Can Things Change

CHAPTER TWELVE The Mirror of Erised

Sirius looked at the book for a moment, that name sounded familiar. 

Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. 

The trio and Neville all looked at Fred shocked, having forgotten about this. For a second they looked frightened before Ron, who couldn’t contain his laughter any more, let out a snort. This opened the gates and all the time travelers started laughing. 

Fred, smirking at everyone else’s confusion, explained, “It’s at the end of the book.”

Aurora pulled her to him for a forceful kiss and whispered, with laughter still in her tone, “I love you.” Fred just beamed back at her.

The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again.

No one could wait for the holidays to start. While the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had roaring fires, the drafty corridors had become icy and a bitter wind rattled the windows in the classrooms. Worst of all were Professor Snape’s classes down in the dungeons, where their breath rose in a mist before them and they kept as close as possible to their hot cauldrons.

“I do feel so sorry,” said Draco Malfoy, one Potions class, “for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they’re not wanted at home.”

Narcissa just shook her head. It wouldn’t do to keep scolding her son for things that have already happened.

He was looking over at Aurora as he spoke. Crabbe and Goyle chuckled. Aurora, who was measuring out powdered spine of lionfish, ignored them. Malfoy had been even more unpleasant than usual since the Quidditch match. Disgusted that the Slytherins had lost, he had tried to get everyone laughing at how a wide-mouthed tree frog would be replacing Aurora as Seeker next.

Then he’d realized that nobody found this funny, because they were all so impressed at the way Aurora had managed to stay on her bucking broomstick. So Malfoy, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Aurora about having no proper family.

“I hope you realize that as the future head of your family,” Sirius drawled, sitting up straight, looking very much like the future Lord Black that he should have been, “Aurora has every right to disown you from the Black line, cutting off all your access to the family money and the family magic.”

Narcissa looked at her cousin in horror. Yes the Malfoy family was old, and had money, but that was nothing compared to the Black’s.

Draco also looked over at Sirius in horror. True he hadn’t known in their first year that Aurora was the future head of the Black house, but even once he did learn, he still taunted her. At any time she could have made his life miserable, or had Sirius do it for her, and yet she didn’t. He owed her a lot more than he knew.

It was true that Aurora wasn’t going back to Privet Drive for Christmas. Professor McGonagall had come around the week before, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, and Aurora had signed up at once. She didn’t feel sorry for herself at all; this would probably be the best Christmas she’d ever had. Ron and his brothers were staying, too, because Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were going to Romania to visit Charlie.

When they left the dungeons at the end of Potions, they found a large fir tree blocking the corridor ahead. Two enormous feet sticking out at the bottom and a loud puffing sound told them that Hagrid was behind it.

“Hi, Hagrid, want any help?” Ron asked, sticking his head through the branches.

“Nah, I’m all right, thanks, Ron.”

“Would you mind moving out of the way?” came Malfoy’s cold drawl from behind them. “Are you trying to earn some extra money, Weasley? Hoping to be gamekeeper yourself when you leave Hogwarts, I suppose — that hut of Hagrid’s must seem like a palace compared to what your family’s used to.”

Draco turned to Molly and Arthur and spoke sincerely, “I am very sorry for what I just said in the book, and what I will say in the future about yourselves and your home. You are wonderful people that have opened your home to me and several others when we needed it, and while your home is not a manor like mine, it is a wonderful home, full of love and life.”

Arthur smiled weakly at the young man in front of him, so different from the boy that they were reading about. Molly got up and gave him one of her famous bone crushing hugs. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. They both knew that it would probably be a while in the books before he grew up and came to this way of thinking, but they could understand and tolerate it a lot better now.

Narcissa smiled warmly at her son. While she didn’t fully approve of the Weasley family, this was the way she wanted Draco to act, like a gentleman.

Ron dived at Malfoy just as Snape came up the stairs.

“WEASLEY!”

Ron let go of the front of Malfoy’s robes.

“He was provoked, Professor Snape,” said Hagrid, sticking his huge hairy face out from behind the tree. “Malfoy was insultin’ his family.”

“Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid,” said Snape silkily. “Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn’t more. Move along, all of you.”

“While you should have punished Mr. Malfoy as well, that was done well Mr, Sanpe,” McGonagall complimented.

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle pushed roughly past the tree, scattering needles everywhere and smirking.

“I’ll get him,” said Ron, grinding his teeth at Malfoy’s back, “one of these days, I’ll get him —”

“I hate them both,” said Aurora, “Malfoy and Snape.”

“Come on, cheer up, it’s nearly Christmas,” said Hagrid. “Tell yeh what, come with me an’ see the Great Hall, looks a treat.”

So the three of them followed Hagrid and his tree off to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick were busy with the Christmas decorations.

“Ah, Hagrid, the last tree — put it in the far corner, would you?”

The hall looked spectacular. Festoons of holly and mistletoe hung all around the walls, and no less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, some sparkling with tiny icicles, some glittering with hundreds of candles.

“It’s always so beautiful at Christmas at Hogwarts,” Lily and Aurora sighed.

“How many days you got left until yer holidays?” Hagrid asked.

“Just one,” said Hermione. “And that reminds me — Aurora, Ron, we’ve got half an hour before lunch, we should be in the library.”

“Why are you going to the library right before the holidays?” Peter asked, looking at the trio with shock.

