn't been keen to come, but he suddenly thought: what if, in the mirror, he saw books he yearned for but had overlooked?
Memory can lie. Besides, it wouldn't take long.
December always brought more snow, sometimes with a slicing wind; in the corridor, Ron was already shaking.
"I'm freezing," Ron said. "Let's stop and go back."
"No!" Harry rasped. "I know it's somewhere nearby."
They brushed past the tall ghost of a wizard drifting by, and saw no one else.
Just as Ron began to moan that his feet were numb, Harry spotted the suit of armor.
"Here—this is it—I'm sure!"
They pushed the door. Harry shrugged off the Cloak and dashed to the mirror.
He saw—there they were. His mother and father lit up with joy the instant they saw him.
Ron, too, was transfixed. When Harry shifted aside, he saw himself wearing a Prefect badge like Bill's—and holding both the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup—he was even captain of the team?!
Sean let his form show and took a look around. It seemed like an abandoned classroom: many desks and chairs stacked against the walls in a hulking black heap, a wastepaper basket overturned—yet on the wall opposite stood something that didn't belong, as if someone had set it there for lack of any other place.
It was a very impressive mirror, tall as the ceiling, in a splendid gold frame with clawed feet. Along the top was an inscription: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
Sean knew that read backwards: the Mirror of Erised shows a person his heart's deepest, most desperate desire.
So what would he see?
He was curious.
Harry and Ron were still bickering:
"You had it to yourself all last night—give me a turn," Ron said.
"You're only clutching the Quidditch Cup—what's the point? I want to see my parents," Harry shot back.
"Don't shove—"
"Oh—Ron, did you forget? Sean!"
"Merlin—how did I forget?!"
They flushed and stepped aside for him.
Sean nodded and walked up to the mirror.
At the same time, a figure slowly emerged.
A pair of pure, deep green eyes. Sean and the boy in the mirror stared at one another, and he heard Harry begin to stammer:
"Oh no, Sean, h-how come when it's your turn, it's just an ordinary mirror?"
Only Sean knew how drastically the image had changed in an instant.
Soon the night deepened.
A black cat doubled back under cover of the shadows and swiftly became a small wizard in black robes.
Sean gazed at those green eyes, and the picture blurred a little.
The first scene was an old orphanage, where those dead children appeared again;
then came the grandeur of Hogwarts Castle; in the Hall, every professor stood clear, even Dumbledore on the dais blinked.
These flashed by; at the last, only a black-haired, green-eyed boy remained, gazing across at Sean from afar.
"It seems to you it is only an ordinary mirror… Oh—do you mind that I saw your past?" The long-bearded old wizard stepped from the shadows, his voice grown very gentle. "The ones I saw… those children—are they still there?"
"Headmaster Dumbledore," Sean said softly, then shook his head.
"I am sorry," Dumbledore said. "But, child, I knew a man who was once in such a place—just as hateful. He was talented, and capable. Like you, he longed to escape, to stand out, to shine.
"But, child—why… does happiness satisfy you so easily?"
Sean knew who he meant—not anyone else, but Dumbledore himself.
"The past is a ghost, Headmaster. To me it's insubstantial, carries little weight. The future is what matters.
"…And a fantasy future is never reliable. My instinct has always told me this: when I rely on myself, my odds are best."
Dumbledore admitted he'd never seen a wizard quite like this— a tough life, stumbling, finding his family.
He had seen that fleeting vision of Hogwarts; he had seen, perhaps clearer than the child himself, a steely resolve forged by the fire.
This ground had endured ten centuries of bleakness and stone; and as the tower's cutting wind circled his throat like a knife, there was only that pair of brilliant green eyes left in his mind.
~~~
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