Erised

Erised: Part I

Hermione Granger looks wistfully out the window. It is Christmas today, at last, but somehow, things are different. Perhaps it is because You-Know-Who is back, perhaps it is something else. But Hermione knows that, though she and Harry feign their enjoyment of one another's company, something is subtly but undeniably wrong.

Harry and Hermione are playing wizard chess in the Gryffindor Common Room. They are the sole, solitary inhabitants of the place- everyone else has gone home for the holidays. They both sit, looking alternately around the silent room and at the board, neither of them making a move.

Five minutes pass this way. It is Harry's turn, but he does not speak a single word, nor move a muscle.

Hermione is the eventual perpetrator of the broken silence.

"I wonder how Ron is," she asks, glancing momentarily up at Harry's face. She is curious as to his reaction- tensions seemed to have risen between he and Ron in the past year. She knew that talking about Ron made Harry uncomfortable... she remembers the last time they spoke very clearly.

Harry had been shouting about something again. In these dark, miserable days, Harry's temper seemed to get the better of him all-too-often. She understood this, she could see why, certainly, but that did not make it right.

It appeared as though Ron had just snapped, had become entirely fed up with Harry's constant raging. He turned to Harry, who stopped in mid-sentence and began shouting right back at him.

"Look, Harry. I don't know if you see it, but we do, Hermione and I do. Harry, you've changed since You-Know-Who came back. I don't know exactly what it is about you, but something is different. You....you...seem to lose control all the time over small things-"

"BUT YOU CAN'T REALLY UNDERSTAND ANY OF WHAT YOU JUST SAID, CAN YOU, RON? YOUR PARENTS DIDN'T DIE AT THE HANDS OF THE MOST EVIL BEING ALIVE, DID THEY? YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO WITNESS HIM MURDERING THE ONLY PERSON YOU HAD EVER CALLED A PARENT IN YOUR LIFE, DID YOU? YOU DIDN'T SEE HIM RETURN TO POWER, RON! I DID!" Harry stormed.

"Exactly what I just said. You are losing control, Harry; losing control of your emotions too easily. You literally attack Hermione and I just for asking simple questions!" Ron returned.

"OH, FINE! I LOSE MY PARENTS, I LOSE MY GODFATHER, NOW, I'M LOSING MY BEST FRIENDS! WHY DON'T I JUST BLEEDING SURRENDER MYSELF TO VOLDEMORT? IT WOULD BE A WHOLE LOT BETTER THAN WHAT'S COMING FOR ME, I'M SURE!"

Ron went silent. His face turned deathly white, he stood up solemnly, and left his room. And that was the last time Harry and Ron had spoken, over two months ago.

Now, here she was, confronting her best friend with this. Forcing him to talk about it.

Harry shrugged.

"Why didn't you go with him for Christmas holidays? He did invite you, after all," he asked.

Looking him squarely in the eye, Hermione replied, "I didn't want to leave you here alone. Ron has his family, he will be alright ultimately. But you don't have anyone else, Harry. And you need someone so desperately, need someone to teach you to live."

"I'm fine on my own, I do it every summer."

"That's not my point, Harry. I'm just not going to leave you here, alone in the Gryffindor Tower. At least you have the Dursleys with you at Privet Drive," Hermione returned.

Silence pervaded the uncomfortable air in the room. At long last, Hermione stood up.

"I'm going for a walk, Harry. I'll be back in twenty minutes."

Without saying goodbye, Harry walked up the stairs to the boy's dormitory. He needed some time to think about her words, those painful yet true words she had spoken to him.

They went their separate ways, each angry with the other. Harry wondered what right Hermione had to criticize him as she had, Hermione wondered why Harry thought himself above needing a friend. That was all she had meant, that he had needed a friend to talk to, someone to let his emotions out to. Harry was notoriously bad at talking about his emotions. He would sit and stew and become more and more angry, until at last he was so mad that he lashed out at everyone around him. This had lost him the respect of many of those who had once been proud to call themselves his friends.

She was so confused about what was going on inside Harry right now. She knew that he needed some kind of outlet in his life, an equivalent to Sirius. But she wasn't sure that there was an equivalent to Sirius in existence.

Remus, of course, was there for Harry. But there lacked a communication between the two somehow. There was no room for relation, other than in the two great losses they had each shared- James and Sirius. Remus seemed almost a walking corpse after Sirius's death, emotionless, cynical, and bitter.

Then, there was Tonks. Harry seemed to respect her in a way that he could not respect anyone else in his life. Tonks, with her carefree nonchalant zeal for life, with her bright, flashy looks and her motherly behaviour towards him, how could he not admire her, inwardly burning for her.

Yes, Hermione had seen the way in which Harry looked at Tonks. It was not unlike the way that Ginny had once gazed longingly, almost hungrily, at Harry. She knew that Harry wanted Tonks to grab him up and hold him in her arms, a shelter for the storm.

As Hermione lost herself in thought, she also lost herself along the Hogwarts corridors. And now, here she found herself, walking down a hallway that was very familiar to her. The Room of Requirement was here.

She trod the familiar steps around the place where the door would appear, willing her feet to move forward. She felt her energy draining from trying to patch up the tensions between Harry and Ron.

Finally, the door appeared. She turned the handle and went swiftly in.

In front of her stood a tall, handsome mirror. The face of it rippled like clear crystalline water. Around the edges, there was an inscription. As Hermione read, she recognised.

"Erised? The Mirror of Erised?" she breathed softly, her breath forming a small cloud of excitement.

Thoughts raced around her mind like courting squirrels in a tree. What really was her heart's desire? This mirror would tell her.

Slowly, cautiously, she set one foot in front of another, until she stood directly in front of the mirror. Now, here she was, a short, bushy haired brunette, gazing into this powerful mirror. Gazing back at her was a soft pale face.

She longed for this face, for this face with its steely blue-grey eyes, its tendrils of soft blonde hair, its uniqueness. She longed for it with every ounce of her being. She longed to run her hands down the smooth, pale body, to brush her lips against the soft, pink lips in that face.

She knew, had known, that this was what she was going to see in the mirror. The face stared back at her with its cold, interrogative eyes. It seemed to be perusing her every fibre. And now, now the stern face was breaking a broad smile. Albeit uncharacteristic on this face, she knew that it was truth. And that it was what she was meant to do.

"I love you, Luna Lovegood," she breathed.