Chapter 8
Minerva has been having a rough week, as is expected of the first week of the new year. What wasn’t expected was for the faculty room’s entire supply of coffee to be depleted in a matter of days, all thanks to a chain reaction of events. Harry Potter was sorted into Slytherin, a fact which greatly surprised them all. Naturally, Severus was furious about this. Sources say he’s been taking this out on all of his students, and in turn, students are frustrated and in terrible moods when it’s time for their other classes, and so the professors are tired, hence the dramatic decrease in the coffee supply.
But Minerva has endured worse. She’s long since come to the conclusion that if she managed to survive having James Potter and Sirius Black under the same roof, she can survive most anything.
Or so she thought, until Percy Weasley, the new Prefect for Gryffindor House, comes stumbling into her office out of breath and wheezing. “There’s… Duel… Duel in the courtyard,” he gasps, then collapses on the spot.
Minerva transforms into her cat self and leaps from stair banister to stair banister, operating under the assumption that were it a harmless little duel, Weasley would have put an end to it himself. She expects it is a pair of Seventh Years who have started up the fight, likely from the rival houses that are Gryffindor and Slytherin, but who knows. Even after decades of working as a professor, Minerva can say that there is nothing in the world more unpredictable than angry teenagers.
She reaches the courtyard and nearly gets her robes set on cursed fire.
Well. She was right about the Houses, at any rate.
And suddenly, Minerva is standing in the courtyard of seventeen years ago, screaming out the same thing she did then to the very same people for the very same reason. “POTTER! SNAPE! CEASE WITH THIS NONSENSE AT ONCE!”
Yet the duel continues. And it becomes increasingly clear to her that it was not fair of her to make such a request of Severus, as the man is doing nothing but desperately defending himself. As for James, with whom Minerva has exchanged letters with the past year but never got around to speaking with in person- He appears not to have heard her at all. So immersed is he in the duel that he just keeps going at it, not showing a single sign of slowing down.
Minerva disarms James nonverbally, then does the same for Severus for good measure. And then, with the most dreary sense of deja vu anyone could possibly experience, she once again speaks words of the past to the same people they were once spoken to. “My office. Both of you will explain yourselves to me there.”
On the way there, Minerva takes Mr Filch aside and asks that he put in an order for the strongest espresso coffee possible, to be made available only for her. Something tells her she’s really going to end up needing it.
“Have a biscuit, Potter.”
James takes the biscuit. He takes another one for good measure. Minerva is furious with him for having jeopardized the lives of her students in such a way. This is not why he was called to the school, and she will be taking severe measures to keep him from ever entering the school if he pulls a stunt like that again. He should be grateful Snape will not be pressing any charges. James tells her that if Snape wants to press charges, he should go right ahead. James will sue him right back with all the money and the power of the Potter name, and find Snape an Azkaban cell with his name on it while he’s at it.
“Leave now, Mr Potter.”
“I’m going to see Harry.”
“Mr Potter-”
“I want to see my son, I’m going to see my son-”
“You’ve already been to the Hospital Wing!” Minerva tells him, exasperated. “Enough, James. I think you’ve caused quite enough damage here.”
James complies, but only because it’s Minerva and no one else. He’ll agree to leave right away without making any detours, but it doesn’t count as a detour if you’re dragging one of the matters you have to deal with right down the corridors along with you.
“You think you know me, but you don’t,” James tells Snape quietly, a distance away from Minerva’s office. “You’ve never known me as I am now. I will tear you apart, layer by layer, hurting you so terribly that even as I tell you now that I will never stop in my efforts to torment you until you are breathing your last breaths, you will still come begging to me for mercy.”
He feels different walking out of Hogwarts than he did going in before. He feels different from who he once was in its entirety, actually, so far separated from who he’d thought himself to be. But maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing. All this time, James has been so focused on trying to find a way back to himself, to become what everyone expected of him back then. But time and experience changes people. It’s a fact of life. And if nature deems fit to turn James into a different person than who he would have gone on to be under different circumstances… Who is he to resist it? Especially when it will grant him a swift and sure way of dealing with those who would put him and his own in harm’s way.
Harry clutches the letter in his hands as tightly as he can. He’s not going to cry. Crying is stupid. Boys shouldn’t cry.
But he can’t help it. What’s just been delivered to him as he sits by himself for breakfast in the Great Hall is the most wonderful gift he could have ever received. It’s a letter from his dad, telling him how, even though it was wrong of Harry to attack Malfoy, his dad loves him very much and is so proud of him in all the ways that matter. His dad is also very happy for Harry and his new House, and hopes that Harry makes a lot of friends and has a fun school experience.
“But Harry,” Ron frowns, when Harry excitedly tells him all of this. “You do realize this is the most basic thing a parent can do, don’t you? I don’t really get how you can call him the world’s best dad when he didn’t even come visit you in the Hospital Wing when you got hurt. You know Malfoy’s been bragging all about how his dad came to see him that same day.”
“My dad did come see me!” Harry insists. “Everyone’s talking about it. Everyone knows he was here that day I got hurt.”
“Yeah, and everyone knows he spent all the time he should’ve been spending at your side dueling Snape instead.”
“What’s your problem?” Harry asks hotly, startling himself as well as Ron. It’s unlike Harry to be so mean to his best friend, the friend who’d been making his otherwise lonely school life very much bearable. But Harry won’t budge when it comes to his dad, he won’t hear a word against him.
“Sorry, mate,” Ron mumbles. “I just thought… Well, it doesn’t really matter now, anyway.”
