Harry Potter and the Pretty Sorcerer's Balls

Chapter 12 - The Mirror of Erised

Christmas was fast approaching and Harry had just signed up to stay at Hogwarts over the break. Mr and Mrs Weasley were taking their daughter Ginny to Romania to spend the holiday with their second eldest son Charlie, so, much to Harry's delight, Ron, Percy, and the twins would all be accompanying him over the break.

"What are you doing?" Ron asked as he flopped down on Harry's bed.

"The same thing you should be doing," Harry grinned coyly and tossed Ron a handful of catalogues. "Getting ready for Christmas!" he cheered, "if we're going to be staying at Hogwarts for the holidays we won't get a chance to do any proper shopping."

"Owl order?" Ron asked with a concerned face. "We can't afford that -"

"Of course we can, silly." Harry interrupted gleefully. "It's the delivery charges that are expensive - but we've got Twinkle, don't we? She'll deliver the items to us instead so the fee will be waived. It cuts the prices by half!"

"We can do that?"

"Um-hmm, it's in very very VERY fine print at the bottom there. I noticed that all the catalogues had a bit of a smudge at the bottom of the price-list page so Hermione did a revealing charm - and there it was!"

"Wicked!" Ron exclaimed before frowning again, "But won't you need your coins for the summer? You'll need money to get back to Gringotts."

"Oh silly, don't worry about me," Harry grinned again, "It's wizard money, right? And that won't help me one bit once we get to King's Cross station - so I may as well spend it on my friends."

Ron and Harry made their gift arrangements with great care, deciding who would get what for whom, and how best to spend their limited funds. Sending Twinkle out on secret owl order missions for each others gifts seemed near impossible, so to avoid that bit of silliness, and to have a bit more money available for everyone else's presents, they agreed to exchange hand-made gifts with each other instead.

The group of Gryffindors and Slytherins made their way to the front hall, where the students who were going home for the holidays would take carriages to Hogsmeade station to catch the Hogwarts Express.

"Remember," Hermione whispered, pulling Ron, Draco, and Harry slightly away from the others as they made their way to the front doors. "Professors Snape and Quirrell will have a harder time getting to Harry if other people are around so you two should try to stick with Ron's older brothers whenever you can."

"Okay!" Harry cried immediately, while Ron frowned.

"They're older and they know more magic, Weasley." Draco drawled before Ron could argue. "Just in case they try anything."

Ron nodded, grudgingly. "And you're going to ask your dad if he knows anything about Nicolas Flamel as soon as you get home, right?" he prodded.

"Right."

They rejoined the others and said their goodbyes. Harry gave Hermione and Neville a hug, winked at Draco and waved at Crabbe and Goyle.

"Oh I'm so jealous of your two!" Hermione grumbled on their way out, "You'll have the library completely to yourselves during the break!" Even Crabbe and Goyle rolled their eyes.

Once the holidays began, Ron and Harry were having too much fun to worry much about what horrific doom might be awaiting Harry or to mind too terribly that Draco had yet to owl with his dad's response. They spent their time outdoors with the twins playing in the snow.

Despite his delicate throwing style and the need to squeal each time he launched a snowball into the air - thus warning his targets of the incoming projectiles - Harry was surprisingly good at catching the twins as they tried to duck or jump out of the way.

"How do you do that?" Ron finally burst out as yet another snowball met its mark.

"It's this thing they do in baseball, that's a Muggle sport in America. It's called a curve ball."

Ron looked incredulous, "And how did you learn to do it?"

Harry blushed, "It was kind of an accident," he giggled. "There was an article called 'Cool Girls Know All About Curve Balls' in one of my teen magazines and ... I-thought-it-meant-something-else." Harry hurried to show Ron where to place his fingers on the snowball to make it spin, waylaying his chance to discern just what he originally thought the article was about.

Ron had begun to teach Harry wizards chess - which was played just like Muggle chess but with live pieces that battled it out on the game board. Harry had been using Seamus Finnegan's set, whose players didn't like him at all and were extremely sore about losing.

"But it bit me!" Harry wailed.

"Because you were sending it to its death!" Ron exclaimed, "You could be really good at this, Harry, you just need to pay attention."

"How am I supposed to pay attention when they keep yelling at me?"

After one too many of these biting incidents, Harry refused to continue to play, leaving Ron to contend with Percy as an opponent. Harry kept them company in the common room, reading.

