Pandora's Box

No one said anything when Severus finally finished. He had left out only a few things, such as his haunting other people, his being a spy for James, the overall activity as a Death Eater, and what he had seen of Voldemort in the Mirror of Rebounds. Harry was sprawled across his bed with his feet hanging over one side while one hand was tucked under his neck to support his head. Oliver Potter, in Harry's upside-down vision, was quiet and thoughtful. Of the twins he could only see the tops of their heads. However, like his uncle, Harry focused most of his attention on Severus the elder.

While Severus the ghost had explained (rather briefly) of the last time he saw Pandora, and what the Mirror of Rebounds had shown him of James' and Lily's fates, Severus the elder remained silent. When Severus finished, Oliver stirred momentarily. He blinked away from Harry's mirror back into the Mirror of Rebounds. Harry saw a fleeting shadow resembling the lithe young man in the murky dark glass. He flipped onto his stomach and gazed into the depths, captivated by the gentle hum he felt it casting. He allowed it to sweep over him and felt comforted by how it lulled him into a floating sense of nothingness.

"What," said Severus the ghost in an uncertain tone, "did Pandora mean by her mother's family? And what did she mean by jump? She did not Apparate, but used some other sort of magic. At least, I think it was magic."

"I was painted when I was twenty-seven," Severus the elder said. "When I thirty-two, I met Rhianon Lilwen. I married her two years later. Now, I do not have any memory of Rhianon other than a few passing times I saw her and what the other portraits would gossip of. To me, she was a very quiet, very serene woman with extremely pale features. She loved music, and she played the flute exquisitely. Now, I cannot speak for the real me, but I personally found her to be lacking in personality. The only unusual thing about her was she sat in the sun and brushed her hair endlessly. When Pandora was born, Rhianon carried her out into the sun and brushed her hair endlessly all the time too. However, the real me knew her better than I did and must have found something within her that made her wonderful enough to marry.

"Pandora's portrait did not escape Riddle's destruction, I'm sorry to say. Otherwise she would be here and could answer these questions of Rhianon. But now that I think of it, there was something otherworldly about Rhianon; something elegant, graceful, and noble."

Severus Snape the ghost frowned thoughtfully. "She said no one, not even Voldemort, could enter this place she was jumping for. If no one from that side caught her, she would be killed. When she jumped, she faded away, as if out of existence. Do you know if Rhianon had some capabilities of healing?"

"Not that I know of. Hell, I don't even remember if this Rhianon was a witch or not!" Severus the elder nudged one of his granddaughters. "Edwina, what do you know of your grandmother?"

From where she was seated with only the top of her head in view, Edwina stirred slightly. "Only what Mum told us," Edwina said. "Grandmother Rhianon was a kind, quiet woman who loved to play music, swim, and brush hair in the sunshine."

"There is a clue in there," Severus the ghost said as he began to pace the room. "If she's otherworldly and she fits that description well, then Rhianon Lilwen-Snape must not have been human." He frowned. "Was she familiar with magic? If you don't remember if she was a witch, then did that mean she was a Muggle or nonhuman?"

Severus Snape the elder lifted one shoulder in a precarious shrug. "I don't know why I would marry a Muggle. I suppose I would if I loved her, but I think I'd have rather taken her as a mistress instead. I remember thinking that one of the reasons why I got my portrait painted was to allow inspection of a potential bride."

Severus Snape the ghost stopped his pacing and glanced over at Harry. "Harry, did you--Harry?"

Harry did not hear his uncle. He saw something in the dark depths of the Mirror of Rebounds, something that was not a portrait. It was a dark outline of something that weaved and jerked ungracefully, helter-skelter and off-balanced. He was mentally trying to force the outline into something more distinct. At any rate, even if he wanted to withdraw his attention from the Mirror of Rebounds, the floating sense of nothingness he was caught in would not allow movement.

He was abruptly snatched out of the sense though when Severus the ghost hasty grabbed the mirror and held it aloft.

