Scuff marks through the dust indicated that he had been there several times in the last week already, and broken pieces of furniture showed his disgust with his life during the times he'd come to vent his frustration of the world. The quiet Hogwarts attic on the East side of the castle was his only respite. His only hiding place. He liked to think he came to hide from the world, but the mirror had just told him different.

"Tell me why you're here Harry Potter," it said in a kind, even male voice, refusing even to show Harry his own reflection. A stark contrast to four years ago when he stood before it, his parents on either side, whispering encouragement into his ear.

"I hate it out there," Harry spat out, tired of the constant bullying, the constant stress and high expectations forced on him time and again. Hogwarts was supposed to be his refuge, not his hell. What did they care though? What did Umbridge care that he lived in a cupboard at home, or that he had witnessed a murder at the end of the previous year? What did Snape care if Harry worried about failing Potions and not becoming an Auror? What did Ron care about Harry's love for Ginny, or their friendship? He turned and kicked an already smashed piece of furniture then.

"Oh, of that I have no doubt," the mirror cooed. "But why are you here?"

Harry glared at it. "What do you care? You won't even show me my parents! Did you know Snape told me that my father once lit his pants on fire just because Snape got a better grade in defense? He's such a lying pratt!"

"Hm," pondered the tall mirror. "Do you believe you're here because you hate it out there? Or is it because you would like to hide from the truth?"

Paling a little bit, because he knew this was no ordinary mirror, he stopped fuming and stood completely still in front of it. "I'm not afraid of the truth, but nobody tells me the truth," he said with conviction. "They'd rather I rot and die than find out that I'm supposed to kill or be killed. They think I don't have half a brain and can't handle it." He was still fuming over the conversation he'd overheard the previous week between McGonagall and Dumbledore about the prophecy. McGonagall thought Harry ought to know, and Dumbledore thought he was too delicate to understand it. ‘Perhaps at the end of the year Minerva,' he had said, but Harry was already running as far and fast as he could go. ‘I might bloody well be dead by the end of year Dumbledore,' he'd spat out as he ran.

After the mirror had given Harry his time to think, it continued, "I beg to differ young man. I believe you would be terrified to find out the things I know about your father. Truths you've been passively denying for four years. Truths you've never even considered. Truth that you will never accept."

Feet planted firmly, eyes narrowed, Harry prepared himself for the worst, sure that this mirror too was lying to him, as all other people did. "I want to know." There, he thought triumphantly, show that stupid mirror what kind of stuff he was made of. He wasn't just a weakling like they all thought he was. He was Harry bloody Potter, boy who endured and endured and endured without a complaint.

"Do you really?" The mirror was curious now, and it irritated Harry.

"Show me." He had determined himself to follow through by now. If he backed down the arrogant mirror would think it was right, and he wasn't going to let that happen.

"And if you don't like what you learn? What will you do with the knowledge imparted to you? Will you run from it? Or will you finally embrace what you have been missing for so long?"

Despite the courage he wished to show, something else crept up in the peripherals of his emotions. What if he didn't like it? What if his father had done all the rotten things that people said he did? Harry rather liked being his father's son. He took his identity from it, his manliness, and the way he looked at life. If James could do it, so can I, he thought during exams and tests of inner strength and loyalty. Who would he be if James had been a rotten egg?

"Will you show me good things as well?" Harry queried after long moments of indecision.

The mirror was silent, and Harry was afraid it would choose this time to stop speaking to him. Occasionally it did that if it felt Harry had offended it in some way.

Finally it spoke however, and said, "I will show you the truth that you so long to see. The blindness will be lifted from your eyes and you will be forced to deal with many things you will consider unpleasant. Are you sure you wish to know?"

There was a moment's indecision before Harry stepped forward, wanting to hear the truth more than he'd ever wanted to before. He was going to see his parents, he thought, he needed to see them, to understand what had happened to them. "Tell me," he said, forgetting his need not to sound as if he were begging. "Tell me please."

"Very well," the mirror said, and there on it's smooth surface, an image appeared so vividly of a street with cars driving by that Harry was sure he was looking through a window.

"It's so... real." He reached forward to touch his hand to the glass, but the mirror stopped him with, "That's because it is real."

He withdrew his hand. "It's a real memory?"

"It's the real past."

He took another step back. He hated it when the infernal object made a game with its words and talked him in circles with a riddle.

"I don't understand."

"You will. Touch the glass, and be transported into the past."

"Into a memory?"

"Into the living breathing past boy. I am not a pensieve, but a portal."

Harry cleared his throat.

"And... and when I want to come back?"

"You may ask to come back when you discover the truth."

Harry was disconcerted. He wanted so desperately to be in the know... to be a part of what his parents had been, and here he felt like a child, uncertain and suddenly afraid.

"You may of course choose to continue denying the truth, only this time you are denying yourself the possibility of unveiling your sight. There is no other part played in this but your own."

That struck Harry hard. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Ron and Hermione, even Snape. They all wanted to keep him in the dark. Now was his chance to bypass all the lies and misgivings, and prove himself worthy to know.

"Tell me," he said again, and reached forward to touch the cool surface with his hand, but instead of glass, there was only air, and he was standing on a sunny street.