Maurise had no idea what the "mirror" Harry kept rambling about actually was, but judging by the boy's desperate expression, it was evidently a matter of life and death. Or at least, a matter of severe detention.
Late that night, Maurise arrived at the designated meeting spot near the staircase of Gryffindor Tower to wait for the Saviour of the Wizarding World.
Hogwarts in the dead of winter was unforgivingly cold. Even indoors, every exhaled breath bloomed into a faint white mist. Maurise wrapped his robes tighter around himself, thankful for the Warming Charm he had cast earlier, and slipped quietly into the shadows of the corner.
At his feet, Tin was leisurely licking a paw. The little cat was always irritatingly energetic at night.
Suddenly, Tin froze. His ears twitched, and he turned his sharp gaze toward the spiral staircase.
Almost simultaneously, a dull thud echoed from the stairs, the distinct sound of a solid object meeting a solid wall, followed immediately by a sharp, suppressed intake of breath.
"Harry?" Maurise whispered into the darkness.
"It's me... ouch," Harry's voice floated down from thin air.
Harry shuffled down the remaining steps, looking rather dishevelled as he materialized. His glasses were askew, he was rubbing a red spot on his forehead, and he clutched a fluid, silvery fabric in his hands.
"Sorry," Harry muttered, straightening his glasses with a grimace. " The staircase moved right as I stepped off. I wasn't paying attention and walked straight into the wall."
Maurise's gaze fell upon the shimmering fabric in Harry's hand. He raised an eyebrow. "Is that an Invisibility Cloak?"
"Yeah," Harry nodded, breathlessly.
Maurise felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to shake Harry's hand and say, Let's be friends, Mr. Moneybags.
He had seen these in Diagon Alley. Even the shoddiest ones cost hundreds of Galleons, and those usually faded after a few years. But this? This looked like the real deal, woven from the pelt of a Demiguise. Genuine, high-end magical gear.
Harry shook the cloak out, the silver material rippling like water. "Come on, Maurise. If we both squeeze under this, no one will see us."
"Oh, don't worry about it."
Maurise shook his head and drew his wand. He tapped himself on the head, murmuring a Disillusionment Charm.
Instantly, his body took on the colour and texture of the wall behind him. He didn't vanish completely, but he became a human chameleon, a blurry outline that was nearly impossible to spot unless you were squinting directly at it.
The rich rely on equipment; the poor rely on technique. It was a fair trade-off.
Harry stared at the empty space where Maurise had been standing, clearly stunned. He hadn't expected a first-year to pull off something that advanced.
"Where are you taking me, anyway?" Maurise's voice drifted out from the void.
"You'll see," Harry whispered. He threw the cloak over his shoulders, leaving only his disembodied head floating in the air. "Follow me."
Harry moved toward the marble staircase, and Maurise followed silently. To anyone watching, it would have been a terrifying sight: a bespectacled head bobbing through the corridors, trailed by a shimmering distortion in the air.
They moved quickly through the corridors, nearly colliding with Filch and his skeletal cat, Mrs. Norris, on the second floor.
Fortunately, Maurise had brought backup.
Tin, taking offense at Mrs. Norris's existence, launched a verbal assault of hisses that successfully drew Filch's attention away from the invisible students. While the caretaker chased the cats, Harry and Maurise slipped away.
Finally, they stopped before a slightly ajar door on the third floor.
"I remember this place," Maurise whispered, eyeing the door. "It's a disused classroom." He paused, logic getting the better of him. "Harry, why exactly couldn't we come here during the day? It's not in the Restricted Section. There's no 'Do Not Enter or You Will Die a Painful Death' sign."
Harry fell silent for a moment.
It was a good point. Why did he feel the need to sneak around at midnight? It was the Christmas holidays; the castle was empty during the day. Perhaps the mirror had already started to scramble his brain, making him crave the secrecy of the dark.
"Let's just go in," Harry said dryly, pushing the door open and stepping inside with an eagerness that bordered on manic.
Maurise shrugged, an invisible gesture wasted on the room, and closed the door behind them.
He had been in here once before, mostly by accident while looking for a toilet. The room hadn't changed much. Desks and chairs were piled haphazardly against the walls like a barricade of furniture. The blackboard was still covered in dusty chalk scribbles from a lesson taught decades ago. The air smelled of chalk dust and abandonment.
