author's notes
Believe it nor not, Pandora's Box was originally meant to be a light-hearted drama that poked fun at what was, at the time, considerably popular ideas and cliches (Severitus challenges, slash, DADAProfessor!Harry, NonHuman!Harry, SuperPowerful!Harry, Female!Harry, Amazon!Harry, Aftermath!Voldemort, etc.). It opened up worlds of fun possibilities (no pun intended) that I got to explore to my heart's contents, as well as to offer some unanswered questions in A Gutter Rat's Tale.
Then the story took a turn for the... worse? Complex? Dramatic? For whatever reason, some of the characters insisted on making this light-hearted thing into a very complex, very deep story with loads of metaphysics and phisosophy. I still maintain that this is not my fault - the characters that I borrowed from JK Rowling decided to hold Plot for ransom until they got what they wanted. However, PB did manage never to dig to the same level of depravity, despair, and darkness that AGRT and That Which James Witnessed reached. PB started shortly after AGRT , but it refused to be written as swiftly or as easily. It took two years to write, but I returned some months later with a short side-story concerning Cousin Quigley and his angst.
I did manage to control the lenght of the story, even if it would up being nearly twice as long as AGRT . Oh, there are loads more I wish I could do with it, all sorts of fun little side universes that I never got to explore and wish I could. But the story was getting too complex and, for odd reasons I've never been able to discern, it seemed to scare away a lot of readers. Oh well.
Eventually, given enough time and ambition, I would love to do a sequel to PB with The Dresden Files (because I can).
o-o-o-o
Harry looked around himself in surprise. Where was he? How did he get here? He shook his head to clear the fogginess threatening to overwhelm his thoughts, and decided to focus upon his surroundings. The bleak darkness lightened into muddled colors and blurry figures.
From a far off distance, he heard a voice. It was thick, as if the speaker was trying to communicate with a mouth sticky with syrup. "You are charged with haunting Muggles and their possessions, and deliberately trying to inflict upon them harm, Severus Snape. How do you plead?"
Another voice, this one sharp and clear, replied, "I hardly see how you may constitute my forcing someone who is more than eighty kilograms overweight to exercise as deliberately trying to do harm. I do not appreciate the idea of spending my after-life with the blubberball after he has had a massive coronary before he becomes an adult."
"Nonetheless," the first voice said, "you know it is against the law for the ghost of a wizard or a witch to haunt Muggles. We cannot fault your desire to remain close with the last living member of your family, therefore we shall not lock you into the limbo realm. However, if you do not wish to be banned from the realm of the living, you must never again show yourself to another Muggle or haunt another Muggle appliance."
Who was speaking?
Harry squinted his eyes at the blurry surroundings, trying to make out a shape. He dimly understood that the Ministry of Magic was speaking to Severus about his choice of afterlife, but the significance seemed to escape him.
"Very well then." Harry cringed at the cold snarl in Severus' voice. Had that tone of voice had been used on him, he would be running very quickly in the opposite direction. There was a brief moment where nothing happened, and then something exceedingly chilly wrapped around the area below his waist.
"Where did he go?" another voice demanded.
Severus' voice, floating freely beneath Harry, said, "I am currently haunting my nephew's underwear. Now kindly leave me to the shattered remains of my dignity!"
That Harry clearly understood. "Nooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"Nooooooooooooooooooooo!" Thump.
Harry opened his eyes and saw brown. He lifted the upper half of his body and felt beneath himself. The brown was his bedroom's floorboards. As he groped for his glasses on the nearby bed stand, he felt a chilly breeze that made the hair on the back of his neck stir in response. Harry put his glasses on and turned to where Severus was floating.
Severus peered curiously at Harry. "Nightmare?" he asked.
Severus Snape, if he had been alive, would have used the chance of Harry's waking up with a scream and fall from bed onto the floor as a delightful chance for torment. Dead, he tended to be more pleasant to be around with. Not by much, but when comparing the way he treated Harry to the way he tormented Sirius Black on holidays, Voldemort every other weekend, Lucius Malfoy the other every other weekend, and the Dursleys' toaster oven the rest of the time, there was a significant difference for which Harry was grateful.