This mirror is hypnotizing you for whatever reason, Harry!" Severus snapped. "I'm taking it to Albus!" He whirled around and flew to the open window with every intention of leaving.

"No." Severus the elder did not raise his voice, but the force of command behind the word forced Severus the ghost to stop before he exited the window. With stiff dignity, Severus the ghost slowly drifted around to face his adopted great-grandfather. Edwina and Anastasia stood up to get a better view of the situation. "The mirror stays here. If there is something that seems to draw Harry in, I believe we should let him learn what it is. For all we know, it could be the only way Pandora has to communicate with us."

Harry, with a shocking clarity, suddenly recalled the dream he had of Pandora seated upon a crumbling rock of hope.

Oliver appeared upside down in Harry's mirror once more. "I would just like to add: I hardly think the seventeen other family members within the mirror will be too happy to learn they have been abruptly left at Hogwarts."

"Why not?" Severus the ghost grumbled. "It's almost their second home."

"But we want to be with family!" Edwina cried. "We don't all have to stay in little Harry's mirror! I'm sure there are other mirrors and maybe some paintings and photographs throughout this place we may dwell in. Aren't there?" Her sister vigorously nodded her head in agreement.

"Which seventeen family members are they?"

"Well, there's your aunts Peggy, Georgina, Celeste, Mercia; grandmothers Mabel, Unique, Fiona; grandfathers Julius, Sylvester, Dominic, Inigo, Pierce; uncles Oscar, Costello, Ulysses, Patrick; oh, and cousin Quigley."

Harry watched as Severus contemplated her words. "Cousin Quigley? Quaffing Quigley?" Edwina made a face at the name. Severus the ghost smiled. It was a deviant and wicked smile that foretold someone was going to find him- or herself invariably suckered. Harry quelled the urge to hide beneath his bed. "Very well," Severus the ghost said in an oily voice, "I imagine it would be best for family to be with family." He looked at the mirror. "Will they come out?"

"Yes," Anastasia said. "But only to something that is not crowded."

"I shall show them around." Severus the ghost opened Harry's bedroom door and floated through. Harry suddenly found himself center of his relatives' attention.

"So," Oliver said nervously to Harry, "how has your life been--living here with your Muggle relations, that is?"

The family quickly settled into a regular life outside the mirror. They now had separate places to go to, from mirror to still-life to photograph. Most of the relatives had lived back in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, though Grandfather Indigo had lived in the twelfth century and his disdain for women in general showed it. The relatives filled the interior of the Dursley household with questions on technology and Muggle livelihoods. For the Dursleys, it was just one more straw to the camel's back.

As Harry watched Dudley stare in shock at Edwina and Anastasia as they lectured him on the beauty of the slim human body, he could hear Aunt Petunia crying softly as she obeyed the stern orders of no-nonsense Grandmother Fiona. Grandmother Fiona settled in the mirror perched above the stove and directed Aunt Petunia in how to cook the "proper way for a matron." Harry thought it all amusing to see the Dursleys-eventually-grow used to having portraits hog the mirrors and pictures to themselves.

Of course, even he admitted it would take a great deal of effort to get used to the idea that Great-Grandmother Mabel had commandeered the bathroom mirror all for herself and refused to budge from it at any given time. Great-Grandmother Mabel was satisfied with sitting in her rocking chair, always sewing or brewing potions. Throughout the entire day and night, there would be two or more other relatives visiting with her for tea, or perhaps some piece of stray news picked up from listening to what was said on what was thought to be the niftiest of all Muggle creations-the television. Be that as it may, this meant there was no privacy to be had in the upstairs bathroom. The bathroom mirror had a lived-in look now, due to the curtains draped over one side and the pot of flowers at the other.

