Pandora's Box

“I don’t know why you want to look for a good Tom Riddle,” Harry2 muttered around his pizza crust. “I think anyone who was to become Lord Voldemort in the first place isn’t someone to trust anyway.”

Harry shrugged. “Pandora said he could’ve taken over the world through kindness and charm. After he ensnared the hearts of the wizarding world, they’d have handed him everything on a silver platter. I guess it’s true what they say; honey captures more flies than vinegar.”

“Nonsense,” said Marcia knowingly as she waved her fork in the air. “Horse poop works better than honey.” The two Harrys stared incredulously at her. She thoughtfully scratched her head with the prongs of her fork. “Well, any sort of poop, actually . . . What?”

“Mo-om! I’m still trying to eat here,” Harry2 whined.

“Never mind that. You need to watch your calorie intake. No need to look like that pompous little piglet, Dudley, waddling around on the next street over.” Marica stood up and walked over to the refrigerator. “Who wants dessert?” she asked cheerfully as she opened it and peered inside.

“No, thank you,” Harry said politely. “I am quite stuffed. The pizza pie was very good.” It had been a long time since he ate pizza. Not since the first week Severus had begun haunting the Dursleys, which felt like years to Harry. So much had happened since then.

“Well, I guess we better send you back to that reality then.” Marcia turned from the refrigerator and began to rummage through a small kitchen drawer. “I’ve got one of those Dores around here somewhere . . .” She riffled through the contents and then crowed triumphantly. “I found some!” She withdrew two small blue balls from the drawers and held them out for Harry to see. “These are nice little things. My mother always makes them for me.” She walked back to the kitchen island and sat down. She set the two balls before Harry. They were roughly the size of baseballs and wobbled as if made from jelly. Marcia poked one and her finger sank into it.

“You see, for me, dimension skipping is exhausting work, especially with extra cargo on two. I try not to do it more than once in a twenty-four hour period.” Harry looked at Marcia. She did not look drained to him . “These are fairly accurate. They will open into a doorway that will put you close to your relatives. Besides,” Marcia gave Harry a sly look, “it’s not nearly as dizzy as skipping dimensions. You just pass through like you would a door.”

Harry stared at the ball. “How is it fairly accurate?” he asked suspiciously.

Marcia sniffed. “Well, you have to take in how immense this dimension you’re going into is. I mean, aside from earth itself, you have the whole of infinity and space to actually get lost in. If you get placed with a hundred meters of your original destination when compared to being in the same galaxy much less the proper planet, then yes, I’d have to say it’s fairly accurate.”

“Oh.” He still studied the ball with no small amount of trepidation. Marcia was silent as she chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip and studied Harry in her own way. After a moment, she stood up and scooped the two balls into her hands. She walked over to a section of the wall bare of anything but white paint.

“This is how it works.” She tossed one ball at the base of the floor. It hit the side of the wall and splattered about in perfect little circle-shaped droplets. Each droplet began to leak a color. The color swept out and upward until a circular door stood before them. “You have to know where you want to go. You don’t just skip dimensions, you also move from place to place in a single area. You need to have a firm picture of where you’re going, and if it isn’t impossible, who you are going to. The magic within the ball pinpoints the direction and the area you are going to. It creates a bridge between that place and the place you are using the ball, and allows you to cross the gap.” Harry looked at the door. It was a solid blue color exactly like the balls. He could not see beyond it.

“Nothing to it,” said Harry2 as he stood up and walked over to stand before the door. He stuck his hand out to the door and it went through the color. He withdrew it. “You can go right on through without a problem.”

Marcia closed both hands around the other blue ball, concentrated a moment, then turned to Harry and gently pressed the blue ball into his hand. “Keep that safe,” she said. “Any rough hit against it will cause the Dore to open up. I have already infused it with the sense of wherever I am.” She patted his hand and smiled. “If you are ever in trouble and you ever need help, you go ahead and use that to come right to me.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asked as he looked at the blue ball. It squished between his fingers like playdough.

