Severus Snape was a gutter rat rescued from the London slums by Harry Potter's great-grandmother. Years later, he writes a letter to Harry explaining not only his past, but also of Harry's family history and heritage.
Chapter 13
Posted:
07/13/2002
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Author's Note:
Author's notes: I would like to say this follows the canon, but sometimes it meshes, so it would be safer for me to say this is an Alternative Universe of Severus Snape's past. Due to the obscurity of Snape's past, I took a great deal of artisical liberty, but I still like to think that Snape is canonly in-character. If not, I blame it entirely on his past. Or something. (To be read thinking that everything you ever learned in OotP does not exist.)
I must admit I was one of the lucky few. Indeed, that I received a trial was what made me one of the lucky few. I was found guilty of consorting with Voldemort, killing Muggles and Magic-users alike, attacking Aurors with the intent to do harm, and use of the Forbidden Curses.
I was asked only two questions and my answers were the only words I spoke since being arrested. If I had answered the questions with the whole truth instead of the partial truth, protested against the evidence, or had explained I was a spy, I may have been found innocent. But when I saw Lily enter the court with Albus, little you in her arms while Albus carried a baby sack in his own, I felt guilty knowing how people were killed that Easter night and we all would have been attending a funeral instead of a trial had it been worse. Well, most everyone would have attended a funeral as the rest (myself) would have been rotting away in prison.
Lily saw me looking directly at her and she frowned. I saw hatred, anger, confusion, and betrayal appear in her eyes. Once again, I was in fifth year, feeling misunderstood and distrusted with the opinions others held of me having no justification whatsoever. I may not have trusted, but I could be trusted. Where was James? I looked for him and believed he would not show because he could not stand to see me. The idea pained me, but I accepted it.
The evidence was laid out, and then witnesses against me appeared. I remained silent, but when character witnesses were called forward to speak for me, no one--not even Albus--spoke up. I thought, So that is how it will be. Very well. This is an excellent opportunity to cut the ties from Dinsmore permanently. No one would miss me; they would not want the black sheep of the family near. In the light of all the fighting Pandora and James had waged against Voldemort, in the light of the deaths Voldemort created within the family, I felt it better to be placed behind bars and forgotten.
Judge Barty Crouch stood before me at the end of the trial and said, "Why did you become a Death Eater?"
"For knowledge," I replied. Knowledge to help James, to tell my brother what Voldemort would do.
He frowned down upon me. "Did you enjoy it?" he asked.
Enjoy it? Did I enjoy the time I spent with James, being closer to him and trusting him and him trusting me as we never did before, brought together to defeat the one man who was tearing our lives apart? Were it not for what I became, I would never have known I could have trusted my brother, or even have ever known such closeness to him as I once had when we were children. It made me feel something I never felt before: simple, actual trust for a single person; trust that extended even beyond what I granted Pandora Potter. And--dare I say it?--it also made me feel human and whole, instead of the misfit oddball from the slums. Words cannot describe how precious that trust, even if it was now shattered, had been to me.
"Yes."
He banged his gravel against his desk and declared me guilty. I was sentenced to life in Azkaban.
Truth be told Harry, that place is not as bad as people would have you believe. Of course, almost all of the others who wind up within those ice-cold stone walls, locked behind bars and trapped in their worst memories, did not grow up in the slums as I had.
Yes it was cold, but it was not wet. It did not drip or drizzle and the drafts were not fierce gales of wind that carried snow and sleet. It was a sheltered place even, with a roof! Yes, the dementors stole happy memories and good feelings, leaving people trapped in their hopelessness and knowledge of what they had done. But I was used to living on the streets that knew only wickedness, as hope never existed long enough to die. All my memories were never completely happy but overlaid with a sense of bitterness implanted from my life as a gutter rat.
Indeed, I derived satisfaction from knowing I was better off in Azkaban than in the slums. The dementors could not take my memories of the slums, as they were not happy memories. As such, I did not lose the satisfaction derived from memories that could not be stripped away. It puzzled them that I could not be broken. I could be dulled and numbed, but not bled dry, broken, or driven insane as other prisoners were.
