In which Severus Snape describes Harry Potter's eccentric great-grandparents.
They say within every person there is the virtue of greatness. And not just any greatness, but a marvel to supersede all other marvels that ever came before that one person. There are many different forms of greatness. There are multiple ways one may become famous and powerful, remembered and popular, or just filthy rich. All are forms of greatness and are the most popular of many I could list but do not have the time nor inclination.
Voldemort achieved greatness. Oh yes, there was no denying that he is, perhaps, the most powerful wizard of my generation. It is often said he rivals even Merlin in power, although I doubt this as no one alive can honestly make the comparison by having known Merlin. Even as Voldemort exists now as mere shadow of what he had once been now, possessing only a bare trace of his power, he is still a force to be reckoned. The means and measures he made and took to learn what he did to make himself into what he desired is one of the reasons why he is so connected to the Potter family.
You know so little of your family; it is tragic, really. Few today could tell you of your illustrious bloodlines, for such is what they are. Fewer still may explain certain aspects of which one could be proud. I am the only person to know all that I write. Sirius and Remus both know many things you would perhaps find interesting; little tales Pandora recited to them and James and myself over mugs of hot apple cider in the evenings or on winter days too cold to do anything destructive outside. But I, because Pandora adopted me as her son (though she made it known she considered me a grandson and James' brother), thoroughly learned about the lineage of both the Potter family and the family into whose name I was adopted.
You, far more than anyone else living today, have the right to know these things. Mind you, there is a great amount of knowledge I cannot place on this paper as I have not the time for it. Thousands and thousands of separate, meaningless things that broaden the scopes of knowledge and understanding of your heritage. I shall do my best though, come what may, to explain the major gist of your family history.
Francis Potter was a Gryffindor who fell in love and married Pandora Snape the Slytherin. She was the last of an old family whose pure bloodlines and wealth could be traced further back than the beginning of the ancient Roman Empire's reign. It is a standing joke in the Potter family (one you never heard before) that Pandora Snape married Francis Potter for his invisibility cloak.
Francis Potter was, in a single word, a genius. He was Muggleborn but there are none outside of Voldemort and his rabid pureblood minions who would insist Francis' talents were not welcome in the wizarding world. He was a brilliant man who invented several spells and magical items we wizards and witches use in our every day life now. The patents are some of the reason for your family wealth, only helping the substantial family fortune of the Snapes.
More than fifty years ago, Francis built the first blueprint for the Firebolt, but because it was so advanced and too astounding in its utter brilliance no one could physically produce it. Pandora donated the blueprints to a company after his death, which used to draw upon the elements to produce lesser models of brooms up until recently, when they finally understood the precision with which the Firebolt was to be created. No one knows why he even created the blueprints in the first place, since Francis was deathly afraid of heights and swore up and down that flying would be the death of him. It was, of course, the death of his father, but that is a tale for another time.
Francis Potter also rediscovered the old magic of creating invisibility cloaks, as the spell could only be found in the Invisible Book of Invisibility (written, I am quite sure, by one of Neville Longbottom's ancestors) long after everyone had forgotten the fundamentals of such magic.
He and Pandora made a beautiful pair. He was a highly unusual Gryffindor because of those brains; most people claimed he should have belonged in Ravenclaw. However, a person is selected and sorted into different Houses for that one characteristic which stands out above others.
Ravenclaws are smart, but Pandora had a cunning that was sheer Slytherin. Her slyness and the ever-knowing gaze all seemed to compliment this cunning. It would not have been a surprise that she would have wound up in either house as her family had always, throughout the generations, produced Slytherins and Ravenclaws. Francis was a Gryffindor because the two aspects stronger than his genius were his loyalty and leadership. The Sorting Hat knows and sees that which exists within a person's mind and heart. It uses this to place a person in the House to cultivate those characteristics to greatness so deserved.
