A/N: Written for The Mirror of Erised Competition at the HPFC forum. Thanks to mew-tsubaki for betareading this!
Just a Lie of Smoke and Glass
Character: Helena Rawenclaw
She put her hand out and pretended that her fingertips touched the mirror, that they felt a cold, smooth surface beneath them. And since she halted her reach just where her fingers would have met resistance by the glass, if she had had a body, it was almost as if the touch was real.
In the mirror she wasn't grey and transparent but had rosy cheeks, eyes that were shining brightly with happiness – and liveliness – and was clad in vivid colours. It could have been true.
The crucial thing, though, was not to move at all, because when she did, her fingers passed through – into the mirror. When that happened, it was completely impossible to believe in her reflection.
And she so dearly wanted to believe what she saw in there was true. That it was that who was the truth, the reality - her life, her world, and herself.
Not this lonely, dim, stuck being she was now, but the human in front of her. She wanted to be the woman who was smiling next to her mother, whose arm was clutched gently by her mother. Her mother, who was proud of her, approving of her and even admiring her.
Of course she knew it had never been like that and that it would never be true, that she shouldn't even imagine it being true. She had heard of this mirror so many times, how it would lure men and women into madness, so she should be avoiding it. But when she had stumbled across (figuratively speaking, of course; she had more floated across it when she was drifting around in the school, so deep in thoughts she didn't notice her surroundings at all) the mirror like this, she hadn't been able to resist it. To see her mother again and to see something she desired that much had been too great of a temptation for her.
And wasn't it capturing her right now? The look in her mother's eyes when they met hers made her feel so loved, so appreciated that she never wanted to leave.
She wanted to stay here and keep pretending it had been like that when she was alive.
So she leaned even closer to the mirror, as though her nose tip was touching it, and saw how her mother's mouth formed the word "Helena."
She wanted to get closer, to get in there, to touch her mother, to be there, to feel it. Intuitively, she bent forward even further – and everything disappeared. She jolted and, after a moment of fear, she realized what had happened, so she backed off and saw her reflection again.
The Helena in the mirror was smiling, as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn't walked through the mirror, as if she wasn't dead.
Anger rose within her; it was so unfair. Just because she had been afraid to face her mother in the afterlife, just because she hadn't dared to go beyond, she would never get anything else than this.
She knew it was irrational of her to be thinking about this and regretting her choices now. They had been made, and it was a long time since she had accepted her faith and what was left of her existence (for lack of a better word.)
But watching what could have been - what would have been - this close, just in front of her, brought every emotion she had suppressed for so long back to her.
Tears began streaming down her face, and she wanted to crush the mirror, break it; she wanted it to be shattered into a billion pieces, completely beyond rescuing and recognition. Her vision was blurred as she let her fists hit the mirror, well aware that they wouldn't be able to touch it and make any difference to it at all. Still, she continued hitting the sleek surface, with her eyes closed so she could at least make up a picture in her mind of how she destroyed it.
She was certain her greatest desire right now was to see the mirror broken, but when she opened her eyes the same image as before was seen.
She didn't move anymore, she just stared into her reflection's colourful, sparkling eyes, completely numb. It was as though she was entranced by the way her mirror image breathed, mist forming on the other side of the glass. Her chest heaved in a steady pace, her blue dress swaying slowly. She felt nothing when she saw it, but it was so rhythmical and harmonic she couldn't tear her gaze away from it.
But then someone, the teacher with the turban, burst in. Helena quickly floated out without thinking, not wanting to be seen.
It had been instinctive to pass through the wall to get away from there, but - now that she was out - she was pleased she had left the mirror. Helena never wanted to see it again.