Pieces of A Broken Mirror

NOTE: Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of a different character. The narrator of the previous chapter is revealed in the following chapter. If you're still confused, the Epilogue clears things up a little. Mind you, a little. ^_~

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Pieces of A Broken Mirror

Life is never quite as you perceive it. Nor the people in it.

Chapter 1

You were staring at him. Again.

Sometimes it surprised me how blatantly conspicuous you were about it. What surprised me more was how nobody seemed to notice but me. Of course, few people were perceptive these days, preferring to live in the small cocoon of their set views, and any attempt to open their eyes to what was before them was futile.

He was sitting across the room, his head bent over his Transfiguration homework, but it was clear his mind wasn't on it. His eyes constantly flitted up to those of his friend, gazes clashing as a smile of mischief crossed his lips. I watched you study those lips, your gaze tracing over the soft skin in a not-quite gentle caress, trailing upward past his high cheekbones and the straight line of his nose, to the soft green eyes framed with dark lashes. I watched you watch him with a hungry look in your eyes, a passionate glint betraying your emotions.

You were so easy to read.

I knew you believed yourself a pro at hiding your true feelings. After all, you'd had six years of practice. But I wasn't as easily fooled as our classmates. I saw the way you looked at him, saw the way your hands would twitch in anticipation before you wrenched your gaze away, clenching your fists to fight off the urge to attack him.

Even as I watched, you closed your eyes briefly, biting your lip. When your eyes fluttered open again, your façade had slid back in place--as if you'd ever risk letting it slip in the first place--and you turned to the girl next you. She was poring over her Potions homework, for which you immediately offered your help, albeit reluctantly.

I shook my head. You wanted him. You wanted to leap across that table, scattering inkwells and textbooks to the floor, grab him and drag him off to a deserted broom closet in the abandoned North Tower. You wanted both your hands on him, on his skin, watching his eyes widen in surprise as they stared down out you. You wanted to feel his breath shorten, wanted to hear gasps and groans escaping his lips. You wanted to throw him to the ground and have him at your mercy... To put your lips next to his ear and whisper those words that you had been longing to say since your first year...

Avada Kedavra.

A bitter sigh escaped me. What kind of world was it when you wanted to kill your best friend, Hermione?

You sat on the couch in the common room, impatiently explaining to a befuddled Lavender why love potions were illegal. I watched you pretend not to watch him. I watched you sneak glances at him out of the corner of your eye. You weren't subtle. But Gryffindors weren't exactly known for their brightness.

You were staring at Harry. Again.

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Chapter 2

You were watching her again.

Did you really think I wouldn't notice? I wasn't quite as dense as most people thought I was. I could be quite observant at times. Like now.

I never understood what it was about her that attracted you. Was it her bushy brown hair that could never be tamed? Or her bossy, know-it-all attitude? As I watched you stare at the back of her head from your seat two rows behind her, I tried to comprehend her allure.

Maybe you liked her intelligence? There was no doubt she was the cleverest witch in our class, if not the entire school. She made top marks in every class. Or perhaps it was the way she cared for her friends. Her fierce loyalty was widely-known; she would stand up to anyone for the sake of her friends. She loved them in a way that made all other friendships pale in comparison. Did you want a part of that passion? Or maybe it was just the fact that she was completely unattainable. That a relationship between you and her would not only be ludicrous, but impossible.

You stared at her so often.

You never seemed to realize, or maybe you just didn't care, that you could never have her. She would never turn her head and gaze into your eyes...at least not with the emotion you craved for. She would never consider you when, or if, she ever set out on a search for her soul mate. She would never seek your embrace, or find solace in your arms. She would never nestle her face in the crook of your neck, or seek your lips with hers. She would never curl her arms around your waist to draw you near or stroke your cheek with her long fingers.

After all, she was mine.

Utterly. Completely.

In ways you would never begin to comprehend.

I had never been particularly fond of Defense Against the Dark Arts. It only irritated me further to see you pine after her so transparently. I wasn't blind. Nor was I keen on sharing what was mine. Blame it on my childhood. Either way, Hermione was mine. Forever. And it would always be me she turned to. I may not appreciate her in the ways you do, but I give her things you could never.

So I would advise you, Parvati, to keep your longing gazes to yourself.

--

Chapter 3

I hated it when people stared. Even when it was you.

Especially when it was you.

I wanted to knock some sense into you, jerk your wandering thoughts back to the present. Didn't you realize everyone was watching? You really couldn't afford to do anything stupid. So why was your gaze fixed upon her as if she was some magnet and you were some metal?

