Robbery

As expected, Aya had eaten too much.

She was uncomfortably full, and after spending the whole afternoon burning it off in the snow, she had just about managed to walk without holding her stomach. Then she saw the Christmas cake Duoduo had sent to her dormitory-red, white, and green, decorated with yellow star-shaped biscuits—and couldn't resist swallowing the whole thing.

Now she was too uncomfortable to sleep.

Clutching her stomach, she slipped out of the dormitory, ready for a good round of exercise to help her digest.

When she pushed open the Fat Lady's portrait, the Fat Lady was already asleep. Aya wandered along, planning to clear out the castle's shiny spots from top to bottom tonight. A large space had opened up in her backpack, and she needed to fill it.

The Weasley twins had borrowed Xiaohua several times, and Xiaohua had memorized quite a few secret passages in the castle. Aya had more territory to explore now, and the junk she could find at shiny spots in those passages was a little better in quality.

Aya had just come out of a secret passage when she heard Filch's hurried footsteps, and she retreated inside.

"Professor, someone was in the library's Restricted Section tonight!" Filch said to someone.

Snape's cold voice rang out. "The Restricted Section? Then they can't have gone far. We'll surely catch them."

Aya heard the two of them walk on and turn a corner. Only when there was no sound outside did she push open the passage's exit door and step out.

Great, no one's here. Time to keep looting!

Aya continued forward. The safest place was wherever Snape and Filch had just patrolled, so all she had to do was follow them!

As soon as she rounded the corner, Aya saw a classroom door standing half-open, coyly inviting her in.

She had suspected it might be a trap, but—it was open!

She pushed the door straight open and went in!

Hmm, it was an abandoned classroom that looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in a long time. The desks and chairs were pushed against the walls. Aya wandered around the room, then stopped in front of a large mirror.

What caught Aya's attention wasn't anything else, but the only shiny spot in the room, which was on the mirror.

But once she got closer, the mirror itself caught her attention.

What a huge dressing mirror!

The mirror was magnificent, reaching all the way to the ceiling. It had an ornate golden frame and stood on two clawlike feet. A line of jumbled words was engraved at the top-Aya chose to ignore it. In short, it looked completely out of place in this room.

It was meant to be hers!

Without another word, Aya grabbed one side of the frame and stored it in her backpack.

An abandoned classroom with an unlocked door and a beautiful mirror that didn't belong there-Aya knew this was a reward. A reward for dutifully coming out to collect shiny spots even on Christmas!

Happily, Aya collected the shiny spot left behind after she took the mirror, and found a small handheld makeup mirror.

It looked very much like the large mirror from before, seemingly in the same style. Aya saw an eagle design on the back and used the mirror to look at herself. Hmm, her face was as expressionless as ever.

"Ahem, ahem." A familiar voice rang out, and Aya's expressionless face visibly fell. She turned around, and sure enough, it was Dumbledore.

"Headmaster, you're out wandering at night." Aya accused him first.

"It's the Christmas holidays, Miss Hawthorne. Besides, you're the one wandering at night." Dumbledore hadn't expected to come here to lie in wait for Harry and catch Aya instead. "You can't take that mirror away."

"No, I won't give it back." Aya refused. Her eyes darted around, and she thought of the enormous dressing mirror, then looked at the little mirror she'd just found. "I can give you this one. They're both the same!"

"They're not the same..." Before Dumbledore could finish, Aya tossed the mirror to him. Dumbledore caught it on reflex and looked at it, his eyes widening slightly. "All right, you're right, they're both mirrors. Then answer one more question for me."

"Go ahead." Aya had already pulled out her wand and was on guard, ready to flee with her loot at any moment.

"What did you see in the mirror just now?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"...Headmaster Dumbledore, the mirror's right in your hand. Can you see anything else in it?" Aya looked at him suspiciously, then glanced at the half-moon spectacles on his nose and offered a sincere suggestion. "Perhaps you should get a new pair of glasses, like Harry's. Those half-sized ones you have now probably aren't much help."

"Did you see yourself?" Dumbledore's voice didn't change.

"What else?" Aya swished her tail. Was Dumbledore stalling for time? Was he waiting for Snape to come and catch her together?!

He really was a red name!

So scheming!

