Chapter 8
The Great Hall is silent. Where the air was heavy and dull before, it’s now electric—charged with anticipation.
On stage, Pandora stands.
James was tired, sure—but for a moment, he could swear he saw her glowing.
“Hi, friends,” she says sweetly. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a rough day. And that I couldn’t get here sooner.”
No one says a word. No one even breathes.
She glances down at her hands, thoughtful. “Where do I even begin?” she murmurs, then looks up again.
“Today, you’ve met many versions of yourself. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Her voice is soft, but it carries.
“You see, when you think of the universe, you might picture stars, planets, galaxies. And while that’s part of it, that’s more like… the fruit of the universe. The way an apple is not the tree.”
She pauses, scanning the frozen faces before her.
“The real universe—the trunk, if we’re sticking with the metaphor—is more like a room of mirrors. It reflects and repeats itself, spinning the same stories, and the same people, again and again. But it’s not a loop. Nothing is set in stone—the details shift.”
Her eyes flicker across the room, twinkling. She tilts her head. “Today, the mirrors cracked.”
A murmur ripples through the crowd.
“How do you know this, Dora?” a Dorcas breathes, her voice full of wonder.
Pandora smiles. “Because I’m in all of them.”
A hush. Then—
“What does that mean?” someone calls.
She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain if you haven’t felt it. I hardly believed it myself when I realized it wasn’t like this for everyone.” She laughs—a bright, bell-like sound.
“Dora! The point!” a Barty snaps, impatiently.
“Oh, right!” She claps her hands together. “Well, you are all the same souls in different bodies. I’m just me—but present in every universe at once.”
“Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” mutters a Peter beside James. Judging by his clothes, he’s a Muggle, so James can’t really blame him.
“I can’t tell you why or how—it’s just always been this way. And it’s never caused a problem before.”
“So what changed?” asks Professor Lupin.
Pandora’s bright eyes dart around the room. “Still a bit unclear,” she admits. “But I have a theory.”
The room leans in.
“Balance is important. And I always make sure to keep myself balanced—power divided equally between all my selves. I’ve always known this.”
She exhales, hands clasped in front of her.
“But when one of me followed Regulus to the cave—”
“You did that?” Regulus whispers.
She meets his eyes, gently. “Yes, I did. And in an attempt to save you, I called upon the power of the other mes.”
The room is entranced.
Regulus swallows hard. “But—you knew you had to keep the balance.”
Pandora’s expression doesn’t change. “They are me, and I am them. But we all make our own choices.”
A pause. Then—
“The spell, fueled by power from universes foreign to the one I was in, created a tear in… well, time and space.”
The air seems to still.
Pandora lets the silence stretch before continuing.
“I blacked out. And when I woke, I didn’t know what had happened—only that I was in some kind of void.”
She smiles, distant. “It was beautiful, really. Meeting them all—all of me. But it came with a painful silence in my mind.”
The flickering candlelight cast lively shadows—like a reflection of the infinite versions of her.
“We made it out. But we found ourselves somewhere cold, barren, and unfamiliar. Later, we learned it was Norway.”
A confused whisper ripples through the crowd. “Norway? ”
“Somehow, we knew we had to part ways. So we did.”
Her voice softens. “I walked for what felt like days through the nomad land. Maybe it was days. Time is… not as linear as you might think.”
She breathes in, slow.
“The nothingness reflected my newfound tranquility,” she says. “But also the pain of being alone for the first time in my life.”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Eventually, I came across a cabin. A small one, sat between the trees. When I stepped inside, I was met with the most beautiful being I have ever encountered.”
James shivers, and he isn’t sure why.
“It was young and old. Male and female. It was, and it wasn’t.”
Her smile turns wistful.
“It introduced itself as Xenophilius—and offered me tea.”
A few heads turn.
“It was the strangest thing; we talked and talked without saying a single word. Knowledge lived in the walls of that place. I couldn’t help but laugh! There I was, in a tiny wooden hut, drinking tea with a caretaker of the universe itself.”
The words seem to shimmer in the air.
“It was the most wonderful experience of my life.”
She exhales, and for a moment she seems to glow again.
“But I knew I couldn’t stay.”
Her voice grows quieter.
“So I asked Xenophilius how to fix it. And then, just like that, the exhaustion hit me like a crashing wave…Then I woke up here.”
“So you can send us home?” a Sirius asks.
“I can. Once every Pandora has made it back, everybody goes back.”
“NO!” A yell cuts through the crowd. “You can’t do that!” It’s a Mary. Her voice is raw, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She pushes through the masses, stopping in front of Pandora, looking at her with pleading eyes.
Pandora, taken aback by the sheer desperation, staggers slightly. “I can’t stop it. I’m not really doing anything, per se. It will just happen—like letting go of a quill and watching it fall.”
“NO! It’s not fair!” Mary yells.
A Marlene grabs Mary’s arms, trying to steady her, but Mary wrenches free. “You can’t just show people their maybe-fate and then send them back to live it! Not when that fate is war and death and destruction!”
A murmur ripples through the crowd.
“It’s not ethical!” another Mary shouts.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind not going back,” A Regulus says flatly.
“Is there any way we can stop it, Pandora?” A Lily asks earnestly.
Pandora frowns, her brows furrowing. “Well, no… I don’t know. I don’t think we can change it.” She looks slightly panicked.
“What, so we’re just doomed? Is that it?” Mary demands sharply.
The crowd erupts into chaos, voices overlapping in frantic debate—should they stop their return, or should they let it happen? And then, cutting through the noise, comes a laugh.
A real, belly laugh.
Heads turn. Eyes widen. It’s Marlene, clutching a clipboard, laughing uncontrollably.
