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The room was cold. Not like a cellar, or like it feels outside in February—but a kind of timeless chill that crept into his bones. Albus watched his breath fade in wisps before his face as he stared up at the endless celestial dome above him. Stars floated in the dome—not lights on a ceiling like in the castle—but real, living stars, floating like fireflies, with planets circling around them.
Slowly, Albus began to distinguish lines between the stars. First subtly, like veins on parchment. Then brighter, light blue and thin, countless, like a spider's web stretching in all directions.
"Life lines," Hermione said softly, as if casting a spell. She stood on a platform with a long, silver pointer between her fingers, thin as a hair. "Every wizard, every witch. Every choice. Every consequence."
Scorpius swallowed audibly next to him.
Albus looked at the wall behind Hermione, where dozens of clock hands floated in a large, mechanical grid. The names on the hands were familiar—Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Rose Granger-Weasley, Cedric Diggory, Voldemort.
Some emitted a bright white light, others barely shone. But the hands of his parents—Harry and Ginny—were pointed at each other and glowed with a reassuringly bright white light. Just like those of Ron and Hermione.
"This is what is," Hermione said. She looked at them with a gaze that was both stern and sad. "And this is what you have touched."
She slowly turned the hand of Ron Weasley. Slowly it shifted—not much, but noticeably—from her own name to Padma Patil. Ron's hand suddenly glowed less brightly, and Hermione's lost all its light.
And the room moved.
Literally. The web of life lines began to tremble with jerks, and like ropes in a storm, they began to rearrange themselves. Two lines—those of Rose and Hugo—turned grey and disappeared.
Albus gasped.
"They don't exist anymore?" Scorpius whispered.
Hermione said nothing. Her hand trembled a bit, but her eyes remained stern.
"And me?" Scorpius asked. His voice cracked. "Am I still here?"
"You are," Hermione said. "But only because your parents didn't change their path."
And then—without warning—she turned another hand. That of Cedric Diggory.
From 'deceased' to Voldemort.
The hand turned blood red.
And as if the room was under attack, the entire celestial web began to shake. Countless lines broke. Literally crumbled before their eyes. A deep rumble filled the space, as if the world itself held its breath. The whole room became ten shades darker due to the absence of lines, and a loud scream echoed among the stars, like an echo of a future that should never exist.
Albus could no longer move. His feet seemed rooted to the ground.
Hermione slowly turned to them.
"Do you understand now?" she said, softly but as sharp as a blade. "Time is not a toy. Every moment you think you're fixing a mistake can cause a thousand new ones."
She turned both hands back to their normal positions. The light in the room returned, but it took a moment for the trembling of the lines to stop.
Rose's line reappeared.
And Cedric's line...
ended again in the maze.
Albus looked at Scorpius.
He was still staring at the spot where Rose had briefly not existed.
"She was gone," he said hoarsely. "Really gone."
"Yes," Hermione said. "And that was just one turn."
"Wait here for a moment," said Hermione suddenly. Her voice sounded as Albus knew it—businesslike and decisive. "Vreedeling is calling me. Don't touch anything."
She left. The heavy door closed behind her.
Immediately, it felt as if the room became a bit looser, as if the absence of an adult had somewhat eased the weight.
Albus slowly walked over to the clock wall. He stared again at the hands. Ron and Hermione, Harry and Ginny, Rose and Scorpius—all of them shone bright white, like starlight breaking through mist.
But Hermione's own hand...
"Do you see that too?" Albus asked softly.
Scorpius stepped beside him. "What do you mean?"
"Hermione's hand," said Albus, pointing his finger at the soft, silver glow. "It's not shining... brightly. Not like the others."
Scorpius squinted. "It was shining just now... wasn't it?"
"Maybe it just seemed that way because Ron's hand is shining so brightly," Albus mumbled.
They stood silently for a while, inspecting the clock wall as if trying to decipher a secret code.
And then—as if the thought imposed itself—Albus's hand slid forward.
"Albus... no..." Scorpius whispered. But without conviction.
"I just want to... see," said Albus.
And with a gentle movement, he turned Hermione's hand.
From Ron Weasley to... Viktor Krum.
And the room exploded.
Not literally, but it felt as if the air itself exhaled. Hermione's and Viktor's hands lit up simultaneously—bright and white as starlight. Brighter and stronger than anything in the room.
The lifelines began to move again. But now not with thundering silences and disappearing paths—this time, new lines appeared. The whole room seemed to glow in the light.
Albus grabbed the edge of the platform. He felt the magic tingling through his fingers.
"What... what's happening?" Scorpius shouted.
Dozens, no—hundreds of new lines appeared. They flowed like beams of light between the stars. And some of those lights Albus recognized immediately.
Fred Weasley.
Remus Lupin.
Nymphadora Tonks.
Dobby.
They were alive. In this version of time.
While Voldemort's line ended 3 months earlier.
Albus felt an icy wave pull through his chest. "We... went to the wrong moment."
Scorpius's voice sounded choked. "We thought it started with Cedric. But maybe..."
"Maybe it all started with... her," Albus whispered.
They looked at the hands, still shining unnaturally bright. It felt inappropriate to touch them.
"Scorp..." said Albus. His voice trembled. "If we really wanted to save lives..."
"...we should have adjusted her love life?" Scorpius finished, with a mix of disbelief and doubt.
Albus walked through the lines.
Every line felt real. Alive. Sometimes an image flashed by in the nothingness—a boy with blue hair on the shoulders of a man with scars; two red-haired boys setting off fireworks above a shop, laughing hysterically; an elf with wide eyes holding up a sock like a trophy.
"Scorpius," he said hoarsely. "Look here."
