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.