Chapter 19
The forced transition from one timeline to another occurred instantaneously.
There was no angelic choir, no Morgan Freeman, no prophetic visions—just a sudden "snap!" and you were in another place, another time, and missing a redundant hole in your head. He hadn't expected a parade or exotic cosmic effects, of course. But could there at least be some kind of sci-fi nonsense added to the mix so he could finally stop feeling like a lunatic?
On one hand, the swift transition was a plus; on the other, it always left him in a state of prostration. No matter how resilient one's psyche, it was impossible to recover immediately, especially when a second ago—or twenty-seven years in the future—you were in a life-or-death situation.
This time, however, he didn't scream. He simply lay on a soft bed, trying to recover from the phantom sensation of a brief pain in his forehead, even though, theoretically, he shouldn't have felt anything at all.
The velocity of a bullet, especially from such an advanced rifle, was about two thousand meters per second. The speed of a nerve impulse was roughly ten times slower.
So why couldn't he forget that pain? Was it some psychological quirk of a consciousness that didn't particularly enjoy dying over and over again?
As if Simon himself enjoyed it!
Nevertheless, every sensation had to be remembered—or better yet, recorded. The devil is in the details, and perhaps some insignificant trifle would become the thread he could pull to reveal... something. Everything had to have a cause!
Simon drew in a sharp breath; it smelled of herbs. A familiar scent—the smell of the Hospital Wing.
The closed white screen only confirmed it.
"Huh," Simon muttered, extending an arm that was completely wrapped in bandages.
It wasn't just his arm—his entire body was swathed in bandages and smelled of some kind of ointment. He'd been turned into a mummy.
"Mr. Laplace, are you awake?" a female voice called from the other end of the Hospital Wing.
"Yes—*hack, wheeze*!" He coughed, his throat bone-dry.
"Do not move!" The strict command was followed by the drawing back of the screen. Madam Pomfrey inspected him with a keen eye and handed him a cup of water, which he accepted gratefully. "Oh, you are quite unlucky, Mr. Laplace! Quite unlucky indeed! How do you feel?"
Simon shifted his body a few times and gave a phlegmatic shrug.
He wanted to describe in vivid detail exactly how painful it felt to have a piece of lead lodged in his brain, but he decided to keep quiet.
Though...
"Like I've been shot in the head twice in a row."
"That..." Madam Pomfrey hesitated. "Does that mean 'bad'?"
"Hardly good," Simon mused. "Though maybe it is good. I'm still alive, aren't I?"
"Stop playing the fool, Mr. Laplace!" the Matron raised her voice slightly.
Simon tried to express with his eyes just how obedient he intended to be. Only with his eyes, because his head was also bandaged, leaving only his mouth, nose, and eyes exposed to the air.
"What was it this time, Madam Pomfrey?" Simon stretched his shoulders and, surprisingly, felt no pain.
"Lightning! A bolt of lightning just struck you!" Madam Pomfrey sighed. "It happens a couple of times a year—and usually only during Quidditch matches! But you, it just went and blasted you right in the middle of the courtyard!"
"A couple of times a year?" Simon muttered. "Usually, people die after being hit by lightning. Especially in my case, where the bolt hit the target directly instead of 'nearby.'"
Madam Pomfrey looked at him with genuine confusion.
"Young man," she cleared her throat, "in my long practice, I have seen people after cauldron explosions, falls from broomsticks at great heights, and in one particularly dangerous case, after a manticore bite. I assure you, no one has died from lightning."
"Statistically, half of the people hit by lightning die if it strikes the target," he tried to provide the data.
Madam Pomfrey was unimpressed.
"I am telling you: lightning strikes Quidditch players consistently a few times a year—and no one has died yet."
Simon prudently shut up. If a healer with an extensive practice said so, then that was likely how it worked.
His statistics weren't wrong; rather, they had little relevance to wizarding survival rates. By all accounts, wizards were much more durable than Muggles. A bullet might not care for the distinction, but in cases like a lightning strike, the difference became apparent.
Madam Pomfrey began to carefully unwind the bandages, and to Simon's surprise, she revealed perfectly tender, undamaged skin.
"Not even a minor burn?" he noted with pleasant surprise, examining his bare torso.
"You've been lying here for twenty-four hours," the healer looked at him with surprise. "Of course it's all gone by now!"
"Only twenty-four hours?" Simon murmured. "Hooray for magical medicine!"
"Except..." Poppy Pomfrey hesitated awkwardly. "Unfortunately, I must inform you that your scars are not fading. No matter what potion I use, they remain exactly the same."
"Ah..."
Simon looked down at his torso, where it was impossible to miss a thick, long-healed scar. It stretched from his collarbone and ended somewhere near his navel—as if someone had nearly cleaved him in two with a literal iron sword.
