blood must shed for time to reset

chapter 12

( Stars? talk to me.

talk

to

me. )

—THE DOWNFALL OF MATEO
Pierce happened months before he was set to leave for Hogwarts. He'd been given his task; to make sure Circe Einar dies. Albeit, he didn't understand. Why? Why kill her? Surely they could just hold off on her departure, keep her contained here at Praesidium. He refused to kill his partner. No.

The obstinate boy was riddled with questions, and as he faced Philomena, they were answered. Not to his liken, though.

"You met with Orphis, you know that in order for Regulus to join the death-eaters, he has to kill Circe." she began, leaning back in her chiffon seat. She, herself, had watched the little girl grow up into an unruly machine of violence and power. And really, her coming demise wasn't of tragedy, but more so relief.

Circe was a walking cataclysm that threatened all of Praesidium if she were to be released.

"...Yes?" Mateo responded, confusement vexing his eyes.

"But there's a high chance he won't. We've looked at the statistics, and there's a 78% potential that he'll develop feelings for her. If he doesn't kill her, she'll kill him."

"What if Circe develops feelings for Regulus?"

Philomena snorted, "The odds are at 1%."

"So.... I need to kill Circe if Regulus can't?" Mateo asked incredulously. He didn't want to do this, no not at all. He loved Circe with every nerve in his body, and to be the one to bring her death would stain his heart forever.

Could he truly do that to the girl he'd been raised alongside? The girl who he shared everything with. Who knew his darkest secrets, his darkest moments.

"Exactly, and then you'll let Regulus take the credit for it — thus allowing him to be admitted into the death-eaters."

".. Which will lead to him trying to destroy the Horcrux? Surely he could die now, and we'd just leave the locket in the inital cave for Harry Potter."

The woman's face hardened. "Do you know the risks of altering the timeline?"

"Not really..."

She pulled her lissom frame up, moving towards the center of the room where she spelled a digital board into existence. It displayed a lapis butterfly, flickering pixel wings. "The butterfly effect is the idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. "

"Huh?" Mateo remarked.

"The phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a system can have large effects elsewhere?"

"Yeah.... I'm not following." he leant forwards, pressing his lips together. He really needed a cigarette, not a lecture about the universe, and the scientific logic behind its workings.

"Mateo, the butterfly effect is the concept that small causes can have large effects. To put it in, very, simple terms." she clicked and the screen displayed a middle-aged man, presumed dead, though virtually, he blinked towards the Pierce, breathing as if he was in the room.  "Using an example, on June 28th, 1914, the driver for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire,  made a wrong turn onto Franzjosefstrasse in Sarajevo.—"

"—Just hours earlier, Franz Ferdinand narrowly escaped assassination as a bomb bounced off  his car as he and his wife,  Sophie,  traveled from the local train station to the city's civic city.   Rather than making the wrong turn onto Franz Josef  Street, the car was supposed to travel on the river expressway allowing for a higher speed ensuring the Archduke's safety."