Reflections by purplemagik
Summary: Changing relationships, changing appearances, new friendships. What if Snape was Harry's real father, but nobody knew it? What if Harry was more than he let people see? What if love really was the key to ending a war? Harry/Hermione. Ignores HBP and DH
Categories: Parental Snape > Biological Father Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Draco, Hermione
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: General
Media Type: None
Tags: None
Takes Place: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 16 Completed: No Word count: 37667 Read: 63654 Published: 22 Oct 2008 Updated: 17 Feb 2010
Story Notes:

Disclaimer:  I own nothing, or at least nothing recognizable.  It all belongs to J.K.R. :(

 

Mirrors by purplemagik
Author's Notes:
The story starts off a bit slow to give some background, and a look inside the characters' heads, but it will pick up later on.

Hermione sat on her bed staring blankly at the wall in front of her, running through her mental checklist. It helped to have a checklist, to keep her thoughts organized when she had a lot to do. Now, in the early hours of the morning, she had almost everything done. Her trunk was packed with all of her books and clothes. She had completed her summer assignments, and had read and taken notes on all of her textbooks, as well as a couple texts she thought would help with projects she was working on with Harry. Crookshanks was already in his carrier, and she was dressed in her muggle jeans and t-shirt, ready to leave for King’s Cross.

The young witch glanced at her watch, which had been a gift from Harry for her 15th birthday. It was silver, with a picture of an otter on the face, and it was layered with protective charms. She sat for a moment remembering the awkward and nervous Harry who had handed her the box, waited anxiously to see her reaction, and when she smiled at him and thanked him, had broken into a huge goofy grin and pulled her into a bear hug. She shook her head to clear it, still smiling at the memory. You do NOT have a crush on your best friend, she told herself firmly. You don’t.

She hopped off the bed and walked to the mirror. She had grown an inch over the summer and lost a little weight from biking and swimming. Thanks to a potion of her own invention, her hair was no longer an uncontrollable mass, but fell in chocolate brown waves almost to her waist. The fitted shirt showed off her figure, and altogether, Hermione thought the image was quite an improvement. She still looked like herself, but her appearance no longer screamed “Nerd!” She smirked at her reflection. Boy, are some people in for a surprise.


Miles away, Harry stood in front of his mirror, glaring at his own reflection. The boy in the mirror was him, but not him. He still had bright green eyes and black hair, but the hair was… tidier. It was slightly longer, and had a bit of a wave to it, and no longer stuck up at weird angles. His round boyish face was more oval, and he even thought his ears looked different, but chalked that up to his imagination. He had grown too, at least three inches, and his pants were much too short on him. He was by no means unrecognizable, but he looked a lot less like a James Potter clone.

Harry wasn’t sure what he thought about his appearance. All his life he had been told he looked like his dad and it had given him a sense of pride, and a feeling of connection with the father he had never known. But it was also annoying when people only saw James in him, not an individual. Snape hated him because he thought Harry was just like his father. Sirius was just as guilty, though. Sometimes he could have sworn Sirius looked at him and thought he was James. Harry still felt Sirius’s death like a physical wound, but he didn’t allow the pain to show on his face as he surveyed himself in the mirror.

Listening to make sure one of the Dursley’s wasn’t likely to come up to his room, Harry chanced wandless magic. He smiled, remembering when Hermione had let slip that wandless magic by wizards couldn’t be detected, because it was focused differently than magic with a wand, or house elf spells. She had stopped mid-ramble, realizing what uses “her boys” might find for that information. Ron was too absorbed in a game of Exploding Snap with Seamus and Dean to pay attention, but Harry had grinned at her and winked, resolving to master wandless magic during the summer. Now, he applied an almost undetectable glamour to hide the dark circles under his eyes, and a yellow bruise on the side of his neck. Nobody needed to know about Uncle Vernon’s temper, and they didn’t need to know about the nightmares that kept him from getting any rest.


Severus Snape stood in his bathroom, washing his hands. He had just finished brewing the necessary potions for Madam Pomfrey, and was planning on spending the rest of his day preparing lesson plans until the students arrived. Glancing up, he caught sight of his reflection. His hair was tied back in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. Sighing, he let it loose to hang around his face, completing his “bat” look. During the summer, when he washed his hair every day and didn’t spend all of his time in dungeons full of potion fumes, his hair wasn’t bad. But for the school year he would let it get greasy and disgusting to add to the image the students had of him. Severus sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was getting too old for this.

Time had not been kind to him, he thought, looking at the hook-nosed man in the mirror. His face was prematurely lined and there was some grey mixed with the black of his hair. Years of service to the Dark Lord, and teaching all the Longbottoms, Potters, Crabbes, and Goyles of Hogwarts, had taken their toll. And what do I have to show for all this time? A family? Friends, even? A revolutionary breakthrough in my field? Anything? No, he thought, this is only the shell of a life. He snorted at his own melodramatic thoughts. I’ve been spending too much time around angsty teenagers, he thought, and swept out of the bathroom.


The small mirror hung in the headmaster’s office, sharing the wall with dozens of portraits. Dumbledore smiled at his reflection and adjusted his hat, which was an offensively bright shade of fuchsia, on his head. This year was going to be difficult for some of the people he cared most about, but he knew they could all get through it. There will be changes. Oh yes, will there be changes, but I think they will be for the better, when all is said and done. He turned to his desk and popped a lemon drop in his mouth before exiting the office, humming, to prepare for the welcoming feast.

To be continued...
End Notes:
PlEASE R&R!!!


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