A smaller scar marked his left arm, from shoulder to wrist.
"Oh, those are old," Simon chuckled. "I've had them as long as I can remember. Wait, you treat scars too?"
"Of course, Mr. Laplace! Although..." Madam Pomfrey snorted in dissatisfaction, inspecting his body again. "Spells and potions do not always help. How did you receive them?"
"I literally don't remember when," Simon smiled. "My drunk of a father says I was born that way, but I suspect he dropped me somewhere, or decided to put me in a sparring match with a cat for a laugh. It's no wonder the scars won't fade—they're practically as old as I am."
"Mr. Laplace, I don't think you quite understand how serious this is," Madam Pomfrey's tone grew sterner. "Modern methods of magical healing are more than sufficient to remove any scars, regardless of how old they are."
"Then why..."
"There is one exception," she said with a warning hint. "If the original cause of the scar was a powerful magical effect. Often a dark one."
Simon turned slightly pale. This time, he looked at the marks on his chest and arm with new eyes.
"But... how can that be..."
"There is no need to worry, Mr. Laplace," the healer reassured him. "I've already double-checked everything—there are no long-term consequences or curses."
"Are you sure there are no curses?" He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Is there something like a 'curse of misfortune'?"
"You are completely clean, Simon," she assured him of his current state first.
Simon felt a bit deflated. If they had diagnosed a "disease," maybe a cure could be found.
"As for misfortune," Madam Pomfrey mused, then suddenly shook her head. "I certainly don't recall anything like that, even with my long tenure at St. Mungo's Hospital. Why, I even treated Alastor Moody, and that man managed to catch just about every non-lethal curse in existence!"
"But..." Simon frowned. "My constant bad luck is definitely magical in nature. Statistics don't just work like that—I can't be this unlucky over such a long term with such stability!"
Madam Pomfrey suddenly realized that this first-year had ended up in her care for the second time in two days. And both times were the result of a disastrous, almost absurd, coincidence.
"Mr. Laplace, perhaps I misled you slightly," Madam Pomfrey added with a touch of guilt. "Magic is far too multifaceted and mysterious for one to know everything. Perhaps you truly are afflicted by a dark curse, but I'm afraid I am powerless here. However, regarding luck..."
Simon held his breath. Could there be a cure for his "incurable disease"?!
"There is a potion called Felix Felicis—otherwise known as 'Liquid Luck.'"
"Even potions like that exist?! How difficult is it to brew?"
"It isn't a long-term solution in any case," she said categorically. "Firstly, Felix Felicis can only be prepared by a potioneer of the highest competence, and even then, failures in brewing occur more often than successes. Secondly, the effect is brief and lasts no more than a day. Thirdly, the potion is extremely toxic—taking it more than once a year is detrimental to one's health."
Simon suddenly deflated. No sooner had he seen the light than he was yanked harshly back!
One could easily guess that Madam Pomfrey's arguments implied the potion was incredibly rare and expensive.
"In any case, thank you."
"You are welcome, Mr. Laplace," she smiled. "You've missed a day of classes, and I shall discharge you this evening. Your friends, by the way, have left you some gifts."
Watching Madam Pomfrey leave, Simon turned his attention to the bedside table, which held a small mountain of various sweets.
Ron had sent a Chocolate Frog with a little note:
"It's best to grab it firmly in your hand first and bite the head off, then wait for it to go quiet in its death throes. Then you can crunch the body!"
"Ron isn't a maniac, is he?" Simon muttered. "Such tendencies are often hereditary. I hope misfortune bypasses Hugo and Rose."
Harry had left a small chewy candy that came with a Famous Wizard card. The box had been thoughtfully opened beforehand to ensure Simon didn't get a "dud."
The Weasley twins had left Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, which he promptly sentenced to their final journey into the trash—the taste of dirty socks was a far too vivid memory. There was also a small card with a drawing of a little man—evidently himself—catching lightning and throwing it back into the sky. And the image was animated!
Even Neville had left a small pot with some twitching, pod-like plant! The attached note read:
"This is a Zambian Irritating Pygmy Flytrap, commonly known as a 'You Filthy Beast.' It's very cute and useful for fighting insects! By the way..."
"YOU FILTHY BEAST!" Simon roared at the top of his lungs, feeling a sharp pain in his nose.
At some point, the stalk had opened and... simply bitten him on the nose!
After finally detaching the hellspawn, Simon finished reading the note.
"...they bite, so be careful."
"You should have started with that!" He bugged his eyes in anger and began rubbing his stinging nose.
But Simon recovered quickly and let out a laugh.
Truth be told, it felt damn good to receive gifts from friends. It was a small island of peace in the sadistic temporal chaos surrounding him.
It was the perfect moment to systematize the new information he had literally bought with blood, but for once, he just didn't want to think.
