One hallway, two spiral staircases, three turns, and they were lost.
Draco should’ve known better than to put his trust in Vince and Greg. Oh, he believed they’d seen something. They weren’t smart enough to make up the story they had told him in excited whispers over breakfast. How they spied Mrs. Norris slink into a narrow passage on their way back from detention and followed her into a part of the castle they’d never been to before. How they had to hide when Filch appeared out of nowhere. How they saw a door open and close like someone invisible was passing through it. And behind the door, something worth giving each other a black eye, and another week of detention.
“Uh…” said Vince, turning about in a circle.
“It’s that way,” said Greg, pointing down another deserted corridor that showed no promise at all.
“No, it’s not. We were supposed to pass the black suit of armor by now.”
Draco slapped the back of Vince’s head. “We passed it two minutes ago, you dimwit.”
Greg started to laugh, but one look at Draco’s extremely unamused face shut him right up. They had been traipsing about, just waiting to be caught, for at least half an hour now, and Draco was getting tired of it.
“It must be somewhere here, then,” Vince said miserably. The corridor stretched as far as the eye could reach, with dozens of identical doors on either side.
“All right. Let’s split up and check all the doors,” Draco commanded. “Greg, you go left. Vince, you go right. I’ll stay here and keep watch.”
At least they were good at doing what they were told. Draco shook his head, watching them run off. Some days, he thought the Sorting Hat had made a mistake, putting Vince and Greg in Slytherin House. More brawn than brains, they would’ve fit right in with the Gryffindors. Their grades were abysmal and they got in trouble every time Draco let them wander off on their own. Slytherin had lost twenty points on their account in just the last week. Points that Draco had painstakingly reclaimed in Potions class yestarday by narrowly beating that Gryffindor mudblood, Granger, to a perfectly brewed Deflating Draught.
He smiled, remembering her furious glare. Nothing was quite so fun as making Gryffindors fume and stomp their feet. Weasley was the easiest to provoke, Granger a close second. Potter had mostly managed to keep his wits about him so far, vexed as Draco was to admit it. But not for long. Everyone cracks if you know where to press, Father said. When all else failed, Draco could always get a rise out of Potter by teasing him about his dead parents.
He leaned back on a wall, absently listening to the rattling of the locks.
Thinking about Potter made his stomach feel funny. Like he was scared, only it was sort of pleasant. He didn’t exactly want to tease Potter about his dead parents. He didn’t enjoy it, unlike some of his other pranks. But sometimes he had to. Because getting a rise out of Potter was more than just fun. It was a necessity.
Having no parents, though… that must’ve been awful.
Not for the first time, Draco tried to picture it: the Manor empty, the grounds overgrown, and his aunt Andromeda, who he hardly knew, taking care of him with her mudblood husband. They’d force him to call their daughter, Nymphadora, “his sister”, to wear her old school robes and use her old school books, because they were poor. Perhaps even to share a room with her. Draco shuddered. Living in such squalor would’ve been barely any better than being raised by Muggles, like Potter.
But he couldn’t imagine what it would feel like, not really. Mother and Father had always been there: immutable facts of his life, like home and wealth and magic. He understood well enough that they wouldn’t live forever—not even Merlin got to live forever. But they would be there when he went home for Christmas, and they would be there to take him to the Quidditch European Cup in August, and the future beyond that was so far away as to be indistinguishable from eternity.
There was a scuffle somewhere to his right. A moment later, Vince’s moan echoed down the stone corridor. Draco peered after him. Apparently, Vince had found an unlocked door—and stumbled face-down through it. He pushed himself up, staring at his discovery open-mouthed, then crawled on all fours out of sight.
“Vince?” Draco hissed, not daring to yell. He looked the other way. “Greg!” But Greg was too far to hear, and too occupied performing his task to glance back. With an annoyed huff, Draco unglued himself from the wall, and went after Vince on his own.
The chamber behind the open door seemed empty. Rain battered against a pair of lean windows overlooking the greenhouses. The tall, domed ceiling was half-hidden in shadows. Still on his hands and knees, Vince toddled toward the only piece of furniture in the room: a large standing mirror.
“Is this it?” Draco asked. “Vince? Get up. What’s wrong with you?”
It didn’t look like Vince had heard him. He sat on his heels before the mirror and gaped at it. Stepping closer, Draco felt the unmistakable tug of magic.
The mirror didn’t look bewitched. It looked quite ordinary, apart from the disturbing reflection of Vince’s awestruck face in its middle. Vince was starting to drool from the corners of his mouth, Draco noted, a little alarmed. He scrutinized the thick, gilded mirror frame. It had large claws for legs and a pointed arch on top, with an inscription running along it in decadent cursive. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
Draco frowned. It wasn’t in any language he knew, and he’d had instruction in both Latin and Greek and half a dozen wizarding scripts. The first word seemed vaguely familiar. He cocked his head from side to the side for a better perspective, rolled it over his tongue in a whisper, tried to read it backward and—
Desire.
“It’s written backward,” he announced triumphantly. “Is how no ty… no, that doesn’t sound right. I show no… I show not! Clever, to divide it into words that don’t exist. I show not your facebu… I show not your face but your hear… your heart’s—desire.”
