CHAPTER TEN: "The Taming of THE Box"

Britomartis was surprised to see the three Gryffindors in her office first thing in the morning.

"Tell us about the Box!" all three chorused at her.

'Dun-dun-DUN!'

She rubbed her forehead. "What is there to tell, children?"

"YOU created it!" Harry whined. "I haven't tormented you or Snape - "

"Despite Snape asking for it," Ron added.

"Shut up, Ron," Hermione snapped. "Professor Vox, why is it chasing after Harry?"

THUNK

All three flinched and did not bother to turn to see the Box sitting ominously behind them.

Britomartis pulled Snookie-Poo from around her neck and released the snake on the floor. "Believe it or not, when Professor Snape and I created it, we made no notes of what spells and potions we used on it."

"What?" Hermione cried.

Britomartis shrugged, picking up scrolls from a shelf and depositing them on her desk. "We were thirteen and fourteen, we weren't as disciplined back then. As to your question, I have no real idea why it would chase Mr. Potter, as we had directly made it to chase after his father, Mr. Black, Mr. Pettigrew, and Professor Lupin. Professor Snape and I believe the spells interacted with each other in strange ways and had independently decided to focus on lineage. As of now, Mr. Potter, you are the only living descendent of these people."

"So, how do I get rid of it?"

"Just ... " She silently counted to three, then continued in a slow, deep voice, "Open ... the ... Box."

'Dun-dun-DUN!'

"I hate that music sting," Hermione mumbled.

"My apologies," Britomartis stated, sitting down. "We thought it was rather amusing at the time." She smirked. "Mr. Potter, I do hope you serve your father's memory proud by taking this obstacle with good grace and not dither about it. It took them four days to finally get around to opening the crate."

"This is your fault," Harry snorted. "Yours' and Snape's!"

"Actually," she intimated in a severe manner. "It was your father and his friends who began it - if they had not bullied an anti-social loner and an imaginative hell-raiser, they would not have helped in the birthing of this object. Besides, they ignored the warnings on the door to keep out."

Harry opened his mouth and she cut him off with, "Speak with Professor Lupin about it, if you do not believe me. Your father was not called 'St. James' for performing benevolent miracles."

Hermione raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as she dragged Ron out with her. Harry pressed his lips together, then finally whispered, "Professor - "

Her expression softened. "Harry, those were ... dark times for all involved. I am sorry to be the one to inform you that your father was not a larger-than-life hero when I knew him. When I attended, he was an egotistical attention-grubbing bully who tormented Severus and myself for Sirius Black's amusement. Your father had indelicately propositioned me when I was a Second-Year and had participated in an attempt to mutilate Severus, as well as performing other atrocities, low pranks, and random bullying. He did not mature and become decent until his final years here, and I suspect that was entirely due to your mother's influence."

Harry looked down at his shoes. "Professor ... this is ... unbelievable. I know Snape hates my father, but you're ... you're on Snape's side."

"I know what you're saying. You think you know someone from what one faction says, then someone from the opposite side offers a completely different view, a view from the so-called 'villains' eyes. With few exceptions, people outside of legends are neither purely good or purely bad, they are a combination of all things. Your father was known in school for being popular and athletic and a quick thinker, but he was also a bully and a crude prankster. If he did not run around with Sirius Black or Peter Pettigrew, I probably would have known him to be a decent bloke."

"It was Sirius Black who influenced him!" Harry concluded.

"Actually, Mr. Potter, they influenced each other - each one fed off the other's actions. Admittedly, Black was the worse of the two; he was loathsome even when he was on his own." She smirked. "I have proof, too."

She pulled a picture out of her desk and pushed it across to Harry. He picked it up, stared goggled-eyed at the image, then quickly released it with a squeak. "What the ... is THAT?"

Britomartis picked it up and turned it around to gaze at the moving image. "Sirius Black, age fifteen."

"What's he DOING!"

"He's wearing a nappy and spanking an inflatable sheep. The image speaks for itself."

Harry pulled out his wand, handing it toward her. "Memory Charm, please."

She shook her head. "No, I want you to remember what we're dealing with here, Harry, and that he is not a larger-than-life force of fear." She slipped her sunglasses off. "Yes, he is a mass murderer, but he is also a sick individual who apparently went quite mad before Azkaban, and his mind has probably twisted further from the Dementor's influences and his own revenge fantasies. There probably isn't enough sanity in him anymore to plot effectively - he WILL slip up. And when he does, he will be caught." She leaned back. "I will ensure it."

