Six Faces
Title: Six Faces
Rating: PG
Prompt: Experiments by Evil Scientists
Fandom: Harry Potter, Pendragon, Narnia, Tuck Everlasting, Heroes of Olympus
Summary: It was just a normal mirror, really. No different from any others that hung in London. But this mirror - was special.
Warnings: None really, other than blink and you'll miss it spoilers for Raven Rise and The Last Battle.
There was nothing too remarkable about the mirror. Just another typical mirror that was mass produced and sent out to be installed in some Underground station in London. Simple glass and silvering, no different than any other of its matching brothers. But this was a mirror that was destined to see much in its life. When it was hung, times weren't exactly the best. While the Great War was over, things were hard to recover from. Things weren't horrible, not yet. Trouble was brewing on the other side of the English Channel, that much was certain. Anyone paying attention to world events knew that. The mirror was installed by two men, one who used to sell cars and the other who used to teach mathematics at Cambridge. After they were done, they wiped the glass and moved onto the next, marking the event with little more than a statistic - one mirror of fifty hung that day.
Things are curious in the world - there are places that exist in all time, places built by men, not just of nature. This mirror was in one of the few locations that would see much, though no one would ever know this - for the worlds and the people it would see would never fully intersect, except in mere passing. Six remarkable people would stare into the same mirror - all at different times - the six would be the ones the mirror would remember.
The first one was an eleven year old boy with black hair and a piercing gaze. This boy looked into the mirror with some detached interest, a desire to learn, a desire to be important. He looked into the glass and checked his teeth - very straight and very white, smiling as he smoothed and adjusted his second hand clothes as if they were the suit of an important member of Parliament. He squared his shoulders, the smile that seemed eager to please, eager to learn, eager to just be acknowledged. Every year like clockwork the boy would return, each time a little changed, the eagerness replaced by raw desire and the smile grew into a smirk. Eyes ever sharp, ever knowing. Perhaps, just perhaps, he knew that the mirror saw so much, yet couldn't say a thing. It'd been this boy, who, on the mirror's fourth viewing, in an act of showing off, had taped the mirror so that it would never, ever break. When the next war began, the mirror was thankful for that, if a mirror could be thankful. The mirror never forgot the boy - the wizard.
The first boy's name was Tom Riddle.
The second boy was a monster. There was nothing human in the boy's gaze, even as a youth. Blue eyes that already judged people by face value, never wanting to look beneath the surface. This boy made Tom seem almost humane by comparison. Being a mirror, it only knew of the outside world in snatches of news spoken in the bathroom's walls and the reflection of newspaper. It would learn of Tom's evil - and knew what he was capable of. But it feared the second boy more. He was capable of much more - and the boy knew it. The boy was planning on it. He would only look in the mirror once, but once was more than enough as far as the mirror was concerned. He ran a comb through blond locks, smiling at his appearance, a heavy gold ring with a gray stone on his left hand. The ring wasn't anything the mirror had seen before - and it had seen many jewels and rings in its short life at the time. It would never see its like again. When the second boy left, the mirror wished it could forget what it had seen. But like a fossil record, the boy was seared in its memory for all time.
The second boy's name was Alexander Naymeer.
The third boy was equally dark haired and brooding as the first, but this boy didn't carry himself with an aura of false confidence. This boy walked as if he were a king - and the mirror knew he was a king. It had seen him with classmates, with a brother - and still it was this boy it noticed more than the others. Like the previous boys, he had checked his appearance, though not to impress girls or authority figures. This boy was looking for the man he was trying to be, for who he had been for a brief time - and sadly, due to tragedy, would never be again. The mirror liked this boy, who had a distinct air of trying to be who he was and who he was expected to be. It watched him adjust two different hats, straighten three jackets - and each time he returned he was a little changed. A mirror is not supposed to have favorites, it views all people who gaze into equally. If it was possible, the boy might have been one of her favorites.
The third boy's name was Edmund Pevensie.
The fourth boy was unexpected. His eyes were older than Edmund's, older than the mirror's, it was far to old of a gaze for his outward visage. He was the only person to ever wear a military uniform that the mirror remembered. Not the familiar brown color of the British, but a green shade marking him as an American. He seemed almost detached as he ran a hand over his short hair, grinning at the fact his face was unshaven - a face that could never grow a beard. He seemed to only be concerned with looking regulation ready as straightened his shoulders and adjusted his hat, smiling brightly. The mirror watched as a single white cloth fell from the man's sleeve and then his smile nearly gave way as he picked it up. He turned it over in his hands, his expression growing sad. A flash of a monogram in the corner - a faded blue 'W' and a scrap of lace. The mirror knew the look on the man's face. It had seen it before. The look of mourning. After securing the cloth back into his sleeve and lifting up his bag, he gave the mirror one look and for a moment, the mirror wondered if the young man knew. It gave the mirror something to ponder for the next forty-six years.
