Look At Me

Look At Me

Part One

I am sitting in the Gryffindor common room, staring out the window at the snow spiralling into the darkness. Tomorrow will be my birthday. I'll be sixteen. I feel old, older than that. I'm tired. Padma doesn't feel like this. She doesn't understand me. This is one thing I can't share with her. She is my other half, my sister, my soul-mate, but I cannot tell her what it is that dulls my sparkle and makes me so sad and listless.

It wasn't what I expected. I had been waiting, longing for it for so long, and when I finally got my wish...well, like I said, it wasn't what I expected. I feel so cheated. I feel like a character in some stupid morality tale: be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

My birthday is just before Christmas. Usually I hate that, but I was happy, last year, because the Yule ball was there to look forward to. Besides, I had something else to look enjoy.

That was the night that I opened my mother's necklace. Our mother died when we were very young, I remember the softness of her black hair, the gentleness of her hands, but little else. Among the things she left for us were two necklaces, one for Padma and one for me. They were beautiful things, gold, heart shaped lockets, each hung on a slender gold chain. Padma's locket has a turquoise set in the centre; mine has a piece of rose quartz. We were proud of them, when we were little, but we were never allowed to open them, or even to wear them. We had to wait, until we were fifteen years old. Our father locked the necklaces away; he knew we'd never be able to resist looking in them before then. Padma yelled and screamed, I sulked and refused to speak, but he wouldn't yield.

I didn't understand why he did that. The necklaces weren't that valuable, after all, not by our standards, and he had let us keep other things of our mother's.

I only understood on the day of our birthday.

I jerked awake at six on our birthday, to find Padma sitting at the other end of my bed, kicking me gently to wake me up.

"You're not supposed to be here!" I said automatically. I knew it had been a mistake letting her know what the Gryffindor password was.

"Happy birthday to you as well!" she replied, holding out a silver envelope with my name on it.

I ripped it open, still only partially awake. Inside was a letter from our father, and my locket. I looked up at Padma, whom I now noticed was clutching a similar letter, and wearing her locket.

"Shall we open them?" I asked uncertainly. Padma looked at me, her face as familiar as my own. She nodded wordlessly. So I nervously pried open the delicate gold locket. At the opposite end of the bed Padma did the same, my mirror image.

As I opened the locket, a faint golden light began seeping out of it, I stared, puzzled for an instant, before snapping the case back shut as quickly as I could, my hands shaking with shock. Padma and I stared at each other. We had learned enough in our four years at Hogwarts to know what was inside the lockets: each one contained a single wish. There was nothing else on earth that would give off such light, and such warmth. They were the most complex charms imaginable, and it had been years since anyone had had the skill to make them. Which meant that the ones contained in our necklaces must be very old indeed.

The lockets we were wearing over our hearts contained something more valuable than anything we had ever seen before. At once I understood our father's caution, how he had sternly forbidden us to touch the lockets, let alone to play with them. He had been right: this was something you couldn't let a child handle.

I turned my attention to the letter from our father which had accompanied the locket:

You understand now why I could not let you have the necklaces before. You had to be ready, before such a gift could be received. Your mother's last thought was of you, and to you she bequeathed these two heirlooms, to use as you see fit. I will not ask to know what you have done with them, or criticise your choice in any way. This is one decision that no one can make for you. Choose wisely, my dear, and choose well. Guide Padma if she wishes it (you are the elder by four minutes, after all) but do not dictate to her; this path she must tread alone.

These necklaces have long been in the possession of your mother's family, and can be used only by one of your mother's blood. She wanted you to have them, with her love. I have only one more piece of advice for you: do not try to alter the course of history with wishes for the good of wizardkind. There are some things no witch or wizard ought to meddle in, and this is one of them. You must not challenge fate. Use the wishes in your own lives; do not spend them on another.

Happy birthday, my dear Parvati, and remember me when you make your wish. I know you will use it well.

Padma and I stared at each other. She was incredulous, wondering what in the world she could wish for, suggesting a million and one uses for my wish, as well as hers. I stayed silent. I could not tell her that I already knew what I would wish for.

It had been in my mind for a long time. When we were sorted in first year, I had sat down at the Gryffindor table in a daze, thinking not of the strangeness of my surroundings, nor of Padma's outraged disappointment when we had been sorted into different houses, but of a pair of astonishing green eyes, sparkling like broken glass behind a dark fringe of hair. I had watched him, wondering at the tragedy that had already touched his life. He was aware of me in a distant, friendly way, but then he was friendly to everyone. I was nothing particular to him.

Not yet, anyway.

He was Harry Potter, after all, the hero of countless quidditch matches, the school champion, the one who had defeated Voldemort. (I am not afraid of the name now. Things like that seem suddenly less important.)

I didn't fawn over him, like so many others. I sensed that it would be foolish; a hero is already surfeited with adoration. I was not - am not - an outstanding student, not like Padma, but I knew enough about boys, and human nature, to see that this was true. Besides, I was proud. I don't go swooning after boys, I sit tight and bat my eyelashes, and they come running. For a time I thought that Harry might act like this. I bided my time, hoping for him to notice me. I waited in vain.

