Hellooooo! Sorry for the 18-month gap in updates. Let's just say entering the real world is harder than anticipated.

To quickly respond to some feedback:

Squall Lionhart: I'd explain about the ki/dark magic thing, but that would ruin the story... and I know you're eager to wait five years until I get time to finish it :P

Madness Lover: I meant six weeks in DBZ time. This is actually early.

Reene: Mirai Trunks will be in the much-hypothesized (and probably never-written) sequel.

And now on with the show!

Chapter the Sixth (at long last)

As our heroes entered November, many changes took place. Gohan, Harry and Ron were starting to get the hang of magic – Gohan hadn't cheated and used his "Dark" powers in weeks. He was feeling at home at Hogwarts, spending all his time with his new friends. Even Hermione was becoming tolerable.

Quidditch season had begun, and Harry's cover was blown. Someone had spread the word that he was on the Gryffindor team, and now he had to fend off daily cheers and jeers from his fellow students.

At last the day arrived. Harry's first Quidditch match, against Slytherin, was scheduled for a rather cold Saturday morning. Gohan, Hermione and Ron joined most of Gryffindor in the spectator stands as Harry and the Gryffindor team entered the pitch. A blast of Madam Hooch's whistle, and the game begun.

To be perfectly truthful, Gohan found Quidditch to be quite boring. It seemed to him like a bunch of people flying around randomly, playing several different games at once that blended into one, convoluted sport. One of the few redeeming features in his mind was the commentary, provided by Lee Jordan. Lee, one of Fred and George Weasley's friends, spent half the game giving decent insight into what was going on and the other half making fun of the Slytherin players.

With nothing better to do, Gohan looked up at where Harry was flying, wishing he could join him. Even if his skill on a broomstick wasn't that good, he missed flying unaided, on the back of his pet dragon, or on Kinto'un; feeling the wind in his hair as he chased birds, dragons or the occasional Concord. Of course, flying on Kinto'un was different from flying on a broomstick. For starters, Kinto'un flew smoothly, whereas broomsticks seemed to jerk around a lot.

Gohan tore his eyes away from Harry for a moment and looked at the rest of the players. Then he realised that only Harry's broomstick seemed to jerk around a lot. Come to think of it, Gohan thought, Harry flies a lot better than this.

"What's happening to Harry?" Gohan asked, hoping someone with more knowledge could explain whether this was some sort of Quidditch strategy.

"It looks like he's lost control of his broom," Ron mused, glancing at where Harry was now struggling to stay on his magic cleaning product. The broom gave a hard jerk and Harry fell off, grasping the handle on his descent, so he was now dangling from the handle.

"Do you think his broomstick got damaged in the game?" Gohan suggested.

"No, it would take a really powerful hex or something to do that," Ron answered. Hermione started scanning the crowd. Suddeny, she gasped and pointed. Gohan followed her gesture and saw that Snape was staring intently at Harry, muttering under his breath.

"He's jinxing the broom," Hermione whispered as she snuck off in the crowd to try and break the curse at the source.

Gohan, meanwhile, was watching Harry intently. Even if it meant expulsion, he was ready to fly out and catch Harry the moment he lost his grip and started plummeting to the ground. Hermione, meanwhile, had conjured up a small fire, which was consuming Professor Snape's robes. He broke contact and started dousing the flames as Harry managed to get back on his broom. Harry quickly headed for the ground, and when he landed coughed into his hand, producing the Snitch. By luck, he had swallowed it while he was being thrown from his broom.

A while later, our four protagonists were discussing the events with Hagrid. No matter what Ron, Hermione and Gohan said, they couldn't convince Hagrid that Snape had been cursing Harry.

"Why would Snape try and do tha'?" Hagrid argued.

"Well," Harry said, "We know he was heading towards the forbidden corridor the night the troll was let into the school. He might be after whatever the three-headed dog is guarding."

"How do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid asked in shock.

"Fluffy?!"

"Yeah, I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the..." Hagrid trailed off, realising that he almost gave away the secret.

"Guard what?" Gohan asked, hoping that Hagrid would finish his sentence.

