TWO-WAY
by Serious Black

Fourteen pieces of glass were jangling around inside the trunk and the noise wouldn't stop, it's like they were in my shoes instead, I wanted to scream with every step. THUMP THUMP THUMP up the stairs to my bedroom on Privet Drive went the trunk and those pieces CLANKED louder and louder I swear until I thought I'd claw at my ears because I can take a lot, I HAVE taken a lot but not that sound, not for a minute longer.

So you won't be surprised when I tell you I opened the trunk first thing. Yeah, to pull out the pieces of the mirror.

I know there are fourteen pieces because I counted. Piled them into a little stack on the carpet. The wooden frame came out last. Message side up, This is a two-way mirror.

For a while I just looked. Thinking, how could I crush it all. How could I smash it. Into powder. Just get rid of it Harry. Make this disappear. Evanesco. Only the feeling was more like when I hit Malfoy, needing to break something with your hands is what you understand before you ever learn to hold a wand. Things you can't do with a wand: stabbing. Choking. Beating. Snapping bones, punching till your fists bleed. Sometimes you just want a hammer instead.

The Dursleys were watching TV. I heard them giggling when I went downstairs into the kitchen. Second drawer under the sink is where Uncle Vernon keeps his tools. I opened it and saw two things on top of the heap, hammer and a tube of glue.

Here I still am half an hour later, staring down at that drawer, scared of what's inside.

And which do you suppose I'll go back up with? Because I can already feel the wood of the hammer's handle getting warm inside my fist and I like that a lot, my hands are shaking, I want to swing this thing, pound till there's nothing left but sand and two-way matchsticks with your writing on.

But then there's that glue. Imagine. Fourteen pieces are easy, a kid could put that puzzle together. Then taking off my glasses and holding the mirror up. Myself, waiting inside it. Inside the cracks. For the first time looking like I feel.