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// Chapter's End 
// Story: The Gate 
// by computerneek 
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Hermione pulls her phone out on the breakfast table, glances at the screen, and answers it.  Today is the day everyone comes back to school…  but they won’t get back until the evening, and she wasn’t told to expect anyone.
She doesn’t recognize the number, but it was made with a properly encrypted line- probably just an Agent she doesn’t have in her phone book.  “Hello?”
As expected, the answering voice is not immediately recognizable.  “Hey Silver!  You were right, it wasn’t that great of a show.”
She blinks.  “Uhh…  I’m not Silver.  I can get her, though…?”
“What…?  Huh, I got the number all right, though…  You using her phone, or something…?”
She scowls as well, and shakes her head slightly.  “Ahh…  I don’t think so…  I can get her for you, if you want.”
“No biggie, it’s not all that important.  Just tell her Hermione said that.”
She blinks.  “Uh…  Why tell her I said that…?”
“...  What?  Wait, is the dimensional modulator acting up again?”  A pause.  “...  Yes, it is.  So…  Hello stranger, I guess.  And don’t bother delivering the message, because it’ll be the wrong Silver if you do.  My name’s Hermione Granger- how about you?”
She blinks a couple more times.  “...  You mean to tell me that I just got a call from myself from another dimension?”
“Yeah, something like that, I guess.  I take it you’re not familiar with the multiverse…?”
She shrugs.  “A little, yeah.  I mean, Lyra has a gateway to her world, soo…”
“Ahh…  So, um, there’s a new show out- well, technically, it’s a new universe born, that we can take a peek at.  They’re calling it On the Implications of Parallel Worlds, because it’s a pair of universes tied together in parallel.  Oh, and until the Gate was opened, one of them even looked like our prime path!  Want to take a peek?”
She shrugs.  “Ahh…  Sure, why not?  Though, how would you…?”
With a sudden vwop! noise, a brunette is suddenly standing next to her, wearing jeans and a T-shirt.  “Hi!  …  Wait, is this Hogwarts?”  She looks around.  “Wow…  Been forever since I’ve last been to one of these.”
“What in the world…?” Hermione asks, lowering her phone after it disconnected.
“Ahh…”  The girl holds out her hand.  “My name’s Hermione Granger, but everyone calls me Hermione Greeter.  Nice to meet you!”
She takes the hand, slowly.  “...  Hermione Granger here too.  Though everyone calls me Hermione…”
Greeter blinks suddenly.  “Wow, I wish I had hair like that!  How’d you do it?”
She shrugs.  “I don’t know- Lyra did it.  Soo…  why are you here, again?”
Greeter shrugs in turn.  “Well, I asked if you wanted to take a peek.”  She pulls a small flipphone out of her pocket, and pulls the screen wider until it’s the size of a TV screen, before detatching it to stand it up on the middle of the table.  She then stretches the tiny keypad into a massive keyboard with at least six hundred keys, and pops no less than three computer mice out of the sides.
“What in the world…?” Hermione asks.
Greeter blinks.  “Ahh, sorry.  I got it from ‘work’- and unlike all the other multiversal groups, Hermiones Inc. always has the finest of everything.  I mean…  we are the multiverse’ finest inventors.”  She grins at Hermione.  “We’re a conglomeration of all the various Hermiones from all the various universes around.  Wanna join?”
“...  Maybe.  What is this…  On the Implications of Parallel Worlds?”
“Ahh, yes!” Greeter grins, drawing a wand to tap her own chest…  from which no less than twelve misty, magical arms suddenly sprout to operate the computer equipment.  She pages through some thirty different menus on the screen in a couple seconds.  “Sorry about that, the multiverse is a very complicated place.  Even with two to the nine hundred thirty-seventh power of possible key combinations, multiplied by another several hundred to the fifth power for the mice positions and button states, there’s just too many options for a quick shortcut.  Umm…  Here it goes.”  The video starts playing, and she squeals.  “Oh, the other one is ponies!  And they’re so cute…  I wonder what Destiny has planned for that one?”
Hermione lets out a small snort, glancing at the screen; the ponies there look no different from the Equestrians, and looks back up at Greeter.  “Destiny?”
“...  Yeah.  I woulda hung up once I realized the dimensional modulator was acting up, but I then noticed this universe is fresh out of Destiny Energy…  meaning, the story’s over.  Seems a bit early to me- my universe ran out of Destiny Energy early too, but I was still in my mid-twenties when it did- well past Hogwarts.”  She glances up at the Head Table; the rest of the Great Hall seems to have been frozen in time.  “Then of course, Hermiones Inc worked out immortality last week, so that was some twelve hundred years ago, subjective.”  Shudder.  “Be very careful with time travel, paradoxes can be scary.”
“Oh...kay,” she mutters slowly.  “So…  If I join Hermiones Inc…  what happens?”
Shrug.  “You get to join in on our multiversal fun, really wherever you like.  We’re pretty unique in that regard, with a free-will-based structure- I mean, aside from the League of Sweetie Belles, I hear they’re at least somewhat similar.  You’d probably want to take on a nickname, to differentiate yourself from the rest of us.  Like how I’m Hermione Greeter, you could be…”
“Hermione Gate?”
“Hermione Gate…?  Huh.  Yeah, I suppose.  Well…”

“First, though, I’d like to see what happens in this On the Implications of Parallel Worlds.  Looks like an interesting show…  and, hopefully, it's a bit less, ahh, random than my world.”