THE MIRROR OF ERISED
“Mom?” he whispered. “Dad?”
They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry looked into
the faces of the other people in the mirror, and saw other pairs of
green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who
looked as though he had Harry’s knobbly knees — Harry was
looking at his family, for the first time in his life.
The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily
back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he
was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a pow-
erful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness.
How long he stood there, he didn’t know. The reflections did
not fade and he looked and looked until a distant noise brought
him back to his senses. He couldn’t stay here, he had to find his way
back to bed. He tore his eyes away from his mother’s face, whis-
pered, “I’ll come back,” and hurried from the room.
“You could have woken me up,” said Ron, crossly.
“You can come tonight, I’m going back, I want to show you the
mirror.”
“I’d like to see your mom and dad,” Ron said eagerly.
“And I want to see all your family, all the Weasleys, you’ll be able
to show me your other brothers and everyone.”
“You can see them any old time,” said Ron. “Just come round
my house this summer. Anyway, maybe it only shows dead people.
Shame about not finding Flamel, though. Have some bacon or
something, why aren’t you eating anything?”
Harry couldn’t eat. He had seen his parents and would be seeing
them again tonight. He had almost forgotten about Flamel. It
didn’t seem very important anymore. Who cared what the three-
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