A/N: I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to respond to the reviews today! It's been a bit crazy; I just now managed to grab some dinner. I'll be heading over to reply as soon as I get this posted. I did take a minute to read the reviews and want to thank everyone for sending them! I'm really overwhelmed (and incredibly flattered) by the response this has gotten. Thanks especially to Eli for pointing out the typo in part 3. I'm going to try to upload the correction along with this, so hopefully it *should* be fixed now. For those of you who are suffering from the angst… well… I hate to disappoint you, but things are going to get worse before they get better. I appreciate your patience! Okay enough rambling, (hey Jane, can I be treasurer?) on with the show!
Section 4:
Harry initially had a smile of triumph on his face when he opened the door to the room and started to walk inside. It wasn't easy getting into a room that had no visible door, but Harry had managed it. It helped, of course, that he had the Marauder's Map showing him where the door was supposed to be. It also helped that Hermione's primary objective had been to conceal the door instead of block it; breaking through locking charms, especially Hermione's locking charms, would have been far more difficult. Still, it had taken a bit of effort to get in, and Harry was feeling rather pleased with himself as he pulled off the invisibility cloak and stepped into the room, until he caught sight of Hermione.
Harry's first impulse when he saw Hermione crying on the other side of the room was to charge over with wand drawn and hex to China and back whatever it was that was making her cry. He couldn't bear it when she cried. Then he noticed the object of her attention and stopped dead in his tracks. His view of it wasn't very good; it was all the way across the room from him and angled so that he saw more of the back of it than the front, but he still recognized it instantly. The Mirror of Erised. He had often wondered what happened to it after Dumbledore moved it from its last home. Apparently, Hermione had found it.
"Hermione, what are you doing here?" Harry asked, his voice soft so he wouldn't startle her. It didn't do any good. She jumped anyway at the sound.
"Harry!" she squeaked as she rose quickly to her feet. "You nearly scared me to death."
"I'm sorry," Harry said, stepping closer to her. "I didn't mean to startle you." He frowned when she stepped away from him, retreating further into the shadows of the room.
"You shouldn't be here. You're… you're missing your own engagement party! Lavender will be wondering where you are. Merlin, Harry, *everyone* will be wondering where you are."
Harry tried to step closer again and sighed in frustration when Hermione kept stepping away. "Where are we, anyway?" he asked at last.
"One hundred years ago, this used to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom," she answered. "But Patty Ash messed up a spell in 1892. Instead of banishing her chameleosprite, like she was supposed to, she ended up multiplying it by a thousand. Naturally, that was too many to fit into the cage, and they burst out, taking over the classroom."
"What's a chameleosprite?" Harry asked, smiling to himself. When Hermione went into lecture mode, she forgot everything else, including her attempt to avoid Harry. He managed to step closer to her, and then closer still, without her even noticing.
"Honestly Harry, don't you do any outside reading? A chameleosprite is sort of like a pixie, but more annoying. They love to make chaos and since, once they're outside of their cages, they can change their appearance to blend with their environment, they're very hard to catch. It takes ages to get rid of them, so the classes were switched to another room while the professors cleared them away. By the time they were all gone, everyone had gotten used to the new classroom. This room has been abandoned since then. It still has some protection spells up, though. I think that's why Dumbledore chose to put the mirror in here."
"Why are you crying?"
Hermione jumped when she saw that Harry was standing right next to her. She tried to turn from him, but he put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him, using the other hand to gently wipe the tears from her cheek.
"It's… it's nothing," she insisted, pulling away from his touch. "I'm just a little emotional. That's all."
Harry nodded slowly. He knew that she wasn't telling him the whole truth, but he hoped that he get her to open up by agreeing with her. "I guess I can understand that," he said, at last. "I think we're all a little emotional. Makes sense, actually. It's hard to believe that it's all over." Hermione flinched at his words, and Harry wondered why.
"Silly, really," Hermione stated. "We should be celebrating. Especially you. You should go, Harry. Lavender will be looking for you."
"The fire whiskey has made its rounds. Lavender was three sheets to the wind when I last saw her. Everyone was. It will be awhile before anyone realizes that I'm not there."
"You should be drinking, too," Hermione stated, continuing to avoid his eyes. "Why aren't you celebrating?"
"You disappeared," Harry answered, trying to force his voice to sound casual. There was no reason for Hermione to know about the bolt of panic that raced through him when he realized that he couldn't find her. "When I checked the Marauder's Map, you showed up in a part of the castle I didn't recognize. I was worried."
"I didn't disappear," she said lightly, pulling away from him again, "I just sort of slipped out. You know I'm not really the party type. I didn't think anyone would notice. After all, it's not my engagement party."
