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~ I'm planning to increase the number of advanced chapters to +50 this weekend!
~ I've edited some of the previous chapters to remove anything you might consider "cringe" or "unnecessary." I'll continue reviewing them from time to time!
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"Y-yes, Harry," said Theo. His own voice cracked in anxiety. When Harry had held Malfoy at wandpoint back on Halloween night, he'd talked in a light and playful manner even as he threatened to shoot Draco in the face with a fireworks spell. Looking back, it had been like a cat toying with a mouse it had caught. This was different, a much more dangerous predator who was not in any kind of playful mood.
"Good. Now, I want you to go out that door without looking back and return to the dorm. I'll be along shortly."
"N-no. I'm ... I won't leave you alone with him, Harry."
"It's okay, Theo. I can handle him."
Silence hung in the air. "I'm not worried about him hurting you, Harry," Theo said quietly.
With that, Harry smiled, still with his eyes locked on Jim, who swallowed at the sight. To him, Harry might as well be baring his fangs. "It's okay, Theo. I already promised Neville. No death, dismemberment or permanent injury. Now go on back to the dorm. Jim and I are just going to have a little chat. Brother to brother."
Slowly, Theo edged his way around the twins who seemed frozen in some violent tableau, like living statues of Cain and Abel. At the door, he almost turned around when Harry spoke again in that frightening voice Theo had never heard from him before tonight. "Don't. Look. Back." He was suddenly alarmed to realize how much Harry's voice reminded him of his father's voice during his darker rants. Theo took a deep breath and exited the room, pulling the door shut behind him and hoping that he wasn't leaving the scene of Jim Potter's imminent murder.
Harry neither moved nor relaxed his grip, and his eyes bored into Jim's. He spoke softly but with such coldness that the other boy shivered. "So, did you enjoy the show, Jim? One slimy Slytherin snake comforting another who was crying over his dead mother and his murderous Death Eater father. I'm impressed you could keep from laughing. I bet you can't wait to tell all your Gryffindor friends about it."
Jim coughed. "Harry, it's not..."
"Shut. Up. Don't even pretend with me. You followed us with your little invisibility cloak hoping to get us into trouble. Finding us weeping in front of Dumbledore's new toy was just gravy. You have no idea..." Harry shook for a second, his thumb digging just a little deeper into Jim's throat. Jim's eyes widened in fear.
"You Gryffindors ... with your games and your pranks and your ... adventures. You have no idea what it's like to be Theo Nott and live each day knowing that your own father might kill you on a drunken whim. Or what it's like to be Harry Potter and worry that you'll drop a plate while doing the dishes and get locked up in your boot cupboard for a day. Or maybe a week. This is not a game to us, Jim, because Slytherins don't play games. Theo and I are what we are because it's how we survive. Do you understand what I'm saying, Jim?"
"Y-yes, Harry. I understand."
"No. No, I don't think you do, Little Brother. So let me be a little more direct." Harry leaned forward without relaxing his grip or moving his wand, until his face was less than a foot from Jim's. "Since literally the day we first met, you have told nearly everyone who will listen that I am a dark wizard. So now, I want you to listen to what the dark wizard has to say and believe it with all of your tiny shriveled heart. If any harm comes to Theo Nott and I trace it back to the Big Fat Mouth of the Boy-Who-Lived, I swear to you on the souls of the parents who abandoned me that you will learn to fear me more than you have ever feared Voldemort. Do you understand that, Little Brother?"
Jim, unable to speak due to the pressure on his throat, nodded urgently. Slowly, Harry relaxed his hands and rose up, never taking his wand off Jim. Then, he turned and headed towards the door. "Nice cloak," he said casually as he passed by it. "I guess I know what Daddy got his Number-One-Son for Christmas."
He had just put his hand to the door when Jim coughed out his name. "Harry...! Wait!" He hesitated, waiting for Jim to continue.
"What did you see ... in the mirror? What did you see?"
Harry turned back to his brother who was still resting on the floor. "You first," he replied coldly.
Jim swallowed again, steeled himself, and turned to face the mirror. Then, he gasped. Part of him was strangely unsurprised by the reflected image now that he knew what the mirror did, but Jim Potter would never have guessed in a million years how similar it was to what Harry had seen. James and Lily were there, and Harry and Jim were loving brothers, though this version of Harry had hair as unruly as Jim's own and wore identical Gryffindor robes. In fact, Jim couldn't tell which of the twins in the mirror was which, for neither of them had been marked with an identifying scar. It seemed that in the world of his heart's desire, Voldemort had never come to their house and torn the twins apart.
"POTTER!" barked Harry after a few seconds. Jim's attention snapped away from the seductive image and back to the reality of an angry Slytherin glaring at him. "Well?"
Jim swallowed. "I saw Mom and Dad and myself and ..." The words died in his throat, a truth he could not bring himself to admit to any Slytherin but especially not this one. "And that's all. I'm an only child."
Harry snorted as if he'd expected that answer.
"And you?" Jim asked. "What did you see?"
"Just myself," Harry lied just as easily. "Which is all I've ever needed. I'm in my mid-twenties, I think, and wearing formal robes as I'm sworn into the Wizengamot as the new Lord Potter." He sneered hatefully at his twin. "Presumably because James Potter lies rotting in his grave." Then, he turned with a flourish and strode out of the room, leaving an angry and shaken Jim behind. After a moment's hesitation, Jim stood up slowly and walked out as well, snatching up his wand and his father's cloak as he left.
Seconds later, there was a shimmer in an archway in the far corner as Dumbledore allowed his invisibility spell to lapse. The archway itself led to a secret passageway that only the Headmaster could navigate – he'd come as quickly as he could once he sensed the mystic alarm indicating that the Mirror had ensnared a victim. Exhaling slowly, Dumbledore replaced his wand inside his robe. He'd kept it at the ready, just in case it was necessary to separate the Potter twins before violence erupted, but despite Harry's cold fury, the old wizard believed that there was no murder in the boy's heart, just a terrible wound that couldn't be healed. And so the old wizard stayed his hand as long as possible to watch invisibly. Still, it was ... unnerving to see Harry Potter instantly shift from the compassion and protectiveness he held for the Nott boy to the ruthless efficiency with which he disarmed and then threatened Jim.
Dumbledore looked back to the Mirror of Erised with revulsion. He'd been working on the modifying the mirror's enchantments all night and had only taken a break for an hour to review some notes on its history that he kept in his office. The door had to be remain unlocked while he was harmonizing the cursed mirror with the school's protective wards, but at 3 a.m. and with so few students in the castle, he felt sure it was safe. And yet three students managed to find the wretched thing in under an hour! He grimaced at the implications. Had the Mirror of Erised itself somehow reached out for potential victims? Or was there some other force at work? Or perhaps Fate was just toying with the Potter Twins as it had for more than eleven years.
The Headmaster shook his head. He'd planned to spend another few days finishing his modifications, but now he was reluctant to leave the mirror for even one more hour than necessary where students might encounter it. He closed his eyes and sent a mental command for a house elf to fetch him a pot of strong coffee. He would finish his work tonight whatever it took and then move the mirror to the Third Floor. As he moved closer to the foul thing, Dumbledore ignored the images of dead and estranged family members waving to him from the other side of the mirror's glass. Attuned as he now was to the inner workings of the Mirror of Erised, its dark magic and the regrets they reflected held no purchase on him. He was more troubled by the images he'd seen reflected for the Potter Twins – two boys so much alike and with so much in common, but who now, it seemed, could only cause each other pain. With a heavy heart, Albus Dumbledore returned to his work.
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