[Open] Looking into the Mirror

[May Hui-Ying]

May Hui-Ying, neatly tapped her cane against the stone floors that covered Hogwarts. She heard a knock that sounded like wood. Her other hand darted out. Instantly she realized that there was a door, that she had not remembered. She felt around for the handle. When she found it she let herself in.

Her cane moving back and fourth across the floor she explored the room, her other hand lightly touching the wall. There was nothing else in it. It was just plain empty. So she took a few steps and came across something in the center. She reached out and touched it. It felt flat, and old; almost reflective. She moved her hand to the side. She felt old carvings that she could not read.

Is it a mirror? She wondered. She could tell know one was in her yet.

[Professor Zoe Black]

The sound of tapping filled Zoe's ears as she walked down the corridor.
Professor Hui-Ying was opening a door into a room Zoe couldn't remember seeing while she was at Hogwarts.
She walked towards the door and slipped inside.
"Hello, Professor," she said quietly, so as not to startle May.
She saw the Professor feeling an old mirror.
I can't remember this room at all, Zoe thought, something about that mirror seems...strange, what could it be?

[May Hui-Ying]

May's head turned right in the direction of Zoe Black, the Dragonology professor here at Hogwarts. "Professor Black," May started, "I heard you coming, don't worry, I can't be startled that easy." She smiled. "What is this?" She asked Zoe. "It feels like a mirror... But I can't tell."

May hated this when this happened. She absolutely loathed it. She loathed the fact that she had to ask for help when she was in unfamiliar places.

May was wearing a deep midnight blue velvet cloak, with a golden latch. Her black hair was neatly down her shoulders.

[Professor George Weasley]

George sighed. How come EVERY PLACE he discovered for doing paperwork was found by people?! He pressed himself against the back of the mirror that guarded his hiding spot, trying to listen to the voices behind it. Two females, by the sound of it, trying to discover the secret of the mirror.

Of all the places to come to... George suddenly recalled. He remembered the first time that he and Fred and come to the secret passage behind the mirror, the passage up to the tallest tower in Hogwarts. Fifth year. Fred mentioned that he'd read that twins were more likely to succumb to incest. George said that was a lie, and that twins didn't enter relationships willy-nilly. Fred kissed him to see if George was right about the willy-nilly part. The two concluded that the idea of a relationship was really stupid, not to mention gross and ridiculously out of character for the two of them. They spent a week not touching each other, still grossed out by their little test of facts. Then they tried to kill Hermione Granger for telling Fred about her so-called "fact".

A sudden tapping against the mirror brought George back to reality. Once again, he was stuck in a passageway. He bet himself that it was Lucinda Chapman and Adalia Addison on the other end of that mirror. How DID they keep finding him?!

George stayed silent, pulling his wand out from a pouch in his messenger bag.

[May Hui-Ying]

May slowly raised her hand up, her other fingers that were not wrapped around the cane lightly padding the mirror. Her hand on the top, touching the carvings. Her hand followed everyone, clearly tracing them out, until she got the picture in her mind. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi? May thought for a moment, she did not recognize this, but yet it seemed to appear in her mind. Mabye she was hoping to much.

[Professor Zoe Black]

Zoe watched May try to discover what the strange object was.
"It's a mirror," Zoe said, kindly, "although, in all my time at Hogwarts, I have never seen it."
She read the top and stood in thought, her hands hanging loosely by her sides.
Erised? Haven't I heard that before? Erised, Erised... her thoughts trailed away.
She looked in the mirror, only her and May were reflected in it.
What a strange thing to hide, she thought, a mirror.
She looked again, but still only saw herself and May standing in the otherwise empty room.

[May Hui-Ying]

May decided to back out of the way a little, since to where Zoe was standing, May would be blocking it. And it's not like May could see herself anyways.
"Thank you," She nodded politely to Zoe. "I've never read any text like this, it can't be..." May stopped in mid-thought. "Erised?" She mumbled.
"It's only a myth... Nothing more... Nothing more..." May took a few steps away... Being the Mythology & Legends Professor she had researched the mirror a long while ago. "Erised? Did I read it right?"

[Professor Zoe Black]

Zoe looked puzzled at the Professor, although she knew May couldn't read her expression.
"It does say Erised, but I've never heard of it before. A myth, you say? And what is the story of the mirror?"
Zoe looked in the mirror again, utterly confused, a myth about a mirror? How odd.

[May Hui-Ying]

May was in a minor case of shock. "T- the story of the Mirror of Erised," May started, "Is one of simplicity. This mirror shows your desires, nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts." May said, "Many men have said to be driven mad by this mirror. So it could be dangerous." She warned. But why would it be in this school where students would be able to rot in front of it?

