A christmas miracle
START NOTES:
Hello everyone!
We’re back with a new chapter! And this one is gonna have something I’ve been waiting for and so excited for and hopefully y’all are gonna love it as well.
Anyways, let’s begin!
Chapter warnings:
Hints of abusive parents.
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“Are you guys going home for christmas?” she hears brother ask, she looks up from her book. They’re sitting in the slytherin common room couch, with Pandora’s legs on Dorcas lap, reading. Dorcas is looking through some magazin and Evan is sitting in a chair, with his legs over one of the armrests and his back against the other, staring into the fire.
“I am” Dorcas says “Mother and father are expecting me home”
“I’m not, I really want to try christmas at hogwarts, plus fathers parents are visiting over the holidays” Pandora shudders.
Evan turns away from the fireplace to look at his twin. “Yes, but mother promised we could try out the new bakery on our street this christmas”
“We can always get that, I really want to see how christmas is here”
“Your loss, I think christmas here would be really boring since almost everyone is going home”
“I feel like that’ll just make it more fun? This way you’ll get to talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to” Pandora explains excitedly.
Evan shrugs “you do you” with that he turns back to staring into the flames.
Pandora turns her eyes towards the fireplace as well. “I truly love how beautifully the flames dance”
Evan laughs “Dance? Only you would say something like that”
“It’s actually a very common muggle saying” Pandora defends.
“Doesn’t surprise me, muggles a weird”
“They’re not weird they’re cool and interesting”
“Come on, how? They don’t even have magic”
“Exactly! That’s what makes them so interesting, just look at what they’ve managed to do without magic!” Her hands waving around excitedly as she explains, but Evan just rolls his eyes. “Hey! Don’t roll your eyes at me!”
“Well try m-”
“I will literally hit both of you if you don’t stop arguing” Barty says as he sits down in one of the other chairs.
“See what I’ve been dealing with for the last many many years?” Dorcas asks him without looking up from her magazin.
“Yeah, I see it now. I feel-” he starts but then he looks at the magazin Dorcas is reading “wait is that a muggle magazin?”
“Yup” she answers, popping the p.
“Really Cas? Your parents are going to kill you!” Pandora says. She hadn’t realised it was a muggle magazin Dorcas was reading. Her parents would be absolutely livid if they found out.
“Yeah, especially with the dark lord getting more and more powerful everyday.”
Dorcas finally looks up at them. “And how would they find out? Plus I don’t care, it’s my life I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.
“Your funeral” Evan says, turning his attention back to the flames
“Really Cas, we just want you to be safe” Pandora says sincerely, looking worried at her friend.
“I know Panda and I love you for it, but life’s about more than just being safe. I don’t want to waste my life away by doing everything my parents want. Plus as I just said. How will they find out unless you guys tell them”
“We won't!" Pandora quickly interrupts.
“I know Panda, that’s what I’m saying. But I don’t want to live in fear of my parents either. They’ll probably not even know about this, but if they do, it’s worth it to live the life I want.”
“Yeah I get it”
“Thanks” she sends Pandora a small smile and Pandore unsurely returns it.
“Talking about the dark lord, what’s his deal? killing muggleborns simply because he doesn’t like them. Sounds like he’s got some issues” Barty says, changing the topic.
“Wow, really? I never would have guessed” Dorcas answers sarcastically.
“I heard he had a muggle father,” Pandora tells them.
“Wait really?” Evan exclaims excitedly.
“Well I don’t know if it’s true or not. It’s just something I heard.”
“Where did you hear that”
Pandora shrugs “I don’t remember” of course she remembers.
She was walking down the corridors when she heard someone coming around the corner and she may or may not have sneaked into the kitchen and was still carrying snacks to her dorm. She looked around for a place to hide, when she saw a supply closet she quickly hid in it, just in time the people rounded the corner.
“I’m getting worried Albus”
“It’s going to be fine Minerva”
“How can you say that? He kills so many people, something needs to be done, soon.”
“I am working on it, Minerva. There’s no need to worry”
Pandora thinks they’ve stopped walking, because the voices outside the door, doesn’t seem to be moving or getting further away.
“What do you mean no need to worry? He does seem to get enough power to take over more and more of the wizarding world. He already has almost all of the sacred 28 and the other pureblood families on his side! He has too much power and too many supporters”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do”
“Then trust me now.”
Pandora doesn’t hear McGonagall's answer to that, later she thinks the professor must have silently agreed. What she heard next out of the younger professors mouth, shocked her “I heard he killed his father for being muggle, is that true albus?”