The prisoners were also fed regularly, which is a very large bonus compared to the times on the streets where I would go weeks without food. Perhaps the best thing of all, in my opinion, was prisoners were kept in their own cells. This meant no human contact, but rape never occurred either. I was very happy living with the knowledge no one would be assaulting me for a stolen moment of cheap gratification. This happiness could not be taken either and, even when I was left with the memories of those lives I had taken, I still clung to the notion their lives had been sacrifices, just as mine had been. A sacrifice to rid the world of the man who would demolish it so effortlessly.
And then James came to visit me four months into my being imprisoned.
Oh, he was spitting fire. I felt his rage the moment my cell door swung open and he stormed in to stand over me where I was seated at my window and gazing at the ice fields outside. I did not know why he was there. I merely stared at him and wondered why he would come to visit, angry and upset, so long after my trial.
James waited until the dementor who allowed him into my cell had moved beyond hearing to speak with me. "Why didn't you tell them?" he asked softly, though I knew he wanted to shout and vent his frustrations. I said nothing but continued to stare at him. He began to pace the room. "Why didn't you tell them Voldemort gave you the choice of death or joining him, and you joined him with the intent of becoming my spy?"
"Did you tell them?" I asked softly.
He glared at me. "No!" His voice rose to regular speaking volume. I knew he was struggling to keep his uneasy hold upon his temper. "I came here as soon as I was aware of anything!"
"Aware?"
"I was in a coma for the first eight weeks, and the last eight were spent gaining back my senses with therapy. No one told me you were sent here to this godforsaken prison until Sirius let it slip that you had gotten your just deserts for attacking me. I forced him to explain what he meant. Everyone who knows what happened to you--and thankfully it’s only a damn few--thinks you were the spy telling Voldemort the Aurors’ plans. Dumbledore told me you willingly become a Death Eater for knowledge and you enjoyed it."
He scowled and waited for me to say something. I wanted to tell him Peter was Voldemort's spy, but I could not summon the strength to say anything. At that moment, the only other time in my life that I could remember where I ever felt so utterly drained and hopeless was when Remus, as a werewolf, had bitten me. So James did not come to see me at my trial because he felt I was a betrayer, but because he had been incapable of anything. At least he never abandoned me. For that I felt gratitude. James knelt down so we were at eyelevel.
"We both know you became a Death Eater for knowledge about Voldemort's actions, and I have seen your eyes after you came from your missions. I have seen the pain and the grief you harbour within yourself and wouldn’t share with me. I know you didn't enjoy what you did. Why’d you say you did? If you had told them otherwise, they’d have offered you a chance to exchange information and names for freedom. Why’d you allow them to imprison you here instead of explaining to them that you were my spy?"
I remained silent. "You want to stay here,” he spoke flatly, all anger gone from his voice as he became aware of my emotional state. He looked tired and beaten when he came to the realization. I nodded somewhat eagerly. He sobbed and threw his arms around me. "Oh Sev," he cried, hugging me tightly. "You were always the strong one, just like Grandmother. You may have been affected by what others did to you, but you never let it hold you back and even when I’d have sought revenge, you forgot, if not forgave, the matter. Where’s your strength now?"
I patted his arm, secretly wondering too where this strength James spoke of was. Where it had been all my life? Odd how it always seemed to escape my notice. Did I actually forget what others did to me? I used such experiences as mortar for my brick walls of cold defence. Each one I used to harden my resolve. How was this forgetting? I hid behind these walls, too frightened to emerge from them and open myself up to trust. This would be more aptly described as cowardice, not strength.
In a way, Azkaban was my escape from the world. It was my way of slipping away from all the horrors Voldemort created and the pain others felt from it, of letting everyone forget me. Yes, it was cowardice, I will admit to that. Yet how fitting it was that my brother, the person I had inadvertently betrayed the most through trust, should be the only one to visit me in my chosen confinement. "Leave me be," I said finally. "Forget about me. All that I need is here."
