Reflections

The aspiring Auror trainees stood waiting outside a closed door, not knowing what to expect.

Everyone said that, if they were accepted, they would be by far the largest batch of Aurors the Ministry had ever had: Kingsley Shacklebolt's decree that allowed everyone who had fought at the battle of Hogwarts to apply for the training program, regardless of N.E.W.T.s, had been successful. The Ministry was in sore need of Aurors and Hit-Wizards in the aftermath of the war; they were not likely to care about academics.

What they had not been spared of was the character and aptitude tests.

Ron looked around. Next to him, Harry raised his eyebrows, indicating that he didn't have a clue about what to expect, either. Around them, he spotted several familiar faces: Katie Bell, who had graduated a year before them; Dean Thomas; a guy called Kevin that he knew was a Ravenclaw; that sod, Zacharias Smith; and another Hufflepuff that had been in their year called Megan, plus others that Ron didn't know but were older than them. People touched by the war, most of them, which was why the character tests were so relevant, as had been explained, lest they were planning on a suicidal revenge mission.

As it happened, this first week had been all about the tests, and they weren't told what those were about until they were there and found out themselves.

Gawain Robards, a thickset man who had replaced Rufus Scrimgeour as Head of the Aurors, stood now before them. His left shoulder had been injured as he escaped the Ministry of Magic the night Scrimgeour was murdered, and was now permanently pushed back, as if he was half-turned all the time. This, however, didn't make him look less imposing.

'You will now enter this room,' he pointed to the door behind him, 'and face what we've set for you. This test is to assess how you fare under a stressful situation. You will be watched, but you're the only one who can get yourself out of the room. If you don't, and it turns out we have to get you out wailing like a babe, you're out of the program.'

He scowled at them for emphasis, as if he needed to.

'No one is to say what's in that room. If any of you tell the others, you're out of the program. Understood?'

Robards told them to go in one by one and left, presumably to wherever it was he would be watching them from. Katie went in first. Twenty minutes passed by before Katie reappeared. She was pale, and Ron noticed her hands were sweaty, but she had a determined look about her and only nodded at the others so they knew she had passed.

The rest of them took more time to come out, but none had to be dragged out and none seemed physically injured—except for Zacharias Smith, whose fists looked bruised. Harry left the room forty minutes after he'd entered. By that time, the ones who remained outside were sprawled on the floor rather than standing. From time to time, Ron would stand up and pace up and down the small corridor before sitting down again, his stomach knotted and his back hurting with the tension. He stood up at the sight of his best friend: Harry walked up to him and clapped him on the back, nodding. He looked very serious, though, like the rest. Ron was sick of all the silent nodding; he wished his last name didn't start with a 'W' so he could be done with it already.

When his turn came at last, Ron was the only one left. He stood up straight and gripped his wand before entering.

Inside, it was mostly dark but for a candlestick set on the wall, illuminating something square and big that looked like furniture in the centre of the room. Ron walked carefully towards it, expecting something to jump at him from a corner. When he reached it, it turned out to be a large mirror with an intricate gold frame, supported by two monstrous claws... a mirror he had seen once, and that it had showed him everything he wanted to see. Ron hadn't thought about it in several years. Even though Dumbledore had told Harry that it didn't show the future, rather what the person desired most, what Ron had seen back then had become true: he had been named Prefect and won a Quidditch cup; he got a Special Award for Services to the School and even seven O.W.L.s—not to mention that later on he had been awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class, like Harry and Hermione.

He didn't understand what the mirror was doing there, though, or what was he supposed to do with it. Did he have to look upon it so Robards could see what his deepest desires were, whether being an Auror meant so much to him as to be reflected on the mirror? Ron remembered that Harry hadn't known what Ron had seen until he'd told him, and vice versa, so it couldn't be.