Dumbledore lets out a sighs “I’m afraid it is”
“I really hope you have this under control”
“Pandora” she hears someone say as a hand waves in front of her face. She blinks a few times, before looking around. Her friends worried eyes, staring at her.
“You okay?” she hears her brother ask worriedly, "you just zoned out completely."
She feels a smile return to her face “oh yeah sorry, just got caught up in my mind.”
Her brother looks at her for a tad longer, before finally accepting her answer.
“Okay, lets talk about something less depressing, '' Barty says.
They all agree as they move on to lighter topics.
“I’m going to miss you so much” Pandora says as she sits at the slytherin table for breakfast.
“It’s only for 2 weeks and I already know we’ll be owling every day anyways” Evan jokes.
“I know, but it’s christmas!” Pandora whines. “Are you sure you can’t just stay”
“Sorry Panda, I just need a break from school and it would be good to go home for a bit”
“Plus, if you regret your choice, I’m sure the teacher would let you floo home” Dorcas tells her.
“I know, but I really want to try christmas here, but I also want to be with you guys”
“Maybe one year we’ll all stay for christmas,” the older girl suggests which makes a wide smile form on Pandora’s face.
“You think? It could be so much fun with all of us here and barely anyone else for a whole break!”
“Of course”
“But-” Evan starts, but Dorcas shuts him up with a look.
“i’m sure you’d survive one christmas at school, it’s not like being here means you have to do school work through the break”
“Fine, one Christmas, but then you have to at least come home for next year's Christmas Panda,” he says, turning toward his sister.
With a wide smile Pandora holds out her little finger “Pinkie swear”
Evans brows furrows in confusion “Pinkie, what now”
“It’s like an unbreakable vow for muggles. You just have to wrap your pinkie around mine and then we’ve made a pinkie promise”
“Well what happens if you break it”
Pandora shrugs “not sure, I just know they don’t break it. Breaking a pinkie promise is very looked down upon”
“Sure. Pinkie promise then” Evan says as he wraps his little finger around his sister’s.
For the rest of breakfast, they all just laugh and talk.
Later that day, when they finish breakfast, Pandora goes to Evan's dorm to help him pack the rest of his things. She takes one of his bags as they meet up with Dorcas and Barty and walk to the train station together.
After saying goodbye she hugs her brother tightly, making him promise to owl her every day.
“I think there’s some more people who wanna say goodbye to you Panda” Evan says, looking over her shoulder, before looking back at her.
Pandora quickly looks behind to see Amy, Nicole and Melissa, waiting behind her. She turns back to her brother. She sees that he has a fond but weird look on his face and she scrunches her own face in confusion “What?”
“I’m just happy.”
“About what? Abandoning me for 2 whole weeks?”
He hits her shoulder lightly with a laugh “No, drama queen. I’m happy you’ve made some good friends here beyond just me and Dorcas, it’s good for you”
she rolls her eyes at him “say hi to mum and dad from me and don’t get into trouble while I’m not there.”
Evan holds up his hands “You know I can’t promise anything”
“Well at least tell me every detail then”
“Deal” he hugs her one last time, before turning around and walking into the train. She stares after him for a while, before finally turning around to her friends.
They all run over and hugs her “it sucks that we can’t stay” Melissa complains.
“Agreed” Amy says.
“Well it’s only for 2 weeks and since you all say I talk in my sleep so much, you should be happy about it” Pandora teases.
“Well we have grown to love your weird conversations in your sleep.” Nicole says.
Pandora laughs “Well good thing we have six and a half more years of that then”
With that they all hug her one last time, before getting onto the train. As she waves to her brother and friends through the windows and the train drives away, she thinks to herself how weird this will be. Yes, it’s only for two weeks, but she’s been with these people every single minute of the day and now she won’t see any of them for two whole weeks. She definitely doesn’t regret her choice of staying though. This will give her the opportunity to talk to people she normally wouldn’t talk to.
It takes ten minutes from the train disappearing from sight, before Pandora finally walks back to Hogwarts, excited for the next couple of weeks.
Pandora knows she made the decision to stay herself, even after knowing her brother and best friend were both going home, yet it doesn’t make it less hard. This is her first Christmas without her family, which feels so weird. Of course she’s excited to see Christmas at Hogwarts and she loves having the castle almost all to herself, but that doesn’t mean she can’t miss them as well.
