#20 Curious Notes

Oscar stared into the Hufflepuff mirror for a long few minutes, before he sighed and dropped his head down.

Of course that was not going to cut it, not after the experience that had been the Gryffindor mirror.

With his free hand he rubbed at his forehead as he tried to clear his mind of any lingering despair. If he was going to get past the last two mirrors and figure out whatever the room wanted him to know, then he needed to not let the Gryffindor mirror beat him even after he had supposedly beaten it.

He cast his mind back in an attempt to remember what the Hat had said all those years ago for him to end up in Hufflepuff. A hard task to remember the exact words, sure, but it had been an important enough event for him to remember the gist of it. He just hoped it could offer him some kind of clue.

"The Hat said that I've plenty of loyalty," he said slowly, his head lifted to peek at the mirror once more in case of any other tricks and traps. "I- I'm not sure how true that is sometimes. Well, a lot of the time really. But.. I try? I want to be."

Oscar sighed as it once more looked like he was going to have a heart to heart with a mirror. It could be worse though, at least there were no signs of the nightmare dolls in his current mirror.

"I want to be loyal to my family and others," he carried on, anxiously twisting his wand in his hands as he tried to think over his words. "I try my best to be anyway. It's just hard sometimes, like.. no matter what I do, it's going to be wrong for one of them."

He could not help but wonder if everyone who came from both a muggle and magical background felt like that. Like they were constantly walking a balance between the two sides, too scared to tip the scales either way and risk leaving people behind.

Oscar decided not to dwell on those thoughts, his uncertainty on where he belonged a sore point that he was not willing to poke at yet.

"I try to keep other people's secrets too, even-.. even when I'm not sure they would do the same for me," he frowned towards the bottom of the mirror at the thought, but as far as he was aware it was the truth.

"Like.. last summer," he said, deciding on an example to tell the mirror. "I didn't tell on my cousin when I knew he was lying to sneak off on a date. I knew how much trouble he would have gotten into, it would have been so easy to have him be the-.. the disappointment for once instead... but I didn't. He was happy. Why would I ruin that?"

Oscar wondered if that had been the best example to tell. Surely, in his unwillingness to sell his cousin out, he had shown disloyalty to his Nonna and Nonno when he kept the secret even after they had shown their disapproval at the relationship. He was not sure anymore, he felt like he was just throwing things out into the void in an attempt to distract the mirror from getting any ideas from the Gryffindor one.