With no more secrets and all his motives and actions explained, Severus was no longer sullen and bitter towards Harry – just in general. Since he now spent the majority of his afterlife in the same house as his nephew, Severus took it upon himself to train Harry as he was sure Pandora and James would have liked Harry to be trained. Of course, all pleasantness aside, Severus was a hard taskmaster and difficult to please. His sarcasm was still uncurbed and his overall malice combined with his constant fierce glare continued to remind Harry that Severus Snape, even as he was formally a gutter rat Harry's great-grandmother had rescued and adopted as her grandson, was still the formable (ex?)-Potions Master of the Hogwarts Dungeons.
This was good for Harry. Severus had single-handedly booted Harry out of the depths of depression he had sunk into over Cedric's death.
("You think you're depressed because someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time and died for it? Snap out of it before I feel forced to do something exceedingly embarrassing to Voldemort just so you feel better!"
"What sort of embarrassing thing would this be?"
"I haven't figured that out yet, but it may involve underwear being strung up public view."
"How can that be embarrassing?"
"I'll be sure that Voldemort is still wearing them when I string them up."
". . . Oh . . .")
It was something of a comfort for Harry to be reminded that he should not feel sorry for himself. After all, things could be worse. Just look at Severus Snape – that immediately helped put things into perspective. And Severus swore up and down that Cedric had personally told him to tell Harry that he knew it was not Harry's fault and if Harry did not stop pouting, he may find himself unexpectedly whacked upside the head.
Since it didn't do to try and think through that, Harry proceeded with life. "Your father moved beyond sorrow," Severus had said. "If he can do it, at the age of three, after seeing his parents slaughtered in such a manner that it made Pandora's hair go gray overnight, then you can do it when it was just a fellow student. You have the strength of both the Potter and the Snape families. You can do it." Or else, his black eyes said.
As Harry looked at the transparent figure before him with hair wild and curly without its custom grease, Harry suddenly wondered if Severus planned on returning to Hogwarts to teach, just as Professor Binns continued to do so in the History of Magic. He shuddered at the idea of the pale, transparent Severus Snape tormenting poor Neville.
Severus Snape continued to gaze at Harry in silent patience. From experience, Harry knew Severus (who, quite literally, had all the time in the world) would not leave until his curiosity had been satisfied, or at least his question answered.
"It was sort of a nightmare," Harry began hesitantly. As Severus frowned, Harry wondered if it was safe to divulge the dream's content. "Not a painful one or even a sad one, just something that is scary because it's kind of embarrassing."
At the look of glee that crossed Severus' face, Harry knew he made a mistake in wording his explanation. "Embarrassing, you say? Do tell!" Thinking desperately to change the subject, Harry turned from Snape and glanced down at his homework. He frowned in confusion at the sight of at the red correction marks that crisscrossed his paper.
"What did I do wrong this time?" he demanded grumpily.
Severus sniffed indignantly as he seated himself cross-legged on Harry's bed. "First," he said, holding up one long finger, "I am only helping you with your homework to the point where you understand that you are not getting it right, and where it is you are not getting it right. Second," he held up another finger, "I will not tell you the answer because not only would it be cheating, but I would also be showing favoritism."
"As if you never did before." He heard nothing in reply as he sat down at the desk Uncle Vernon had purchased for him when Severus threatened to blackmail the man otherwise by haunting his company car. Harry glanced through the list of ingredients, and then at his homework.
Fifth year Potions homework was composed largely of making up one's own potion using five out of ten ingredients listed. The students were supposed to already know what the ingredients did from last year's Potions lectures. Knowing how the ingredients reacted with one another told a person what the most likely reaction and purpose the potion would create. Harry frowned as he sorted through the ingredients that Severus had ruthlessly slashed a red mark through. "What's wrong with putting a newt's tail with a rat's gizzard?"