“Positive.” She grinned at him. “Trouble likes me more than you--at least, that’s how’s it been with my son, and he and you can’t be all that much different if you’re the same person--so if I pop up, trouble will leave you be and come to me.” With that last note of comfort, Harry started through the door. Marcia grabbed a handful of his robes. “Just one last question,” she began earnestly as she tugged him back. “One of the men holding the walls of the dimensions apart was the Bloody Baron. Why is he with you when he’s supposed to be at Hogwarts? And who’s the other person?”

“Them? They’re the Bloody Baron and Cousin Quigley. The Bloody Baron is my Uncle Hector Snape; he’s one of my ancestors from long ago. Cousin Quigley is another ancestor, but he’s also a family ghost and the father of Professor Snape.” Harry jabbed a thumb at Harry2. “He knows what I mean. He’ll explain it.”

Marcia pressed one finger against her mouth. She looked the very picture of youthful inquiry, with her hair pulled back into two pigtails, one on either side of her head. “A family ghost?”

Harry nodded. A feeling of uncertainty tickled inside his stomach. He was getting used to uncertainty, with all sorts of twists and turns popping up and people ruining beliefs he had for a long while. He knew Marcia was going to shatter an illusion he had. “What is it?” he asked in a resigned voice.

Marcia shrugged. “I don’t know what to say, really I don’t. It’s difficult to explain.” She fiddled with the stems of her glasses. “There are distinct color patterns between species, genders, and yes, even life and death.” Marcia patted Harry2’s arm. “You know, the first time I saw my Harry, he was giving off the most beautiful shade of scarlet.” She smiled up at her son. “He still does. Your Cousin Quigley is no ghost. He’s as alive as you or I. Well, you, I should say, since technically I don’t exist. The dead do not give off colors, and he was giving off colors”

“But . . .” Harry frowned. “But he’s dead because he died.”

“Says who?”

Harry did not answer. He assumed Cousin Quigley died, but come to think about it, no one ever mentioned how or even when. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “He attended Hogwarts in the seventeen-hundreds. I remember him saying that he helped start the first school of witchcraft and wizardry after the American Revolution. That’s a long time to be alive. And he looks younger now than what I have seen him when he was alive . . . Well, at some points of his life.”

Marcia gazed at Harry thoughtfully as she nibbled the inside of her cheek. “Ask him,” she said finally. “Whenever you catch up with Cousin Quigley, you ask him why he’ not dead even if he’s pretending to be otherwise.” She waved her hand. “Now, run along. The entrance should put you outside and a little beyond Hogwarts.”

She stepped back and waved goodbye to him with a cheeky grin. Harry2 joined her with an identical cheeky grin. Their cheerful mood, so quick to change after the seriousness that just took place, was infectious. Harry found his own mood brightening. “Find your family at Hogwarts,” Marcia told him. “If that’s the place you were heading for, and you didn’t appear with them, likely chances are that they’ll wait there for you.”

Harry nodded. He gripped the Dore in his hand well enough not to lose his grip on it, squared his shoulders, and stepped through the entrance. As he disappeared, Marcia frowned.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” she said suddenly.

“What?” Harry2 looked at her.

“Oh, it’s just that I kinda feel guilty about letting him roam the world alone like that. I think he’s going to get into trouble.”

Harry2 smiled and patted his mom’s shoulder. “It’s just your maternal instincts and the fact he’s me,” he assured her. She looked uncertain.

“Could be. But still . . . At least he has the Dore. That should help.”

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It was night out. Harry found himself standing in what was left of the Quidditch fields just outside Hogwarts. He could see the jagged ruins in the moonlight. In the far off distance, he also thought he could see a single candle glowing. He was not sure if it was an illusion from the distance or not. Somewhere in the darkness, a branch snapped in half. Harry jumped at the dry sound and whirled around to face it. The bleachers of the Quidditch fields had been torn apart or removed long ago. The only thing that informed Harry of what the place actually was were the hoops on either end of the field and one lone tower that somehow managed to remain in a single piece. Scattered everywhere were broken boards and jagged rocks. Everything was bathed in a silvery glow from the full moon overhead. It was just bright enough for Harry to see he stood in a damaged area, but just dark enough for him to have difficulty surmising what may have caused the damage. From what he could tell, it looked like an earthquake has caused the earth to buckle, and then, to add insult to injury, a tornado swept through afterwards.

