Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J. K. Rowling [358]
Harry pulled some crumpled robes out of the very bottom of his trunk to make way for folded ones and, as he did so, noticed a badly wrapped package lying in a corner of it. He could not think what it was doing there. He bent down, pulled it out from underneath his trainers, and examined it.
He realized what it was within seconds. Sirius had given it to him just inside the front door of twelve Grimmauld Place. Use it if you need me, all right?
Harry sank down onto his bed and unwrapped the package. Out fell a small, square mirror. It looked old; it was certainly dirty. Harry held it up to his face and saw his own reflection looking back at him.
He turned the mirror over. There on the reverse side was a scribbled note from Sirius.
This is a two-way mirror. I’ve got the other. If you need to speak to me, just say my name into it; you’ll appear in my mirror and I’ll be able to talk in yours. James and I used to use them when we were in separate detentions.
And Harry’s heart began to race. He remembered seeing his dead parents in the Mirror of Erised four years ago. He was going to be able to talk to Sirius again, right now, he knew it —
He looked around to make sure there was nobody else there; the dormitory was quite empty. He looked back at the mirror, raised it in front of his face with trembling hands, and said, loudly and clearly, “Sirius.”
His breath misted the surface of the glass. He held the mirror even closer, excitement flooding through him, but the eyes blinking back at him through the fog were definitely his own.
He wiped the mirror clear again and said, so that every syllable rang clearly through the room, “Sirius Black!”
Nothing happened. The frustrated face looking back out of the mirror was still, definitely, his own. …
Sirius didn’t have his mirror on him when he went through the archway, said a small voice in Harry’s head. That’s why it’s not working. …
Harry remained quite still for a moment, then hurled the mirror back into the trunk where it shattered. He had been convinced, for a whole, shining minute, that he was going to see Sirius, talk to him again. …
Disappointment was burning in his throat. He got up and began throwing his things pell-mell into the trunk on top of the broken mirror —
But then an idea struck him. … A better idea than a mirror … A much bigger, more important idea … How had he never thought of it before — why had he never asked?
He was sprinting out of the dormitory and down the spiral staircase, hitting the walls as he ran and barely noticing. He hurtled across the empty common room, through the portrait hole and off along the corridor, ignoring the Fat Lady, who called after him, “The feast is about to start, you know, you’re cutting it very fine!”
But Harry had no intention of going to the feast …
How could it be that the place was full of ghosts whenever you didn’t need one, yet now …
He ran down staircases and along corridors and met nobody either alive or dead. They were all, clearly, in the Great Hall. Outside his Charms classroom he came to a halt, panting and thinking disconsolately that he would have to wait until later, until after the end of the feast …
But just as he had given up hope he saw it — a translucent somebody drifting across the end of the corridor.
“Hey — hey Nick! NICK!”
The ghost stuck its head back out of the wall, revealing the extravagantly plumed hat and dangerously wobbling head of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington.
“Good evening,” he said, withdrawing the rest of his body from the solid stone and smiling at Harry. “I am not the only one who is late, then? Though,” he sighed, “in rather different senses, of course …”
“Nick, can I ask you something?”
A most peculiar expression stole over Nearly Headless Nick’s face as he inserted