"Aside from a rat not having a gizzard?"
Harry wanted to beat his head against the desk's surface. "Let me guess," he said slowly, "you added a couple of fake ingredients."
"And where," Severus asked pointedly, "where were you when I explained this in class?" He floated upright. "Now, if you need me, I shall be forcing 'Dudley-kins' on his hourly run." He drifted down through the floorboards. After a long moment had passed, there came a shriek of dismay and then the sound of pounding footsteps. Harry craned his neck to look out the window. He saw Dudley, half his original size and still wearing his pajamas, waddling as quickly as he could down the street as a stick, held by the now-invisible Severus, poked him continuously in the backside.
Aunt Petunia cried every time she looked at Dudley, wailing on how her baby was withering away to nothing. Uncle Vernon said nothing. The first (and only) time he had threatened Harry since Severus had arrived, he found himself suspended by his ankles from the rafters while a cauldron filled with a deadly skin-eating substance boiled and steamed away beneath him. Severus, perched on the rafters, spoke in great detail of what would happen should he untie the rope that held Uncle Vernon securely to the rafters.
Harry had once asked Severus if the Ministry of Magic would do anything because he was haunting Muggles. Severus had replied it was highly unlikely the Ministry of Magic would not ignore the matter, as the only anti-ghost charm in existence was too complex for all but the most highly skilled Charms Masters to perform. And Flitwick owed him a favor or three.
The only person he knew, Severus added lastly, to ever perform the spell as precisely as it was supposed to be done, was Francis Potter. Relatively speaking of course, as he was not around when Francis succeeded, but he did know Francis' portrait, which was close enough. Most people just tolerated ghosts because of the charm's difficulty.
At the thought of his great-grandparents, Harry's attention drifted over to what Severus had labeled, "Pandora's Box." Though Harry had pointed out that the box was Pandora's, and therefore could be considered Pandora's box, Severus made the cryptic remark of an old Greek legend involving curiosity, all the plagues of mankind, and hope. Before Harry could ask him what he meant, Severus went on to complain about Harry's lack of general education. Harry simply rolled his eyes and ignored Severus thereafter.
The box was plain dark brown with a single silver fringe around the edge. It hardly seemed threatening or even filled with an unknown source of magic. Either way. Severus had forbidden Harry to open Pandora's Box. Perhaps he had done so because of Harry's curiosity and his unusual ability to a) disobey and b) get into trouble regardless of good intentions or, for that matter, any intention whatsoever. Harry had sulked on how Severus did not give him enough credit.
As matters stood, Harry was neither desperate nor currently suffering a life-and-death crisis. Because of that, it was highly unlikely he would find a need or excuse to open the box. Still and all, Harry felt himself drawn to the box, like a magnetic to metal. It taunted him, like a low voice that called and pleaded for his attention.
The box sat on a small table in the very corner of Harry's room, the Mirror of Rebounds beside it with the cracked surface flipped over to face the wall. Both items were out of sight of the rest of Harry's family who never entered Harry's room anymore, lest they, in their "Muggle-stupidity" (as Severus liked to call it) should meddle. Harry studied the objects; they sat on the table for more than two weeks, and still they commanded his attention. Every time he looked at them, he felt as if he should do something, but the desire couldn't be stilled by the knowledge that there was nothing he could do.
Since Severus had threatened to give the mirror and the box to Albus Dumbledore for safekeeping if Harry tried to mess with them, Harry remained silent about his urges.
Harry tore his gaze from the mirror and looked down at his homework. With a resigned sigh, he began to make a list of all the ingredients he was familiar with while skipping over those he did not recognize.
Harry ran through a valley of tall, golden grasses. At the end of it was a small range of brown foothills. Unlike the dream of Severus' ghost trial, Harry understood this was a dream and nothing was real. He seemed to fly over the ground, the grass a golden blur with the tallest of the strands whipping at his face and arms. A black figure, graceful and elegant, darted all around him.
