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Was the Mirror calling to him, or was it merely natural curiousity? The first time Harry visited the Tate Magique after the Magical Art(ifacts) exhibition opened, he told himself it was only the latter. The public face of the Wizarding World ought to be involved in cultural happenings. It wasn’t the reflection of the Mirror glinting on the front cover of the Daily Prophet that convinced him to visit.
And yet, when he recounted the story at the pub later that night, he found that he could remember only the Mirror and not a single other object on display. He had spent nearly four hours wandering through the galleries, drifting back towards the tiny room off the main hall with the Mirror inside. As he tried to describe the exhibition to Ginny and Hermione, the words slipped from his mind. Ginny asked him about a set of amulets on display, purported to increase power on offensive hexes, but Harry could not recall even the slightest glimpse at the amber beads.
So he returned the next day, determined to rectify his mistake. He wandered through the main galleries, staring intently at the labels in the hopes that some element would stick in his mind. Surely there was more to the Exhibition than the Mirror. And there was: the amulets that Ginny had described were sparkling in person, even beneath glass, and the curling iron gate, forged centuries ago as a door between wizarding and fae worlds was stunning. The sword of Gryffindor and Slytherin’s amulet sat on a shelf under a sign decrying Voldemort’s crimes.
And the room was busy with people, wix from all over the world in attendance. They cooed over the jewels and stared in awe at the artifacts. A tour wandered through, a young witch with brightly-dyed hair gave a cheery explanation of the properties of a true Philosopher’s Stone.
The noise of the crowd was easy to ignore when the call of the Mirror was so much louder.
Harry tried to lose himself in the massive portrait of Hogwarts, resonant with shifting paint, so realistic it looked like a photograph. He tried to stare into it, to make out the shapes of people moving across the grass outside, or to imagine himself posed atop the Astronomy Tower, but his eye was drawn to an wrong slash in the paint, pink where it ought to be a deep red. From that wrong splotch of paint to the chipped corner of the frame, it was only one quick glance to the side gallery with the Mirror inside.
Harry had been wandering through the exhibit for most of an hour, and surely that was enough. He could remember the amulets and the sword, and something else, but he’d be able to tell Hermione about what else was on view.
The Mirror was as he’d left it the day before. The room was more dimly lit than the bright, pale-painted main gallery. Black curtains hung behind the standing Mirror, and facing it on the wall opposite was a small display of cursed rings. Harry noticed these for the first time as he stepped into the gallery, determined to look around the room rather than directly into the Mirror.
It stood, great claw feet on the ground, as tall as Harry remembered it. The gold-painted wood frame had been restored by a neat hand, all its former chips filled and the gleaming, glittering gilt along the edges seemed vital with new power. Harry looked across the surface. The glass too had been cleaned, silver oxidation spots wiped away so that it looked as fresh as though it had been crafted days before, not millenia.
This time, he noticed the little label propped up beside it, black text on bright white. The words swam before his eyes and he ignored it. Harry knew the Mirror far better than any curator spouting history to the waiting masses.
The room could have fit another small handful of tourists, but no one was beside him. The noise of the crowd in the main gallery felt deadened, even though there was no door to this alcove. Perhaps it was the weight of the Mirror soaking up the hubbub of the world outside.
Harry allowed himself to look.
Bound by the gilt frame, his Mirror-self was laughing, free and joyful. Today, the parallel Harry was sitting in a wide meadow, free of anyone but his companion, a picnic basking open beside them and a glass of champagne in his hand. The sun was warm on his skin and as Harry looked, he felt the warmth burning his other self’s bare shoulders on his own, he could smell the breeze light and airy, taste the champagne on his tongue, sweet and bubbly.
And when his other self leaned down to kiss Draco Malfoy, he knew intimately what those lips tasted like, could perfectly visualize the way their lips would move together.
It didn’t make any sense, and yet, the Mirror was comfortable. It promised him that the other world didn’t need to make sense, that he was allowed to stand and stare and lose himself in this possibility. And Godric, did he want to lose himself in it.
The Mirror-Harry was so happy. He smiled like he’d never been in a war, like he’d never died before. He laughed and touched Draco like he was allowed to want that. The other Draco — and he couldn’t bear to call this man Malfoy — he touched Harry too, as though he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. In this meadow, Draco touched his hand as he poured more champagne, he fed Harry grapes and played with the hair at the back of his neck, and listened to Harry speak like it was the only thing that mattered.
