Everything was quiet in the nursery that had been expertly if hastily prepared by Mr Dobbson. Scorpius was sound asleep in the crib in the centre of the room, untroubled by the chaos his arrival had unleashed. He was too young to know or understand the first thing about magic, or wars, or alternate realities. He was warm and well-fed and asleep, so everything was right with the world. Hermione envied that. She couldn't remember the last time she had been that small and oblivious. She could barely remember the last time she had slept.

She glanced at the balloon-shaped clock on the wall, the illuminated hands of which made it possible to tell the time even by the soft glow of the night lamp. It was almost 4a.m. She sighed, her fingers absent-mindedly trailing the shape of the letters on the cover of Scorpius's album. She ought to go to sleep. Babies did not care if their caregivers had ridiculous sleeping patterns. She wouldn't be able to sleep in the morning. A smarter woman would get up and go to bed, but smart had come and gone. Along with sleep.

It had been easier by the light of day to control the growing anxiety that threatened to drown her. The last twelve hours had been a whirlwind of barely-controlled chaos — dealing with her friends, dealing with Malfoy, dealing with a little boy for whom she was now responsible, and whose dumb idea had that been? She was barely able to be responsible for herself. In fact, considering the time in the not-so-distant past she had decided to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills as if they were candy, she had pretty much failed at being responsible for herself. That wasn't just her opinion, either, it was the general consensus.

That morning when she had made it back to the pub — at a time when she knew Charlie would be in, because she had left her key inside — everyone was there and everyone was freaking out. Harry was pacing back and forth, white as a sheet; Ron and Ginny were having a loud argument about Ginny leaving before Hermione the night before; Fred and George were setting out search parties, and Charlie was on the phone with the police. Harry was the first one to see her when she walked in.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" He looked about ready to murder her.

"I locked myself out. What's going on?"

"What's going on? What's going on?" Harry might have to fight Ron for the right to murder her. "Do you have any clue how worried we were? You disappear, there's broken glass everywhere, you don't pick up your bloody phone… What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hermione winced. "I'm sorry. I dropped a tray, and then I locked myself out and my phone is still here. Didn't think you guys would be this upset."

"You didn't— Oh that's great. She didn't think we'd be this upset. Did you hear that, Harry? We're just overreacting, we are. Why would anyone here be upset?"

"That's enough, Ron." Charlie put down his phone. "Hermione, you better call your parents."

"You went and called my parents?" She rushed to where she had left her phone the night before. "Unless you can physically see me dying in a ditch, do not ever call my parents."

"Technically we didn't." Ginny picked up a broom and started to sweep the broken glass. "We called our mum. She's the one who called your parents."

"Don't call your mum, either."

"Well, that's just unreasonable," George said. "We're doting, dutiful children. Doting, dutiful children should call their parents. Often."

"Honor thy father and thy mother," Fred agreed. "It's in the bible."

"You wouldn't want us to go against the bible, would you?"

"We value our eternal salvation."

"We value it greatly."

Hermione rolled her eyes at them even as she pressed the call button. Her dad picked up on the first ring. It was not a fun conversation, and one she could well have done without. It took over half an hour of reassurances to convince her parents that no, it would not be better if she took another semester off and came home, and no, she neither needed nor wanted them to come down for a couple of days.

She was fine and she was sorry she had worried them. Everyone was making a mountain out of a molehill. She had locked herself out; that was all. She was fine, she felt fine, she had never been better. Yes, she was sleeping. Yes, she was taking her meds. Yes, she was going to therapy. Yes, despite all of that, she still believed Brian May was the real star of Queen, and Freddy got undeserved sympathy points for dying.

No, she absolutely did not think this was a time for levity and she was very sorry for making light of it. Yes, she understood just how worried they had been. She was sorry. Very sorry. Terribly sorry. Had she mentioned she was sorry?

By the time she hung up the phone, she had started to consider the merits of asking Wizard Malfoy if she could come and live in the reality where evil wizards roamed the earth and there was an all-out war.

And that had all been before the truly fun part of her morning, which had involved trying to convince her understandably sceptical friends that a wizard from another universe had showed up out of nowhere and dropped a baby on her lap. To their credit, they hadn't thought she was crazy, though Ginny had suggested she should not have finished the bottle of Tequila by herself, and George had berated her for not sharing the high-quality drugs she was clearly on.