"Come on, Sweetie." The figure, a little girl about eight years with an open expression of cheerful curiosity and her glossy black hair tied in two bouncing ponytails on either side of her head, urged him onward with a tender voice. "Just four more hours of running, then we can stop by at Grandfather's and have breakfast."
One part of Harry's mind said, FOUR more hours? I'll collapse and die! Another part of his brain chanted (more or less) Food food food food food food food food food . . .
They continued to run all with the little girl moving at a much higher speed than Harry. She would speed ahead of Harry, dash around in a circle, run around him multiple times, and then beside him before repeating again. Little after-images were the only clue to her passing. After that first sentence, she never spoke directly to Harry, except when he stumbled and quickly regained his balance. "You all right?"
The part of Harry that held a mantra of food answered, "I'm fine, Mom."
The part of Harry that didn't understand how he could be running like this, much less for four hours, stuttered over the mental roadblock. This was his body; it felt the same (well, it did have an overabundance of energy, but he supposed that was apart of the dream in being able to run this fast for so long) and his voice sounded the same as well. But Mom? Why Mom though? That did not sound right! And his mother did not look like this either. His mother had red hair and green eyes and was certainly taller than a eight-year-old girl! Yet when he called her Mom, he felt a warmth fill himself just like it did every time someone spoke kindly of Lily Potter.
Ah, but this was just a dream.
Right?
Hey, you, I didn't say you could come in! Get the hell out!
WHAM!
"Ach!" Harry bolted upright in bed, one hand clamped over his chest as his heart pounded rapidly beneath his ribcage. His head throbbed as if someone had kicked him in the temples, which was precisely what happened in the dream. Severus, who sat beside the window with The Daily Prophet spread out before him on the floor as moonlight filtered through his transparent self, looked up with a brief flash of concern. Harry ignored his uncle. Unbidden, his eyes followed the pleading he felt within his very bones and focused intently upon the Mirror of Rebounds.
"Harry." Severus' voice held a warning that clearly stated Harry tread upon unstable ground. Harry tore his gaze from the mirror.
"I got booted out of my own head," Harry said as he tried to ignore the urgency.
Severus' eyebrow arched high. Harry often wondered how anyone could make one eyebrow go up without the other moving. "Really? By what?"
"Myself."
There was a long pause, and then the newspaper Severus was reading rustled as he turned one of the pages. "Go to sleep," he said gruffly. "And next time, perhaps you will heed my advice and not eat pickles before going to bed."
The week after that passed without too many events or any dreams. By that time, Harry was settled in the schedule Severus created so Harry would be too busy to fall into the state of depression he had been going through since Cedric's death. Every morning, from seven until eight, Severus would spread Harry's books before him and lecture on multiple subjects. Harry did not mind the schooling in the least. Severus was determined that Harry would be well-prepared for his OWLs, and Harry liked how Severus would bring in Francis and Pandora Potter's discoveries, experiments, and theories into the lectures. Sometimes Severus would go off on a tangent of some piece of family history, which Harry enjoyed even more, and not because it meant studying never happened.
At eight, Severus would watch Harry and Aunt Petunia prepare breakfast in silence. He floated beside the window just out of view from anyone who would chance to peek inside. Breakfast was eaten amidst quiet conversation between the Dursleys, who figured that the best way to react to Severus Snape was to pretend he didn't exist. Breakfast usually ended at half after eight, and then Severus would hide within the depths of the baseball cap Harry wore when he worked in Aunt Petunia's garden where he watered, weeded, cut, fertilized, thinned plants, and mulched leftovers until noon. They had lunch, and then Severus would allow Harry to do whatever he wanted until it came time to help Aunt Petunia prepare dinner. As soon as dishes were taken care of, which was roughly about eight, Harry would join Dudley on his forced-hourly run because Severus said jogging was a good way for him to keep in shape for Quidditch and even help him outrun Death Eaters. "They're the most out-of-shape slobs you'll ever meet, boy." The run finished at half past eight, and then Severus would coach Harry in the Dark Arts.
