One moment they were there, in the pub, and the next the world changed and she was falling, except that not really. The whole world dissolved and twisted and then came into being again, a room spinning into existence around her, or maybe she was the one spinning, and it was all she could do not to fall flat on her face. Malfoy held her in place, arms protectively around her. And then he let go and she resisted the urge to cling to him, because that would be nonsensical and cowardly and undignified.
"Stay here," he said. "I will be right back. I need to get him."
"Get who? Wait."
But he was no longer there. He had been there not a second ago. She had been looking straight at him. And then he was gone. Poof. Magic. Except magic wasn't real, and people didn't just disappear like that, and knifes couldn't possibly be anything but knifes, certainly not small, furry creatures, and she had been in the pub just a minute ago, and where was she even? And if she didn't at least try to get her breathing under control she was going to give herself a panic attack, and maybe that was okay, because if ever there had been an occasion where a panic attack was warranted, this was it, this was very much it, except that wouldn't help anything, and in her experience panic attacks tended to just make everything worse, and she really couldn't deal with worse right now.
Hermione dug her nails into her palms, trying to focus. It was fine. She was fine. She could deal with this. Whatever this was. Maybe she had fallen asleep and this was just a really vivid dream. About Draco Malfoy, because her brain hated her. Or maybe her brain had given up on the whole connection to reality thing and had decided to amuse itself with a really impressive bout of psychosis. In which case, fuck you, brain.
Or maybe there really was a magical version of Draco Malfoy going around kidnapping people and bringing them to… To where?
She looked around properly for the first time, taking in the room around her. It was a loft — open and spacious, with a low ceiling and just one window. There was a bed against a wall, and numerous dusty boxes scattered about. It was the the sort of place one might take people to after kidnapping them.
Spotting the door, Hermione made towards it, but a noise made her stop dead in her tracks. She turned towards its source, only to find a baby staring at her from a crib set against the opposing wall. He — She? Hermione wasn't sure — babbled something at her and grabbed at the bars of the crib, using them for support as he got up on unsteady legs. He kept on babbling, a steady string of excited, chirpy noises. Letting go of the bars, he made grabby hands in Hermione's direction, managing to remain upright for a grand total of four seconds before falling back on his butt. A bewildered silence preceded the small whine that turned into a crying fit that seemed to fill the entire room, but even then Hermione was too stunned to do anything but stare.
And then, because it was that sort of a night, the boxes and furniture around the room started to vibrate and suddenly lifted off the ground, just hovering there like something out of Poltergeist. This was why they had told her not to mix alcohol with her meds.
"Okay," she said out loud. "It's okay." It was very much not. "Things are flying. Just… Things are flying." Moving towards the crib, Hermione picked up the crying child, who might or might not be a figment of her imagination, but in the off chance it was not, she was picking him up, because that's what you did with crying babies. You picked them up. Even if the world was going haywire around you. Specially if the world was going haywire around you. "It's okay, baby," she said, rocking him back and forth. "It's fine. Gravity is overrated, anyway."
Little by little the crying subsided and the child sighed happily against her chest, chubby hands buried in her hair. The reality of him, warm and soft and heavy in her arms, was reassuring. The boxes remained stubbornly airborne, which was slightly worrisome, but as they seemed to be doing nothing but hover, she decided to simply ignore them. Denial was a valid coping mechanism. Right?
Just as her heartbeat was returning to normal, a crashing sound heralded the arrival of Draco Malfoy, in the company of Draco Malfoy, something she wasn't even going to question, because if she did, she'd scream, and she couldn't scream because a) the baby had just settled down, and b) she was not about to lose it in front of Draco Malfoy. Either Draco Malfoy.
"Sorry," said the Malfoy in the funny robes, letting go of his doppelganger, who fell back on top of one of the flying boxes, sending it crashing to the ground. "That took longer than intended." He walked up to her, making to pick up the child, but she instinctively took a step back, turning slightly so as to keep the baby shielded from him.
The man paused, a look of surprise on his face that quickly turned into a fond smile as he settled for stroking the head of the giggling child.
"Have you been causing mischief, you little monkey?" he asked, ignoring the muttered expletives coming from across the room. To Hermione he added, "He's too little to be able to control his magic yet." And then, as if it were the most natural thing to do, he took an overly-adorned stick from his pocket and waved it at the room like some sort of demented maestro, causing everything to float down that didn't belong up.
"Granger," said the other Malfoy, his words slightly slurred. "If this is your idea of payback, I'm calling it convoluted, and overblown, and my hat off to you." He pretended to tip an imaginary hat and almost lost his balance, to the undiscerning hilarity of the baby and the more discerning censure of his double.
"You're a bloody disgrace," Houdini Malfoy accused, waving his magic stick in the other man's general direction. A chair flew across the room, sweeping up drunk Malfoy, who slumped back on it with a surprised cry. "Drink this," he continued, grabbing a corked vial from a nearby table and handing it to the him.
"What is it?" Malfoy asked without pausing to think that taking mysterious drinks from strangers wearing his face was a dumb thing to do.
"It will make you sober."
Drunk Malfoy frowned at the vial, holding it at eye level. "Why would I want to be smaller?"
