chapter eight
What he saw in the mirror was an image of himself but older, with a beard. He was holding a wand and standing over the defeated body of Voldemort, his heels stomping into the head of the corpse. He was holding the elder wand in his hand and the resurrection stone in his other, around his shoulders was the invisibility cloak, the same one that Harry had used, the third deathly hallow and around his neck was the philosopher's stone. That was his deepest desire, power, power to never die again, to stay in the mortal world forever, to never have to meet the entity again. It was something he didn’t like about himself. Why had his deepest desire to be so selfish. Harry saw his dead parents, a noble desire and yet here he was, seeing that his was power and immortality.
“Harry, I think I don’t like this mirror, let’s go”
“But look, I can see my parents”, he whispered.
“This mirror is bad news Harry”, I told him, desperate for him to not come back here like he did in the books. Then again- maybe it would all play out fine… whatever, he wouldn’t stay here any longer, “stay however long you want, I’m going back to my common room”
Ron snuck away under his own invisibility cloak to the Ravenclaw common room, he answered the riddle and went to bed.
In his sleep, he had a dream, he was standing on top of Voldemort’s corpse, just as he’d seen in the mirror but this time, Voldemort wasn’t the only one dead. All around him were corpses of friends and family, of people he hadn’t even met yet. There had to be hundreds of corpses in every direction. “All this power”, a voice called from within his mind, “all this could be yours, you just have to have the courage to grab it”
“No!”, Ron cried out in horror, “this isn’t what I want!”
“Oh, but it is… isn’t this exactly why you wished for the raw talent of Dumbledore? This is what you want, deep down, you know it… just embrace it and everything you wish for can be yours”
“No- NO!”
Ron awoke with a start, covered in sweat. All his roommates were sleeping, though only two were left here after the holidays started. Looking out of the windows, he saw that the sun was already rising.
“No going back to bed for me”, he told himself. In truth, he didn’t want to go back to sleep anyways, he feared that he would be back in that war field. Too afraid to be back with those corpses, corpses that he made, it would be his fault…
Anyways- not wanting to go back to sleep, he went down into the common room and read a book. He was almost finished with the Transfiguration textbook, was decently well into the potions textbook and was completely done with charms, DADA and herbology.
What he was reading then, was the transfiguration textbook and by the time that the others arrived at the common room from their slumber, he was done with it. He had even had time to test out all the spells in the book and he was going to say, he really was done with it. He knew its content by heart and could cast every spell in it. Soon he would have to start reading advanced books, those of second year and up. But for now, he simply went to breakfast with his fellow Ravenclaws.
The great hall was mostly empty, almost everyone had left for the holidays, so Ron could spot Harry at the Gryffindor table easily. To no surprise, he was looking into the distance with unfocused eyes, probably thinking about the mirror and the enticing visions it showed. Ron shook his head and kept those ideas out of his head, he didn’t want to think about the mirror any longer, it just kept reminding him of the dream he had had. The breakfast was over pretty quickly and seeing as they had no lessons over the holiday, Ron resigned himself with reading up on his potions textbook.
Potions weren’t all too bad when you didn’t have Snape breathing down your neck but still, it would never be his favorite subject, too much precise work. It was almost like cooking, only that if you made a mistake, it would eat through your cauldron, like acid or seal your mouth shut after drinking it. Too much risk to be interesting, he thought, though he was sure someone else would have loved that part. Like the twins, Fred and George were potion masters to be, they -of course- only used their talents for pranking but if they wanted to, they could easily become potioneers and damn good ones at that.
After two days Ron had finished the potions textbook and was finally ready to read up on the advanced textbooks at the library. That was exactly what he did for the rest of the holidays, he spent his days in the library, reading up on the standard book of spells, volume 2. There was no transfiguration book for the second year, they just used the same one as the first years and the DADA books were there but realistically, he didn’t need to read those, as the next teacher would be lockhart. Still, he read them anyway, just to be safe.
It was restless nights, as every time he went to sleep, he would have the same recurring nightmare about what he saw in the mirror.
At the last day of the winter holidays, the daily prophet came raining down at breakfast, delivered by owls and what he saw there, brought a smile to his face.
‘SIRIUS BLACK FOUND INNOCENT, PETER PETTIGREW ARRESTED’
He didn’t even have to read the article to know what happened. He was happy for Harry, as this meant that he soon, wouldn’t have to go back to the dursleys. That was the best news he could get.