"Why protect me, especially since you hate my dad - ?"

"I never said I hated him. We had a mutual respect, Harry, due to some incidents I will not discuss. Granted, it was a strained respect, but it was still there. Black ... well, I came closer to hating him than I did anyone until ... Our Mutual Acquaintance ... taught me what hate really is."

Harry gazed back at her steadily. "He betrayed my parents to Voldemort."

"And butchered a dozen innocents as well as one of his few friends. Thus he is being hunted, so he doesn't finish his dark master's designs." She locked her muted green eyes to his intense green eyes. "You have my word as a Mother and Warrior."

XXXXXXXXXX

Ron was a sidekick. He knew he was - either Harry's or Hermione's sidekick, it didn't matter. He was always the one who either tripped up the traps or got pulled along in the wake of his two friends or was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Plus being the youngest wizard in an exceptional family only twisted his shorts even more.

He wished he could have a unique talent like his brothers or his friends. Something that marked him out of his many brothers that declared him 'Ron' instead of 'yet another Weasley'. After all, Bill was a dragonslayer, Charlie was the dragon keeper, Percy was a (big)Head Boy, the twins were beaters on the Quidditch team and most popular in the school, and Ginny was the only girl and the youngest child. He was just 'another Weasley'.

Things to think about while in class. Incidentially, Charms class that day was interesting, as they were studying charmed artifacts that year, and the artifact on the table at the moment was the legendary scabbard of Excalibur, the wizard sword once wielded by the Muggle-Fae hybrid King Arthur, given to him by the wizard Merlin.

The scabbard itself was created by the witch Morgan le Fay, made with the leathers of the Graphorn (a mountain beast whose hide deflects spells) and the Manticore (a Mediterranean beast whose hide deflects charms) to protect the holder from magic. By use of mystic thread, these spells were bypassed to allow other spells to be woven into embroidered symbols to protect the holder from physical harm, in particular to prevent blood loss. According to legends, the scabbard had protected King Arthur for his entire life, until he turned against the witches of Avalon, and Morgan claimed the scabbard back. Almost immediately he was fatally wounded by his son Modred and had died.

Even after nearly fifteen-hundred years, the magic and charms woven into the scabbard were still strong enough to be felt without the use of magic-detection spells.

"See?" Harry said, tracing the tip of his wand over the faded gold embroidery. "This symbol, according to the text, protects against weapons, and this one protects against bodily force - they form a sort of 'double-C'."

"Like the Chudley Cannons logo!" Ron added brightly, leaning back and accidentally knocking the back of his head against the Box. He rubbed the sore spot and made a face at the crate.

Harry shook his head. "If they need any type of embroidered charm, it would be for them to actually win a game."

Embroidered symbols aiding physical prowess ... Ron felt an idea start to form, but it slipped away.

XXXXXXXXXX

Saphira waited until mid-morning break to stomp into Britomartis' classroom and slam the photo album down on her desk.

"When," she stated. "Were you going to tell me about your brother dunking you in a rainbarrel?"

The professor blinked, then bit her lip and remembered that to her mother's heart, she was five-years-old. She glanced at the page, seeing a photograph of one of her brothers holding her upside down over a rainbarrel and dipping her into the water when she was five. "Mama, Klemendis was the one being a pukehead - he got all gooey and mushy about a girl and she told him he was a bore, so I laughed at him and then he got me all wet in the barrel." She added a sneeze.

Saphira gathered her up in a hug. "My poor baby! I'll give Klem a thorough talking to about this!"

"Then could you do it later, Mama? I have lessons soon."

"I know, dearest." Saphira released her and knotted her brows. "Why are you wearing sunglasses inside, Britty?"

"Don't call me Britty - and I like wearing sunglasses." Britomartis adjusted them, then lowered her voice and added, "It'll make more sense when I'm ten, Mother."

Saphira nodded. "All right." She gave her daughter an extra hug. "Love you."

"Love you, too, Mama."

As her mother left, the mental image of her healer brother getting chastised for something he had done nearly thirty years ago made her grin like a maniac for the next few hours.

XXXXXXXXXX

By lunchtime, Harry and Ron ran out of their Charms class, barely outrunning the Box as it tumbled end-over-end after them down the corridor.

"We've GOT to get rid of this thing!" Ron yelled.