Scorpius stood next to him. His eyes were wide. "Is that...?"
"Teddy Lupin," Albus nodded. "With his parents."
They both fell silent as the images drifted past them. As if the room—or perhaps time itself—was showing them what could have been.
"The Battle of Hogwarts..." Scorpius whispered. He walked to a floating orb in the middle, where multiple lines coiled around it. "It never happened in this timeline. While... while Voldemort was still defeated."
"So..." Albus's voice faltered.
Scorpius's face paled.
"So, they never had to fight the war," he whispered.
They looked together at the golden lines.
"What on earth did Krum do?" Albus asked.
"Something fundamental," Scorpius said slowly. "Something that made the whole world... turn a few degrees differently. Caused it to align, or something…"
Albus nodded. He didn't know either. But what he saw was clear. No martyrs. No names on a wall of the dead.
"And if we had chosen that path..."
But Scorpius suddenly looked at his own line, which made a little jump and continued to coil. Without Rose's line.
He swallowed suddenly. "I would lose her."
Albus looked aside. The glow on Scorpius's face was faint blue.
It hurt. Just as much for Albus.
"But Fred," he said, "and Lupin... and Tonks... Dobby..."
Scorpius's voice trembled. "And Teddy with his parents. His real parents."
A silence followed.
The kind of silence where you wondered if, even though you knew what seemed right, you would never know enough to truly choose.
"Maybe," Albus said slowly, "we tried to fix the wrong mistake."
Scorpius nodded, but his eyes were wet.
"Or maybe," he said, "it's just impossible to choose who gets to live... and who doesn't."
The room still shone.
And still, the hands of Viktor and Hermione burned, shining like fiery stars that had watched over each other for centuries without ever truly touching.
Albus stared at Hermione's clock hand, still pointing at Viktor Krum. Its white light was almost too bright to look at—it glowed like a falling star, pure and without hesitation.
"We kept looking at the wrong time," Scorpius whispered. His voice trembled a bit. "We wanted to save people. But we looked at Cedric. We should have..."
"Stop," Albus said softly. He felt his heart pounding in his throat. "We can't do this. Not again. We can't."
Scorpius nodded slowly, but his gaze was still fixed on the shimmering lifelines. "Rose..." he whispered, barely audible. "She wouldn't exist in that world."
Albus looked at Hermione's hand. His fingers trembled as he carefully turned it back, away from Viktor Krum, back to Ron Weasley. Immediately, the bright light diminished to a soft white glow. The room sighed again—literally—and the timelines restored themselves, as if the universe itself could breathe again.
The door creaked open.
"What are you doing there?" Hermione asked kindly, her eyebrows slightly raised. Behind her, the Minister appeared with a stack of parchments in his arms.
"Nothing, Minister," Albus said quickly, his voice just a bit too high. "We were just looking at... uh... the impact of... Cedric. What you showed us."
Hermione smiled. She seemed to notice nothing. "Good. Remember what you've seen. Time is not a toy. Not even for curious Slytherins."
Albus swallowed. Scorpius gave him a brief look—a glance full of shared understanding and secrecy.
"No, Minister," Albus said slowly. "We've learned enough. More than enough."
Hermione nodded and turned around. As the three of them walked away, the soft blue-white glow of her hand lingered in Albus's peripheral vision. Less bright than the others.
And Albus wondered if she knew that herself.
The stars turned gently on the ceiling of the hall; their light tempered to a silver-blue sparkle. Hermione stood motionless before the great wall of hands, her fingertips resting on the edge of the brass clocks. She felt the aftermath of magic like an electric charge under her skin.
Behind her, the soft shuffle of shoes sounded.
"So," said Ron, his voice awkward in the sacred silence of the space, "do you think they understand now?"
Hermione sighed. Not out of annoyance, but out of fatigue—a deep fatigue you only get when you're trying to protect someone from mistakes you almost made yourself.
"I hope so," she said. "They're not stupid. But curiosity combined with power is... explosive."
Ron nodded and let his gaze slide over the cosmic projection. The lifelines still glowed softly, as if they were resting after a storm.
"It's still bizarre, isn't it? That such a room even exists. As if the universe itself wants to think along."
Hermione removed her hand from the hands.
"Or judge."
Ron pointed with his chin at the hands.
"If those hands really show what would have happened if you had made different choices, have you ever thought about him?"
She didn't turn her head. There was something unearthly about how the stars moved above her head, like phantoms performing a dance without ever touching the ground.
"Viktor?" she asked, without surprise.
Ron cleared his throat, in that familiar awkward Ron way.
"I mean, purely out of... academic interest."
"I don't know what happens if I move that hand, Ron."
Her voice was soft, but there was an unyielding clarity in it. Now she did look at him.
"I stand here at least three times a year. And every time... I look at it. At my hand. And I think of him. And then I turn around, without touching anything."
There was a short silence in which even the magic seemed to hold its breath.
"Why?" Ron asked, and he said it without sarcasm. Only as a man who wanted to know.
Hermione smiled faintly. Not sadly. Not relieved. Just... real.
"Because I'd rather know what is, than what could have been. And because I'm not sure if I could face the outcome."
Ron nodded slowly.
"So, you've never tried?"
"No," she said. "Never."
He looked at her for a long time. And then, with a small shrug only Ron could manage:
"Good."
And in that moment, in the silence that followed, it seemed for a moment as if even the stars were silent. As if the universe, which always wanted to think along, was this time also satisfied with what is.
For those of you who got curious to how it is possible that the battle for Hogwarts never happened: the details of the timeline Albus and Scorpius have seen are in Alignment (same series as this work) https://archiveofourown.org/works/73628601/chapters/191957191