“They’re trying to figure out who Flamel is Wormy,” Sirius said, sighing.

“Oh yeah, you’re right,” said Ron, tearing his eyes away from Professor Flitwick, who had golden bubbles blossoming out of his wand and was trailing them over the branches of the new tree.

“The library?” said Hagrid, following them out of the hall. “Just before the holidays? Bit keen, aren’t yeh?”

“Oh, we’re not working,” Aurora told him brightly. “Ever since you mentioned Nicolas Flamel we’ve been trying to find out who he is.”

“You what?” Hagrid looked shocked. “Listen here — I’ve told yeh — drop it. It’s nothin’ to you what that dog’s guardin’.”

“We just want to know who Nicolas Flamel is, that’s all,” said Hermione.

“Honestly if he had just told us we probably wouldn’t have been so curious about all the rest of it,” Aurora admitted. Ron, Neville and Hermione all nodded, agreeing with her. If they had just been given a little more information then they wouldn’t have had to go searching, and then they wouldn’t have been so curious.

“Unless you’d like to tell us and save us the trouble?” Aurora added. “We must’ve been through hundreds of books already and we can’t find him anywhere — just give us a hint — I know I’ve read his name somewhere.”

“On your first chocolate frog card,” Ted announced. 

“Yeah,” Aurora sighed. “I knew I had read his name somewhere but couldn’t remember where, and it was driving me crazy not being able to remember.”

“Which only made us search harder,” Ron laughed. “You do not want to see Ro in crazy research mode.”

Neville and Fred shuttered. “It’s scary,” they both moaned.

“I’m sayin’ nothin’, said Hagrid flatly.

“Just have to find out for ourselves, then,” said Ron, and they left Hagrid looking disgruntled and hurried off to the library.

They had indeed been searching books for Flamel’s name ever since Hagrid had let it slip, because how else were they going to find out what Snape was trying to steal? The trouble was, it was very hard to know where to begin, not knowing what Flamel might have done to get himself into a book. He wasn’t in Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century, or Notable Magical Names of Our Time; he was missing, too, from Important Modern Magical Discoveries, and A Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry. 

Dumbledore laughed, “No he wouldn’t be in any of those books.”

And then, of course, there was the sheer size of the library; tens of thousands of books; thousands of shelves; hundreds of narrow rows.

Hermione took out a list of subjects and titles she had decided to search while Ron strode off down a row of books and started pulling them off the shelves at random. Aurora wandered over to the Restricted Section. She had been wondering for a while if Flamel wasn’t somewhere in there.

“Ron seems to have the best strategy by pulling random books,” James said, smiling at the boy.

“He would be in several of the books in the restricted section,” Sirius said at the same time.

Aurora laughing said, “I know. I read several of them in my fourth year.”

Unfortunately, you needed a specially signed note from one of the teachers to look in any of the restricted books, and he knew he’d never get one. These were the books containing powerful Dark Magic never taught at Hogwarts, and only read by older students studying advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts.

“Which begs the question why you were reading books from there in your fourth year?” Lily scolded.

"That is not all that is in there," McGonagall said, scowling.

“I was granted a pass for the whole year due to extenuating circumstances,” Aurora sighed.

“I think she read basically the whole Restricted Section that year,” Amice said, trying to take her mind off the tournament. Aurora nodded, a large smile on her face once again.

“What are you looking for, girl?”

“Nothing,” said Aurora, flinching at being called girl.

Madam Pince the librarian brandished a feather duster at her.

“You’d better get out, then. Go on — out!”

Wishing she’d been a bit quicker at thinking up some story, Aurora left the library. She, Neville, Ron, and Hermione had already agreed they’d better not ask Madam Pince where they could find Flamel.

They were sure she’d be able to tell them, but they couldn’t risk Snape hearing what they were up to.

Aurora waited outside in the corridor to see if the other two had found anything, but she wasn’t very hopeful. They had been looking for two weeks, but as they only had odd  moments between lessons it wasn’t surprising they’d found nothing. What they really needed was a nice long search without Madam Pince breathing down their necks.

“Why didn’t you ask one of the older years?” Alice asked.

The trio looked at each other, then back to Alice, confusion on their faces. “We never thought of that,” Hermione grumbled, mad at their past selves for not thinking to ask Cedric or the twins. Aurora was even acquaintances with Adrian and Terrance from the Slytherin Quidditch team; she could have asked them.

Five minutes later, Ron and Hermione joined her, shaking their heads. They went off to lunch.

“You will keep looking while I’m away, won’t you?” said Hermione. “And send me an owl if you find anything.”

“And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is,” said Ron. “It’d be safe to ask them.”

“Very safe, as they’re both dentists,” said Hermione.

“Flamel is known even in the Muggle world,” Lily said. “Muggle’s have studied alchemy for ages.”

Once the holidays had started, Ron and Aurora were having too good a time to think much about Flamel. Since Aurora was the only first year girl staying at school she had asked Neville if she could sleep in his bed in the boys dorm. It was her first Christmas having friends and she didn’t want to spend it alone as she had every other year. She had even done the right thing and asked Professor McGonagall for permission first. While she wasn’t happy, she allowed Aurora to stay in the boys dorm room as long as she agreed to be checked on by one of the Prefects nightly, and to behave. Aurora had no trouble agreeing to those rules.