James held me at arm-length. I weakly waved him away, wanting to tell him my thoughts and feelings, yet still could not summon the strength to. "Do you have nothing left?" he asked as more tears filled his eyes. I stared at him blankly, unsure of what he meant. He covered his mouth in alarm. He must have thought I had given up all reason for living. After a moment, he pulled his heavy winter robes off and piled them on top of me. "I'll be back," he promised fiercely as he pulled them tight around my form. "I'm not leaving you here to rot! You’re every bit a hero as I am and you don't deserve to be here. This isn't right."
"It's not that bad," I said. He looked at me and I hastened to explain what I meant. "There's food, and it’s not wet." He smiled sadly and shook his head at me, perhaps remembering that dirty and thin child Pandora had brought home so many years ago.
"Won't you ever move on from the past?" he asked me softly before he left.
That made me think. I questioned what he meant. Yet the more I thought of the words, the more I recalled how much of my life was dominated by my experiences and memories from living in the slums. Every sentiment I held for mankind stemmed from those years. My desire to learn and to experiment with magic came from the need to forever escape the slums. The ways that I moved and thought had been developed when existing as a gutter rat that coped with dangers of the streets.
When my cell door swung open for another visitor one month later, I had been struggling with a dawning truth; a truth that scared me more than anything I had ever learned before. I sat on my narrow cot, doubled over with my head in my lap and my arms folded over it to shield myself the best I could from the world. I did not move as a weight settled beside me on the cot and a gentle hand rubbed my back.
"Severus," said a voice I had not heard in five years. I slowly looked up to see Pandora gazing at me with sad eyes. Her arms encircled my shoulders and pulled me into a loving embrace.
"Grandmother," I said as she began to rock. "Wherever I go, the slums follow after me."
"Hush darling. You're not well."
"Everything I do, everything I say, it’s all as if I am still in the slums, wary of those who will sell me out to someone." I looked at her. She was far more fragile than I had ever seen her. Pandora was thin and old, hair white as Albus' and eyes bloodshot from too much reading and not enough sleep. The only thing that seemed to keep her from dropping to the floor in an exhausted faint was the very same dignity I had been wary of the first moment I had seen her with James at the entrance of Diagon Alley. "I will never escape the slums, will I? You can remove the gutter rat from the slums, but you can never remove the slums from the gutter rat." My head drooped depressingly onto her breast. "Let me stay here," I said. "I can live with the slums here without trouble."
"No." Her arms tightened around me. "James told me of what you did."
I felt a flare of anger at James. Why did he have to drag Pandora into this mess? Did he not realize how desperately Pandora sought a way to defeat Voldemort? I did not want her to be distracted from her duties. I could have remained here without her having to be interrupted. Yet I should not have been surprised that this was what James did. Three times I was in danger, and three times James turned to Pandora.
When Peter knocked me out of the boat, the only way James could be calmed was by being promised that Pandora would be fetched. When Remus had bitten me, James went directly to Pandora, regardless of the punishment he might have received for all the transgressions on his part of the mess. When I wished to remain in Azkaban, James told Pandora of how it had happened and why. All the times I desperately needed help, James turned to the only person he felt could help him help me, and that was our grandmother. I believe that James loved me in his own way, just as I loved him in my own way. He never sought her help for anything or anyone but myself, as if he could not trust his own ability to assist me in my perilous need.
"Leave me alone," I said, trying to pull away from her.
"Why?"
"Because I belong here."
She slapped me. The sharp sting of flesh hitting cold flesh rocked my world for a moment. The numbness in my mind disappeared slightly and Pandora hovered over me, frightfully angry with me. "Now you listen to me, Severus Dominic Snape: You may think you belong here and you may believe the world doesn't need you, but if you think you may repay my kindness and my love and all the things I did for you by disappearing off the face of the earth and finishing the end of your days in this horrible place, then you better start revising your thoughts."
I looked at her for a moment then wearily slumped over my cot. Her anger turned to worry. "Are you ill?" she asked me, pressing a warm hand against my bruised cheek.
"I'm tired," I said. "I don't want to go back--really, there’s nothing to go back to. Frank is crazy, no one will believe James when he says I am a spy, and no one spoke up for me at the trial. They don't care if I come back and neither do I."
