I See Myself in You
Severus speaks to Harry.
Which Hermione knows because he ignores her for three days.
And then he apologises like the half-lion he is. Telling her that while his feelings were hurt by her not keeping her word that he was grateful that someone who could help finally knew.
His emotions are so raw. Hermione sits beside him late at night, after the rest of their house has gone to sleep, and promises herself not to watch Severus Snape show empathy to the son of the love of his life and his greatest enemy.
She stays out of his head. Everything she needs to see to feel a real sense of guilt for the first time is the shine in his eyes behind those tragic glasses.
“Do you think he’ll really do it?” Harry asks after a long silence.
“Do what?” She asks, feeling out of sorts. Trying to be a friend. Trying to be human.
“Make it so I don’t have to go back,” he whispers.
One day, maybe a decade from now- maybe less- Hermione is going to visit the Dursley house.
“I’m not sure. But I think he will try.”
He sniffles.
She should have lied. Promised him he’d never have to go back.
“He isn’t as scary as I thought,” Harry says, finally a smile breaking across his face.
“Oh yeah, he’s a real Puffskein,” Hermione replies, smiling back.
Hermione had doubted the decision to tell Severus about Harry’s family every second since the words fell from her lips.
She had to admit to herself that she had used his suffering to avoid discussing her own situation.
“It’s been really awful being mad at you,” Harry says.
Hermione’s chest tightens and warmth fills her face.
“I had to partner with Seamus Finnegan in Charms,” she complains.
Harry laughs.
Then he glances around the empty common room and a serious look falls across his face.
“I want to show you something,” he whispers.
There is no one around. No one awake. Apart from Filch and Mrs. Norris, who Hermione knows are currently trolling the third floor corridor.
“Okay,” she says warily.
And then Harry is pulling on her wrist, across the room and out of the exit. She throws a charm around them so they don’t attract any attention.
Harry glances over his shoulder every few seconds and smiles.
“Where are we going?” She asks as they ascend another flight of stairs, drawing closer to the third floor corridor than Hermione has since Lucius gave his orders.
“I’ve just- I’ve got to show you. Come on,” he answers, speeding up.
He drags her all the way to the fifth floor, where there are a couple of classrooms, one of which Hermione can’t remember seeing anyone use.
“This way.”
Harry pulls her into the room and stops in front of a tall mirror with gilded edges and their reflection.
She looks at herself in the mirror, her hair frizzy and her limbs dwarfed by her nightgown. Harry’s own night clothes could use a better fit, and Hermione adds another thing to the list of presents she is going to buy him for Christmas. Though, she isn’t sure how many anonymous gifts she can get away with before he realises it is her.
“Do you see them? They’re my family. There, on the right, that’s my Mum. And on the left is my Dad. We look so similar. Don’t you think so?” He asks, his voice thick.
“I only see us,” Hermione tells him honestly.
“You need to look properly. Go on, stand here,” he pulls her to a spot directly in front of the mirror.
Hermione expects to see Harry and his parents.
She isn’t sure why. She just believed him. He had seemed so sure.
Except she doesn’t see what he described.
She sees herself. And her parents. Only they aren’t dressed in muggle clothes like the only memory she has of them. The memory stolen from Lucius’s mind.
They are dressed in wizards robes. Wands at the ready and bright smiles on their faces.
“Do you see them?” Harry asks again.
Hermione doesn’t understand. Her parents weren’t wizards. And they aren’t alive.
“No. Harry. I don’t see them. I see my parents,” she whispers, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder because she knows they aren’t there. Even though her mum’s soft smile looks so real. Even though her father’s eyes look so proud.
“But- really?” Harry asks. “Do you think it just shows your family?”
“Do you see there, it says Erised? That’s desire backwards. I think this shows you what you desire,” Hermione comes to the conclusion at the same time that she says it.
Had her parents been wizards, her life would be completely different. Even if they hadn’t supported Tom, she would have had the status of a pureblood.
And perhaps if they had supported Tom, she might have had a happy childhood. He might have let them raise her. She might have been happy.
“I’ve never seen them before. My mum and dad,” Harry says, stepping closer.
She moves out of his way, not wanting to look any longer at the impossible.
“What do they look like?” She asks, trying to forget her own parent’s faces as they had fallen.
Harry describes both of his parents, and she resolves herself to find pictures of them so that he doesn’t have to come all the way up here just to see them.
Why is the mirror even here?
She walks back down to the dungeons with him, thinking about the fairy tale she might have had if only her parents had magic.
Harry too seems to be thinking of the what if’s and could have been.
“You might be the only person in this castle who understands what it is like.”
Hermione is surprised by Harry’s words.
Sure they are both orphans, but their lives could not have been more different.
Still, she smiles and nods.