I swear that thing has a sense of humour though, as I am still trying to figure out how in the name of all the Dark Arts Neville Longbottom wound up in Gryffindor…
Francis and Pandora complimented one another; they made a wonderful couple. She was sly and cunning, and he was a very dependable and loyal genius. Together they created a powerhouse that could have defeated Voldemort.
This was why Voldemort, known then as Tom Riddle, showed up on their doorstop one day after he graduated. I believe he was over twenty years of age at the time. He told them he sought the best to learn from, and the Potter couple was, indeed, the best. There was no denying that when Francis and Pandora decided to do something together, they would do it with a quality exceeding the actions of those who tried, if at all, before. Nor was this request of leaning considered unusual, as the Potters often took in those requesting the honour of learning from them. They believed information was meant to be shared with all.
Mind you, I am merely saying what I know of Francis, as I had never met the man while he was alive. Both Pandora and Francis were about ten years older than Riddle and already had three children attending or close to attending Hogwarts. Pandora held a masters in Defence Against Dark Arts, and Francis… That man studied and experimented with everything but Quidditch. He was varied in the things he studied and learned.
But for all of his intellect, Francis was also as thick as brick as he inherently trusted mankind to be generally good and kind. Pandora, when she spoke of him, tenderly called this trust of his, "naivety." It was through this thickness that Francis was tricked by Tom Riddle and eradicated a single year after they took in Riddle. No one knows exactly what happened; Pandora last saw Francis alive as the man departed for his attic workshop. When she sought him out because he missed lunch (not an unusual thing, given how caught up and distracted he could be with his experiments) and dinner (by that time his blood sugar would have dropped low and he would have been bumbling blindly into walls in search of nourishment) she found to her horror only his blood.
It had pooled in his workshop, and the bloody trail led to the stairs. From there, the blood had dripped down the entire length of the second story flight of stairs. No body was ever found and it was only through various medical charms was the blood confirmed to be Francis'. In the nearly fifty years since, Francis' body was never recovered and buried beneath the headstone his wife and children erected on the first anniversary of his death. Pandora was shattered by the loss of her husband and I regret that such brilliance came to an early end.
It was not until Tom Riddle emerged fully as Lord Voldemort and also killed her three children did Pandora finally make the connections. It is highly likely Tom Riddle killed Francis, as the man slowly set himself up to be a terror many years before he set out to dominate the wizarding world.
But for a few years after Francis' mysterious demise, Tom Riddle stayed with Pandora, learning what he could from her about the Dark Arts. From what I understand, Voldemort, as Tom Riddle, had been a very charming and handsome man and Pandora trusted him during those years. He had loaned her a shoulder for support, helping her through the crippling loss while her children were away attending school and coping in their own ways.
I believe, even as Voldemort, Pandora continued to hold a sort of fondness for Tom. She refused to ever refer to Tom Riddle as Voldemort and would frown at her grandsons when she heard us call him Lord Voldemort.
Pandora expressed to both James and myself how much further Tom Riddle could have gone through kindness and quietly seeking glory rather than through terror and cruelty. With his charismatic subtlety, he could have won the hearts of the wizarding world and they, on a whole, would have handed him the world with love and admiration should he have demanded it. She tried hard to turn him from the path he chose years afterwards, even knowing full well that he knew he had gone too far to turn back.
It should be noted that Pandora did not teach DADA for a living. She possessed a masters in that subject merely because it allowed her to legally study and experiment with the Dark Arts. I suspect the desire to meddle with the Dark Arts was an important part of her Snape heritage, and one had to be skilled in the Dark Arts to understand the best ways to counter them. Pandora was, perhaps through learning what Francis discovered, the most skilled person in Dark Arts that anyone legally could be (and very adept at many of the illegal arts as well). During the time of the Death Eaters and their employed dark spells, I remember her gathering together neighbourhood children to be taught Defence Against Dark Arts. It is interesting to note these children would later become Aurors - the best of their generation.
