Archive of Our Own

“I have had an idea,” Albus announces, as he drops into the seat opposite Scorpius’s at their usual table in the Slytherin common room.

Scorpius looks up from his homework and recognises the blazing fire in Albus’s eyes. “Oh Merlin. You have had an idea.”

“It involves that Polyjuice stash I’ve got locked in my drawer, possibly also the Invisibility Cloak, and a little bit of danger. Do you want to know more?”

Scorpius puts down his quill. “Is it going to get us expelled? Or arrested?”

Albus flutters his hand in a ‘maybe’ gesture, and Scorpius nods slowly.

“What about killed?”

“Now you’re being dramatic.”

“Maimed? Tortured? Grounded for the rest of our lives?”

“The last one, maybe.”

Scorpius closes his eyes and clasps his hands together. “Fine. Tell me.”

Albus glances around to make sure no one’s listening, which they’re not. The closest group of students to them are a gang of second years, playing an extremely raucous game of Gobstones, which is pulling glares and palpable waves of irritation from everyone else in the room.

“Do you remember the book I got from the Restricted Section last week?”

“If I Obliviate us both to remove the memory of that book forever will it stop you from getting us killed or worse expelled?”

Albus grins. “Nope. So, in that book is a really cool potion. It’s sort of the opposite of a Draught of Living Death-“

“It’s a Draught of Deathing Live?”

Albus steals Scorpius’s packet of Jelly Slugs and puts them into his school bag. “Behave or the Slugs get it. No, if you drink it, it sort of makes your memories of the dead live again.”

Scorpius frowns. “Like the Resurrection Stone?”

Albus nods. “Kind of. My theory is that it was somehow used to make that thing. This book is ancient. It would have been written around that time.”

Scorpius considers for a moment. “So if I drank it, it would, for example, bring back a shadow of my mum?”

“I wouldn’t recommend drinking it,” Albus says, expression going dark. “There’s a reason these things are in the Restricted Section. It sounds like it was used to torture people at some point, drive them so mad that they killed themselves. The only reason I want to make it is because, well, because it’s interesting, and challenging, and-“

“Albus, I get it. You’re explaining yourself to the boy whose dad has a house stuffed with illegal artefacts mostly because they’re fascinating.” Scorpius shuffles in his seat, crossing his legs and leaning in closer. “So is making this potion the illegal thing?”

Albus snorts. “Of course not. No. One of the ingredients I need to make the potion is Thestral Blood, which is a-“

“Class B Non-Tradeable Material. Merlin, Albus...”

Albus goes plunging on. “Obviously it’s a little bit against the law, but I know where I can get it. There’s this shop in Knockturn Alley. I know Hagrid buys things there-“

“Which should not be a recommendation.”

“And so do some of the other staff, including the Potions Mistress. So it’s not like the shop itself is really bad. It’s just a little bit... you know.”

“Questionable.”

Albus nods. “Right. Forgetting about whether or not this is a good idea for a second, there’s a Hogsmeade Weekend next week. We can sneak away and do it then. We’ll use my Polyjuice stash and the Invisibility Cloak, we’ll buy the blood, and then leave. Easy.”

Scorpius hesitates for a moment. “If we’re going to go to all that trouble, don’t you think we should at least have a look round while we’re there?”

A slow smile kindles on Albus’s face. “You’ve always wanted to go to Knockturn Alley.”

“I have...”

“So...” Albus gets up and moves round the table reaching out both his hands. “Are you going to let me do something stupid for the first time in a whole two months? I’ve been very good.”

“You have.” Scorpius takes hold of his hands and squeezes them. “And I think I am going to enable you, only-“

He’s cut off as Albus tugs on his hands and kisses him. For a moment he allows himself to be kissed — because Albus is being remarkably enthusiastic about it, and Albus’s enthusiasm makes for a good kiss — then he frees his hands and gently pushes Albus away so he can finish.

“Only because if I didn’t come, you’d go anyway and get yourself killed.”

“I know, I know. You’re the sensible one. I’ll remind you of that when you’re getting excited about illegal spell-books or whatever.”

Scorpius grins up at him. “Knockturn Alley, Albus. This is going to be really cool.”

