 for Sammy Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?
Ash, upon arriving home to her mansion, had smashed every single mirror in the house. She then swept up the pieces so that her little half-brother would not step on a shard. She'd never forgive herself if he got hurt because of her. Her bodyguards had confronted her about the mirrors. They asked why she did it. She said 'because I wanted to' and that was that.
Such behavior would not fly at Hogwarts, unfortunately. So as much as Ash wanted to methodically go around breaking every single mirror she found, she restrained herself. Being expelled would be bad. She reminded herself that she needed to graduate, in order to prove a point that a Muggleborn was as good as anybody else. It worked, for the most part.
Even so, Ash could not ignore the mirrors. Especially not this one. It was in such an obvious spot. She could not avoid it. It infuriated her. She could not get to classes without stopping here and staring at it, entranced for a few long moments. She wanted it GONE.
Today was a weekend, and Ash could afford to stay here for more than a few moments. She studied the mirror, her nose inches away from it, eyes taking in every aspect of the frame. It was a fancy mirror. It showed through it a place that was a room that she had never seen before. She wondered if it was a scrying mirror, a memory, or even an extradimensional space. That was the worst thing about this specific mirror. It was not a regular mirror or a two-way communication mirror. It reflected another space. If you looked in the mirror that Ash had been confined in, would you see her in the mirror like the strange room was shown in this one? Ash dreaded that idea. She hated this specific mirror. But NO. She could not smash it. She took a deep breath, and she felt slightly more calm.
She pulled herself away from the mirror and slid down to the floor on the wall across from the mirror, facing it but not looking at it. She WOULD NOT LOOK at it. She could not look at it. But she could not move away. So she just sat there, almost meditatively, with her eyes closed, playing music in her head to distract herself. The song was called "ain't no crying" by Derivakat. She had heard it a long time ago, and she could barely recall the lyrics. She wasn't able to walk away, but she certainly would not let her mind slip away from her.
Stupid mirror. You can't control me.
She was not going to lose a power struggle to an inanimate object. She refused to. What she really needed was somebody else. Somebody to distract her so that she could focus on something else and break her concentration on the mirror. She would be best friends with the next person walking by to talk to her, even if they were Cambridge or Upstead. Well, maybe that was an exaggeration. It was hard to imagine her liking either of them. A more accurate statement was that any random person that she did not already hate walking by could potentially be her best friend. Ash knew better than to promise friendship before it was deserved. |