Mirror, Mirror
Riddle bit his nails as he looked into the mirror. He anxiously looked into the rippling of the mirror, hoping all his hard work would pay off.
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Nothing. Absolutely, completely, totally, nothing. Riddle had never felt so… defeated. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at his reflection. Riddle watched the tears slide down his cheeks with his blurry vision. Never in his life, not once, had he ever failed something so simple. Riddle slumped over his desk, gripping the edges so hard his knuckles turned white, and his fingertips became a bright shade of pink and red. Riddle was frustrated—far beyond frustrated, actually—more tears slid down his face as he had started to sob, ‘Why? Why must this happen to me? I did everything right… I did everything I was instructed to; I followed the recipe to a Tee. What could have possibly gone wrong?’ The reason for Riddle’s frustration all boiled down to one simple factor. He wasn’t able to connect to any mirror, not a single one responded to his call for… for his—
“Riddle? Riddle! What has gotten into you?” Screeched a voice, ripping him out of his mental break–down.
Riddle straightened his back to be in perfect posture as he quickly wiped his tears with his sleeve, “A-ah! Mother,” he turned to face her, “Sorry, I was...”
Riddle’s Mother cut him off, “Riddle, you have become a mess ever since your sister— “
“Yes! I know!” He snapped suddenly. Once he realised what he had done, his eyes widened along with his mother’s. “Mother—I... I am so— “Riddle attempted to stutter out, but alas, was cut off again. This time, he was cut off with a harsh slap to his face.
“Watch your tone, you insolent boy!” Riddle’s Mother yelled, “Go to your room! I–I have no words for how disappointed I am with you, Riddle. No matter how much grief you are going through, that gives you no—absolutely no—reason to disrespect me, I have given you everything you have, and I can take all of it away in the blink of an eye. Go! I won’t repeat myself, Riddle.” She shouted at him, her face strawberry red with anger, looking as if steam was about to come out of her ears. Shaking with anger, Riddle’s Mother aggressively pointed to the direction his room was in as he scurried out the door to his room.
The moment Riddle had closed his door, he started sobbing once again. “Why?! Why me? First, my grades start dropping, then my sister disappears, and now—well, now—now I can’t even contact her.” He screamed into his pillow as the tears fogged his vision and everything became blurry.
Y/N tilted her head with a soft, glazed over look. ‘That poor boy’ she thought as she watched him continue to sob, ‘He deserves so much more than an abusive mother’s “love” in a time of grief. It doesn't even feel correct to call her a mother, she sure as hell doesn’t act like one.’
Y/N’s eyes fluttered open as she felt soft, wet licks on her cheek coming from a rough tongue. Giggling with a fond smile, she sat up and picked Kit up, setting him in her lap. “What a strange dream! It sort of felt like a… how would I describe it, Kit?” Kit licked her palm, she looked down. Kit was using his claw to lightly spell out the word ‘vision’, and before he finished, Y/N interrupted him, picking him up and giggling, “A vision? Yeah, that’s it, it felt like a vision! Goodness, you’re so smart, Kit!” After giving a small hug and squeeze to Kit’s tiny, cat body, Y/N slid out of bed and got ready for the day.
“N/N? You’re up so early. Nothing exciting is happening today, we’re just heading home, there’s no reason to wake up at,” Y/N‘s Mother glanced at the clock, “5:30 in the morning.”
Y/N sighed and said, “I had a nightmare,” her eyes shifting from side-to-side as she lied through her teeth, “I couldn’t fall back asleep.” Y/N loved her mother, truly, but these visions, false memories, nightmares—whatever you want to call them—are something Y/N believed were bigger than what they seemed to be. She couldn’t just carelessly go spilling information to anyone—not even her mother. Y/N didn’t want anyone to worry, so she kept quiet and lied.
Lorely gave a sympathetic look to Y/N as she said, “well, I’m going to go back to sleep, try not to be too loud, I’ll be up in a bit.”
Y/N simply nodded and finished getting ready, sliding on some flared jeans and a colourful T-shirt. Today, Y/N let her hair down. She teased it and used a whole lot of Aqua Net to keep her hair high throughout the day. The moment she finished getting ready, Y/N whipped out a journal and started writing in it.
