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Hermione sighed and continued scanning the shelves in front of her. They creaked slightly as she pressed up against one and stood on her
tip-toes to see the highest shelf.
Already read that one...
And that one...
That too...
And that...
She groaned and slumped down against the glass of the window, curling her feet up underneath her on the little window seat. She gazed out
of the window and wrapped her arms around her knees, letting her eyes dance across the grounds of Hogwarts, over the Whomping Willow and
the Quidditch Pitch.
She felt a stab in her chest as she saw Gryffindor's Quidditch team practicing. It reminded her too much of her friends, and she looked
away quickly to avoid the sadness thoughts of them often caused.
Her breath fogged up the glass of the window, and she wiped it off with the back of her jumper sleeve. She turned her face away from the
window and leaned back against it as her eyes scanned the library, searching to find a shelf that just maybe she hadn't already discovered.
She needed her books, now more than ever. There was no one really left for her here anymore; Harry was training to be an Auror and Ron
was working in Weasley's Wizard Wheezes with George.
Harry had been offered a place back at the school as Head Boy, but he had turned it down.
"There are too many memories there," he had told her, "Bad and good ones, of course, but if I go back, all I'm going to be able to see is
the war. All those people-dead."
Hermione understood. He had struggled since the war had ended with Voldemort's death. He had never wanted to be a killer, even though he
knew it was inevitable. She knew Harry considered every single death here at Hogwarts to be his fault. If he had just met Voldemort sooner,
she had heard him say more than once, he could have spared so many lives.
Since Hermione had agreed to return to Hogwarts as the Head Girl for her seventh year, and Harry had decided to start off his new life, the
two of them hardly ever spoke. He was always off training to be an Auror, or spending time with Ginny or Ron.
Hermione sighed deeply as she thought of Ron. She had once fancied herself to be so in love with him, but when they'd tried to take their relationship to the next level, to actually become physically intimate, the only thing they'd accomplished was some embarrassed fumbling and
the sure realization that that kind of relationship was never meant to be between them. They had agreed to be friends, and Ron had taken up
with Lavender pretty much where the two had left off. Since then, he hardly ever spoke to her either.
So, Hermione had started to rely heavily on her books for comfort-more heavily than she had ever done before. The trouble was she did not
think there was a single book left in this library that she hadn't read.
That's not quite true, she reminded herself as her eyes fell upon the one place she had yet to fully explore. The Restricted Section.
She felt herself slowly rise to her feet and walk towards the old, dusty shelves. She stopped quickly and looked over her shoulder.
What am I doing? She thought, mentally disciplining herself. She turned away and pulled her hair up into a high ponytail at the back of her head, shaking it in disbelief and irritation.
But most of those books hadn't been touched yet... not by her hands. No. That section was full of dark materials, and she had only ever entered it in the past out of sheer desperation while trying to end the war. She shouldn't even be thinking about going near the place without an excuse of that magnitude. But still, she needed new material.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some sort of light coming from further in. There, on one of the smaller shelves, lay a book flat on its side in front of all the others, and it seemed to be reflecting the light that streamed in from the window behind her.
Hermione glanced around the library again, and seeing that no one was around, dashed forwards, grasped the book in a tight fist, and darted around the corner.
Her heart was pounding as she sucked in a hard, ragged breath. She'd just broken one of the biggest rules of Hogwarts for her own selfish reasons! They would surely take her Head Girl badge off of her if they knew!
She glanced down at the book and saw her own reflection looking back at her.
"Why on earth were Mirror Spells in the restricted section?" she growled in irritation. "There can't be anything that bad in a book like this."
But then she had a feeling. There was something dark inside; she could sense it.
She flipped open to the first page and scanned down the contents had to laugh at the pathetic, simple spells listed at the beginning, but as she got further down the list, they got more complex and interesting.
She stopped at the last three: a duplication spell, a spell to create a sort of 'spy' mirror, and a spell to connect a network of mirrors for communication.
Hermione smirked as she skimmed through the description pages. Some of these look so easy! she thought excitedly.
She shrunk the book and pocketed it, quickly leaving the library.
When Hermione entered the dorm she ran straight to her bedroom and threw off her cloak. She tossed her bag on the chair by the desk and pulled out the Mirror Spells book and re-enlarged it eagerly.
She was about to open it when she stopped. Retrieving her wand from her cloak, she charmed the cover to look like her favourite book: Hogwarts: A History - New Edition 1998.Then she went over to the bed and lay down on her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows. Starting at the very beginning, Hermione read through all the pages with contented sighs.