"I believed James!" Pandora was the picture of indignity.
"You know he has never lied to you or ever will." I turned my back to her and curled into a ball. "Where will I go?" I asked softly. "Who will take a convicted Death Eater like myself?" The arm with the Dark Mark trembled and I clamped my other hand over it. What else could I say? My ambition seemed drained from me in the hopeless disparity of my situation.
Pandora said nothing as she stared at me, thoughtfully chewing on the bottom of her lip. She left without saying goodbye. I once again thought of my past. What are regrets and what are hopes when, in the light of my past, I squashed regrets and never formed hopes? Yet never say never to a woman who has her mind made up, Harry. Whoever said, “Hell knoweth no fury like a woman scorned," must have been on the receiving end of the said scorned woman’s wrath. Be it whether or not Pandora felt it was her duty to help me or perhaps she thought there was something I could live up to after leaving Azkaban, she did find a way to get me out without compromising my reputation with either the Aurors or the Death Eaters.
Pandora showed up at the Ministry of Magic's doorstep, a whirlwind of righteous fury. She threatened, ranted, raved, called on dozens of favours, levered her reputation and power and the family wealth back and forth to grease palms right and left, and finally received a recall on my sentence from the Very Higher Up. She had the element of surprise on her side because no one had seen her for more than five years, and had forgotten how vicious the matron of the Potter family, Slytherin through and through, could be when she wanted her own way. In the end, it was what they granted her. But only, they told her, if I was placed in the direct care of a very powerful, very competent wizard. Pandora then went directly to Albus and told him of what I had been for James. Albus agreed to help her by taking me as en employee--of what, he truly had no idea but he would come up with something, he assured her.
Pandora wasted little time in snatching me out of Azkaban, leading me past the dementors, glaring at anyone who would stop her. She ruthlessly squashed rumours of my being a Death Eater. Easily done, as that news had not reached the mass media. Of those who were apart of her close-mouthed negotiations, only James and Albus knew I had been a spy.
According to anyone who remembers Pandora (and even the history books; the Potter family made it into Magical Mysteries Never Solved), James was the last to see her alive; accordingly, Pandora disappeared afterwards, never to be seen or heard of again. It was assumed she was dead because nothing ever became known of her after James’ death, and with the slaughter of her family, everyone supposed that James’ funeral would have been enough to bring her into the public eye again, especially since you, his only child and her great-grandchild, was left orphaned.
Albus and her sent owls back and forth about information of the Fidelius Charm, but everyone believes that James was the person who physically saw her last. She took him to the side and spoke to him softly. Having told him what she wished to say, she left. Only two alive could tell you of what she said. Albus and myself. James told me, before Albus performed the spell that would hide you and your family from the world, that Pandora was off to directly attack Voldemort for the first time in her life. She was worried she would not come out of alive and would not be strong enough to drag Voldemort down with her, so she wished he and his new family would disappear from sight. That, she said, was the only way James would be protected, as he was the person who would be in the most danger. After all, she would break the alliance between herself and Voldemort that had allowed James safe sanctuary.
Pandora was determined to carry her plan out, no matter how much the rest of us pointed out the risk of her directly attacking Voldemort. She merely said Tom Riddle would allow only her close enough to position herself for an attack. She blushed as she told Albus this before leading James away for that final moment because he was still reluctant to allow the charm to be cast. Albus cocked an eyebrow at those words and I remembered the debt Pandora owed Voldemort for burning the moon magic from me before it took effect. I have to wonder if Pandora deliberately used my predicament to manoeuvre Voldemort into a position where he would be showing her a moment of weakness. It would not surprise me; as much as it would otherwise pain me to know that I had been used in such a matter, Pandora knew Voldemort could only be defeated by his own game of manipulation and deceit.
You and I both know I was the one who saw Pandora last.
A week after the Charm was performed--indeed, on the day of your parents' deaths--Albus allowed me to go to Dinsmore without an escort. He trusted me, he said, and it was not his place to spoil my last moments at what had been my home for more than fifteen years. The portraits were subdued and quiet as they watched me roam the cottage for the last time. It was dusk as I stood at the base of Dinsmore, my trunk at my feet and filled with the things I found I could not part with.
