The Black Bloodline of Hogwarts

"Hager's honey ginger tea is truly exceptional. I'd like another cup; I hope you won't object?"

"I'm telling you, Albus, you should change your taste. Too much sweetness is bad for your health. Okay, one more drink and then it'll be time to read the verdict. We still have to go through the motions."

Intermittent conversations could be heard coming from inside the cabin.

"It won't come with us," Harry's voice came, clear and desperate, "Hermione, it won't—"

"Because we haven't established a connection with it yet," the future Hermione said anxiously, "we haven't gained its approval."

Julien sighed, rose from the shadows, his dragon-skin jacket rustling softly in the evening breeze, like scales rubbing together.

Dusk was rapidly deepening, the sky shifting from orange-purple to deep blue, and the first star was already faintly visible above the Forbidden Forest.

"Sorry to bother you," he said, his voice low but clear enough to cut through the chaos of the twilight, "but I think you need some... local assistance."

The two figures whirled around. Hermione's wand was already raised, but the moment she saw Julien's face, her expression changed from wariness to pure, undisguised shock.

"Oh my god, it's you? It's you guys!" Hermione blurted out, then immediately covered her mouth.

At the edge of the pine forest, three figures strode out. Their attire was nothing like that of Hogwarts students; they seemed more like some kind of… beings she couldn't define, somewhere between Aurors and explorers.

The leader had a pair of emerald green eyes that shimmered with an almost familiar light in the twilight.

This is absurd. This is dangerous. Dumbledore said not to let anyone see it.

"Didn't you just leave? How come you're here again? When did you change into this outfit?" Harry asked in surprise.

"I think when you say 'just now' you mean three hours ago," Julien said with a smile. "Time is of the essence, I'll explain later."

He stepped forward and placed his hand on Buckbek's neck.

The hippogriff let out a low growl, and that deep-seated resonance was awakened once more—it was for Julien, for the Julien with whom it had shared the sky on another afternoon.

"Come on, my friend," Julien said softly, "we still have a long way to go."

---

"Alright, the good stuff is over. Let's begin." Dumbledore led Fudge and the executioner out.

"The reading of the verdict will begin as planned..."

"No!" came the executioner McNeil's disappointed cry, startling a flock of crows.

---

On the hillside north of Black Lake, Buckbeak was leisurely eating a ferret, oblivious to Harry and Hermione standing nearby. Its thinking was simple: Julien's friends could be trusted.

"Julien!" Hermione's voice rose at least an octave. "Now you can tell me what happened."

"And," her gaze swept over Julian's attire, from his dragonskin jacket to his adaptive charm belt, and then to the two equally unfamiliar figures behind him, "your clothes—all of your clothes—what's going on?"

"You brought a time-tamper this semester, right? This is the second timeline."

"How did you know that!"

"You're taking several courses this semester, some of which clearly conflict with each other in terms of schedule. For example, ancient runes and divination."

After a pause, Julien added, "Furthermore, in this semester's classes, you appeared as if out of nowhere several times. If you observe carefully, you can draw the corresponding conclusions."

"How come I can't see anything at all..." Harry's voice trailed off under Hermione's glare.

"But why did you see me in two different timelines at the same time, and yet the timelines didn't collapse? Dumbledore said not to let others see me."

Julien opened his mouth, "Time is truly wondrous, isn't it? Humanity's current understanding of time is just a drop in the ocean, including Dumbledore's."

"Have you heard of quantum mechanics?" Julien changed the subject, a mischievous glint in his emerald eyes. "In quantum mechanics, elementary particles can exist in multiple locations simultaneously. What you observe is simply where you choose to place them."

Hermione's expression shifted from shock to confusion, and then from confusion to that characteristic, rapidly processing thought she had.

"You mean...superposition?" Her voice was uncertain. "Observation causes the wave function to collapse? But what does that have to do with magic? That's Muggle physics—"

“Muggle physics describes the rules,” Julien interrupted her, “while magic, sometimes, is an exception to the rules. Or…” he turned back, a smile playing on his lips, “is a deeper layer of the rules.”

"I don't understand. Isn't our existence fixed? You say it depends on the observer's choice, but aren't you making that choice now? If Hermione's Time-Turner is used a few more times, won't countless versions of us appear?"

In this timeline, Harry murmured to himself, "What will happen to our original story?"

"Haha, Harry. Actually, I'm the same as you. I don't know either," Julien said with a laugh. "There are many ways to tell a story, and we—I and Elizabeth—are part of your current story."

"Alright, go save Sirius," he said, his voice carried away by the evening breeze, yet still clear. Julien patted Buckbeak on the shoulder again. "Go with them; you've been a great help."

Hermione: "You used the perfect tense. Hmm! Still doing that!" With that, she grabbed Harry and ran off.

Harry turned around: "Aren't you coming with us?"

By the time Julien and his companions reached the Black Lake, it was completely dark. The stars twinkled overhead, like a spilled tray of diamonds.

Elizabeth followed closely behind him, her dragon-skin boots crunching softly on the fallen leaves. "Why can't we go with them?"

"We can't go," Julien's voice suddenly turned heavy, a weight that made both girls stop what they were doing. "Actually, I don't understand either, but we've already... changed too much."

He turned and looked toward the Screaming Shack. The dilapidated building, under the starlight, had a skeletal silhouette, like the skeleton of a dead behemoth.

“The timeline isn’t a river,” he said, his voice low as if he were talking to himself, “it’s a fabric. When you pull a thread out somewhere, the structure of the whole piece changes.”

Liria's Tears of Eternal Night suddenly trembled violently, its silvery-white light flickering erratically in the darkness. "What are you talking about?" she asked, her icy blue eyes filled with alertness. "We're rescuing Buckbeak—isn't that part of the plan?"

“The original plan was to let them do the rescue,” Julien said with a shrug. “We were just there to…make sure. But I got involved.”

He paused for a moment, as if organizing his thoughts, or as if bearing some unseen weight.

"The second timeline has actually been altered as well. And the timeline we are in now," he pointed to the ground, "is a product of the branching off from the second timeline."

"What do you mean?" Elizabeth's voice held the tension of an alchemist facing a loss of control. "We can't... go back?"

“We cannot go back to or access the first timeline,” Julien said. “The second branch does not exist for the first branch. Besides, we are now a branch of a branch. Once we intersect—time itself will reject this contradiction.”

"So," he said, his movements swift and methodical, "we can only participate in the second timeline. The timeline that we've already altered, starting from now."

"But Sirius—"

"They will save him," Julien interrupted Elizabeth, his voice carrying a strange certainty, "Harry and Hermione. In this timeline, they will succeed too."

"Why? Why are you so sure?"

"Because I have more options."