"You have to do what you have to do," he said. "I'll not have Pandora Potter's great-grandson or James Potter's son ignorant of such matters, especially with Voldemort after your hide." The lessons usually ended between nine and ten, and then Severus had to bully Harry to bed when Harry did not feel like sleeping.
Weekends were free after Severus left in the late afternoon of Saturday and returned early evening on Sunday. He never mentioned where he went or what he did aside from informing Harry whose weekend it had been to haunt. To make sure that Harry did nothing particularly dangerous when he was gone, Severus had given Harry a notepad and told him to keep a very careful track of his time and what he did.
Severus would scrutinize this carefully when he returned from his haunting. He never said anything about what Harry did, but Harry could feel Severus' worry for his emotional state dissipate little by little every day. "After all," Severus had grumbled on Thursday after Harry finished crawling under his bedcovers for the night, "we don't want you to be as unstable as that madman of a godfather." There was nothing biting about his words. Harry decided that Severus insulted Sirius because it came as a second nature.
Holidays were an interesting matter for Harry. It seemed to him that the more time passed, and the more emotionally stable he became, the more holidays Severus would find haunt Sirius. There was something almost suspicious about the gleefulness in which Severus would set off, but Harry refused to dwell on the matter.
With such a rigid schedule to keep, Harry was often too busy to think of the Mirror of Rebounds. Severus rarely said anything about it, so his undying curiosity about it never wavered. He was all too aware of it when he was in his room, but that was where his interest only came back.
And then came another dream…
Fog. Harry was surrounded by fog. He looked down at his feet and saw them disappear in the impregnable thick depths of the wispy fog. It was white above him; a soft, tender glow of light that was easy on the eyes. Harry turned slowly around in a circle, wondering what sort of dream he was having this time.
"They've been getting stranger ever since Uncle Severus came," he said worriedly. He made a mental note to tell Severus this. He began to walk in a random direction. Whatever he walked on was bouncy and added a spring to his steps. He walked in a straight line or in a circle. It was impossible to tell which direction he was heading because everything looked exactly alike, but he felt as if he should move.
"James?" a faint voice called. Harry froze at it. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "James?" Harry looked around. The voice came from everywhere because of how the sound rose and fell in gentle waves, and yet nowhere because Harry could not pinpoint where the sound originated. "James? Is that you?" Harry turned around in a full circle. "My dear, dear boy!" Harry sighed and spread his hands.
"I am Harry. My father was named James."
There was a long pause. "James?" The voice was clearer now, a deep female tone.
"No. Harry."
The fog shifted slightly, and Harry thought he saw a splash of black appear momentarily. "James?" The inquiring tone the voice had been speaking with turned to despair. The woman began to weep. "Where is James? I look and I look, but I can't find him! He's the only one who's still unaccounted for. What happened to my family?" The weepiness turned into sternness. "James - answer me this moment, young man!"
Harry located the direction of the sound and ran towards it. "James is dead!" he called out.
A shattered scream of agony was his only reply. Harry stumbled away from the sound. "No! Why God, why is everyone is dead or gone? James! Come back to me! Francis? Oliver, Edwina, Anastasia? Why will none of you answer?" The words broke into sobs. Harry took one tentative step forward, batting at the fog.
"Grandmother?" he called softly. "Grandmother Pandora?"
"Lost, lost, lost. All lost for one man's greed and the need to dominate. Damn you Tom Riddle! Give me back my family you selfish bastard!"
Harry stared in the direction the voice seemed to be coming from. He hesitated a moment longer, then began to walk in the direction again. He wanted to comfort the woman who was crying. "All is not lost," he said. "I'm here, and Uncle Severus is with me."
"I have nothing left," the voice said sadly, ignoring Harry. The fog before him parted and he saw a woman with black hair seated on large rock. It jutted from the thick fog, sharp and jagged, a mixture of mottled gray and brown. "Doomed. The world is doomed and any who could have stopped Voldemort are dead." The rock cracked then and a chip fell away. Harry squinted at the stone and made out weatherworn words that read, Hope.