The door Harry had stepped through was gone. Alone, in the darkness and in a place that he had loved but was now ruins of what it had once been, the hair on the back of Harry’s neck rose on end. It felt as if the world was watching him and just waiting for a single chance to do, well, Harry was not too sure of what the world wanted to do, but he had the vague sensation it would not be pleasant.

He hunched over and began to walk swiftly to Hogwarts. In the distance, a wolf howled. Harry froze and felt the hair on the back of his neck stand further on end. He cast one futile look over to the dark mass of woods that was the Forbidden Forest. It had overgrown its borders and surrounded the castle and Quidditch field. What creatures roamed far and wide beyond their domain? Harry’s eyes traveled upward to where the full moon and shuddered.

He took one step forward and then froze again, nearly falling over, as another branch behind him snapped. Harry did not look over his shoulder. He felt something was coming--no, he knew something was coming. He slowly moved his right hand to his waist where his wand was tightly secured. He slowly began to pull it out, and then a heavy weight slammed into his back.

Harry scrambled wildly for his footing when the heavy weight slammed into him again. It knocked the breath out of his lungs as fingers jabbed harshly at pressure points in his right elbow and right side of his neck. Sensation fled from that half of his body. His wand fell from senseless fingers. Unfriendly hands wrapped around his face, the fingers knitting together to bridge and cover his mouth. The person yanked Harry backwards and slammed one bony knee harshly into Harry’s lower back.

Harry choked in pain as colors burst in his vision. Jolts of agony ran down his spine to the very tips of his fingers and toes. He dropped the Dore as his body slumped over his attacker’s knee.

“Lumos.” Light flared at the growled word, and Harry rolled his eyes numbly upward at the person before him. It was a woman with tangled brown hair. Her blue eyes were wide in her narrow, bony face. There was no mistaken the crazed look in them. She dropped her wand to the ground as it continued to illuminate the area. As Harry tried to surge out of her grasp, she clubbed him with one fist. He rolled away and she kicked him viciously in the ribs.

Harry cried out again and tried to gather his strength up to make another attempt at escaping. The woman dropped to her knees beside him and wrapped one hand around his neck. Fingers pressed into pressure points. Harry felt his strength dissipate, leaving his limbs limp as the wet spaghetti noodles Marcia had tossed against the wall. She yanked him upright by the root of his hair and leaned his limp body against her shoulder. She hissed and giggled when she brushed his hair back to reveal his scar. “You’ll do,” she muttered. “Oh yes. You’ll do.” She dropped the wand, still illuminating the area, and closed her hands around Harry’s Adam apple. She giggled again as she squeezed.

Harry bucked back against and flailed wildly as his body reacted against the pain and the sudden lack of oxygen. As a wolf howled in the distance and the woman flinched at the sound, Harry passed out.

-----------------------------

A burning sensation that crept up the length of his leg caused Harry to waken immediately.

His eyes snapped wide open. It took him a moment to realize the large brown expanse before him was the roof of some cave-like room. Remembering the attack that knocked him out, Harry bolted upright and jerked to a rough stop.

He fell backwards with a thump and clinks of the chains that bound his wrists to the thick slab of stone he lay upon. His chest heaved with frantic breathing as he tried to kick his legs free and found he was also bound at the ankles. The burning sensation slithering further up his body. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and forced his breathing to steady out. He knew he had to remain calm. He could not panic; he was not going to allow the situation to control him. With that thought firmly implanted in his mind, Harry opened his eyes and looked around.

Beside him, even taller than Hagrid though not nearly as wide, was the strangest woman he had ever seen. In the dim light, cast from the glowing torches set in brackets on the wall, the woman’s hairless skin was a dark green. Her nose was flat and her eyes were curved like a snake’s. Harry looked over his body--where did his clothes go? He was naked!

