Chapter 107: Dementor Horde, Time Magic, Free Will

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

"The dementors are here."

Quinn, Ivy, and Hermione watched a horde of more than a hundred Dementors descend upon the injured 'past' Quinn.

Ivy's eyes went back and forth between Quinn and the scene near the lakeside. She stood frozen, troubled by the scene; every second, her nervousness and impatience grew stronger.

She turned to Quinn and outright screamed. "What in the world are you waiting for?! Do something! You are going to die!" She knew that Quinn could cast a Patronus, as Hermione had told her about Quinn's Patronus demonstration in McGonagall's office.

"... It isn't time yet. He has to say it for me to move. I need his permission to act. Without it, I'm not going to act," declared Quinn, still staring at his past self with unblinking eyes.

"What? What?! WHAT?!" thundered Ivy as she incredulously gawked at Quinn. She couldn't understand what was going on in Quinn's mind.

It was then that the 'past' Quinn spoke some words that were audible to the group.

"Do it! Ask for it. And hurry! We don't have much time!"

Ivy, who was thundering at Quinn, went silent. "What did he say?" she asked.

"He said, 'Do it. Ask for it. And hurry. We don't much time.'" Hermione repeated the words said by 'past' Quinn and glanced at Quinn, who had finally raised his fake wand.

"Not the most accurate wording. I already asked and am already here. But I will let it slide since you're injured," chuckled Quinn, and immediately after, a silver glow of light burst out his fake wand.

Ivy and Hermione had seen Quinn's Patronus during the train ride to Hogwarts, and at that time, they were only able to identify it as a bird, but this time, they clearly saw the form of Quinn's Patronus.

"A Raven," muttered Hermione, watching the silver bird fly towards the 'past' Quinn.

Previously, they were stunned because of Quinn's lack of action. But now they were astonished as they gawked at the small-sized bird growing into an elephant-sized raptor, who chased away the horde of Dementors that numbered greater than a hundred.

'I'm still injured,' sighed Quinn internally as he looked at the elephant-sized Raven Patronus. 'If I wasn't injured, I could have ramped it up to the size of a giant.'

After the Raven Patronus chased away the Dementors, Quinn made it fly around his past self for protection.

"It's done. Now, we have to wait for him to get up and go to the office," sighed Quinn as he plopped back down on his stone.

The two girls turned their heads from the guardian Patronus to Quinn. Their eyes widened another fraction after they saw a paler than before Quinn.

Quinn took out the dull, dark red, muscle-protein nutrient potion vial from his pocket and gulped it down to replenish his body with another dose.

"Sit down; he will take some time to heal himself and go back to the castle," called out Quinn to the stunned girls.

"... What did you just drink?" questioned Ivy, eying Quinn's hand, which pocketed the empty vial.

Quinn briefly pulled up his left sleeve in response to show the girls a laceration, and inside the wound, they saw the muscle fibers constantly twitching.

The wound was covered quickly, after which Quinn explained. "I'm still not healed. What is happening to him happened to me a few hours ago. I couldn't heal the wounds of this level in the time I had."

'On that note, I need to prepare some dittany to make sure that these don't scar,' thought Quinn. Quinn was still relatively new to Healing magic, and even though he was miles better than the people who had studied with the time he had, Quinn still couldn't heal the wounds of this level without leaving scars.

Hermione walked back to her stone, and after sitting down, asked, "Can you please tell me what is going on? I need to understand what is happening."

Ivy had also sat down and was looking at Quinn with a look that asked the same question.

"Alright, let's start with a question from my side, and this is open to both of you. What is the greatest magic of all?" asked Quinn with a smile on his face.

"Friendship?"

"Love?"

Quinn put on an off-put face as if repelled by their answer. After seeing that expression, the two girls felt embarrassed.

"What the hell is wrong with you two?"

He looked at Hermione and spoke, "Friendship?! Friendships break all the damn time. You won't even talk to most of the people you know from Hogwarts after you graduate."

Then turning to Ivy, Quinn spoke in the same incredulous tone. "If a mother and son are iced in an alleyway by a psychotic murderer, it isn't because they didn't love each other enough! That is ridiculous."