Malfoy Copperfield smacked him on the back of the head. "Sober, genius. Not smaller."
"Easy there, Alice," the other man said, uncorking the drink. "This is not the billionaire you're looking for."
Hermione wasn't even sure what the hell that was supposed to mean, and doubted either Malfoy did either. She watched with some curiosity as he drank something Tolkien might have called a potion, expecting something outlandish to ensue and feeling more than a little disappointed when nothing particularly remarkable did. Malfoy scrunched up his nose at the taste and for a moment nothing happened. And then his expression cleared, and he looked up at his double with a look that went from scared to furious in two seconds flat.
"Who the fuck are you?" He jumped to his feet, the chair falling back with a thud behind him. The baby started fussing in Hermione's arms, unimpressed by loud noises and yelling men, drawing Malfoy's attention. "What the fuck is that and what the fuck am I doing here?" He took a step towards Hermione, but the other Malfoy put a hand on his chest, causing him to stop short.
"Better," he said with a smirk. "Now we talk."
"Mate, you better remove that hand or I'm gonna remove it for you."
The smirk deepened. "No, you won't." He drew an arch with what the Brothers Grimm might have called a wand and the room changed around them. The boxes faded from view and the walls shot up and morphed, faded wallpaper turned into wooden shelves slightly bowed under the weight of heavy tomes. Long tables sprung up around them like mushrooms, and heavy chandeliers dropped from the ceiling.
The baby giggled and clapped with chubby hands as the room changed again, tables and shelves vanishing from view and the walls closing in around them and shooting away as the room turned into a corridor that went on and on until they couldn't see where it ended or where it began. It kept changing, faster and faster. It became a closet, a bedroom, a church. A ballroom with mirrored walls, a classroom with neat rows of desks, a garden where the night breeze sent a shiver down Hermione's spine. It was briefly a kitchen, small and warm and cosy, right before it turned into a dungeon, dark and sinister and full of shadows.
It kept turning and morphing and changing, and it was the most wondrous thing Hermione had ever seen. And maybe it wasn't real, maybe it was her brain's way of telling her it was taking a sabbatical — by putting her in a magical room with two Malfoys and a baby — but if that was the case, maybe that was okay, because whatever it was, it was absolutely stunning.
"Still think you can take a swing at me?" The room had finally settled into an imposing drawing room, with stone floors, and a massive fireplace, and paintings that were alive on the walls — moving and frowning, and muttering to themselves and to each other.
Malfoy — her Malfoy, the one as reassuringly shocked as she was — took a step back and stared at the room around him, his face deadly pale and his eyes impossibly big.
"This is…" His voice trailed off.
"Malfoy Manor." The other Malfoy moved towards the fireplace, flames flaring where before there was only cold stone. "Not quite how it is here, perhaps. But this is what it looks like in my world. Looked like. This is how I remember it."
"It can't be." He took a step towards the portrait of a blond young man that shared a family resemblance with the other portraits in the room and with the two Malfoys on the floor below, before turning back towards his double. "Who are you?" And the question no longer sounded like an accusation.
"I'm you." Just like that. As if it were self-evident. As if it made any sort of sense. "I'm mostly you."
"That's impossible."
"Not impossible. Just… difficult."
"Is this—" Hermione cleared her throat, willing her voice to stop shaking. "Is this real?"
Malfoy shrugged. "In a manner of speaking. The appearance of the room is an illusion. But the magic is real enough."
"There's no such thing as magic." She was like ninety per cent sure of it. Maybe eighty five, if she took the last hour into account.
"What do you want?" definitely-not-magical Malfoy asked, drawing his doppelganger's attention back to him.
"A favour."
And then he explained, though Hermione wasn't sure that something that involved the words "dark wizards" and "wizarding war" constituted much of an explanation. If Merlin Malfoy was to be believed, he came from a version of reality that was just like theirs in every respect, except that witches and wizards were real and lived in a secret, parallel society, unbeknown to all the non-magical people. So far, so improbable.
War had broken out when Wizard Hitler had tried to take over Britain, which had lead Gandalf Malfoy to join what she could only assume was some Middle Earth version of the Rebel Alliance. At some point while this was going on, Malfoy and a magical but clearly not nearly as discerning version of herself had managed to find enough leisure time to get her pregnant, and this is where she was calling bullshit.
"Well, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." And she hated that she could feel her face heating up. "I can buy the wizards and the universe hopping, but there's no way—" She stopped short, unsure how to finish that sentence.
Raistlin Malfoy chuckled and regular Malfoy snorted. "You should be so lucky, Granger."
She bit her tongue before she could ask wizard Malfoy if in his world he also made it a point to keep half the paparazzi and all the gossip magazines in the country in business by being the worst cliche of a rich playboy that had ever plagued a small university town. The baby tugged at her hair, and she shifted his weight to her other arm. He didn't look like her. Not really. His hair was dark, like hers, but the eyes were all Malfoy's.
"Where am— Where is she?" Where was that other Hermione that had a child and fought in a war and could see something worthwhile in Draco Malfoy?