Harry knew there was a significant symbol here. "I'm here," he said again softly, reaching out to touch the woman on the shoulder. She fell backwards and her body dissolved in dust. Beneath her, the rock exploded.
Harry sat upright in bed, clutching his chest once more. Severus merely rolled his eyes at the sight. "Do you have nightmares often?" he asked from where he was seated at the foot of the bed and reading Harry's volume of History of Magic.
"Not like that one," Harry mumbled as he threw his covers back and swung his feet off the bed.
"What was it about?"
Harry slumped forward and put his face in his hands. "Shattered hope," he said softly. "And someone who longs for her family." He stood up and stumbled across the bedroom floor to the doorway. He stared hungrily at the Mirror of Rebounds for a long moment before he turned from it and reached out to the doorknob. Harry felt desperate to escape his curiosity and need to examine the Mirror of Rebounds. "I'm hungry," he said as he opened to the door. It was more of an excuse to flee from his bedroom than anything else. Severus did not seem to notice.
"No pickles," Severus said as he went back to reading.
When the sun rose that morning, it found Harry seated cross-legged on his bed. Severus was gone again, off to haunt Sirius. "It's a holiday!" the ghost had crowed happily. When Harry had inquired as to what sort of holiday it was, Severus replied offhandedly of how the natives of the ancient Aztec civilizations would be celebrating their Sun God day on this day thousands of years ago. Harry rolled his eyes at the answer as his uncle left. Harry secretly believed Severus made up half the holidays he haunted Sirius on. I'm fairly sure the Australian Aborigines did not have a fertility holiday for kangaroos, Harry thought to himself as he watched Severus float away.
Not that Harry was complaining at the moment. With Severus gone, he could stare at the Mirror of Rebounds to his heart's desire and not rouse suspicion. Staring, however, was hardly what Harry wanted to do with the mirror. He wanted to caress its woodwork, breathe upon the glass, gaze into its depths, and know what it would show him.
Why this attraction to the Mirror of Rebounds? If asked, Harry would have admitted he had been curious about the mirror since he had first saw it. It called to him, a low hum that vibrated his bones and filled his soul with a longing. It showed everything so long as it happened. Maybe it could show him the meaning of the dreams he had been experiencing lately. Maybe this need physiologically manifested itself as the odd dreams.
Then, too, there was the face that Harry had first seen in the Mirror of Rebounds, before he read Severus' letter. That was a question left unanswered, a mystery that cried out for a solution.
He strode purposefully over to the mirror and stopped before it. The humming grew stronger. He reached one shaking finger out and touched the surface of the mirror before being hurriedly snatching his hand back in the same manner as if he had brushed against a hot iron.
Harry waited a moment, but nothing happened. Again the finger reached out, but instead of snatching backwards again, he let it linger against the cool glass. Harry released the breath of air he had unknowingly held, then picked the mirror up.
He cradled it close to his chest as he went back to his bed and sat down. He gently sat the mirror on a pillow and gazed into it. "You can come out now," he said to the secrets and answers the mirror held. Nothing happened. Harry felt the curiosity within himself ease. At the moment, he was satisfied to only look at the mirror. Perhaps if I wait long enough an answer will appear.
It did, though actually four answers would be more precise.
"Harry," Severus drifted through the wall, "do you know where I can-" He stopped when he saw the Mirror of Rebounds, and the look on his face was chilling enough to plummet the room temperatures into those of the Hogwarts' dungeons. Harry stared guiltily, cradling the mirror protectively. "What do you think you are doing with that?"
A face appeared in the mirror, unnoticed by either the nephew or the uncle. It looked around for a moment, grinned, and laughed exuberantly. "At last!" An identical face appeared beside the first.
"Civilization!"
Severus froze at the voices and Harry shoved the mirror away from his body.
