HARRY: You know I did.
GINNY: What did you say to our son, Harry?
HARRY can hear the accusation in her voice.
HARRY: I tried to be honest like you said — I didn’t say anything.
GINNY: And you controlled yourself? How heated did it get?
HARRY: . . . I don’t think I . . . You think I’ve scared him away again?
GINNY: I can forgive you for one mistake, Harry, maybe even two, but the more mistakes you make, the harder to forgive you it becomes.
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ACT THREE, SCENE SIXTEEN
HOGWARTS, OWLERY
SCORPIUS and ALBUS emerge onto a roof bathed in silver light. There’s soft hooting all around them.
SCORPIUS: So I think a simple Confringo.
ALBUS: Definitely not. For something like this you need Expulso.
SCORPIUS: Expulso? Expulso and we’ll be clearing bits of Time-Turner from this owlery for days.
ALBUS: Bombarda?
SCORPIUS: And wake up everyone in Hogwarts? Maybe Stupefy. They were originally destroyed using Stupefy . . .
ALBUS: Exactly, it’s been done before — let’s do something new, something fun.
SCORPIUS: Fun? Look, many wizards overlook the importance of choosing the right spell, but this really matters. I think it’s a much-underestimated part of modern witchcraft.
DELPHI: “A much-underestimated part of modern witchcraft” — you two are the greatest, you know that?
SCORPIUS looks up, surprised to see DELPHI has emerged behind them.
SCORPIUS: Wow. You’re . . . um . . . What are you doing here?
ALBUS: It felt important to send an owl — let her know what we’re doing, you know?
SCORPIUS looks at his friend accusingly.
This concerns her too.
SCORPIUS thinks, and then nods, accepting this.
DELPHI: What concerns me? What’s this about?
ALBUS gets out the Time-Turner.
ALBUS: We need to destroy the Time-Turner. The things Scorpius saw after the second task . . . I’m so sorry. We can’t risk going back again. We can’t save your cousin.
DELPHI looks at it and then at them both.
DELPHI: Your owl said so little . . .
ALBUS: Imagine the worst possible world, and then double it. People being tortured, dementors everywhere, a despotic Voldemort, my dad dead, me never born, the world surrounded by Dark Magic — we just, we can’t allow that to happen.
DELPHI hesitates. And then her face breaks.
DELPHI: Voldemort ruled? He was alive?
SCORPIUS: He ruled everything. It was terrible.
DELPHI: Because of what we did?
SCORPIUS: Humiliating Cedric turned him into a very angry young man, and then he became a Death Eater and — and — it all went wrong. Really wrong.
DELPHI looks at SCORPIUS’s face carefully. Her face sinks.
DELPHI: A Death Eater?
SCORPIUS: And a murderer. He killed Professor Longbottom.
DELPHI: Then — of course — we need to destroy it.
ALBUS: You understand?
DELPHI: I’ll go further than that — I’ll say Cedric would have understood. We’ll destroy it together, and then we’ll go to my uncle. Explain the situation.
ALBUS: Thank you.
DELPHI smiles at them sadly, and then takes the Time-Turner. She looks at it and her expression changes slightly.
Oh, nice mark.
DELPHI: What?
DELPHI’s cloak has loosened. An Augurey tattoo is visible on the back of her neck.
ALBUS: On your back. I hadn’t noticed it before. The wings. Is that what the Muggles call a tattoo?
DELPHI: Oh. Yes. Well, it’s an Augurey.
SCORPIUS: An Augurey?
DELPHI: Haven’t you met them in Care of Magical Creatures? They’re sinister-looking black birds that cry when rain’s coming. Wizards used to believe that the Augurey’s cry foretold death. When I was growing up my guardian kept one in a cage.
SCORPIUS: Your . . . guardian?
DELPHI looks at SCORPIUS, now she has the Time-Turner she’s enjoying the game of this.
DELPHI: She used to say it was crying because it could see I was going to come to a sticky end. She didn’t like me much. Euphemia Rowle . . . she only took me in for the gold.
ALBUS: Why would you want a tattoo of her bird, then?
DELPHI: It reminds me that the future is mine to make.
ALBUS: Cool. I might get an Augurey tattoo.
SCORPIUS: The Rowles were pretty extreme Death Eaters.
A thousand thoughts whir inside SCORPIUS’s head.
ALBUS: Come on, let’s get destroying . . . Confringo? Stupefy? Bombarda? Which would you use?
SCORPIUS: Give it back. Give us back the Time-Turner.
DELPHI: What?
ALBUS: Scorpius? What are you doing?
SCORPIUS: I don’t believe you ever were ill. Why didn’t you come to Hogwarts? Why are you here now?
DELPHI: I’m trying to bring my cousin back!
SCORPIUS: They called you the Augurey. In — the other world — they called you the Augurey.
A slow smile grows on DELPHI’s face.
DELPHI: The Augurey? I rather like that.
ALBUS: Delphi?
She’s too quick. Leveling her wand, she repels SCORPIUS, and she is far stronger. SCORPIUS tries to keep her back, but she quickly overpowers him.
DELPHI: Fulgari!
SCORPIUS’s arms are bound in vicious, luminous cords.
SCORPIUS: Albus. Run!
ALBUS looks around, bewildered. And then starts to run.
DELPHI: Fulgari!
ALBUS is propelled to the floor, his hands tied by the same brutal binding.
And that is the first spell I’ve had to use on you. I thought I’d have to use plenty more. But you’re far easier to control than Amos — children, particularly male children, are so naturally pliant, aren’t they? Now, let’s sort this mess out once and for all . . .
ALBUS: But why? But what? But who are you?
DELPHI: Albus. I am the new past.
She pulls ALBUS’s wand from him and snaps it.
I am the new future.
She pulls SCORPIUS’s wand from him and snaps it.
I am the answer this world has been looking for.
ACT THREE, SCENE SEVENTEEN
MINISTRY OF MAGIC, HERMIONE’S OFFICE
RON is sitting on HERMIONE’s desk eating porridge.
RON: I can’t get over it, really. The fact that in some realities we aren’t even, you know, married.
HERMIONE: Ron, whatever this is, I’ve got ten minutes until the goblins show up to talk security at Gringotts —
RON: I mean, we’ve been together so long — and married for so long — I mean, so long —
HERMIONE: If this is your way of saying you want a marital break, Ron, then, to be clear, I will skewer you with this quill.
RON: Shut up. Will you shut up for once? I want to do one of those marriage renewal things I’ve read about. Marriage renewal. What do you think?
HERMIONE (melting slightly): You want to marry me again?
RON: Well, we were only young when we did it the first time and I got very drunk and — well, to be honest, I can’t remember much of it and . . . The truth is — I love you, Hermione Granger, and whatever time says — I’d like the opportunity to say so in front of lots of other people. Again. Sober.