She sighed and looked up at the sleeping portrait of Dumbledore. Was he ever bored?
Probably not. He knew how to entertain himself, and he had guided this school through the worst years that the wizarding world had known.
Minerva looked out the window down at her students. She had forced everyone to come back and take their last year again, during the final year of the war too many had been absent from the school and those who where there had lived in constant fear and had learned much too little of what they needed to know. Of course this had led to a humongous class of first years but so be it.
She looked up once again at Dumbledore. He would surely not have disapproved of her rehiring Severus and making him her deputy headmaster?
Minerva sat down at her desk and glared at it. She wasn't used to being bored. There was indeed a lot of work to be done as a headmistress but she might just have to spice things up a little. And with that thought she pulled out a desk drawer. She looked down into it and smiled a wicked little smile.
Two days later the staff and students were assembled in the great hall and dinner was being gulped down by hundreds of youngsters. Minerva smiled again her wicked little smile and stood up. The noise died down and everyone turned to the headmistress.
"I am sorry to disturb you all but a valuable item of mine has gone missing. The mirror of Freja its called and it's a hand-mirror so if anyone would find it and give it to one of the prefects that would be lovely. Thank you." And then she sat down smiling to herself.
Parvati and Lavender whispered amongst themselves then they turned towards Hermione.
"Hermione. Hermione!" Parvati hissed at her and she turned to them with a thoughtful frown, "Hmm?"
"Who's Freja?" Parvati continued in a whisper.
"I don't know who Freja is, but the one famous Freja is the Viking goddess of spring, reproduction and love. But she might also mean the Freja who.." answered Hermione.
"Love!" the two girls shouted one and other. "It's a mirror of LOVE" the started to giggle in a all too familiar fashion.
The news about the mirror being a magical love mirror spread like wild fire amongst all the students in the Great Hall.
Severus looked over that the headmistress and raised an eyebrow. "I believe it wasn't a wise move to tell them the name of the mirror Minerva. You will never get it back now."
"Oh tish tosh Severus. Have you no faith in our students?"
He looked out over the milling masses of students. "No"
To Hermione's complete lack of surprise the rumour about the mirror spread across the school and she could go nowhere without hearing about it. Most everyone was looking for it and she pitied the finder as Parvati and Lavender would kill them to get a hold of the wretched thing.
She couldn't really deny that she wouldn't mind having it herself if it indeed was a magical mirror of love. Not that she was overly interested to see who her soul mate was. (it was generally agreed that that was what the mirror would show the person who looked in it) she knew now that it probably wasn't Ron. Their brief romance had died along with the war. She loved Ron, she would die for Ron but she wasn't in love with Ron. He couldn't even argue probably, he had no comebacks. No he was probably not the one.
She would love to get the mirror so that she could force Harry to look in to it though. He and Ginny had been dancing around one and other for far too long. He and his nobility. He didn't want to condemn her to a life without privacy. They had barely spoken since that dreaded night.
She walked by the famous window through which Professor Snape had jumped to flee from his fellow staff members when he had been Headmaster last year. McGonagall had the Snape shaped hole filled with another shade of glass to immortalise the event. The headmistress could be quite the tease.
When Hermione finally reached the Gryffindor common room she saw that it was packed with students with Parvati and Lavender in the centre of the cluster.
"Hermione! Hermione! We found it!" The two girls screamed at her as she climbed through the portrait hole.
"No doubt after some other poor soul found it that now don't have eyes..." she thought grimly but she smiled and then rolled her eyes "How nice. Have you found out what it does?" She didn't even try to lecture them about handing it over to McGonagall as she knew she would be attacked and burned at the mere suggestion. A lost cause is a lost cause...
"Oh don't give us that look Miss Head girl! We will hand it over to McGonagall when everyone has had a look" Lavender said exasperated.
"And we mean EVERYONE" Parvati said dabbing her finger in the air. "Hufflepuff, Slytherin, all!"
Hermione rolled her eyes again. "Yes, how grand of you...but have you figured out what it does?" she asked again.
"Oh that!" Parvati said and laid a hand around Hermione's shoulders. She saw that a rather large hand-mirror was being passed around the room.