"It's about time someone acknowledged us," the first face said. It disappeared, and then the upper half of a woman appeared across the room in Harry's wall mirror. She had black hair and eyes the color of turquoise. "It's rather crowded in there, what with the family being in it." She raised one hand and flapped it loosely, as if to shoo away a fly. "No privacy whatsoever."
The second face disappeared from the Mirror of Rebound's surface, and another woman appeared in Harry's mirror, identical to the first. "What took you people so long in realizing where we actually were? Honestly!" She turned to the first woman. "I told you that someone was out there. Didn't I say so?"
Severus and Harry gaped in astonishment at the women. One of them turned around and began to inspect her surroundings within the mirror as the other surveyed the surroundings outside the mirror.
"Bah, this place is horrible. Nothing at all like our frames," the first woman said.
"Dinsmore sure has changed, but I suppose it must be from the damage that fire caused; Mum never did have a good sense of style. That was why we were in the mirror, because our frames were burning." The second woman gave Harry and Severus a warm smile. "Mum didn't mind us visiting her all the time before when she was working in her bedroom, and it was the only place that seemed safe because, well, it wasn't getting burned. Although I think I would have burned rather than wait who knows how many years before anyone took notice of us." She frowned. "Mum wouldn't have waited that long, so we figured that the fire was really, really bad, and the Mirror of Rebounds was forgotten in the need to repair the fire's damage."
They scowled pointedly at Severus and Harry. This is, after all, your entire fault; their expression seemed to say. "So," said one of the women. "Where's Mum?"
Harry turned to Severus. "Do you know them?" he asked.
Severus snapped his mouth shut. He glared balefully at the two women and studied them for a long moment. "Harry," he said almost casually as he folded his arms before himself, "meet your great-aunts, Edwina and Anastasia."
Harry turned back to the women. "You're kidding!"
The women looked astonished themselves. And delighted, if the way their hands flew to their faces and hair to preen was any clue. "Harry?"
"Great aunts?"
The two women leaned forward and squinted at Harry. "He's got Lily's eyes," whispered one loudly behind her hand.
"But he's not as tall as little Jimmy."
"Not that James was little."
The twins grinned at Harry before they looked at Severus. Their smiles disappeared into frowns. "He doesn't look good." Again the loud whisper behind the hand.
"Must have been sick."
"If he was sick, it really wasted him away into nothing. I can almost see right through him – oh! I can see right through him!"
They stared in shock at Severus before another figure appeared behind them. "I say, living beings! Wow!" Swarthy and dashingly handsome, the man who appeared squeezed himself between the twins to look at the people before him. "I had almost forgotten what it is like to gaze upon something alive." He looked around at the twins. "By the by, is it just me, or is it slightly crowded in here?"
Another man, with shoulder-length black hair and dark blue eyes, materialized upside down, his hair almost brushing the tops of the twins' heads. "I would say it is crowded," he said softly as he peered over the frame's edge, "but anything is better than listening to Aunt Peggy list the many health problems she had before she died."
The other man nodded thoughtfully. "It is almost tempting to kill that woman, except she is only a portrait, so it makes that option rather silly. Well, so are we, but portraits can't kill portraits."
One of the twins pointed at Severus. She looked close to tears. "Our little snapdragon is dead!"
"Oh." The first man's face fell. "I spoke too soon of seeing someone alive."
At that, the others fell silent. Under the mirror's occupants' fierce scrutinize, Severus wiggled uncomfortably. He looked torn between running away to haunt Sirius again, and in greeting the family once more. He decided the latter was the informing, though hardly the safest. "As surprised as I am to find the family currently haunting Harry's mirror, there are some very important details we must share."
"Such as why you are dead?"
"Yes, Aunt Edwina."
"I'm Anastasia."
The upside-down man shook his head. "No, you're not, Edwina. Don't be confusing Sev since he got your name right the first time around."
She pouted. "Oliver, don't you have afternoon tea to take with Great-grandmother Mabel?"
