Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Lily sat silently on her bed staring down at the antique mirror in her hands. She had picked it up at a wizarding thrift shop. She thought it to be enchanted, but didn't have any inkling of what magic it would possess. She stared at it until her vision blurred, she stared at it into the night while her dorm mates slept peacefully. She was tired, so tired and a second before she drifted off into sleep she could've sworn she saw a face in the mirror that was not her own.

The mirror was all that she thought about the next day, when she tried to fill her mind with her transfiguration assignment it was there, pushing away all her other thoughts, taking up the entirety of her mind. It was starting to scare her, as she became more and more convinced it was an object of dark magic.

Even her growing suspicion couldn't keep her from thinking about it, or looking at it. All she could do was try to fathom the mystery in the mirror that so captivated her mind but showed nothing but her own reflection. She tried talking to it, putting spells on it, she tried to shatter it with magic but the spell was absorbed by the mirror and had absolutely no effect, but that didn't mean anything. It wasn't dark magic that caused a mirror to be unbreakable.

She kept staring at it until she fell asleep, and every night it was the same, she always saw the same face before her eyelids closed. The next morning she couldn't remember the details of the face, but she still knew a face had been there.

It seemed like she had been in possession of the mirror forever, because it was all that filled her mind and she couldn't remember her days without it on her mind. She had stopped fighting the pull that the mirror had over her mind. All night and all morning she stared at the mirror, her hangings pulled around her bed. She would've stopped eating if her dorm mates hadn't dragged her meals.

For weeks this went on until she brewed a wakefulness potion. She took a tiny sip and resumed her staring. When it started to wear off she felt drowsier and drowsier until...the face appeared! Quickly she took another sip of the wakefulness potion and the face remained. He was darkly beautiful, with piercing eyes and shining dark hair. She didn't know if her heart was beating so fast because she had finally solved the mystery or because he was so attractive.

His face remained in the mirror, replacing her reflection. His lips had a hint of a smirk about them and he remained silent. Lily found her voice long enough to utter two syllables, "Hello."

His lips parted in a smile, frightening in its lack of emotion. She felt a great burden lift at the sight of that smile. The mystery was solved. It was all over. She smiled.

"Hello."

The sound of the cold, sinister voice made her smile disappear immediately and an involuntary shudder worked its way up her spine. And her hopes were dashed by the sound of that voice. It told her, with just two syllables that no, it wasn't over. It was just the beginning.