Chapter 400: Seeing the Mirror Again

"Someone is using the Room of Requirement; who could it be?" Ron said with some expectation, "Shall we knock on the door and try?"

"No, if the one who opens the door is McLaggen, it would be awkward." Harry said calmly, "We just knew he and Marietta left the common room to be intimate elsewhere, but the nearest empty classrooms have no movement, so let's forget it for now."

Ron didn't refute. He walked over, leaned on the railing, and said gloomily: "Alright, then where shall we go next?"

"Shall we go to the library?" Harry also leaned on the railing, right next to him, and then, he easily saw from Ron's eyes that he didn't want to go to the library.

"Yes, that's not a good idea either." Harry denied his own proposal, "Perhaps Hermione really doesn't like Quidditch."

"Maybe she doesn't like Kamen Riders either." Ron's tone carried a hint of frustration, "Everything I care about is what she doesn't like; I think this is very obvious."

"But, if you ask me to forget her, I can't do it either—really, clearly she is just an arrogant and self-righteous bookworm, always saying a bunch of Muggle words, and just looks average." Ron said while pulling a loose thread on his sleeve, "Still not as good as that white-haired one."

"Do you still have feelings for Elena?" Harry asked curiously.

"Putting aside everything else, I admit she is indeed quite beautiful." Ron threw the loose thread down the stairs, "But beauty is just one thing, isn't it? Besides... besides I don't like her white hair either."

"Actually, she doesn't have white hair; it's light gold, very light gold, like white in places with bright light." Harry said for the sake of talking, "Like Luna, that's the most standard light gold; it must have a bit of golden yellow to look good."

"Luna, sigh." Ron looked at the ceiling, "She lives very happily; I really feel envious. Why do we have so many pressures on us, and these children in the lower grade are so relaxed and happy?"

"The pressure we bear is so that they don't have to have pressure." Harry said calmly.

Ron seemed to be a bit more encouraged. He asked seriously: "Do you think it's like this? If I want to become a hero, are these all necessary?"

"No." Harry said immediately, but he paused and added with some uncertainty: "In the usual sense, there is no such necessity—but if you are talking about the kind of 'hero' in Zhang Qiu's mouth, and the kind linked to the concept of 'Kamen Rider', perhaps it really is."

"Yes, that's exactly what she said," Ron said with unfocused eyes, "Heroes are always lonely..."

A slight, close-at-hand sound of footsteps interrupted Ron's emotion. They immediately turned their heads and happened to see another person with light golden hair walking out of the Room of Requirement.

"Draco?" Harry revealed a fake smile, "Were you using the Room of Requirement just now?"

"Uh, yes," he muttered, his expression a bit unnatural, "Nice to see you, Harry."

"Are you here alone?" Ron narrowed his eyes and said.

"Sorry, I have to go back." He ran away quickly, without saying another word.

"I don't think this is normal, Harry; he definitely didn't do anything good." Ron said with dissatisfaction.

"Yes, very suspicious." Harry echoed him. In fact, he felt Draco couldn't do anything too outrageous, because he had no motivation, not much courage, and most importantly, didn't have that ability.

"I want to enter the room Draco just entered." Ron muttered while pacing in the corridor. It seemed the Room of Requirement didn't have privacy awareness; it soon revealed a big door.

However, when Harry and Ron walked in, they found the scene in front of them was a bit familiar: this was the place where things were hidden. A faint sense of unease lingered in Harry's heart; intuition told him this seemed not to be a good thing.

They walked slowly along the road, passed various piled tables, chairs, and cabinets, passed piles of dusty books and broken furniture, and then, saw that statue from afar, with the diadem made into a Horcrux still properly worn on its head.

"The diadem is very safe, and Snape also cast protective spells." Harry thought with some amusement, "I don't even know what I was panicking about just now."

"Wow, wow, wow..." Ron let out an exclamation of surprise, "I guess Malfoy was looking at this thing."

Harry looked back. Between the old cabinets piled into a small mountain, there was a huge glass covered with some dirt, and the glass was surrounded by a dark golden frame. It took Harry about five seconds to recognize what this was.

"Mirror of Erised?" He reached out to touch the gray mirror surface with a kind of joy of reunion, "Was it placed here? We didn't notice it several times coming and going before."

"This is the room where Hogwarts hides things; of course, it didn't say only students can hide things here, right?" Ron stared at the mirror surface without blinking, "Perhaps it was Dumbledore who hid the mirror here."

"It's not impossible." Harry remembered Ariana; he knew Dumbledore also had the need to look at the mirror.