I felt Pandora Disapparate behind me. As I turned to greet her, my words died on my lips. She stood before me, hunched over as blood streamed down her side. Her eyes darted nervously around and her chest heaved with painful gasps. I took a step forward to steady her and she shook her head, batting me away with one hand.
"What happened?"
"That snake bit me!" Pandora sounded more angry than hurt. "That damn snake bit me after I stripped Tom of what power I could manage!" She looked at me with wide eyes. "It flew everywhere," she whispered with her voice filled with awe. "Such magnificent power . . . It was like a liquid that poured past me. It took almost all my concentration to gather it together and use it as a lever to strip more from him." She growled and gritted her teeth. "I was not paying attention and I should have! I would have gotten away but for that snake." She pressed a hand to her side and swayed.
"Here." I offered her my hand. "We'll get you to the hospital quickly enough for them to help you."
Pandora laughed bitterly, sounding eerily like James did when I had told him of my proposal to spy for him and he had said it never failed to amaze him how effortlessly Voldemort had destroyed the Potter family. "No. The poison moves too fast through my veins and if I Apparate one more time it will kill me." She smiled at me. For a brief moment, she looked no different from that time long ago when she offered me a bowl of peaches and cream her grandson had left rather than eat. "I brought this to you." She held a small box out to me, plain but for the silver fringe-like edging between the lid and the main body of the box. I solemnly took it from her and looked at her expectantly. "The poison--" she pressed a hand to her side again "--there is only one way to cure it and I will have to make a wild jump for it."
"Apparate?" I asked. She swayed unsteadily again and I reached out to help her, but she irritably pushed my hand away.
"Where I need to go no one may Apparate. Not even Tom Riddle may enter this place where I plan to jump.” A look of worry creased her brow. "I just hope someone will grab me. If no one does I shall die, which is what will happen if I Apparate once more anyway.”
I felt a wave of confusion at her words. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, Severus." She smiled at my confusion. "Don't trouble your mind about it. I merely go to my mother's family." She sighed as I frowned. She had never said anything of her mother before and I wracked my memories for any clue of what sort of family Pandora would be retreating to for help. "I just hope young Pettygrew remains strong enough," she whispered. "I fear there are dark times ahead for James."
"What does that cowardly Peter have to do with James?" I asked darkly, still trying to recall what I knew of her mother besides the woman dying when Pandora was in her fifth year. "The damn turncoat is a spy for Voldemort."
If I had struck Pandora, her look of stunned dread would have been no different. The cunning in her eyes did not disappear, but the horror obscured it as she made lightening-quick connections that escaped me at that time. "Peter is a spy?" She looked at me, taken aback for a moment before bursting into horrified tears. "What have I done?" she wailed. "I have killed James!"
"What? How?"
"No more!" Pandora pushed past me, dragging her left leg behind her. "We must get the Mirror of Rebounds." She seemed to regain her strength, or at least sweep her emotional agony under the press of more demanding things. I ran after her as she stormed into Dinsmore. "Tom’s coming," she whispered as she swept through the dark halls of the cottage. I believed her. My Dark Mark began to burn with an intensity I had never before experienced. I clamped a hand tight over it to dull the pain. "No. Not Tom. He stopped being Tom Riddle long ago, didn’t he?” I failed to see the need to respond. “Voldemort comes. I did not defeat him; I could. He is weak though, and he will never regain the strength he possessed before tonight." She pointed at the box I held. "Open that only upon dire circumstances and when your only other choice is to die." She entered her room. Lily had kept it dusted and clean. Sitting on the top of her chest of drawers was a royal blue-coloured cloth draped over a small round frame. She swiftly tore the cloth off to reveal a mirror hinged between two triangular poles. Its glass was inky grey and too dim to reflect its surroundings.