Even from my seat back here, I could see Snape scowling at you. He was biased towards the Slytherins, true, but aside from that, he didn't like the way you were acting. He noticed it too, you know.

Your staring at Parvati.

Sometimes I wished I were better at reading people's emotions. People always said, "You can tell she's unhappy inside...you can see it in her eyes." Well, maybe they could. I couldn't. Certainly, if I saw someone's face livid with anger or streaked with tears, I'd know what they were feeling. But the subtle sentiments people hid under their exterior were never emotions I could decipher.

You, for instance. I wished I could read what it was in your eyes. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out if you were staring at her with hatred, lust, or jealousy. I eliminated the last fairly quickly. You weren't the type to be jealous. It wasn't in your nature.

But I wondered. Wondered what she could've done to make you watch her so frequently, disregarding your surroundings as your gaze pierced her, drawing curious glances from both Slytherin and Gryffindor. I didn't understand why you were looking at her...or how you were looking at her, and that bothered me most of all. I hated the way she could make you ignore what was happening around you, focusing only on your hidden emotions.

The way she sat, primly, her long hair loose over her shoulders, her hands in front of her, irked me. She gave every appearance of giving 100% attention to what was happening, but I knew better. Her robes may have been draped artfully around her legs, her posture perfect, but it merely hid the way she would leap in every direction at the slightest incentive, twisting in ways that captured the fascinated gazes of those watching, grinning in triumph all the while.

She really was quite the showoff. I'd never liked that in a Keeper.

I still found it amazing that she had made it onto the Gryffindor Quidditch team at all. Beneath her giggles and gossipy whispers, she must've been hiding some talent. Or some intelligence that advised her to play up her agility. Or maybe she was just sleeping with the captain.

I hated the way you looked at her. Especially when your eyes should've been on me instead. Me, sitting down here in the stands, watching you perched on your sleek broom, your eyes narrowed against the sun as you ignored the Gryffindor-Slytherin match going on around you to stare at her.

Why didn't you look at me, Draco?

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Epilogue

Whoever named the Mirror of Erised was very clever indeed. "Desire" spelled backwards. I suppose the same person also named the Mirror of Sterces.

That is, secrets.

I never went looking for it. I never did. Trouble, like mirrors, just seem to gravitate towards me. What was it, my magnetic charm? Hardly. But then, I never was one to resist the allure of these mysterious objects.

The Mirror of Sterces was odd. Not exactly weird, if you wouldn't call a mirror that showed the secrets of whoever looked into it weird, but just...odd. It was slightly disturbing because it didn't show the person standing in front of the mirror their secrets...it showed me their secrets.

Did you know Parvati had been crushing on Hermione since their first year?

And that Cho was head over heels for Malfoy?

That was more than slightly disturbing, if you asked me. But as I was no longer enamored of Cho (my feelings had waned dramatically over fifth year), it didn't bother me nearly as much as it could've. And I had no fears about Hermione ever returning Parvati's feelings...

She was, after all, engaged to Malfoy.

Yes, that was another secret revealed by the Mirror. But lately, one didn't need all those magical items; your eyesight alone would do. Few could miss the blinding marquis diamond glittering on her left hand. Or the way she and Malfoy sat together in all classes, all lunches, in pure defiance to any Slytherin-Gryffindor house rivalries.

I didn't understand it.

Trust me, Ron didn't either.

But we trusted her. We didn't want to risk six years of friendship for, well, anything. We'd been through a lot together.

Funny, but she seemed to disagree.

After all, I wasn't lying dead in this coffin because He-Whose-Name-Must-Be-Hyphenated had killed me, it was because my best friend had turned traitor and betrayed me to the Dark side.

Willingly.

I remembered the way her face had been emotionless, her eyes glinting with the same coldness I'd seen in Death-Eaters, as she'd whispered, "Avada Kedavra." I remembered staring at her in disbelief, in denial, in shock.

I remembered dying.

*

Harry stared at the Mirror of Sterces. He'd known it was supposed to show secrets, but he'd never expected this to be Hermione's...

She wanted to kill him?

Fighting back emotions, he squeezed his eyes shut. From behind the invisibility cloak, he pointed the wand at the mirror. "Shatterus," he whispered. As the glass cracked and split before him, splintering into millions of slivers that would never again be pieced together, he turned his back. He'd had enough of secrets.

And if people continued to stare at others, he didn't want to know why.