Victor stood silently, watching Harry look into the mirror with eyes full of hope and happiness. It started to irritate him terribly. The unaccustomed silence, focused on Harry's reflection, weighed on him. Victor held back for a few minutes, but his patience finally snapped. He gave Harry a hefty slap on the back of his head and yelled, "Did you bring me here to watch you stare at yourself in a mirror? Harry, I didn't know you were such a narcissist!"
Harry rubbed the back of his head and looked at Victor in outrage, who continued with a smirk, "Listen, Harry, I don't want to disappoint you, but you're not good-looking. Especially your body—it looks like a sack stretched over bones. Honestly, even your hair, which is always sticking up everywhere, doesn't add any charm. Now I have the body of an athlete, and I'm not a narcissist like you!"
Harry shook his head in indignation. "No, I'm not looking at myself." He turned back to the mirror, and the smile returned to his face. His voice grew softer, almost reverent. "My family is there. My mom and dad. They're smiling and they look happy."
Noticing that Victor wasn't answering him, Harry turned around and froze in amazement. Victor was standing shirtless from the waist up, flexing his muscles like a professional bodybuilder on a stage. His biceps and abs gleamed in the dim light, and he was striking dramatic poses that it seemed he had been practicing for years.
"What are you doing? Why did you take your clothes off?" Harry asked, blinking in confusion.
Victor, still holding his dramatic poses, smiled. "I want to show you what true beauty is. Look, this is a real man! Apollo among men!" Then he raised his head and began to sing, "Sono Chi no Sadame JoJo!"
Harry's face flushed with anger. His patience was also wearing thin. He walked right up to Victor, who was still flexing his muscles, and said in a strained voice, "I'm telling you about my family, who were murdered, and you're making fun of me! Do you have a single drop of sympathy?!"
Victor immediately stopped singing and threw his head back, laughing. His laughter echoed through the empty room.
"Sympathy? God! 'My parents were killed when I was a kid, wah wah, I'm such a poor child, wah wah,'" he mimicked Harry. "I don't even know my own parents! I was abandoned when I was a baby! And my foster parents were sick bastards! See these scars?" Victor pointed to the barely visible but numerous scars on his body. "They 'rewarded' me with these! I lived in a cage from the age of two, eating garbage!Do you want to compete with which of us is longer?Come on, I'm ready!"
Harry lowered his head. He felt ashamed. His story, though tragic, was nothing compared to what Victor had said.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"That's right," Victor said, his voice softening, but still with a hint of annoyance. "You're not the only poor and miserable one here."
Harry sighed, trying to process what he had heard, and asked, "So, do you know what this mirror is? Does it show the future?"
Victor's face instantly became serious. "No. It's the Mirror of Fools, I mean, the Mirror of Erised. It doesn't show the future, but a person's deepest desire. It's an alchemical object created as a trap."
"A trap?" Harry repeated in surprise.
"Yes. It shows a person their most cherished wish, and many fools constantly look into it, losing touch with reality. They completely disappear into their illusions, noticing nothing around them. So, as sad as it sounds, Harry... you're a fool."
Harry didn't pay attention to the insult. He was too focused on Victor's words. "So it's not real? But it looked so real..." he whispered, his eyes still full of longing for the illusion he had seen.
Victor walked over to him and hugged him tightly. "No, it's a lie, Harry. A lie to make you stop living in reality and live in illusions," he whispered in his ear, pressing him against his bare chest.
Silence fell in the room. Harry felt awkward. "Victor, can you let go of me? You're naked."
Victor, not letting go, whispered, "Shhh... I know. It's okay."
Harry said uncomfortably, "I feel a bit uneasy..."
Victor released him and said, "Alright, it's fine. Sorry for yelling. I just got angry that someone was competing with me in terms of beauty." He placed both hands on Harry's shoulders, squeezed them, and looked him in the eyes. "Harry, you're not good-looking... Well, maybe a four," he paused, leaned in, and whispered, "on a scale of ten."
Harry's eye began to twitch. He took a deep breath and exhaled, "I get it."