McGonagall glared at the Marauders, “No, I will not allow your girlfriends to stay in your dorm room with you. This was a special circumstance so that Aurora would not be alone.”

Even Severus and Lucius could not blame the girl or think that she was taking advantage of her fame as they would not have wanted to be the only person in their dorm room either, especially if they had never spent a Christmas with anyone before.

They had the dormitory to themselves and the common room was far emptier than usual, so they were able to get the good armchairs by the fire. 

“And never gave them back either,” Fred moaned.

“I don’t think they ever sat anywhere else the rest of their years at school,” Ginny complained.

“The elves even took one of the armchairs and put a couch in its place so that all four of you had a place to sit.”

Aurora shrugged, “We liked that spot.”

They sat by the hour eating anything they could spear on a toasting fork — bread, English muffins, marshmallows — and plotting ways of getting Malfoy expelled, which were fun to talk about even if they wouldn’t work.

Ron also started teaching Aurora wizard chess. This was exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures were alive, which made it a lot like directing troops in battle. Ron’s set was very old and battered. Like everything else he owned, it had once belonged to someone else in his family — in this case, his grandfather. However, old chessmen weren’t a drawback at all. Ron knew them so well he never had trouble getting them to do what he wanted. 

Aurora played with chessmen Seamus Finnigan had lent her, and they didn’t trust her at all. She wasn’t a very good player yet and they kept shouting different bits of advice at her, which was confusing. “Don’t send me there, can’t you see his knight? Send him, we can afford to lose him.”

“I’m not very good at chess either,” Lily and Sirius both said at the same time.

On Christmas Eve, Aurora went to bed looking forward to the next day for the food and the fun, but not expecting any presents at all. 

Sirius growled, while James held Lily close to him, trying to hide the heartbreak he felt for his baby girl. Lily meanwhile was seething, angry tears in her eyes, once more reminded of how horrid her sister had treated her daughter while she was just a child.

When she woke early in the morning, however, the first thing she saw was a small pile of packages at the foot of her bed.

“Merry Christmas,” said Ron sleepily as Aurora scrambled out of bed and pulled on her bathrobe.

“You, too,” said Aurora. “Will you look at this? I’ve got some presents!”

“What did you expect, turnips?” said Ron, turning to his own pile, which was a lot bigger than Aurora’s. Aurora didn’t care though. She actually had presents.

Aurora picked up the top parcel. It was wrapped in thick brown paper and scrawled across it was To Aurora, from Hagrid. Inside was a roughly cut wooden flute. Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself. Aurora blew it — it sounded a bit like an owl.

James and Sirius wrote down on a piece of parchment who they needed to start getting things for for taking such good care of Aurora. Right now Hagrid was number one, and his name was underlined and circled and written over several times.

A second, very small parcel contained a note.

We received your message and enclosed your Christmas present. From Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. Taped to the note was a fifty-pence piece.

“That’s friendly,” said Aurora.

Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence.

“Weird!” he said, ‘What a shape! This is money?”

“You can keep it,” said Aurora, laughing at how pleased Ron was. “Hagrid and my aunt and uncle — so who sent these?”

“I think I know who that one’s from,” said Ron, turning a bit pink and pointing to a very lumpy parcel. “My mom. I told her you didn’t expect any presents and — oh, no,” he groaned, “she’s made you a Weasley sweater.”

“I love my sweaters,” Aurora smiled at Molly who smiled back at the girl. 

“I told mum that you didn’t expect a lot of presents,” Ron said. “I honestly wasn’t expecting you to send her a sweater, it was only like a week before Christmas that I told you.”

“I would never let someone go without on Christmas. And it sounds like she was family long before she got together with Fred.”

“George and I also sent you a note asking if you could send something to Ray too,” Fred chuckled, causing all the other Weasley’s to laugh as well.

Aurora had torn open the parcel to find a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green and a large box of homemade fudge. 

“Every year she makes us a sweater,” said Ron, unwrapping his own, “and mine’s always maroon.”

“And the one year she tried to give you a different color you complained even more that your sweater wasn’t maroon,” Hermione said, swatting at him.

“That’s really nice of her,” said Aurora, trying the fudge, which was very tasty.

Her next present also contained candy — a large box of Chocolate Frogs from Amice. Hermione had gifted her with a set of the muggleborn introductory books that weren’t included on her book list. Neville had gotten her a book on magical plants, probably hoping to interest her in Herbology. Fred and George had gotten her a new quill set. And there was also a gift from Cedric; he had gotten her what looked to be a muggle notebook, but the instructions said that it would organize everything in it by the date, and subject, if you wrote a subject in the upper left square. It was small, like a journal, but held up to 1000 pages without taking up any room.

“I was so jealous of that that I went the next summer and bought one for each of my classes,” Hermione said. “It was much easier to keep track of my notes from all my classes that way.”

“It does sound much easier,” Amos agreed, while all the muggleborns who had grown up using notebooks nodded as well. 

This only left one parcel. Aurora picked it up and felt it. It was very light. She unwrapped it.

Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in gleaming folds.

“Is that?” James asked.

“Yup!”

“But how?”

“You’ll see.”

Ron gasped. 

“I’ve heard of those,” he said in a hushed voice, dropping the box of Every Flavor Beans he’d gotten from Hermione. “If that’s what I think it is — they’re really rare, and really valuable.”

“What is it?”

Aurora picked the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, like water woven into material.