"I know! I know!" Harry agreed. "We need Hermione!"

They ran past Severus down the stairs, who watched the proceedings with mild interest.

The pair yelped as gravity made the Box tumble after them faster.

"I don't wanna die!"

"Don't let Snape hear you panic, Ron!"

Severus watched the Box chase them down the staircase and around a landing before he allowed himself to chuckle. "I almost miss hearing the Maraudiots screaming for mercy."

With a satisfied smile, he turned back and continued on his way to the staff room, humming 'Happy Days Are Here Again'.

XXXXXXXXXX

Harry and Ron ran into the Great Hall as the teachers returned for lunch from their staff meeting. The Box chased the two boys in.

"Hermione!" Harry yelled as they spotted her near the middle of the Gryffindor table. "We need to get rid of this thing - !"

"You need to open it, Harry," she replied before she drank her juice.

"But - "

"SNAPE made it!" Ron cried. "It'll try to kill him!"

"Well, it chased Harry's father before and he survived," she answered irritably.

"For how long?" Ron asked quietly. She elbowed his gut.

Harry held his face in his hands and moaned. "I don't NEED this!"

"Hey, Potter!" Draco yelled across the Great Hall. "Too scared to open a packing crate?"

"Maybe it has a Dementor in it?" Pansy suggested.

On cue, Draco and his goons flipped their hoods up over their faces and wiggled their fingers at Harry as they sang, "Ooo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ooo!"

The Slytherins giggled at the taunt.

"A Gryffindork afraid to open a Box!" Draco laughed as he pushed his hood back.

'Dun-dun-DUN!'

Hermione turned around. "I don't see you opening it, Malfoy."

"It's not chasing me, it's chasing Potter," Draco sneered. "It probably senses Mudbloods."

"On the contrary, Mr. Malfoy," Severus stated, suddenly very near Draco and his entourage. "James Potter and your second cousin Sirius Black were both Purebloods, and this ... artifact ... was after both of them in particular."

Draco sneered in return. "Surely you must be enjoying this, Professor, considering it was you who made it."

"With the assistance of Professor Vox." Severus' lip curled. "I believe that if you truly think you are immune to its wrath, then you should attempt to ... open it, Mr. Malfoy."

"ME!"

Severus leaned close and hissed, "Are you trying to humiliate the entire House, Malfoy! You have a perfect opportunity to make Potter look the fool! This is no time for spinelessness!"

Draco squirmed a bit, then straightened up and strode over, the fingers of his slung arm turning white from the fist he was making. "Very well, Potter. I shall graciously save you from the Big Scary Box - "

'Dun-dun-DUN!'

"- and show you how silly you're being!"

Draco put his 'working' hand on the lid and inched it up ...

And the Box screamed.

"EEEEKK! HELP! RAPE! DON'T RAPE ME! I'LL BE A GOOD LITTLE BOX - JUST DON'T RAPE MEEEEE! MOMMEEEE! WAAAHHH!"

Draco jumped away looking around at the assembled students, who had been stunned silent.

But not for long. Soon, laughter filled the Great Hall.

Along with assorted jeers ...

"Why, Malfoy, I didn't think you were into wood!"

"My heavens! Even furniture isn't safe!"

"Good thing Parkinson's as flat as a board!"

"Quick! Someone call the Society for Prevention of Abuse to Packing Crates!"

Malfoy flushed in anger and stomped out, his entourage streaming after him. Elizabeth stood up on her bench and bowed toward her House Master and House Mother, while several of the older Slytherin girls muttered informal proposals towards the Potions Master. Severus strolled silently to the other side of the Great Hall, stone-faced, although a faint smirk played at the corner of his mouth - or it could have been a tic.

Ron managed to recover first and asked the still-laughing Hermione and Harry, "Which one of you is next?"

"Us!" Harry asked. "Why not you!"

Ron shook his head. "Can you imagine what my brothers would say if they found out a lump of wood accused me of molesting it? I'd never hear the end of it! And what it would do to me poor mum - !"

"So was that it?" Harry asked. "It screams about being molested?"

"No," Severus answered, now suddenly very near the trio. "YOU still have to open it, Potter. Otherwise, it will continue to chase you until the end of your days ... At this rate, perhaps next week."

He swept away back to the staff table and seated himself to Britomartis' right.

She restrained the grin as she commented, "Snips, you are cruel to your own charges."