‘I have had strange dreams for the past two nights, it’s a mystery why they have only started now, but I guess strangeness comes with finding out you’re a witch? I don’t know why, but last night’s dream felt more like a vision, as if I hadn’t been there myself, but I was seeing the entire thing through a… a mirror. That red-headed boy, Riddle, was weeping—I assume because of his sister, who went missing. His mother seems to have no empathy for him, though, despite Riddle’s sister being her daughter. The strangest thing about this “vision” was I only seemed to appear in the “vision” after he failed to do something. He was crying in front of a mirror for some reason, though. I feel, for some odd reason, that he had attempted to contact his sister, but—through a mirror?’
Y/N tapped her pen to her chin as she desperately tried to remember what had happened in her “dream”. After a bit, she continued to write in her journal, writing everything she could remember.
‘He couldn’t see me in the mirror when I appeared, he just continued to cry. Another oddity I found in the dream was that when Riddle had left the room his mother was in, I appeared in a new mirror, the mirror at his vanity that was piled high with papers. I was so confused, but a moment later, Riddle burst through the door and shut it as fast as he had busted it open. He continued to cry and scream into his pillow as he ranted about his problems—his grades dropping, his missing sister, and his failure to contact her. Though, the failure to contact her was probably because he tried to do it through a fucking mirror. I mean, seriously, did he think that would work? I understand desperate times call for desperate measures, but holy, he took it to a whole other level of desperate.’
Y/N finished writing in her journal right as she noticed her mother stir from her sleep. Y/N hurriedly closed the journal and stuffed it into her satchel—which she got as a birthday present this year—and got up from her bed. Y/N stretched and acted as if that's what she had been doing for who knows how long. Grinning at her mother, Y/N waved and giggled, “Good morning, sleepy–head! How was your sleep?” Y/N asked, and then quickly moved onto her next topic before her mother could even answer, “I’m starving, by the way, so I’m going downstairs to get myself some breakfast. You should get ready for the train ride back to Sheffield; it’s going to be a long one.”
Y/N’s Mother sighed and shook her head at Y/N, “I should be the one telling you that,” she said as she sat up and scrunched her nose in a playful way at Y/N, “Now shoo, before you starve, you goofball.” Y/N nodded and giggled as she skipped out of the room.
The moment Y/N exited the room, she placed a hand on her chest and let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, “Whew! That was a close one! What if mum had caught onto me?” She quietly said to herself as she walked down the stairs of the Leaky Cauldron, the stairs creaking under the weight of her with each step she took. “I hope she didn’t notice my overly bubbly behaviour, it was supposed to be a cover–up so she didn’t suspect me had she been waking earlier than I thought, but I feel like I just made myself more—“Y/N’s mumbling was cut off as she bumped into a strange man who was also muttering to himself, though he seemed to being talking more–so to someone rather than himself, which was odd because no one else was around.
“Oh, m-my deep–deepest ap-apologies,” The stranger stuttered out as she looked up at him. He was wearing a Turban and robes—Y/N just assumed he was bald.
“No, that was my fault, don’t apologise, I truly should have been paying more attention to what was in front of me—it was foolish of me to assume no one else would be heading up to their rooms or to breakfast” Y/N said as formally as she could in-order to be done with the interaction as fast as possible.
“We-well, I h-hope you enj–enjoy br-breakfast, Ms…?” The man said, urging her to give him her name, or at least last name.
“HalleWell, sir.” Y/N said, slightly frustrated she had to give him her name—what if he was secretly some creepo wizard who was a child predator?
“Th-then, I ho-hope you enj–oy yo-your meal, Ms–Ms.HalleW–ell.” He stuttered once again as a sharp voice said something Y/N couldn’t quite make out.
“Thanks.” Y/N said as the words fumbled out of her mouth and she rushed away. ‘What the actual fuck. No one else is around,’ Y/N glanced behind her, and as she had suspected, the strange man was staring at her as she walked. The moment they made eye contact, Y/N whipped her head back to face the direction she was walking in, creeped out beyond belief. ‘Where the hell did that voice come from? Am I finally going crazy? No. The man seemed to respond to the voice; he heard it too—but he seemed far less perturbed. He seems suspicious; I might have to keep an eye out for him in the future…’ Y/N thought as she continued her walk to the dining hall. In the dining hall, Y/N grabbed the closest thing she could find and sat in a corner in the far back of the hall. Slowly, Y/N dug into her food—A bowl of oatmeal.