Perhaps the most interesting ancestor was Cousin Quigley--or, as the others nicknamed him, "Quaffing" Quigley. Cousin Quigley was the son of Uncle Sylvester and a Malfoy woman named Jynx. He loved a great deal of things; the television, the lights, the running water, watching Harry do his homework, telling tales. He tried to give all these things hugs, or at least praised their value in a very loud voice. However, the one thing he loved most was alcohol. Be it wine, whiskey, or beer, he loved to drink. Which is why he usually tended to praise things in a very loud voice.

The first time Harry had seen Cousin Quigley, the relatively young man was hiccupping and weaved drunkenly through the cubist painting hanging in the Dursley pantry. This painting was made up of different geometrical shapes painted in very bright neon colors, and Cousin Quigley, about as tall as pencil, either tripped over them or bobbed around them. His face was red with drink and he sang a bawdy song that would have made Aunt Petunia blush in shock had she been in hearing.

"Ahh! Coushin Hawwy!" Cousin Quigley stopped when he saw Harry staring at him with wide eyes. He almost fell over backwards and was saved by pin wheeling his arms wildly about until he regained his balance. "'Tish a (hic) good day! Yesh, a good day indeed! (hic) Shewwy?" He waved his wand, almost fell over forward as a bottle of sherry materialized in his hand. He stumbled, straightened, and then held the bottle out to Harry as an offer.

"No, thank you," Harry hastened to say. "I'm under aged."

"Nonshenshe (hic)." Cousin Quigley waved Harry's protest away and had to lean against a giant neon-green triangle to keep from falling over sideways. "If you ish tall enuff to shee (hic) over da bawr, then you ish old enuff to dwink! Ha!" He threw his arms wide and fell flat on his face. His bottle broke and he burst into tears at the sight of it. "What a losh! (hic hic) What a losh!"

Harry began to edge away from the painting. "You're a little drunk," he said. "We should try talking when you're somber, you know?"

" 'm not!" The tears turned into defiance. "I shwear to drunk I'm not God! . . . Wait . . ." He tried to sort through what he just said, but decided it was too much work to think. He summoned a keg of beer instead. "There'sh enuff hewe fowe all of (hic) ush!" He stood up and marched off to find more family as he rolled the keg before him. Twice he tripped and fell over the keg before he managed to get out of the painting.

The Dursleys' reaction had been predictable enough upon learning of their new household residents. Aunt Petunia fainted, Dudley sighed, and Uncle Vernon started to yell at Harry but stopped when Severus the ghost appeared before him with a steaming cauldron in his hand. Over time, they had eventually decided it was easier to ignore Severus than to try and reason with him. They would do the same to the portraits.

Two weeks came and went as the portraits settled down to living a life in a Muggle household. Harry wrote letters to Albus Dumbledore, Ron, and Hermione, informing them his relatives (which included Severus Snape the Potions Master) now lived with him. Dumbledore, rather than writing back, appeared on the Dursleys' door one early morning with McGonagall at his heel. He offered the portraits a chance to stay at Hogwarts, but they refused. Everyone one of them wanted to stay with living family, which consisted Harry and Severus, lumped together by default. Dumbledore, however, did not want to portraits to stay at the Dursleys. He said it was perhaps too much for the Muggles to handle.

A compromise was finally agreed on. The Snapes would go with Harry to Hogwarts when school started and Dumbledore would see Dinsmore rebuilt, When it was finished, Harry and his relations could move into it with Remus as the property caretaker.

Of the letters he wrote to his friends, Hermione's was the first to arrive, just two short days after Dumbledore's visit. As Severus the elder and Oliver sat in Harry's bedroom mirror and discussed current politics within the Ministry of Magic, Harry laid down upon his bed and read Hermione's letter.

Harry sighed as he folded the letter. He looked forward to attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but found he was uncomfortable with knowing he was to be the only student whose family had come along. On the other hand, he considered bemusedly, considering his record for getting into trouble, they may just help him stay out of it.