Harry felt his face burn with embarrassment when he realized the slithering, burning feeling was created from the woman drawing one finger along the length of his body. The end of her finger smoked and blistered from contact with Harry. Over his hipbone, the sway of his waist, and up the side of his ribs. When the finger finally reached his collarbone, it stopped. The woman’s black slits of eyes, filled with a bloodthirsty maliciousness, looked into Harry’s. A shiver ran down his sore spinal column as she licked her lips appreciatively. He tried not to notice how long and slim her tongue was, and definitely not how it was split in a Y at the end.

“Perfect,” she hissed. Her voice filled the room, drifting into the shadows beyond what Harry could see. She was overpowering and felt hungry. Harry had once thought Severus had presence--the man could fill an entire room with his dark boding and sinister sarcasm--but that was like a small match flame to this woman’s raging bonfire.

The finger that had traced his body rubbed the scar on his forehead. He flinched at the touch even as he felt his scar burn and the woman’s flesh smoke and blister more from the contact. “You live.” Her words were drawn out and clipped at the end. The tone lent emphasis upon the very idea that this woman was not human. Harry felt choked with the sense of her being infinity dark and filled with disease. “How you managed to evade usss for two yearsss I know not. You and that blonde lover of yoursss, no doubt, living in that worthlessss pile of rocksss.”

She drew away from Harry, taking too gigantic steps back to study the overall scene. Harry flexed his wrists and twisted his hands in their bindings. The growing sensation of impending doom was beginning to choke him even more than her presence. He had to get away. He could not stay near her. She would tear him apart and then rebuild him into what she wanted, and she would do it without remorse, and impatiently at that.

The woman smiled coldly at Harry. From out of the shadows emerged a downtrodden creature. It looked like it was a human, but it moved as if broken from too much pain, suffering, and torture. It bent close to the ground, too humbled to do more than just crawl on its hands and knees. It pressed itself to the woman’s legs and whimpered loudly as one large hand dropped onto its head.

Too wrapped in rags, Harry could not distinguish who the person was, much less the person’s sex. A tremble rippled through his body.

“You,” the woman said to Harry, “will be the inssstrument I ssshall ussse to bring back my Massster. He needsss a good, ssstrong body to ressside within.” She stepped forward and laid both hands on his shoulders. Harry bit his lip to keep from crying out as her lingering touch burned him. He smelled the scent of burning flesh in the air and she hissed with pleasure. “Good.” She turned to the shadows. “Call back the raidersss!” she commanded gleefully. “We must have people for the ssserimony! The ssserimony in which we shall bring back our Massster!”

Harry had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he knew he was not going to live through what would happen. In the shadows, something scampered to carry out her command. The woman looked down at Harry and smiled, showing her sharp, pointy teeth. He was suddenly reminded of Harry2 and Marcia. Inhuman, the three together, but still utterly different even in those aspects. While Harry2 and Marcia were warm, open, and friendly, this woman was cruel and malign.

He had to get away!

---------------------------------

Francis sighed. His back was pressed against the wall as he sat on the cold stone floor. He watched Draco brew up a potion for something--the boy said he needed Severus help for it because Severus was his Potions teacher--but Francis could make a good guess as to what it was going to be for. Hmm. That was some bloodworm, which is used to heighten potency of the potion when it is being stirred, and combined with that thistle root, it will last longer. However, it cancels out the acidity of the bat livers, so it can’t be a potion for destroying parasite-based diseases in the bloodstream.

Francis loved to guess at things. That was half the fun, really. He searched for elusive answers as they fluttered about. He did so to satisfy an unexplainable curiosity that demanded he learn and discover the secrets of the world. It was not so much as--steady scratching against the wall [fingernails, it seems], slightly above my head, I think there is whispering as well [deep male voice, slightly lispy]--he was a genius, but he understood how all the little details built up to a larger, more complex picture. It was understanding those little details, and how they all worked together in a clockwork fashion, that seemed to elude others.

