Dance With A Serpent

Revealed

The damned lesson had come to an end and he exhaled heavily. Two hours locked in a room with the poor people who had chosen Advanced Potions. Not something he enjoyed. They should have had to ask his permission first because at least half of them where useless and wouldn't know the difference between a healing potion and pain stopper if their lives depended on it. He paced the room sighing happily about its lack of students. His eyes fell upon an abandoned bag.

"Oh, of all air headed dimwits." He growled and snatched the bag. Since the bag was open he couldn't help his eyes gliding over its contents, mostly books...and the damn mirror!

He seated himself behind the desk and stared at the bag containing the offensive mirror. Oh he'd encountered the mirror before. He also knew a lot about the horrid thing... but the most important thing he knew about that mirror was that it had never contained Lily for him. When the thing had circled Hogwarts back in his time he had been one of the last to hold the wrenched thing, given his low social status

He had tried to destroy the mirror when the girl in it had not been Lily. He hadn't been able to even dent it. He had, after all, been meddling with the most powerful magic in the world...Love. When he hadn't been able to destroy it he had left it and gone to the library to find out all about it. There in the books there would be an explanation to why Lily wasn't in there. Severus smiled a twisted smile at the bag. Sadly the reason why she had not been in the mirror was the reason he had feared the most. She was not his to have.

He didn't remember the girl he had seen being to angry about her not being Lily. He wondered if she had changed in to someone else. He had read that that could happen if his past reflection girl died. As he removed the magical mirror he thought about how many points he was going to retract from the incompetant soul who had forgotten their bag here and forced this mirror in to his path once again.

The mirror looked just the same as it had all those years ago. He looked in to it and his memory stirred. She was just the same...

She was smiling openly at him, nearly laughing. Her hair seemed caught by a wind and she was toying with it to stay out of her face. She had big laughing eyes and she appeared to be on a beach clad in a summer skirt and a petit top. He thought her quite tolerable to the eyes if a bit young now. Back in his youth she must have been just his age.. funny that she hadn't aged.

A knock rang out and he lowered the mirror. "Ah... the culprit had returned to get his bag...Enter" he said to himself and then shouted from his desk. The door opened and his mouth curled in to a mean smirk. This was just too good.

"Good afternoon Professor, I didn't mean to disturb you but I seem to have forgotten my ba...oh you found it." The head girl ventured.

"That wasn't the only thing I found..." he said with evil purr and held up the mirror. Little Miss Granger blanched.

"I was just about to—" she began

"Couldn't stoop ogling your reflection, Miss Granger?" She blushed furiously.

"Quite the contrary Professor I assure you..."

"Not your ideal partner? Hmm?" he was playing with her but the way she flushed was so entertaining. Since the girl had saved his life she had seemed less intimidate by him, but now she squirmed again and it was so rewarding.

"I was...I don't..." she failed to string a sentence together...how amusing. "I was about to return it." she finally managed, still red as a tomatoe. "..But now you have it so I don't need to." She stepped up to his desk to retrieve her bag.

Severus looked in to the mirror again. She was still smiling at him and her laughing eyes met his. He looked up at the Granger girl and their eyes met too. Hers didn't laugh. He thought he was about to fall of his chair or maybe scream in terror but he didn't he remained calm. No wonder the girl was as red as a tomato. No wonder she wanted to return the mirror... she had probably tried to destroy it as well. He coughed.