The Head Boy's Secretary

Continuation of….


Chapter Two: The Illusion


Lightly Riddle took ahold of Alice’s wrist and led her up the main staircase. They went in silence, passing snoozing picture frames and such. Eventually they got well past the library doors.

They took so many detours and bends through wending corridors that Alice lost track of where they were.

After a few more minutes, an exasperated Alice demanded of Riddle, “Where are we? What is it your gonna' show me?”

“Hush. We’re almost there.”

Riddle had his wand out and Alice watched expectantly. The Head boy pointed his wand towards a door she hadn’t noticed was there a moment ago. A jetstream of green light and it swung on its hinges.

He beckoned quietly; “Come on…”

Alice followed him inside. The room was almost empty. Alice’s gray eyes adjusted to an ethereal blue light, coming from the midnight sky. The blue light mixed with silver moonlight pouring through the window in the back.

They past several Roman arches and came to a gigantic looking glass. There was something surreal about it. Alice couldn’t quite place her finger on it, but something about that mirror was alluring, strangely enticing.

Alice was too cautious to approach the mirror first. Riddle, his eyes only for the mirror went straight over to it. Alice observed him, thinking wrongly that he was looking at his reflection. Alice still felt full of surprise and wonder regarding why he'd taken her to this place. But she did not wish to question it until she had had a look.

Riddle just stood there, behind Alice, straight-backed and proud. Alice couldn’t see Riddle’s eyes burn with a red gleam. She wondered what was so special, but for some reason she wouldn’t ask. Not until she got her turn at the mirror. Intuition told her she needed to see what it was like for herself.

She finally asked tensely, "May I have a go?"

Quickly Riddle stepped out of the way and Alice went to the mirror. Tears stung her eyes. It wasn’t her true reflection staring back. There was her mother – young and free – a content mother tucking Alice into bed. Alice was a much younger girl. But all of this didn’t matter. All that mattered was Alice. Alice feeling love. Alice being safe.

As if from far away she heard the Head Boy whisper curiously, “What do you see?”

“I see myself….I see….A life well lived.” That was all Alice would say on it. For some reason she didn’t wish to pour her heart out to this boy. Or anyone for that matter. This wasn’t the way things were for her. Yet she yearned for it. For the comfort and security portrayed in the reflection. She felt her heart fill with sorrow. It was awareness that she didn't have the love she hungered for. This was not reality.

As if from a far away echo, she heard Riddle speak firmly, “Real life is meant to last indefinitely. Forever. At least for us magical ones. The pleasures of the body must be sustained. Indulged in. Now step away from the mirror.”

Alice found herself once again, obeying Riddle.

She watched him, as he glanced at the mirror. Alice also looked at it from a distance, neither stood before the glass now. She suddenly noticed words inscribed on the top frame.

“That’s interesting….What does 'erised stra ehru oyt ube caf'-?”

Riddle’s face screwed up but not with confusion, rather incredulous as he interrupted. “Well isn’t it obvious? ‘I show not your face but your heart’s desire’.”

“Oh,” murmured Alice, suddenly feeling stupid. Clearly Riddle had no difficulty whatsoever in figuring out the riddle. “Maybe we should look in the mirror together?”

And suddenly something around Riddle’s presence shifted and he became very strange. His handsome face contorted into a pronounced blankness. “No,” he whispered very quietly. Inside himself, Riddle garnered the absolute conviction he was meant to be very much alone.

He took another step back, withdrawing, yet his eyes never once wavered at his gaze on the mirror. “The mirror's power is ironically its greatest weakness. If one continues to penetrate its depths too long, they forfeit their intellect. Even if the powers of the heart could be shown, they are an irrelevance. They are of no matter. Even if there was proof in the world, the heart's desire remains secondary to the mind.”

“Yes,” answered Alice faintly, lost in her own private thoughts, not Riddle's. Yet she didn’t agree. But for now she really didn’t feel like getting into an argument at the moment.

Inwardly Riddle felt the mirror was bad for himself. He secretly feared losing strength. It was seldom that he returned here ever since finding it in his First year. He only came back tonight for a reason, not a longing. Feelings were trivial, even if it was true that his dearest desire was to be all-powerful for eternity.

“Ambition is a virtue, dear Alice. Never forget this…advice I infer upon you tonight.”

She nodded but couldn’t speak. She could feel herself being drawn back to the mirror.

Alice had not a clue nor care in the world right now. All she wanted was that mirror, to be alone with only the mirror for company. Nothing else mattered. She did not realize why Riddle had taken her to it.

Riddle believed he'd given her motivation to hunger for more. She would want power like his own, yet she could never attain such power as he would. Yearning to excel, perhaps inadvertently it would help her schoolwork. But Alice’s personal goals meant nothing to him. He wanted her to serve him well. Nothing more.

Alice stared at the illusion that the mirror showed, enveloped in feelings of the warmth and maternal love she secretly hungered for. And Riddle never realized that what Alice saw was the very antithesis of power. It was nothing but perhaps the truth itself, the only reality there could ever be. The one he was so oblivious to.

Alice stood, entranced for minutes that felt like hours. She became aware how the mirror held a mystical hold on her consciousness, as indeed it did.

She jumped around abruptly.

“Tom?!”

Alice scrutinized the room, squinting through the ethereal blue light. Nobody was here. He was gone.

It took forever for Alice to find her way back. She had no idea where Riddle had taken her in the castle. Was it a secret passage? With all the twists and turns it felt like Alice was in a funhouse with mirrors popping up everywhere.

That night high up in Ravenclaw tower, Alice fell into a deep sleep in which she had a wonderful dream. But out of nowhere, the dream turned terrible.

Pirouetting like a ballet dancer, an Alice who was much more graceful than in real life was dancing in a garden. It was vibrant and full of life. Beauty was everywhere, in the flowers and the grasses. The sky smiled down upon her with a sun at the heart in the center, beaming good fortune down upon Alice.

She found an unusual object hidden in the grass. Alice ran to pick it up off the ground. Before she could stop herself, Dream Alice was lifting the lid. And that was when it turned ugly.

There was a most overwhelming sensation, like she’d been injected with a Hallucinogen. The universe was pouring out of the box and showing itself to Alice. And it was terrifying. Terrifying because it was so wild, so unknowable.

The feeling from the empty box attacked and devoured Alice's insides.

She awakened, sweating and shaking. She was going to die. All there was, was fear, fear itself and she was confined in it. Alice tried to calm down, once she collected her thoughts enough that she could reflect on the dream. The dream had been nothing, nothing really. But why had it disturbed her so badly? If it was nothing?…

She snuggled under the covers with her kitten; the both of them cocooned together in the bed's haven. And Alice fell back into sleep, a dreamless one. A void of blackness. She felt numb, but at least she was whole.