“It’s an invisibility cloak,” said Ron, a look of awe on his face. “I’m sure it is — try it on.”

Aurora threw the cloak around her shoulders and Ron gave a yell.

“It is! Look down!”

Aurora looked down at her feet, but they were gone. She dashed to the mirror. Sure enough, her reflection looked back at her, just her head suspended in midair, her body completely invisible.

She pulled the cloak over her head and her reflection vanished completely.

“There’s a note!” said Ron suddenly. “A note fell out of it!”

Aurora pulled off the cloak and seized the letter. Written in narrow, loopy writing she had never seen before were the following words:

     Your father left this in my possession before he died.

     It is time it was returned to you.

     Use it well.

     A Very Merry Christmas to you. 

Everyone was staring at James, causing him to fidget. “You have an invisibility cloak,” Alastor said, the first to break the silence.

James hunched down a little, “Yes.”

“How do you have an invisibility cloak?” Amelia asked.

“My father gave it to me.”

“How has it not worn out then,” Kingsley asked. “The cloak rips or the charms wear off.”

“I don’t know,” James shrugged. “It’s been in our family for generations, and is always passed down to the youngest child, or the only child in some cases.”

“It’s in the 7th book,” Luna said, trying to draw the attention away from the youngest child bit. She didn’t want her father figuring it out yet.

There was no signature. Aurora stared at the note. Ron was admiring the cloak.

“I’d give anything for one of these,” he said. “Anything. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” said Aurora. She felt very strange. Who had sent the cloak? 

“Based on the description of the writing on the note, it sounds like Professor Dumbledore sent it to you,” Flictwick said.

McGonagall glared at the Headmaster, “Why would you send an invisibility cloak to an eleven year old student.”

“It is a family heirloom,” Dumbledore said, looking curiously at the Potter’s. “I am merely returning Potter property to its rightful owner.”

Had it really once belonged to his father?

Peter looked at Aurora for a second. “She knows all our secrets,” he blurted out.

Aurora smirked. The Marauders looked at him confused. “What do you mean Wormtail,” Remus asked.

“Aurora knows about things,” Wormtail exclaimed.

“Oh,” James exclaimed. Sirius and Remus caught on quickly.

“But we’re reading about her life,” Sirius whined.

“Which will tell all those secrets,” Aurora laughed.

“All?” Remus asked, paling.

“Everything.”

The others in the room looked confused. “Is this about Moony?” Lily asked.

Remus whipped his head around to stare at her. “Not just that,” Aurora answered, nodding to Remus before looking at James, Sirius and Peter too. 

“Third book,” Ron said, taking everyone’s attention off of Remus for the moment.

Before she could say or think anything else, the dormitory door was flung open and Fred and George Weasley bounded in. Aurora stuffed the cloak quickly out of sight. She didn’t feel like sharing it with anyone else yet.

“Merry Christmas!”

“Hey, look — Aurora’s got a Weasley sweater, too!”

Fred and George were wearing blue sweaters, one with a large yellow F on it, the other a G.

“Aurora’s is better than ours, though,” said Fred, holding up Aurora’s sweater. “She obviously makes more of an effort if you’re not family.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Molly whispered. She didn’t want any of her children to feel that she didn’t give them the best she could offer.

“I know mum, I was just teasing Ray,” Fred assured.

“Why aren’t you wearing yours, Ron?” George demanded. “Come on, get it on, they’re lovely and warm.”

“I hate maroon,” Ron moaned halfheartedly as he pulled it over his head.

“You haven’t got a letter on yours,” George observed. “I suppose she thinks you don’t forget your name. But we’re not stupid — we know we’re called Gred and Forge.”

“They were actually wearing the correct ones,” Aurora announced.

“Would you stop telling us apart when we try to trick people,” Fred whined. 

“What’s all this noise?”

Percy Weasley stuck his head through the door, looking disapproving. He had clearly gotten halfway through unwrapping his presents as he, too, carried a lumpy sweater over his arm, which Fred seized.

“P for prefect! Get it on, Percy, come on, we’re all wearing ours, even Aurora got one.”

“I — don’t — want —” said Percy thickly, as the twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.

“And you’re not sitting with the prefects today, either,” said George. “Christmas is a time for family.” 

They frog-marched Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his side by his sweater.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Aurora scolded. “Percy was going to sit with you anyway. He just doesn’t like being the only person you prank.” Fred looked down ashamed, Aurora wasn’t wrong, Percy was their main target in the family. It made him feel even worse about what happened after he left Hogwarts.

Aurora had never in all her life had such a Christmas dinner. A hundred fat, roast turkeys; mountains of roast and boiled potatoes; platters of chipolatas; tureens of buttered peas, silver boats of thick, rich gravy and cranberry sauce – and stacks of wizard crackers every few feet along the table. These fantastic party favors were nothing like the feeble Muggle ones the Dursleys usually bought, with their little plastic toys and their flimsy paper hats inside. Aurora pulled a wizard cracker with Fred and it didn’t just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of blue smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral’s hat and several live, white mice. Up at the High Table, Dumbledore had swapped his pointed wizard’s hat for a flowered bonnet, and was chuckling merrily at a joke Professor Flitwick had just read him.

Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. Percy nearly broke his teeth on a silver sickle embedded in his slice. Aurora watched Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to Aurora’s amazement, giggled and blushed, her top hat lopsided.

