"Right, do you want to like... change yourself or something?" Teddy gestured to his face.

"What?" Edith sat on the edge of the sill.

"Like wouldn't it be pretty helpful if you morphed your face into someone else's face? Wouldn't that make it harder to find you?"

"Oh, yeah sure, let me see what I can do." She said abrasively. She was clearly not someone who liked being told what to do. Edith pushed herself off the ledge, disappearing from sight, and Teddy heard a thud on the ground outside.

"You okay?" Teddy asked, searching the garden below for any sight of her. She was standing up, brushing herself off. She flashed him a quick thumbs up. "I still have more questions! I'll be right down!"

Teddy quickly changed out of his work clothes. He thought perhaps he could slip out without being stopped by his grandmother, but that attempt appeared to be futile. Andromeda was plating her breakfast. "Did you decide you want something?"

"Oh. Hey, Nan." Teddy said uncomfortably, making a beeline to the door without making eye contact.

"Who were you talking to up there?" Andromeda asked curiously.

"Oh, no one." She wasn't going to buy it. "Just myself." He lied, going to put his shoes on.

Grandmother's intuition was too good. "You don't have someone hiding in your room, do you?"

"Why... why would I have someone hiding in my room?" Surely she didn't know anything about the Ministry. Surely she had no idea what was going on. Andromeda was never one to call the aurors when things went down south, but if she knew the magnitude of the situation, she would've lost her mind. Surely they wouldn't have made a public statement over the radio yet.

Andromeda looked him up and down. "I didn't see you come home last night. You didn't bring anyone home with you, did you? Don't have your girlfriend hiding under your bed?" Her voice made it seem like she was at least half-joking, but her voice seemed off.

"No? I don't know what you're even talking about." Teddy rolled his eyes to play it up. "I was looking for something."

"Are you feeling alright? You've been acting strange since you came home today." She accused. "Is something wrong?"

"I dunno, I guess I'm just tired."

His grandmother seemed to have dropped it, but not willingly. She pursed her lips and swallowed her frustration. Usually communication between the two was not so difficult. "Are you going out somewhere?"

Teddy shrugged. "Yeah."

"Where?"

"I dunno."

"Alright, just..." There was an odd look in her eye. Teddy knew she worried about him a lot, and now, he wasn't sure whether or not that was relevant to his current circumstances. He felt awful avoiding her. They talked about everything together and had done so for as long as he could remember. This was the biggest secret he had ever kept in his life and he couldn't even talk to her. "Watch yourself, okay? Please?"

"Yeah. Always." He tried really hard to smile to comfort her. "I love you." She didn't say anything and just smiled in a sad sort of way. He stumbled over his own feet making his way to her, wrapping his arms around her short waist and hugging her tightly. Andromeda froze, suddenly seemingly lost in her thoughts. Her hands lightly grasped onto his shoulders, gently patting him on the arm to signal she was content with the hug.

"I love you too, Ted." She cleared her throat.

"Is something wrong?" Teddy asked nervously.

"No, it's just... you're getting so grown up." Andromeda said solemnly. "Your mother had already becoming an auror and moved out when she was your age, and it feels like everything has happened to fast. You're going to be gone one day too, living off on your own and it's just going to be me. It's... difficult to think about sometimes."

"I'm not going anywhere, Nan." He reassured. "I'm just going to go run some errands, walk around. I'll find something to do. Maybe go see a movie or something, I dunno."

"Do you need money? You can grab some from my purse-"

"I'm okay. Really. You don't have to worry about me."

But Andromeda couldn't help it.

Edith was standing at the corner watching traffic when Teddy caught up to her. "You have a lot of trust in me, you know that." Edith pointed out. She appeared to be staring off into space, not really paying attention to him at all. "I'm a wanted criminal, you know."

Teddy lifted her arm up, flapping her hand around, "Ah, ooh, look how scary."

"I could hex you, you know." She threatened.

"Yeah, you could use an unforgivable on me. You don't really seem to need anything from me, so why not just get me out of the way? You could've killed me the second I gave you your wand. You didn't. You could've left me here." Teddy didn't admit that he was no completely sure she wouldn't do the latter.

Edith yanked her arm away. "But still. You gave me clothes, you're spending the day with me, you don't seem like you're going to drag me into the Ministry any time soon. You didn't attack me either. Why?"