"Love is love! Magic is magic! Even if you are talking about the strongest emotion that can stimulate magic, Ms. Potter, all emotions are the same. Love is just easier to access because of how we humans perceive emotions."

"Then what is the answer?!" asked Ivy, feeling embarrassed of Quinn's expression and tone.

"Chronomancy!" exclaimed Quinn. "The Greatest magic of all is chronomancy, the magic of time itself. If a person can manipulate time, then they are invincible beyond anything. Every change in the world is in reference to time. Life and death are just states that come with time. One moment, you are alive, but the next, you can be dead. But if you control the time, you can control life and death."

"Everything can be at your fingertips with time. If you look into the future, you'll know what is to come. Nothing would ever be able to phase you because you can already see it coming. Even if you can't solve something, you have the ability to rewind time until you are successful. If you can slow, reverse, fast-forward time, then there is nothing you can't accomplish."

Quinn raised his right hand wide while keeping his left hand down to reduce movement. "And right now, we are manipulating time to our advantage." He looked at Hermione and continued, "Something Ms. Granger has been doing for the entire year."

"But with such great power comes danger equal to the advantages. Time is dangerous, complex, chaotic, and not something to be messed with without proper understanding and knowledge. You must know what you are trying to accomplish and how you want to accomplish that," said Quinn with an earnest tone, enunciating his every word so that they would be clear and intelligible.

"So you understand time? You know what you are doing?" questioned Ivy.

Quinn slightly chuckled at the questions. "Oh, no. Not at all. I don't understand time. It's too complex for me to even get into the basics. But I know what I'm doing. I know enough to pull off what I'm trying to do... or maybe not? Yeah, I'm sure I don't know enough."

Hermione and Ivy looked at each other with skepticism. Quinn's words didn't actually inspire confidence in him.

Quinn continued to explain, ignoring their expression. "I can't manipulate time with magic; the Time-Turner takes care of that. I just needed to make sure that I keep my presence as little as possible to reduce my influence on the timeline. This is why I insisted we must be hidden to the limit. No interaction with anyone after making the jump back in time makes sure that we have a minimum effect."

"Now, do any of you know of the 'closed-loop theory' or 'causal loop theory' of time?" asked Quinn.

The two girls shook their heads. They didn't know the answer.

"A causal loop is a temporal proposition in which, by means of time travel, a sequence of events is among the causes of another event, which is, in turn, among the causes of the first-mentioned event. In simpler... no, just in other words, when a future event is the cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event."

Seeing that the girls were still confused, Quinn rolled out the current situation as an example.

"Let's take this current situation as a reference and an example. I got injured, and while I healed myself, a horde of Dementors swarmed around me to prey upon my soul. In that moment of desperation, I called upon a future version of myself to help me out from this situation by protecting me with a Patronus," explained Quinn and then pointed to Hermione. "All of this was only possible because I had the knowledge and means to procure a Time-Tuner from Ms. Granger. Without her Time-turner, it wouldn't have been possible."

"Moving on, a future version of mine came back in time and helped me out, allowing me to live past this unfortunate situation -."

Quinn was cut off, and Hermione raised a doubt. "So you are saying that time works in this closed-loop theory?" It made sense because what she had been doing was like this, but from what Quinn said, time was supposed to be complex and not something as simple as this.

"Oh, no. Of course not. I wish it was something so simple. Professor McGonagall must have told you about the catastrophic events that unleash with Time-Turners," said Quinn and then gave some examples. "Killing their past or future selves by mistake or altering one's life path in such a drastic fashion that it can result in temporal anomalies such as un-births. And these scenarios are anything but closed-loops."

"Did you know? Once, the Unspeakables down in the ministry, sent back one of their people five hundred years into the past. She stayed there for five days, and when the Unspeakables finally pulled her back, she died because it turned out that if you sent some back and forth in time, they age the time they travel back. The Unspeakable aged rapidly and died because of old age. And a lot more consequences that really caused more problems."

Quinn scoffed before he pointed out the restrictions placed upon the Time-turners. "The five-hour restrictions might be due to safety reasons, but believe me when I say this, we can do substantial damage to the timeline in mere five hours."

Ivy and Hermione didn't know Quinn well enough. But after what they had seen today, both were sure that he wasn't jesting.