On Christmas Eve, Harry left Ron with his brothers and spent the day with Hagrid. He literally fell asleep that night with visions of sugarplums dancing in his head, after Hagrid's detailed descriptions of the upcoming Hogwarts Christmas feast. He woke up the next morning and hurried to shower and dress - donning his long planned Christmas ensemble. He kissed Scabbers on the head and tied a bright green bow around its neck - which was easy to do as the rat slept through the entire procedure.

"Happy Christmas," said Ron sleepily, finally easing out of bed.

"Happy Christmas to you too, Ron!" Harry twirled around the room - a Dursley free Christmas! He couldn't have asked for anything more delightful. "My goodness, those aren't for me, are they?" He pointed to the small pile of packages at the foot of his bed.

"Of course they are, Cupcake!" Ron exclaimed, turning to his own pile.

Harry began with a plain envelope on the top of the pile. He gasped, "It's from the Dursleys!"

Ron dropped the gift in his hands and rushed over to see the letter. It was penned by the Yellow Tuna and read:

We received your message and agree to do whatever we must to keep you away from our home. If EVER you come back here, you will NOT be returning to that school of yours.

"That's their idea of a Christmas gift?" Ron fumed.

"Ron, this is the best gift ever!" Harry squealed. "They're not going to do anything so long as I never go back."

"But what's going to happen over the summer? You'll stay with me for as you can but my parents will wonder if you spend the whole summer with us - especially after staying at school for Christmas for no good reason."

"I'll think of something." Harry grinned. For him, the Dursleys letter was just another step in the right direction. He never wanted to go back there, now it seemed that staying away was going to be that much easier.

"I guess you don't have to worry about anyone finding out now - and forcing you back to their house -"

"Or sending me to an orphanage or something horrid like that."

"Still ... " Ron continued to look glum.

"Heavens to Betsy, Ron, this is a good thing! If you don't get that sad puppy dog look off your face this instant, I'll be forced to find a way to cheer you up ... and it may involve mistletoe!"

Ron's eyes widened in alarm before he snorted and returned to the pile of gifts still waiting to be opened.

Harry pouted his lip, hiding a grin, and picked up a small parcel wrapped in thick brown paper. It had a large, bright red bow around it and the words To Harry, From Hagrid scrawled across the top. Inside was a wooden flute, simple in design but carefully sanded to be smooth as silk to the touch. It sounded a bit like an owl.

"Oh it's wonderful!" Harry cooed, "I bet he's made this himself."

"Open this one," Ron grinned proudly and handed him a large, rather lumpy parcel.

Harry placed his new flute gently on his bed and began opening the package in his lap.

"It's from my mum." Ron's grin widened when Harry's face lit up. Inside the package Harry found a number of smaller gift wrapped bundles.

"A scarf!" Harry squealed. "And mittens, oh Ron!"

Ron reddened slightly, "Can't make Snape's job easier by having you die of pneumonia, right?"

Harry giggled and unwrapped a block of homemade fudge, then an emerald green jumper. He hugged the knitted items to his chest.

"Every year she makes all the kids a jumper - so I guess you're one of us now." The boys grinned at each other again before Ron tore open his own Weasley jumper. "Maroon again," he groaned, "Every year, it's the same thing!"

Harry scrunched up his face, "You shouldn't wear maroon with your hair - we'll have to trade."

He opened boxes of Chocolate Frogs from both Crabbe and Goyle -

"They really do share one brain, don't they?" Ron muttered.

- and Draco sent them both beautiful quill and ink sets, lilac for Harry and navy blue for Ron. Hermione and Neville went in together and gave Harry a Muggle beading set for jewellery making and fashion embellishment.

Harry and Ron had agreed not to open their Christmas cards or their gifts for each other until after dinner - to stretch out the Christmas excitement. But there was still another gift awaiting Harry at the foot of his bed.

"I wonder who this is from?" Harry murmured.

"Well open it!"

Harry unwrapped the package and found his lap covered in silvery-grey material. He held up the shining, liquid like fabric for Ron's appraisal.

"That's - that's - it can't be," Ron stammered, completely awed. "Put it on, Harry," he added in hushed tones.

Harry wrapped the material around him, adjusting it once he saw it was a cloak.

"I can't believe it!" Ron exclaimed, "Look down!"

"Eeek!" Harry jumped nearly a foot in the air - though Ron's only indication of this was Harry's bobbing head. Indeed, his body had seemingly vanished beneath the cloak around him.

"It's an invisibility cloak." Ron explained rather needlessly. Harry took off the cloak, dizzy with ideas clamouring to his mind on just what one could do whist invisible, and confusion as to who might have sent it to him. A note fell to the ground as he folded the material.

