Paradox | T. Riddle ✔

~•2.5•~

He was pacing in the dungeons of Malfoy Manor, in the same cell where Eleanor had been tied up not long ago.

Tom was piecing together every little thing he knew about her, relating it with the newly found truth that she was from the future.

A lot of questions he had had in his mind regarding her were starting to get solved by that discovery. It explained why Abraxas Malfoy had been surprised to hear of an Eleanor Troy even though his family had been on very good terms with the Troys for a long time. 

It also explained how Eleanor somehow knew exactly what he was up to, how she was able to look past his devilish facade and see his true colors.

And as he pondered, he somehow figured out the answer to his fleeting memories as well. 

Eleanor Troy had created a paradox.

She had come back from his future to kill him so as to prevent whatever terrors he might have unleashed on the wizarding world after becoming the greatest Dark Wizard to walk the earth. But by killing him she had altered the timeline drastically, thus making her get stuck in a time loop that repeated over and over again.

The fleeting memories he had of a time that hadn't happened were due to the repeating time loop and though Eleanor must recall everything, he couldn't as he wasn't the one responsible for the paradox.

She was probably trying to break the loop by changing a few aspects of her time travel but the reason she couldn't succeed was that in the end, she refused to change the act of her killing Tom Riddle.

From all the knowledge he had on time travels by reading several books in the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library, he knew very well that there were only two ways for her to break out of the paradox.

Either she stopped killing him and allowed fate to take its course. Or she saved someone who was supposed to die in the current timeline in order to balance the act of his death.

It was simple for him yet it seemed as if Eleanor hadn't grasped that simple truth or perhaps she knew but luck hadn't been in her favor.

Tom's hand trailed against the cold stone wall that still had traces of her blood etched upon it, his stormy grey eyes narrowing as he was deep in thought.

She must have tried to save Nicole and then she must have tried to save Hepzibah when the first option didn't work, that would also explain why she was there at the old lady's house right at the time Tom had gotten rid of her.

If his assumptions were correct, it would mean that she had a fair idea of how to break out of the paradox, the only problem was that she was not choosing the first option.

A considerable time had lapsed since he had left Eleanor in the guest room and ordered Roxanne Malfoy to take care of her. By then she would have gained consciousness, he judged, deciding to go and see her.

He ascended the stairs out of the dungeons and reached the room, pushing the door open without knocking. Roxanne stood up from the bed immediately as he entered and his eyes shifted from the nervous blonde woman to the indifferent brunette.

He realized that the reason Eleanor always felt so detached from life was the fact that she had been living it over and over again, and worse still that it wasn't her most preferable part of life either.

Even then her green eyes were dim, as if exhausted of the current circumstances, heart close to accepting that she was stuck forever.

"My Lord," Roxanne bowed slightly before leaving the room but even then Eleanor kept her gaze glued to the wall ahead of her, refusing to look at him.