Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: Rushing to get this together for a deadline that I'm cutting really effing close.
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Inevitable; Shadow HP Bribery (Y); Gryffindor MC; Slytherin MC; Neurodivegent; Rian-Russo Inversion; Rian-Russo Inversion; Ethnic & Present; Ethnic & Present; Hold the Mayo; Setting Sail; Lunar Era; Old Shoes (Y); Short Jog; Bucket Listing (Y); Green Ribbon
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 02
Subject (Task No.): Muggle Studies (Task#4: Write about reducing something.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [170](a night owl); 365 Prompts [263](Purple); Scavenger Hunt [43](Character I Love); Days of the Year [Mar 9th](emotional dam finally breaking); Black History Month [12](Someone/Something Fast); Crochet Week [04](Astronomy Tower); Penguin Awareness [03](Leather Jacket); Colours [06](Plum); Locations [07](Room of Requirement); Crystals & Gemstones [12](Stability); But Can You Spell It? [O](Often); Stop! Hamper Time (Cakes)[Item](Ensnare); You Get My Love (Love Languages)[06](Quotation); Would You Rather (09)[M/M Ship]; Fantasy February (01)[Daily Mirror Advice]; Gwen's Candy Shop [Bowl 1](Allergy); That Lovin' Feeling [List 1](05)[First Support]
Other MC4A Challenges: FaB [3B](Fruits/Vegetables); Set [2E](At Dawn); WiB [1B](Sorrow); Vocab [2D](Zealous); Ship (Heroic Shadow)[Fa Big](Mashed Potatoes); Fire [Hard](Taking the High Seas); Chim [Karma](Copper); Hangman [04](Neurodivergent); Hunt [Su Con](Burger)/[Wi Con](Herbs/Spices)/[Fa Set](Lookout Point)/[Fa Con](Cheese); Garden [Chore List](Running/Jogging)/[Bed Types](Castle)/[Plant Food](Fruit)/[Intersellar](Stars)/[So Many Fandoms](Harry Potter); Prompt Harvest [Acts & Behavior](Panicking)/[Settings](Bathroom)/[Settings](At Dawn)/[AUs](Turned Left Instead of Right AU)/[Tropes](Race Bend);
Representation(s): Desi & Autistic Harry Potter/Blaise Zabini; Getting Together
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Fruit Fly; Suddenly Audrey; Misshapen Pods; Tootsies; Second Verse (Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Deadliest Catch; Lovely Coconuts; Lyre Liar; Casper's House; Hot Apple; Bad Beans; Under the Bridge; Civil Disobedience; Easy Zephyr; Over the Hills); Chorus (Endless Wonder; Pear-Shaped; Wabi Sabi; Bee Haven; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Abandoned Ship; In the Trench; Infinity; Turtle-Duck; Forked Path; Sitting Hummingbird; Hot Stuff; Mermaid; Sailor Take Warning)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3(Thimble); SN(Rail; Spare); FR(Satisfaction; Evolution); O3(Orator; Oath); AD(Amphibian); War(Orator; Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui); TY(Enfant); Measure(Ennui; Rampant); Share(Ameliorate; Augur)
Word Count: 1608 words
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What the Mirror Said
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Harry wasn't allowed to use mirrors as a child. Aunt Petunia had made sure that Harry had known the consequences of such misbehavior from the earliest he could remember without the help of a dementor. Harry knew of the daily hints, of course. Everyone knew about them, and Dudley liked to brag about his hint to anyone who would listen (and he was willing to sit on the few kids who weren't initially willing to do so).
He once chanced a look in the mirror at school during the morning restroom break. The words had shimmered into existence like smoke turned into ink. Each letter was a deep and enchanting plum that was perfect to ensnare his attention, even at only seven years old. Unlike Dudley (who still required Aunt Petunia's help to read the mirror advice), Harry had no problem know what the words said.
Understanding the advice was not a problem he had anticipated at the time.
Don't eat the sweet.
That was what it had said. It might as well as been written in Greek or Latin. Harry had never gotten any sweets in his entire life. The closest he had ever come to any was when Dudley had some, and it wasn't like Dudley was going to share, now was it? Sweets weren't meant for freaks like him.
So he put the thought out of his mind completely.
And at lunch, he thought nothing of keeping the peppermint lolly that the cafeteria lady had added to the plate she had insisted on giving him when it came to light that Dudley had eaten the sandwich that Aunt Petunia had grudgingly packed for Harry (for the third time that week alone). After eating the rather greasy cheeseburger, mushy peas, and mashed potatoes, Harry had unwrapped the crinkly candy and popped it into his mouth.
Luckily, Susan Little had screamed when she had spotted the bright red hives appearing on Harry's dark skin. It had the teachers running towards them before Harry had started choking because his airway had closed. That moment of lead time as well as the epipen that the nurse kept on hand for Billy Pinkerton who had a peanut allergy were the only things that had kept Harry from dying.
And it wouldn't have been a problem at all if he had just followed the advice he had gotten from the mirror.
That didn't mean that he developed the habit of looking in mirrors.