"By the way, Ron, what did you see?"

"I saw myself becoming an Auror, um..." His face was a bit red, stammering, "That's it."

Harry guessed he also saw some things that made his heart move in the mirror, but he didn't expose him, and instead said: "Zhang Qiu demonstrated another usage of the magic mirror to me before; you can see anything you want to see through it. For example, I want to know how we should defeat Moon Rider now."

When Harry concentrated, the picture in the mirror began to change. He saw Ron using some kind of exquisite fire swordsmanship, easily beating the enemy back again and again.

"Big help." Harry took a deep breath, "Ron, you also look carefully; if you can learn the swordsmanship demonstrated in the mirror, I believe you will definitely be able to do it."

"But what I see is still, uh, Auror." Ron said with a guilty conscience.

"Concentrate, Ron; you must keep telling yourself that your most eager thing now is to defeat Moon Rider." Harry prompted.

"Yes, yes, but—" Ron's expression looked very awkward, "I see Mr. Jinshang Xiangyi."

"What?"

"I see him standing in front of us with composure; yes, he is still laughing," Ron swallowed a mouthful of saliva, "But this is his last transformation."

"No, I don't want to look anymore." Ron took two steps back, turned around, and leaned his head against the wall on one side, "Why? Doesn't this just mean that my heart is looking forward to others stepping forward, and I can't win against Moon Rider?"

"The mirror won't show you what you don't know. Since I can see you defeating Moon Rider with some kind of swordsmanship, it shows that this swordsmanship should be something you have practiced." Harry advised, "You brew it, and look at it again."

"I think this is unlikely; that might just be your fantasy." Ron was still a bit resistant, "I was originally just learning swordsmanship as an amateur; even if I use everything I have learned, how can I fight against a vampire who is naturally cruel..."

"Yes, the Mirror of Erised is the place where fantasies are displayed." Harry changed his train of thought, "You don't care about whether it's possible or not first. You think, if it was you who defeated Moon Rider with your own hands, you would become a hero, then everything you saw in the mirror before, whether it's Auror or something else, would come true."

"Try again, Ron, try again; you will definitely be able to find that method to defeat him..." After much persuasion, Ron finally adjusted his mindset and looked at the Mirror of Erised again. Then, his expression began to become unnatural.

"So Zhang Qiu was right, Harry?" Ron had no joy on his face, only a bitter smile, "The transformation suppressed to the extreme is the strongest?"

"What did you see?" Harry was a bit puzzled. He didn't understand why the same thing was so optimistic and beautiful in his magic mirror, but appeared in such a suppressed and sad way in Ron's.

"Yes, perhaps this is the core principle of the Rider system." Ron had already completely fallen into that kind of emotion. He let go of the hand that was gently stroking the mirror surface, then turned around decisively, clenched his fists and said, "Staking everything to protect the people you want to protect, only in this way, only with this kind of determination to die, can his power be stimulated to the maximum."

"The so-called Kamen Rider is to explode power in sorrow and loneliness, and fight to the death to protect a world where no one loves me," Ron suddenly revealed a big smile, "So I knew it from the beginning; Felix Felicis had already reminded me."

Harry echoed him without understanding. Although he felt Ron's understanding might have appeared with some kind of deviation, at least he found confidence by relying on this deviation of cognition, and even might have obtained the power sufficient to defeat Moon Rider from it. Then there was no need to correct it. After all, looking at it from reality, with himself here, it was unlikely that Ron would really fall into some kind of lonely and suppressed situation.

It was just that, when Harry was lying on the bed, he couldn't help but think, the Mirror of Erised shows the desire of the heart. Ron saw someone solving Moon Rider for the first time, which was ordinary, but he saw some kind of suppressed scene for the second time... Could it be that his heart was looking forward to this?

Could it be that Ron was looking forward to being able to "fight to the death to protect a world where no one loves me"? Even if he thought Moon Rider was too strong and his chances of winning were slim, assuming that the so-called fight to the death was because of this point, how could he look forward to a world where no one loves him? Taking a step back, even if he ignored himself, this good brother, he should know that his father and mother loved him, right?

Harry turned his head and looked at Ron's tightly closed bed curtains, and he began to be a bit unsure again. Either he had gone into a dead end on some problem, or he was still hiding something... ===== CHAPTER 401 =====

Harry turned his head to look at Ron's tightly drawn bed curtains, and he began to feel unsure again. Either he was obsessing over a certain issue, or he was still hiding something...