The New Referee

                                    

                                          
y/n knew that the mirror wasn't good for her, but she couldn't help but find herself sneaking out to go and see her parents. It wasn't like she could talk to them, but just seeing them looking at her was enough. On the third night after Christmas, y/n once again went to go and see her parents. She was sitting on the floor, just staring at them, when she felt someone behind her. She quickly got up and pointed her wand at the intruder, but felt very rude when she saw that Professor Dumbledore was stood at the back of the room, not startled by her wand at all. 
                          
"Pardon me, sir, I didn't know it was you" y/n rushed as she hurriedly put her wand away.
                          
"That is quite alright y/n. I can see you too have discovered the delights of the mirror of Erised." Dumbledore said calmly, stepping closer to y/n and the mirror.

                          
"Erised?" y/n said and looked back to the words written on top of the mirror. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. After looking closer at the jibberish she saw a pattern. It was written backwards! "I show you not your face but your heart's desires," y/n said and turned back to the headmaster.
                          
"You certainly are a clever girl if you figured that out. I trust you now realise what this mirror does?" Dumbledore said smiling at y/n.

                          
"It shows us the thing that we long for most. What our hearts long for" y/n replied looking up at Dumbledore and he had a twinkle in eye
                          
"You could not be closer to the truth. It shows us nothing more and nothing less than our deepest most desperate desires of our hearts. You y/n, like Mr Potter, have never met your family, and you see your parents standing with you. But I must warn you y/n the mirror gives us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, been driven to insanity even." Dumbledore explained and y/n looked back to the mirror, now scared if it would drive her crazy. "That is why the mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, and I must ask you y/n, not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that, y/n" Dumbledore looked at her over his half crescent spectacles.

                          
"Yes sir" she responded,
                          
"Good, now you best be off to bed, " he said, and just as she was about to head back to the dungeons, y/n saw Dumbledore looking into the mirror. She was going to ask what he saw but realised it was a very personal question.

                          
------)OOO(------
                          
It had been about a week since term had started up again and y/n had done what Dumbledore had requested and did not go out in search of the mirror. y/n would have like to think that she had moved on from what she saw in the mirror, but every night she had the same dream of seeing her parents and then a bright green flash and a woman's screams, her mother's screams. And Harry wasn't doing much better. He too had haunting nightmares and now they had matching blue bags hanging under their eyes. Harry had taken to Ron the mirror one night as well and so he knew what Harry saw, but it took awhile for y/n to tell both him and Hermione about her parents and what she saw in the mirror and her nightmares. She was glad that they were supportive, but she found that they were being extra nice to her all of a sudden, and she hated it. She hated receiving pity or people's sympathy, it made y/n feel weak and lower than everyone else because of something that happened more than a decade ago.

                          
Something that y/n was pleased about, was Quidditch practice recommencing. She and the rest of the team were on edge. If Gryffindor beat Hufflepuff this weekend, they would overtake Slytherin in the race for the Quidditch cup, something that nobody had been able to do in 7 years according to Flint, who was being extra hard on the team during practices. They trained for twice as long, no matter the weather, and no matter if the pitch was already taken up by the Gryffindor team. The two rivals were somehow sharing the pitch for the practice and you could see the two captains glare at each other every now and then. y/n was practising her target practice when she heard two brooms zoom up behind her. She looked behind her to see two fellow beaters, Fred and George, come up on either side of her. "Working hard boys or hardly working?" y/n said as she hit the bludger back to the other Slytherin beater in the opposite side of the pitch.