Ron is a great friend, but he just doesn’t understand. Someone who does understand, however, is a dorm mate of Harry’s, whose name Harry only learns because Ron points him out during lunch. “That’s the kid who asked that Neville’s Remembrall be returned to him. Seems decent enough, for a Slytherin.” Ron winces at his own words. “Er, that isn’t to say I think all Slytherins are evil or something. Just… You know. He seems alright. Probably.”
So Harry introduces himself to the boy, because while he loves having Ron as a friend, he can’t have Ron by his side at all times no matter how much he wishes it, due to the differences of their House. It would be nice to have someone to hang out with in the Slytherin Common Room, Harry thinks, someone to walk down to breakfast together with.
Theo Nott isn't much of a talker. He inhabits one corner of the Common Room like some sort of a vampire and doesn’t do much other than read. But every now and then, he’ll make a small remark that will make Harry really feel like he’s understood. He knows what Theo means when he says he wants to make his father proud but feels like he’s never doing enough. He completely understands it when Theo talks about his father with a tone of reverence and awe, a startling contrast to the way Harry is only ever left confused when Ron talks about Mr Weasley like he’s a cool friend or something.
Harry is never allowed a lot of time with Theo at once, though, because Pansy Parkinson will always find a way to squeeze her way into their conversations. Her father is a member of the Wizengamot and her mother is Head Editor of Witch Weekly. She’s very talkative and can never take the hint when Theo is all but spelling it out in front of her face for her to leave. At first, Harry thinks this is what all girls are like, but no, turns out this is just who Pansy is. Harry doesn’t mind her company, so long as she’s not interrupting his and Theo’s talks too terribly. He likes how bubbly and energetic she is, even if she did throw him completely off kilter their first night at Hogwarts.
So now, Harry has three whole friends. He sits with Ron for classes, Pansy for meals, and with Theo in the Common Room during periods of free time. He doesn’t take it really seriously when Theo warns him in a very grave tone to watch out for Pansy, because there’s more to her than meets the eye and she’s probably got an ulterior motive planned or something. Theo, contrary to what others might think of him, is actually very dramatic, as can be seen in such cases.
Malfoy continues to be a git about everything, especially now that Harry has stolen his two childhood best friends away from him. But Harry only ignores him, because he doesn’t want to tempt fate by starting yet another fight with Malfoy and risk having his dad actually disappointed with him this time. Harry knows what he did was wrong, he shouldn’t have matched aggression with aggression, and he plans not to let anything along the lines of it ever happen again. As for Snape… Well, everyone has noticed the difference in their Potions professor. He looks half dead these days, his face gaunt and with dark bags under his eyes. When he does lose his temper, he lashes out far worse than usual, reducing quite the number of students to tears, but he’s stopped being horrible to Harry specifically, at any rate.
Winter arrives, and Harry heads home for the holidays. His dad surprises him with an ice-skating rink within the confines of their estate, enchanted to last through the season. It’s just as wonderful as the Christmas from last year. Harry shyly presents his dad with a project he’s been working on specifically for this purpose. He managed to grow a batch of crystals by fermenting a cauldron of moonbeam potion. His dad tells him he loves the gift, and commends him abundantly on his impressive potions skills.
The night Harry returns to Hogwarts, he happens upon a room he’s never seen before. He knows he shouldn’t go inside. He doesn’t want to get in trouble for breaking curfew and disappoint his dad that way. But the allure of whatever’s inside the room is too strong. Harry steps inside, and finds a mirror waiting for him there.
It’s a magic mirror, as it turns out. There are two men in the mirror, standing side by side, both of them bearing a striking resemblance to his dad. It’s only once Harry catches the scar and the green eyes that he realizes one of the men is himself, only in the future. Future Harry is wearing the brightest smile in the world, like he’s been granted all his life’s dreams, and he is now content to go on for the rest of his years knowing he couldn’t be happier than he is now. And there, beside him, James Potter is bestowing upon his grown son a proud smile so similar yet so different from the one he gives Little Harry at every chance he gets. Because this smile, this beautiful, unfamiliar smile, is void of all the pain that Dad’s ordinary ones contain. Future Harry must have achieved something truly spectacular to have at last made Dad the happiest he could ever be with his son.
Harry comes back after that. Night after night after night. He wants it, the reflection, he wants it so much he fears he might go mad and yet losing his sanity might just be worth it to be bestowed with that smile in real life. Harry neglects his schoolwork and drops from the top spot in his year, all so that he can lose sleep over the mirror for as long as he dares. On the rare occasions he is ever spotted in the library anymore, he is searching up a spell to fit his needs. He finds it easily enough, as it’s a Charm they’ll be covering for with Flitwick in just a few months’ time, anyway. “Diffindo,” Harry whispers at the mirror, using his wand, and when the mirror only deflects his spell, he comes back with stronger versions of it. He doesn’t know who the mirror belongs to or how long it will stay here, and so he must carve away a piece of it so that he might keep it for himself.
None of the spells work. He’s back at square one with diffindo when the brilliant idea occurs to him not to use his wand this time. He read somewhere that magic is wielded in its freer form when wands aren’t involved. That’s what he needs right now. Not magic in its concentrated form, but magic in its abstract entirety, so that it might be able to bend the traditional laws that surround the magic mirror.
It works. Harry hides the mirror shard in the pocket of his cloak and never returns to the place again, because now, he can look into the vision whenever he feels like it. The vision he will shape into reality, he vows to himself, no matter what it takes.