The fourth boy's name was Jesse Tuck.
The fifth boy delighted the mirror. He was in the mirror's opinion, how a boy should look. A little uncertain, a little clumsy. Curly hair over a face still clinging to baby fat. He would visit the mirror more than the first boy. In the beginning, he'd stood on tiptoes to look into the glass, trying with little success to look neat and orderly. He seemed oddly cheerful, but the joy never quite reached his eyes - not for a while. The mirror saw him turn from a boy into a man - and one day the boy stood in front of the mirror with a confidence it'd not seen since the third. This was someone who had faced impossible odds and overcome them all with remarkable courage. True, he looked a little worse for wear that day, his face still bearing the marks of having been in a horrific fight, but there was such pride and joy in his face, the mirror, had it not been witness to the change, would never believe the boy it first beheld and the one standing in front of them now were the same. He would be the mirror's second favorite.
The fifth boy's name was Neville Longbottom.
Renovations of the Underground in preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games caused the mirror to be moved. It saw nothing of it's journey away from the men's bathroom it had always known in the heart of London except the back of a blanket. It feared it would be destroyed - and it was being taken out into an uncertain world, a world that could belong to any of the five boys or none of them. It had seen too many things - wizards, kings, soldiers, madmen. It could be headed anywhere and nowhere. There was a great period of nothingness - perhaps a trip across the ocean. The mirror only regained it's thoughts on the day it was rehung in another bathroom, smaller and cleaner than the first, unfamiliar ground to be sure.
The sixth boy was something the mirror had never seen. When the water spattered across the glass, the boy waved his hand and the droplets were swept away, leaving the mirror clean. He was easily as old as the fourth boy just by his visage, but his eyes at least matched his age. He took several steps backward, checking his clothes - jeans and purple shirt. He had a smile that the mirror liked. It was warm, with no hint of superiority to it. He rocked on his heels, almost laughing. Oddly, the mirror, for the first time since Tom Riddle had tapped it with his wand and given, to a mirror, something to make it immortal, felt safe. The boy had brought it here for it's own protection - it was sure of it. As if it could gain a voice and speak of what it had seen. The boy would never be the mirror's favorite, that would always belong to the third. But perhaps, this, the sixth boy, wouldn't mind so much.
The sixth boy's name was Percy Jackson.
Rating: PG
Prompt: Experiments by Evil Scientists
Fandom: Harry Potter, Pendragon, Narnia, Tuck Everlasting, Heroes of Olympus
Summary: It was just a normal mirror, really. No different from any others that hung in London. But this mirror - was special.
Warnings: None really, other than blink and you'll miss it spoilers for Raven Rise and The Last Battle.
There was nothing too remarkable about the mirror. Just another typical mirror that was mass produced and sent out to be installed in some Underground station in London. Simple glass and silvering, no different than any other of its matching brothers. But this was a mirror that was destined to see much in its life. When it was hung, times weren't exactly the best. While the Great War was over, things were hard to recover from. Things weren't horrible, not yet. Trouble was brewing on the other side of the English Channel, that much was certain. Anyone paying attention to world events knew that. The mirror was installed by two men, one who used to sell cars and the other who used to teach mathematics at Cambridge. After they were done, they wiped the glass and moved onto the next, marking the event with little more than a statistic - one mirror of fifty hung that day.
Things are curious in the world - there are places that exist in all time, places built by men, not just of nature. This mirror was in one of the few locations that would see much, though no one would ever know this - for the worlds and the people it would see would never fully intersect, except in mere passing. Six remarkable people would stare into the same mirror - all at different times - the six would be the ones the mirror would remember.
The first one was an eleven year old boy with black hair and a piercing gaze. This boy looked into the mirror with some detached interest, a desire to learn, a desire to be important. He looked into the glass and checked his teeth - very straight and very white, smiling as he smoothed and adjusted his second hand clothes as if they were the suit of an important member of Parliament. He squared his shoulders, the smile that seemed eager to please, eager to learn, eager to just be acknowledged. Every year like clockwork the boy would return, each time a little changed, the eagerness replaced by raw desire and the smile grew into a smirk. Eyes ever sharp, ever knowing. Perhaps, just perhaps, he knew that the mirror saw so much, yet couldn't say a thing. It'd been this boy, who, on the mirror's fourth viewing, in an act of showing off, had taped the mirror so that it would never, ever break. When the next war began, the mirror was thankful for that, if a mirror could be thankful. The mirror never forgot the boy - the wizard.
The first boy's name was Tom Riddle.