How could Harry look away?
In the hours that Harry spent staring at the Mirror, other people came in. Tourists adorned in Ilvermorny sweatshirts and babbling in brash American accents shouldered their way into the space and blocked his view, but he did not move. The compulsion to stay and watch the rest of their joyful day as the sun began to set and Mirror-Draco began to drift asleep on Harry’s lap was too important.
The tourists never stayed long. They looked, laughed, and told their friends about the ridiculous sights they saw in the glass.
“I’ve won the lottery, look at that,” one pitchy Californian crooned, “I don’t even play the lottery!”
“Do you really think he’d propose like that?” a woman asked her friend in a rolling Welsh accent.
“Come and see,” said a young boy, pulling a man who could only be his father over to the Mirror. “There’s Mom, right there,” he pointed, greasy finger getting too close to the glass for Harry’s liking.
Still, he did not want to move.
But the gallery closed, and he went home.
Instead of meeting Hermione for drinks as he’d promised, he fell asleep and dreamed of flying astride a thestral with Draco at his back, fingers at his hips. He didn’t mind that Draco wore short-sleeved shirts and laughed with his mouth too open, or that Draco was quick-witted and smarter than Harry. They drifted through the air together, body against body, warm against warm and Harry could swear it was real.
He woke up when he turned to kiss Draco again and fell off the bed, tumbling to the floor in a heap of bruises and blankets. It was only a dream. It was only a dream, but why did he feel the windburn on his cheeks and in his throat as though he’d been running all night?
He went back the next day, certain that there was some charm on the Mirror. He had to break whatever curse it was or someone could get hurt.
So early in the morning, the museum was deserted. Even the special exhibition galleries were quiet but for the soft murmur of snide whispers from the few portraits hung among the walls. But Harry didn’t bother with the other galleries this time. After all, he wasn’t there to provide headlines, or to rectify his inability to remember any other object on view.
He had to figure out why the Mirror compelled him.
The inscription along the top of the Mirror was the same as it had always been. I show not your face but your heart’s desire.
How could his heart’s desire be breakfast with Draco Malfoy? He could smell the coffee as it brewed, Draco’s hands on the french press, so familiar and yet impossible. Harry hadn’t seen Malfoy in years, and certainly had never watched him making coffee in only his briefs. And he’d never seen that kitchen before, brightly lit with fluttering pale green curtains and an antique clock on a handmade shelf and jars and jars and jars of spices along the counter.
When Harry yawned, the Mirror-Harry yawned, and blinked blearily in precisely the same way. Draco was just as touchy in the kitchen as he was in the meadow the day before. He ran his hands over Mirror-Harry’s hands, tracing his knuckles, over Harry’s scar, so gently and so lovingly that the real Harry felt it and shivered. Harry looked down at his hands and found them mimicking the movement though he had no conscious thought of doing so.
Looking away was no longer an option.
His eyes grew dry as he watched himself go to work at a job he clearly loved, laughing and chatting with coworkers. He couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but he could almost make it out, as though listening from a great distance. It seemed this other Harry was some sort of social worker, chatting with gangly teenagers and parents. It didn’t matter what he was doing, this Harry glowed with a passion and a clear love for his work.
It was a passion Harry hadn’t realized he could feel, and yet, watching this version of himself, he could imagine it settling into his bones. He found himself smiling like the Mirror Harry smiled, moving to accommodate a pair of chattering teenagers eager to get a look at the glass. His view wasn’t threatened by a few curious kids. All would be alright if they looked too. They could see what their hearts desired. None of them were moved like Harry was. None of them stayed, like Harry did.
The Mirror knew Harry and Harry knew the Mirror.
It was close to closing time on that third day when Harry felt a presence near his shoulder. He didn’t bother looking away; Mirror-Harry and Draco were dancing together. Their evening had been perfectly mundane, sharing takeaway and laughing over some story Draco told with expressive hands and mirthful eyes. He couldn’t tell which one of them had set the radio playing, but if he focused, Harry could hear the tune, jazzy and light.
Art by Iero0 (Ao3 | Tumblr), posted on Tumblr in July 2021 and included here with Isi's permission.
Their sitting room was cramped, a couch shoved too close and an awkwardly large coffee table stolen from the Manor filled the space. Yet, they were graceful. Harry’s hand was clasped in Draco’s like it was precious gold. They had done this before; it was obvious in the way they knew each other’s bodies. It felt too intimate to watch and yet Harry could not stop.