Malfoy's smile fell and he looked away. "I don't know." He picked up one of the pictures on the mantelpiece, a finger tracing the people in it. "There was a skirmish in Gringotts — that's a bank. We were trying to get to the vaults. There was a magical item that we needed. Getting into Gringotts is never easy, but we had a solid plan. It had everything to work, except that they were waiting for us. They waited until we were inside and—" He cleared his throat, tearing his gaze away from the picture and looking Hermione in the eye. "It was chaos. There were curses flying, ricocheting off walls, people screaming, getting hit. We couldn't Disapparate because of the wards and we couldn't leave the way we had come in because of the Death Eaters. There were so many of them." He was still holding the picture, his shaking fingers white where they grasped the frame. "I lost track of her. One moment she was there and then I couldn't see her anymore.
"When the wards fell everyone started Disapparating, trying to get away, and I kept trying to find her, but I couldn't. I couldn't find her, and I swear to Merlin, Hermione, I would never have left you there. I would have let them take me before I did." There was something dark and haunted in his eyes, and Hermione could feel tears welling up in hers. "Pansy grabbed my arm and Disapparated us both. We were the last ones who made it out." He took a deep breath, putting the picture back on the mantelpiece. "She's not dead." There was a stubbornness to his tone, as if daring anyone to disagree with him. "They'd be rubbing our noses in it if she were. She's the most famous Muggle-born in the country; Potter's best friend. They'd be singing it from the rooftops. And if they captured her, they won't kill her. Not— Not straight away. She's too valuable a hostage and an even more valuable source of information. If they have her, they'll keep her. And I'm going to find her." His gaze fell on the baby dozing off in Hermione's arms. "But I need Scorpius to be safe. I need— I can't lose anyone else."
"So let me get this straight," waste-of-a-good-inheritance Malfoy piped in. "You went through all the trouble of travelling to a different — I don't even know, universe? — because you needed a babysitter?"
An infinite number of Malfoys in an infinite number of realities, and she had been saddled with the one who was a git.
"I travelled all the way here," the other man said, stalking towards his double, "because I need my son to be safe, and the safest he'll be is with his parents."
Malfoy did not flinch and did not back down. "We are not his parents."
"No. But you're close enough."
"Why us?" Hermione asked. If there was an infinite number of Hermiones in an infinite number of universes, there had to be other choices. Better choices. A Hermione who was smarter, more capable. Better. She wouldn't be anyone's first choice to look after a child. She wouldn't be her first choice to look after a child.
"There is no magic here. What happened in my world can never happen in this one. He'll be safe here."
He stared at her as if waiting for an answer, and she nodded because what else was she going to do? Maybe she wasn't the ideal choice, maybe she was the worst possible choice, but he had tagged her and she was it. The baby sleeping in her arms was warm and soft and real, and Hermione, who had never lacked imagination, had enough of it now to imagine herself in the shoes of that other Hermione, who given the chance would also have turned the universe upside down to make sure her child was safe and cared for and loved.
Wizard Malfoy turned his gaze on his twin, who immediately shook his head. "Absolutely not. She," he said, pointing at Hermione, "can do whatever the bloody hell she wants, but I'll have no part in it. This is not my problem and you will not make it my problem. I—"
The other man closed the space between them, one hand curled around his wand, the other grasping the front of his double's shirt. There was electricity in the air, and regular Malfoy's eyes widened as he stared in horror at the wizard. He tried to pull away, but the other Malfoy kept him where he was with ease. When he finally managed to push off, his face was ashen.
"Stay the fuck out of my head," he said, out of breath. "Don't ever do that again."
His carbon copy merely smirked, straightening his robes. "You'll do it?"
"Yes, I'll fucking do it. Damn you to hell."
"You might just get your wish." The drawing room dissolved around them, leaving only the loft they had arrived at. Malfoy crossed to a corner by the bed and picked up a diaper bag. "Here are his things. I couldn't bring much. There are some clothes, some bottles and diapers. And this." He took out a small black album, which had the words "Scorpius Hugh Malfoy" engraved in golden letters on the cover. "It was Hermione's idea. She figured, with the war we couldn't be sure we'd make it, so she wanted to record everything, so he'd— So there would be something of us left." He put it back in the bag. "I'll come back for him. If I'm alive— If one of us is alive, we'll come back for him. But if not, give him that when he's older."
Hermione moved towards him and put a gentle hand on his arm, sympathy outweighing her misgivings. He smiled at her and then at the sleeping baby, leaning down to place a kiss on the child's head.
"I love you," he whispered. Straightening up, he leaned his forehead against Hermione's, his fingers warm and steady in the back of her neck. "I'll find you. Whatever else I do, I'll find you."
Hermione blinked back tears, willing herself not to cry. She didn't know this Draco Malfoy, she barely liked the Draco Malfoy she did know, and she was not about to shed tears for either one of them. Really, she wasn't.
Wizard Malfoy turned to the other Malfoy, handing him the diaper bag. "Take care of them."
Malfoy glared. "I said I would, didn't I?" was the less than graceful reply.
Draco Malfoy looked at Hermione and Scorpius one last time before drawing an arch in the air with his wand, and then he wasn't there anymore.