“I don’t even really know what there is to look at in Knockturn Alley.” It’s later that night and Scorpius is lying on Albus’s bed with his head resting against Albus’s chest. He hasn’t stopped thinking about Knockturn Alley since their conversation earlier, and nothing can distract him. Right now he’s playing with the pocket watch his dad gave him for his seventeenth birthday, the one made from golden Time-Turner shards, which can normally take his mind off anything, but apparently not today.

“I’m amazed your dad’s never taken you,” Albus says absently as he turns another page of his potions book.

Scorpius snorts and flicks the cover of his watch open and closed. “My dad would never take me to Knockturn Alley. He thinks it’s far too dangerous. And I think he likes to keep me away from the Dark Arts stuff. It’s fascinating though. I wish he would take me, then I wouldn’t have to sneak in. His own responsible parenting will be our undoing.”

“James has been there.” Albus leans over and scribbles a note onto the parchment sheet lying flat on the bed next to him. “He managed to sneak in there when we went to get our school stuff one year. He got grounded for the rest of the holiday, but he claimed it was worth it.”

Scorpius runs his fingers over the brightly polished casing of the watch. “I know the things that are most interesting are further in. There are meant to be shops full of books. Banned books, cursed books, like the ones on the shelves in Hermione’s office. And there are the artefacts dealers, the workshops, the apothecaries, the...” He trails off, frowning as his fingertips graze over an imperfection in the otherwise flawless metalwork of the watch.

“The?” Albus prompts, glancing up.

“Lots of other... things...” Scorpius peers down at the watch and realises that there is a mark on it. It’s not damaged — of course it’s not, he’s always so careful with it — but there’s some sort of hallmark that he’s never noticed before.

Albus nudges him. “Scorpius? Are you okay?”

Scorpius lifts the watch up closer to his eyes, but the hallmark is tiny, barely visible. It looks like three letters, threaded together by an extravagant curlicue, but he can’t quite tell what the letters are.

“Can you see this?” He asks, holding the watch out to Albus and pointing to the mark.

“What am I seeing?”

“There’s a mark... What does it say?”

“Can I-?” Albus doesn’t take the watch, so Scorpius nods and hands it to him.

Albus frowns and examines the mark from a distance, tracing his fingers over it, then he peers at it, turning his head one way then the other, working round the soft golden glow of the lamplight.

“I think... I think it says T&C. Is it a maker’s mark? I thought your dad created the watch himself?”

Scorpius takes the watch back and looks down at the mark. He knows Albus is right about what the mark is for, but Albus is also right about Draco having turned the Time-Turner shards into a watch himself. Which means... It means too much for Scorpius to wrap his head around.

“I don’t know,” Scorpius murmurs. He touches the mark one last time, then he shakes himself and puts the watch away. It’s getting late, and if he lets himself start thinking, he’ll be up all night. “Anyway. The point is, James won’t have seen any of the good stuff. Sneaking into Knockturn Alley is all very well, but if you’re going to really explore, you need time to peruse. Which is what we’re going to have. Thanks to you and your brilliant potioning.” He wriggles round and brushes a finger up Albus’s chest, to his chin, and then his lips.

Albus smiles against Scorpius’s finger. “We’ll get to find out all your dad’s secrets.”

“And maybe even make a few of our own.” Scorpius removes his finger and leans into to kiss Albus instead.

Albus needs no persuading at all to set his Potions book aside. He sweeps the parchment next to him right up against the closed hangings, so it doesn’t get crushed, then he wraps his arms around Scorpius, spreads his legs so Scorpius is positioned comfortably between them, and happily kisses back.

For a little while, Scorpius forgets all about Knockturn Alley and the mark on his watch. His reality closes in to a narrow focus: Albus’s hands, Albus’s lips, Albus’s body, the soft curls of Albus’s hair. It’s only once he’s cooled off in the shower, changed into his pyjamas, and is curled up in his own bed that his mind wanders off again.

That night his dreams take him down dark, winding streets, flitting from shadow to shadow, doorway to doorway, until he descends a set of steps and finds himself in a bright room full of the relentless, soft sound of ticking clocks. One of the clocks gleams burnished gold, and he leans in to examine it, but as he does it begins to chime, each stroke of the hour becoming louder and louder, resonating through his body and shattering his entire reality into pieces. Into rushing water and Gryffindor red and the putrid, rattling breath of a Dementor.