"Never you mind," Hagrid said, "That's between Dumbledore an' Nicholas Flamel."

"In that case, can you tell us who Nicholas Flamel is?" Harry asked.

Hagrid looked furious with himself, then kicked the four out of his hut.

As Christmas approached, our heroes were faced with the option of leaving Hogwarts for the holidays. Harry immediately put his name down to stay behind, prefering the cold, (almost) empty castle to any amount of time with the Dursleys. Likewise, Ron would be staying, because his parents would be abroad visiting his older brother Charlie. After much careful thought, Gohan decided to stay back as well.

The decision didn't come easily to Gohan. He would have loved to see his mother and brother again after spending so long away from home. However, he also felt that his friends needed him. Besides, not being a Christian, Christmas was just another day in the Son household.

That just left Hermione, who would be returning to her family for Christmas. As she departed, she reminded the boy to do everything they could to discover who Nicholas Flamel was.

Searching for Nicholas Flamel in the library had become somewhat of a hobby for the foursome since Hagrid had let the name slip. Harry was sure he'd heard the name before, but with no clues as to why Nicholas was famous, they had no choice but to pull books off the shelf at random to search. Needless to say, it wasn't a very successful strategy.

Of course, as soon as Hermione departed, our three heroes decided that life was too short to worry about Nicholas Flamel. Christmas was upon them, and they decided to have a bit of fun. Their days were filled with snowball fights (Gohan made sure to be very careful when throwing snowballs), wizard chess and other wholesome activities. And when Christmas came, Harry and Gohan were both shocked to find a pile of presents at the foot of their beds.

Gohan looked at his pile. It was smaller than Harry's, and much smaller than Ron's. He guessed that could be expected, since his family didn't celebrate Christmas. A parcel with the address written in Japanese caught his eye, and he opened it to reveal a case of capsules that his friends in Japan had obviously sent him. The enclosed letter stated that the capsules contained a variety of muggle textbooks, clothes, photos, junk food and other stuff that they thought he might want or need at Hogwarts. Harry and Ron, neither of whom had ever seen a capsule before, had a great time expanding and encapsulating the contents of the capsules (Gohan had hidden the one from Master Roshi before letting Harry and Ron near them).

Among his other presents was a gift from Hermione (a pack of Chocolate Frogs) and, surprisingly enough, a present from Ron's parents. He opened it to reveal a hand-knitted jumper. Harry and Ron had both also received the hand-knitted article of clothing, as well as a few other interesting bits and pieces. Harry was trying out the flute that Hagrid had made for him when Ron spotted an unopened gift with Harry's name on it.

Harry took the gift and unwrapped it. A card inside claimed that the gift had belonged to Harry's father. Harry looked at the silvery cloth. Ron gasped.

"That's an Invisibility Cloak!" he exclaimed, "I'm sure of it. Try it on."

Harry put the cloak on. His body immediately became invisible – only his head was visible. He immediately grabbed the card again and searched for a clue of who the sender might be. He didn't recognise the writing, and there was no signature – just a request that he "use it well".

The day went quickly for the boys as they ate excessively (although Gohan was still a little hungry), had a snowball fight and hypothesized about Nicholas Flamel. By the time they went to bed, Harry had formulated a plan to use the Invisibility Cloak to access the Restricted section in the library.

The Restricted section contained books that were deemed unsuitable for most of the student population to access. For the most part, these were books that contained knowledge and spells of the Dark arts, and required a note from a teacher to be read. He waited until Ron was snoring and then quietly crept off under his Cloak.

"Going somewhere?" the voice of Gohan startled Harry as he headed across the common room.

"How did you...?" Harry began.

"You're invisible to my sight, but not my senses," Gohan answered, somewhat mysteriously. He wasn't sure whether sensing auras was Dark magic, but decided not to risk explaining his abilities to Harry, "Where are you going?"

Harry explained his plan to Gohan. Never missing the opportunity to further his reading, Gohan offered to join Harry. Despite some initial misgivings, he eventually decided that he would enjoy the company. The two boys covered themselves with the Cloak and headed off to the library.

