Straight after lessons, Richard went to the hospital wing to visit Hermione. There was still an hour until dinner.
Granger looked much better than she had the day before. She was delighted to see her friend.
"Good evening, Hermione. I've got some news for you."
"Hi, Richie." The girl smiled broadly. "If you mean my double, Headmaster Dumbledore has already been to see me and told me everything."
"And what do you think about it?"
Hermione shrugged and replied:
"I don't even know. Richie, is she really from a parallel world?"
"There's a very good chance she is. At first I thought she was a spy or an assassin sent after me, but it turned out to be much more serious than that."
"What's she like?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Strange," Richard said, trying to find the right word. "She looks like your identical twin, but I noticed the differences straight away. She's just a little... different. By the way, I brought you your homework, though as you know, I had Charms while you had Transfiguration."
"Richie, what did you think of Divination and Arithmancy?"
"Hermione, Arithmancy is beyond praise. There's a great deal to learn about mathematics from a wizarding perspective. Professor Trelawney also astonished me to the depths of my soul. Can you imagine, she predicted the appearance of your double during her lesson!"
"That can't be true!" Granger said in surprise.
"Hermione, I'm serious. Right at the beginning of the lesson, Professor Trelawney said the following: 'Soon, one of us who is not among us shall become two.' You were the only one who wasn't there. And sure enough, your double appeared soon afterwards."
"Richie, I'm amazed!" Granger said quietly. "From the Divination books I'd read, the subject seemed completely unscientific to me."
"I wouldn't say that. From the standpoint of physics, transmitting information from the future into the past is entirely possible, as is time travel itself, albeit with certain limitations. As with your double, a seer could theoretically receive information through microscopic wormholes from the future of a timelike parallel universe."
"So," Hermione said thoughtfully, "in essence, it wouldn't be a prediction of the future of our world, but one possible course of events in a parallel universe?"
"Precisely. From a scientific standpoint, predicting the future with one hundred per cent accuracy is impossible. In other words, a prophet predicts the most probable ways events might unfold, but doesn't make them inevitable. Another matter entirely is that people can shape fate themselves based on a prophecy they've heard."
"Hmm... Richie, you mean a situation where a prophet makes a prediction, someone believes it, and then decides to help make the prediction come true?"
"Exactly. Incidentally, using an information-based time machine, it should theoretically be possible to create a supercomputer that receives the result of its calculations instantaneously from the future of a timelike parallel universe. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know where to begin building a computer like that."
"I could look for information about time machines in the library."
"Hermione, I think there's an easier way. Scan the books you haven't got round to yet, concentrating mainly on literature about travel through time and to other worlds. Then leave the information processing to the AI."
"All right, Richie." Granger nodded in agreement. "As soon as I'm discharged from the hospital wing, I'll start looking into it."
Richie and Hermione heard the clicking of heels and broke off their conversation. A few moments later, the Granger from the parallel world timidly peered round the screen. She stared at her counterpart and began studying her with enormous curiosity. Hermione, sitting on the hospital bed, examined her double with no less interest.
"Er... hello," said Granger Number Two.
"Good evening." Hermione nodded without getting out of bed. "So that's what you're like..."
"We're going to be sharing a dormitory now," the displaced girl told her awkwardly.
"I know," the local Hermione said curtly. "What an idea—'a spell gone wrong'... Dumbledore seems to think I'm going to welcome you with open arms as though you were my sister."
The displaced girl pursed her lips in displeasure. She hadn't expected such a prickly reception from 'herself'. To her surprise, she detected a jealous note in the local Granger's voice.
"Are you jealous of me because of Mr Grosvenor?" she asked.
"Of course not!" the local Hermione protested rather too sharply.
The displaced girl realised with astonishment that her counterpart really was jealous.
"Hermione," she said, "I assure you, I have absolutely no designs on your friend. I saw Mr Grosvenor for the first time today. There was no boy like him at Hogwarts in my world."
"Oh, really?" the real Granger asked sceptically. "Who were you friends with, then?"
"Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley," Hermione Two replied.
"Pfft!" A contemptuous snort escaped the real Hermione. "Those foolish, reckless boys?! What could you possibly talk to them about? They're thick as two short planks and unbelievably lazy."
"As though your friends are any better!" Hermione's double exclaimed indignantly.
"Of course they are!" Granger got out of bed and proudly raised her chin. "For your information, Richie finished secondary school before he even came to Hogwarts. And last year he won the Nobel Prize. What can your Ron boast about besides being obsessed with Quidditch, or Harry besides dragging his friends into dangerous adventures?"
"Well..."
Hermione's double glanced sideways at the silent Grosvenor, who had wisely refrained from joining the girls' quarrel and was doing his best impression of a piece of furniture.
"Harry and Ron aren't that bad," she finally found something to say. "Yes, they nearly got me killed in first year when they locked me in a toilet with a troll. But they were the ones who saved me too."
The Hermione of this world stared at her double with enormous eyes, as though she were a complete idiot.
"Were you dropped on your head as a child?" she asked her 'clone'. "Harry and Ron locked you in a toilet with a troll? And you're still friends with them after that?! You're completely mental! Thank God my Richie isn't like that."
The displaced girl puffed up indignantly.
"Hermione, didn't it happen that way for you?" she asked.
"No, thank God!" the local Granger said, shaking her head.
"What about the basilisk?" Granger Two leant forwards. "Did the basilisk petrify you?"
"Like hell it did!" the 'original' Hermione recoiled. "What bloody basilisk?!"
"Well... It's a snake. A magical one, about the size of a lorry. Its gaze can petrify people, and its venom is unbelievably toxic..."
Richard and his friend exchanged glances. Each saw the other's profound astonishment.
"A basilisk?" Hermione One asked her friend.
"Sounds like a basilisk," Grosvenor said with a nod.
"But how..."
Richard tapped the arm of his glasses with his forefinger.
"Like this!" he said. "Protection against mental magic."
(End of Chapter)
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