Characters: Marietta
Summary: She cries every time she looks into a mirror. There are no mirrors left in the Edgecombe house, but she can't escape them at Hogwarts.
Pairings: None
Author's Note: Marietta is one of those characters with very little personality whom I can't help but think that Rowling, though I love her, invented for the very purpose of having someone to be "the bad guy" with the whole DA blow-up. I will attempt to address her more sympathetically here, though please note that Marietta is, of course, when it comes to other people, an unreliable narrator, so no, this is not Hermione bashing; I can't help but think that Marietta wouldn't be thinking warm thoughts towards Hermione after what she did to her.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me…
There are no mirrors left. All are smashed under small, bleeding fists, leaking red as torn gasps and sobs fill the air. At least, they would be smashed if Marietta had the physical strength in her wiry body to do the deed. As it is, she does not.
The Granger girl's a menace. And the Granger girl will never face punishment for this—With a bit of ugliness that Marietta assures herself is completely justified, she tells herself that it's because she's a Gryffindor. God forbid that their houses should have been reversed. Then, then, the Granger girl would have found herself out of Hogwarts before she could take another breath.
Marietta doesn't understand why it had to be this. She understood, understood in the way of someone who was still a child herself that there would be a reckoning, that there would be blood, if she ratted out the DA.
She knew there were risks.
But she didn't expect…
Was this really a just "punishment" for that? Was Hermione Granger really that petty? Marietta… She sits down on the bathroom toilet and claps a hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing. She'd just been trying to save her mother's job.
And now she'll be able to see just what she got for that loyalty for the rest of her life, probably.
There are no mirrors left in the Edgecombe home. She sobbed and cried into them constantly, trying so desperately and always failing to drown her reflection, unable to escape SNEAK, and her parents removed them as a result. There are no mirrors where she can find them.
But there are still mirrors at Hogwarts. Mirrors that move, and glare at her. Eyemirroreyes don't forgive Marietta, and they bear witness to her shame. They're everywhere. They don't see that she was trying to help her mother; they only see that she ended up on the "wrong" side, and that she's worthy of their contempt because of it.
Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me…
Oh, how the words lie.
Words do hurt.
They hurt when they're reflected in unforgiving eyemirroreyes.
They hurt when they've been carved into Marietta's face, and won't go away.