That did mean that he often got his advice at odd times of the day. It also meant that his advice tended to be extremely pointed and apt to the event at hand. Command him to sleep made a lot more sense when he had his wand up a troll's nose at the time he saw received the advice. Hold on and don't let go was fairly ominous when your mirror self is putting a mythological stone in your physical pocket but when grappling with a possessed professor, it was literally life saving.
Of course, being told to breathe when he had jerked awake in the middle of the night and ran to the mirror to check if his eyes had turned red or snake-like after yet another nightmare about a familiar-yet-not hallway was less useful. He knew that he needed to breathe. Thank you very much. There was only so often that he could see it written in that perfect plum without wanting to punch the mirror.
After Sirius died in the battle at the ministry, the idea of trying to sneak a look in the mirror at the Dursleys had no appeal. To be honest, nothing did. Even when Dumbledore had delivered him to the Burrow after taking him to meet that Slughorn fellow, Harry didn't feel like breaking the habit of not bothering. The numb feeling lingered well into the new school term.
Ironically, he took to casting spells without words easier than anyone around him. That along with his sudden success in Potions (thanks in no small part to suddenly having a professor who didn't vanish his potion halfway through class, even discounting the notes in the margins of the old textbook he had borrowed at the beginning of the year), had Hermione being peevish. Or maybe her increased irritation was due to Ron being locked at the lips with Lavender at pretty much every opportunity since the first weekend of term. But he had always been good at magic and bad at words, so maybe not struggling like everyone else seemed to be wasn't as ironic as Harry thought it was.
Maybe he just didn't understand what irony really was.
Practically estranged from his best friends due to their focus on each of their individual stability for the time being, Harry had taken to wandering the halls of Hogwarts under his invisibility cloak or spending the night not sleeping in the Room of Requirement. He didn't think that anyone else had noticed yet. Not that it mattered any more than anything else had mattered since he had gotten Sirius killed through his own foolishness.
Harry jerked himself awake at the table that the Room had provided him. He must have fallen asleep while studying again. He tried to not do that. He wasn't a stranger to nightmares, having had them for years before even starting Hogwarts, but now the nightmares were even worse. No amount of clearing his mind seemed to solve that issue.
He heaved himself out of his seat with a pounding heart and stumbled to the little bathroom that the Room had provided. He splashed his face with water before risking a glance at the mirror over the sink, fulling expecting a stupid and irritating suggestion to breathe like he had gotten all of last year in the same situation. He blinked but the single word didn't change.
RUN.
He was moving before he could fully process the advice. His hands hit the door first, shoving it open. Then he was running full tilt, not paying any attention to where he was going. Some instinct that he didn't tend to acknowledge led him to go up instead of down at the first staircase he found.
Before he really knew it, he found himself panting in the breezy room at the top of the Astronomy Tower. The weak and gray light of the growing dawn glinted off of the copper telescopes that were permanent residents of the classroom. Unlike the smaller ones the students were required to purchase for the class, these were much too large to move around without a lot of planning. Harry leaned on the one farthrest from the door to catch his breath.
He could feel the shaking in his hands as the adrenaline that had prompted his sprint as much as the mirror advice faded. He was starting to feel foolish for having run in the first place. What did he need to run from in the first place? The Room wouldn't have let anyone in while he was in there, not unless he had let them in.
"You are very fast. Have you considered becoming a professional runner?"
Harry spun towards the source of the words. Standing next to a different telescope that had a student telescope set up in the same window bay was a black boy that Harry remembered as seeing disembark the train this year with Malfoy. Harry thought his name was Blaise Zabini. He had looked barely tolerant of the blond, despite being towards the edge of the same group of Slytherins for the first time (not that Harry took note of who hung around the annoying ferret). He definitely looked more content now to be in Harry's presence.
"I think I'm going to become an auror," Harry replied hesitantly. His heart was still pounding hard enough that he was slightly dizzy. That was what he was going to blame for his next words, at least. "If I survive to be anything, that is, which I probably won't. I don't know how anyone expects me to defeat a dark wizard with over fifty years experience on me and his army of zealous followers without any kind of training. It's a stupid idea that I will survive that. Not that I deserve to, which is its own problem. I have no idea why I'm telling you this."
"Perhaps the stars are just in alignment," Zabini answered with a gesture to the lightening sky outside the window. His teeth flashed as he gave a brief grin. "Or maybe desperation has made you turn to a complete stranger for support in lieu of anyone else."
"I should go back—"
"I can help," Zabini interrupted. Startled, Harry looked him in the eyes, only then realizing how they matched the plum of his mirror words. "I can help with much of the training portion of your problem. Whether you deserve to survive or not, I cannot say even I have my own opinion on the matter. I can provide assistance in the first matter."
"Why would you do that for me?"
"Why did you run in here like you did?"
"I, uh, the mirror told me," Harry said, knowing how the words sounded. Instead of sneering, Zabini nodded.
"The mirror told me to be here," Blaise explained. He glanced out the window again. "I thought it might be that the stars were finally in the correct position for what I needed to observe for my project. I think now that it was to be here for you."
Despite everything else that was happening in his life, Harry thought that maybe he could agree with that.