When they arrived, they headed straight for the restricted section. Harry and Gohan started glancing at the titles of the books, many of which were in foreign languages and could not be understood. Harry started scanning the shelves for anything that was in English, when Gohan saw a book that caught his eye. A deep red colour, the cover bore the title in large gold letters: Wandless Magic: The Dark Art of the Saiya-jins.

Gohan silently freaked out when he read that. A book about Saiya-jins! Perhaps now, Gohan could have some of his questions answered. Forgetting all about Nicholas Flamel, he reached for the book and pulled it off the shelf. Carefully, he opened the book.

A piercing scream filled the room. Gohan quickly closed the book, but it kept screaming. The boys heard footsteps outside and dove under the Invisibility Cloak, just as Filch entered the library. The boys manouvred around Filch as they left the library, and ran in an almost-random direction. As they caught their breath near a suit of armour, they heard Filch's voice.

"You wanted to know if someone was wandering around at night," he was saying, "Someone's been in the Restricted section in the library."

"The Restricted section?" the boys groaned inwardly as they heard Snape respond, "They can't be far, then."

The corridor was too narrow. Even if they couldn't be seen, Snape and Filch would bump into the boys if they came down here. In desperation, the boys headed for a nearby open door, just as Snape and Filch walked past. A moment later, the threat was gone and the boys could relax.

The room appeared to be an old classroom. No longer used, the desks had been moved to the sides of the room. In the middle of the room, however, was a huge mirror in a golden frame. Inscribed on the frame was the phrase Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

It was Harry who looked in the mirror first, and gave an audible gasp as he did.

"Gohan," he whispered, "It's my parents! My parents are in the mirror."

Gohan moved closer to the mirror. He had never heard ofa mirror that lets you see someone's dead parents, and he was curious to see his friend's mum and dad. What he saw, however, wasn't Harry's parents.

"Dad," he whispered, "I can see my father in the mirror."

Harry stared at the mirror intently, "Where? I can only see my parents."

"Right there, I can see my father. Where are your parents?"

The boys looked at each other.

"Perhaps this mirror lets someone see their family," Harry mused.

"Or communicate with dead relatives," Gohan suggested.

"Not quite," came a voice behind them, "Although many people would get that impression."

The boys turned to see Professor Dumbledore standing behind them. Their panic subsided when they saw that he was smiling.

" I didn't see you there, Sir," Gohan said, with that horrible sinking feeling he got whenever he thought of how his mother would react if he got expelled.

"I don't need a Cloak to become invisible," Dumbledore explained, "I see that you two have discovered the wonders of the Mirror of Erised. You were on the right track when you were working out what the mirror shows, but you need to concern yourself with the why, rather than the what."

"I don't understand, Sir," Harry muttered, gazing in the mirror.

"You, who have never known your parents, saw them in the mirror. Gohan, who lost his father in very tragic circumstances a number of years back, saw his father alive and well. However, it doesn't always show death. The happiest man on earth would see nothing at all."

"So it shows us what we want," Harry suggested.

"No," Gohan said, as he realised what it was doing, "It doesn't just show what we want, does it? It's deeper than that, right?"

"Correct," Dumbledore replied, "The Mirror of Erised shows the deepest of our hearts' desires. Both of you have lost close family in tragic circumstances. It's natural for you to desire to see them again, so this mirror provided similar effects. Others see wealth, or power. Others yet again see things that we are probably best not to speculate upon. But no matter what the mirror shows you, it doesn't give knowledge or truth. Many have been driven mad by this mirror, gazing at what it shows, not sure whether it is truly attainable.

"I will be relocating the mirror tomorrow, and I ask you boys not to try and find it again. It's not a good idea to spend your life in service to a mere reflection or illusion. Now, it is time you concealed yourselves again and went to bed.

Gohan and Harry stood up. As they pulled the Cloak over them, Harry spoke.

"Sir, what do you see when you look in the mirror?"

"I see myself holding a pair of socks. One can never have enough, you know."

As they headed back towards Gryffindor tower, the boys agreed that Dumbledore had been less than truthful with them.

I won't give myself a deadline for the next chapter. It will come when I get time to write it.