***WARNING***

Imprisoned Realm is a very dark story with confronting adult themes, including violence, torture and rape of a major character(s) (non graphic, fade to black scenes) and some squeamish injuries. War isn't pretty.

* Thanks to Brianna for Betaing some of my fic. For most of the story, I have edited myself, so I apologise for SPaG and other errors.

* SHIPS: This story is not about romance, but there are ships of all persuasions, both canon and AU unusual pairings.

Disclaimer: I don't own HP.

I do not endorse the ideas and themes presented in this fic. It is only a work of fiction.

A/N: Harry's wand was never broken in the Canon realm and this spurred on the change of fate.

Into the Mirror

"I have a bad feeling about this place," Ron said.

Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger held their lit wands up high above them, as they searched their dark surroundings.

They were in a crevice deep in the most remote area of the Scottish Highlands. Not even a hint of grass grew on the wind-swept mountain they had ventured on. Sharp jagged rocks lined the crack and its high ceiling disappeared into darkness. The wind outside roared like a freight train, while the cold within formed ice on Harry's clothes. It was the middle of summer, yet here, it felt like winter.

As they drew deeper within the fissure, three forks in the passage presented themselves. Two out of the three were too thin to pass through. For a starved teenager like Harry, he contemplated whether he could squeeze through, but thought better of it. They ended up walking through the third fork.

"This is ridiculous," piped Hermione. The dampness of the place was making her hair bushier than normal. "I swear I saw a blue mist coming from this cave."

"We saw it too," Harry reassured.

They had seen some strange, yet futile endeavours over the several months of their Horcrux hunt; this was turning out to be no different.

Harry ran his hands over the wall of the cave. He felt no strange magic, only that it was very cold to the touch, and wet. He accidentally cut his finger over a piece of dark blue crystal. "Ouch!"

"Are you okay?" Ron asked.

"Yeah." Harry sucked on his bleeding finger, reminiscing how he had suffered much worse on the hunt. He had almost been killed by a snake, murderous Horcruxes and wandering Death Eaters.

After destroying the locket Horcrux, their interest turned to the strange triangular symbol that had cropped up in several places. It took them to the Lovegoods' house where they learnt that the symbol was for the Deathly Hallows. They also discovered that Luna had been abducted, but they didn't find out anything more because Mr Lovegood had alerted the Death Eaters. So they made a run for it.

They then travelled to Albania, exploring that region where Voldemort had been. While they sat stony-faced in their tent one night, they spoke about family, friends and Hogwarts. Harry mentioned Luna, hoping she was still alive, and how her dad betrayed them. It was then that Ron remembered that ridiculous remake of Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem in Mr Lovegood's house. That's when they thought it could be a possible Horcrux.

They knew the Hogwarts founder was from Scotland. This fact took them straight here. They came across an old warlock deep in the mountains, who had heard tales of a place Rowena would study and experiment with magic in. It was called The Giant's Cut, an ancient crevice named by the local wizards in the area.

After months spent travelling like lost souls, Harry felt as though they were on the verge of victory.

"LOOK! Over there," Hermione's voice echoed.

It was certainly a peculiar mist; dark blue and ominous. Harry inched toward it noticing that it was coming out of a tunnel.

"Wait!" Hermione suddenly grabbed his arm. "It might be dangerous." She pointed her wand towards it and muttered an incantation. When the spell produced nothing, she resorted to throwing a rock at it. "Well it seems safe, but I don't know."

Throwing caution into the wind, Harry moved his fingers through the mist. He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting some sort of pain or disfiguration. The only thing he had felt was a strange cold that made his skin and bones prickle with power, making his hand seem more alive than it already was. He pulled his hand away and saw Hermione's peaky face now glistening with cold sweat. She seemed very excited.

"What is it?" He whispered, as he rubbed warmth back into his freezing, tingling fingers.

"I—I don't know."

"At least it didn't kill you." Ron smirked as he felt the mist for himself. "It feels so weird though."

"There's ancient magic here. Magic lost to time." Hermione's eyes followed the trail of mist up above them, until the darkness swallowed it up. "Isn't it fascinating?"

"Yeah, it is, but I still have a bad feeling about this place." Ron tentatively placed a hand on the crevice wall trying to pull out a blue crystal.

"We have to be really careful now. You-Know-Who might've booby-trapped this place," explained Harry, eyeing Ron apprehensively as he successfully plucked the crystal.

