This was written in response to a challenge posted on 30minutefics, on livejournal. As you might suspect, it was written in half an hour.
"Challenge #58: The Magic Mirror Challenge--Someone uses a magical mirror. Do they scry into the future? Give themselves seven years of bad luck? It's all up to you."
"Dad, did you know this place has an attic?" I yelled down the stairs, my hand on the dusty brass doorknob. There was no response; they were probably all outside bringing boxes in from the car. I shrugged and opened the door. Cold air rushed out at me in a whirl of dust and stench.
"Doesn't anyone air this place out ever?" I muttered irritably, waving the dust away from my face and trying to breathe shallowly. I stepped inside the chilly room, shivering slightly, and looked around.
Only one window offered any light in the tiny attic, and I couldn't find a switch anywhere. Dust pillars floated gently upwards in the square of dim light before the window, so crusted with grime and warped with age that it hardly served as a window at all. Wooden planks creaked under my feet as I stepped forward to inspect the only item in the room: something very tall, covered with a black drape and positioned in the exact center of the attic, where the ceiling was highest.
I fingered the drape; it was coarse and heavy, and covered in a fine layer of dust. Holding my breath and squeezing my eyes shut, I pulled the drape off and threw it to one side.
I peered out through my lashes, waved the dust away.
"The hell—?"
It was a mirror, very tall and set in an ornate frame. Something had been carved into the top, and when I opened my eyes enough to see clearly I was able to read the words: "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi."
"Holy shit," I whispered, stumbling back out of the mirror's path. What was the Mirror of Erised doing in my new house?!
I stared at the mirror, dumbfounded, for a good two minutes before I realized it must be a prop or something. Some kind of replica, probably purchased for a few hundred bucks by the previous owners and forgotten up here. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed at my own stupidity. How could I have thought the real mirror was here? None of that stuff was true. All fiction, just some books written for kids.
And yet, I couldn't resist moving to stand in front of it, just to see for myself…
The mirror was spotted with age, but my reflection was clear. I stared for a long time, waiting for something special to happen, but there was no change. When I moved, my reflection mirrored those movements. I tested it over and over again, looking into the background and studying everything about the image in the mirror, but nothing seemed different in the least.
"It's a prop," I said out loud. "Just a regular mirror." Feeling stupid for ever thinking otherwise, I left the room.
But that night I couldn't sleep. The nagging thought just wouldn't leave me alone: what if it was real? What if that mirror in my attic really was the one from those books? My reflection had been unchanged…did that mean I was absolutely happy? That my deepest desire was to remain exactly as I already was?
I crept upstairs to the attic. It was freezing now at night, but I'd brought up my blanket and settled comfortably on the grimy floor, right in front of the mirror. I stared at my image, and she stared back.