"'Your father left this in my possession before he died,'" Harry read the unsigned note aloud before handing it to Ron. "Humph! You'd think if that Yoo Hoo mongrel was after you and your family, you'd want something like an invisibility cloak on hand."

"I'm sure your dad knew what he was doing, Harry." Ron murmured, fingering the silk and reading the note. "Maybe he knew he was a target and was making sure the Death Eaters couldn't get their hands on an invisibility cloak - they're really valuable, you know, and really rare."

Harry pouted, "I wonder who it's from?"

"You don't have any idea?"

"No," Harry shook his head, "but the writing is familiar somehow."

"Well whoever it was, your dad must've really trusted them." Ron said with awe.

"'Use it well' it said," Harry began to giggle uncontrollably, "Do you have any idea what we can do with this?"

Both Ron's and Harry's eyes glazed over with delight.

After an absolutely delectable Christmas breakfast, Ron and Harry broke away from Ron's brothers and hurried back to their dorm. It was time for the cloaks first run.

"Lets go spying." Harry suggested.

"What?"

"We can go to the staff room and listen in - or follow Filch around and see what he gets up to."

"Filch doesn't get up to anything, Harry." Ron's eye's lit up. "We can find out what Snape is up to though!"

"And then we can short-sheet his bed!"

The boys made their way to the dungeons, shuffling along as quickly as they could until they came to Snape's office.

"Locked." Ron groaned.

"I have a feeling an unlocking spell wouldn't be a good idea."

"Probably booby-trapped," Ron agreed. They heard footsteps inside and soon Snape himself made his way into the hallway, spelling the door shut behind him. The boys wide-eyed each other under the cloak, amazed at their near miss. They followed the hook-nosed man's billowing robes up two flights of stairs and through a corridor until he stopped to speak with little Professor Flitwick. Harry reached into his shoulder bag for his wand.

"What are you doing?" Ron whispered urgently.

Harry simply giggled. He peeked the wand through the cloak's hood and pointed at a hanging mistletoe in the archway near him. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he whispered. The cluster of mistletoe raised off the frame and following Harry's wand, hovered about a foot over Snape's head.

"He's trying to kill you, Harry - you should have lit him on fire like Hermione did."

Professor Flitwick giggled at Snape's new accoutrement and kissed the hand of a very shocked man before continuing on his way.

"Eww." Ron and Harry whispered together. They continued to follow Snape - who grew increasingly more irate as passing students and professors either giggled madly or - in the case of the most courageous professors - kissed him as the mistletoe decreed. They both gasped in horror as Filch appeared around the corner.

"You been drinking, Snape?" Filch growled.

"Of course not!" Snape sneered, making no attempt to hide his fury.

"Then get that idiotic thing off your head." Though partners in their near fascist monitoring of student rule breaking, Filch seemed to enjoy having this one up on Snape.

Harry and Ron however, were terrified. They turned and fled before Snape could find the mistletoe, which was a good thing since neither would have been able to refrain from laughing out loud at the sight of the mistletoe bunch landing smack down on his upturned face.

The boys wandered back to the third floor corridor and peeked in to ensure that Fluffy was in fact still guarding the trapdoor.

"Aaaaaah!" they screamed as one of Fluffy's heads greeted them an inch from the door. Having no visible target, the dog merely barked as the door was slammed shut. The boys ran from the corridor enjoying the thrill of being thoroughly terrified. They twisted and turned through the halls until they spotted Mrs Norris slipping through a doorway.

"I think she's just wandering - I don't hear Filch." Ron panted. "But just in case, we'd better keep quiet." They followed the scrawny cat through the doorway - Harry had a red Christmas bow to add to her collar.

They looked around and found they were in what seemed to be a long disused classroom.

"I wonder what this room was for," Harry whispered.

"Who knows?" Ron shrugged. "Do you have any idea how to get back to Gryffindor tower?"

"Mrs Norris can get us back," Harry whispered, bending to pet the cat. The cat hissed at his disembodied arm and scampered away, settling underneath an overturned chair and curling up for a nap. "Whoops! I guess I scared her. We'd better let her sleep if we want to stay on her good side."

"Temperamental feline," Ron muttered. "Hey, look at that." He was pointing to a rather large, very out of place object propped against a wall.

"A mirror!" Harry exclaimed, only to be shushed by Ron. He rushed toward the ornate, gold trimmed frame. "Maybe this was a magical grooming class!" he whispered excitedly.