“Do you think this is funny?” Dorcas snarls.
“Don’t you get it?” Marlene asks, her voice nearly manic. “There’s no such thing as being doomed. The only thing we’re doomed by is character.”
“What are you on about?” A Barty sighs, exasperated.
Marlene ignores him. She just grabs a Lily’s hand and pulls her toward the stage.
“Fate isn’t something scripted,” she says. “It’s not a story laid out in advance. Fate is the choices we make—the ones we can’t help but make.”
Confused murmurs spread through the crowd.
“Look around, people!” Marlene gestures wildly, then her voice steadies, her focus sharpening. “Lily and I have been compiling data, and do you know what we found?”
She scans the room.
“ Patterns! Repeated choices.” She claps her hands as if she’s just revealed something earth-shattering, though no one quite matches her energy.
Marlene continues, “James always runs to the door to protect Lily and Harry. Lily always sacrifices herself for Harry. Regulus always lets Sirius go, and Sirius always tries to bring Regulus with him.”
The concrete examples catch people’s attention.
“This happens repeatedly not because it’s written in some grand book of destiny—but because these are the choices they make. Over and over again—because that’s who they are!”
A beat.
“Do you know how many times Sirius tells Snape about Remus? How many times Remus believes Sirius is the traitor? Too many.
But do you know what happens even more often?”
Marlene scans the crowd. hundreds of eyes are eagerly waiting for her to speak again.
"Remus and Sirius.”
Across the room, Remuses and Siriuses exchange tender, knowing glances.
“Every single time, they find each other. In every universe, they fall for each other.” Marlene’s voice falters for a moment before she presses on. “And in too many of them, it doesn’t end well.”
She swallows hard.
“But it always happens. Because it’s a choice they can’t help but make. My point is, it doesn’t matter if we are sent back or not. The outcome will always be the same.”
She turns to time-traveling James. “Just look at James. He kept going back, trying to save Regulus. But it didn’t matter—because Regulus kept making the same choices. You can’t change fate. If anything, you can change your character. And that might do something. But if you’re making these choices because you believe them to be right—then in a way, your fate is sealed.”
“But what if I don’t want it?” Mary’s voice is small but angry. Her eyes are locked on Marlene’s. “I don’t want it.” She sinks to her knees.
Silence falls.
“Can I say something?” Another Mary steps forward. She looks older, maybe in her early thirties. She kneels beside the crying Mary, placing a gentle hand on her back. Their eyes meet.
“Hello, dove,” the older Mary says softly.
“When I came here, I had no idea who any of these people were, and I guess I still kind of don’t, even though I have been filled in plenty.”
It doesn’t seem like comfort for younger Mary, who still has tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I have talked to so many people today,” older Mary continues. “And I understand why you love them so dearly. I can see how losing them would make me do something like this, but Mary!”
The eye contact deepens. Younger Mary has a fascinated but pleading look.
“I don’t live a bad life—in fact, I love my life,” she smiles at the thought. “I have two beautiful children. Thérèse is the oldest—Dave picked the name. You haven’t met him yet, but oh, when you do! He’s smart and handsome, and he takes care of us. Our youngest kid is called Edward after—”
“Gramps,” younger Mary finishes.
Older Mary smiles even wider. “Yes! After Gramps!”
Younger Mary straightens up a bit. “Tell me more,” she says, completely entranced by the picture of a life she hasn’t met yet.
“Dave is good with the kids. They adore him and are always begging him to swing them around. I get bad nerves watching, but not really—I know he always catches them.
We have friends as well—wonderful women. Dalia and, funny enough, Lily are our best friends. Obviously not—” she gestures apologetically to a group of Lilys who have gathered around to listen.
“But another Lily. And every Thursday, Dave takes the kids to Mum’s house, and we have a girls’ night. On Sundays, Dave’s family comes around for a roast. It’s not always easy—Dave’s brother died last year, and he took it very hard. We’re still dealing with it, but, my dove, we are dealing.”
“I don’t understand,” younger Mary whispers and shakes her head, as if breaking the trance “I saw you. I spoke to you. You were all dead. Empty.”
Older Mary exhales sharply. “Excuse you!” she scolds, in a tone that startles younger Mary into silence.
She softens. “I was overwhelmed. It’s a lot to take in, all of this.”
“Heard, heard!” a few muggles chant.
Older Mary takes a deep breath, “I can tell you have a beautiful life full of love, but so do I. There is a life outside of this place, and you can live a magical life without a wand. There are people outside this room who will love you. The course of our life doesn’t have to be determined by something that happened at 21.”
Both Marys have tears in their eyes.
“Take it from me,” Professor Lupin says. “My clock stopped in 1981 and didn’t start again until 1994.” He squeezes the hand of the Sirius beside him. “I lost thirteen years because—as Marlene put it—I didn’t have a choice. You do. And from the looks of it, it’s not a bad one—either way you choose..”
Younger Mary launches herself at him in a hug. He stumbles back, startled, before laughing and hugging her in return.
Around the hall, people seem to find their loved ones, whether it's friends, family, versions of themselves.
“So that’s it?” A Lily asks. “We go back?”
“I think so,” a Remus says.
Everywhere people are nodding in unison.
“So what… now we wait?” A Barty asks, uncertain.
“Now we wait,” Pandora confirms.
And wait they do. The fear and exhaustion fade, replaced by quiet moments of connection.
From the highest point of the ceiling, a silent wave of calm spills through the roof and drifts downward, enfolding the room like the softest blanket. One by one, eyelids grow heavy. One by one, they vanish.
Until, if you were to step into the Great Hall, you’d only find a few scattered students asleep in the most unusual places.