In the room Y/N and her mother occupied, Y/N grabbed her trunk of magical school things and Lorely got her tote bag full of—what was it full of? No one knows, except for Lorely, of course—stuff… and they walked out of the pub to Kings Cross station, catching a taxi to get there before the train left for Sheffield.
The train ride home was boring, to say the least. Y/N read and journaled the whole time, while her mother just crocheted the whole time. Looking up from her book, Y/N glanced at the pattern her mother was crocheting—it was a cherry—and looked back down at her book to continue reading. Y/N was reading a romance fantasy novel about princes being in love with a common woman and fighting over her hand in marriage, physically fighting, mainly. Glancing at the time, Y/N noticed the train should reach Sheffield station soon, so she notified her mother, “Mum, it’s 11, the train should be arriving at the station soon, let’s pack up.”
Lorely nodded and started helping. Y/N packs up, noticing her journal, “Hey, N/N, what’s this?” She asked, looking smug, “Is this your diary?” she asked as if she were Y/N’s older sister instead of her mother.
Scoffing and rolling her eyes, Y/N snatched her journal from her mother’s hand, “No, I just have it to... draw in.” Y/N snapped back at her mother, admittedly panicking on the inside—the journal was Y/N’s diary, where she wrote everything, including the details to the nightmares she had. Y/N refused to let her mother know what was in the journal, and she was especially protestant to the thought of her mother reading the pages about the “vision” and nightmare.
Putting both of her hands up in a mock surrender, Y/N’s Mother dropped the topic, seeing as Y/N seemed like she didn’t want to talk about her journal.
“Ahhhh, home sweet home,” Y/N sighed out in relief as she dropped her trunk on the floor of her bedroom and flopped on her bed, closing her eyes as she yawned. “It’s only,” Y/N stared for a while at the clock as if she couldn’t read it, “4 PM?” she guessed, her sleepy mind not being able to read the analog clock accurately. “I’m about ready to pass out for the day.” Y/N said to herself as she stared at her spinning ceiling fan with her hands folded over her stomach.
“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, Y/N, FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?” A loud shrieking voice said as Y/N opened her eyes and widened them as the voice said her name. Staring at the woman, Y/N recognized her—the woman was Riddle’s mother.
“I–“Y/N tried to respond, but the grating voice yelled again.
“I regret allowing you the freedom of going outside—those nasty older boys are tainting your innocence! And, on top of that, you disobeyed my rules, skipping your classes with Riddle to go eat those death tarts.” Riddle’s Mother said to Y/N, as if she was Y/N’s Mother, as well. “Well, get up! Go to your room! You are grounded from independent study. Your disrespect has caused me great pain.”
Y/N gauged that the woman was manipulating her, well, attempting to, at least. Y/N just nodded at the woman and walked out of the lavishly decorated dining room. ‘Another strange false memory.’ Y/N thought to herself, ‘Wait, am I asleep? When did I fall asleep?!’ Y/N thought, getting side–tracked as the dream started fading out and she appeared in a new location—the beach.
“Hurry, N/N! We won’t wait forever; you and Riddle only have so much time before you have to head back to that stuffy mansion!” A familiar voice said, Y/N looked to see who the voice was coming from, and just as she suspected—it was Che’nya.
Y/N nodded quickly and ran after them, enjoying the beach and soaking up the sun while she could, knowing that a dream like this wouldn’t last long. Her hands grabbed at whatever they could as she landed face–first into the sand.
“Oh, my! N/N, are you alright?” The green haired boy—Trey—yelled as he ran towards Y/N and helped her up.
Spitting out sand, Y/N giggled and said, “I’m fine, the sand tastes yucky, though.” Everyone, including Riddle, laughed at her comment about the sand’s taste and they all began to play some games while they waited for Riddle and Y/N’s independent study time to be over.
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“Mirror, Mirror on the wall, where is Y/N Rosehearts?”
“I cannot find her in this plane of existence.”
“What do you mean? Where could she have gone?”
“I have no knowledge of the dimension she is currently in. She isn’t in Twisted Wonderland, that is all I know”
“Well, this makes things more difficult… I appreciate the information, Mirror. I will speak to you again soon.” A frustrated voice sighs. The sound of jumbled mutters and dress shoes tapping against the ground fills the empty room as the mirror watches in curiosity. What could he possibly want with someone who can’t even attend Night Raven College?