Shattered Edges Still Glitter

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

- Anton Chekhov

The mirrors—her reflection—were causing all of this. He was living in her reflection and, by association…living in her. 

Hope could fix this.

Get rid of the mirrors, and he will die along with them, at least, in theory.

Still, she had to be willing to take the risk. If not, she would lose the two people who meant more than breath to her. Newt and Albus hadn't stopped working to find a fix for her mind and body while she lay on a bed staring into voids and sleeping around the clock.

Hope refused to let this be her life. She could fix this- she had to.

Standing stone-still, Hope gazed at her body in hundreds of copies. Her plan had worked flawlessly. Tricking Madam Florence into letting her leave without raising an alarm or using compulsion, which she had a feeling wouldn't be as potent in her state anyway. She had searched every inch of Hogwarts she could access and took the resided mirrors. Some had taken more elbow grease than others, but she'd managed.

Initially, she'd thought about simply going around and smashing every mirror in the castle; however, a moment later, she'd thought better of it. The noise would draw every available body in Hogwarts to her, which would no doubt stop her mission. No, the best way to destroy all the mirrors would be to do so at once, and what better gathering place for these shiny reflections than the Room of Requirement?

Mirrors upon mirrors littered the place, turning the room where the three of them had spent a steamy Valentine's night into a surreal funhouse. Her reflection seemed like an army in this respect. With all the mirrors gathered, the voices were louder than ever.

Hope gritted her teeth, glowering at each reflection in turn, and though they looked like her, they were not carbon copies. They were all her with differing expressions and positions. Some sneering, others bored with a roll of their eyes, and the occasional menacingly pissed off look. Despite their differences, they all had one thing in common. 

All of their eyes were on her.

Freak.

Disposable.

Powerless.

Coward.

Monster.

The voices hurled words at her like throwing knives. Hope pressed her fingers to her temples as the migraine pounded in synchrony with the cacophony of voices in her head. Every word thrown at her were words she had thought about herself at one point or another.

"I am not." Hope said these words aloud, her lip curling into a snarl.

No one would miss you if you were gone.

They don't care about you; they just want what you can give them.

The world would be a better place without something like you.

"STOP!" Hope snarled at herself. She teetered to the side, catching herself before she made contact with the ground. Hope's fingers curled through her hair, drawing blood from her scalp.

"Hope?" A familiar, tentative voice came from behind her.

With a quick burst, Hope spun around. She bared her fangs at Albus and Newt who stood at the far end of the room, seeming to guard the door. A cold rush prickled up her body, something that felt like a relief, but was it? Could she trust this feeling?

All she wanted was for them to wrap their arms around her body, pull her close, and tell her everything would be alright. Instead, she growled at them like a caged animal. Her eyes morphed into black and gold, fangs out and itching for something to sink them into.

"Hope." Albus tried now, slowly walking toward her with his hands up. He wasn't carrying a wand, which meant very little with Albus Dumbledore. "Hope," he tried again, "can we talk?"

"Not yet," Hope said in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, wispy and drained of the life it usually held, "I need to do something first."

"I don't want you to get hurt-" Albus started.

He doesn't care about you, a whisper caressed her ear.

"You don't care about me," she snarled, nose scrunching as she pointed to the Mirror of Erised, "you only care about saving that."

Albus frowned, looking over at the mirror as if for the first time, and slowly shook his head as he looked at her. "I don't care about that. I care about you. I want to help you because I love you…"

He's lying.

"You're lying," Hope exasperated, "they're just bits of glass. If you won't listen to me about them, I'll destroy them myself."

"Albus." Newt's shaky voice came from behind. When he looked, Newt gestured to the mirrors, which had altered. The reflections were no longer watching Hope; they were watching them.

Hope looked around at the reflections, and finally…finally, some realization graced Albus' features.

"He is the reflection," Albus said before all of Hope's duplicates suddenly began to scream. Newt and Albus put their hands over their ears as the ceiling shook.

Hope fell to her knees, the sensation of an axe splitting her skull taking her over. Holding herself, she gathered all of the pain and exhaustion from the past few weeks; everything she'd bottled into a perfect little bomb now exploded.