Ron read the inscription on the top: Riapsed stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. Whatever that meant. He took a step back and saw Hermione standing next to him. Ron instinctively turned, but there was no one there. She looked miserable, her eyes red-rimmed, her mouth turned down, and when he met her eyes on the mirror, they glistened with tears. The Ron in the mirror didn't look much better. Mirror Hermione and Ron turned to each other: Hermione shook her head while Ron gestured with his hands. The silent bickering grew in intensity until Ron gripped Hermione by the shoulders. She wrenched herself free and slapped him hard. Mirror Ron thrust his hand in his pocket then, and drew out a small box. Hermione shook her head again while she cried, and walked away from him into nothingness.

The experience of watching himself and Hermione as an outsider felt weird, especially since it was not a particularly happy scene he'd witnessed. In fact, a coldness had begun to spread to his stomach.

He didn't have a ring in his pocket, of course, or in his mind at present—they had only been dating for about five months. But Hermione was in his future. There was no one else he'd rather propose to. He didn't know what she thought of that matter, but he didn't imagine such a reaction from her. Unless...

Well, that obviously was not the Mirror of Erised. What was it showing, then?

From where Hermione had vanished, someone else appeared. It was Robards and Harry. Robards looked as stern as ever, but he shook Harry's hand and clapped him enthusiastically on the back, handing him an Auror's badge of office. Harry looked great, smiling proudly and looking tall, even taller than Ron, in his uniform. When Robards turned to Ron, however, his frown intensified. He shook his head, much like Hermione had done, and spoke to him.

'What?' Ron asked outloud. He was beginning to forget himself. It was a mirror. Yet it was hard to stand there and not know what was going on. Why wouldn't they give him his badge too? Being an Auror was all he wanted to do; he had promised to himself that if they accepted him into the program, he would work harder than anyone else to ensure that they kept him.

Except that... well, what if it was too hard for him? What if he wasn't too good at it, and he failed all of his classes? Or if he wasn't doing as well as he'd thought in all these weird tests? He might have not done too well yesterday, now that he thought of it, when they had been paired with experienced Aurors and had to protect themselves or deflect the curses cast at them, like Harry had done with Dumbledore's Army. He'd thought that it had gone pretty well, not worse than any of the others—except maybe Harry. And that had been enough, until now. He was lousy. He wasn't getting in. That had to be it. This mirror did show the future, and Ron didn't like it at all.

He tried to lip-read whatever Robards kept saying but to no use. When Ron looked away from him, he saw himself surrounded by his family. Everyone looked better off than Ron, although he couldn't have said what gave him that impression at first. Everyone was looking down at him in disapproval—actually looking down, because they all seemed taller than Ron, even his mum. When he noticed that, he saw that he looked grubbier than them all, as well, wearing old, fraying robes, his hair dull rather than bright red like the rest of his family, his eyes dark and lifeless. In comparison, all the other Weasleys looked splendid. Ron looked like a corpse amongst them.

'Oh for Merlin's sake, what is it now?' Ron growled. His father shook his head grimly. 'Stop doing that!'

His family stepped back, shocked, as if they'd heard him. The reflection on the mirror was crowded now. When Ron focused his eyes on their faces, he noticed one was missing.

'Where's George?'

His mum started sobbing silently.

'Where is he?'

George had been a completely different person after the battle. He didn't laugh all the time, he didn't tease Ron—one of his favourite pastimes—he hadn't set foot at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes until about a month ago, supported by Ron and Ginny. It was all understandable. But Ron alone knew he was drinking.

This could not be possible; no matter how George was now, he would never give up.

The faces in the mirror didn't agree with him. Ron's reflection was crying, and he realized it wasn't just an illusion: he was crying.

'No. You have to tell me what happened.'

Ron slid to the floor. He remembered then that he was being watched, and stood up abruptly.

'What? What do you expect me to do? I just found out my brother will die—what kind of sick test is this?' he yelled at the empty wall behind him, but only the candle moved.

He turned to the mirror again. Evidently the test wasn't over. The Weasleys had left, but Harry and Hermione remained. He didn't even remember if they had been there before, in the shadows.

Hermione stepped forward and began talking again.

'Bloody hell, Hermione, what are you saying?'