But after three years, Pandora finally had to refuse Riddle any more upon learning he was participating in summoning demons and forbidden creatures of the darker lore that even she dared not practice or learn of in detail.
He left then, swearing vengeance against her family, and though Voldemort would rise to power in but a few years after that when he came back from wherever he went, Pandora ignored his threats. By that time, the Order of Merlin had offered Pandora a membership.
Now, you may or you may not have heard of the Order of Merlin. Perhaps the name itself is familiar as it is also the name of an award of recognized valour, in which the Order of Merlin recognizes those individuals who performed a deed that stopped or kept someone or something from being a terror. However, the name also derives from a group of people dedicated to keeping power in check and protecting the wizarding world from destruction. On a whole, the Order protects the wizarding world from the copycat terrors, muddling fools who would do more harm through their ignorance than through their ill intents, destructive dark lords, and monsters galore that tend to run rampant where you least suspect it (oddly enough, the majority of these monsters go on their ramparts through Asia).
Few wizards and witches ever become skilled enough to receive an offer to join the first class of the Order of Merlin. It has a long history, dating back to the times of the druids. Indeed, much of the knowledge the members of the first class pass to one another is druidic lore, an art of magic too subtle for the average witch or wizard. Very little of the first class is known to the lay magic-user, but I, as grandson to Pandora, remember what she had explained.
I imagine you would say something here about how the Order of Merlin, with their duty to protect the world from dark lords, was not doing its job when Voldemort began his reign of terror. That is not so for the members did try their best to fight him, but none were strong enough. The only first class members within a thousand kilometres of the area Voldemort tormented the most were Pandora and Dumbledore.
Dumbledore remained at Hogwarts, where students — the future blood of the wizarding world — would be protected and trained. Voldemort would not wage an attack to that area, for the magic interwoven in the school and Dumbledore himself are unknown factors of power Voldemort does not trust to go against and hope to win without suffering too great of a loss.
I would often remember spending whole days at Dinsmore alone with James because Pandora had learned of Voldemort attacking someone and she would Apparate to the area. Voldemort would not fight Pandora and, except for that one attack, the attack that probably cost her life, Pandora never directly fought against him after her children were slaughtered. Her presence alone assured the safety of others, for he would stop his attack and leave. I suspect Pandora had a nasty Gryffindorish habit of jumping in front of spells, and Voldemort would rather bow out and leave, rather than having to lose face by arguing her out of his way. Perhaps he that was his own way of playing with her, as the Death Eaters would have played with me had I not escaped.
I greatly disliked your father, my brother through law and through the tender care of Pandora, but make no mistake I also loved him in my own way. I sacrificed some of the most precious things I have ever known for James; not just because he was a brother and because Pandora loved me for it, but because of that love. An odd thing, this love. Mutual with my dislike, coexisting and always conflicting.
The first words (as you know) he ever spoke to me were, "Are you all right?" The next words he said to me were, "What are you doing here?" James, when he grew older, never believed that the first impression was the best impression.
Having flown across the British countryside through the cold night air, exhausted after the initial burst of adrenaline from the attack of the Death Eaters, I was too tired to say anything when Pandora and I finally landed at the front of a large cottage with a sturdy brick fence surrounding it. This property, built on a hill surrounded by large oak and black walnut trees, was the old Snape property Pandora had inherited from her father. Everything was kept in excellent shape; the clothes, food, and furniture were of the highest quality that could possibly be attained.
Pandora did not believe in keeping servants and through this she taught James and me how to be self-sufficient and skilled at domestically caring for ourselves. James, at the tender age of six (for he was not seven at the time as I had suspected), already knew how to prepare simple meals and clean up after himself because of Pandora's Apparating to Voldemort's presence. He often stayed up at night, waiting for her to come home and tuck him into bed regardless of the hour.