"It seemed like the right thing to do." He shrugged. "You didn't kill anyone, did you?"

"As far as I know." Edith contemplated something. "I bit a guy. He tried to pick me up. He put me down pretty quickly. I think a few of us took some hits from each other, but it's not like I used a killing curse on anyone. I didn't stabanyone."

"Right, so you're not so bad. Just... right place, wrong time. Literally." Teddy sympathized. It was definitely not a good situation for any of them, the Ministry employees or for Edith. What she was doing was illegal, but her heart wasn't in a bad place. Her heart was filled with grief. Did that make everything she had done justifiable? To give up everything she owned, everyone she knew, everything about the world she knew, was selfish. But didn't she deserve better? If she was able to try, didn't she have the right to try as peacefully as possible? She was just one girl. It wasn't like there were armies of people jumping through realities. The two were stuck in a solemn silence. "Does time work the same here as it does everywhere else? Or is there an alternate reality where we're actually from the 1920's and you're some kind of cool time-gangster?"

"No, it's the same everywhere, I think. Time always goes straight forward the same way except for when it doesn't. Don't ask me about paradoxes, it makes my head hurt." Edith pointed her finger across the street. "Can we walk?"

"Sure, where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere." She sighed. "I don't know what to do. I can't go near diagon alley without polyjuice and I need to go there to get polyjuice. Or stuff to make polyjuice, but I don't have time to stew for twenty-one days."

Teddy wasn't completely sure why she needed polyjuice. Could she not just morph? Was there an issue with that? "I could help you."

"You're just going to get both of us in more trouble, just drop it." Edith spat.

"Do you want to talk about... what your reality was like?"

"What's there to say?" Edith chuckled. "It was pretty grim to be honest. Nan was only left alone because she's a pure blood and she got an exception because all of her family was gone or something, so it cancelled out the fact that she married a mudblood-"

"Woah, woah, woah." Teddy stopped her.

"What?"

"You can't just say that!"

"Say what?"

"The-The 'M' word." Teddy said perplexed.

"What... what was I supposed to use instead?"

"Muggleborn?"

"Oh." Edith seemed genuinely shocked and embarassed. "Yeah that's-that's pretty messed up. That's... that's kind of what we say in my reality, but that's... That's pretty messed up now that I think about it."

"Things probably got really messed up with the war in your place." Teddy tried to reassure. "Just... let's maybe not?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it um..." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. They never told me that stuff like that got changed after the war, it's sort of... that's what we're supposed to say... like... okay, if I had to bet, is May Second a holiday for you all?"

"Sort of, it's like a day of mourning thing."

"Yeah. It's a celebration where I'm from. And Halloween? We're not allowed to celebrate it at all." She explained. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, really." He shrugged. "Hey, um, speaking of... you know, where you're from-and you don't have to answer this but-do you remember what Mum and Dad were like?"

Edith didn't immediately respond. "Not... a lot. I was only six. But I remember... I remember my last birthday with them. I remember... I remember Mum used to have purple hair. And when I was I kid, I would play with their hair and it would change all these different colours. And Dad, Dad was sick a lot. I don't think they ever actually told me what was wrong with him, but Nan told me when I got older. They were nice. I mean, they loved me a lot."

"What... happened when you were six?" Teddy asked hesitantly. "Nevermind. Don't tell me, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you."

"It's hard to explain." She replied. "I think Mum let Nan know that something was wrong. I think that's where we were going, to her house. There were these people saying these awful things to me and they tried to pick me up, but Nan had appearated just in time. They almost stole me. Dunno what they were going to do to me. I try not think about it." Her voice was uncomfortable but her face was still neutral. She had thought about this too much over the last thirteen years. "They used crucio on Mum. I heard this... awful screaming and crying and then nothing. Dad was pretty quick. I don't even think he saw it hit him. I did though. I think they just wanted to make an ex-auror suffer."

"It makes sense why you would run away from that reality." He replied. "I dunno what happened to my parents. I don't think I want to know." He had a vague image in his mind of them dueling in the castle during a huge battle, but the more he tried to picture the details, the worse that sinking feeling in his stomach got. He tried to think of it like a pane of glass separating that memory. He was okay with them being dead, but them actually dying was enough to break him down.

