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The house of the Gaunts is extraordinarily filthy. She had been to many "unsavory" places—Knockturn Alley, abandoned cemeteries, and the cellars of old manors—but she had never encountered such filth anywhere. The ceiling was covered with thick gray cobwebs hanging in untidy strands, the floor was layered with deeply embedded soot that rose in small clouds with every step, and a heap of rusted bowls, dishes, and blackened cutlery was strewn across the rickety wooden table.
But Pandora Rosier couldn't care less about all this centuries-old dirt and slovenliness. She was concerned neither with the stale air nor with the fragility of the rotting floorboards. She had come to this forgotten place for one specific thing and had firmly decided that she would not leave empty-handed. She would only leave with what she came for, even if she had to wade through countless layers of years-old dirt and dust.
Stepping past what served as a reception area and mentally noting every unevenness in the floor beneath her feet, Pandora begins methodically and carefully sweeping all surfaces of the house with a Muggle dosimeter, significantly enhanced with complex spells and ancient runes skillfully carved into its time-darkened plastic casing. This symbiosis of Muggle technology and magic she created was capable of detecting traces of wizardry.
In the abandoned room, only the muffled sounds of her footsteps and the anxious creaking of the floorboards can be heard. The dosimeter emits a light, monotonous hum, barely audible in the silence of the house, until she passes it over one of the darkened floorboards in the far corner of the room.
A sharp, piercing "beep" suddenly cuts through the oppressive silence of the old dilapidated "manor." With lightning speed, she points her wand at the very spot where the device detected traces of magic lurking in the depths.
"Reducto," Pandora utters in a quiet voice, and under the effect of the bright blue beam that bursts from the tip of her wand, the time-darkened floorboard instantly transforms into a spray of tiny splinters. They scatter in all directions, raising a thick cloud of soot and dust behind them. One casually cast "Scourgify," and the dust vanishes, the splinters fly aside, and before her eyes it finally appears. A ring, carelessly tossed into the hiding place under the floorboard, like worthless trash rather than one of the most powerful magical artifacts in the world. She understands perfectly that there's no such thing as a free lunch, that an artifact of such power is surely protected by numerous curses. But, Merlin, who cares when the temptation is so strong, when the goal is so close.
Pandora slowly, almost reverently, extends her left hand toward the ring. At the moment of first contact, she feels an unbearable, piercing pain, as if a spark travels from her fingertips through her entire arm and throughout her body, making every nerve scream in agony. But she doesn't stop or pull away her hand, as any reasonable person would do. Clenching her teeth and suppressing a scream, she continues the movement and firmly grasps the foreign family heirloom in her palm.
The ring itself looks surprisingly modest—a simple gold band without embellishments or decorations. But Pandora isn't interested in it at all, only in the stone in the setting. She carefully examines the sign engraved on the surface of the stone—"the Peverell seal": a triangle with a circle inscribed within it and a vertical line passing through the center of both figures.
Rosier confidently points her wand at the ring and pronounces a spell in a clear voice. Under its effect, she methodically extracts the precious stone from the gold setting, which now holds no interest for her. Pandora straightens up, carelessly wipes her sweaty palms on the hem of her tattered robe, and ceremoniously holds out her hand with the stone before her, admiring how dimly it gleams in the half-darkness of the room.
Everything is exactly as Xeno told her, as she had imagined lying sleepless in the cheap rooms of roadside inns, hiding from her family. One turn, a second, a third. And finally, what Pandora had been waiting for happens.
At first, a barely noticeable flash of bluish, ghostly light appears in the center of the room. It slowly expands, taking on the blurry outline of a human figure, becoming brighter and more distinct with each moment. Pandora doesn't dare move, her breathing becomes irregular, and her heart beats so hard that it seems it might leap out of her chest at any moment.
Finally, before the frozen Pandora appears in all her glory—the one whom Rosier had so longed to see again. With disheveled hair, in a stretched Muggle t-shirt and pajama pants. Exactly as death had found Marlene in her own home on that fateful night when the Death Eaters came for her and her entire family.
In the initially empty, clouded eyes, awareness of what has happened gradually breaks through as she finally distinguishes who exactly stands before her. Rosier can't get enough of this face distorted in horror. For her, even the most repulsive, the most horrible becomes ineffably beautiful when it concerns McKinnon—the object of her years-long obsession.
"Marlene, please, haunt me until the end of my life," whispers Pandora in a voice slightly trembling with excitement and delight, unable to tear her gaze from the ghostly face opposite her. She feels the tips of her fingers, with which she tightly grips the cold stone, slowly being covered with a strange darkness, resembling gangrene. The mark of retribution for attempting to touch the Dark Lord's possessions. Behind Pandora stands another ghost—her twin brother, also summoned from nothingness by the power of the stone. She feels his cold, ghostly breath on her neck, but she absolutely doesn't care.