A hand touched his hand and Harry took it, reflecting the motion of his Mirror self. Draco Malfoy’s hand fit in his as promised: as though it belonged.
It should have been wrong. No one dances with a former enemy in the tiny gallery of the Tate. And yet, Harry’s hand settled in Malfoy’s and he couldn’t take it back. Malfoy’s hand fell to his waist, just as the Mirror-Draco’s hand did. Harry heard the music more clearly now, an unfamiliar waltzing tune, and moved with it.
Was it his imagination running wild? Was the unreality of the Mirror becoming stronger? He moved with Malfoy just as Mirror-Harry moved, unable to stop flipping between the Draco in the Mirror and the Malfoy in his arms — or were they the same man? Was the touch under his fingertips, warm and firm and confident, all in his head, all in his sight?
Did it matter?
He kept moving, shifting closer to the Malfoy in his arms, the Mirror — for the first time — entirely forgotten.
Dancing with Malfoy was like breathing.
He couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to. It felt inevitable to be in each other’s arms. It was a desire made tangible and he was going to hold onto it as though every heartbeat in his chest depended on their gentle rhythm together.
Miraculously, no one disturbed them. Another song began, and it seemed like Malfoy knew this one too or could hear it ringing from the Mirror because they continued to move like one body.
“Draco,” gasped Harry, breathless from the exertion when a third song began. His lips moved in time with the Mirror-Harry, who paused too, resting his forehead on Draco’s shoulder.
“Back again, Harry?” Malfoy asked, a hollow tease in his tone. He was just as moved by it.
“I didn’t hear you coming,” Harry murmured, and blinked at his palm spread across Malfoy’s neat grey suit jacket. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t in the Mirror. They were at the Tate, and there were people outside and a whole gallery full of objects and art and they didn’t belong together.
“I think you did,” Malfoy answered.
Harry dropped his hand away and held them behind his back, afraid if he didn’t, he’d try to touch Malfoy again. He had no right to touch this Draco — this Malfoy.
“I did see you,” Harry admitted. He shut his eyes to fight the compulsion to look back at the Mirror. “I think your Mirror must be broken. Who restored it? They must have cursed it, it’s not safe to have it on view like this.”
Malfoy touched him, just like the Mirror-Draco did, a polite brush of fingers against his forearm. It was too comforting. “I’m the Conservator,” said Malfoy. “I fixed it.”
“How can you be my heart’s deepest desire?” Harry begged, but asking it out loud didn’t stop the feeling in his chest like magic bubbling up.
Malfoy had changed in the intervening years, at least on the outside. He was not as pale nor as angry as he had once been. His hands were soft and stained with paint and small marks from years of careful work. He dressed as formally as ever, but it suited him. He was decorous now, and handsome, at least to Harry. Harry was curious about what else was different about him, so he opened his eyes and looked.
Malfoy was closer than expected, still as gentle as he had been when they were dancing.
“It’s the question I asked myself,” said Malfoy. Harry watched the arch of his lips and wondered if kissing this version of him was as good as it looked in the Mirror. “I spent months working on it, cleaning and restoring it to the best of my abilities.”
“And?”
“And what I saw in the reflection never changed. I scrubbed away all the water damage, all the age spots and ruin in the glass. I made it shine. And every single day I came into work and saw it there, on my workbench, waiting for me…” He trailed off, avoiding Harry’s gaze.
“You saw me too.”
“Every day.”
“And do you believe it?” Harry wasn’t sure he knew his own answer. Once, years ago, the Mirror had shown Harry his family and a past he’d never known. Was the Mirror lying to him now, or could that future be as natural as the past?
“Should I believe it?” Malfoy finally, finally looked up. Harry saw reflected in Malfoy the same question he felt: that parallel desire and uncertainty inextricably interwoven.
In the Mirror, Harry and Draco had stopped dancing and were speaking in quiet, inaudible tones. Mirror-Harry reached for Draco’s hand and Draco let him.
Desire potent, Harry did the same. He reached for Malfoy’s hand. Like his reflection, he kissed each fingertip in turn and then met Malfoy’s eyes.
They kissed and it was like breathing again, like if Harry ever stopped kissing Draco, he’d combust right then and there for lack of air. There was much to talk about, but they would not need the Mirror for that. After all, it was better to live than to dwell in dreams; it was better to kiss him in reality than let hope remain reflected.