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.