A/N don't own em, yada yada.
Courage is grace under pressure. Ernest Hemmingway
It was funny, he thought, as he stared at the cold grey eyes staring back at him, that all he saw in the mirror was simply himself. Nothing more. But the self in the mirror seemed different somehow, seemed pulled up taller, seemed to be more sure of himself. He was wearing different robes as well, finely tailored, and he seemed older somehow, the blond hair was longish, but looked styled rather than messy. There was a faint air of power about him, and he could see traces of his father staring back at him.
He'd spent his whole life trying to grow up to be his father, like all little boys did, he'd wanted to grow up to have the same power and authority that his father had. He wanted to grow up to have the ability to look down on people and have it be regarded as just who he was rather than a personality fault. Just a natural arrogance that kept those that he did not deem worthy away. His father had the ability to do that.
He wanted notoriety and power. He wanted to have the family wealth. He wanted to be respected for who he was. He wanted to have the sort of control his father had. He wanted his father's grace. He wanted his father's courage.
There was a book he had, some muggle thing, his father said that the arts were the only things that the muggles were good for, that it takes a certain kind of filth to be an artist, and a certain sort of refinement to enjoy it, but the book had claimed that courage was grace under pressure. And that had described his father so well. His father was always so graceful, even under pressure. Even on trial, being sent to Azkaban, his father had an air of calm gracefulness about him. Like a finely bred Afghan hound, everything came effortlessly to his father.
He wasn't like that though. As much as he wanted to be, he was nothing like his father. He didn't have that same grace, especially not under pressure. He wasn't graceful, not even in a calm setting. At first his mother had tried to write it off as the typical awkward gawkiness of a teenage boy, but he had grown past the stage where his limbs were too big for his body now. He had grown into a fine young man, he knew that he could turn heads when he walked, and he tried to use it to his advantage.
But he couldn't control it like his father could. He didn't have the same sort of natural grace that his father had. He had cracked under pressure, something his father would never do. He had cracked, he had stuttered and faltered. But worst of all, more than stumbling and stuttering under the pressure, he had ran. He had turned tail and left, leaving Snape to do his dirty work for him, to do what he was supposed to have been brave enough to do.
He was not a brave man, not a courageous man, he was a coward, nothing more than a coward. Snape had the courage to do what he hadn't done. Snape had killed Dumbledore with the same graceful fluidity of motion that he taught his classes with, it had been like swatting a fly to the older man. It would have been like swatting a fly to his father. But not to him, to him, he couldn't handle the pressure and he had cracked.
He was the runt of the litter. His family had prided themselves on generations upon generations of fine breeding, constantly refined until it was perfected. He was supposed to have been perfection, but instead, he was a runt, he was nothing like his father, he was nothing like he was supposed to be. He may have inherited his fathers looks, but none of the grace, none of the courage, none of the control that his father had. He wouldn't grow up to be a charming, brave man, able to cow half the world beneath him just by looking at them.
He was a coward, nothing more. That was what he was staring at in the mirror. He saw himself, graceful, powerful, brave, willing to take adversary in stride, willing not to crack under the pressure like he had before. That was what he desired most in the world, to grow up to be just like his father.