"I wish I didn't. I still get flashbacks." Edith said facetiously. "Could you... I dunno, could you tell me more about your life? I can't even imagine what it would be like to not have an entire war raging on all of the time."

"Well... for one, I can actually go places, I guess..." Teddy tried to lighten the conversation.

"Ha! Very funny, smartass. I can go places, just not... you know, anywhere with wizards."

"I was just kidding."

"Sure, sure, what about your job at the Ministry? Or Hogwarts? Or... I mean, the sky's the limit here."

"I... I'm guessing you've never actually seen Hogwarts, have you?" She shook her head. "So it's like... it's a big castle, right? And when you walk in-okay, so in your first year, you get in these boats and you go across this big lake, and when you get out, you go up these stair and there's the Great Hall. And there's four really big tables, and each one is a different house. So there's: Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw-"

"Four houses? There used to be four?"

"How many were there in your reality?"

"I mean, the names were kind of familiar I suppose, but we only had one. Slytherin."

"Right... oh! So the ceiling is permanently bewitched to look like the night sky and there are these floating candles-"

"Wouldn't floating candles drip hot wax on you?"

"You stole a box that gives you access to every possible alternate reality and you think there isn't a charm to prevent candles from dripping wax." The boy teased.

"I guess that makes sense."

"And there are four dorms. So Ravenclaw and Gryffindor are in towers and Hufflepuff and Slytherin are in the dungeons."

"Both of those options sound terrifying."

"Not really. Well, I've never been in the Slytherin common room so I don't know. Anyways, they have all kinds of classes... Charms, Potions, Transfiguration, Divination... and there's quidditch games between the houses. Do you like quidditch?"

"It's not really my thing to be honest, but I'm sure that's a lot of fun."

"And at Christmas there's like, a dozen Christmas trees that they put up. And they make the ceiling look like it's snowing."

"That must be really nice." Edith said hopefully. "I can't even imagine what that could've been like. I've never been to any sort of big party or whatever..."

Teddy cleared his throat. "So... you're going to leave here soon."

"Yep." She said solemnly.

"Then... you're going to go back into the box and you'll tear down the door and then you'll... find a new reality to try out?"

"Yeah, that's kind of the idea."

"How long have you been planning all of this? How was any of this even possible?"

"A... long time now. Definitely over a year at least. What? Did you think I learned about the box this morning? I've spent over a year getting ready for all of this. Getting ingredients, brewing potions, I had to find a safe place to hide the box, and all of that is excluding all of the research I had to do on this thing. It's legendary, it's a myth, and I had to figure out how the fuck to steal it from the most secretive part of the government." Edith sighed. "So... I don't have legal documents-you know, like a birth certificate- 'm not really a person, but I'm also not a muggle, so I could dip below their security. Getting out here was a lot easier than getting in there. I had to lie to some people, though. I started by forging some paperwork, making up a fake name, then all I had to do was go one of the offices and say I was working in the Department of Mysteries and I lost my badge, so then they'd look me up and sure enough I wasn't lying, so now I've got a free excuse to stick my nose just about anywhere. 'Oh sir, please, I'm just lost, could you show me how to get back to the office?' From there, I just had to make myself look busy and I could follow whoever I wanted. Started memorizing schedules, picking up hairs off chairs..."

"That's... a lot of work. How does someone even come up with all of that? You... used up all of your polyjuice-hang on, if you're not allowed to go anywhere, where did you learn to make all of that? Where did you get the ingredients?"

"Why do you ask so many questions?"

"None of this should've been possible to begin with!" Teddy was starting to sound accusatory. "You have no formal training! You lived completely isolated from everything your whole life, there's an entire war going on, and yet you just managed to get lucky and push past all of that to travel to a different reality?"

"And yet I'm standing right in front of you! I don't know how I did it, but I did. I know I'm not smart. I'm lucky. Maybe I'm the only variation of us that thought to do this. Maybe I'm the only one who got through without dying. You know, like survivorship bias. If it wasn't me, it would've been another iteration of me. It could've been you that found all of this out. There's nothing special about me, and that's honestly what got me so far: luck and the ability to run faster than most of the aurors. It's... I knew what I was about to do was just me making a really big guess about what was going to happen. I had a lot of faith in it but that doesn't mean I had a lot of hope in it, and... I knew if I could pull it off, I'd be labeled a terrorist. So I just did whatever I wanted and whatever I could to make it work. Who cares if I shoplifted some stupid herbs if I was going to create a multi-dimensional security threat?"

