House: Ravenclaw

Class: DADA

Category: Standard

Word Count: 1589

Prompt(s): [Object] Broken Mirror - [Scenario] Being invisible (literally or metaphorically is up to the writer)

Warnings/Disclaimers: Slight/Possible Canon Divergence

How do you explain to your child the reason you despise an object? The reason you keep it locked up in your attic, refusing to speak of it. How do you explain why you care for it, too; why you insist the house elves keep it free of dust daily, and make sure it doesn't get any more damaged than it already is? It feels impossible to explain. But perhaps that's just because you don't want to have to explain it.

Luckily, the first time your son brings it up, he doesn't ask you. You sit at your large, impersonal dining table, in a manor you've always found to be too big for only three people (even though you grew up in something much bigger.) Your son, Draco, who couldn't be more than five at the time, tilts his small blond head to the side. His bright gray eyes, eyes he inherited from his father, look silver in the evening light. They squint at your husband.

"Father?" comes his young voice, not yet posh and polished. It reminds you of your own childhood. It reminds you of her. Of the person you avoid thinking about.

You pause to look at your son, but his gaze is fully focused on his father. You continue chewing. He's not asking you the question, he rarely does. No, you are his mother, there to watch out for him and softly chide his mistakes. Designed to comfort him when he is punished, and disappear when he is not. Even if he did look at you, you can't answer for your husband; he is the man of the house, he is in charge. You are not allowed to have the answers.

You feel like a stranger in your own home. Peering through the glass at something that isn't yours. Watching, but not really involved. Invisible. Unnoticed.

Hasn't it always been like this? You don't remember. Or you try not to.

"Why do we keep a mirror in the attic?"

You direct your head towards your plate, and do not see the way your husband, Lucius, looks towards you for an answer.

"Because it's broken," he says, "it wouldn't do us well to display that for our guests, now would it?"

It's a good answer. It makes sense. It isn't the true answer, but you have no place to answer; even if you were allowed, you couldn't tell the truth.

"Of course not," Draco replies, and you think that maybe his curiosity has been sated.

But he is a young, wondering child and so he thinks for a few more moments. Eventually he speaks again.

"Why do we keep it if it's broken?"

Your husband looks towards you again. This time you meet his gaze, but he isn't looking at you, it's almost like he's staring through you instead. Searching. Like somewhere on you he'll find some kind of clue. Some semblance of an answer. He doesn't. His tactic changes.

"Why were you in the attic to begin with, Draco," he queries and your son blanches. "Have I not told you it's forbidden?"

No one speaks for the rest of dinner. Assorted sounds of cutlery and chewing echo throughout the room. It's like a cavern. It swallows you whole.

You tuck your son into bed that night, your curious, bright little boy. He squirms when you place a kiss on his forehead. A part of you hopes he stays young and curious for as long as he can. You know he won't. This isn't an environment for thoughts and wonderings, for little curiosities. No, it's an environment for obedience, for unquestioned, unwavering loyalty to a system of ideals and beliefs that far predate either of you.

You sit on his bed until he is fast asleep. It is unusual behavior, but the house elf who tidies his room pays you no mind. This is the usual, this is normal. Even in the hallways or the drawing room, you are quiet, invisible. House elves bustle past you with a million better things to do than look at you. It didn't bother you before tonight, but something about it irks you now.

Sleep doesn't come easy. You lay in bed, beside your husband who is both warm and cold, and stare blankly at the ceiling, trying to purge the mirror from your mind. The mirror that haunts you, with its little broken edges, imperceptibly cracked. It's been six years since it was put in your attic. At first you hid it with a curtain. You didn't want to see it, didn't want to see yourself in its reflection. You preferred being invisible, back then. You try not to think about what's changed, and turn over to sleep.

But you are not rid of it, not even in sleep. In sleep it is worse. Your dream is vivid, like a memory, but not quite. You recognize the scene. This is the night you grew to despise the mirror.

Your chest is pressed tightly against the deep blue wallpaper, and your eyes peek around the corner of the archway. It separates the hallway from the sitting room. There is barely any space between you and them, but it feels like a chasm divides you. They don't see you. Even if you weren't hidden behind the wall they wouldn't have noticed you. They are too laser-focused on her.

It's hard to blame them. You can't blame them when you, too, can't tear your eyes away from your sister. She has always been the curious one out of the three of you. Not loud or outgoing like your eldest sister, but not quite as quiet and unremarkable as you. She is perfectly in the middle, vivacious and brilliant, but always obedient. Until now. Until this moment when everything changes. In this moment she is loud in her defiance. Her eyes smolder with an underlying anger, hot and bubbling. It feels like if you stare at her long enough, you might catch that fire too. You're not sure that would be a good thing.

Your parents scream at her, she shouts back. There's no longer a sense of caution about her, no longer any fear. She's leaving. Her bags were in the entryway, you saw them when you rushed through the house to see what was happening. You wish you could say you were surprised. You weren't. She had been slipping out at night for the past couple of months. You'd watched her from your window, invisible, wondering what the outcome would be. This was not exactly how you'd expected it to play out.

If you were being honest, you'd thought she would just disappear one day. Maybe in summer. Maybe she would show up at the station, bags packed, and just wouldn't return home. You'd not expected her to get into a screaming match with your parents. You hadn't expected to take her side.

But you did. You couldn't help it. This was Andromeda. The sister who had tucked you in and held you when you had nightmares, who told you everything would be alright. Who read you stories and played with you in the gardens. How could they be looking at her with such hatred, such contempt? It was unfair, you thought. You felt it, then, that bubbling anger she was feeling. And that was when it happened.

The strong, sturdy mirror that had always hung over the fireplace, always watching, cracked. You froze and stared at the corner where a skinny crack, not even an inch long, had appeared. Your parents didn't notice it. Andromeda did. She looked at you, she noticed you. She noticed what had happened.

When you wake from your dream you are covered in a cold sweat. Anger and panic still clings to your skin, holds you like a vice. How many months had you tried to believe that she had cracked the mirror with her anger? Too many, surely. That was why you despised the mirror. Because the magic that broke the mirror was yours. And that was terrifying.

You don't want to think about it anymore. About how every time you feel that same bubbling feeling the mirror cracks just a little bit further. Now it's noticeable. It wasn't when your parents gave it to you, but it is now. You worry that one day it will shatter completely.

Of course, you can't tell your son that. He's too young to understand the fine line you're walking. Too young to understand the quiet defiance that rumbles in your chest from time to time. How you hide it, because you fear what would happen if you didn't.

He only asks once more about the mirror. It's a week later, as you're tucking him beneath his covers. As though he's finally realized that you could have an answer to his question. You only smile at him, and give him a small kiss on the forehead. You tell him you're not sure (he doesn't believe you - someone in this house has to know, after all) and pick up his favorite storybook instead. He grumbles something or another, but settles down, and eventually falls asleep.

You worry that he'll ask again, when he's older. That you'll have to give him an answer some day. But as children often do, he forgets all about the mysterious broken mirror in the attic. You try to do the same. And so your family doesn't notice, as the years go by, how the mirror keeps breaking.

You can only pretend not to.