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"Coming back to the point. What I did was create an artificial closed-loop. I created circumstances that would keep the series of events as close to the actual events. By doing this, I would reach the same place where my future self did when saving me."

This time Ivy had a question, and from the tone, the subject irked her. "Doesn't this mean that there is no free will? Once the cycle starts, you will have to follow the course that was set for you."

Quinn ever so faintly smiled and turned his gaze towards his past self. "You may be correct, Ms. Potter. This type of time travel doesn't allow free will. Once started, every Quinn West will have to follow the path of events that was set for them." He turned back to Ivy and asked. "But I did have free will in this case. The events that you saw are exactly the same as I encountered. Look back to the events and think about when my free will came into play."

Both the girls went into retrospection about the recent events. It took a couple of minutes before Ivy came up with an answer.

"When you refused to move until you heard the words from your past self. Is that the free will you are talking about?" opined Ivy, though not sure if her answer was correct or not.

"Ding dong ding~," nodded Quinn and sang as the answer was correct. "I know myself better than anyone else. So I know that in this situation, every Quinn West would use this method because all of them would think this is the best choice. But even though they know that: it is their choice, their free will to start the loop despite knowing that they would have to continue onto a path that won't give them any more free will."

"... But what if your past didn't make the same choice? What would happen then?" asked Hermione.

Quinn shook his head as he answered. "I don't know. Maybe we would have disappeared, our existence erased forever; maybe we would have stayed here and we would have two sets of Quinn West, Hermione Granger, and Ivy Potter. Most probably, the Unspeakables in the ministry would detect the disturbance in time and then hunt us down to somehow fix things up."

Quinn was sure that if the past 'himself' that was healing himself right now didn't go back in time, around the same time he traveled here, then the Unspeakables would notice some form of agitation in time.

"... And you still did this?" asked Ivy in disbelief at Quinn's decision to go through this.

"Yes, I did. I told you, didn't I, Ms. Potter? You need to know what and how you are doing things, and if you know those things, the results will turn out how you want them to be. Every step I took was to ensure that things went smoothly," declared Quinn with confidence and certainty about his preparation. "And the fact that it worked for my future self, who helped me out, shows that it is possible for me."

"But your past self still hasn't gone back to the past? What if he decides not to go back? What if Ivy and I refuse to go back with you?" questioned Hermione, as from what Quinn said, all three of them need to go back in time.

"Oh, he will go back, Ms. Granger. He knows the fact that I am here and that the Time-Turner only allows one-way travel. My past self owes me for saving him; he will repay me by exiting this time, so I can take his place," laughed Quinn merrily and looked the two girls straight in the eye. "You thought that I only placed others in my debt? Oh, no, even me, Quinn West, owes myself a debt. He will now go to another time and get another Quinn West under his debt, who will pay the debt, and the cycle will continue."

Quinn straightened up and softly smiled with superiority flashing in his eyes. "This might sound corny but, One Mountain Cannot Contain Two Tigers. There can't exist two Quinn West at the same time. There can only be one and, in this timeline, it will be me."

As much as Quinn loved himself, he wasn't on board with another one of him existing alongside him.

"Ms. Granger, tell me, why do you think I brought you both here?" quizzed Quinn.

"... I know you are expecting to give you a different answer than us trying to stop you from doing things we are uncomfortable with," presumed Hermione.

"Smart girl. Yes, I brought you two here for a reason beneficial to me. Give it a thought," smiled Quinn, curious if they would be able to figure it out.

While Hermione and Ivy thought of the answer, Quinn thought something inside his mind. 'Why am I giving them all these questions? I should just tell them the answers. Whatever, this is going well.' Quinn knew he let people ask questions to control the flow of information. But today, he was asking them questions and guiding them to the answers.

"I knew that there was a personal angle," commented Ivy, as her eyes narrowed a fraction. "But I can't figure it out. What is it?"

Quinn smiled before looking at Hermione to see if she had an answer, but the holder of Time-Turner too didn't have an answer.

Quinn thought back to the time he was thinking about stealing the Time-Turner. Even though he thought of doing that, Quinn knew that Hermione would be coming with him. Ivy coming with them was decided the moment she decided to step into the office. He wasn't going to let them stay with the knowledge of what he was doing.

