Elizabeth Lily Potter: The Girl Who Lived

Chapter 19: Revelations

Our Winter Break continued just as well as it had began. Our days were filled with snowball fights, building snowmen, and making snow angels, before retreating to the warmth and safety of the castle, where house elves provided us with warm mugs of hot chocolate. Harry and some others would play Quidditch while I sat in the stands and watched with Hermione. We would fill our stomachs to our hearts' content during breakfast, lunch, and dinner, before retreating back to the common room. There, we would read, talk, play chess or exploding snap, or just rest in front of the roaring fireplace.

Without much opposition, I could easily say that this was the best Christmas Break I'd ever had. To be perfectly honest, those were some of the best days I'd ever had, period.

However, our days were not the only things filled with excitement. Every night for the past week, Harry and I snuck out of our dorms together to visit the magic mirror. Harry even convinced Ron to come with him, so the two went together one day, but when Hermione found out, well, that was a different story.

I had wanted to tell her myself, truly. She was my best friend, my first and only best friend. I didn't want to keep secrets from her. But, she wasn't "the brightest witch of our age" for nothing; naturally, she was bound to find out on her own. And so, the day I had planned on telling her about the mirror, she beat me to it.

We were sitting in the common room in the evening, both of us reading our respective books, when Harry and Ron came out of their dorm and down the stairs, my brother with his cloak draped over his arm.

"Where are you two going? You do realize it's almost curfew, right?" She asked, putting a book mark in her book and setting it on her lap.

"To the mirror," Ron answered, before Harry or I could butt in.

"Mirror? What mirror?"

"You know, the magic mirror! Didn't Liz tell you?"

I stifled a groan as she whipped her head towards me. "Liz, what does he mean?"

Harry elbowed Ron and whispered to him about how I hadn't told Hermione yet. I saw Ron's mouth form an "o" shape out of the corner of my eye and the two of them slowly backed away while Hermione's attention was focused on me.

Of course, they were smart enough to back away in the direction of the Fat Lady's Portrait.  Fun fact, the Fat Lady's name is actually Abagail. I asked her a few weeks ago, and she was very happy to tell me, saying that no one had asked her for her real name in decades.

Anyway, Harry and Ron snuck away, leaving me with an upset Hermione, standing in front of me with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.

With a sigh, I explained everything from the beginning. Once I finished my story, she scolded me for sneaking out after hours (I knew she meant well) and adamantly refused to come with me to see the mirror. She softened up a bit when I spoke about my mum and dad, but was still unhappy with me for breaking school rules and made me swear not to go see it again.

However, she drew the line at letting me sneak out after hours again, which meant one thing: in order to see the Mirror, I'd have to sneak out again, and not only avoid professors, Prefects, and ghosts, but Hermione too. I hated the idea of hiding from her though. She was my best friend, and I didn't want to feel like I was betraying her.

But, I wanted to see my parents again. After all, the only other times I get to see them are in my nightmares, watching them die before my eyes while I can't do anything to help; I can't do anything period besides watching the scene play out before waking up with a jolt, muffling my screams and cringing from the searing pain in my scar.