Mirror

Summary - Lily Evans and mirrors have always had an intriguing relationship. She's shared many intimate, and sometimes, several foolish moments of her life with the reflective surfaces.

"The mirror is my best friend because when I cry, it never laughs."

There's something to be said about the human psychology that one can't help staring at mirrors or reflections whenever an opportunity arises, and yet, the rarity of finding one who is truly content with one's appearance is madly astounding.

Lily Evans was no different.

Being a redhead with startling green eyes and pale, freckle-dotted skin meant that Lily spent an inordinate amount of time in front of mirrors throughout her life, both as a child and as an adult. The reasons for it often tended to vary over the years, however.

At age five, Lily can't fathom why she has been cursed this way and wonders why she looks so different from her friends and sister, who has shiny blond hair and blue eyes. She pouts unhappily, crying in front of her tiny bedroom mirror as she pulls on her red pigtails with distaste.

"But why do I look like this, Tuney?"

"I don't know, Lily," her elder sister sighs in irritation from the bed, blowing on her brightly colored fingernails to dry them. Her eyes lift to Lily and she cocks her head to the side. "You know Mum says you got it from Aunt Lucinda."

"But Aunt Lucinda is beautiful," Lily turns around, chubby cheeks streaked with tears, "Will I ever be as beautiful as her, Tuney?"

"Unlikely," Petunia says, and Lily deflates, more tears leaking out. "You should've just been blonde like me and Mum."

"I didn't mean to be this way!" Lily cries, "All the kids at school tease me for it."

Petunia sighs deeply, looking very much like a patient adult to Lily, and finally puts aside her tube of nail paint before coming up to her little sister.

"Honestly, you're such a cry-baby!" she wipes away Lily's tears, "You've gotta be strong, you know. Even if you have weird hair, you shouldn't let the other kids tease you for it. Remember that you're better at quizzes than them."

"I am," Lily smiles wide then, her lips pulling apart to reveal a missing tooth, "I scored highest on the spelling test today."

"There you go," Petunia pats her on the head, and Lily looks up at her with admiration. "You must become successful enough that it'll make up for how you look. And then someone will agree to marry you."

"Like a prince!"

"Princes aren't real, Lily! Grow up."

At age ten, Lily rushes up to her room, forehead gleaming with sweat, and closes the door behind her with a shaky hand. She quickly runs up to stand in front of the body-length mirror inside and looks down at her clenched palm with uncontained giddiness.

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, excitement barely contained, Lily opens her palm to reveal a withered flower resting there sadly.

"You can do this, Lily," she whispers to herself seriously, eyebrows pulled together in concentration. "Severus said you could."

She scrunches up her face as if she hasn't done this several times already, but her apprehensive little heart doesn't want to sore too high with hope. And yet, the flower revives easily, too easily, the petals blooming again with a bright yellow color that open up to illuminate Lily's face as if to sing 'thank you for saving me'.

Her green eyes lift up to the mirror then, and she finds herself smiling radiantly, wide enough that it hurts her face, but Lily can't help it.

"You're a witch, Lily Evans," she says, and then promptly dissolves into a bout of mad giggles.

At age eleven, Lily Evans stands in the bathroom she shares with her Gryffindor dorm mates at one in the morning, feeling quite wide awake.

It's only her first night at Hogwarts, and she can barely believe her luck. Truth be told, up until this point, Lily had half expected this to be some elaborate dream cooked up by her overactive imagination. But it isn't, and somehow, all she can do is cover her mouth with her hands and squeal into them excitedly as she jumps around, legs flailing wildly.

She is a witch. Hogwarts is real. Magic exists.

She wonders if the world will ever feel the same way to her again or not. She doesn't really mind the idea of it changing.

She takes a deep breath to calm her racing heart and says, "You've got this, Lily. You're going to be the best witch this world has ever seen. And you'll have the power to help Severus. And then Tuney will have to acknowledge you, too."

Satisfied with her pep-talk and with hope blooming in her chest, Lily returns to her bed.

At age fifteen, Lily realizes the pain of shattered hope.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she sobs quietly, glaring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She furiously wipes at her eyes, leaving the skin underneath them red and raw. "You knew it. You already knew what he was getting into, then why—"

But she knows why. Of course, she does.

Mudblood.

The word rattles around her head, again and again, piercing her heart and soul in ways she hasn't ever let it before. She knows it's not just the humiliation and the utterly degrading sentiment behind the word that makes it difficult for her to breathe.

It's the person who said it. The person who she'd foolishly thought she could change, who had long ago stopped being Lily's friend and seemed more ashamed to be seen around her than around his little Death Eater buddies—

No.

Lily shakes her head, grips the sink beneath her fingers until they shake, and glares at her reflection some more.

"Severus is gone," she tells herself firmly, not entirely able to stop the pit in her heart from enlarging. "He is no different from his disgusting mates who want you dead. Get. That. Through. Your. Head."

When one traitorous tear still leaks out and makes a trail down her cheek, Lily decides it's the last one she will ever shed for her lost friend.

