Author's Notes: Written for the Hope challenge at lupin100. Inspired by two speeches during Orientation Week this year.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related properties belong to J.K. Rowling, Warner Bros., etc. This story is property of its author. It is also a work of fanfiction, and therefore no profit is generated from it.

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Pandora's Box

Her first thought as a mother is how she'll make his dreams come true, and she flutters from one fantasy to another: Gifted Healer, renowned Auror, star Quidditch player. At three, he decides he'd like to be the family pet, and she lets him eat supper from a bowl under the table.

Two years later, their dreams are more practical -- five Christmases, ten summer holidays, a hundred more birthdays together. When he's better, she gives him a cardboard box, and he opens it to find newspaper clippings and dozens of unfamiliar names scrawled on parchment.

"Mummy? What is this?"

"Hope."