He wakes with a start, heart pounding, and for a second he thinks he can still hear the clock from his dreams tolling out the hours. It takes him a moment to realise that it’s just the distant bell in the Hogwarts clock tower ringing seven o’clock. It’s the morning, and Scorpius barely feels as though he’s slept at all.

“So the plan is to Apparate from Hogsmeade to Diagon Alley and then Polyjuice in the Leaky Cauldron loos?” For a moment Scorpius doesn’t think Albus has heard him — Albus is doing his intense Potions master thing, where he’s concentrating so hard on the liquid in front of him that it might as well be his own lifeblood.

“Albus?”

Albus looks up and nods. “That’s right.” There’s a streak of soot on his nose, and his hair is plastered to his forehead, sweaty from where he’s been curled over the steaming cauldron. “I think everything’s ready with the potion now. We just need to add... these...” He rummages in his bag and pulls out two thin tubes, which Scorpius can only assume contain the hairs.

“Who are we changing into?”

Albus shrugs. “They’re two random wizards. Quite old. Definitely good friends. I got these while they were playing cards together in the Hog’s Head.”

“Did they look like Knockturn Alley types?” Scorpius asks.

“You’re a Malfoy and I’m a Potter. We can make anyone look like they belong anywhere.” Albus starts ladling the potion into two bottles. “I’m bringing enough for two hours each. Will that do for our shopping spree?”

“It should be more than adequate.”

“Great.” Albus corks the flasks and hands one to Scorpius along with the tube containing one of the hairs. “Let’s do this.”

The familiar shine of adventure and mischief and disobedience — the one that Scorpius fell in love with when he was just eleven years old — gleams in Albus’s eyes as they set off for Hogsmeade. They walk fast to get away from their fellow students, and when they’re on their own they slip under the Invisibility Cloak so they can sneak unseen into a deserted alley. It smells of rotten eggs and boiled cabbage, so Scorpius holds his nose with one hand and Albus’s hand with the other, and Disapparates as fast as he can.

It’s a Saturday, so Diagon Alley is busy enough that they don’t have to wait long before they can follow someone through the door of the Leaky Cauldron. No one sees the door to the toilets open and close of its own accord, and there’s no one else in the men’s bathroom when they get inside. There’s only one cubicle, so Scorpius locks the outside door and they grimace at one another as they add the hairs to their flasks and watch the potion change colour.

“I told myself I’d never do this again,” Scorpius says miserably as he watches his potion bubble sluggishly. It’s gone a wine dark red, whereas Albus’s is yellow and looks a bit like congealed custard.

“At least I’m not going to have to snog my aunt this time.” Albus heaves a sigh and raises his flask to Scorpius. “Good luck.”

“Bon chance,” Scorpius replies. He clinks his flask against Albus’s, groans, then tips his head back and gulps the potion down.

To say that it’s unpleasant is an understatement, in fact it might even be worse than last time. His skin bubbles and boils, changing colour and texture until it’s wrinkled and rough, tanned like he spends an awful lot of time outside in the sun. The really painful part is being reshaped from the inside: his bones splinter into jagged shards stabbing into him, his muscles pull and stretch until they ache like he’s just run two marathons and lifted three times his own weight, everything is creaking and cracking and being rebuilt. It takes several excruciating minutes until he’s whole again, with just a lingering ache in his muscles and the distinctive aftertaste of oily fish.

“Never again,” Albus says, the beard he’s suddenly sprouted quivering with intense displeasure as he sticks his tongue out. His new body may not have eyes as bright as Floo flames, but it does have a very expressive face, and right now it’s almost comically wrinkled and furrowed. Scorpius, despite wholeheartedly agreeing that Polyjuice is the worst stuff in the world, can’t help but reach out and poke a dimple in his cheek.

“What was that for?” Albus asks, brushing him away.

Scorpius grins. “You’re spectacularly wrinkly.”

Albus pouts at him. “Yeah, well so are you. And you’ve got that ridiculous moustache.”

Scorpius pats his own very bristly face. The moustache is rather extravagant. He tries twirling it round his finger, and is delighted to discover that it’s easily long enough for that.

