The hallways of Hogwarts had grown colder lately—not in temperature, but in atmosphere. Whispers clung to the stone walls like ivy, and even Peeves seemed to float more quietly than usual, as if the castle itself held its breath.
Severus Snape walked with purpose, his robes billowing behind him like a shadow given shape. His mind wasn't on his lesson plans, nor on the dunderheaded antics of Neville Longbottom's last potion. No, his thoughts spun around the image etched in his memory—the pale flash of a familiar face reflected in the Mirror of Salazar. A face he'd seen once too often in his darkest dreams.
He hadn't told Dumbledore. Not yet.
Not because he didn't trust the Headmaster, but because this...this needed clarity. If he was wrong, he'd waste time and stir panic. But if he was right...
"Black," Snape whispered under his breath. "You wouldn't dare."
As he rounded the corridor near the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, voices reached him. He paused, flattening himself against the wall with silent ease. Two students. Familiar ones.
"You saw it too, right?" came Draco's voice—an edge to it that was less arrogant and more… nervous.
"I don't know what I saw," Harry replied, his tone hesitant. "It looked like—it looked like me. But older. Or... something else."
Snape's eyes narrowed.
Draco huffed. "Figures you'd see something weird in a mirror. It's probably enchanted. Or broken."
"Or maybe it shows the future," Harry muttered.
Snape's heart skipped. So Harry had seen it too.
The conversation faded as the boys turned the corner. Snape stepped out of the shadows, watching their retreating backs with furrowed brows. He'd need to keep a closer eye on those two.
Especially Harry.
---
That evening, the Gryffindor common room was unusually quiet. Hermione had a book cracked open on magical properties of time manipulation—she claimed it was for Arithmancy, but her eyes kept darting to Harry. Ron sat on the armrest next to her, eating treacle tart straight from a napkin.
Harry sat on the couch, a blanket thrown haphazardly over his shoulders, staring into the fire. Draco had said nothing to him since their conversation earlier that day—just sneered in passing, like everything was normal.
But Harry knew better. Something had changed. Not just in Draco. In everything.
A crackle in the flames drew his attention.
There it was again—that fleeting shimmer. That strange, flickering image that seemed to form just out of the corner of his eye. A figure. Watching.
"Did you see that?" he asked suddenly.
Hermione looked up. "See what?"
"In the fire. I thought... never mind."
Ron leaned over. "Mate, are you alright? You've been jumpy since Hogsmeade."
Harry didn't answer. His eyes lingered on the flames.
---
Meanwhile, in the Slytherin dormitory, Draco Malfoy sat up in bed, gripping the edge of his sheets. He wasn't sure why, but he couldn't stop thinking about the mirror. Or Harry's expression when they stood before it. There had been something raw in it. Something Draco had never seen before—like Harry had recognized the figure too.
And that terrified him.
He got out of bed and crept toward the window. Outside, the moon was a sliver in the sky, framed by clouds. The Black Lake shimmered in the distance, dark and quiet.
Draco glanced at his reflection in the glass.
But just for a moment—he swore it wasn't his face staring back.
---
Elsewhere, in a hidden alcove deep beneath the dungeons, Snape lit a single lantern. Dust clung to the walls. Books lay in rotting stacks, forgotten even by Filch.
Snape bent over an ancient tome, flipping to a page marked with his own scrawl. The text was in archaic Latin, but the diagrams were unmistakable. A mirror. A sigil. A name scratched in the margins: Aeternum Speculum — The Eternal Mirror.
Not just a creation of Salazar Slytherin.
A mirror that revealed not desires, but intersections.
Time. Memory. Possibility.
And if Harry had seen himself in it… older…
"No," Snape muttered, closing the book. "Not yet."
But even as he doused the lantern, the unease did not fade.
---
The next morning, Divination class was as bizarre as ever. Professor Trelawney floated into the room in a cloud of scented smoke, waving her bangled arms dramatically.
"We are all threads in the great loom of destiny!" she trilled. "Some bright, others fraying at the edge!"
Harry rolled his eyes. Ron smirked. Draco, now sitting behind Harry for reasons no one questioned, simply crossed his arms and muttered, "She's off her rocker."
Harry half-grinned, then blinked.
In the tea leaves of his cup, he saw it again.
That same figure.
The shape of a man standing beneath a clocktower.
---
Later that day, Harry wandered alone toward the courtyard, his bag slung over one shoulder. He needed space. Fresh air. Time to think. But someone was already there.
Draco.
Leaning against a tree, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
"You're following me now?" Harry asked, only half-joking.
Draco didn't smirk. "You saw something in the fire."
"What?"
"Last night. I was across the room. You were staring like it spoke to you."
Harry hesitated. "You were watching me?"
Draco didn't reply.
Instead, he stepped forward, expression unreadable. "Whatever that mirror is... it's messing with our heads."
"You think I don't know that?"
Draco frowned, then added quietly, "I don't think you're crazy, Potter."
Harry blinked. "Thanks. That's... unusually kind of you."
A beat.
"I didn't say I like you," Draco snapped.
Harry chuckled.
For once, it didn't feel like mockery.
---
Back in his office, Snape reread the note he'd written to himself two years ago.
A note from the future. The only one he'd ever dared to keep.
"Protect Harry. Even from yourself."
He folded it, tucked it back under the drawer's false bottom, and rubbed his temples.
The mirror was waking.
Sirius was closer.
Time was folding in on itself.
And the second chance he'd been granted was beginning to fracture.