Harry looked beyond the mist and discovered that the tunnel contained roughly carved stone steps. "There's stairs—"

"ARRRRRGHHHH!"

"RON!" Hermione screamed.

Their best friend had fallen through the side of the wall and was tumbling down a secret set of steps. They followed swiftly and heard a thump at the bottom, and Ron's echoing groans.

"Ron, are you okay?" Harry shouted.

Hermione reached him first, her cloak flying about her. "Oh Ron," she whimpered, kneeling beside him.

"M'ok," he croaked, feeling the large gash on his head. He paled even more at the sight of the blood on his fingers.

Hermione quickly fished around in her purse for the bottle of dittany .

"I just touched this massive blue crystal and the wall just vanished!"

"It's ok, mate. Do you feel anything broken?" Harry asked.

"I don't think so."

As Harry propped his friend up slowly he looked around the chamber, and his eyes adjusted to the blue light. He swore loudly at the spectacular site.

"I'm sorry," Ron mumbled.

"No, Ron." Harry pointed around the chamber. "Look around you."

Everywhere, books and thick scrolls lined the chamber walls. More bizarrely, hundreds of tomes were floating above them out of reach and the same blue mist they had seen above lingered here more thickly. The mist seemed to have created a barrier around the books, swirling slowly around them like time did not exist here.

"You're bloody brilliant, Ron!" Harry yelled in joy as he ventured over to a stone shelf carved into the chamber wall. Excitement pumped through him. He was sure that they were going to find the diadem now.

Ron staggered upright with Hermione's help, though he looked unsure whether his tumble down the secret passage had really been worth the effort. They walked around the circular room together.

Harry cautiously put his hand through the mist, grabbing hold of a large leather bound book that sat on the stone shelf. The book looked as new as the day it was made. Frowning, he opened the cover and discovered that the colours were bright and the gilding beautiful. Little drawings of people walked about the cover. The scrolled text shifted lightly as though it were in a breeze. It was made over a thousand years ago in complete Latin, yet perfectly preserved with not a dog-eared page, fading colours or the peeling of leather in sight.

"Hey Hermione, this book doesn't look old at all."

Peeking over his shoulder, she snatched the book off his hands, while Ron took another off a different shelf.

"Hmm. It's like the mist is… oh…" Her eyes suddenly glazed over. She suddenly began rummaging through the shelves looking for something, opening each book in a hurried state.

"What is it?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Let's just wait til she's ready to tell us."

Harry agreed and continued to explore the chamber. A book floating above decided to hover near his ear. It was the only floating book to have come down low enough for him to touch. He noticed floating books following Ron and Hermione too.

But immediately he knew touching it was the wrong thing to do. Something very bizarre and unwelcome was happening to him. A white light erupted from the spot he had touched and he seemed glued to the book, unable to shake it off.

"WHAT—?"

"HARRY!" Hermione screamed.

Ron tried to grab him, but he was repelled across the room. He smashed into one of the shelves and fell unconscious. Harry yelled out, though no sound came out.

Now a familiar, yet stranger sensation of Portkey travel was occurring. There was no normal hooking sensation around his belly button, nor was there that feeling of being sucked through space. Even the colour he saw through his confused eyes wasn't normal: it was red, a darkish red that struck foreboding into every inch of his being. Within the dark red void, blinding light suddenly pierced through, like claws had been scratching it away. Harry squeezed his eyes shut as the light stung.

Paralysed by an unknown strength binding to him like tentacles, he was forced to hear Hermione's anguished shouts.

Then, out of nowhere, a loud whooshing sound roared in his ears, drowning out his friend's terrified voice. After a second, he heard strange sounds, people's voices; snippets of conversations. Some seemed happy, others angry. There were snatches of laughter and moments of crying, and something which sounded like a train blazing past him. It was like somebody was tuning a radio to their favourite station.

Just as the noise became excruciatingly loud, it abruptly stopped, and the whirlwind sensation ceased.

Even though he never felt as though he hit the ground, the travel had ended. It was like the longest Floo Harry had ever experienced. Taking in a deep breath, he finally opened his tightly shut eyes. It took a moment for his sight to adjust to his new predicament.

The book that had been stuck to his hand lay in his lap now, looking quite ordinary. He read the title in a state of panic, unable to look beyond the book in fear of what he would find. The book read in a strange language. Oe Fo Irbil. He picked it up using the sleeves of his jacket and flung it far away from him, like it was diseased.