Dumbledore looked at the girl, who was already growing restless-beastfolk were so easy to read—and smiled. He stepped away from the exit he'd been blocking. "Please?"

"Goodbye, Headmaster. Merry Christmas!" Polite Aya quickly took her leave. She was flexible when it came to using respectful forms of address.

The Mirror of Erised was part of his private collection, and he didn't particularly mind whether he gave it away. He had too much already, and besides, Aya had exchanged it for a small mirror with the same effect-even if he refused, he couldn't get the mirror out of Aya's mysterious backpack. His main concern was that the mirror could bewitch people. Although the object itself was neither good nor evil, many people became fascinated and obsessed with the beautiful scenes in it.

Last Halloween, McGonagall had reported that Aya's cat had knocked out the Troll. But afterward, Snape had told him what happened, and only then did he learn how horrific the scene had been. Bloody would have been an apt word for it-even if the victim was a Troll—which was why Dumbledore had been determined to ask what Aya saw in the mirror.

Watching Aya hurry away, he smiled and waved his hand. A desk flew into the spot where the Mirror of Erised had stood. He placed the small mirror on the desk and turned to leave. Before closing the classroom door, his eyes casually swept toward a corner.

Aya's nighttime outing came to a hasty end. Dumbledore had come out in person to catch students wandering at night, so what else could she do? Still, she'd gained something tonight, and that was wonderful. Once she got home, she would put the mirror in her entryway-though it was a little big for her small home, she liked it!

After a good night's sleep, Aya walked into the common room feeling refreshed and found Harry looking like a panda.

"Is that how you raise your own value?" Aya asked, puzzled. She knew about pandas because there was a panda onesie among the summoned beasts' costumes, and players said they were China's national treasure and worth a tremendous amount.

"No, I just... I just stayed up last night." Harry yawned, looking rather down.

He had been in that classroom last night too, and had seen Aya's act of robbery. He also knew that she might really be able to ask Dumbledore about Nicolas Flamel. But after they had both left, he had gone over to look curiously at the small mirror on the desk, and every other thought had vanished from his mind.

The mirror showed him his family-besides his mother with her red hair and his father with his messy black hair, there were other members of the Potter family. They waved and smiled at him, tears in their eyes. It was so real that he couldn't help turning around with the mirror, but there was nothing behind him.

He had stayed there almost all night. When the castle began to wake, he hesitated for a long time but ultimately didn't take the mirror with him. Now, though, his mind was full of it. He wanted to ask Aya whether she had seen her own parents in the mirror, but he had also heard her conversation with Dumbledore last night. Aya had only seen herself.

Why?

He and Aya were both orphans, with no family and no parents. Why could he see his parents in the mirror while Aya showed nothing out of the ordinary?

Was it because... they weren't real?

He couldn't let it go and had already told Ron about it, though he didn't mention Aya snatching the large mirror. He only said he had come across a magical mirror in which he could see his parents.

"All right, panda, why aren't you going to eat?" Aya pulled her robes around herself. "Your stomach shouldn't still be full after a night's sleep, should it?"

Harry waited for Ron to come out, and they went to the Great Hall for breakfast together.

Aya felt that time flew after Christmas. Apart from Harry looking half-asleep every day and spending less and less time in the common room, Aya felt that her holiday seemed to be coming to an end.

But she hadn't written a single word of her homework yet.

Clutching her head, she took a large stack of parchment and textbooks and practically took root in front of the fireplace. Percy became her favorite person for the time being: all she had to do was stare at him, and he would help her with her homework.

Percy was clearly fond of this younger schoolmate who watched him so eagerly and pitifully, as though he were her last hope. He sat beside her reviewing his lessons, proudly waiting for Aya to ask him questions. If the Weasley twins hadn't caused trouble from time to time, it would have been a perfect scene of a helpful older student and a respectful younger one.

The day before Hermione returned, Aya finished catching up on her homework. Of course, her holiday had come to an end too.

At the end, Percy looked at her essay, which could not have been any more padded, and recalled how he had guided her studies. He wearily put down the parchment. He took back what he'd said two days ago: Aya was the most difficult student. Incorrigible wasn't an adjective when it came to her; it was what she was.

He had told her over and over how to write an essay, but Aya still wrote it her own way, at most weaving in the points she needed to know. There were lines like "As everyone knows, the Goblin Rebellion is something everyone knows about." He felt he'd done his best.