"Lily?" She hears Mary's cautious rapping of knuckles against the bathroom door. "Are you—are you okay?"

Lily quickly splashes some cold water on her face and pats it dry before opening the door with a small smile. "I'm okay."

"Okay," Mary nods, shifting uncomfortably. "It's just—"

"What?"

"Snape's downstairs. Outside the portrait hole," Mary grimaces. It's almost a reflex for Lily to defend the boy, but she clamps down on the urge vehemently. "He says he's going to sleep out there until you talk to him."

Somehow, this only makes her anger boil over. How typical of Severus to treat her like trash and then blackmail her into being friends with him again at his own convenience.

She sighs. "I'll take care of it."

"You don't have to go down there, Lily," Mary implores immediately, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. "I—After what happened down by the lake today…"

"So what? Are you saying I should just hide up in here forever?"

"Merlin, no, of course not. I just ran into James while coming up here and—"

"Potter?" She frowns, her heart jumping at the mention of that particular name despite herself. Stupid bloody James Potter and his stupid mates and just…she couldn't deal with him right now. "What's he got to do with anything?"

"Well, Snape's making quite some commotion down there, and James is all too willing to do something about it, so you don't have to—"

"Mary," Lily cuts her off, "Hell hasn't yet frozen over. I don't need James Potter coming to my rescue."

With that said, she strides past Mary and out of the dormitory.

At age sixteen, Lily finds herself in front of the Prefect's Bathroom mirror on the fifth floor, not entirely sure that she's not completely lost her mind.

Her fingers hurriedly comb through her auburn strands, pulling them out of the braid she'd had earlier. They fall in gentle waves over her shoulders and Lily quickly reaches into her purse to pull out a clear lip gloss.

"Lily?" Mary walks into the bathroom right as she starts applying the gloss. "What are you—Merlin, are you getting dolled up?"

Lily's cheeks burn a telling red and she almost drops the tube in alarm. "Mary! How did you get inside?"

"Just overheard you saying the password," Mary rolls her eyes, walking up to her with a fiendish grin, "But never mind that. Are you dressing up for James Potter?"

"What?" Lily squawks, face heating up even more, "That's not—no, of course not. Why would you—it's Hogsmeade. It's okay to look a little better than your usual days on Hogsmeade outings."

"No one's denying that," Mary continues to grin, "Except you didn't seem to think so just ten minutes ago before we ran into Remus on the staircase and he told us that the lads would be joining us since all of us were date-less."

"I—well, that's not—" Lily sputters, lost for words. She finally huffs, tossing the gloss back into her purse and hiking the strap higher on her shoulder. "I wasn't dressing up for James. How can you even assume it's for him, besides? Maybe I just felt like looking prettier. James and I are mates, Mary. Barely that, even."

"Sure, sure. All I'm asking is for you to inform me when you decide that you've suffocated enough under the burden of your own blinding denial."

"Oh, shut up," Lily says, ignoring her friend's laughter as she walks past her. "Let's go or we'll be late."

"I'm sure Potter won't mind a couple of minutes. You know, considering the bloke's been waiting for you for years."

"Merlin help me, I will push you down the stairs, Mary."

At age seventeen, Lily feels like she's pretty much on top of the world.

Or as 'at top of the world' as a witch who's been asked out by her ridiculous, dashing best-mate gets.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror, grinning madly as she plops down on her soft bed. Being the head girl at Hogwarts has brought more than a few benefits with it in Lily's life, the head's dormitory being one of them.

Though perhaps snogging the head boy for a good half hour on their common room couch had not been the primary expectation that her title required of her.

But Lily decides there are worse things in life. Like not snogging James Potter.

She doesn't know how he managed to completely wriggle his way into her life and her heart, but he has. There's barely any moment in her days now when Lily is not obsessively thinking about the boy who lives in the room across from hers.

She supposes she should start referring to him as her boyfriend now.

The thought makes her giggle, an alarmingly large-sized bubble of giddiness expanding in her chest. She trails her fingers up to her thoroughly snogged lips and feels her stomach swoop. There's a bright telling light in her green eyes and Lily is sorely tempted to go check whether the same emotion is reflected in James's eyes or not, but stops herself because Merlin knows it had been difficult enough to leave the bloody couch in the first place.

But it's soon clear that she has the stronger willpower between the two of them when there is a sharp knock against the door and then James's messy-haired head pokes in.

"Can't sleep," He says, a shameless smirk eating up his face. "I'm scared of the dark."

"Keep the lights on then," Lily says, raising an eyebrow when he steps inside her room.

"And loneliness. I'm scared of loneliness."

She laughs at his expression. "That really is a pity."

"I reckon you can be of some help. Care to try?"

And though she knows that it goes entirely against her recent decision of staying away for the night…well, there's only so much that a witch can resist.

So when James offers her his hand and Lily notices that his eyes are decidedly bright behind his glasses, she stops trying to fight the battle that she's already lost and allows him to pull her away.

The End.