NOVEL NEXT Chapter 2: Strange
That night Harry's dreams were thankfully not about a large old house containing Wormtail and Voldemort, but were instead about the first time Harry had truly met Daphne. The dream started with an eleven year old Harry staring at the Mirror of Erised.
He had sat there looking at it for hours, trying to figure out what it all meant. Eventually Dumbledore had found him staring at the mirror and ended his obsession with it, but that night still lay in the future during this memory.
Finally deciding it was time for him to get back to his room, young Harry picked himself up and walked out the door. He was so lost in his own thoughts he never stopped to put his invisibility cloak back on or to make sure no one was watching him.
"You've been looking at the mirror all night, haven't you?" a voice softly spoke from the shadows, startling Harry. His first instinct was to run, but he doubted the person meant him any actual harm and he was already caught anyway. So he walked towards where the voice had come from and found a girl he recognized as a first year Slytherin sitting on a bench watching him. He tried to recall her name, but could not.
"Hi, I'm Harry Potter." he finally answered.
"I know. I'm Daphne Greengrass, and you didn't answer my question." she reminded him.
"You already know I've been looking at the mirror. You've tried it too, haven't you? What did you see?" asked Harry excitedly.
"That's an extremely personal question to ask someone you just met." Seeing his confused face, Daphne asked "You do know what the mirror does, don't you? It shows you what you want the most, so basically you just asked me what do I want more than anything else in the world." Harry seemed to think about this for a few moments, and then nodded in agreement.
"I see my parents." Daphne sighed at Harry's willingness to give up extremely personal information. Very un-Slytherin. "But something has been bothering me. I can't remember what they look like and I've never seen a picture of them, so I wonder if that is what they actually look like or is it just my imagination." Harry sat down on the bench next to Daphne, obviously this question had been annoying him for quite some time.
"I don't know, but if I had to guess I would say that they probably looked like what you see in the mirror. Even if you can't really remember them, I am sure the knowledge is still somewhere in your head. The mirror has to be reading your mind somehow to know what you want, right?" she reasoned.
"I guess so. I always knew that what I was seeing wasn't real, but it just feels hard to look away, you know?" Harry said.
"Yes, I do. I'm not going to tell anyone that you've been looking at the mirror this whole time, but I am not going to look at it anymore and if you know what's good for you you won't either. It's like looking at the mirror is addicting, and the more you do it the more you want it."
Harry knew she was right, but also knew that he would most likely be back the next night if for nothing more than a peak. But he promised himself that he would use it less, now worried that the mirror might be some type of evil artifact.
Part of his mind argued that the mirror didn't feel evil and there was certainly nothing evil about the images it showed, but the worry remained. Trying to shake that thought, his attention turned towards the pretty girl sitting next to him. He knew next to nothing about her, other than the fact that she was in Slytherin and they had a few classes together.
"I'm surprised you're even bothering to talk to me about this, me being a Gryffindor and you a Slytherin. Aren't you guys supposed to hate our guts?" he asked a little bit sarcastically.
"I don't care too much for the house rivalry nonsense. Seems like a big waste of time. Sure, I'll cheer for Slytherin during Quidditch but that's as far as I am willing to go. But don't you change Potter, watching you and Weasley's little feud against Malfoy is very entertaining." Daphne laughed as she said. Harry shrugged his shoulders at that, wondering if the rest of the school felt that way about him and Draco. The blond little punk just brought out the worst in him.
"Glad you're enjoying the show, I guess." Harry answered. "Although, the best entertainment still comes from the Weasley twins."
"Don't remind me." Daphne groaned. "In November they somehow managed to turn my hair bright blue. Allegedly a third year girl in my house was the intended target and I just got in the way. They apologized, but ran off before I could demand they turn it back. It lasted two whole days!"
Harry laughed, that sounded like something they would do. He wondered briefly if he would have made friends with Daphne if he had been sorted into Slytherin like the Sorting Hat wanted. He didn't remember her hanging out with Malfoy's group of friends, so that was definitely a point in her favor. Eventually he decided that it would indeed have been possible, one thing of many that would have been different if he had not become a Gryffindor.
A few minutes later Harry yawned and said "It's late, I'm going to bed now. It was nice talking to you."
"Good night, Potter." she told him as he got up and started walking back towards his room while she continued sitting on the bench. Watching as the dream ended, Harry noted that Daphne had never called him Harry. It was always Potter. And he had taken her lead and always called her Greengrass. 'Strange…' he thought as his sleep cycle shifted and his memories of first year slipped from his consciousness.