[Professor Zoe Black]

May told her story, and Zoe listened.
"Shows my desires?" Zoe asked, when the Professor had finished. Zoe looked into the mirror again, but this time, her reflection was not alone.
Members of her family stood around her; her mother, father, Sirius, Tonks, Lupin.
"What?" She uttered, quietly.
Her family beamed at her. They all seemed to be happy, like they had heard a joke and Zoe hadn't.
"What are they laughing at?" Zoe asked, forgetting that May couldn't see them.

[Professor George Weasley]

George listened as Zoe looked into the mirror. He had been listening to everything the entire time, but this development in particular intrigued him. Zoe was seeing what she most desired. Of course George knew about the mirror and its power. If he wasn't mistaken, he guessed that Zoe was seeing someone who'd died, someone she valued greatly.

Whenever George looked in that mirror, he saw himself, somber-looking, holding Fred's hand. Fred, looking just as somber as George, would stare back at him, eyes wide as an anime character's. The faint tinkle of a piano melody he'd heard once would echo in his ears. No one smiling, nothing. The piano echoed the melancholy of life without Fred, the utter ecstacy that would be just being near him... without even a facial expression, George would be infinitely happy.

"Why are they laughing?"

Because that's how you want to see them, Miss Zoe, George couldn't help but think. I suppose I'm not the only one who dwells on the past. Now am I?

[Professor Zoe Black]

((Omg, carry on like that and you're gonna make me cry. Lols))

Zoe certainly was amazed by the mirror. She saw her family, beaming back at her, with her in the center, looking confused and almost upset.
She understood why May had said men had been driven mad; she could just stand here forever, in the hope that her family would come back to her. But Zoe was more intelligent than that, she knew her family were gone, and no mirror could bring them back, although she did feel comforted by the mirror, like when her mother used to hold as a baby when she was frightened or hurt.

Zoe wanted very much to enter the mirror, not caring if she never found a way back.

[Professor George Weasley]

The silence was eerie, palpable, and, worst of all, an indicator. Zoe didn't strike George as weak - far from it, in fact - but faced with... with whoever she lost, she was helpless. Helpless and hopeless. Hopefully the woman with her would shake her out of her reverie, but it wasn't likely.

George couldn't emerge from the backside of the mirror of Erised. That would just be a shock to both women on the other side. To tell them that, yes, he's been hiding out in secret tunnels and passages all year, doing schoolwork and musing on his current situation, would be disastrous. He leaned the nape of his neck against the mirror.

"George, would you hate me if I tested Miss Granger's theory?"

Fred was inches from George's neck. George felt an inexplicable blush rise on his face. He didn't know what to say to that, nor did he know why he wanted to test out the theory just as much as Fred apparently did.

"...It's just a test. Besides, it doesn't matter. I'm always going to be with you," George admitted. "The Vow, remember?"

George remembered finding the mirror in school. He used to see Erica in a flowing white dress, giggling and clutching a bouquet to her chest. Then when he came back, right before Fred died, he saw Bellatrix Lestrange's body, twitching in a pool of her own blood.

Since Fred's death, it had been that lonely piano-backed scene. No romance inherent, just a tacit understanding. George wanted the other half of his broken Unbreakable Vow.

"Don't waste your life away. Please," George murmured under his breath. "It's tempting, but..."

[Professor Zoe Black]

The smiling faces of Zoe's deceased family entranced her. How she could have lived her whole life without them, she didn't know.
She looked at them, at their eyes. They were genuinely happy.
Why? Zoe thought, why are you happy? You're dead.
She turned away from the mirror as the painful thought pranced around her head.
She couldn't watch anymore, the pain in her heart was likely to kill her if she stayed.
She turned back when her reflection had gone from the mirror. Her family were no longer there. There was just a stone wall and May in the mirror now.
Zoe shook her head so that her hair whipped the tears off her face.

[Professor George Weasley]

Silence greeted George's plea. He didn't know if he should move out from his hiding spot; he wagered no. His resolve to stay hidden was strengthened when he heard muffled sniffling. Zoe was crying; Zoe Black was, after all, not a grown woman by very much. Only nineteen, and already embroiled in a bitter fight.

George knew the allure of the mirror was strong. That was why he rarely looked at it. He entered from the side of the room and pried the back of it off the wall with his wand, the Diffindo spell unlocking a trapdoor behind it. He'd sit there, thinking, grading, escaping from Lucius.

But some days he saw the mirror. He saw an older Fred, a Fred that would have married Angelina or Katie Bell or maybe even Netta Barton, the caustic mistress he liked for the longest period of time. They would've had a few kids, and Fred and George would've brought them together for playdates and chats with each other.

And the Vow would be strong.

But that wasn't to be. George knew it. He had a stronger will than he gave himself credit for. Although he'd die to bring Fred back, if he could, he wouldn't waste his life away in front of something that would show it to him.

"Zoe..."