As Pandora pulled me into the kitchen, lighting a single brace of candles at the table before shoving me on to a chair, James wandered into the kitchen. His black hair stuck up in all directions and he wore a long white nightshirt with a cream-coloured baby blanket clutched in a fist. He saw Pandora first as she moved to the small cupboard where bread and cheese were stored.
"Hullo, Grandmother," he said with a yawn. Pandora nodded quietly in return and set a sesame bun and a lump of cheese in front of me before attending to her broom and cloak. James' eyes grew wide at seeing me. That was when he said, "What are you doing here?"
I, remembering the slight he had given me at Diagon Alley, glared at him before hungrily eyeing the food I had been given. Pandora answered his question saying: "He is going to stay with us. Be polite."
"Who is he?"
I learned James had the Potter mouth, wide and expansive, capable of great volume and the occasional spittle. He spoke brashly, often without thinking about his words. At that question, I felt my dislike for him grow. I was a gutter rat; I had no name, and I was ashamed to acknowledge this to strangers. But even Pandora glanced at me questioningly I shrunk down within my rags, and Pandora finished storing her broom in the closet where others were kept.
"Severus," she said decidedly. "Severus is your name." I looked at her suspiciously, not knowing why she would name me thus. I still wanted to know what she expected in return. She looked at James. "He looks like Da, doesn't he?" she asked. She swept my tangled hair back from my eyes. "Eat." She pointed at the food again. I stared at it. She sighed.
"What is he?" James asked as she sat down beside me and tore the bun into chunks. She held a chunk out to me. I warily accepted it after a moment and she waited until I had consumed it before handing me another chunk.
"He is your brother," she said. James looked both appalled and shocked, no longer tired, which no doubt mirrored my own expression. He padded across the kitchen floor to her and wordlessly climbed into her lap. Pandora said nothing as he wiggled about until he was comfortably seated, then cradled his head against her breast. The look he gave me was one that proclaimed Mine. He did not appear sulky or disappointed at the idea of having to share her but, in that moment, he was clearly staking his ownership. I hated him for having someone to claim.
"He has black hair," James said. "And dark eyes like Da."
We said nothing more about anything until I had finished eating all that Pandora gave me. After that, she pulled both of us up to the bathroom. That night, I had my first bath. To be clean is like nothing I could ever explain. To be rid of the slums' stench was a miracle, and I was scoured bloody red.
James made a face at seeing the bath water drained several times over, but I cared not. I enjoyed the feel of Pandora scrubbing my hair multiple times with shampoo before finally resulting to heavy liquid dish soap and charms for removing the dirt and vermin from of my hair. She silently left the room to let me wash the rest of myself, although it was certainly not private with James watching, judging, and condemning without words.
After hours of scrubbing and rinsing, Pandora finally deemed me clean enough to lie beneath the sheets of any of her beds. She led me to your father's room, rummaged through his drawers before coming up with a nightshirt much like the one he wore, and pulled it over my head. Warm and drowsy from the fresh bath and food, I had no intention of running away during the night and Pandora, with her penetrating eyes, saw this.
"We have no prepared beds for Severus," she explained to James, as she led me over to the four-poster bed with rumpled covers, "at least not until tomorrow night. Severus will have to sleep with you for the time being. You do not mind, do you?" The look she gave him said even if he did mind, it would not change the situation. There was something else on her face, something that I can only describe as sorrow.
James also looked at me with this sorrow before nodding. "I can show him the loo if he needs to use it," he said. Pandora kissed his forehead, tucked us both snugly under the covers, left a candle safely lit at the bedside, and departed. I then discovered James had the nasty habits of hogging the covers and the pillows, snoring, and kicking. I might add here that it only furthered my dislike for him because, at the time, I felt he did all this because he disliked me as much as I disliked him.
The bed itself was too soft for me to sleep on comfortably, used to the street floors that I was. After being kicked the third time by James, I finally pulled the top blanket off the bed and curled up in the corner with it to fall asleep. That was where Pandora found me the next morning when she came to awake the two of us.