"How many realities were you planning to go to? All of that planning, and surely you weren't expecting to land in the right reality on your first try?"

"All of that was just me trying to get the box in the first place because now, I have an infinite amount of boxes."

"But I don't understand. You'll have to break into the Ministry all over again, you'll end up... what if you get caught? You're... what if you go into another reality just like this one, you know, orange juice aside. Then you have to keep starting over and over again because everything is identical; you'll be increasing your chances of arrest or even death with each trip. What are you going to do?" The more he thought about it, the angrier Teddy was getting. Her flippant attitude about all of this was frustrating. He earnestly wanted to help her and the idea that he was walking around with an already dead girl was eating him from the inside.

"I... I dunno. If I end up in a bad reality, I'll just run away and tear down the door."

"And what if you can't?"

It wasn't that she had never considered it. It wasn't that her ego was so large that she couldn't fathom things going awry. She couldn't fail. She didn't dare fail. With every bad thing she did, she put more and more at risk, she felt herself getting closer and closer to the ending she wanted. It had to work. It had to."Then... I dunno."

The two walked silently for a long time. Teddy didn't want to push at her any more and Edith was belligerent about not talking. It was a bit after noon and Teddy picked up that her stomach was growling but she refused to say anything, crossing her arms across her abdomen. He had tried to get her to eat a few different times, worried either she was afraid of eating or was just too picky to like anything. He wasn't sure if the smell or color of the food in her reality was different and perhaps that's why she was so disgusted. At one point, Teddy realized she had slinked away from him. Edith had slowed down in front of a store.

Teddy curbed to her pace. She had stopped in front of an ice cream shop. The smell of warm waffle cones wafted into the outside. Her eyes had gotten big, staring into the window where there was a counter with a variety of different flavors of ice cream.

"Do you want to get something?" Teddy offered.

"Oh, no. No. I'm good. Let's just keep walking." Edith turned to him and nodded her her head back down the sidewalk. She looked embarrassed. "I... I've never had ice cream. Or if I have, it's been so long ago I don't remember. My nan said it's too expensive, we can't get stuff like this because money's really tight. That's like a big deal and I'm not going to ask you to get me something like that."

"Well, why don't you try it? You'll probably like it."

"It's fine, really. It's stupid-"

"No, let's stop."

"I don't have a lot of money, it's not worth it." Edith tried to keep walking away. "I need to buy potion ingredients-"

"Come on, why not?"

Her eyes were stuck back on the window. "I mean, it's just really not worth it, you know? It's no good for you anyways, it's too much, and it's all just empty calories-"

"I...don't think you've eaten anything today, and I think anything is better than nothing. What, are you going to run into the Ministry and pass out in their arms because you didn't eat anything?"

"I'm not a kid, and you're not my mum. You don't have to keep worrying about me."

"It's just ice cream."

"Teddy, no. I'm putting my foot down. This is too much."

"You should really eat something before you leave. Anything. Come on, you look like you're about to fall over."

"I don't want to owe you anything."

"You don't owe me anything, it's a present."

"But I didn't do anything."

"So what? Come on. It's really no big deal."

Edith's eyes seemed to water up as she looked up at him. "You don't have to do this." He opened up the door for her to go in. She continued to gawk at the counter.

"It's just ice cream, why are you crying?" Teddy asked quietly. "It's my gift. You're a guest here."

"Because that means I have to give you something in return or I'm going to feel really bad about it. I can give you your clothes back before you leave, but I'm really tight on coin, which is going to be really bad going forward." She said quietly in a very angry voice. "I'm not a guest, I broke into your house."

"You're literally me, I don't care." Teddy said. "If you're going to leave, I'm never going to get family like this ever again. Plus, it's not even that much. I'm trying to do fun sibling stuff before you vanish into the void and get yourself killed."

"Please stop." Edith sighed. "Stop it with the suicide thing, okay? I get it, I do, but it's weird."

"I'll stop if you let me help you." He mouthed back at her.

