Remember Him, or, Penance

I make my way, heavy at heart, to the Mirror Room, distressed to think that Albus' condition has deteriorated so quickly. I know, as does Minerva, that the final battle, the defeat of so fearsome a foe as Voldemort, will be too much for Dumbledore's weakened constitution. He has become increasingly fragile over the last half-decade, his energy, which has spurred all our efforts in times of greatest peril, slowly draining away. Now he has nothing left, no strength, not even the will to be strong.

And he has gone to the Mirror Room.

After Potter the Younger's experience with the Mirror of Erised in his first year, Albus had it moved to a disused chamber in the dungeons. Since then it has remained unseen by human eyes - with one or two exceptions. I suspect that Albus himself has gazed into its enchanted and enchanting depths more than once in the last five years, and I myself spent several hours staring into the thing after my re-initiation into Voldemort's dark circle.

Such lapses are understandable. In times of great stress, we all need hope to cling to. Though I have never really seen anything hopeful in that mirror - all I see is what can never come to pass, and thus I gave up dreaming about it a long time ago.

I reach the Mirror Room, passing like a ghost through my own office, classroom, and private laboratories. Clever of Albus to place the mirror here, where few of the staff, and certainly no child, would dare to come. In my way I must seem as vicious and dangerous a guard-dog as the fearsome beast Hagrid so incongruously named 'Fluffy; indeed, almost as good a guard-dog as Sirius Black. Albus has trusted me with many things over the years - the Mirror, his beloved pupils, his life, and to an extent the future of the wizarding world. His trust means a great deal to me, and I do not deserve it, but all the same it has never been complete. The real reason I hankered after the Defence Against the Dark Arts job for so many years - aside from my obvious competence in the field - was because to be given the post would represent the ultimate expression of trust on Albus' part. Not just that he had faith in me, but that he had faith in me to have faith in myself.

It never came about, and this thought disturbs me as I performs the necessary countercharms to open the Mirror Room - will Albus trust me enough to help him now?

*Can* I help him?

Can anyone?

Quietly, I open the door. As expected, Albus sits before the Mirror of Erised - the only object in this small, grey, windowless room. His shoulders are hunched, and without looking at his face I know already the devastation, the hopelessness, I will see there.

Without looking around he addresses me, his voice alarmingly thin and weak.

"Good evening, Severus. I have been expecting you."

"I've been trying to find you." I explain, moving slowly towards him, almost carefully, as though afraid he might crumble before my eyes.

"Well, you *have* found me at last. Come here, if you would." Even in so precarious a state, it is impossible to disobey this man. I stand beside his chair, gaze for a moment into his pale blue eyes when he looks up at me. What I see in them, and in his small, sad smile, is frightening.

Resignation.

He has given up, given in, given over to sorrow and grief. I cannot bear to look into his face for very long. Albus has for so many years been my rock, my anchor - and now, in this moment, I am at last adrift in a sea of despair without a ship in sight.

He turns away, looks back into the Mirror, and asks,

"What do *you* see, Severus?"

Obediently I focus my gaze upon the glass. Over the years, I have looked into the Mirror of Erised many times - the first when I was eighteen years old - and every time, I see a variation on the same theme.

I always see myself - though not myself, because this is a man who never existed; who never got a chance to exist. He is the man I would have, perhaps should have been. He looks like me but is not me. He is always, without exception, smiling; his eyes are bright but tranquil, rather like Dumbledore's once were; he gives the impression of a contented man, someone who can look back on his life with few regrets.

He is never alone. There is usually a woman with him - no particular individual, clearly his partner or wife. Sometimes - years ago - she bore a resemblance to Lily, James Potter's wife, Harry Potter's mother. Later she looked more like Narcissa Malfoy. Most recently she reminds me of no one so much as Minerva.

Since around my thirtieth year, the pseudo-Severus and his wife have been accompanied by a child, always a son, though his age varies, and he always resembles Draco. Sometimes he is a baby cradled in my counterpart's arms, sometimes a bright-eyed toddler, sometimes a happy, well-adjusted youth, gazing at his parents with respect and affection. Occasionally there is a girl also - she has appeared a few times only, in the last decade or so, and it gave me a nasty start to recognise the pretty, intelligent face and mass of bushy brown hair as belonging to Hermione Granger. The Mirror shows our deepest desires, those which are kept secret sometimes even from ourselves.

Today, however, there are only two people reflected in the Mirror. One is the pseudo-Severus, the man who never was; the other is Draco, but he is no longer a child. He is a young man of twenty years, very much as he was in reality, but the figure is a little fuller, the posture more relaxed, the eyes free of the watchful anxiety which characterised the real Draco's expression in his last few years of life.

"Well?" Albus prompts me. "What do you see?"

I shrug. "The same."

He nods, without taking his eyes from the Mirror.

"What do *you* see, Albus?" I ask after a moment of uncomfortable silence. Eventually he turns to me, still with that same half-smile of weary resignation.

"Nothing." He says, very softly. "I see nothing." He sighs "Perhaps it is - penance."