“I’ve never seen the teachers let go like that,” Frank said, amazed at the thought of McGonagall drunk. Aurora smiled softly, her first year was the only Christmas that was this light hearted. The following years always had some shadow over them.

When Aurora finally left the table, she was laden down with a stack of things out of the crackers, including a pack of nonexplodable, luminous balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit, and her own new wizard chess set. The white mice had disappeared and Aurora had a nasty feeling they were going to end up as Mrs. Norris’s Christmas dinner.

Aurora and the Weasleys spent a happy afternoon having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. Percy had amazing aim, but Fred and George’s teamwork was almost unstoppable. 

“Percy has a wicked arm,” Aurora boasted. “If he was more interested in Quidditch, he would make a great chaser.”

“Oliver tried for years to get him to play,” Fred said. “He just wasn’t interested.”

“Do all of you play Quidditch?” Arthur asked.

“Yep!” Aurora laughed. “You have yourself a full Quidditch team.” Arthur and Molly blushed. “Ginny is an amazing chaser, and a fair seeker. Ron is a great keeper. You’ve already heard about Fred and George. Bill played chaser as well, and Percy if he ever wanted to play would make a great chaser as well.”

Everyone in the room laughed at how red Molly and Arthur were.

“We always joked that you wouldn’t stop trying until you finally had a girl,” Fabian laughed.

“But maybe we should have said that you wouldn’t stop having kids until you have a full Quidditch team,” Gideon continued, causing everyone to laugh even more.

Having had enough of being hit by Fred’s snowballs, Aurora called for Percy and Ron to cover her. She snuck up behind Fred, trying to be as quiet as possible. Seeing Fred looking around his attention not on Ron and Percy, Aurora pounced. She tackled him to the ground, and shoved fistfuls of snow down his jumper.

It took him a moment before the surprise wore off and he started fighting back. It quickly became a wrestling match in the snow with all four Weasley brothers and Aurora. The fight eventually ended with Fred sitting on George, Percy shoveling snow down Fred’s jumper, Ron pelting the three of them from afar, and Aurora sitting on a nearby stone unable to stop laughing, tears streaming down her face.

Then, cold, wet, and gasping for breath, they returned to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, where Aurora broke in her new chess set by losing spectacularly to Ron. She suspected she wouldn’t have lost so badly if Percy hadn’t tried to help her so much.

“Percy is horrible at chess,” Ron laughed. “I think the only person worse than him is Ro.”

Aurora shrugged and winked at Ron, “I’m not good at strategizing. I’ll leave that to you.”

After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle, and Christmas cake, everyone felt too full and sleepy to do much before bed except sit and watch Percy chase Fred and George all over Gryffindor tower because they’d stolen his prefect badge.

It had been Aurora’s best Christmas day ever. Yet something had been nagging at the back of her mind all day. Not until she climbed into bed was she free to think about it: the invisibility cloak and whoever had sent it.

Ron, full of turkey and cake and with nothing mysterious to bother him, fell asleep almost as soon as he’d drawn the curtains of his four-poster. Aurora leaned over the side of Neville’s bed and pulled the cloak out from under it.

Her father’s… this had been her father’s. She let the material flow over her hands, smoother than silk, light as air. Use it well, the note had said. 

She had to try it, now. She slipped out of bed and wrapped the cloak around herself. Looking down at her legs, she saw only moonlight and shadows. It was a very funny feeling.

“It does take some getting used to,” Remus said.

Use it well.

Suddenly, Aurora felt wide-awake. The whole of Hogwarts was open to her in this cloak.

Excitement flooded through her as she stood there in the dark and silence. She could go anywhere in this, anywhere, and Filch would never know.

“Yes! Think of all the pranks you can pull?” James shouted, doing a little jig while still sitting.

Ron grunted in his sleep. Should Aurora wake him? Something held her back — her father’s cloak — she felt that this time — the first time — she wanted to use it alone.

She crept out of the dormitory, down the stairs, across the common room, and climbed through the portrait hole.

“Who’s there?” squawked the Fat Lady. Aurora said nothing. She walked quickly down the corridor.

Where should she go? She stopped, her heart racing, and thought. And then it came to her. The Restricted Section in the library. 

“Not my first choice, but an acceptable location,” Sirius said seriously.

“Stop encouraging my daughter to break the rules,” Lily shouted, throwing a pillow at Sirius.

She’d be able to read as long as she liked, as long as it took to find out who Flamel was. She set off, drawing the invisibility cloak tight around her as she walked.

“You really weren’t kidding about her when she gets into research mode were you?” Amos laughed.

“Nothing can stop her from finding what she wants to know when she gets this way,” Amice sighed.

“If people would just tell me the information I need to know,” Aurora grumbled, shooting a small glare at Dumbledore that went unnoticed by all but the Headmaster and Alastor.

The library was pitch-black and very eerie. Aurora lit a lamp to see her way along the rows of books. The lamp looked as if it was floating along in midair, and even though Aurora could feel her arm supporting it, the sight gave her the creeps.

The Restricted Section was right at the back of the library. Stepping carefully over the rope that separated these books from the rest of the library, she held up her lamp to read the titles.

They didn’t tell her much. Their peeling, faded gold letters spelled words in languages Aurora couldn’t understand.

“Ah-ha,” Neville shouted, as if he had just figured out a puzzle that had been bothering him for ages.

