Another Prisoner, Another Professor

"We've got to figure out what it all means," Hermione said the minute the three of them had climbed through the portrait hole again. "Teachers up in the middle of the night desperate to see the Mirror of Erised is definitely a bit suspicious."

"Hermione, he was with Dumbledore!" said Ron, looking astounded. "Dumbledore let him see the Mirror, and Black promised he wasn't going to look for it again, so what has any of it got to do with us?"

"You'd want to know more in a second if it were Snape instead of Black," she retorted.

"Well, of course I would, it would be Snape! So he wasn't after the Stone and he didn't have anything to do with the Chamber of Secrets, fine, but you can't tell me you would really think nothing was up if Snape wanted to see the Mirror of Erised. He'd probably want to find out if his deepest desire was to see Harry boiled or baked."

"Forget about Snape for a second," Hermione replied. She sat down on one of the armchairs by the cold fireplace. "What really worries me is the fact that Black wonders whether Dumbledore really trusts him. You can't tell me that it isn't somewhat worrying to you to have a teacher who Dumbledore might not trust."

"He let him see the Mirror, didn't he?" Ron shot Harry a desperate glance.

"Well," said Harry slowly, "there might be something to it - but maybe not." Ron and Hermione were both giving him pointed looks that clearly said they wanted him to be on their respective sides. "Maybe it's something that's not really that big of a deal."

"Like what?" Hermione asked. "I doubt Black's deepest desire is to get another flying motorbike." She stood up and began to pace. "Black wanted to see the Mirror of Erised, so it sounds like he didn't know what it was that he really wanted more than anything else. He had a dream where he was chasing a man or a boy, and he said something about knowing it was 'one of the four.' Dumbledore didn't ask him what that meant, so he must already know - "

"And if Dumbledore already knows, and Black's still here teaching tomorrow, then it isn't anything to worry about," Ron finished. "I thought finding out stuff about blood magic was supposed to be the important thing right now."

"It is, but this is - "

"Something Dumbledore knows about, and doesn't seem to care about." Ron yawned. "That's it, I'm going back to bed."

He and Harry wearily stumbled up the steps to the boys' dormitories while Hermione went up the other staircase. "She just doesn't like him because she doesn't know how to do all the homework he assigned," said Ron, and pulled the covers over his head.

Harry stayed awake a bit longer. He thought he could understand wanting to see the Mirror of Erised, if you didn't know what your deepest desire was, but wouldn't someone be able to have a general idea of what it was? Unless Black had several things he wanted, and he couldn't quite tell which one was the one he wanted the most...that would make sense. If there could only be one side to take, Ron's or Hermione's, Harry would be on Ron's side. There couldn't be anything particularly sinister happening right under Dumbledore's nose, especially not after the close calls in the past, and especially not from someone who didn't trust Snape. As far as Harry was concerned, he was bound to be on the opposite side from Snape in just about anything, and his enemy's enemy was his friend.