Chapter Text
The difference between dreams and reality. Was that what Malfoy’s father had been saying, that he should learn to tell the difference?
Sirius went through the veil. That was the real nightmare. Harry didn’t know if he was dead or if he even still existed. Harry didn’t even know what the veil was, Sirius could be dead or anything or nothing and Harry didn't know because no one knew. This wasn’t the nightmare, this was just a dream. Harry was fifteen, staring into a mirror. In the mirror he was eleven, staring back.
Harry didn’t know this child, couldn’t know him. Not with his tiny body and big awe-filled eyes. Not this kid who looked so small. Harry at 11 was old, he was quick and resilient. He’d faced Voldemort at 11, he’d fought off boys and beasts bigger than him, and no one had helped him. Harry looked out at the kid and thought someone would help him. Someone would help this kid. This Harry, because this Harry was so young, he was weak and defenceless, and surely someone would see and someone would help.
It was then that he realised what he was looking at. He was in the Mirror of the Erised, he was seeing his deepest, most desperate desire. Ancient, ornate and wicked, a cursed object that looked into his soul and brought to him his very self. Was that his deepest desire? To be a child again, one that someone would look at and want to protect. Not just want, no, plenty of people wanted to protect him, they’d told him. Dumbledore, Remus, Sirius, Mrs Weasley. Hermione, Ron. Snape? But they hadn’t, he’d done it himself, they’d fought for him, and he’d fought for himself. But this Harry, this Harry would be looked at and someone would protect him. Harry could feel it, he could see it looking at him, Harry would protect him too.
My reflected state of a perfect happiness? This is what it shows? He doubted he’d ever had a moment of perfect happiness. His happiest memory that lit his patronous to its brightest, what was it? His Mum and Dad and him, alive and older than they’d ever been together, staring out of the Mirror of the Erised. A fake reality, a desire recreated in a magic mirror. His happiest memory wasn’t even a memory, a fucking conjured dream.
Harry knew he’d been staring into the mirror for a long time, he remembered Dumbledore saying great men had wasted away before it, not knowing if what they were seeing was real or possible. Harry knew what those men and Dumbledore didn’t know though. It wasn’t real. You could change the past, but you couldn’t alter anything to make things like these a reality. Was Harry wasting away? Dwelling on dreams and forgetting to live?
He couldn’t feel his body, he couldn’t feel his magic either. He wasn’t alive anymore, he’d fallen through the veil too.
Was this the afterlife, staring out a mirror at your greatest happiness and desires?