At the confused looks he got from the others he elaborated. “I always wondered why Ro started learning so many languages. Before Hogwarts she only ever knew English and French.”

“I needed to know what those books said,” Aurora pouted, as if this was the most reasonable thing in the world. Several others laughed at her, which only caused her to pout more. 

Some had no title at all. One book had a dark stain on it that looked horribly like blood. The hairs on the back of Aurora’s neck prickled. Maybe she was imagining it, maybe not, but she thought a faint whispering was coming from the books, as though they knew someone was there who shouldn’t be.

“That would be the wards around those books,” Flitwick explained.

“A rope is not the only thing stopping people from reading those books,” McGonagall frowned. “The note that you give to Madam Pince to give you permission she uses to key you into the wards in the Restricted Section.”

“Unless you are an acknowledged heir to the school,” Neville mumbled, earning looks from a few of the others that heard him.

She had to start somewhere. Setting the lamp down carefully on the floor, she looked along the bottom shelf for an interesting looking book. A large black and silver volume caught her eye. She pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on her knee, let it fall open. 

A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence — the book was screaming! Aurora snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, unbroken, earsplitting note. She stumbled backward and knocked over her lamp, which went out at once. Panicking, she heard footsteps coming down the corridor outside — stuffing the shrieking book back on the shelf, she ran for it. She passed Filch in the doorway; Filch’s pale, wild eyes looked straight through her, and Aurora slipped under Filch’s outstretched arm and streaked off up the corridor, the book’s shrieks still ringing in her ears.

“Did you ever read that one?” Hermione asked, laughing.

“It was the first I read once I had permission to go in the restricted section,” Aurora replied. “I had to prove a point.”

“It’s a great book on transfiguration,” James said. 

“How do you know what book she’s talking about?” Andromeda asked.

“We tried to read it in our first year,” Sirius stated.

“It had information we needed in it, and Sirius didn’t have access to the Black library,” Peter finished.

McGonagall narrowed her eyes at them, wondering what they needed with a book on human transfiguration in their first year.

She came to a sudden halt in front of a tall suit of armor. She had been so busy getting away from the library, she hadn’t paid attention to where she was going. Perhaps because it was dark, she didn’t recognize where she was at all. There was a suit of armor near the kitchens, she knew, but she must be five floors above there.

“You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody’s been in the library Restricted Section.”

Aurora felt the blood drain out of her face. Wherever she was, Filch must know a shortcut, because his soft, greasy voice was getting nearer, and to his horror, it was Snape who replied, “The Restricted Section? Well, they can’t be far, we’ll catch them.”

Aurora stood rooted to the spot as Filch and Snape came around the corner ahead. They couldn’t see her, of course, but it was a narrow corridor and if they came much nearer they’d knock right into her — the cloak didn’t stop her from being solid.

“It would be awesome if it did,” Peter sighed.

She backed away as quietly as she could. A door stood ajar to her left. It was her only hope. She squeezed through it, holding her breath, trying not to move it, and to her relief she managed to get inside the room without their noticing anything. They walked straight past, and Aurora leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, listening to their footsteps dying away. That had been close, very close. It was a few seconds before she noticed anything about the room she had hidden in.

It looked like an unused classroom. The dark shapes of desks and chairs were piled against the walls, and there was an upturned wastepaper basket – but propped against the wall facing her was something that didn’t look as if it belonged there, something that looked as if someone had just put it there to keep it out of the way.

It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. There was an inscription carved around the top: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. 

“Can you read that again please Columba,” Sirius asked.

“Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.” Sirius scowled. He knew he had heard that somewhere before.

Pandora smiled softly, and airly said, “I show not your face but your heart's desire.”

The light seemed to go off for all the members of the Black family at the same time. “Why is there an ancient Black family relic in Hogwarts?” Narcissa hissed.

“The last I knew, it was in River Tees Manor in Teesdale,” Andromeda said.

“Professor Dumbledore was given permission by a member of the Black family to use the mirror,” Aurora said. She just didn’t let the others know that that member was not a living member and didn’t really have the power to grant that permission.

Meanwhile, Sirius was staring softly at Aurora. He could only imagine what she would see in that mirror, and he honestly didn’t want to know.

Her panic fading now that there was no sound of Filch and Snape, Aurora moved nearer to the mirror, wanting to look at herself but see no reflection again. She stepped in front of it.

She had to clap her hands to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. She whirled around. Her heart was pounding far more furiously than when the book had screamed — for she had seen not only herself in the mirror, but a whole crowd of people standing right behind her. 

But the room was empty. Breathing very fast, she turned slowly back to the mirror.

There she was, reflected in it, white and scared-looking, and there, reflected behind her, were at least ten others. Aurora looked over her shoulder — but still, no one was there. Or were they all invisible, too? Was she in fact in a room full of invisible people and this mirror’s trick was that it reflected them, invisible or not?

Lily looked at her daughter sadly, “I don’t think that's what that mirror does.”

“Please leave,” James whispered. He didn’t want to hear this, he had heard stories about that mirror from his mother.

“What’s so bad about the mirror?” Barty asked.

“You’ll see,” Ron sighed. He hated that mirror, and he hated what he saw when he was eleven, and he now hated that everyone would hear what he saw. He understood better now that there were things more important than being better than his brothers.