He mulled it over, then read it once more. “I show not your face, but your heart’s desire.”
Vince let out a happy little laugh.
“Vince?” Draco said. “What do you see?”
“Hehe,” said Vince.
Draco kicked his fat rump. “Tell me!”
Just then he heard heavy footsteps closing in behind his back. “You found it!” said Greg, a little breathless.
“What’s the matter with him?” Draco pointed at Vince.
“He was like that yesterday too. I had to wrestle with him to have a look. That’s how we got caught.”
Yes, Draco could imagine the noise they made, rolling on the floor like pigs. Empty stone chambers and hallways would’ve carried the thudding and grunting halfway across the castle.
“Close the door,” he instructed, then took out his wand, gestured, and whispered, “Noctua.”
The patter of rain ceased. They were encased in a silencing charm.
“Now help me pull him away,” he told Greg. “I want to have a look.”
Greg’s face went blank as he weighed the conflicting wishes to look in the magic mirror himself and to please Draco. But his priorities got sorted quickly enough when Draco scowled. “Come on!”
They each seized one of Vince’s thick arms and pulled him backward kicking and screaming.
“Wh—what?” Vince stammered once the mirror was finally out of his sight. He blinked rapidly. In addition to the froth around his mouth, snot dripped from his nose. “Why?” he moaned, bewildered and distraught.
“What did you see in the mirror?” Draco repeated impatiently.
“F… food!” said Vince, but his expression had cleared and there was something almost crafty in it now. “More and better than any school feast. And it was all for me.” He nodded enthusiastically.
Draco squinted at him, somehow sure that Vince was lying. But he had better things to do than shake the truth out of him right now. “Keep him away,” he told Greg, who was gazing wistfully toward the mirror. “I’m going first, and then you can have a turn.”
“Okay,” said Greg, looking forlorn. When Draco raised expectant eyebrows at him, he grabbed a handful of Vince’s jumper to demonstrate his determination.
Draco nodded and put away his wand, turning to approach the mirror carefully. The hum of its magic got stronger with each step, but he could still see nothing but his own reflection.
And then he saw Potter enter the room.
Startled, Draco spun, expecting Filch to march in right behind, with Professor McGonagall in tow and maybe the Headmaster too. Getting caught in here would cost them House points for sure, and perhaps he’d get detention, and Father would send him a howler, or even Apparate to the school himself to scold Draco in front of everyone. And Potter would wear that self-assured, self-satisfied grin of his for weeks.
Draco opened his mouth to start making excuses, cursing himself for not coming up with a few good ones in advance—but it clicked shut before any sound came out.
There was no one behind him except Vince and Greg, who both looked on incuriously.
Draco blinked, then rubbed his eyes. Must’ve imagined it.
When he looked at the mirror again, he jumped. Potter was there—right next to Draco—holding his hand out with a big, goofy smile.
Draco stared, astonished, as his reflection took Potter’s hand and smiled back with equal sincerity. He glanced over his shoulder again. There was no one there.
Cold sweat broke on his forehead. The mirror showed the Grand Hall now, in the middle of the Sorting Ceremony. “Slytherin!” the Sorting Hat announced from atop Potter’s unkempt head, and Draco cheered with the rest. When Potter approached the Slytherin table, Draco waved him over and they sat together for the feast, talking and laughing. Like friends.
Draco’s throat tightened. In the mirror, images progressed with a terrifying inevitability, like an avalanche, and he couldn’t look away. He and Potter in the same dormitory. He and Potter shoulder to shoulder in all classes. He and Potter standing up to Gryffindor bullies. He and Potter on the same Quidditch team, flying in formation.
And then, devastatingly, he and Potter at the Manor for Christmas, dining with Mother and Father, who smiled, nodding with approval.
Draco’s vision blurred. He blinked his eyes dry angrily. His reflection, oblivious, sat on the floor of his bedroom in front of the fireplace, exchanging presents with Potter and looking happier with the modest parcel clumsily wrapped in plain red paper than with any of the hundred glittering gifts his parents got him every year.
Rubbish, he thought, remembering the inscription. Your heart’s desire. “Pure rubbish,” he said aloud, struggling to tear his eyes from the shameful, pathetic display. This wasn’t what he wanted. It couldn’t be.
The mirror disagreed. Now it showed him and Potter together at the Quidditch European Cup. They practically hung out of the VIP box emblazoned with the Malfoy coat of arms, wearing matched Slytherin scarves and cheering at the top of their lungs. England scored and they screamed, flung themselves at one another and jumped up and down, hugging, as wild fireworks popped everywhere around them.
The real Draco felt sick.
He turned his back on the mirror and staggered a few steps away.
“What is it?” Greg said. “What did you see?”
“Nothing,” Draco lied. His voice came out choked, like he was about to cry, so he pretended to be angry. “Nothing at all! This was a complete waste of time. I’m going back!”
“But, Draco—”
The rest was cut off as Draco stepped outside the dome of his silencing charm. He walked briskly out the door, then started running.