"Alright then, I will tell you. The reason I proposed the idea of you two coming along with me was that I wanted to turn you two into accomplices," revealed Quinn. He wanted them to know what position they were currently in.

"I was determined to get the Time-Turner from you, Ms. Granger. And when you decided to allow the use of a ministry-restricted artifact, given to you for education purposes, for something not even closely related to education made you an accessory to a crime. But when you made the decision to accompany me, your status jumped to an accomplice."

Hermione's eyes widened because she knew that allowing Quinn to use the Time-Turner could get in her trouble. Hearing that her original reasoning of making sure Quinn didn't do damage had turned against her.

Quinn turned to Ivy and told the redhead about her contribution. "Ms. Potter, if you, on a side note, didn't accompany me, you would be, at first, what we can call an 'abettor'; someone who allowed the crime to happen, although didn't help in the crime. Now though, you turned into an accomplice by accompanying me back in time."

While Hermione's jump was from an accessory to an accomplice, Ivy's jump was wider, as she turned from an abettor to an accomplice.

The reason Quinn allowed them to come with him so readily was that he wanted to implicate them with him. So, if a time came where the two girls were feeling loose-lipped, they would remember that the secret they were about to slip could get them in trouble.

"I'm sorry if this hurts, but I had to do it. I can't allow this to get out. This is something very private to me," apologized Quinn.

Hermione's Time-Turner was the resource that had allowed him to maintain anonymity. If it wasn't an option, Quinn could potentially have to reveal the existence of the third vault.

"You were a great help, so I do feel sorry for chaining you down like this. But just as I promised at the office, this doesn't affect anyone other than me. Ms. Potter made sure that no one saw us inside the castle, and our location made sure that no one saw this event."

"... We can forget about this, and it won't matter," muttered Ivy, staring at Quinn, who nodded.

"Yes, I'm not planning to tell this to anyone, and if you don't, it will remain a secret between us three."

The three fell into silence, with none of them wanting to speak. The two girls contemplated the events that had transpired while Quinn observed them.

After some time, Quinn noticed that his past self got up. He silently cast a minor mental illusion on the two girls, so they wouldn't see him getting up from the ground and clothe himself with conjured clothes without a wand.

When his past self was done, Quinn lifted the mental illusion and alerted the girls. "He's done."

Ivy and Hermione turned their heads to see the clothed 'past' Quinn limping towards the castle.

"What's next?" asked Hermione.

"We wait for Luna to enter the office. When she leaves the office, we go to the office," responded Quinn, looking at Ivy as she possessed the Marauder's map. "I want to be in the castle the less the better before our past selves leave. Minimum footprint, minimal interference."

- (Scene Break) -

Quinn, Ivy, and Hermione reached the A.I.D. office while making sure they weren't seen.

"Are they gone?" asked Hermione to Ivy, who had the Marauder's map open in front of her.

Ivy nodded to affirm that their past selves were no longer in the workshop, which prompted Quinn to limp towards the red workshop and open it to check inside, to confirm that the workshop was empty.

"They are gone," smiled Quinn, turning to the girls. "Congratulations! The mission is complete and successful."

He limped to the barstool behind his table. Quinn looked towards the girls and spoke. "If you hurry, you can still get to the feast with enough time to get a quick bite."

Hermione nodded with a sigh. She was definitely feeling both tired and hungry.

"Thank you once again. Both of you helped me out a lot, and I'm grateful for that," smiled Quinn.

Hermione looked at Ivy and was about to gesture to her best friend that they should leave, but then saw that expression on her face, and for some reason, it reminded her of the time when she asked Quinn about the information on the Basilisk after they had been blackmailed by Quinn.

'Oh, no, what is she about to do,' thought Hermione with worry, and then Ivy spoke.

"Were you the one who saved us inside the Chamber of Secrets?"

Quinn West - MC - "Yeah, even me owes me a debt."

Ivy Potter - Abettor to Accomplice - Next time on HP: AMJ! What answer will she get?

Hermione Granger - Accessory to Accomplice - Thinks today was more stressful than the night before an examination.

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