"I don't think it belongs here, Harry." Ron rolled his eyes in the direction of Harry's voice.

"Oh my!" Harry giggled, "I had no idea my hair looked so good today!" His reflection in the mirror blew himself a kiss.

"But how?" Ron gasped, "- the cloak!"

Harry gasped as well and yanked the cloak off over his head. He turned back to the mirror and received another kiss.

"It must be for security or something." Ron approached the mirror now as well, before gasping again.

"What's wrong?"

"That's not me!" Ron sputtered. "It's me but it's not me!"

Harry leaned into the mirror again, "Eek!" he yelped. "Your hair is a fright!"

"You can't see anything else? Must be enchanted." Ron breathed in relief and the colour returned to his cheeks. "It's so weird though, it's me but ... I'm at a strange sort of house ... with you - I'm at your house."

"But I don't have a house." Harry frowned suddenly, "It doesn't have a number four over the door does it? Because that would be the Dursley's."

"I don't see any numbers," Ron reassured him. "Do you think it shows the future?" He moved away from the mirror and began looking in the gap between the wall and the mirror back.

"Ron, whatever are you doing?" Harry whined.

"Nothing," Ron whispered. "Just looking to see if there are directions or something - see how it's been charmed."

"There's writing on the top here."

Ron raced back to the front of the mirror, and craned his neck up. "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi," he strangled out, "Whatever that means."

Harry pulled a piece of parchment and a Muggle pen out of his shoulder bag and wrote the strange words down. He pouted his lip and after a moment's indecision, rifled through the bag again until he had found a small compact mirror.

"What are you doing?" Ron spurted out, the exasperation dripping off of each word.

Harry humphed, "If this mirror is enchanted, then I have to make sure I really am having such a perfect hair day - I can't very well trust you to tell me!" he turned away from Ron and the mirror and opened the compact with a snap. After a moment's inspection he grinned in triumph, each hair was just where it should be.

"Happy?" Ron snorted.

"Very -" Harry gasped and nearly sent the compact reeling to the floor. He spun around to face the mirror then turned away again and peered intently into his compact.

"What?" Ron exclaimed.

"It's backwards. The letters are straight but the words are backwards!"

Ron looked into Harry's mirror and could see the tail end of the inscription. The letters were now backwards but when compared to the copy Harry had jotted down, the words became more distinct. The boys stood for a few minutes, comparing the mirror image with the letters on Harry's parchment until the full phrase became clear.

I show not your face but your hearts desire

"But what does that mean?"

"It means your hearts desire is what you see when you look in the mirror." Ron whispered.

"My heart's desire is to have perfect hair?" Harry giggled.

"I don't think so," Ron pointed to the compact still in Harry's hand. "You said your hair looked the same in your own mirror too. I guess you just don't have a hearts desire."

"Oh yes I do," Harry shimmied his shoulders, giggling.

"Harry!" Ron rolled his eyes, "Fred and George don't count."

Harry pouted before his eyes began to glisten and he threw himself upon his friend, enveloping him in a hug so tight that Ron's cheeks reddened.

"Oh Ron!" He exclaimed, "Your hearts desire is for me to have a proper home!"

Ron blushed deeper and began to gently prise Harry off his chest. "I - guess it kind of freaks me out that we don't know where you'll go when school ends." His blush deepened even further, to an impossible shade of crimson. "Blimey, Harry, don't cry."

Harry waved his hands at his face, "It's just," he cooed, "that's the sweetest thing ever!"

To Ron's great relief, Mrs Norris chose that moment to meow. He rushed over to scoop her up before she left them in the classroom. Harry pulled himself together and tended to the cat. After she had been properly petted and presented with the Christmas bow, she meowed again and jumped to the floor, padding out of the classroom.

The boys climbed back under the cloak and followed the cat to familiar ground, then made their way on their own to Gryffindor tower.

Once they had returned to their dorm yet again, Harry took another look at the cloak's accompanying letter, trying to figure out just why the writing was so familiar.

Ron took the note and held it up to read again, Harry could see the script through the paper, backwards and spidery!

"It's from the Headmaster!" he exclaimed clapping his hands together, "that's the same writing I saw when I was at Gringotts with Hagrid."

"How can you tell?"

"I was trying to read the letter he gave to the goblin through the back of the paper - it looked just like that does." Harry held the letter back up to the light and pointed to the back of the parchment.

"But why would Dumbledore give a student an invisibility cloak?"

"Who knows why he does the things he does." Harry said wistfully.