"It builds character. Penderdandis would have agreed with me."

McGonagall squawked, "Professor Dumbledore, you saw what he did! That was premeditated! Do something!"

Dumbledore turned his head and gazed at Severus, then raised his finger and wagged it while saying, "Bad Potions Master. Naughty."

"Humph," Severus responded with a frown. "I am chastised. Oh the shame."

"Albus!" McGonagall cried.

Severus turned his attention away from the bickering heads of the school and noticed Remus smiling. "What?"

Britomartis turned around as well. "Remembering old times, Lupin?"

"Yes," Remus confirmed. "Those were actually rather fun, even if we lost four days of sleep and began seeing things."

Severus smirked. "I always wondered what your reactions were upon finding out what was inside it."

"I was sworn to secrecy, Severus. Let me just say that it was the most brilliant prank I had ever had the pleasure of being a victim of."

"That's a dangling participle."

"Kiss my dangling - "

Britomartis cleared her throat. "Boys ... "

All three adults gazed across the room to see the Gryffindor Trio trying to figure out the Box.

"I give them four days," Severus stated. "Merely for entertainment purposes."

"Three," Remus challenged. "The sleep deprivation should kick in."

"Tonight," Britomartis added. "They have Granger goading them."

"So what would be the difference?" Remus asked.

"She's developing breasts and her legs are getting long - and those two are trying not to notice. One flash of thigh and they'll do anything she asks."

McGonagall, overhearing the previous conversation and bet, made a very interesting pinched face of prim disapproval over such casually earthy commentary - especially concerning her favorite student Miss Granger.

XXXXXXXXXX

"We already know it has to be opened to make it stop following you," Hermione said as their last class of the afternoon let out.

"And it'll accuse you of trying to have your way with it," Ron added.

"That would be if you or I open it, Ron," Hermione stated. "It has to be Harry."

Harry snorted. "I'll say it again - Snape is a sick dikta- "

"WE KNOW what you mean," she interrupted. "And we're not on Crete, so you don't have to use Minoan metaphors - " She glared. "Or their English translations."

"What's with you, Hermione?" Harry asked. "You've been ... off."

"Nothing!" she cried. "Nothing at all! Nothing you boys would ever understand! Of course you won't - YOU DON'T HAVE IT! Now stop questioning me!"

She ran off down the corridor, her robe billowing behind her, leaving behind two very confused thirteen-year-old boys.

"Harry?"

"Yeah, Ron?"

"What was that?"

"I ... really don't know."

"Me neither, that's why I asked you."

THUNK

"NOBODY ASKED YOU!" Harry and Ron yelled at the Box.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Shall we wait in your office for the screaming?" Britomartis asked later on that evening as they walked back from dinner.

"Screaming?" Severus repeated. "If you believe Potter will be stupid enough to come to my office about our prank - "

"He will be angry. And much as he is an average student, he is Gryffindor and will confront you about it. So, care to have me around?"

He brushed back a strand of black hair from his face. "You do know I will welcome you into my office, old pranks going off or no."

She smiled. "Good. I do think it'll be tonight."

XXXXXXXXXX

Dinner went the same as lunch, save Draco was missing and several of the Slytherins were snickering about his torrid affairs with packing crates, while the Box in question stood sentry behind Harry the entire meal.

Harry and Ron entered the Gryffindor common room, staring at the Box, which they knew they left behind in the Great Hall. Hermione shut her book and got up. "We're doing it tonight!"

Fred and George looked up from the small group surrounding them. "You WILL take pictures, won't you?"

"Shut up!" Hermione yelled at them. "This is no time for your gutter humor!"

Fred smirked. "I bet you guys won't touch it - especially after what it did to Malfoy this afternoon."

"Harry," she ordered. "Do it."

Harry snarled. "Sure, sacrifice me. 'Good ol' Harry, let's throw him into the Maw of the Beast!'"

Ron chimed in, "You're the only one who can, Harry!"

"I've heard that one before," Harry groused. "Too many times."

"Harry," Hermione said softly, stepping up to him, her eyes moist. "Please?"

The twins rolled their eyes. "Oh brother!" they muttered in disgust.

After a moment of fidgeting, Harry marched up to the Box as everyone else except Ron, Hermione, and the twins scrambled out of the common room. Carefully, he placed his hand on the lid and breathed deeply. He found himself staring at a carving of an ambiguous tentacle creature holding four figures in its tendrils.