Pandora shoved this into my arms. "The Mirror of Rebounds shows anything you desire so long as it happened." She looked into my eyes and then threw her arms around me in a tight hug. "Take care," she whispered. She pulled away. "Go to Albus Dumbledore," she said. "Go to him--don't stop for anyone or dawdle. You must get to him immediately and tell him that--that . . ." She burst into tears again. "Tell him that James and Lily are in danger, that Voldemort knows where they are--that their secret keeper has betrayed them." She started to cry again, but she would not explain to me how Sirius could possibly have betrayed James and Lily.
She pushed me out of the door of the bedroom and slammed it shut. I whirled around and kicked the door. "Grandmother!" I cried as I threw my weight against it.
"Go to Albus!" she cried back on the other side. "Help James before it’s too late!" I stared at the door for a moment, then Apparated as close to Hogwarts as I could. I dropped the box and the mirror Pandora had given me at the lake's shore and dashed headlong to Hogwarts, yelling for Albus and Minerva. Students still awake jumped out of my mad rush. Albus met me at the base of the castle. I nearly ploughed into him before I realized he was in my pathway.
"What’s the matter?" His eyes were as sharp and penetrating as Pandora's behind his glasses.
"Sirius--Pandora--!" I gasped for a quick breath, gathered my thoughts into a semblance of order, and then straightened. I found I could not tell Albus that I had seen Pandora. "James is in trouble," I said finally. "Voldemort is going after him and he knows where James is."
Albus frowned. "Are you sure?"
I nodded. "There is a traitor," I said darkly, remembering Peter. Did Peter become a traitor because Sirius was one? I wondered for years afterwards.
Albus immediately launched into action. He commanded me to stay out of the matter as he called Minerva to him. I watched as they left, feeling helpless. They and several other instructors flew off on their brooms and then Apparated away once outside Hogwarts' barriers. Poppy appeared behind me and Hagrid shooed the students off to their Houses as he told them it was not safe to be outside. After a moment of staring at my back, Poppy gave me an unexpected hug.
I responded with stunned silence and a wide-eyed stare. "Severus," she said, "I haven't had a chance to say this, but I don't see you as a horrid man who became a Death Eater." She patted my arm. "I see you as a frightened and lonely child, scared and hurt from your bother's friend's prank. Don't worry; James, Lily, and little Harry will be fine."
They would not be.
Poppy left and I went back to the edge of the lake to fetch the things I had dropped. Upon seeing them, I remembered my trunk and decided I would do no harm should I quickly Apparate to Dinsmore long enough to grab the trunk's handles and then Apparate back to Hogwarts with the trunk on tow.
I paused a moment to straighten the mirror and the box Pandora had given me, and then Apparated to where my trunk sat. The moment I was aware of my surroundings I perceived something to be horribly wrong. The air was heavy with smoke and heat. I screwed my eyes shut, covered my mouth and coughed, blindly reaching for my trunk. When my hand found a handle and tightened around it, I opened my eyes and peered through the thick smoke.
I felt a strange emptiness when I saw Dinsmore, fire reaching to the sky where it blazed through a gaping hole in the middle of the roof. A black figure stood silhouetted against the flames, cape fluttering wildly as orange embers floated almost lazily around it. The figure turned to face me. My Dark Mark blazed suddenly with pain and I wildly Apparated back to Hogwarts, almost crazy with fear, and nearly splinched myself in my haste. The rage I had felt even from the distance was overwhelming and my retinas burned with the red hue of the black figure’s rage. Overlaying that was the agony and sorrow I told you before. I fell to my knees beside Pandora's mirror and box. My eyes settled upon the dark glass. "The Mirror of Rebounds shows anything you desire so long as it happened." That was what Pandora had said. As I gazed at the mirror, I ached to see Pandora one last time.
This is all very difficult to write. Of all the things I have had to explain, this is the hardest. I relive these memories for the sake of writing them for you, and it is painful to think of the what-may-have-been’s, what-if’s, and knowing there is nothing that can be done to change the damage wrought.
The mirror darkened black and then lightened suddenly, as if someone had turned on a light from within. It was foggy before the image sharpened and I saw Pandora slam her bedroom door shut before my surprised face. She slumped against it, tired and weary. She slowly stepped away from the door and I saw her face, saw the agony and grief adding years to her features. She looked directly at the ceiling and then faded away. Not disappearing immediately as she would have if she Apparated but faded instead, as if she gradually lost substance.