"For me it shows a very handsome guy that I've never seen before standing at a beach smiling at me... But Lavender says she knows the guy she sees and he is playing football. And while some people don't want to tell who or what they see, it is clear that whoever you see is shown from their best side." Hermione nodded and seated herself between Ron and Harry.
"Hiya 'Mione" Ron said with a big grin.
"And before you ask, no we haven't looked yet." Harry said who also smiled and looked very eager to have a go at the mirror.
After a while it became clear that no one under fourth year could see anything at all in the mirror. Hermione gathered that Freja thought they where too young to know whom their love, mate, intended (or who ever the person in the mirror was) was to be. There where several other questions that she wanted answers to. Such as, if the person you saw would look in the mirror would he/she see you? What was the person in the mirror to you? Your love? Your soul mate? Or since Freja also was the god of reproduction, maybe you saw the person whom you would have great...um... babies with.
"This can't be right!" Seamus called out, clearly appalled.
"What? What's wrong?" Dean asked his friend. "Oh she's hot...who is she?" he said looking in to the mirror.
"I don't think you're seeing the same person as I am." Seamus said glumly handing the mirror to Dean who cooed over the apparently hot girl he saw.
"Naww... This one is for me" Dean said smugly "Who did you see? Umbridge?"
"Not that bad but bad enough...a Slytherin"
"Oh sorry mate, who was it?"
"I'm not telling'" Seamus looked extremely disappointed and quite irritated too. The mirror clearly didn't care about one's feelings.
Soon it was the golden trios turn. Ron went first. He stared intently at the mirror.
"Are you seeing anyone?" Harry asked him tentatively after waiting for several seconds to find out who Ron saw in the Mirror. The common room was far from silent though as several students where tying to make their non-telling friends spill who they had seen.
"Yeah..." Ron said looking up at Harry with a goofy grin. "I even know who it is."
"Really who?"
"I don't know her name but she's two years older than us, from Hufflepuff. A red head who flies for that team in Ireland... The Croks Chimeras I think."
"Oh I think I know her name" Harry said "She was a chaser for the Hufflepuff team?"
"Yeah that's the one"
"Good for you Ron, Tara Glennen is definitely pretty," then for some reason they both looked at Hermione expectantly, she wondered silently, 'They aren't asking me to confirm that this Quidditch Tara is pretty...are they?' But just in case she smiled reassuringly at them. Ron blushed and handed her the mirror.
She looked into it. There where no Quidditch players in her view, but the man who sat there was defiantly handsome. She couldn't see much because a curtain of long black hair covering his face. He slowly tilted his head up and looked in to her eyes with a mysterious grin. Her heart flipped as she stared into those black eyes. Gods he was handsome...a bit old, probably mid thirties but she would see past that for those eyes and that smile that seemed to tell her that he knew something she didn't. She gazed at the handsome man. His face was lit by a candle as he sat in a room filed with books, behind a dark desk clad in black robes....
"OH DEAR GOD!" she exclaimed in shock.
"What? Who did you see?" Harry looked nervously at her.
"What? Did you also see Umbridge, like Seamus?" Dean asked.
"I did NOT see Umbridge!" Seamus roared into Deans ear who would probably not be able to use that ear for the next few days.
Hermione didn't say anything and silently gave the mirror to Harry. He looked in to it, smiled then blushed and gave it to the one next to him.
"Who did you see Harry" Ron asked with the most knowledgeable smirk a person who believes they will become their friends future in-law can have.
"I don't know" Harry lied. Hermione saw him meet Ginny's eyes, "but she was beautiful..." Ginny looked away from him, burned.
Soon everyone had looked in to the mirror and the common room was filled with
chatter about who they saw in the mirror and if who they saw might be. They also were trying to pry information out of the others who were still refusing to say who they saw when they looked into the mirror.
"Oh come off it Hermione, we don't care who it is." Harry said soothingly.
"No of course not." agreed Ron who grinned oddly. "And think of it this way, at least it wouldn't be Snape!"
She glared at them then she smiled wearily "Yeah, at least it wasn't Snape" she lied. Thankfully she was better at concealing the truth than Harry or Ron was.
"OhShitOhShitOhShitOhShitOhShit Why Snape?"