He just wanted to lie there and... stare at the ceiling. Think about nothing.
Too much had piled up lately. The last "two days"—if one could even count them as such—had been more intense than his entire life.
"But..." Simon sighed melancholically. "Why me?"
"Simon, am I interrupting?"
He hadn't even noticed someone peeking behind the screen.
A bushy head of hair and an awkward smile appeared. The Minister for Magic herself—Hermione Granger—had come to visit.
"Of course not."
Hermione pulled up a stool and placed a bar of chocolate on the table, dodging the "Filthy Beast" at the last second.
"Neville, of course..." Hermione shook her head and finished tactfully, "knows a great deal about magical plants."
"An herbology enthusiast, what can you do. A future professor of the discipline, no doubt!" Simon chuckled. "Did you bring cigarettes?"
The question immediately dispelled the awkwardness in Hermione's behavior. The girl's eyes bugged out, she turned red, and she seemed to transform into a fury.
"What cigarettes?! You're a minor—you aren't allowed to smoke! And you shouldn't after you're of age, either! Do you even know the consequences of smoking?"
Simon replied with complete composure:
"Nicotine forms a dependency by shifting dopamine regulation so the brain stops rewarding natural stimuli. The lungs gradually transform from a gas-exchange organ into a filter for tar and carcinogens. Vessels lose elasticity, chronic inflammation becomes a statistically stable norm, and the risk of heart attack and stroke increases manifold."
"Exactly!" Hermione faltered at first, then nodded weightily. "So why smoke, then?! It's a certain path to death!"
"Death is a rather inevitable thing, generally speaking. Want a secret? Statistically, one hundred percent of people who have ever lived on Earth have died, and those living now will likely die too. Scary, isn't it?"
"Don't be flippant!" Hermione said, upset. "Actually... actually, I wanted... to visit... and you..."
Simon let out a sigh, rubbed his face with his palm, and suddenly, unexpectedly, said:
"Sorry."
"Eh?" the girl asked, surprised.
"Sorry that I'm a natural-born prick."
"Don't use s-s-slang!" The girl tried to hide a breaking smile. It was clear the apology had worked perfectly. It was easy, sometimes, with people who were a bit socially maladjusted. "But very well, I forgive you!"
A girl—a top student always striving to stand out in class—was the perfect model for parents. But for her peers, she was merely a bright, constantly flashing source of irritation.
Perhaps Hermione herself understood this.
After all, one can identify the dying conversations or those specific looks on a reflexive level: "there she goes again." By the smiles that were less sincere than usual. By the way her name was pronounced with a slight pause, as if trying to add some invisible meaning.
But Hermione was used to it.
Used to being that girl who always knew the answer. The girl who raised her hand first. The girl who wasn't afraid to be "too smart," because she simply didn't know how to be any other way.
But being used to it didn't equal indifference. Quite the opposite; selective ignoring was a sign that something was getting to a person.
Over the first two days, Hermione hadn't really made friends with anyone. They—the boys—had intuitively gathered into a group, doing homework and exploring the castle together. In contrast, the girls had also grouped up, but Hermione hadn't quite made it into that circle.
It was clear this weighed on her.
And Simon...
What about Simon?
Yes, he didn't hide the fact that the girl irritated him in many ways, but... he did it openly. Not out of malice, but because some of her antics truly did annoy him.
He was loud, rude, and self-assured, and he was constantly getting into some kind of trouble. His behavior was... outrageous. Completely inconsistent with school rules or basic tact.
And it infuriated Hermione. And simultaneously fascinated her.
The girl was terrified to even imagine becoming as sincere and uninhibited as Simon Laplace for even a second, for that would be... terrifying. But some rebellious part of her wanted to... just do it. To do something different, for once!
And even though Simon expressed irritation, it was clear—he respected and acknowledged her.
And Simon himself never denied his own flaws. For instance, right now he was thinking hard about how to fix the situation.
"Maybe I'm the reason Hermione hasn't joined Harry and Ron's group yet? After all, they're all best friends in the future, and Ron—Ron, I still don't know how you pulled it off—ended up marrying her." Simon mused on his own influence. "Unlikely. Hermione's behavior is partly as provocative as mine, just in the opposite direction. I still can't believe that the slightly lazy and always ready-to-shirk Ron somehow hit it off so quickly with the overactive and responsible Hermione. But in any case, the situation needs to be straightened out—I liked Hugo and Rose. Especially Rose—plenty of brains, and her face is actually quite..."
"For some reason, I really want to hit you," Hermione blinked in confusion.
"Maybe you're a seer too? Or can read minds?" Simon smiled roguishly and without guilt.
"Hermione herself is very pretty too... Ron, how? How, Ron?! It literally must be magic!"