Secrets of Hogwarts and the Slytherin Prince

LOOKING GLASS

Breakfast was interesting. The students who had stayed behind for the Holidays, as well as the professors, and the headmaster, sat at a round table in the center of the Great Hall. Breakfast appeared on platters, as per usual, but voices rang out in his head, overlapping each other tenfold as he tried to eat.

It almost hurt his head. He tried focusing on Piper, but her thoughts were empty. Other than food. All she was thinking about was food.

Harry and Ron were both engorged in food as well, more Ron than Harry, and the professors were thinking about lesson plans. Percy rubbed his thumb over the sapphire and the voices, to his delight, stopped.

He breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, moving to eat. He didn't get a chance to do what Ron and Piper were doing. A hand landed on his shoulder.

"Mr. Jackson. Can I speak with you?" Snape's bored drawl echoed in his ears. Piper looked up and glanced between Percy and Snape, her eyes wide.

"Of course, Professor." Percy gulped, standing. Snape turned on his heel and went for the Great Hall doors. Piper started to stand, but he brushed her off. "I'll be fine."

Before following, he touched the sapphire once more, turning on the added voices of concern in his head.

***

"Professor?" Percy asked when Snape stopped in front of a portrait of Quidditch players. They'd gone into the Slytherin common room, and, low and behold, they had an entire room dedicated to quidditch trophies. The portrait had a picture of a woman who was easily 17, going on 18, with rich, blue eyes, and deep, dark brown hair that was almost black. She was smiling and laughing, high fiving her teammates, moving the way portraits in Hogwarts always did.

"I don't know how much of that journal you've read, Mr. Jackson. But your mother used to captain the Slytherin quidditch team. She wasn't proud of her family, or that they were from Slytherin, but she was proud of her house and her classmates."

"Why are you telling me this-"

"Stop talking... Or I'll simply leave you clueless." Percy snapped his mouth shut.

"I expect you to behave the same way as her. Maybe not with Quidditch, but with pride in everything you do. We are not Gryffindor, god forbid, but we are proud." He said. Percy was surprised. He looked back up at the portrait. The woman was the same one he'd seen in the passageways. "You're mother was one of the few who was not obnoxiously so. She could befriend anyone, from any house."

Snape turned and left, leaving Percy to look up at the portrait. His mother. She looked so happy in the painting. Beautiful, too. Almost unrealistically so. He wanted to cry.

Instead, he took a step back, eyes falling to the floor. A click echoed in the room and Percy looked up to see the portrait sinking into the wall.

He moved forward, hand outstretched. The painting moved sideways, revealing a glassy surface reflecting his own face. He reached farther forward, until his fingers touched the glass-then proceeded to go through it.

He stepped forward into the reflection and turned once he was through. He was in the same room, every detail mimicked, except for a few trophies missing from their previous place.

Percy turned back to the room to see the group from the portrait, standing together, smiling, some mid laugh. The scene was frozen and still. Percy crept forward, towards the woman at the front. She was holding a bronze trophy. The first name on it read: Sally Jackson.

Percy's chest contracted and he reached out to touch her. But his hand passed right through through her and the scene went dark.

***

"You shouldn't have done this, Jackson." A cool voice rang out.

"You're mother left you for a reason." Another called. "To protect you."

"You have to stop looking." A female voice spoke up. "I love you, Percy, but you must stop looking for me."

"Mom?"

"It's not safe. The closer you get, the more danger you're in."

"I just want to find you!"

"Not yet."

"Not safe."

"Mom!"

A bright light brought Percy's vision back. A ghostly pale woman stood before him, hand outstretched. face was hidden by a hood. He reached out for her, but she got farther away. He moved closer and she moved away. Over, and over, and over again.

"You should have given him to me when you had the chance!" Percy looked up as a humongous shadow swallowed the figure. She threw her head back and pointed a silver wand up at the figure.

"You'll have to kill me first."

"That can be arranged." The large figure swept a black scythe at the woman. She didn't scream. Didn't fight. She just let the weapon slice through her, her cape falling to the ground, limp and empty.

"No!" Percy yelled, running forward. But the scythe swing at him now, and as the tip hit his chest, his vision once again went black, with a feeling of shattering glass.

***

"Oh, my god, Percy!" He opened his eyes to see the ceiling of the room Snape had left him in. Piper appeared in his line of vision. "What happened!? Did Snape do this!?"

"What? Do what?" Percy groaned, sitting up. He winced in pain before looking down. Where the scythe had ripped through him in his dream, his shirt was ripped down the front, and a single, thin red line traced from the hollow of his throat to his navel. Blood was smeared on his skin. "What the-?"

"What happened!?"

"Snape-"

"I'm gonna kill him!"

"-showed me the portrait of the old Slytherin quidditch team, the one my mom..." He trailed off.

"Then?"

"He left." Percy mumbled. "Help me up."

Piper drug him to his feet. "We need to get you to the Hospital Wing-"

"No." Percy shook his head. "No, no, uh... Help me sit in the common room." She hesitated, and he sagged his head a little. Glass was on the ground, scattered around where he'd been" the worst of it under where he'd been laying. "Please, Piper..."

She sighed, helping him out of the room. He grabbed the necklace and rubbed his thumb over the sapphire. Her thoughts filled his head.

'He looked dead. I thought he was dead, but he's moving. He's awake, and breathing, and covered in blood and-'

"Stop that. I can feel you in my head." She whined.

"Sorry." He sighed as she sat him on the couch in the common room. He touched the sapphire again, turning off whatever ability it gave him, and sighed, leaning on the sofa. Piper sat across from him, hands covering her mouth.

"So... What happened?" He sighed, before telling her about his dream, vision, whatever it had been.

"Oh... That's scary..." She whimpered. "What are you going to do?"

"Keep trying to find her."

"What!? But she said not too!"

"My head made that up, Piper. My mother didn't tell me anything." He sighed.

"Oh, no!" A voice squeaked. Piper and Percy shared a look before slowly turning to the noise. A small figure in rags stood at the end of the couch, big ears folded down, their head almost comically too big for their body. Percy's eyes met the tiny figure's humongous eyes, and they screamed simultaneously, joined by Piper.