With a violent scream, she stood and released herself.

From her periphery, she watched Newt duck and Albus take his wand out and shout, "Protego!" Creating a barrier bubble, it didn't extend far enough, and as the glass of the mirrors shattered into millions of pieces, Hope was sliced at all angles.

She didn't care because almost immediately, as the broken pieces littered the floor, nearly all the voices in her head ceased.

Almost all.

Hope, breathless, looked over at the unscathed Mirror of Erised. Blood dripped down her body from various lacerations. Still, she paid no attention to any of them as she stumbled toward the mirror, slipping on her own blood and shards of glittering glass as she went.

The mirror appeared empty—not even her reflection was there—nothing more than a deep void of darkness, but Hope knew that somewhere in there, he was watching her. While most of the voices had stopped abruptly, one tingled in the back of her mind. It was his, the darkest voice of them all, the one that had influenced all of the other voices.

His voice was still there, lying in wait, but he'd lost power over the other voices. Still, the difference between hundreds of voices and one was pure relief, like stepping into a cool shower after being out in the sun all day or the first taste of water after a long night of rough sex.

The relief was euphoric.

Hope stumbled backward but fell into a solid but giving warm body. Albus' arms wrapped around her as he offered her his arm.

"Here," he murmured against her hair, "you're not healing very quickly."

Looking down at all the gashes that covered her flesh, she realized he was right. The energy it had taken to release the voices had drained her significantly.

Hope didn't hesitate to pierce her aching gums into his wrist and feed. She moaned softly as a soft touch caressed her cheek and stroked her hair behind her ear.

Opening her eyes, she realized it was Newt with a cloth, wiping some of the blood from her face. From the mirror fragments, she could see on the floor that she resembled Carrie at prom more than herself.

"How do you feel?" Newt asked, green eyes flickering over her nervously.

Hope pulled her mouth away from Albus' arm and sighed softly. "More like myself."

"It worked then?" Newt asked, blinking. "Destroying the mirrors?"

Nodding, she watched the slices all over her body heal without any traces of damage. "For the most part. He's still there, but now I feel like I can think again."

They shared a silence before Albus murmured. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you more seriously about the mirrors. I thought…" he swallowed harshly.

Hope looked over her shoulder at him and furrowed her brows. "You thought it was the ramblings of a mad woman. You both did everything you could, but at the end of the day, I had to follow my instincts. No one is at fault here, okay?"

He looked her over with red eyes and nodded.

Carefully, she started to stand, using their arms on the way up. She looked over at the Mirror of Erised. It was no longer a void but held their reflection again.

Hope cringed as she looked at her blood-soaked body. "It's giving…American Psycho."

"I have no idea what that means," Newt chuckled as they guided her away from the mirror.

"I can explain that movie later, but right now, I'm starving." 

As they emerged into the hallway, they were met with not one but two bodies.

"Elijah…" Hope froze, staring at her uncle beside a frozen, wide-eyed Minerva.

"What in-" Minerva started but couldn't seem to get the rest of her sentence out.

Hope nodded, not taking her eyes off Elijah, as she responded to Minerva. "I spent the day at the spa. The new treatment is great for your pores. Why is he here?"

Elijah only managed a slight upturn to the corner of his lips as he looked her over as if it were not surprising to him to find her in such a state.

"Mr. Mikaelson has requested a private meeting with the three of you," Minerva said, smoothing out her skirts and giving them a concerned but studious look. "Shall I leave you to it, then?"

Hope frowned as she studied her uncle. What could he want from them enough to seek them out at Hogwarts?

"I suppose that's up to Hope," Albus answered, not taking his curious gaze off Elijah.

After thinking for a moment, Hope nodded. Whatever he had to say must be important, or he wouldn't be here.

Elijah nodded in thanks. "I'll wait for you to," he looked her over and smiled faintly, "freshen up."

Minerva nodded. "Very well, I'll take you to the Headmaster's Office. This way, if you please." She walked past Elijah, not giving him any further notice.

Newt leaned close to Hope's ear as he watched Elijah follow. "What do you think he might want?"

"I have no idea."