She looked in the mirror again. A woman standing right behind her reflection was smiling at her and waving. She reached out a hand and felt the air behind her. If she was really there, she’d touch her, their reflections were so close together, but she felt only air – she and the others existed only in the mirror.

She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes —her eyes are just like mine, Aurora thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green — exactly the same shape, but then she noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. 

“Of course I would be crying,” Lily sniffled. “I would have been so proud of you. Even if you were sneaking around the school in the middle of the night.” Aurora chuckled.

The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was very untidy. 

It stuck up at the back, just as Aurora’s did.

There was another man on his other side, he was a little taller than the other man, and his hair was a darker black too, with bright grey eyes.

My hair is the same color black as his, and has his curls, Aurora thought.

Aurora was so close to the mirror now that her nose was nearly touching that of her reflection.

“Mom?” he whispered. “Dad? Daddy?”

The three people just mentioned went and gave Aurora a hug. “I love you my sweet girl,” Lily whispered. Aurora tried to stop her tears from falling but when Sirius put his hand on her cheek, smiling softly at her, she gave up and let them flow. She had all three of her parents here, and she could touch them. It was a dream come true.

Aurora followed them back over to their seats, Remus and Peter moving to the loveseat Sirius and Marlene had been on. Aurora sat on a beanbag on the floor that had appeared in front of their couch.

They just looked at her, smiling. And slowly, Aurora looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of green eyes like hers, other noses like hers, even a little old man who looked as though he had Aurora’s knobbly knees — Aurora was looking at her family, for the first time in her life.

Lily ran her hand through Aurora’s hair. She had never hated her sister more in that moment for never even showing her daughter what she and James looked like.

The Potters smiled and waved at Aurora and she stared hungrily back at them, her hands pressed flat against the glass as though she was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. She had a powerful kind of ache inside her, half joy, half terrible sadness.

“For those who have a terrible longing for something, like in your case a family, that mirror will catch you in its trap,” Regulus sighed. He wished there was something that he could do for Aurora, she was his niece, his family.

How long she stood there, she didn’t know. The reflections did not fade and she looked and looked until a distant noise brought her back to her senses. She couldn’t stay here, she had to find her way back to bed. She tore her eyes away from her mother’s face, whispered, “I’ll come back,” and hurried from the room.

“Please don’t,” Sirius said, setting a hand on her shoulder. She smiled sadly up at him in response.

“You could have woken me up,” said Ron, crossly.

“You can come tonight, I’m going back, I want to show you the mirror.”

“I’d like to see your mom and dad,” Ron said eagerly. 

“And I want to see all your family, all the Weasleys, you’ll be able to show me your other brothers and everyone.”

“You can see them any old time,” said Ron. “Just come round my house this summer.

“Ahh but I don’t get to see all your brothers for several years,” Aurora teased.

Molly sighed at the reminder that her two oldest children lived so far from home.

Anyway, maybe it only shows dead people. Shame about not finding Flamel, though. Have some bacon or something, why aren’t you eating anything?”

Aurora couldn’t eat. She had seen her parents and would be seeing them again tonight. She had almost forgotten about Flamel. It didn’t seem very important anymore. Who cared what the three headed dog was guarding? What did it matter if Snape stole it, really?

“That’s the horrible power of the mirror,” Dumbledore said. 

“Are you all right?” said Ron. “You look odd.”

What Aurora feared most was that she might not be able to find the mirror room again. With Ron covered in the cloak, too, they had to walk much more slowly the next night. They tried retracing Aurora’s route from the library, wandering around the dark passageways for nearly an hour.

“I’m freezing,” said Ron. “Let’s forget it and go back.”

“No!” Aurora hissed. “I know it’s here somewhere.”

“Rory,” Sirius murmured. He didn’t want Aurora obsessing over the mirror. He swore that as soon as he became Lord Black he was giving that mirror to the goblins to destroy. 

They passed the ghost of a tall witch gliding in the opposite direction, 

“Helena,” Luna exclaimed. Aurora and Ron nodded at her in agreement.

but saw no one else. Just as Ron started moaning that his feet were dead with cold, Aurora spotted the suit of armor.

“It’s here — just here — yes!”

They pushed the door open. Aurora dropped the cloak from around her shoulders and ran to the mirror.

There they were. Her mother and father’s beamed at the sight of her.

“See?” Aurora whispered.

“I can’t see anything.”

“Look! Look at them all… there are loads of them…”

“I can only see you.”

“Look in it properly, go on, stand where I am.”

Aurora stepped aside, but with Ron in front of the mirror, she couldn’t see her family anymore, just Ron in his paisley pajamas.

Ron, though, was staring transfixed at his image.

“Look at me!” he said.

“Can you see all your family standing around you?”

“No — I’m alone — but I’m different — I look older — and I’m head boy!”

“Oh Ron,” Hermione said, wrapping an arm around him in comfort as he hunched in on himself.

“It sounds so selfish now,” he whimpered.

“It’s not selfish,” Arthur defended. “You just grew up very differently.”

“I wouldn’t see that now though,” Ron sighed.

“What would you see?” Peter asked, not very tactfully.

“I don’t know,” he lied. He knew what he would see - his family, the one he made with his friends all happy and alive. Aurora smiling again like she did at the beginning of fourth year before everything went to hell. Sirius alive and joking with Remus. Tonks, holding Teddy, them making faces and changing their appearance at each other.