As if she had understood, her lips stopped moving and she gave him a pitying look before reaching out a hand behind her and pulling someone else. It was a man, his face first covered in shadows, then concealed as Hermione kissed him. The hand she'd laid on the bloke's shoulder had a sparkly ring.

'Noo!' Ron said, and lunged forward. Hermione broke apart as Ron's fist came hard on the man's face. A blinding pain overcame him when he hit the mirror, but it didn't break.

Through the tears, Ron saw that his family had never really left; they were just behind Harry and Hermione, watching him. He looked at Harry now. Unlike the Harry he had seen before entering the room, this one shook his head instead of nodding.

'Don't do that! Stop doing that!'

Harry opened his mouth and said something very slowly, for Ron to understand. It was so clear that Ron felt as if he had actually heard it.

You left us.

'Harry,' said Ron, but it was Hermione he looked at first. His mouth felt dry. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—the locket…'

The locket had felt like a living weight constantly pressing down his chest, clouding his judgment with pain and nightmares. The locket had done what this mirror was doing—except that this was real. This was his future.

No, his own voice said inside his head. Once, he had believed the same: that what he saw, or what he thought he saw, was real. It was not real. This was not real, either. It was just a mirror—his hand had confirmed it. A different voice sounded this time, giving him a sense of déjà vu.

I think Divination seems very woolly. A lot of guesswork...

A mirror can't show the future, Ron decided, no more than tea leaves. That's not them. Not Harry, not Hermione, not his family—not his future. Besides… what couldn't be changed was the past. He had come this far; he would go ever farther.

Ron took a step back. The figures in the mirror disappeared.

'You don't get to win this time,' he said and, without looking back, he walked towards the exit.

There was a clunk on the window closest to where Hermione sat. Everything had been so quiet in the Gryffindor Common Room after the rest of the students had gone to bed, exhausted by their first month at Hogwarts, that she had lost herself in her reading, forgetting everything about her surroundings. The noise made her drop the book and jump to her feet; when she looked to the window, she saw a long, pale face staring back.

I see ghosts everywhere here, she thought. Perhaps Ron was right and I shouldn't have come back.

The figure outside knocked again, three times now, and Hermione realized it wasn't a spectre.

Hermione ran to the window and opened the latch: Ron, who had been on his broomstick and not floating mystically as she had thought, flew in and dismounted.

'Ron! Did you fly all the way from England?'

'Apparated into Hogsmead,' he said. There was something urgent about him. 'Are you alone?'

She nodded.

'Don't do that. I've had enough nodding and shaking for a lifetime, I think.'

'What?'

'Never mind.'

Ron took both her hands and hunched slightly to look her in the eye.

'I love you. Is that okay?'

Hermione was breathless.

'No, it's not "okay", you git!' When Ron looked horror-stricken at her, she laughed. 'It's brilliant. I love you too!'

'Then don't bloody scare me like that,' he said gruffly before kissing her.

Hermione kissed him back, feeling content. It was the first time they said it, at least with words, and it felt important.

'Ron?' she said a moment later. 'While I appreciate you coming to tell me this, is there any reason behind it? I mean, you could have waited until I had a Hogsmeade weekend...'

'Well... remember how you said that Divination was just a bunch of guessing?' Hermione nodded. 'I saw that, today.'

He shrugged and put both hands on Hermione's waist.

'I decided I don't want to guess. And I don't want to keep you guessing. So I thought you should know that I love you, not just guess it.'

She thought tearing up might ruin the mood; instead, Hermione broke into a huge grin.

'That's very clever.'

'Always the tone of surprise.'

'I wasn't surprised. And by the way... you're not allowed to use that line anymore.'

This was written for the Ollivander's Challenge at Tumblr, inspired by the prompt: The Mirror of Erised has a twin. Unlike its counterpart, looking into this miror isn't at all encouraging, because it brings to the surface the looker's very worst fears.
You can tell I left the notes for the end so I wouldn't spoil it for you *wink*.
Thanks a lot to jenahid for proof-reading this!