It was no good making the first move, I told myself fiercely. I made myself forget him, concentrated on other things. I enjoyed myself, in a way. Perhaps I am as he sees me: shallow, giggly, with no interests besides clothes. Maybe someone like that frumpy bookworm Hermione would have curled up and died for him, if he'd ignored her like he ignored me.

I didn't die. At times I felt like it, when girls clustered around him admiringly, or when he'd walk companionably through the corridors with his two friends, talking in low voices about some secret I would never know. I became used to concealing the jolt of my heart whenever I saw him, adept at hiding the almost imperceptible start I would always give at the sound of his voice or a mention of his name. But I never stopped loving him.

He wouldn't ask me to the Yule ball. I was well aware of that. He would ask Cho Chang, whom even now I would cheerfully disembowel with a fish knife, should I ever get the opportunity. I was also quite certain that she would say yes. After all, who wouldn't?

I had dreamed about standing in the great hall of Hogwarts in his arms, dancing below the starry ceiling. But I had no way to make my wish a reality. Until now.

I left lunch early, and slipped out of the school, searching desperately for a place I could be alone. I could have used the Astronomy tower, of course, but frankly I couldn't stand the irony. Besides, the likelihood of finding some smooching couple there made it anything but ideal.

So I went far into the grounds, until I was at the border of the Forbidden Forrest. It was cold; there was snow fresh on the ground. I had taken a white cloak of Padma's, so as not to be easily visible. It was lined with some kind of fur, and I was glad of it, because by the time I reached a deserted spot it was beginning to snow again. I made certain that there was no one around, and then I unclasped the cloak, and took out my necklace.

I knew what to do. My father had given me some simple instructions, and I carried them out to the letter. There could not be any chance of the spell going wrong. I murmured the words solemnly, and at the right moment I opened the locket for a second time.

For the space of a minute, a golden light enveloped me, and I felt a delicious sense of power and warmth, as if I was made out of fire. I savoured it, not wanting it to disappear and leave me. Then I cried out my wish to the snow-filled air, and the warmth vanished with the light, leaving me cold and alone in the empty grounds.

I had wished that Harry would ask me to go to the dance with him.

You must think I'm stupid. Why didn't I wish for him to fall in love with me, or that Cho would be devoured by a Blast-Ended Skrewt, or something definite and certain?

The problem was, I knew too much. When I was sick a couple of years ago, my father had read to me, and when he'd exhausted our supply of trashy romance novels, he'd began reading to me about wishes, and the dangers of misusing them. I thought he was mad at the time, but looking back I can see his reasoning. Most of the stuff he told me I instantly forgot, but one thing I remember him saying emphatically: you can't make someone love you with a wish.

A potion, yes, for a short time. If you're prepared to keep drugging them with the stuff. Which will eventually cause them to loose their sight and go bald. Wishes are no good, though. If you force someone to love you using a wish, in spite of their inclinations, it warps their personality, so that they aren't the person you fell in love with in the first place. And you no longer love them. Which sort of defeats the object.

I was going to be subtler than that; if Harry wouldn't love me, there was nothing I could do. But if he just needed an opportunity to get to know me... I thought I could convince him to give me a chance. He would see I wasn't just some stupid bimbo, that I was someone worth noticing, worth being in love with.

So instead of a diamond necklace, or a mansion, or any of the things Padma would have chosen, I wished for him to ask me to the ball.

It worked.

I had stealthily rejoined my friends, saying I'd been in the library (I never go near the library if I can help it, but my friends aren't all that bright), and we were sauntering into the common room, when Harry came up to us. I was so used to not seeming affected by him that it was like a reflex. I was proud of my self-control.

Harry addressed me directly, looking rather desperate.

"Parvati? Will you go to the ball with me?"

I should have been delighted, but I didn't. It just seemed...odd. Suddenly my nerves seemed to give way and I found myself giggling uncontrollably. He waited patiently for me to subside, looking anxious, as if he was doubtful as to what my answer would be.

"Yes, all right, then," I forced myself to say. I couldn't stop giggling. So much for brilliant repartee. Still, there was the entire ball for us to talk.

"Thanks," he said. "Lavender - will you go with Ron?"

I felt a stab of annoyance. He should be talking about me, not Ron, of all people.

"She's going with Seamus," I replied automatically. Cue more giggling. How embarrassing. That was Lavender's fault, though, she set me off. And being near Harry makes me nervous at the best of times.

"Can't you think of anyone who'd go with Ron?"

Honestly, couldn't he thing about anything else?

"What about Hermione Granger?" I asked.

"She's going with someone else."

I was astonished. For a moment I was jolted out of my inner turmoil, and back into the comfortable world of gossip.

"Ooooh - who?"

"No idea," he said. I hoped he wasn't irritated. "So what about Ron?"

"Well..." I said, "I suppose my sister might...Padma, you know...in Ravenclaw. I'll ask her if you like."

I couldn't disappoint him. Besides, Padma used to say Ron was quite cute.

"Yeah, that would be great," he said. "Let me know, will you?"

I nodded weakly, but he was already heading back to his friends. I'd got my wish. So why did I feel so tortured?