Ron sighed, remembering that was why they were in this room. He maybe couldn’t change things for his Aurora, but if there was even one version of Aurora who got to have a family- he would do anything for that, even let the past read about how shallow he was at eleven.

“What?”

“I am — I’m wearing the badge like Bill used to — and I’m holding the house cup and the Quidditch cup — I’m Quidditch captain, too.”

Ron tore his eyes away from this splendid sight to look excitedly at Aurora.

“Do you think this mirror shows the future?”

“How can it? All my family are dead — let me have another look —”

“You had it to yourself all last night, give me a bit more time.”

“You’re only holding the Quidditch cup, what’s interesting about that? I want to see my parents.”

“Don’t push me —”

A sudden noise outside in the corridor put an end to their discussion. They hadn’t realized how loudly they had been talking.

“Quick!”

Ron threw the cloak back over them as the luminous eyes of Mrs. Norris came round the door.

Ron and Aurora stood quite still, both thinking the same thing — did the cloak work on cats?

“Animals can’t see you, but they can still smell you,” Peter said.

“I only know of one thing that can see through the cloak,” Aurora said.

“Fourth year,” she said to the curious looks she got from the Marauders.

After what seemed an age, she turned and left.

“This isn’t safe — she might have gone for Filch, I bet she heard us. Come on.”

And Ron pulled Aurora out of the room.

The snow still hadn’t melted the next morning. 

“Want to play chess, Aurora?” said Ron.

“No.”

“Why don’t we go down and visit Hagrid?”

“No… you go…”

“I know what you’re thinking about, Aurora, that mirror. Don’t go back tonight.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno, I’ve just got a bad feeling about it — and anyway, you’ve had too many close shaves already. Filch, Snape, and Mrs. Norris are wandering around. So what if they can’t see you? What if they walk into you? What if you knock something over?”

“You sound like Hermione.”

“I’m serious, Aurora, don’t go.”

“I would’ve gone too,” Neville said. “And I was a coward my first couple years.”

“You were not!” Aurora defended.

“I was about rule breaking,” Neville elaborated.

Aurora blushed, but didn’t argue with that. Neville didn’t really start willingly breaking the rules as anything but acting as a lookout until fourth year.

But Aurora only had one thought in her head, which was to get back in front of the mirror, and Ron wasn’t going to stop her.

That third night she found her way more quickly than before. She was walking so fast she knew she was making more noise than was wise, but she didn’t meet anyone.

And there were her mother and father’s smiling at her again, and one of her grandfathers nodding happily. Aurora sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop her from staying here all night with her family. Nothing at all.

“That’s it, we are destroying that mirror!” Regulus exclaimed. Sirius nodded grimly at his brother's exclamation. He had already been thinking about doing it but knowing that he had another Black on his side strengthened his resolve. Narcissa and Andromeda nodded in agreement as well. They didn’t want anyone to have to deal with the temptation of that mirror any longer, and while it was a priceless artifact, they wouldn’t put a child through what Aurora was going through in the book.

Except —

“So — back again, Aurora?”

Aurora felt as though her insides had turned to ice. She looked behind her. Sitting on one of the desks by the wall was none other than Albus Dumbledore. Aurora must have walked straight past him, so desperate to get to the mirror she hadn’t noticed him.

“You don’t get in trouble do you?” Alice asked, worried. It really wasn’t her fault, that mirror was addictive. Especially for someone who grew up in the environment that Aurora did.

“I — I didn’t see you, sir.”

“Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you,” said Dumbledore, and Aurora was relieved to see that he was smiling. 

“So,” said Dumbledore, slipping off the desk to sit on the floor with Aurora, “you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised.”

“I didn’t know it was called that, Sir.”

“But I expect you’ve realized by now what it does?”

“It — well — it shows me my family —”

“And it showed your friend Ron himself as head boy.”

“How did you know —?”

“I don’t need a cloak to become invisible,” said Dumbledore gently. “Now, can you think what the Mirror of Erised shows us all?”

Aurora shook her head.

“Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. Does that help?”

Aurora thought. Then she said slowly, “It shows us what we want… whatever we want…”

“It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts,” Dumbledore said. Aurora let out a soft laugh, smiling at the Headmaster with the first genuine smile she had given him since she had shown up in the past.

“Yes and no,” said Dumbledore quietly. “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. 

The others in the room laughed now too. “It appears I do not change much over the next several years,” Dumbledore laughed too.

You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.

“The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Aurora, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. Now, why don’t you put that admirable cloak back on and get off to bed?”

“I remember that saying all the time,” Aurora sighed, leaning against Sirius’ legs.

Aurora stood up.

“Sir — Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?”

“Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may ask me one more thing, however.”

“What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.”

Aurora stared.

“One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”

“I always send you a pair of socks for Christmas,” Aurora laughed. Dumbledore smiled sadly at her. 

“We will too,” Remus and James said laughing.

It was only when she was back in bed that it struck Aurora that Dumbledore might not have been quite truthful. But then, she thought, as she shoved Scabbers off Neville’s pillow, it had been quite a personal question. 

Ron and Neville growled, while Aurora had shuttered. She had shared a room with Ron while at the Burrow, and Scabbers had slept with her. She felt sickened. 

“That is the end of the chapter,” Columba said. “Who would like to go next?”

Professor Flitwick levitated the book over to himself. “I will have a turn.”