Partway through, when he realized something was wrong, he had discreetly asked about Aya's usual grades. The answer was that her essays were worse than Ron's, but her practical marks were pretty good.

Hmm... averaged out, at least she's about the same as Ron.

After Hermione returned, the first thing she did was ask about their progress investigating Nicolas Flamel. Both boys shook their heads.

"Then what did you do all holiday?" Hermione asked coldly, looking at the blank homework sheets spread out in front of the two boys.

"We came across a magical mirror," Harry said, looking cautiously at Aya as he spoke.

Aya was gnawing on some jerky. Feeling his gaze, she looked up in confusion and saw Harry wearing a strange expression—he looked apprehensive. She spun around, blocking his view of her jerky. She wasn't going to share!

"...Anyway, we went to look at that mirror for several days. We stayed up at night and had no energy during the day-" Harry was speechless, then continued.

"You went wandering at night three days in a row?!" Hermione shrieked quietly. "What if Filch had caught you?"

"It's all right. Someone sent me my dad's Invisibility Cloak for Christmas. We used that!" Harry finally sounded a little happy as he said this.

"That was so dangerous!" Hermione complained. "Aya, why didn't you keep an eye on them?"

"I had to go wandering at night too. When would I have had time to watch them?" Aya said with her mouth full. "I didn't want to anyway."

"...You went wandering at night too!" Hermione clenched the book in her hands. "How many days?"

"I don't know. I'm illiterate. I can't count," Aya said.

Defeated by her shameless attitude, Hermione went back to urging everyone to search the library for information about Nicolas Flamel. Since the two boys had found nothing, Aya was taken along too, as someone who knew about it.

"I know I've seen that name somewhere else!" Harry pouted. After classes resumed, Hermione had them search through books borrowed from the library during their ten-minute breaks. "But it definitely wasn't in the library!"

"But your brain didn't remember it." Hermione skimmed through a book at great speed, paying no attention to what he said.

Aya had tissues stuffed up her nose. It was the break during Dark Magic Defence Class, and Quirrell was still sitting at the teacher's desk. He looked a little unwell, his head bowed low as he leafed through a textbook with his back to the students below.

"Can I skip the reading?" Aya asked nasally.

"Merlin, this is so important. Can't you show a little more enthusiasm?" Ron whispered.

"But it was so important, and you didn't look during Christmas either," Aya retorted. Ron had nothing to say to that. "And why won't you let me ask a professor? The answer is right in front of your faces, but you choose to look at the back of someone's head instead. I don't understand."

"Whatever else you say, Snape has been teaching here for a long time," Hermione explained in a low voice. "What if we alert him?"

"Then I'll ask Headmaster Dumbledore."

"The Headmaster wouldn't believe us!" Ron seized on that. "Compared to us, Snape's been a professor for years, and we've only been at school for half a year!"

Aya pursed her lips. She thought about how she suspected Dumbledore was a red name and said no more.

But she really couldn't get into the books at all. She often felt that they had been given a Sleeping Charm or a Draught of Living Death. Whenever she read for a long time, her eyelids felt heavier than ever.

Aya successfully learned to breathe through her mouth and slept through the entire Dark Magic Defence Class. If Hermione hadn't come to her rescue in time, Madam Pince would have made her pay for the book she was reading.

When the bell rang, Aya raised her head, rubbed her eyes, and slurped up her drool. Then she turned to look at Harry, who was leaving alone. "Where's he going?"

"Quidditch practice," Hermione replied. She had given up trying to wake Aya in class, because she couldn't wake someone pretending to be asleep. "Wood's been really intense lately."

"Because if they win one more match, they'll have a chance to face Slytherin in the match after next," Ron said. He was the only one who knew much about it. "Then they'll have a chance to beat them. Wood's been waiting for that chance for a long time."

"Oh..." Aya didn't have much of an impression of Slytherin, apart from Draco and the jeers they sometimes gave when Gryffindor lost points in Potions Class. "Is beating them important?"

"Because Gryffindor hasn't won in seven years." Hermione did know about that.

"And Wood's a Quidditch fanatic. His goal after graduation is to become a professional player," Ron said. "He has to make plans for when he graduates, right?"

"He really has a goal," Hermione said, a little envious.