[Episode 52071] [Episode 52071]The charm had been sealed when the woman and her husband took in the newly orphaned infant boy, their nephew. As long as the boy could call home the place where resided his mother’s blood – his aunt – there, he could not be harmed or even touched by the dark wizard or his agents.
This was old magic, this protective magic built from blood. It was a good plan. It was a plan that would work. It would even work well.
Fate had other ideas. Fate had **better** ideas.
~_~
The sorceress Lina Inverse had never heard of the Mirror of Erised, with good reason, for it did not exist at all in her universe. Had she ever an occasion to look upon herself in it, she would likely praise it and damn it in the same breath. Then she would most likely destroy it in a fit of temper. Afterwards she would regret the act.
The Mirror of Erised was both a blessing and a curse. Wizards and witches had wasted away before it, or been driven to insanity, not knowing if what it showed was real...or even possible.
The mirror showed nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of the person’s heart.
Lina Inverse had very nearly everything she wanted, or nearly everything that she had believed she wanted at one time. She was extremely wealthy, possessing vast hordes of gold and silver and precious gems. She owned a massive collection of tomes on magic. She had many other possessions, many of which were their only example. She even had a body with some shape now. Granted, she was not as voluptuous as either her elder sister Luna, or Queen Amelia wil Tesla of Seiryuun; but she no longer had the stick body she had as a youth, having developed some in her early twenties. Now thirty, years after she’d quit adventuring, she was considered by many to be quite pretty.
But Lina Inverse was not happy; even though she possessed all of what would have made her happy ten years ago.
Lina was lonely, and alone. She’d been in love, once, with her swordsman companion Gourry Gabriev. But Gourry was dead. Xelloss, the Mazoku lord, had killed him for his own amusement and allegedly some higher purpose that was of course...a secret. Lina had been utterly incensed when Xelloss murdered Gourry, and had dedicated the entirety of her magic and her will to finding a way to avenge her friend. She succeeded. Xelloss was dead, falling to a spell designed to attack and destroy his spiritual essence.
There was her comrade Zelgadiss Greywords. But he lived far away, and didn’t much like anyone’s company, even Lina’s. Princess Amelia wil Tesla of Seiryuun had become Queen Amelia wil Tesla of Seiryuun. As queen, she had little time to spend with Lina, who visited rarely, and then only for short times.
There were no longer any others whom she truly considered friends.
The worse blow had come when she’d learned that she was totally barren. She would never be able to become pregnant, never. Not that she’d done THAT with anyone but Gourry. And Gourry was dead.
If Lina Inverse could look into the Mirror of Erised, she would see herself holding a blonde-haired reddish-eyed baby girl in her arms...and Gourry at her side.
But it would never happen, not that she could ever see the image.
~_~
Fate had other plans.
~_~
Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, sat in his chair at his desk in his office, staring at the letter in his hands but not really reading it. He’d already read it. Many times.
It had been to the point: “The prophesied child will be safer with one of my own. She will protect him. He will return when he is ready to be trained. Fear not.”
It had been signed with an ornately scripted L. There was no date. It had not appeared in an envelope, and no owl had brought it to him. It had simply appeared on his desk.
And when he made his checks, the evidence was incontrovertible. Harry Potter was gone; vanished from Privet Drive.
If this ever got out...no. It simply would not.
~_~
A certain black-haired, green-eyed, lightning bolt-scarred infant boy lay asleep in a crib in the small bedroom of an unexpected mother.
And although Lina Inverse had never heard of the Mirror of Erised, didn’t know what it was, and didn’t know what it did, she unconsciously knew that if she looked into it now, she would see herself exactly as she was.
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(Posted Mon, 01 Sep 2003 04:09)
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