Victor nodded. "Good." He stepped away, and Harry finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"How did you even find this mirror?" Victor asked.
"I snuck into the Restricted Section, then some professors appeared, and I ran here and found it," Harry replied.
Victor feigned surprise, as if he was hearing about it for the first time. "What were you looking for in the Restricted Section?"
"I was looking for something about Flamel," Harry whispered.
"Flamel? He's a famous alchemist," Victor said.
"An alchemist?" Harry repeated, his eyes wide with surprise.
Victor continued, "Yes, they say he's over eight hundred years old."
Victor initially didn't want to help them so as not to mess with the plot, but he understood that in their trio, Harry and Ron were completely useless, and his sweet Hermione would have to find all the information. So he decided to help her a little. Seeing that Harry was lost in thought, Victor interrupted him.
"Well, shall we go? I want to sleep."
Harry came to and said, "Yeah, let's go." As they walked toward the exit, Harry said, "Thank you, Victor. If it weren't for you, I would have gotten stuck at that mirror instead of focusing on the present."
"You're welcome. If you need me to scold you again, just call," Victor replied.
Harry smiled in annoyance, then asked, "Aren't you going to get dressed?"
Victor shook his head. "No."
"You're just going to walk through the corridor like that?"
Victor ran his hand through his hair, ostentatiously showing off his body. "Yeah, I am."
Harry sighed. As they exited into the corridor, Victor said, "This is where we part ways."
Harry nodded, wished him goodnight, put his cloak on, and disappeared.
"See you tomorrow," Victor said and went in the other direction.
Turning a corner, he stopped and began to examine his fingernails. Waiting long enough for Harry to be gone, he clapped his hands and said, "Now let's see what the deepest desire of the great Victor Moss is."
He went back into the room and approached the mirror. He whispered, Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who in the land is fairest of all? and began to look at the reflection. He started to see scenes from his past life, moments from movies and anime, mostly fight scenes. He saw Madara Uchiha from "Naruto" single-handedly taking down thousands of wizards, Ichigo Kurosaki from "Bleach" cleaving mountains with a single sword swing, and Saitama from "One-Punch Man" defeating everyone with one punch. A smile appeared on his face. He sat down on the floor and watched without taking his eyes off the mirror.
Victor sat in front of the mirror for about an hour, immersed in his dreams. Suddenly, a voice from behind him made him jump. "Another one caught by the Mirror of Fools."
Victor smiled without taking his eyes off the mirror. "Director, eavesdropping is rude." Then, realizing something, he tore his gaze from the mirror and looked at Dumbledore. "Wait... have you just been standing there like a maniac, watching me this whole time?"
Dumbledore smiled. Victor got goosebumps from that smile.
"And what did a genius like you see in the mirror?" Dumbledore asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.
Victor smiled and replied, "That's a secret."
Dumbledore laughed. "You were smiling so much; I was just very curious."
But Victor just looked at him silently. He wouldn't be able to explain that he wanted to be in those moments from movies and anime, to use cool techniques, to be like Madara. He sighed.
"Haaa..." And then it hit him. His eyes widened, and his smile became manic. "I live in a world of magic, and with magic, you can do anything you want. I just need to figure out how!"
He turned to the mirror and saw himself. He was standing there with red eyes and black patterns on them, surrounded by a bunch of wizards he was destroying with various anime techniques. He suddenly burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! What a fool! I'm such a fool! Why do I need inspiration? I've known everything for a long time! God, I know so many techniques, so many technologies, and I don't know what to invent with alchemy? An idiot!"
Dumbledore watched him laugh in surprise and said, "Laughing without a reason is strange and creepy."
Victor, still laughing, stood up and said, "I'm crazy, so it's allowed." He picked up his things and went to the exit. As he left, he said, "Goodnight, Director."
Dumbledore stood in place, looking at the door in surprise. "What was that?" he muttered to himself.
Victor suddenly opened the door and poked his head back in. "Do you happen to know where the kitchen is? I need some rock salt; I want to check something."
Dumbledore just stared at him in silence.