She knew most of the spells in the book already, and had even used a few of them during the war. And she had had such high expectations, she thought as she grew bored of her pastime. But then she came across the mirror portal spell and grinned. Now that spell she had not yet tried.
Picking up her wand, she turned to her mirror and practiced the hand movement silently. When she finally mastered it, she grinned even more. This would be a great way to stay in contact with Harry!
She read through the incantation a couple of times, taking note of the pronunciation. Mind reeling over the war and how the spell could have helped defeat Voldemort, she cast it with a flourish.
"Nemalo Sintartus!"
Nothing happened.
Hermione growled in frustration and tried again and again.
Still nothing happened.
She slowly approached the mirror and stretched out her hand.
It made contact with the cold, hard glass.
She threw the book down on her desk and her wand on her bed, and turned away, stripping off her shirt and storming into the bathroom.
She was desperate. She needed someone to talk to! She felt closed in, and as much as she loved her books, she couldn't lose herself in them anymore.
The war had hit Harry and Ron hard; they'd both lost a lot of people.
But so had she, and now there was no one for her to talk to about it. She spent her nights curled into a ball, crying silently for fear that Malfoy would hear her She thought about the deaths of her parents and her best friend, Jessie, who had been killed for being a Muggle.
Hermione turned on the hot water and stripped off, stepping under the warm spray to hide the tears as she remembered all those she'd lost. She rolled her shoulders and tried to loosen the muscles.
She washed thoroughly, scrubbing every inch of her skin. She could still feel the dirt and blood from the Final Battle even now.
Eventually, she stopped. Her skin had turned a vivid shade of red, and she could see tiny scratches here and there from scrubbing too hard. She stepped out carefully, grabbed the towel off of the rack and dried her hair as thoroughly as she could.
She stared up at her reflection. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying and her hair stuck out in every direction. She pulled a hair brush out of the drawer and ran it through the long, recently tamed curls.
She slowly took in a breath and nodded once at her reflection before leaving the bathroom, wrapped up in a fluffy white bathrobe.
She breezed through the doorway and grabbed the book back off of the desk and returned to her bed. Placing the book down on the bed, she was just about to take off her robe when she noticed something. She looked up at the mirror; it seemed to be... well... fuzzy.
And it looked as if there were a... a boy staring at her.
He moved slightly, and there seemed to be some sort of spell coming from the wand in his hand. His image flickered, but nothing else happened.
Something about this boy seemed familiar, and she approached the mirror confidently. As she stood in front of it, she tilted her head slightly away and shifted the dressing gown back up onto her shoulders, watching him from the corner of her eye.
She knew who he was; Harry had shown her all the memories Dumbledore had sent him into just before the war started. Right now, Tom Riddle looked a little older than he had when he'd asked Slughorn about the Horcruxes. She guessed that since he appeared to have his own room that he must be in his seventh year, and Head Boy at Hogwarts.
Her heart had begun to flutter as soon as she spotted him. She could not understand why Tom Marvolo Riddle, the future Lord Voldemort, was watching her through her mirror, but she couldn't help but feel gratified by it. After all, she had always understood exactly why the girls in his time all threw themselves at the handsome young man's feet. To be honest, she would have done the same. She could just imagine how Harry and Ron would have reacted if she did, yet still, this man had always secretly been her darkest desire.
She heard his sharp intake of breath when she let her robe fall open slightly, and smiled to herself. She grasped her wand from the bed excitedly and cast the next spell on her list: the two way mirror.
The glass rippled slightly, but cleared up the picture of Riddle. Although still blurry, she could see the finer details. She stared into the mirror and pretended that she didn't notice him. As she posed before the mirror, she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling, but it was worth it to see Riddle's jaw drop as he watched her. He made her feel good about herself, but she also felt a little self-conscious as she caught sight of her wayward curls.
She lifted her hands to her damp hair and pouffed it slightly, trying to give it a little more volume. She tried not to acknowledge it when Tom approaching the mirror, but she just had to look into those dark, stormy blue eyes. She grinned, stuck her tongue between her teeth, and dashed for the bed so she would not burst into a fit of girlish giggles.
Flopping herself down on the large mattress, she lay on her stomach and pulled the Mirror Spells across, perching it in front of her.
Her eyes flickered through the Two Way Mirror page and she skimmed the warning section.
You must think of the person/mirror you wish to contact while you cast the spell, otherwise, there is a possibility of connecting with a random mirror around the world.
Well, she thought with a delectable shiver as Tom returned to his bed and began to stroke himself, lucky for her she had been thinking of him-and after tonight, she would never be able to think of anyone else ever again.
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