Pandora's box

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»And she still hasn't seen everything.
For what she lacks is your soul,
and your life.
And the mind,
that only turns
around her.«

His mind was racing, his thoughts were spinning and his stomach was aching.
Draco was feeling dizzy, oh so dizzy. Everything around him seemed to move and shake.
But that didn't stop his stomach from aching.
His ribs were hurting and his back was in pain.
Blood was running through his heart at a way too fast pace; Draco could almost hear it in his ears.

Frail, bony fingers were desperately clinging onto blond hair and blue tears were shed out of icy blue eyes.
A beam of light pulled the Slytherin out of his dark thoughts. "Draco? What happened?", the voice of the raven-haired Gryffindor was like the light from outside the door; it revived the blond-haired Slytherin.
"N-Nothing. J-Just bad thoughts", Draco stammered, he didn't want to worry Harry.
"C'mon, let's go to Madam Trelawney's class. She said, that we'd be doing something fun today. Hopefully, that'll take your mind off of your bad thoughts, baby", Harry said as he picked Draco up from the ground, on which had been crying for the past hour.

Walking up the sliver ladder that early every Friday morning, just for a double period of Divination Class with Madam Trelawney, wasn't fun for anyone, but at least the class wasn't exhausting.
The students all sat on red stools, which were padded with a blue seat cushion.
Apart from the terrible combination of the colors of the seat cushions and the stools, the room was pretty to look at.
However, Madam Trelawney was never long in coming. Her positively charged mood filled the entire room, but to her regret, this energy did not spill over to the students.

"Good morning all, I hope you all awoke with happy thoughts this morning", Madam Trelawney said as she sat down on a red-blue stool. It was right next to a table, on which stood a glass ball.
"Today we will do something very fun. We will talk about Greek mythology, to be more specific, we'll talk about Pandora's box today! I'm sure a few of you know a thing or two about Pandora already", Madam Trelawney continued, and the joyful smile on her lips grew even bigger.
The facial expressions of the students, however, did not brighten with enthusiasm. On the contrary, they only emit more boredom and fatigue.
But that didn't stop Madam Trelawney from starting her talk.

"Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth of Pandora.
We need to be really precise here. The container, that was mentioned in the original story, was actually a large storage jar but the word was later mistranslated as 'box'. Okay", Madam Trelawney said, words laced with excitement, "but what does all of that mean to us today?"
Not a single student raised a hand.
Nobody, except for Hermione.
"Yeah, Miss Granger?", Madam Trelawney's smile widened.
"Today, it has grown to mean 'any source of great and unexpected troubles', or alternatively 'a present but with in reality is a curse'. 'To open [a] Pandora's box' has become a popular idiom", Hermione said and the room filled with silence again.

"Very well, Miss Granger", Madam Trelawney said while she stood up and walked around in the classroom.
She turned around, spinning on her feet for a moment before she faced the students again.
"Now, I hope you all are taking notes, because we might or might not write a test about this soon", Madam Trelawney said with a touch of glee in her voice as she looked into many shocked faces of students, who now rushed to quickly get a quill, an inkwell, and a parchment paper out of their bags.

"Let's continue", said Madam Trelawney after the room had fallen quiet again, "now, it's not enough to just tell you a few simple things about the myth that is Pandora's box, no. We need to dig deeper and at the end of this lesson, you'll basically feel the extra few brain cells that this beautiful mythology has gifted you with."
Her eyes looked at the students with even more excitement, Harry wondered if Madam Trelawney's eyes were going to pop out of her skull any minute now because of how passionate she got this topic.
"According to Hesiod, when Prometheus stoke fire from heaven, Zeus, the king of gods, took vengeance by presenting Pandora to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus. You don't need to know what these people did, for now at least.
By the way, if I were you, I'd write those names down", Madam Trelawney said as she looked at Ron, who was staring at her in confusion.
She walked back to her stool, on which she sat down quickly.

"Anyway, Pandora opened a jar left in his care, which contained sickness, death and many other unexpected evils which were released into the world. THAT'S VERY IMPORTANT!", Madam Trelawney said, yelling loudly at the end of her sentence because she saw a few students that were resting their heads on the small, round tables. The tables stood between two stools, a glass ball stood on each table.
The few students opened their eyes in shock, their heads popped up and they were wide awake.

"Good. Though Pandora hastened to close the container, only one thing was left behind - usually translated as Hope, though it could also have the pessimistic meaning of 'deceptive expectation'.
From this story has grown the famous idiom 'to open [a] Pandora's box', meaning to do or start something that will cause many unforeseen problems.
Its modern, a bit more colloquial equivalent is 'to open a can of worms'.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's discuss your homework that you all have to get done until our next lesson", Madam Trelawney ended her talk.

The students still looked bored; only Hermione had leaned forward with an inquisitive look on her face.
"I expect you all to write an essay about Pandora, who she was and most importantly, what her relationship to Eve was all about. It should be easy to read and well structured, after all, we aren't in elementary school anymore.
That was a fun lesson; until next week!", Madam Trelawney said and the bell rang right after she had ended her sentence.
The class emptied out faster than a jar of bees in it.

Ron and Blaise chatted about the lesson as they made their way to the Slytherin common room.
The 5-minute break was short, but the couple wanted to spend as much time together as possible.
"Did you like today's lesson?", Blaise asked.
Ron, who sat down next to his boyfriend on the green sofa, shook his head no.
"Not at all. I always thought fortune-telling was boring, but this lesson had taken the phrase 'being bored to death' to a whole new level!", Ron said in a subtle sneer as the memories of the last 90 minutes flashed through his brain.
"I kind of liked it. Seeing Madam Trelawney this excited about something was nice to see, but we had to write so much stuff down", Blaise said and Ron nodded eagerly.
"Way too much", he said.

Hermione and Pansy were already working on their essay.
Both of them wanted to write one for themselves, and then they wanted to write one big summary of Pandora's life together. The summary should develop into a half-hour presentation, which should give the two a straight-A.
Harry and Draco only shook their heads in unison as they walked past the Gryffindor common room.
They wanted to take their time with the essay. Draco wanted to get it done over the weekend and Harry would start with it tonight.
The couple walked around Hogwarts for a short while, chatting about the lesson with Madam Trelawney as well.

"I enjoyed it, but having to write almost everything down wasn't that great", Draco said, happy about the fresh breeze of air that was blowing through his hair.
"Yeah, that part sucked. But listening to her and seeing how passionate she was, that was fun. Haven't seen Madam Trelawney so passionate about a topic since we did that cup-fortune-telling-sign-reading-thing with her in third year", Harry said with a smile on his face.

"Are you feeling better, Draco?", Harry asked after they were back inside the castle.
"M'yeah, still a bit nauseous but besides that I'm okay", the Slytherin replied and Harry smiled.
Before they entered Professor Snape's classroom, Draco cupped Harry's face with his hands.
"I love you so much, angel", the pale Slytherin whispered and the raven-haired Gryffindor blushed.
"I love you, too, darling", Harry whispered back and their lips touched, a thousand fireworks exploded inside of their hearts.

They were fireworks of love.
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(Wortcount: 1470 words)

*DJ Khaled's voice* Another one! 👌🤠
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
The lyrics at the top are from the song "Pandora" by Deetox Vengeance.
Pandora's box is of my favorite Greek mythologies, which is why I wanted to build it into this chapter.
I'm going to rewatch the Harry Potter movies tonight, I love the movies so much, and I couldn't be more excited!
Alright, okay, goodbye! 👋🥵

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