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A/N:
The world of online novels (fanfiction and originals) has one "issue" that I have co to notice. Unlike traditionally published works, where you read on one book at a ti, and the entire story is already written, online novels are usually "ongoing," and people are reading multiple works at any given ti— such is the world of online novels, filled with so much content. But a problem arises that readers (including myself) are sotis not able to keep all the facts retained in their minds. And from the last chapter's comnts, I have noticed that is the case for MY version of ti travel— it is a bit different.
So to refresh that part of the story, you can read the [ Ivy-Hermione-Quinn-Ti-Travel ] mini-arc. I will link those chapters below. However, I will also try to put those facts in this chapter as part of the conversation.
**Start of last ti travel mini-arc**: CHAPTER 104: Summons, Repaynt, Negotiation
**But if you want to get to the good stuff**: CHAPTER 106: Dentor Horde, Ti Magic, Free Will
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"Let's start from the beginning," said Quinn, tapping his finger on his armrest. "You and Damon have ti-traveled past the five hours safety limit. So please, tell you know what you were doing before you made a ti-traveling apparatus that doesn't implent that limit as a restriction."
Ti travel was dangerous, and traveling back extended periods could cause catastrophic disasters. The Unspeakable Departent of the British Ministry of Magic had experinted with ti travel by sending one of their own back in ti by several centuries. The experint, while a hazardous failure, had taught the Unspeakables a lot about ti travel— the woman sent back in ti when pulled back to the present, rapidly aged the ti she had been sent back (centuries), and died as her lifespan ran out— not only that, but the woman's interactions with the past had caused massive changes in the tiline. The experint had resulted in people getting killed, others coming to life, and several others being erased from existence, a phenonon known as unbirths. [canon]
"You have jumped back quite a few decades in the past," said Quinn to future-Quinn, "and from your behavior, you're not worried about the consequences, so I am assuming you have found to ti travel without triggering those nasty side effects."
"Temporal magic or chronomancy are vast fields, my young and naive self; I can't claim to have mastered ti, so all I can say is that it is a work-in-progress," future-Quinn shrugged. "And don't give that look; you— well us— have ti-traveled without knowing zilch about temporal magic."
"Your Occluncy must've degraded," said Quinn, his mood worsening, "I followed a strict set of rules and restrictions when I traveled— kept my footprint minimal, only traveled within the permitted limit, and more importantly, I made sure NOT to et myself!
This case, on the other hand, has a person who hasn't been born yet travel to the ti before their birth; you both have traveled way beyond the stable limit, and I don't need to say this, but we are eting face-to-face."
"Way to go stating the obvious," said the future-Quinn, "yes, I know all of those facts—and obviously, if I'm not freaking out, then I have taken care of those factors."
Quinn was about to say sothing, but future-Quinn raised his hand and continued to speak.
"You don't have to be worried about the closed-loop nature of ti travel . . ."
A closed-loop was a temporal proposition in which, by ans of ti travel, a sequence of events is among the causes of another event, which is, in turn, among the causes of the first-ntioned event. In simple words, when a future event is the cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event. Ti travel achieved through Ti-Turners was the closed-loop type of ti travel.
". . . You don't have to worry that because I ti-traveled back in ti, you in the future will go through this very exact situation and travel back in ti," finished future-Quinn. "That's not going to happen to you."
The closed-loop ti travel couldn't change past as what was going to happen was always going to happen with the ti travel a part of those events. Once a Quinn West triggered closed-loop ti travel, every Quinn moving on would walk down the sa path. During the Dentor horde by the lakeside, Quinn was always going to be saved by a future version of Quinn— that version of events was always set in stone— such was the closed-loop theory of ti travel.
"S-So, you're saying that this ti travel is NOT in accordance with the closed-loop theory," said Quinn. "You really found a way to do that?"
"Of course, I did; who do you think you're talking to," said future-Quinn.
"How did you do that?"
"It would go over your little head, so there's no use of explaining the logic behind it all."
Quinn's face twitched, and an angry vein throbbed on his temple. "Doesn't change the fact that you screwed up big ti," he jabbed back.
"Yeah, that's getting old; co up with sothing new," said future-Quinn.
"It is clear that your son isn't capable of casting temporal magic strong enough to travel this back in ti, so I'm assuming he used a device that you created."
"That is correct," sighed future-Quinn.
"So do tell , how did he get his hands on sothing so dangerous," asked Quinn. He had all the dangerous stuff secured under lock-&-key-&-magic inside his briefcase. It boggled his mind that a future version of himself would be so careless.
"I know what you're thinking," said future-Quinn, eyeing Quinn. He sighed, "He got into my workshop at ho and swiped it when I wasn't looking."
"That's plain stupid," said Quinn bluntly, "why didn't you have wards around your workshop."
"Because, unlike you, my workshop isn't in Hogwarts. It is in my house where I don't need to worry about people breaking in, and believe , my house is a nightmare for people who want to intrude upon my family and my privacy. And it is not like it was completely unguarded; it has more 'top-of-the-line' protection publicly available in my ti," which ant that future-Quinn had tech he hadn't released to the world.
"What good did that do when a teenager is able to beat it. Why wasn't it activated?"
Future-Quinn once again sighed, "I disable when I'm working in there because I don't like the magical interference from the wards and spells while I'm working on so very delicate and sophisticated projects. And Damon sneaked in during an ergency when I had no ti to enable the protection."
"What ergency?"
"My daughter tripped and fell."
". . . What?"