He pulled out a fresh parchment of paper. Over in his mirror, Severus the elder and Oliver had gone from discussing the Ministry of Magic to speaking of their distant relatives, the Malfoys. Lucius Malfoy had just recently requested [demanded] the skills of a Charms Master for the sake of performing the very complex anti-ghost charm. Back in Severus the elder's day, it had been a matter of both style and honor to allow ghosts to haunt homes. A ghost for a very old magical family was in the same comparison as a house elf to a very poor magical family. It was considered somewhat elite. After all, a portrait was good and well, a tradition started to carry on advice of dead relatives and even solve heredity disputes after the painting's subject's death, but a ghost was part and partial to its entire life. A portrait only possessed all that it had up to the moment when it was created.

Harry tuned the conversation out and wrote a reply to Hermione.

Harry stopped writing and turned to his mirror. "Grandfathers?" he began. Severus and Oliver stopped speaking and focused their attention on Harry. "How do you spell intoxicated?" Oliver told him and then he and Severus the elder continued their conversation while Harry continued his letter.

He finished writing the letter, folded the parchment, and stuck his head out the window to see where Hedwig was. She had left earlier that morning to do some hunting and had not come back. After a moment, he pulled through the window again and set the roll of parchment to the side.

A few days later, the ever-hyper Pig delivered Ron's letter. Pig flew in through Harry's window, smacked headlong into Harry's mirror where the twins were telling Harry of James and Sirius in their adolescence, and fluttered to the floor with a pained hoot. Harry rushed forward to see if the little owl was hurt as the twins peered at it in surprise.

As Harry picked Pig up, the owl stirred and jumped around excitedly. Harry, amidst the hooting, pecking, and wiggling tuff of feathers, undid the letter from Pig's leg. He set Pig inside of Hedwig's cage and gave him an owl treat to munch on.

The twins bounced excitedly in the mirror. "What does it say? What does it say?"

Harry laughed as he unrolled it. "It's a letter from my best friend," he said looking at the letters. The size of the sloppy writing practically leapt off the page at him.

Harry winced and rubbed his eyes. The twins gazed at him expectedly. Harry smiled at them nervously. "He's surprised that I'm related to Uncle Severus," he said. Anastasia sniffed.

"Wait until he meets the rest of us then," she said. Harry went back to reading.

Harry did not know whether to laugh at his friend's jibe, or to cry as he remembered the description of the slums Severus spent his earliest years in. He decided to ignore it for now.

Harry looked at the twins, who had gotten bored and were discussing the latest exploits of "Quaffing" Quigley.

"Did you two really baby-sit Authur Weasley and set him up with Molly?" Harry asked. The twins smiled brightly at him.

"Well," Edwina began, "you have to understand. Author was always a frumpy person too interested in Muggle things to really make many friends. Whenever I or Anastasia took him home with us to look after, he would get together with Mum or Dad's painting and speak with them about Muggles and their technology."

Anastasia cut in. "We decided that what Authur needed was someone who was too stubborn for him to say no to, someone who could take charge whenever he was distracted, yet was open-minded enough not to mind in the least. Well, beyond reason, that is."

Edwina grinned. "That was where Molly Sanders came in. She was looking for someone mild enough to put up with her, so we set her up with Authur."

"They made such a cute couple!" The twins sighed, their eyes bright with happy memories. Harry laughed and pulled out a roll of parchment to write Ron back with.

Harry froze in his writing. Up until that moment, ever since he had been introduced to his family, he had stopped thinking of the Mirror of Rebounds. As if a switch had been thrown, the humming in his bones tuned to the mirror's call, Harry found himself gazing at where Severus the ghost had placed the Mirror of Rebounds on his dresser. Focused so intently upon the mirror, it was as if his entire world was centered upon the mirror itself. From a far off distance, he heard someone calling his name, sounding frantic and worried. The voices trailed off and disappeared as the twins sought their brother and grandfather for help.

Something in the dark surface moved. It bobbed and weaved about drunkenly, much like Cousin Quigley did whenever he was sober enough to walk without pitching flat on his face. Harry squinted his eyes as the shape and leaned closer. He struggled to focus on the shape's outline.