It would have been an almost impossible sell, if not for Scorpius's album. As it turned out, photographs that moved were pretty impressive, even before they got around to the fact that said moving pictures depicted, well, them.

There was a picture of a very young Hermione posing in front of an old-fashioned train, her arms thrown around Ron and Harry, who were waving at the camera. Next to it was a picture of Ron, Ginny, Harry, Malfoy, Bill, Charlie and one of the twins flying around an unkempt garden on brooms, because apparently that was something that happened in upside-down world. In a different picture, an oddly-dressed Mrs Weasley was seen supervising a pair of flying knitting needles, while Scorpius slept in a hovering cot next to her armchair. A whole page of the album was taken up by a large photograph with the caption, "Second Order of the Phoenix." They were all in it, waving and making faces at the camera.

"I think that's my Political Science professor." Ginny pointed at a scruffy-looking man, who had an arm around a woman with bright-pink hair.

"And there's mum and dad," Ron said.

"And Luna. And that's Seamus and Dean."

The picture showed people they knew, people they didn't, and people they had seen around, most of them wearing strange robes, some of them even wearing pointy hats. George grabbed the album and turned it towards him, frowning.

"That's odd."

"That one of you is missing an ear?" Ginny asked. "Yeah, it's a bit ghastly, isn't it?"

"That's not what's odd," Fred said, leaning against his twin and flipping through the pages of the book.

"There's only ever one of us."

Everyone fell quiet for a moment while the twins browsed some of the later pictures.

"Maybe the other one is taking the pictures," Ron suggested. "Which one of you is missing the ear?"

"I'm not sure. I think it's me."

That statement was met with nothing but blank stares.

"Fred. I'm Fred. Honestly, you call yourselves our family."

"Fred would've been my guess."

"Then your guess would have been wrong. I'm actually George. Credulous bunch, aren't they, Fred?"

"Like stealing candy from babies, George."

Ginny hit the twin closest to her over the head with a rolled up newspaper. "You can't even tell for sure which one of you is in the pictures."

That had made them both stick out their tongue at her, which as arguments went left something to be desired, but they had all been happy to let the subject drop. They went through the whole album, remarking on the strangeness of it all, pointing out the people they knew, and wondering aloud about the lives that some version of them were leading in some version of reality. The twins had remained unusually subdued the rest of the day, hovering a little closer to each other than they normally did, turning often to make sure the other was in the room.

Hermione opened the album at random. It was too dark in the nursery to be able to tell much, but she could see enough to recognise the picture she was looking at. Other Hermione and Other Malfoy were sitting in a threadbare armchair by the fire, Hermione half on his lap. She was telling him something and he was smiling at her, soft and sweet. It was too dark too see the details, but she could remember the way he was looking at her, the curve of his mouth as he said something back before kissing her nose. It was a charming image of domesticity, and quite possibly the most bizarre thing Hermione had ever seen.

Fred and George looked at their likeness and saw both themselves and each other's absence. Hermione looked at the other Hermione and saw only a puzzle — foreign, distant and inscrutable — as removed from her as if she'd been a stranger. Only she wasn't a stranger, and that made it worse. Here was a Hermione who was everything she was not: smart, competent and resourceful, capable of handling a kid and a war, and god only knew what else. Meanwhile, Hermione was still trying to get the hang of dragging herself out of bed and to class in days when all she wanted to do was close her eyes and pretend that neither she nor the world existed. It was hard enough to feel like she had fallen short one too many times without having to deal with quite so uncomfortable a comparison.

She closed the album with a sigh and got up. Tea and bed. Neither was likely to improve anything, but maybe all she needed right now was tea and bed. She stopped by the crib, making sure Scorpius was tucked in, and grabbed the baby monitor before walking out, closing the door quietly behind her.

The house, which earlier in the day had been full and loud with the voices of her friends, was now silent and still. She made her way to the kitchen without bothering to turn on the lights, choosing her path with care. It was a big house, but not so big that she feared getting lost. Had that been a concern, she would have been glad of the light and muttered expletives that guided her the last stretch of the way.

"Stupid, useless, piece of crap. I have half a mind to donate you to goodwill, you ridiculous—"

"Malfoy, what the devil are you doing?"

He turned towards her, startled out of his disagreement with the coffee machine.

"Jesus, Granger. Make noise when you walk." He swayed slightly before leaning back against the counter. "The coffee machine is refusing to be a coffee machine."

