I know I promoted this as a Harry Potter crossover, which I’ll admit was a bit of an oversell since it really only borrowed some few elements from JK Rowling.

The first is the obvious, the Time Turner, which basically is the plot device that gets this whole story moving.

The other is Randall as Dumbledore, who as you know —“You saw the movie, those of you who did.”—wasn’t the same actor after the first two movies, RIP Richard Harris, just as Randall isn’t the same Randall after the interaction in the boat parking lot.

There are actually two versions of Randall, not in the same way there are two distinct Pams and Michaels running around but there is the Randall before the shift in the parking lot – the never been married one who believes in time travel and will help out with some advice and a granola bar but probably wouldn’t ever open his home to Michael or even Pam- and the one married to an angel (and maybe one himself) who is there until they make the shift back. That is why in (Chapter 24 - A New Twist on Randall’s Theory) he doesn’t know about the code word since he overheard it before the shift. I mean you could argue with me that he’s an angel and all-knowing but he even in It’s a Wonderful Life, Clarence and Joseph had to watch the events in question to prepare for getting involved later and I say he just missed this little interchange. Besides it’s my story so I make the rules.

Speaking of It’s a Wonderful Life and angels – the hints at the fact that Gabrielle was an angel (and working to get her wings) started pretty early. I’ll go through them chapter by chapter while I also point out some of the other symbolic elements or intentional references that you might have missed or like I said only my crazy mind connected.

Aside from HP, you will also notice some additional literary/cinematic references that are there for a reason. The Wizard of Oz – starts appearing as soon as Chapter 2. Also, Alice in Wonderland, Groundhog Day, Peggy Sue Got Married, Star Wars, and of course, It's a Wonderful Life…what all these have in common is it takes a 'major event' for the main character to come to a realization. As these pop up, I'll go more in depth about them.

For now, let's start at the beginning with

Chapter 1- New Carpet:

Circularity in fics is one of my favorite techniques and I start dropping in things that make their way back right away. The smell of popcorn in the carpet – a foreshadowing of the popcorn in the Espresso and Popcorn chapter. The mention of bio lab – a nod to how we learn that Pam and Roy met in high school.

And I'm sure it was a note forgotten by the time it came back, but here I mention how the Women in the Workplace seminar was always supposed to be earlier, only postponed because of Packer's package and the carpet replacement.

Note also the mention of a homecooked dinner – we learn later that Roy is a fan of Pam's cooking.

Chapter 2 -Strange Trip:

We really get going here. The magic of the story begins with the time travel and in this chapter we get our first mention of The Wizard of Oz.

There's a lot in that movie that could pertain to Pam's experience. The main fact that all the characters had what they were seeking all along, they didn't really need the Wizard to give it to them, but had to be led to discover it was there all along. For Pam that was manifold, in coming to realize her love for Jim but also in her embracing own talents and growing the confidence to make a change from everything that was holding her back. Much of this was guided by her good witch/angel in Gabby but Michael also played his part. I guess you can say Michael's the Wizard of Oz. If you think about it, Michael as a wizard who's really a simple man pretending to be a leader, who does sometimes get it right, also seems about right.

Look out for all of the Wizard of Oz mentions that continue throughout this story.

Chapter 3 –The Discovery

Mostly a table setter chapter, there wasn’t a lot to point out here. But it is here I establish the hunger that is a theme throughout the story. Mostly it was a play on the idea that travel is proven to increase hunger (something about circadian rhythms being off and certain hormones like Ghrelin and Leptin affecting appetite – Dwight or Oscar probably know more than me here) so I figure time travel would make it that much more severe. **  But to a small degree it’s also about Pam’s hunger for something more (both in her love life and career). Michael’s hunger, well he’s craving more from his friendships too since his BFF is taking dumps in his office.

**in the middle of writing this, HBO put out The Time Traveler’s Wife, a series based on the book (also mentioned in this story) and it was mentioned how time travel makes you hungry in the first episode. I had read the book long before I wrote this and that idea must have stuck with me subconsciously as a fact I began writing.

Chapter 4 – New Coats and Fancy Cars

Another chapter that mostly serves to set things up. I felt the need to set up and fix some time travel issues so nobody would be like – wait what car are they driving? How'd they get a new coat? Etc.  Michael as Elvis makes his first appearance – more to come on this later.

 Chapter 5 – Twins

Because this story was written and released over a very long time period you might not have remembered it when it came back up but the blue sweater that Jim noticed Pam stopped wearing was first mentioned here. It doesn't come back until later (chapter 19 - Something Blue) when she finds the earring. Blue, the color of Roy's eyes is not her color. Lot of issues around the colors blue and green too. More to come on this but aside from Roy’s eye color, blue also symbolizes ice, which keeps her frozen. Green, Jim’s eye color, is suggestive of growth.