"Harry." The deep voice of Severus Snape the elder held a tone that was the very reason behind his being the leader of the portraits. It was the voice of one who knew he held the most command and respect, and could effortlessly demand attention.

Harry ignored the voice. He could almost see the outline now as lines became sharper and colors differentiated. He could see it was a human, yet he did not think it could be Cousin Quigley. Light blue robes with a dark streak down the front swirled around a tall, lean frame. The upper part of the body was cast in shadow, but with each stumbling step forward, the further up the shadows moved to reveal more.

"Harry."

Just a little more. Just a little more and Harry could finally see what the mirror was trying to tell him.

"Harry, if you do not respond to me, I shall have your Uncle Severus take the Mirror of Rebounds from you."

The shadows began to disperse as the figure stumbled and fell against what he could tell was a wall. Harry leaned forward a bit. He did not realize he was holding his breath in anticipation.

"That does it. Now, everyone, all together with me on three. One, two, three!"

"ACCIO MIRROR!"

The Mirror of Rebounds flew across the room and thumped against the mirror Severus the elder, the twins, Oliver, and Cousin Quigley were currently in. Everyone gazed at Harry with concern--everyone, that was, except Cousin Quigley, who leaned against the mirror's surface with his arms folded over the mirror's bottom frame. Harry slowly stirred from the enthrallment he had been trapped in and stared at his relatives in shock. He briefly wondered why on earth Cousin Quigley appeared so smug.

"You can do magic?" he asked finally.

Cousin Quigley stood up so fast the top of his head connected with Edwina's jaw. She stumbled back from him with her hand clamped over her jaw. She winced and glared at Cousin Quigley as a bottle of wine appeared in his hand. "A shelebration dwink!" He threw his arms wide and fell over backwards, off-balanced. The others ignored his drunken giggles and waving feet.

"When there are enough of us," Severus the elder said, "we can do minor spells that do not require a large amount of energy or magic. Look, Harry . . ." He sighed as he gazed solemnly at his great-great-grandson. "What is it about the Mirror of Rebounds that captivates and hypnotizes you so?"

Harry's gaze fell upon the mirror. Its call was silent. He felt only surprise as he looked at it. "I keep seeing someone in the mirror, and I think it is important." He gave his ancestors a desperate look. "I really don't know who it is or why I must know, but it calls to me, and all I can do is answer the call."

"Hmm." Severus the elder rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I don't want to take the mirror away from you, boy. I'm want someone to teach you how to look into it, but I want Severus to be here when that happens." He frowned suddenly and looked around the room. "Which reminds me: where is my namesake?"

Harry shrugged. "It's Voldemort's weekend."

"What can Severus do to such a powerful Dark Wizard?"

"I really don't know, but he had something to say of how he didn't spend years putting up with Sirius and my dad without learning some things."

Voldemort strode purposefully through the dank and musty halls of the Riddle mansion, a half dozen Death Eaters at his heels. He looked almost as human as he had been before Pandora's attack had shattered his control. But for the almond-shaped, snake-curving eyes and slits where his nose should have been, Voldemort was once again a shadow of his once-human self. He was twisted, dark, and completely unnatural, thanks to the sacrifices that multiple loyal Death Eaters granted him. If some people thought his power was weak after being broken and only his iron will was what kept it whole, such people were too tactful or otherwise too survival-driven to say anything.

As he swept into the dining room where candles were lit along the surface of the table, he heard a distressed hiss. He froze suddenly. The Death Eaters behind him tripped over each other to avoid crashing into him. "Nagini?" He looked around. To his ears, the hiss of his snake was a fraught call for help. Again the hiss. His eyes darted around the room as he tried to find where his snake was. When he heard Nagini hiss a third time, he glanced up at the large chandelier that hung above their heads.

Someone had tied Nagini in a bowtie around the chandelier. Her head hung mournfully as she hissed pitifully. A look of rage crossed Voldemort's face.

"SEVERUS!"