He finally took the courage to look around his new surroundings. He expected to see himself in some deserted park or forest, or a dungeon. Instead, what he saw stunned him.

Harry bolted upright and gripped his wand.

A woman, aged in her late thirties, with auburn grey-streaked hair was pointing a wand right into his face. What shocked Harry most of all was those bright green eyes that framed her face. The woman was his dead mother.

Lily Potter stared back, angry and shocked, and alive.

"M-Mum?" Was he dead? It had to be a nightmare, or maybe it was a Death Eater trick. "Mum—Lily Potter?"

Lily's wand shook slightly and she grew pale at those simple words, it was like she hadn't been called 'Mum' by Harry for a very long time. Her mouth quivered, her eyes darting from door to window, then to him again.

"H-Harry, how did you escape Azkaban?"

"What?" he laughed. "Azkaban? I was never in Azkaban. I'm dreaming." He pinched himself.

"Dreaming?" she repeated slowly, confused. "Harry, you escaped days ago. Why did you come back here?"

"Come back? Listen, I didn't come here. I—I'm not even sure where here is, or if this is real."

Lily laughed haughtily. "Yes, this is very real. You came here to kill us."

"I didn't come—"

"Don't play games with me!"

He glared back. Where the hell was he? Who was she? "You're a Death Eater. You're the one tricking me!"

She raised her eyebrows. "You are the Death Eater, Harry!"

Lily pulled the blinds down. The room was instantly bathed in an eerie light. "Tell me the truth."

"I. Don't. Know," he stressed. "Who are you? You're not my mother."

"You've gone mad!"

Theories sprung into Harry's mind: Had Voldemort tricked him into Rowena's crevice? He was trying to convince himself that this wasn't real, because Lily Potter had died almost seventeen years before. He raised his wand again.

A jet of red light sizzled past Harry's ear, smashing a family portrait behind him. He covered his head, ducking as a shower of glass and red sparks danced off the walls.

"Look!" He pointed at the tome. "I touched that book and it acted like a Portkey. Only now, I'm not so sure it really was a Portkey."

Lily looked at him closely with a calculating expression Harry knew only too well from knowing Snape.

"Stop lying, Harry!"

"Mummy?"

Lily gasped, and so did Harry at the sound of a little girl's voice.

Then a realisation hit him, had he travelled into a Mirror Universe?

"Mummy, what's going on? I heard shouting and something break."

Harry could tell this witch was now extremely frantic as she focused on the figure he could not see in the hallway. But he found the portrait that had fallen, covered in shattered glass. His heart nearly stopped when he picked it up.

All five members were staring at him. His mum and dad were in it, along with three children. There were two teenage boys, both auburn-haired like their mum, and the tallest wore glasses. The little girl, who looked about ten in the picture, had black pigtails, but her glassy eyes were all white. She was not smiling and neither did she wave. But most notably, there was no Harry in the picture.

"He's here, isn't he?"

"Jessica, darling, I want you to go up to your room, lock it, and contact your fath—no wait, contact Remus and tell him he's back. You know what to do, now go!"

"Jessica," he whispered, staring into her misty eyes in the photo.

If all this was true, then Harry could've had a little sister and brothers. He was suddenly jolted out of his thoughts when he felt something hard on his temple. He let go of the picture, letting it crash onto the floor again.

"Give me your wand and get up!" Lily yelled.

"What are their names—your two boys?" Harry asked, obeying the witch.

"Don't even pretend—" She looked livid. "Now move!"

He felt a painful jab and he complied, too stunned to fight back. There was no way this witch was a Death Eater.

Harry passed the kitchen and was led to a closed door. Lily opened it to reveal a vast darkness, and steps that seemed to lead nowhere.

"Get in. And don't bother using your Mage magic—"

"Mage—?"

Lily huffed. "The basement's got a number of protective enchantments Dumbledore has kindly put on."

Dumbledore's alive here! He was forced down the stairs. Lily closed the door and he could hear a number of locking charms being placed on it.

In the darkness, he felt his way around the room with a million questions buzzing through his mind.

Since when was he a Mage? It was rare for someone to do this ancient magic. Most become Mages through Dark magic and never lived long. But a natural born Mage was even rarer and Harry doubted he was. Surely, Dumbledore would've told him.

He leaned his head on the wall and closed his eyes willing himself awake. Maybe when he woke up, he could joke around with Ron about this stupid dream.