The only new addition was the object dominating the center of the room.
It was a magnificent mirror, as high as the ceiling, with an ornate gold frame and standing on two clawed feet. It looked entirely out of place among the broken desks.
Harry walked straight to it, dropping the cloak and staring into the glass like a man possessed.
Maurise, however, did not move toward the mirror. Instead, he turned his head toward the dark corner of the room.
"Good evening, Headmaster Dumbledore," Maurise said, his tone resigned.
Sitting on one of the old desks against the wall, perfectly sized for a wizard of his height, was Albus Dumbledore. He was watching them with the calm stillness of a ghost.
So that was why the door was ajar. It wasn't carelessness; it was an invitation.
Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling in the gloom, and slid off the desk. "If you had arrived thirty minutes later, you might have missed me."
Maurise cancelled his Disillusionment Charm, reappearing with a polite nod. "Understood, Headmaster. We shall endeavour to be tardy next time."
"I think," Dumbledore said gently, "it would be better if there were no next time."
Harry jumped about a foot in the air. He spun around, his face draining of colour as he spotted the Headmaster.
"P-Professor Dumbledore!" Harry stammered, looking for all the world like a niffler caught in a jewellery box. "I... I didn't..."
"It is quite alright, Harry."
Dumbledore walked slowly toward the boy, his gaze drifting past him to the reflective surface. "I see you have already discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised."
The Mirror of Erised?
Maurise's curiosity piqued. He stepped forward, standing beside Harry to look into the glass.
The reflection that greeted him was... excessive.
In the mirror, Maurise was standing on a diving board. Below him wasn't water, but a literal ocean of gold Galleons, piling up into mountains that stretched to the horizon.
And his face... Maurise winced. His reflection wore a smile that could only be described as "aggressively wealthy." It was the stupid grin of a man who had just bought a small country.
The Maurise in the mirror waved at the real Maurise, then pinched his nose and prepared to dive into the sea of gold coins.
The real Maurise felt the corner of his mouth twitch.
'Stop it', he told his reflection.
Everyone knows gold is a solid metal. This wasn't a cartoon. You cannot swim in coins. If that idiot in the mirror actually jumped, he wouldn't be swimming; he would be shattering every bone in his body. It would be a one-way ticket to St Mungo's for a full-body skeletal regrowth potion.
Maurise turned away from the absurdity and looked at Dumbledore. "What exactly is this thing?"
"Would you like to guess?" Dumbledore asked, blinking playfully.
"I suspect," Maurise said without hesitation, "that it shows a person's delusions."
"A very cynical interpretation, but close, Mr. Black," Dumbledore chuckled. "Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is. It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts."
Dumbledore placed a gentle hand on Harry's shoulder. "So, Harry... I assume you saw your family?"
Harry nodded stiffly. That was why he had come back, night after night.
He glanced sideways at Morris.
Harry knew Morris was like him—an orphan, or at least estranged from his parents. Perhaps even worse off, considering that he did not seem to have any family at all. That was why Harry had brought him here. He wanted to share this. He was certain Morris would see his own parents standing beside him in the glass.
Morris, however, had a strange expression on his face.
'The deepest desire of my heart?'
He refused to believe his soul was that shallow. Surely, he didn't just want money. Yes, Galleons were shiny and solved 99% of life's problems, but was that it? Was his soul just a cash register?
Maurise frowned. He didn't believe it. He turned back to the Mirror of Erised, focusing his mind. Look deeper, he commanded.
And suddenly, the image shifted.
The ocean of gold vanished in an instant.
Replacing the coin-filled vault was absolute, suffocating darkness. It was a void without end.
The Maurise in the mirror was now floating alone in this infinite blackness.
Then, the change began.
Behind his reflection, deep in the furthest reaches of the void, a single star ignited.
Then a second. Then a third.
In the span of a few heartbeats, the darkness was shattered. The void was replaced by a swirling, majestic nebula. The Maurise in the mirror was no longer standing in nothingness; he was suspended in the center of a galaxy.
It was vast. It was brilliant. It was infinite.
Maurise watched the swirling cosmic dust and the burning suns, and a genuine smile touched his lips.
"That's more like it," he whispered to himself.
Gold was just a resource. It was fuel. But this?
"My destination," Maurise murmured, his eyes reflecting the galaxies before him, "is the sea of stars."