I covered my mouth as the mirror's picture changed and showed Dinsmore burning with Voldemort stood before it. He slouched over with one hand clasping an end of his cloak close. Heat waves danced before his image and blurred it. He had been staring at the flames, but after a moment, he glanced up and saw me. Across time and across distance, he saw me. Such was his power even after Pandora had stripped as much of it as she could from him. His eyes held a shattered look; a mingling of pain, betrayal, rage, and sorrow. A moment passed before his rage boiled forward and something popped.
I stared at the mirror in surprise as the images disappeared and inky darkness was all I could see before I realized there a fine crack that ran along the surface of the mirror where one had not existed before. A dark liquid seeped from the crack. I stumbled back and light flared again. I saw James fall backwards limply, a green light clinging to his features. I watched with horror as Lily appeared before the twisted form of Voldemort, poised and ready to fight. They hurled words at each other for a moment and then Voldemort pointed his wand at Lily as she flung herself forward to protect you. Green light burst forward and tears blurred my vision.
"Stop it!" I could not stand to see anymore. I had just witnessed the deaths of two family members and the fate of a third. I did not want to see more. I could not stand the idea of seeing you, who had never done anything to anyone, the most innocent of us all, die as well. It was too much to bear. I swatted the mirror aside. It struck against Pandora's box. The box fell to its side and opened. A light, an odd mixture of deep green and baby blue, both of which seemed to be warring against one another for command, floated from it. The green absorbed the blue, took on a lighter hue, and pulsated. I snatched the box up and slammed it shut. The light shot directly into the air as if it were a launched rocket before disappearing in the distance.
==================================
And that is that. There is little more to explain what you do not know. After you somehow managed to destroy Voldemort--how, I truly have no idea, maybe I should have kept watching the Mirror of Rebounds because then we would all know exactly how you managed to do such a thing--the Aurors launched an all-out brutal assault against stunned Death Eaters everywhere. The Potions instructor at Hogwarts was among those was found guilty and Albus allowed me to assume the position.
You were sent to the Dursleys who would raise you without your getting a big head over being the Boy-Who-Lived. Peter framed Sirius who was sent to Azkaban without a trial, and though Albus knew Peter was the true secret keeper, there was no way he could prove Sirius was innocent. Had I told him Peter was Voldemort's spy, he would have levered for a recall on Sirius' sentence as Pandora had done for mine, but for more than a decade I honestly and truly believed Sirius had been James' and Lily's secret keeper. Because I thought him to be a Death Eater so had to have been Peter, ever willing to follow like a brainless sheep over a cliff after the herd.
I have fulfilled my duty. I, the only remaining person alive who truly knows the depths of the Potter family's heritage and history, have explained it to the only living blood member of the Potter family. There is more; so much more that would broaden the general knowledge of your family, but that is the main gist of it. That is why Voldemort hates you and that was how your family was destroyed. I now answer Voldemort's insistent call. I may no longer continue avoiding him.
I do believe going to Voldemort will kill me. Rather than this valuable information die with me and leave you blind in the world, I took it upon myself to explain my life. I could not explain anything of the Potter family without explaining my own ties, and that could not be done in spurts and fragments. Like it or not, the little gutter rat Pandora rescued from Voldemort possessed as many ties to the Potter family as you do.
Fate has deemed to throw you against the Dark Wizard who had been born Tom Marvelo Riddle. One cannot butt heads against Fate, but one may be prepared for what Fate has decided. By knowing what you are, you find clues to who you are. Whether you find that a comfort or not--at least, coming from me--it is the truth. There are few things I leave you with after all I have done to you but this testimony of who your father was, what your family had been, and perhaps a little of the enigma known as Voldemort. It is the most precious thing I can give anyone.
I sacrificed a great deal in my life, but nothing hurts like the pride I had to swallow to tell you all of this. There was a purpose though, and at least I shall not be alive for you to gloat over.