Timeless

Chapter 46

Present Time: December 2005 / Draco's Time: Same as present

Draco Malfoy

"I know how to fix it," Theo said. "You can have it all: each other, your baby, and your life."

Hermione was beaming when she looked back at Draco, and his heart leapt at the sight of her looking so happy again. Draco was so used to getting one piece of bad news after the other by now that he wasn't as ready to take Theo at his word as she appeared to be.

"Explain," Draco said harshly. Theo nodded seriously, his smile gone now.

"Right...well, it's rather complicated." He looked around at the group, as if assessing their mental capacity.

"I don't care," Draco snapped. "Just start talking."

Theo nodded again. "Okay. Well, I've been studying the concept of multiple realities."

"Since when?" Hermione cut in. Draco wanted to tell her off for interrupting Theo in the middle of his explanation but knew better.

"Oh, uh, beginning when Draco first told me about the time jumping. But I didn't really throw myself into it until this summer." Theo explained quickly, looking between Draco and Hermione.

"You could have told us, Theo," Hermione responded. "We would have helped."

Theo shrugged. "I didn't know if it would come to anything. And I figured Draco wouldn't want to spend his last few months studying at Nott Manor when he could be doing better things. Like ruining steaks," he added in an undertone to Draco, suppressing a slight smile.

"Can we fast-forward to the part where you tell us how to fix this?" Draco asked.

"Yeah, I'm with Malfoy," Weasley chimed in. "We can talk about what a swot Nott is later."

Theo sneered at him, then turned back to Draco and Hermione. "Anyway, I started researching alternate realities," he motioned toward the papers on the bed, "and I figured out a way for you to end this before you die, but keep your life together." He touched the wall on the spot right above Draco's last jump. "Take the potion right after the second to last jump."

Draco's heart fell. Was that it? He'd been hoping for more. "We thought of that, Theo. I know it completes the timeline for Hermione, but that first jump was important for me. I may not have made all the same decisions I did along the way without it."

Theo smirked at him. "But you didn't consider the baby."

"What?" Hermione asked. "What about the baby?" Her hands settled on her stomach subconsciously.

Theo turned to her and smiled again as he grabbed her arms. "You made me think of it when you spoke of the baby anchoring you in reality. Well, it can anchor you to this timeline too. Or, more accurately, one very similar to it."

"What? How?" Draco asked quickly. He'd never considered something like this. He was currently scolding himself for not researching like Theo had. Draco had been wasting his time flying and trying to learn new spells when he could have been doing something useful.

"This is where it gets complicated," Theo warned. Draco waved for him to continue. "Okay, so there are an infinite number of realities, or timelines, as we've been calling them. There's one for every decision point along the way. One where you asked Hermione out and she said no. Another where she listened to that letter I gave her and postponed the wedding. One where she didn't come back from Blaise's flat. And yet another still where your baby was never conceived."

Draco nodded. "I know that. Get to the part with the anchoring."

"You've been assuming this whole time that one little change at the beginning would impact everything, but that's sort of over-simplifying it."