Finally, he heaved the lid up, making it fall back and slam against the side.

A beam of light briefly shown down with a musical 'La-a-a-a-a!'

Then silence.

"Nothing's coming out," Ron stated.

George grinned. "I guess this means you have to crawl in there."

Harry shook his head. "I opened it. Nothing happened, so I don't care."

Hermione sighed loudly in disgust and pushed him. "Oh, move over!" She grabbed a chair and used it as a step-stool to climb up the side of the Box, leaning over the edge by her waist.

Below, Ron stared transfixed at the backs of her thighs which were exposed by her hiked up skirt. Fred and George snickered at their baby brother drooling on his tie. Harry blushed, but did not turn away; he thought that part of her was quite pretty for some mysterious reason -

Hermione began shrieking.

"WHAT-WHAT-WHAT?" the boys cried.

She pulled herself up and they finally figured out that she was shrieking in laughter. She held up a piece of parchment, guffawing and crying at the same time, as she hopped off the chair.

Harry snatched it out of her hand and read it.

He took the note and ran out of the common room.

"What'd it say?" the twins demanded.

XXXXXXXXXX

"'BOO'!" Harry yelled as he stomped into Severus' office.

He was too angry to bother being shocked by the Potions Master and Worlds Religions teacher pulling themselves up from the couch with their hair mussed up and her sunglasses hanging awkwardly from her face. Severus hurriedly buttoned his collar buttons while Britomartis dove back to the couch cushions for some other reason.

"ALL THAT FOR 'BOO'?"

Severus was first to compose himself, and glared at the boy. "Weren't you ever introduced to a wizarding custom called 'knocking', Potter?"

"Forget that, Snape - what sort of sick, stupid, juvenile, puerile mind has 'boo' as a joke?"

"And it took four days for your father and his ... friends to screw up the courage to find it," Severus snapped back in reply. "I must commend you, POTTER, for having more courage than your father, a madman, a dead dullard, and a spineless jellyfish all put together."

"PROFESSOR LUPIN IS NOT SPINELESS!"

"Silence."

Harry and Severus turned to the quiet voice backed by earth magic, Britomartis staring both of them down. "There is no need for shouting, gentlemen. Mr. Potter, please go back to your common room until you have calmed down. You may come to my office tomorrow morning to discuss what had happened - "

Harry balked. "Professor, this is between Snape and me - "

The Potions Master opened his mouth.

Britomartis gripped Severus' wrist in her hand. "Now, Mr. Potter, or ten points from your House for disobeying a direct order. We will discuss this QUIETLY and RATIONALLY tomorrow. Understand?"

Harry nodded and left the room.

She released Severus' wrist and he turned to her. "Why did you stop this?"

"Because, my volatile love, I will not tolerate interruptions during our intimate time together."

XXXXXXXXXX

Harry returned to the Gryffindor common room, sulking.

"Well?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked up. "I was going to let Snape have it for being a sick weirdo, but Professor Vox sent me away." He settled on the couch between Ron and Fred, then wrinkled his brow. "Funny, but I never thought Professor Vox to be the type to wear stockings and red suspenders."

The Weasleys ceased conversation and stared at him. Ron began stuttering, "R-r-red?"

Hermione growled.

"How'd you see that?" George asked.

Harry shrugged. "Well, she had her leg over Snape's shoulder - "

Fred gripped him. "Harry-mate, give us DETAILS!"

"Tell us everything!" George added as he jumped on the couch.

"What type of red suspenders?" Ron interjected, his face the same color as his hair.

"What type of stockings?" Fred asked. "Backseamed or fishnet?"

George stated, "We'll use a Pensieve on you if we have to - OW!"

Hermione spent the next few minutes swatting various Weasleys with her Arithmancy textbook while Harry stared at the parchment with the word 'boo' in dark ink and a stylized pair of scissors and a spiral done in goldish ink on each side of the word.

'Boo'. Geez, what kind of stupid joke is 'boo'? It would mean Snape had something resembling a sense of humor back when he was kid.

Harry was surprised to find himself chuckling.

Eventually, he was startled by something licking his ear and he turned to stare into the face of an inflatable sheep ... who had Fred and George's left shoes draped by their laces around her neck. She somehow grinned at him, then trotted out of the Gryffindor common room, leaving a very confused Harry the only witness to her presence.

"Hey," George suddenly said. "Where'd our shoes go?"