The second boy was a monster. There was nothing human in the boy's gaze, even as a youth. Blue eyes that already judged people by face value, never wanting to look beneath the surface. This boy made Tom seem almost humane by comparison. Being a mirror, it only knew of the outside world in snatches of news spoken in the bathroom's walls and the reflection of newspaper. It would learn of Tom's evil - and knew what he was capable of. But it feared the second boy more. He was capable of much more - and the boy knew it. The boy was planning on it. He would only look in the mirror once, but once was more than enough as far as the mirror was concerned. He ran a comb through blond locks, smiling at his appearance, a heavy gold ring with a gray stone on his left hand. The ring wasn't anything the mirror had seen before - and it had seen many jewels and rings in its short life at the time. It would never see its like again. When the second boy left, the mirror wished it could forget what it had seen. But like a fossil record, the boy was seared in its memory for all time.
The second boy's name was Alexander Naymeer.
The third boy was equally dark haired and brooding as the first, but this boy didn't carry himself with an aura of false confidence. This boy walked as if he were a king - and the mirror knew he was a king. It had seen him with classmates, with a brother - and still it was this boy it noticed more than the others. Like the previous boys, he had checked his appearance, though not to impress girls or authority figures. This boy was looking for the man he was trying to be, for who he had been for a brief time - and sadly, due to tragedy, would never be again. The mirror liked this boy, who had a distinct air of trying to be who he was and who he was expected to be. It watched him adjust two different hats, straighten three jackets - and each time he returned he was a little changed. A mirror is not supposed to have favorites, it views all people who gaze into equally. If it was possible, the boy might have been one of her favorites.
The third boy's name was Edmund Pevensie.
The fourth boy was unexpected. His eyes were older than Edmund's, older than the mirror's, it was far to old of a gaze for his outward visage. He was the only person to ever wear a military uniform that the mirror remembered. Not the familiar brown color of the British, but a green shade marking him as an American. He seemed almost detached as he ran a hand over his short hair, grinning at the fact his face was unshaven - a face that could never grow a beard. He seemed to only be concerned with looking regulation ready as straightened his shoulders and adjusted his hat, smiling brightly. The mirror watched as a single white cloth fell from the man's sleeve and then his smile nearly gave way as he picked it up. He turned it over in his hands, his expression growing sad. A flash of a monogram in the corner - a faded blue 'W' and a scrap of lace. The mirror knew the look on the man's face. It had seen it before. The look of mourning. After securing the cloth back into his sleeve and lifting up his bag, he gave the mirror one look and for a moment, the mirror wondered if the young man knew. It gave the mirror something to ponder for the next forty-six years.
The fourth boy's name was Jesse Tuck.
The fifth boy delighted the mirror. He was in the mirror's opinion, how a boy should look. A little uncertain, a little clumsy. Curly hair over a face still clinging to baby fat. He would visit the mirror more than the first boy. In the beginning, he'd stood on tiptoes to look into the glass, trying with little success to look neat and orderly. He seemed oddly cheerful, but the joy never quite reached his eyes - not for a while. The mirror saw him turn from a boy into a man - and one day the boy stood in front of the mirror with a confidence it'd not seen since the third. This was someone who had faced impossible odds and overcome them all with remarkable courage. True, he looked a little worse for wear that day, his face still bearing the marks of having been in a horrific fight, but there was such pride and joy in his face, the mirror, had it not been witness to the change, would never believe the boy it first beheld and the one standing in front of them now were the same. He would be the mirror's second favorite.
The fifth boy's name was Neville Longbottom.
Renovations of the Underground in preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games caused the mirror to be moved. It saw nothing of it's journey away from the men's bathroom it had always known in the heart of London except the back of a blanket. It feared it would be destroyed - and it was being taken out into an uncertain world, a world that could belong to any of the five boys or none of them. It had seen too many things - wizards, kings, soldiers, madmen. It could be headed anywhere and nowhere. There was a great period of nothingness - perhaps a trip across the ocean. The mirror only regained it's thoughts on the day it was rehung in another bathroom, smaller and cleaner than the first, unfamiliar ground to be sure.
The sixth boy was something the mirror had never seen. When the water spattered across the glass, the boy waved his hand and the droplets were swept away, leaving the mirror clean. He was easily as old as the fourth boy just by his visage, but his eyes at least matched his age. He took several steps backward, checking his clothes - jeans and purple shirt. He had a smile that the mirror liked. It was warm, with no hint of superiority to it. He rocked on his heels, almost laughing. Oddly, the mirror, for the first time since Tom Riddle had tapped it with his wand and given, to a mirror, something to make it immortal, felt safe. The boy had brought it here for it's own protection - it was sure of it. As if it could gain a voice and speak of what it had seen. The boy would never be the mirror's favorite, that would always belong to the third. But perhaps, this, the sixth boy, wouldn't mind so much.
The sixth boy's name was Percy Jackson.