"She'll survive if I miss it."
Severus remained silent. He crossed his hands behind his back and glowered at them, resuming his intimidating Potions Master role. Harry found himself slowly edging away from his uncle. After a few moments of bickering, the twins and Oliver focused their attention on Severus.
"Much has happened since the burning of Dinsmore, and even some things happened before then that you all should be aware of," he began. "But before I begin, I would also like Francis and Pandora to be present. Where are they?"
Edwina's lower lip trembled and Oliver dropped his eyes. Severus Snape the elder looked away. Severus stared expectedly at Anastasia, who was the only one still maintain eye contact.
"They didn't get out in time," Anastasia said finally. "Father didn't even have time to get out. Tom Riddle was there with this burning brand, and he told Father that he, Tom Riddle, had just been betrayed by the one person he had continued to trust all. He said he had never lied to Mum, had never broken a secret, gave her favors that no one else would have ever received, and in the end, was betrayed." She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes. "Tom Riddle said that so long as Francis Potter always existed, then so would Pandora Potter belong to no one other than the dead, and so be it. Then he threw the fire at Father's frame and it burst into flame, and Father…" She turned away, unable to finish.
Severus Snape the elder wrapped his arms around her and she cried into his shoulder as he continued the explanation, his voice bitter and his expression dark. "Francis was burned almost immediately along with his portrait. He could not escape the flames, and from there, Tom Riddle spread the fire throughout the entire building, burning those portraits within reach. Countless generations were destroyed. As he swept through Dinsmore, he repeated that shattered trust could never be mended, thus Pandora was to lose all that he had protected. After a few hallways, he threw away the burning brand and began to toss magic about. Those of us who knew how to jump from the portraits to the Mirror of Rebounds did. Only the strongest of us made it, since it had been carried away from Dinsmore and it was a long jump. Pandora would have known if we were in the mirror or not, so we waited for her to activate it. No one did, except for that one time where a surge of power knocked us into the deeper recesses of it, and now."
"So you have all been waiting until someone used the mirror?" Severus Snape the ghost asked.
Severus Snape the elder shook his head. "We were waiting until we sensed Pandora's presence. But she never came, and so we spent a great deal of our time within the deeper recesses of the mirror. We thought that with so much damage and with Tom Riddle in such a mood, Pandora would not have the time to use the Mirror of Rebounds."
Anastasia twisted away from Severus Snape the elder. "Where is Mum?" she asked. She looked around hopefully and the others caught on to her mood. Edwina and Oliver both smiled, ready to see their mother walk into the room and greet them.
Harry and Severus were quiet. They began to eye one another, secretly challenging the other to tell the family of Pandora's fate.
"You," Harry whispered as he pointed at Severus, "you're the only living-er, the only person who can give an eyewitness account."
"I was the bearer of bad news last time!"
"Well," Oliver cut in, "someone clue us something."
Severus and Harry glared at one another for a few more moments. Harry was the first to look away. "Pandora Potter is dead," he said stoically.
The portraits stared at them blankly. Severus Snape the elder spoke, a little too calmly. "And how did she die?"
"We're not sure."
"Did you see her body?"
"Look, I was only a year old when she disappeared, and even if I had been aware of what was going on, then I would have been too preoccupied with my own parents having just died to pay attention." Harry's sulky words created a reaction neither he nor Severus expected. The twins listlessly sank downward until only the top of their heads could be seen in the mirror, Oliver's eyes grew very dark with a sad thoughtfulness and Severus Snape the elder crossed his arms before himself as his shoulders slouched forward. Harry would have expected them to explode with denials, protests, or, in the very least, questions.
This sad silence was not something he had expected, and seeing their hopeful buoyancy so brutally destroyed in the light of the Potter family disaster, Harry felt the cold ball of depression in his chest swell. He turned to Severus. "I think you better tell them what happened and not me, since I couldn't answer any questions." Severus nodded once, and Harry sat down on his bed to listen to what he had already read in Severus' letter.