It's been five days since most students went home for Christmas and Pandora hasn’t really found any new people to talk to like she expected. Not because she hasn’t tried, simply because not a lot of people stayed and the castle is very big. The only person she’s had the opportunity to talk to is Hannah, but she’s already made it clear she wants Pandora to stay away from her.
It’s only the 24th today though, she’s sure she’ll get the chance to talk to more people at Christmas, tomorrow.
When she walks back into her dorm, from her walk, to study, she sees that Hannah is already there. She quickly just grabs her bag and decides to walk to the library to study.
As she walks into the library, she hears someone sniffling. She carefully and as silently as possible, make her way towards the sound. Peeking around the corner, she doesn’t believe her eyes at first, but it is him.
Regulus Black is crying in the library.
Pandora doesn’t know what to do. He hates her and the feeling is mutual, but she’d never leave anyone like that. She walks around the corner and towards him, sitting down in the chair opposite his, she doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable by sitting right beside him.
Pandora is about to lay a hand on his shoulder when she thinks better of it and fridges with the hem of her dress instead.
“Hey you okay?” he must not have heard her come over, because his head snaps up so quickly she fears he might break it. He quickly dries his tears away angrily, well at least he’s not sad anymore then.
“I’m fine!” he snaps at her.
“You don’t seem fine. Wanna talk about it? Sometimes it helps to talk about”
“No, I don’t. I told you I’m fine, now leave me alone.”
She knows he’s just lashing out because he’s upset, so she doesn’t take it personally.
“Is it because you’re homesick?”
He snorts “Definitely not”
First she’s confused, but then she remembers what she’s heard about his family. “Oh, yeah. I forgot, sorry” he just rolls his eyes, so she decides to continue “If not that, then what made you cry?”
“I wasn’t crying”
“Sure you weren’t” she agrees sarcastically. “Must have just been the ghosts then”
“Bloody hell, why are you so annoying”
“I’m just trying to help”
“I don’t want your help!”
“Fine, deal with it yourself then!” she snaps annoyed. “You’re probably miserable because no one wants to be friends with you anyways” it takes her a few seconds before it hits her what she just said and she starts to panic “Oh Salazar! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to say that! I’ve never said something so mean! I’m so so sorry”
He just laughs at that “You’re so weird, I like it” he says.
“Wait, did you just laugh? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you smile”
His laugh fades away again, back to his usual frown “Don’t get used to it”
“Oh no, I’m definitely going to get used to it. Wait, did you just call me weird? I’m not weird”
A smile returns to his face. “Yes you are, but that’s a good thing. I like weird people, my brother is weird and he’s the-” suddenly a sad look passes his eyes “nevermind”
“Your brother? He's the reason you were crying, wasn’t he?”
“No” he says quickly and defensively, which makes Pandora realise she’s on the right track, so she keeps talking, “It’s actually good to talk about it, you know. It makes it feel a bit better if you don’t have to carry what makes you sad alone.” She waits, but when he doesn’t say anything, just looking down at his shoes, she continues, “I get it,” that makes the boy look up at her, “I have a brother too. I love him more than anything and I can see it’s the case with you and your brother too. Since I love him more than anything, he can also hurt me more than anyone. His words, cut a lot deeper than anyone else's because I care so much about what he says and thinks.”
Regulus looks away again and collects himself with a sigh, before finally opening his mouth, “He’s a second year student, which means he had to go here a year before me. He told me he’d owl all the time and he did in the beginning, but then-” Regulus shrugs, looking down at the floor “then he owled less and less and when I did get a letter all he could talk about was this potter guy” he spits out the name in annoyance and disgust. “About how cool and amazing he was, talking about all the adventures they were going on. I used to be the one he went on adventure with!” he looks up at Pandora again and she sees the tears glinting in the corner of his eyes. “I thought that it would all be fine when I started at hogwarts, but he never talks to me anymore. I even stayed over christmas to be with him and then he decided to go home with Potter at the last minute. So now I’m here and he’s replaced me with a new best friend”
She thinks back to when she had detention with his brother, how genuinely worried he was about him. It was clear to see that Sirius loves Regulus, just as much as Regulus loves Sirius, but she knows it’s not her place, so instead she says, “that’s shit, I’m sorry. Have you talked to him about it? Maybe there’s more to it?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m not good at the whole-” he waves his hands around, trying to find a good way to explain it, “talking and stuff.”