"But it's your victory celebration, too," Harry replied, trying to make her smile. "We defeated Voldemort, Hermione. Isn't that something for you to celebrate? That's the whole reason that I can *have* an engagement party in the first place. Lavender and I don't have to sneak around and hide anymore. I don't need to worry about whether a Death Eater will attack her just because I care about her. Voldemort and his pathetic followers will never be a problem for any of us again. And it's thanks to you."
"Thanks to *you*," Hermione corrected him. "You're the hero; you're the one who defeated Voldemort."
"And I couldn't have done it without *your* spell," Harry insisted. "They should build statues in your honor. No, even better, they should write *books* in your honor!" Harry grinned. "I can just picture it: 'Hermione, A History'. Will you make me stand in line for an autographed copy?"
"Nah, I'll put one aside for you. You'll be too busy traveling the world with Lavender to wait in my line." Hermione smiled a little as she said it and Harry smiled back, relaxing a bit. He never knew quite what to do with himself when Hermione cried. Thus he was caught completely off guard when Hermione threw herself into his arms. Winding her arms around his neck, she stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.
"I'm glad you're happy, Harry. You have no idea how glad. And if I did anything at all to make that happiness possible, then that makes me gladder still." She dropped down from her toes and buried her face in his shoulder, resting her body against his.
Hermione held onto him hard. Harry didn't know quite how to respond, but he held her back. Holding onto Hermione always felt right, somehow. Ever since he was eleven years old, turning to her had never led him astray. He heard her mumble something into his shoulder and pulled away slightly so he could ask her to repeat it.
"Didn't quite catch that," he said, nudging her head off of his chest. "Care to repeat-" The words died on his lips when he saw her face.
She was crying again. Silent tears were streaming down her face and she made no attempt to stop them or hide them this time. The look in her eyes was something he had never seen before. Something he couldn't describe and certainly couldn't understand. She looked him straight in the eye and smiled, and he wondered why the sight of his best friend smiling like that made him feel like his heart would break.
"I said, 'hang on tightly, let go lightly,'" she answered.
Harry's forehead creased with confusion. "I don't understand…" he began, but Hermione cut him off.
"You don't have to understand, Harry. It's a lesson that I taught myself." Her smile grew more brilliant, but he heard her voice break slightly on the last word. "You know how eager I always am to learn." She shook her head as if to shake off the momentary weakness and whisked a handkerchief out of her pocket. As she dabbed at her eyes, Harry was surprised to see all the redness and puffiness disappearing along with the tears. Moments later, there was no visible sign that she had cried at all. Even the handkerchief was dry.
"Charmed," she said, answering his unspoken question. Harry smiled slightly and wondered how she always knew what he was thinking. Was that a spell also, or did she truly know him better than anyone else?
"Wipes away all sign of tears along with the tears, and then dries itself," she continued. "It even repairs smudged eye shadow or running mascara. It's almost a pity I don't wear make-up. It would be so handy."
"Hermione, why did you come here? Were you… were you looking for that?" he gestured over at the mirror.
"Looking for it? Not exactly. I already knew it was here," Hermione answered, choosing her words carefully.
"You've been here before, then?"
Hermione looked as if she was considering lying, but finally decided on the truth, instead. "Yes," she stated, deliberately keeping her answer short.
"Does it always make you cry like that?" Harry questioned gently.
"The mirror can't hurt me, Harry," Hermione replied, once again selecting her words with great care. "You know that better than anyone."
"The mirror shows you your heart's desire," Harry stated, trying to force Hermione away from her careful answers. "Why would seeing your heart's desire make you cry?"
"Because the thing that I want most is something I can't have," Hermione answered, her voice barely audible even in the silent room.
"I… I don't want you coming back here anymore," Harry said. "I won't ask you what you saw in the mirror if you don't want to tell me, but whatever it is, it can't be good for you if it's making you cry."
"I won't be coming back here," Hermione reassured him. "This was the last time. I guess I just wanted to… say goodbye to it, in a way."
"Promise me," Harry insisted, almost surprised at the urgency in his voice. He was haunted by the memory of what Dumbledore had told him about the mirror and the number of people who had wasted away in front of it. He'd do anything in his power to make sure that that didn't happen to Hermione.
"I promise," she replied, smiling sweetly at him. "Just let me get my cloak; it's right over there; and I'll never come back here again."
"I'll get your cloak," Harry offered, crossing the room to gather it up.
He resolutely avoided the temptation to sneak a peak into the mirror as he pulled Hermione's cloak off of the floor. The mirror *should* reflect him exactly as he was, at that moment. After all, he had defeated his greatest enemy, avenged his parents, and announced his engagement to the girl he loved. How could he be anything less than perfectly happy? But still… he didn't look. If he wasn't perfectly happy, then he'd be better off not knowing.
"You shouldn't look back," he stated firmly as he crossed the room and handed Hermione her cloak.
"Right," Hermione answered, more to herself than to Harry as she watched him, fighting back the urge to cry. "No looking back."