Her posture got rigid and she tucked her arms against her chest. Teddy was ready to admit defeat when she cleared her throat. "Could you maybe please order it for me? I have no idea what to get."

As it turned out, she seemed to greatly appreciate the gesture, though she refused to admit it. It even seemed like she was enjoying herself, finally getting to have a normal day out, pretending as if things weren't falling down around her. They sat together quietly while Edith ate. It gave Teddy enough time to try and process all of the things he had learned today, which kept bringing up more and more questions. Though unsettling at first, the idea of having a copy of your own body standing in front of you with a disconnected consciousness from your own and memories you never made, it was more like having a half-sister from a relationship you never heard of show up at your doorstep one day. And Edith seemed to enjoy the ice cream, at least.

"How-If you don't mind me asking, how did you even hear about this thing? Why not just use a time-turner?"

"Because it would be completely pointless to use a time turner." Edith pointed out. "It would do absolutely nothing, they'd still be dead. Come on, time-turners that actually change the past are long gone if they ever even existed, and more likely were just a myth to make people more hopeful about bad stuff or something. It was way easier to take the box, and even that was under so much security. And for the box, I heard about it through a book I was reading. Nan homeschooled me, so she would try to buy a lot of old used magic books. Apparently this thing is the best kept secret of the millennium, probably even older than that..." She started to trail off into her own thoughts before being interrupted.

"This is suicide. To keep running over and over, by yourself, you can't guarantee that you'll ever find a place to go." Teddy reiterated.

"I'm going to figure something out."

"What are you looking for? Be straight with me Edith, what is it?"

"I told you, I'm looking for my family."

"No, I mean specifically. A reality where they never died? Where an Edith Lupin just like you or me exists and you'll have to replace them?"

"I dunno, maybe one where they lost me instead of, you know, the other way around..."

"This isn't worth the risk. Just... why don't you stay here with us? You wanted family, I can be your family."

"Because then it would all be for nothing! All of this, gone! Thrown away! For no good reason."

"What if... what if you let me help you."

Edith stared at him furiously. "No. No. You're not going with me, you're not using me."

"I'm not using you, I want to help you. I want to get you somewhere safe and then when we're done, I'll come back. Alright?"

"No." She was pushing her chair away from the table.

Teddy grabbed her hand and pulled her back. "I don't want anything. Seriously."

Edith actually took a step towards him and spat on his shirt to make him let go before stomping off. "Everyone I have ever known has used me. What makes you think you're so special, huh? I'm holding your key out of here and that's the only reason you haven't turned me in yet. That's the only reason you're leading me on."

"You trusted me." Teddy said, standing up and following her. "Why are you acting like I'm barely tolerating you? I took you out because you said you never get to go out like this. I wanted you to have at least a decent day here! At least, you know, a decent day before it fucking kills you!"

She stopped and stared at him. "I'm not going into debt with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you never got what I had, but you aren't helping me."

"It's not even about them." Teddy said. "I don't want you to die because I let you do this. I don't want to lose the one time I got to have a sister. So yeah, I'm sorry if you think that I'm using you, but you're me. You're me, and I have to watch you die. I have to have blood on my hands because you decided you were too good to ask anyone for help."

"I'm not you, I'm hardly you. I'm a copy of your genetic code. And I'm not your sister, I'm not your friend, and I'm leaving without you, whether or not you like it." Edith said.

"If there's so much riding on this, then why? Why not let me help you?" Teddy pleaded. "This is so stupid, why are you doing this to yourself? You'd have a better chance if you'd let me just help you!" She stood, frozen, her body rigid not even able to make eye contact with him. "I'm not asking you to stay. I'm not asking to-to intrude on whatever life you're planning on making. But I think you would really have a good chance if you let me help you try."

Edith had to ponder this for a minute. She opened her mouth to stop him, then shut it. Her eyes were foggy and her brows were digging valleys in her face. Slowly, her face turned up to him. "If I let you in on this, I'm going to give you the chance to back out and then that's it. I'm leaving without you. And if this is a trap and you even try to tell anyone about what's going on, I'm leaving you and tearing down the door. And if you try to break down your door or you try to follow me when I tell you to leave, I will personally make sure that you get locked in a random dimension that you can't get out of, do you understand me?"

The more he listened to her the less and less he believed they ever had anything in common. "Deal."