For instance, it was well known that, in order for a person to use the Mirror of Rebounds, the user had to have Snape blood. Throughout the realities they jumped, the Snapes and the Malfoys always intermingled often. The families intermarried, communicated, and shared property. These were the reflections from where the reality had once been one--pattern is definitely human, although I’d say more curious than hostile and while Draco had said we were the only ones in Hogwarts; he also said he was expecting some spies to visit--before splitting into two.

For reasons Francis had not yet detected, although he had a sneaking suspicion Pandora herself had a lot to do with the way it happened, the Mirror of Rebounds and Pandora’s Box reacted accordingly whenever either Severus or Harry touched the Mirror of Rebounds. It would not have done for Severus to use the Mirror of Rebounds to look for Harry if they were just going to end up jumping another reality. They had to stay in that one place just in case Harry came right behind them. Francis decided that it was up to Draco to use the Mirror of Rebounds and look sideways for Harry.

Draco had told them Harry was fine and would come along right away, but though the woman and the other Harry were friendly, Francis had not quite figured out how Harry had gotten to that reality to begin with. But Harry was safe, and that was good, although there was still--just behind my wall, some tapping [dull sound so it can’t be metal but instead wood-I’d say cherry or maple], I’ll just scuttle off to the side here, no, it’s worse here, so I’ll scuttle over here. There’s no whispering here, but I don’t trust the matter in the least--the matter of how run-down and in such a bad shape this reality was. Francis knew he could not very well leave this reality without doing something to help. It did not seem right otherwise.

After all, what if someone had jumped through his reality and could have gotten rid of Voldemort, but never did? Francis’ mother (bless her dear, dead heart) always told him to always take the opportunity to help someone, even if he had to go out of his way to help them. That way, she said the Golden Rule would come into play. When he needed help, someone would go out of their way to help him because of his helping someone else in the past.

Of course--there’s that whispering again, and some more steady scratching--he had not really expected the Golden Rule to come into play fifty years after the fact and drop him here, but then, who was he to complain about being alive? What he really wanted, though, was his wife and children back.

Francis sighed. He watched Severus and Draco toss a few more things into the cauldron. He absently fingered with the goggles perched on his head. He knew they made him look fairly ridiculous. Most of the children at Hogwarts had made fun of them, except Minerva and Pandora. They understood. Thinking about Pandora and remembering some of the things she used to do, Francis--oh my, with that much powdered wormwood, a dragon would be knocked out . . . They must be creating an anesthetic--felt a small wave of loneliness. They had a great deal of fun--something heavy is being pressed against the wall [four pounds, light, rectangle, it sounds like], footsteps are retreating back, and two and two together makes four--together.

“Duck,” Francis said suddenly. Draco and Severus looked up from their cauldron in time to see Francis press both hands over his ears and bend forward. The wall to the side of him exploded and pulverized stones flew through the air. One particularly large stone smashed into the cauldron and knocked it over. The potion spilled across the floor. Dark shapes poured through the newly created hole in the wall into the room.

Draco bound over the spilt cauldron and drew his sword free at the same time. “Damn! How the hell did they make it through?” A crazed smile swept across his features as he plowed into the dark shapes, his sword flashing a silver arc.

Crimson liquid flew and screams wrenched from dying throats as he slid beside and around the invading persons. Francis pulled his newly acquired wand free and pointed it at one of the persons who slipped past Draco’s abrupt onslaught. It was a woman whose brown hair stuck out in clumps. Her gaunt appearance lent to the air of sickness or starvation, but she showed an amazing speed as she lunged at Severus.

The look of surprise on her face was almost worth the attack as she flew through Severus and smacked into the wall on the other side. Francis steadied his wand. “Stupefy.” The woman’s body flopped loose and went still. Francis swung back to face the foray of surging bodies. Draco slipped back and forth through the ranks, thrusting and swinging his sword at anything that marginally moved. He snarled and cursed as he fought. While he moved fluidly, there was nothing graceful or fancy about his fighting skills. He killed and kept his attackers at bay with only sheer ferocity and viciousness. He chopped and slashed away in abandon. Bodies fell around him and blood pooled upon the stones.

