Chapter 15: A Reality of Stories

Jenna stared after Professor Snape as he briskly exited the inn, her insides threatening to revolt against her. She turned back to her drink, taking it with shaking hands. His eyes really were cold. Cold and hard, yet steeped in a sadness that made them seem even darker...and scarier. Jenna couldnt recall a time in her life where she had seen such gut wrenching coldness in the eyes of another person.

As she made her way back to the booth where she had left Denver, she debated inwardly on if she should tell him about her brief encounter with Snape. It wasnt a guarentee that Snape had heard her thoughts about breaking into Hogwarts. Especially given how stuck on her own teenage embarrassment she had been. Certainly a grown man, a professor at a school none the less, had better things to do then listen to the inner thoughts of a random teenager. She knew most definitely that Snape did, for that matter.

Yet she seemed to recall that Snape always did seem to know what the kids he taught had been thinking, even given everything he had on his own plate at the time. She certainly remembered Harry mentioning something similar in the books. Could it be that he really did just skim peoples thoughts in passing?

When she finally returned to the booth, she sat down and sipped her drink again, staring at the table in silent contemplation and worry. Denver seemed to sense she wasnt in a talking mood, and while his expression was one of curiosity and slight concern, he drank his butterbeer in silence and focused on the people in the room.

Jenna, meanwhile, tried to push away her trepidation at Snape's gesture. Why had he paid for her drink? To make her aware that he knew what she had been thinking? Perhaps to try and scare her away from trying anything without having to actually confront her in such a public place as the bar of an Inn, where he likely was well known given his position in the school and where he likely came to take a break from work?

It didnt really fit his profile though, now that she thought about it. She couldnt recall Snape going out to Hogsmeade for a drink in the books. Then again, just because she hadnt read about it, didnt mean that it didnt occur. She had already spent days here without coming into contact with any of the main, or even side, characters from the books. Yet there were whole families, tons of people, who she didnt recognize and yet had interacted with in minor, tiny ways.

Perhaps he actually had other sides of himself that they didnt see in writing, outside of his work at the school, in the Order, and for Dumbledore. This didnt help to settle her nerves at having interacted with the potions master, but it did let her mind wander to something other then him.

If he could have differences the fans didnt read about, what were the possibilities for the other characters they did know a lot about? If she could be pulled into books and other literature that she had read...what about books she had not yet read? What about fanfiction? History? Did the black book she had been transported through differentiate, or even care, about fiction versus non-fiction?

"Denver? Are we sure this is actually the books?" She asked quietly, glancing over at him. "As in...the published series written by J. K. Rowling?"

"What do you mean?" Denver asked, glancing at her curiously, though seeming happy to be able to converse with her again.

"Is it possible that the stories we enter arent exactly like the ones we read?" Jenna's brows wrinkled as she thought of how best to explain it without making Denver suspicious, as she didnt exactly want to explain the small interaction she'd had with Snape. "If the portal from our books takes us into any of the various literature that we have read, does that mean any and all of the things we have read? What would happen to a world like this if someone, say, read a lot of fan written stories? Would this be the same world or would the perception of the jumper influence and change the world based off their knowledge and the fan writing they had read?"

Denver looked perplexed, shaking his head as if in amazement that, of all things she decided to start a conversation about, it was this. "I'm afraid I dont really know...I was brought into this book by someone who had read it, and what I know, I learned while I was here with him. The theory is an interesting one, but since I havent read the book, or any of its resulting fan theories or fantasies, I wouldnt be able to say for sure how our own memory of the writings could influence or change this world."

Denver pushed his empty mug aside to lean against the table top, resting his head in his hand as he watched her. "What I have learned through my work is that the worlds are connected and able to be changed and affected, hopefully without changing the written books. I've also learned that no matter what we do, our influence in these worlds changes them permanently. I've been to this story world a few times, enough that setting up a Gringotts account was beneficial for me in the long run for when I return. No matter how many times I return, my vault is still there. However, I cant run into myself coming and going from there, even if I were to revisit the same part of the story over and over."

"How does that even work? Even time-turners hold the risk of you encountering yourself if you arent careful. How can it be that you dont?" Jenna wondered in confusion.

"Because we arent from this story." Denver replied, leaning back and running a hand through his hair. "In a sense, we are penciled in additions to the written story. When we do something on the page, our actions are added in pencil to the margins. If we restart a page, our actions are just penciled in over our previous ones. When we leave, our physical selves are erased from the book. However, every character from the book itself is written in ink. When I made my vault, I interacted with the goblins, and the actions they took when interacting with me, are permanent actions that were linked in. The changes I made to their stories cant be erased, hence why my vault is always there, no matter how many times I leave and come back."

Denver pulled out his wand, turning it over in his hands. "The same goes for your wand. You and I had to interact with Ollivander to recieve our wands. His actions are written in ink, even if the book you remember reading doesnt mention it. Every witch or wizard gets their wands from him. Or, I guess, from some wand maker out there in the world. And the story remembers that action, even if you never see it. So while we may vanish when we leave, and our actions are erased, anything we have done that changes the story for someone in the book? It cant be erased."

Tucking his wand back into his robes, Denver gave her a small, slightly apologetic smile. "That's why I was so hard on you when I found you. You didnt know who you were interacting with, you werent following guidelines put into place for Jumpers, and you were changing the story in unfixable ways. You didnt know it then, and you werent taught otherwise, so it isnt your fault. But that group of boys will always remember you, even if every other action you did before and after meeting them gets erased, their perceptions of you, their memories of you, solidify that moment of you in the story. It cant be changed or removed now."

Jenna lowered her eyes, picking at the table with a nail while she tried to absorb all of that information. "Then...that's why you said we cant interact with any of the characters who may matter...because we actually could change the written, observed plot line?"

Denver nodded. "I've never seen a story change in it's written form, but these rules and guidelines were implemented because it has happened before. Its imperative that we do not change the story-"

"Hold on a tick." Jenna sat up, turning to stare at Denver fiercely. "Is that how the Mandela Effect works? Is that why large groups of people remember things differently, even though there arent any records of it?"

Denver, for his merit, looked a bit sheepish at the question, as well as a bit uncomfortable. "Well...sometimes small changes get made that don't actually change the whole storyline-"

"What about 'Shazaam'?"

Denver looked at Jenna out of the corner of his eye in silence for what felt like hours, but could only have been a mere minute or two. Without warning, he calmly stood, yawned, and stretched. "Well, it's been a long day for us both. I think it's about time to retire for the night." Without waiting for her response, he started for the stairs that lead up to the inn's rooms.

"Wait, you cant be serious. How could the whole movie just vanish? How come the actor vehemently denied it existed before? IS HE A JUMPER TOO? Hey, dont you just walk away from this!" Jenna objected, hopping up and following him up the stairs, demanding answers and rattling off questions as she followed an exasperated Denver to their shared room, completely forgetting her previous hang up on sharing with him in the first place.