Title: Reflection (part of the Switched series)
Author: catsncritters/Adrienne Wolter
Rating: G
Warnings: None for this particular piece, but slash for Switched. This mini-fic is not slash.
Summary: You will need to have read the first 11 or so chapters of Switched to fully understand this piece. This is an extremely short monologue from the point of view of one of the characters in Switched who suffers most from his switch.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his universe belong to JK Rowling. I own the concept of Switched, as well as all of the plot.

.~*~.

Have you ever wondered what it is like, to wake up in the morning, roll over under satin sheets, and stretch, taller than you should be?
Of course you haven't. You have never experienced being in someone else's shoes, have you? Or someone else's clothes. Or someone else's body.
To wander around spacious, chilly rooms in the underbelly of a castle, when for five whole years and a few weeks of a sixth you became used to a shared dormitory. To step into the shower, avoiding the mirror because you don't want to face the role you've been forced to play, or to see the face you've been forced to wear. And then, every morning when you lather soap over yourself and in your hair, you try not to cry because you've been put into this ironic role even when you did nothing wrong.

Because the mirror, well, it sees all when it is unbroken. It knows who you are. It can see the sadness in your eyes, until you break it. And you have to. Because what you can see in the mirror, your enemy can see, too.
And one hairline crack in the otherwise perfect glass is all it takes to hide your real identity, at least by appearance. To the mirror, that's all that matters.
And the disappointment you feel when you get out of the shower, tie the towl around your skinnier waist, turn to face the mirror.

Because I'm the one in this role. I'm the one who has to pretend the most. Everyone has to pretend, of course, but me... I have to pretend to be someone I'm not. And I have to make myself believe that the reflection I see in the mirror is not mine, because once I start believing it, I know I'll go mad.
I don't think anyone else has changed into the person that they fear, the person who they can just think of and get the chill, the feeling of unease. I don't think anyone else has been switched to the body of the man they most despise.

And I look into the mirror, knowing that I am Neville Longbottom, a sixth year Gryffindor who is sixteen years old. Knowing that I have a grandmother who wears a vulture-topped hat and parents who don't remember that they have a son. Hoping that this is all just one long nightmare that I'll finally awaken from and never have to face again.
And I turn away, wondering if I will bear the appearance of Snape forever.