Hermione bit back a smile, putting down the album and the baby monitor on the table. "How much did you have to drink?"

"Considering I've just acquired a baby and a bunch of Weasleys, not nearly enough."

She reached behind him, turning on the coffee machine and making sure it had enough water.

"They didn't teach you how to make coffee before they kicked you out of Eton?" She found the electric kettle and filled it with water.

"Harrow."

"Sorry?"

"They kicked me out of Harrow, not Eton. The amount of money Malfoy Enterprises donated to Eton, I could have torched the place and they wouldn't have expelled me." He sat down at the table, reaching for the album and opening it on the first page. It was a picture of the three of them — herself, Malfoy and Scorpius. Other Hermione and Other Draco were mock frowning at each other, the corner of their mouths curling up slightly before they both broke down laughing. Scorpius, which couldn't have been more than a few weeks old, was wearing a small red and gold woolly cap, and a green and silver scarf that was bigger than he was. "Do you think," Draco said after a few seconds, still looking through the pictures, "that if there's an infinite number of Dracos in an infinite number of universes, there's a universe in which I did get kicked out of Eton?"

"I think there's probably even one where you couldn't afford to go to Eton."

"Perish the thought. Thanks," he said, accepting the coffee from Hermione. "I bet there's a universe where I was top of my class at Eton."

"That seems highly unlikely."

"I bet there's a universe where you were at Eton."

"They only accept boys."

"I bet there's a universe where they accept girls. I bet there's a universe where they accept nothing but girls. What's this?"

"Left-over pancakes." Hermione set down a jar of strawberry jam on the table, next to the pancakes, and fished a couple of forks out of a drawer. "To soak up the alcohol."

"You know, for a bartender," Draco said, grabbing a fork, "you're very disapproving of people who drink."

"Only of people who make a career of it."

"I bet there's a universe where we get along."

"We know of the universe where we have a kid. I think it's safe to say we get along in that one."

"I bet there's a universe where you think I'm a great guy."

"I bet there's even a universe where you are a great guy."

Draco held up his hands to his chest, sighing dramatically. "You wound me greatly."

"You'll live."

"I dare say I shall, what with the money and the cars and the fame." He paused on a picture of a very young Draco wearing green robes and holding a broom. "Well, that's just bizarre."

Hermione grabbed a square wooden box from one of the shelves and took a minute choosing a tea. All the while, Malfoy kept on prattling about alternative universes. One in which he was a race driver, one in which he was a fighter pilot, one in which he rode a horse everywhere he went. A horse named Sebastian. There was bound to be a universe where he'd been to space, and a universe where he lived in space. He was sure there was a universe where she had bothered to warm up the pancakes before feeding them to him.

It was a steady string of nonsense and she couldn't help but smile. The whole thing was still an unmitigated disaster, of course, but nothing seemed quite so dire when standing in the middle of the illuminated kitchen, with Malfoy's litany in the background and the smell of peppermint tea in the air. He suddenly stopped talking and it took only a second for Hermione to see why. The album was opened in a page entitled "Grandparents." On the right side was a picture of Hermione's parents, much like she knew them, much like they existed in her world. The picture was just a picture — normal and still and non-magical, slightly faded, slightly worn out as if it had been carried around and handled often.

On the opposite page was a picture of an adult Draco Malfoy and his parents. Narcissa Malfoy sat on an elaborate chair with a high back, flanked by her husband and son. All three looked proudly at the camera with their heads held high. Almost the only movement was the way Lucius's expression softened whenever he glanced at his wife and son.

Malfoy touched the edge of the picture, all humour gone from his face. "A universe where they're still alive," he said in a low voice.

Hermione moved to his side without pausing to think about it and placed a hand on his head, stroking his hair in a comforting gesture that came more easily than it should have. She didn't know much about his parents except that they had died a very long time ago, long enough that she didn't remember it being news. Malfoy leaned into the touch for a second before closing the album with a thump and getting up.

"Don't make that face, Granger." He smirked, letting the book fall on the table. "Them dying made me a very rich man. Though if you're really feeling bad for poor orphan me," he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her to him, "I know of a couple of things that would make me feel much, much better."

Once a prat, always a prat.

"You will let go of me this instant or I will stab you with a fork."

He chuckled, letting go of her and taking a step back. "So much for sympathy. Goodnight, Granger."

And with that he walked out, leaving her alone with dark thoughts and tea and a half-eaten plate of pancakes.