"But how the heck did you get here, you little rat?"
"How should I know!" Jerry spread his little paws. "I don't even know how long you were gone. This hole just randomly appeared in front of me. I smelled your scent coming from it, so I followed it through. Who knew I'd drop straight into some pitch-black forest and completely lose your trail."
He paused and puffed out his chest proudly. "But hey, it worked out! I found a new buddy in the woods!"
Hearing this, Tom was completely stumped. So this smelly rodent had actually crossed over to this world too? He thought the mouse was just making a quick cameo, but now he was a series regular?
"So how long have you been here?"
"No idea. A good while, though." Jerry scratched his head. "You know how it is—you can barely see the sun in the forest half the time. But it's gotta be at least a year, right?" he said, sounding unsure.
"Oh right, where even are we? Why are there so many people, and... a clone of me? And what's with your look? Did your soul jump out to play again?"
Jerry glanced back at the fake "Jerry"—who, now backed by the real deal, was busy making all sorts of faces at Tom. Then he looked at James and the others, and finally at Tom's semi-transparent body.
"We're inside a mirror at a magic school. That guy behind you is just an illusion. He stole my cheese, so I came in here to teach him a lesson!"
Jerry tilted his head. "Magic? You mean like stage tricks? Like what Cousin Merlin does? Should I hit him up and bring him over?"
"Uh, not exactly... At the very least, their magic isn't nearly as absurd as your cousin's 'tricks'." Tom's mouth twitched. "And are you seriously sure they could even come here?"
This was jumping between dimensions and universes! The fact that Jerry himself had crossed over was already a miracle. He wanted to summon his cousin too? Dream on!
"Hey, you don't believe me, you dumb cat?" Jerry glared at Tom. "When have I ever lied to you! If I say I can contact him, I can contact him!"
As he spoke, a thought bubble popped up above his head, and inside it appeared an old-fashioned rotary phone.
Jerry reached into the bubble, pulled the phone out, and punched in a few numbers. Incredibly, the call went through.
"Hello, my dear cousin. What can I do for you?"
The voice on the other end belonged to none other than Merlin, the magic mouse!
Jerry squeaked and chattered, giving Merlin a quick rundown of the situation. He glanced back at the fake "Jerry," who was gazing at him with pure admiration. After a moment's thought, he mentioned the illusion to his cousin as well.
"I see. You want to preserve that illusion, eh? Simple enough! Even though you're quite far away and I can't easily come over, casting a little trick from here is a breeze~"
With that, a hand wearing a yellow glove and holding a magic wand reached right out of the phone's receiver. It gave a couple of elegant waves in the air, then pointed straight at the phantom Jerry.
"Alright, your cousin's magic show is about to begin. Catch you later, bye-bye~"
The hand shrank back inside. A moment later, a busy signal echoed from the phone.
"You're using literal cheat codes, aren't you?!"
Watching the phone vanish from Jerry's hands, and staring at the "fake" Jerry—who suddenly didn't feel so fake anymore—Tom felt like his brain was melting.
The fact that Jerry was here was already ridiculous enough. But now this smelly rat could summon backup from other dimensions?!
This was going to be the death of him!
Wait... actually, Hogwarts might collapse before I do. The thought flashed through Tom's mind.
He looked at the smug-looking Jerry. "So, why did you turn this rat into a real physical thing? What's your game here?"
"To help me out, obviously!" Jerry curled his lip. "I've got a mountain of garbage to deal with on my end. If I hadn't seen you bullying me in this weird place, I wouldn't have bothered coming over to check on you."
Knowing Jerry, Tom figured he was telling the truth. He didn't know what kind of mess the mouse was dealing with that took so long, but Jerry clearly had other business and couldn't stick around.
And that was a good thing. If Jerry stayed, Tom wasn't sure he could handle it—and he was absolutely certain Hogwarts couldn't!
So, Tom waved his paw, putting on a look of utter disgust. "Well, are you done looking? If you're done, hurry up and go back. Stop getting in my way."
"Hey, you heartless jerk!" Jerry crossed his arms and glared at Tom. "I went through all this trouble to find you, and this is the attitude I get? You want me to call my cousin back to teach you a lesson?!"
"So you're staying?"
"No!" As soon as he said it, Jerry realized the contradiction. He scratched his head, suddenly awkward. "So... I guess I'll get going?"
"Get out of here! Just looking at you annoys me!" Tom turned his head away in disdain.
Seeing this, Jerry just snickered. He grabbed the newly real Jerry by the arm and zipped right into the spatial rift beside them.
The moment they went through, the rift vanished. Tom immediately lost all sense of Jerry's presence.
[Meow~] (Jerk. Just wait until next time we meet, I'll show you!)
Tom viciously raised a single finger, flipping off the spot where the mouse had disappeared. Then he froze.
Wait a minute. Jerry still doesn't know where I am! And we didn't even exchange contact info?!
Whatever, no big deal. If he managed to find this world and track me down once, he can definitely do it a second time.
Content with that logic, Tom stopped dwelling on the rat problem. He drifted toward the edge of the mirror, waved a casual goodbye to James and the others, and prepared to leave.
He had no intention of pulling a Jerry and taking an illusion with him. A fake was a fake, and it could never replace the real thing. Besides, unlike Merlin, Tom didn't have the power to turn fiction into reality. Anything he brought out would just remain an illusion and fade away before long.
As for Jerry? Well, now he knew they were in the same world. Given their cursed cosmic bond, they were bound to run into each other eventually!
---
However, completely unbeknownst to Tom, Jerry had just made a massive blunder.
Deep in a dark forest, Jerry appeared with his newly acquired underling and suddenly smacked himself in the forehead.
Crap! I forgot to ask Tom where he is! Where am I supposed to find him after I leave this place?!
With that in mind, he looked down at the items on the forest floor: a straight twig and a few random shards of glass. These were the only tools he had used to jump to Tom earlier.
Thinking for a moment, Jerry picked up the twig and slashed it across the glass shards—
A tiny rift appeared, but before it could open fully, it sputtered out with a poof. At the exact same time, both the twig and the glass crumbled into dust.
Looked like he was just going to have to track him down the old-fashioned way.
Just like Tom, Jerry firmly believed they would cross paths again someday.
But what Jerry didn't know was that his little experimental slash had just doomed Tom.
---
At the exact moment Jerry attempted to rip open a new rift, inside the mirror, Tom was in the middle of pushing himself out. The two forces collided against the mirror's surface at once.
CRACK!
A sharp, deafening sound of shattering glass rang out. Spiderweb-like cracks exploded outward from the exact spot where Tom's figure was passing through.
"Oh no!" Dumbledore jumped to his feet, but it was too late.
The cracks seemed to tangle around Tom, multiplying and widening with his every movement. A second later—
CRASH!
The Mirror of Erised exploded into countless glittering shards right in front of them.
The glass fell like rain. In every single shard, fractured images flickered: the warm smiles of Harry's family, Tom's stunned face... And then, all those reflections rapidly dimmed and vanished entirely.
Right before the mirror was completely destroyed, a blue blur shot out from the exploding shards and slammed hard onto the floor.
It was Tom, lying dazed and dizzy in a pile of broken glass.