“You seemed fine at it just now”
“Yeah, I’m normally not this good at it. You’re just easy to talk to.” Regulus seems to realize something just then “Oh salazar! I’m so sorry, I don’t even know why I told you all of that. I normally only talk with my brother about this stuff. I didn’t mean to just dump my problems on you!”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s completely okay, I love helping, plus you seemed like you needed to talk about it. Anyways, you can always talk to me about these things if you need someone other than your brother to talk to.” Pandora says, looking at him with a big smile.
He looks at her with confusion written all over his face, she doesn’t understand why he’s confused and she decides not to ask, best not to press her luck.
“Really?” He asks, almost like he’s… shocked?
“Yeah of course, why not”
“I thought you hated me”
“Well I didn’t hate you, I just lightly disliked you. Plus I tend to switch up fast. I genuinely just like people”
“I’m sorry that I was such an arsehole to you”
“It’s fine, as long as you learn from it”
“I weirdly enough am starting to like you and unlike you I don’t really like people”
Suddenly she groans and covers her face in her hands “my brother is gonna hold this over me for the rest of our lives”
“Why?”
“Well he told me I’d end up liking you because I always do and I said I wouldn’t. I just proved him right. I normally don’t mind being wrong, the problem is being wrong to my brother because he’s always so annoying when he’s right.”
Regulus laughs at that, which makes Pandora laugh as well. She already knows this friendship will blossom into something amazing. She’s never felt this at ease and comfortable with someone, not like this. And she has a feeling it’s mutual for once.
They end up spending the rest of the break together, she has so much fun with Regulus. He’s not a wild person, but she is, so somehow it just works. He’s weird too, she learns, but in a more closed off way. Something you don’t notice till he’s opened more up to you. She’s sure he’ll open up even more for her the longer they’re friends, because she can see that he’s still holding back a bit. She can’t wait to get to know him properly, because he already seems like a much cooler person than she originally thought.
They both like reading as well, so they talk a lot about books. She even borrows him some muggle books. Her parents would never let her have them if they knew, luckily they aren’t strict so they don’t go through her things.
She’s noticed Regulus doesn’t talk about his family though, maybe when he trusts her a bit more he will.
The two weeks go fast after she started talking to Regulus and today everyone is coming back. She’s excited to see her brother and friends again, but she’s also nervous that Regulus will pull back, he doesn’t seem like the type who enjoys a whole group of people.
When the train arrives, Pandora is waiting at the station. It doesn’t take long to spot her brother and she runs over to him as fast as she can, colliding with him. Even though he saw her and was prepared, the collision did make him take a few steps back.
“It’s good to see you too Panda” he teases with a chuckle, before wrapping his arms around her as well
“Shut up” she answers fondly, pulling away from the hug. “How was Christmas with mum and dad?”
“I’ve already told you about it in my letters”
“yeah, well now you’re going to tell me again in person”
“Only if you help me carry one of my bags” he teases and with that they walk back to Hogwarts, each with a bag in their arms and Evan telling Pandora everything about his Christmas for a second time.
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END NOTES:
Did I edit this while i was at work? yes. Yes, i did. I wanted to get it out today and I knew that if i waited till after work I’d procrastinate it so yeah ahhah. It’s fine, I work at a call center from home, so while waiting on calls I can do what I want ahah.
Anyways, let’s dive into the chapter!
I did intend to write christmas, but I don’t know enough about christmas in the UK to be able to do that, in my country christmas is on the 24th, so it’s VERY different. Maybe in one of the later years I’ll have been able to find out enough about it to write a christmas scene/chapter.
Also yes, ik Panda wouldn’t comment on Dorcas reading a muggle magazine, but she cares more about Dorcas’ safety and Dorcas parents are a lot like Regulus and Sirius’ here.
And yes, ofc Barty is canonly a death eater who kills innocent people, but it’ll be explained in this fic how he got to that point, bc i don’t believe he was always like that.
Also Pandora’s obsession with everything muggle makes me so happy, i love her sm!
Evan being a proud brother melts my heart istg *insert crying emoji*
Also Pandora trying to be nice and help Regulus, but him making it hard for her is so funny. Let’s remember she is still a child, so ofc she says stuff without thinking and ofc doesn’t have as much patience as she does when she gets older.
Regulus having a hard time opening up to people and when he finally do, it happens SLOWLY, except for with Pandora, one talk with her and he blooms open like a flower in spring ahaha.
Anyways, what did y'all think of this chapter? I hope you liked it and I'll see you in the next one. Have an amazing day!
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