Chapter 3 – Are you opening Pandora's Box?

"Emily, Rory, Richard, I'm very sorry for your loss," consoled another funeral guest, each apology sounded the same. The longer Rory stood next to her teary eyed grandparents the longer she just wanted to run away.

Across the room a large picture of Lorelei sat surrounded by a sterling silver frame. Her smile wide and her eyes bright, not like they were now… Now she lay 6 feet under the grass, her eyes shut and her smile faded. Why did she leave Rory? She was Rory's best friend and she was her world!

Rory felt as if the walls were closing in on her, and the sea of black dresses and black suits was going to drown her if she didn't escape. She turned and saw that her grandmother had broken down into tears once more and her grandfather was now settling her down once more.

She felt like crying herself but she didn't want to do it in such a crowd. She spotted Luke Danes, her mother's best adult friend. He had raised Rory since she was a child and she saw him as a father. He turned and spotted her too, bowing slightly to show his respect, he would never show it but he too felt the loss of Lorelei just as much as Rory did.

Rory felt a hand enclose around her own and she knew who would have braved such an intimate of gestures. Rory turned and met the pity filled eyes of Jess and she felt her knees go weak.

"Jess, I need to get out of this room!" She whispered, her voice shaking. He nodded and she began to walk out of the room and up the stairs to the second floor of her grandparents' house. She led him to her mother's room and he took charge by opening the door for her and Rory ran in, inhaling the smell of lilac.

"This was your mother's room? I would never have guessed," Jess said inspecting the pink satin and lace bed covers.

"It smells like her! She loved lilac; it followed her where ever she went!" Rory said her spirits slightly cheerier now she was no longer in Lorelei's wake.

"I've noticed, you take after her like that!" He said. Rory sat at her mother's dressing table taking out her mother of pearly hair brush.

"I smell of lilac?" Rory asked, looking at Jess in the reflection of the mirror.

"Well, you do smell of a flower but not lilac." Rory was slightly disappointed; she wanted to be so much like her mother now that she was gone. "You smell of lavender, a much nicer flower, if I do say so myself."

"This conversation is much like scratch and sniff," Rory joked and Jess gave her a smile. Rory looked back down at the table and sighed deeply. She took hold of a crystal handle and opened her mother's top drawer, but it was empty apart from a red letter.

"What's that," Jess asked from behind her making her jump, she didn't know he was so close, Rory shrugged and reached in to the top drawer and taking out the letter that felt heavy with fate. She turned it over and saw that on the front cover it clearly said, to my daughter Rory, in her mother's handwriting

"It's from my mom," she said but he already knew it. She opened the seal and inside was a sheet of old paper like the first editions that sat in Yale library. There was also a bundle of pictures too and they were bound in a black bow. Rory handed the pictures to Jess as she read the letter aloud.

"Dear Rory, if you're reading this it means that I've died. And you're now grief stricken and sitting in front of my mirror reading my final note to you. But Rory, I died with something leaning against my conscience. Something I must now indulge to you, for I shall never rest in peace if I do not." Rory said and she gasped, looking up from the emotion filled letter.

Jess was looking down at the pictures with a perplexed face and then met Rory's eyes. He handed her the pictures silently as if he was handing her a precious diamond. She took them form him and looked down at the first one.

In it stood her mother, much younger then the age she had been when she died, possibly 18… and next to her stood a man who was about 20. He had long wavy black hair that went past his shoulders and had a slight beard. His eyes were as black as night and he smiled quite awkwardly.

The next picture was of two babies; both had dark hair and pale skin. Rory ran her hand over the boy baby in the picture and felt her heart leap. The girl baby had blue eyes that smiled over to the baby next to her, the boy baby smiled just as happily over at the girl baby with those intense green eyes Rory saw in the glass that night.

Rory turned back to her mother's letter and continued to read. "Rory, your father isn't who you think he is. He's a powerful wizard! There is a second world adjoining out own and in that world live witches and wizards, your father left us to move there. You see he has many enemies; he is the head of an army against the evilest wizard in his world. He left us so we didn't have to be harmed! You are a witch too, Rory!

I know this is incredibly hard to believe but you are! You can only use your powers when you receive a wand… Rory, when your father left he took something with him. You have a twin brother Rory, his name is Harry! Serious took your brother with him when he left because if the evil wizards found out that Serious and I had twins then they would stop at nothing from killing you two! You see Rory, if you and your brother finally meet up again then you could be powerful enough to stop the dark wizards from ruling their magical world!

Serious took Harry from us for a good reason, and as much as I miss your brother I know it is for the best. They left and changed their last name to Potter so no one could trace him back to us." Rory gasped and closed her eyes, so afraid to read on in fear of more shocking news being revealed.

"Imagine living life with that kind of secret…" Jess mused looking at the photo of baby Rory and her twin Harry!

"I have a twin brother. His name is Harry Potter. My mom is dead. I am a witch." Rory processed it was too much to cope with.

"Is that the end of the letter,"? Jess asked and Rory shook her head, turning back to the letter to read more.

"Rory, I'm not telling you this so you can rush off to find your brother and your dad. I'm telling so that if they end up winning the fight they're in then you can be ready to accept them into your life! But don't go looking for them, they're dangerous for you! They will drag you into their fight, a fight I have worked so hard to keep you from. Live on Rory! Graduate from Yale and succeed in your ambitions to be a journalist! I'll watch over you from heaven- if that's where I go… I'll always be with you!"