Francis wanted to cast a few more binding spells. There seemed to him to be an awful large amount of attackers, but Draco was here and there, and Francis could not very well cast a binding spell on him. Francis decided it was safer to get out of the way, and scooted backwards from the fighting. Severus, for the first few moments, did not seem to be paying attention to what was happening. He glowered at the cauldron and its spilt contents before picking up the cauldron.

As Severus turned around to face the fight, Francis felt a shiver ripple down the length of his spinal column. In all honesty, he himself found Severus to be intimidating when the ghost was in a very black mood. He found he had to agree with Severus when the ghost said he had difficulty reconciling with the idea of springing from the loins of Quaffing Quigley. That was like saying something about how the cute, fuzzy kitten gave birth to the man-eating tiger.

Severus did not worry about Draco. Indeed, he hardly spared his distant cousin a look as he repeatedly clobbered attackers with his cauldron. “And that,” the ghost grumbled as another person toppled over, unconscious but sure to come to with a raging migraine, “is why,” wham, “I have always, “wham wham wham “hated,” wham, “people who do not,” wham wham, “appreciate the finer,” wham, “points of Potions.” Wham.

Draco ducked the swinging cauldron. It hit the person who tried to attack him from behind. Draco and Severus whirled around to face the few people still standing. Their attackers wore shabby black robes and most carried knives and wands, but the few remaining people stopped attacking. As if realizing how deadly it would be to attack the two terrors of Hogwarts, the people slowly began to back away. Draco growled. The hand that clutched his sword trembled as he stepped forward.

A voice rose from the other depths of the Hogwarts ruins. “Back! Back! The Queen called a retreat!” Draco snarled at the voice and leapt forward, sword poised to slice. The people scattered before him, out into the hallway and beyond. A shriek shot through the darkness as some misshapen soul stumbled into one of the many devious and permanently disabling traps Draco had set throughout the ruins of Hogwarts.

Severus huffed as he tossed the cauldron off to the side. He stared at Francis, who was seated against the wall on the other side of the room, his face open and wondering at the matter. “Well?” Severus asked as he crossed his arms before himself. “Have you anything to say about the blood bath that just took place?”

Francis looked around the room. Blood bath was an interesting choice of words. He supposed he should feel sick at so many bodies or slashed-free body parts scattered across the floor, or the fact that blood had splattered everywhere at Draco’s attack and now dripped steadily down the wall to pool on the floor. Even as a tiny part of Francis cringed and retched at the sight, the majority of him felt numb towards or detached from the entire mess. The truth of the matter was it made no difference to Francis who these people were. Undoubtedly they were not apart of his reality, and Draco himself said that those who attacked Hogwarts did so at the bidding of “that fucking Snake Bitch Nagini” were driven insane from her mere presence. For all intents and purposes, they were most likely better off dead than alive, and Draco had probably just done them all a big favor.

Francis looked back at Severus, who was waiting for an answer. “You swing a mean cauldron,” he said finally. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”

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Harry sighed a breath of relief as he saw the tall woman depart from the cavern-like room through a small door at the far side she stooped to move through. Candles with dark flames surrounded him everywhere while, drifting from the spout of an incense burner, a green smoke hazed overhead, barely visible in the dim light.

He heard a sniffle and twisted his head to look at the pitiful lump of human being that had been following, like a lost dog, after the woman every time she moved. It quivered now as it crouched on the floor. Try as Harry might, he still could not understand who it was. He had an eerie feeling about the person and hardly liked it.

The person sniffed loudly and slowly crawled over to the slab of stone Harry’s nude body was secured to. One hand, bent and twisted from constant spasms of pain, tentatively reached out to brush against Harry’s forearm. “Hawwrary?” The voice was rusty and abused, perhaps from lack of use or from screaming too much. The hand patted him in what could have been mistaken as a show of comfort. “Hawwary?” The person sobbed. With jerking movement, the person clumsily slid an arm over Harry’s torso to hug him. “Hawwry! M-my Hawwry!”