Chapter 7 – 27 Seconds

Six was pretty straightforward as was this one too but what is worth noting is this is when Pam first learns Randall knows they are time traveling – and note, he doesn’t want to get too involved or know too much. He gives her a granola bar, quotes Dumbledore’s line from the movie and sends her off to find Michael - because remember, this is not the Randall that is around for the rest of the story.

Chapter 8 – Questions

When Pam reflects on Jim's guitar playing skills the line wasn't leaving Dunder Mifflin to join any rock bands soon is a foreshadow to how he will leave Dunder Mifflin soon in this timeline (regular show canon).

Another recurring sensation –illicit electric attraction that Pam feels around Jim mentioned a few times here:

'she washed down the guilt she felt once more at her memory of being attracted to her friend during the game'

'The electric hum, present as Pam had rattled off the stuff Jim was into, ceased to vibrate in the atmosphere surrounding them.'

'Sensing a slight buzz return to her body, imaginably from the swig that just reached her bloodstream, she looked up to notice Jim coming towards them, no doubt to retrieve his girlfriend and whisk her away for her own tour of the upper deck.'

Angel clues:

Ring Ring -it's the first Angel Clue

"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings" - Zuzu Bailey. (It's a Wonderful Life)  Nothing happening here yet because the bells are only in her head when the song, Sing, with its chorus of bells at the start, plays in both timelines.

Chapter 9 – The Brig

Alice In Wonderland - now if any story had better life lessons to impart on Pam, it would be this one. Among them are:

Risk has rewards- Scary, yes, but stagnation can be scarier. Growth comes from taking risks and challenging ourselves.

Discover who you are – with it learning to listen to our own inner voice

Don't get stuck in the past - "It’s no use going back to yesterday, I was a different person then," Alice tells the Mock Turtle and Gryphon. In this story it does help to go back to the past but only so she can see that she needs to break from her own ties to it.

Stand up for yourself -realize that you can.

This quick read article I found adds some depth to the above.

https://www.acmi.net.au/stories-and-ideas/five-life-lessons-alice-wonderland/

As for the references I made, the mad tea party was a bit of a nod to life at Dunder Mifflin, where Michael is the Mad Hatter and Dwight, a combination of the March Hare and the Dormouse (crazy and abused by Michael),

the painting of the roses, in that Pam herself paints her own roses to make her relationship with Roy what she thinks she wants,

and that she'd forgotten most of the story but she still believed it was a favorite from childhood, just as she still is clinging to the ideal of marrying her high school sweetheart even if she was not sure anymore. She was clinging to a history, that she didn't even remember well.

--

I wasn’t always aware when I first came up with the bit about the metal wings that I would be bringing them back…they were something that came to me as I was describing the control room and comparing it to a cockpit… but as I flushed out the paragraph, they came to be a major symbol of the future she once dreamed of and that was fading away being partnered with someone who didn’t see her and all she could be, which in turn affected her own self-worth. BY now you know those missing wings are found again while she unpacks her last box with Jim. (if you didn't, sorry, but you were warned).

I mentioned this in the chapter notes but it was interesting enough to repeat here - in the original stories L. Frank Baum wrote about Oz, it was never intended to be a dream. Oz was a real place to visit and it was only in the movie that Dorothy's visit to the land only happened in her head while she slumbered. Just as this is not revealed to be a dream at the end of this fic.

Of course, there were a few very specific messages layered into the Star Wars lines… to fully appreciate Revenge of the Sith, she needed to watch the first three films, which technically came later in the story timeline. He’d told her to make sense of the future you had to revisit the past. Or was it the past made more sense if you had knowledge of the future?

And

… she informed Jim, she would stick to the Harry Potter movies, she wasn’t a huge fan of A New Hope. Because that Pam, the one still stuck in the past, wasn’t ready for “a new hope” for something better for her.   

Don’t come at me BUT, like Pam I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, however it is another movie franchise with a message or two for her.

One being ‘It Is Never Too Late to Make a Change’, it won’t change the past but within you is the power to make a different future. Of course, to do that you need to take away another Star Wars life lesson which is ‘Overcome the Fear in Yourself’.

Upon the end of this chapter Pam mostly knows what Jim feels, but she’s still Pam and still unable to appreciate just how much she means to him and more importantly as with her reaction on Casino Night, was not ready to change anything because of it.

Luckily, she’s stuck back in time with even more of it to contemplate what she knows and more to learn that could help sway her. And because Jim hasn't confessed anything to her and is unaware as yet of all she is learning and knowing accidentally, he hasn’t run away and is still there at DM when she figures it all out. But as you know from having read what's to come (and you should not be reading this if you haven’t) there’s still a lot more to happen before then, which I’ll point out in Cliff Notes Part II.