"My daughter fell in the gardens and scraped her knee. I had a micro-drone with an audio-video setup following her around, so when she started crying, I had to dash to her side. I didn't return to my workshop until later that evening, and because I wasn't working on the 'Ti-Turner,' I didn't notice it had gone missing."
"I-I see," said Quinn; he couldn't wrap his mind around the image. "How did Damon even know you were working on sothing like that?"
"Because of my track record of working on project that . . . technically . . . could be seen as dangerous, I have to tell what I'm currently working on— usually, he's at school, but he was at ho when I talked about it."
Quinn didn't know if he should take this as a valid excuse or not, so he decided to move on.
"How did you know that Damon had traveled back?" asked Quinn. "I an, you got here pretty quickly. . . ."
"When you reach a level at temporal magic as I am, you learn how to feel when there are changes in the ti streams around you— I can feel the distortions as long as they're within a few dozen kilotres. And Damon was in only in his room, so the distortions when he jumped sounded like resounding bells."
"I see, so you have multiple of your versions of your Ti-Turners?"
"No. I have multiple prototypes, but I only had one working, which is the one Damon picked up. I ca here using temporal magic," he sighed, "which I'm still not used or experienced in— thank god, I acted quickly when the ti distortions were still fresh, or else I would've not been able to track him down."
"That's a bit too much luck I'm comfortable with."
"I agree."
"So what now?" asked Quinn. "You have been saying that you have to fix things, and as this is not a closed-loop, I'm not even sure what kind of problems needs to be addressed."
"There are so that I need to address that you don't need to know."
Quinn clicked his tongue before he gazed at his future self. He had to say, he liked what he was seeing. He looked sharp and well-built, and even though he hadn't told much about himself, it looked like things had been going well for him.
"So. . . how's life?" asked Quinn.
Future-Quinn gazed at Quinn for a bit before a smile appeared on his face. "It is good," he said. "Life after . . . canon . . . have been much more than what you're living now. The world has much more to offer than what Hogwarts has, and there are so many interesting people out there to et and learn from."
"People like Mr. Alan?"
"Yes, people like Alan. Ah, now that I rember, you're going to apprentice under him after Hogwarts."
"Yes, that is the plan. So. . . did you break into his mind?" asked Quinn.
The expression on future-Quinn's face told it all. He looked like the topic repulsed him, and talking about it was the last thing he wanted to talk about.
"You weren't able to break in?"
". . . I was able to break into his mind, sure . . . but I was too late," said future-Quinn. "He was already old when I started apprentice under him, and by the ti I was able to gain enough skill, he was already on the decline— I wasn't able to compete against him at his best."
"So, Mr. Alan is . . . ."
Future-Quinn nodded, "It has been a while."
A silence descended between the two.
"Co on, let's move on," said future-Quinn, waving his hand. He looked around the AID office. "It has been a while I have been here— the last ti I was in the office, it looked nothing like this."
"When were you here?"
"Hmm. . . it has been a decade, give or take. Damon's the current proprietor, and I haven't what he has done with the place," said future-Quinn.
"Really? Did he get it on his own, or did you pull so strings? I hope he didn't get AID because he's your son."
"He got it on his own. The active AID proprietors only know about and the other older proprietors when they graduate from Hogwarts, so Damon's predecessor didn't know that I was the one who created AID. Until a few months back, even Damon also didn't know that I was the one who created AID."
"What? You didn't tell him?"
"I won't lie by saying that I didn't have expectations from Damon to get AID. So I refrained from telling him about it so it would be completely fair and made sure that neither Luna nor Astoria told him anything. It was going to be revealed to him after he graduated in the annual AID proprietors et, but Astoria couldn't keep her mouth shut, and well, here we are."
"Luna and Astoria, huh. How are they doing? Is the blood curse still there?"
"Astoria was cured a while back before she hit thirty. As for Luna, she's a magizoologist as we thought; I visit her once a month, wherever she's exploring. Both are successful in their respective field and, as far as I can tell, happy with their lives."
"What about Eddie and Marcus? You're still friends with them, right?"
A big smile blood on future-Quinn's face. "They're still my best friends. Thank magic for that. Both are doing trendously. Eddie plays for a Quidditch team owned by yours truly. Marcus did end up working for the family business, and as we expected, he works closely with Lia."
"Oh, Lia? How's she doing? Has she beco the most powerful woman in the world."
"She has!" future-Quinn laughed, thoroughly amused. "I said the sa thing to her when she took the chair as the head of the business. She was quite happy with that when I told it to her."
Future-Quinn took out a strange pocket watch from his pocket and flipped it open to look at a glowing and shimring watch-face.
"Ti's up, kid. We have to leave now. I have to fix this problem and don't have much ti." Future-Quinn sighed, "Why did Damon have to do this today? My evening was booked with my lovely niece, and now, I don't know if I'll be able to make it."
Future-Quinn got up from his barstool, but before he could even stand up straight, Quinn spoke up.
"Hey, listen. . . ."
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Quinn West - MC(Present) - Heard so interesting things.
Quinn West - MC(Future) - Has experienced many exciting things.
Damon West - Future West - Can't hear anything because of a silencing ward.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - Hold your thoughts about the conversation. It's not over yet. The next chapter is going to be the end of this mini-arc, I think.
Edit: No, the next chapter is not the end of the arc.
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If you have any ideas regarding the magic you want to see in this fiction or want to offer so ideas regarding the progression. Move onto the DISCORD Server and blast those ideas.
The link is in the synopsis!
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