Through the Mirror

Harry had scarcely acknowledged the fact that he might be much farther from home than he’d ever been before when the last of his strength abandoned him.

No, I need to get up! I need to—

He didn’t remember much of what happened next. 

He caught flashes of the flute player and his female companion between bouts of unconsciousness, as well as what might have been a cave, but mostly he remembered the pain.

It radiated outward from his scar; sometimes piercing like he’d been stabbed, at other times aching like he’d suffered a concussive blow. The sensation blotted out his vision and made it hard to think.

The only time it abated was when he was unconscious or when the flautist played one of his more soporific songs. Harry tried to communicate with the woman tending him in those brief moments of respite, but between the language barrier and his overpowering fatigue, he might as well not have bothered.

Finally, after what had to be more than three days, but probably no more than six, Harry woke up feeling light.

He’d barely had a chance to marvel at the change before the musician rushed to his side, speaking rapid-fire in his native language and grinning so widely the expression appeared slightly manic.

“...Hi?” Harry tried.

The man wilted dramatically. He muttered something under his breath before straightening and adopting a more serious expression. He tapped his chest and said something that sounded an awful lot like ‘waywooshien.’

“Way-wooshy-en?”  Harry tried. He could tell as soon as it left his lips that it didn’t sound the same.

“Wei Wuxian,” his saviour repeated patiently.

Harry attempted to mimic the name with limited success, having to be coached thrice more through the proper pronunciation before Wei Wuxian was satisfied. Then it was his turn to share his name.

“HarryPotter.” He said it slowly and clearly, sort of hating the way he sounded like Uncle Vernon when he was trying to condescend to foreigners.

When Wei Wuxian opened his mouth to repeat it back to him, it went about as well as Harry’s own efforts had gone.

“Close enough,” Harry decided, after Wei Wuxian had mastered the general sounds, if not the right inflection. He looked around the cave. “...Now what?”

His uncertainty was evident enough that Wei Wuxian seemed to understand that he was asking for direction. He nodded decisively, then offered a hand.

Harry stared at it for probably longer than was polite, but ultimately decided to trust him. Wei Wuxian and his companions had saved his life, then continued to care for him in the aftermath. 

It helped that Harry didn’t particularly want to stay in this cave any longer than he absolutely had to. It was creepy. And not in the harmless way that the ghosts and dungeons at Hogwarts were creepy.

“Right, then.” Harry let Wei Wuxian hoist him to his feet with slightly more force than he was expecting from such a skinny man, then stumbled out into the feeble sunlight on wobbly legs.

It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust, but once it did, Harry took in the sight of the same village he'd seen from the sky when he first fell through the mirror. From here, it looked even shabbier than it had when he'd first seen it. The buildings were constructed with unfinished wood and seemed to have been built with no mind towards cohesion or grandeur.

His experiences with the wizarding world were limited, but both Diagon Alley and his brief glimpse of Hogsmeade from the Hogwarts Express had left him with the impression that all magical communities were going to be impressive and fanciful even when they were old-fashioned. After all, if he could turn a chunk of wood into a teacup at eleven, wouldn't it be safe to assume that adult witches and wizards could turn a humble shack into a mansion? Or at the very least a charming cottage? He wished Ron and Hermione were here. Between the two of them, he was sure they'd know—

"Harry Potter." 

Harry tore his eyes away and felt somewhat sheepish when he noticed Wei Wuxian's slight frown. Somehow, he got the impression the man knew exactly what he was thinking when he looked at the little village. He flushed. "Sorry," he muttered. "Where to now?"

Wei Wuxian led him away from the cave and past the ramshackle huts. They stopped first at what appeared to be a latrine, where Harry begrudgingly relieved himself, then wandered into a sparsely wooded area.

Harry caught glimpses of flickering shadows out of the corner of his eye and stuck close to his savior as the air grew heavier the farther they travelled.

Just when Harry had begun to wonder if he was going to be murdered after all, they came to a stop at the edge of a clearing. 

The trees surrounding the area were carved with symbols he couldn't read, but the moment they stepped inside the pressure in the air disappeared. "What was that?" demanded Harry, so startled that he forgot for a moment that Wei Wuxian didn't speak English.

The man answered him all the same, seemingly happy to talk for the sake of filling the silence. Harry tuned him out, too focused on trying to figure out what he was looking at.

He hadn't heard or seen it until he cleared the tree line, thanks to whatever barrier they'd just crossed, but there was a small waterfall that fed a pool of crystal clear water at the heart of the clearing.

That would have been interesting enough, but there were buckets and what appeared to be soap laid out on a flat rock just ahead. A little farther down, an elderly man was scrubbing a toddler down in the shallow end of the pool.

It was a communal bath.

"Oh thank Merlin," breathed Harry, suddenly feeling all of the accumulated grime of the last few days.

In fact, he was so grateful that he hardly minded when Wei Wuxian stripped down beside him, too preoccupied with getting clean to worry about being embarrassed.