Albus sighs. “You’re going to want to grow a moustache now, aren’t you?”

“It’s quite fun.” Scorpius turns and looks at himself in the mirror. “Don’t you think it suits me?”

“It suits him. I’m not sure about you. And I don’t think kissing you with that thing on your face would be very pleasant.”

“Says the man with a beard to rival Dumbledore’s,” Scorpius shoots back.

Albus strokes his beard. “This definitely doesn’t suit me. Anyway, we’re wasting time discussing our facial hair. Are you ready to shop?”

“I have never been more ready for anything.” Scorpius gives his moustache one last tweak, then he links arms with Albus and they stroll out of the toilet, out of the pub, and along the street towards Knockturn Alley.

If Diagon Alley is bustling on a warm autumnal Saturday afternoon, Knockturn Alley is the opposite. It seems cliche that practitioners of dark magic would avoid a bright, sunny day, but that seems to be what’s happening. As they turn the corner away from Diagon Alley and descend the worn stone steps there’s barely anyone in sight.

Although it’s approaching midday and there’s barely a cloud in the sky, it still feels oppressively dark in Knockturn Alley. The buildings are no taller than those in the street next door, but there’s something about how narrow the street is, how the buildings cluster together with barely an inch between them, how the upper floors seem to twist inwards, growing towards one another like the branches of trees in a forest where the canopy is so thick that it blocks out the light.

They remain silent as they make their way along the shining, worn cobbles of the street. Their arms aren’t linked anymore, but at one point Scorpius twists his ankle on a loose stone and grabs Albus’s hand for support.

“Alright?” Albus mutters.

“Nothing broken,” Scorpius confirms, although he winces as he keeps walking.

Despite the unbroken facade of black brick on either side of them (Scorpius wonders if it’s painted that colour, or if it’s the result of centuries of built up dirt and grime that no one’s thought to wash away), there are very few shops. There’s Borgin and Burkes, and the peeling lettering above a boarded-up shop front suggests that there was once an apothecary a couple of doors further along, but they walk for at least two minutes before they find any other shops.

Scorpius fishes his watch out of his pocket as they walk and checks the time. “One hour, forty seven minutes left.”

Albus gives a terse little nod, and Scorpius can practically feel the anxious thrum of his brain running in circles, trying to calculate whether they should have taken more potion. Scorpius brushes his fingertips over Albus’s knuckles to reassure him. How long can it take to buy some Thestral Blood and go home?

As Scorpius tucks the watch back into his pocket and vows not to look at it again for at least another ten minutes, his fingers brush once again over the maker’s mark on the casing. He’s spent a lot of time looking at it over the last few days, and now they’re here in Knockturn Alley he can’t help but wonder if there might be some sort of answer here — if not here then where else?

They descend another set of steps, at the bottom of which is a lit street lamp. Even though it’s day, the street is dark enough here to need the light. It’s not a comforting glow though; the flame is dull orange, dimmed by the dusty glass encasing it, and it casts long shadows into this dingy corner that set Scorpius on edge, and make him glance over his shoulder as they walk past.

Thankfully, things improve beyond that. They pass through a tunnel of sorts and then round another corner onto a real, broad shopping street. The buildings are set far apart here, letting the sunlight stream down, and there are people bustling back and forth. It’s almost as if whoever designed the alley wanted anyone coming in to have to walk a dark and grimy gauntlet to get in, because this street would seem respectable to anyone who didn’t know better.

There are neat iron railings running along in front of the buildings, fencing off the entranceways and steps down into basement shops and stores. Scorpius spots a couple of the antiques stores his dad must frequent, with flashy golden lettering spelling out their names above the windows. Down the street is a noisy bar of some sort, with the sign of a scythe outside, swinging in the gentle breeze, and a constant flurry of people going in and out. Just along from that is a bookshop, and as they pass he can see through the windows that all the books are chained to the shelves, which only makes him more curious to know what’s inside them. Then, beyond that, is a shop with all sorts of barrels and cauldrons outside, stuffed full of ingredients — that must be Albus’s apothecary.

He speeds up towards it, but Albus tugs on his sleeve.

“Hey. Look at this.”

Scorpius turns back to see that he’s pointing down a wide set of well-washed stone steps. This street may be a lot less murky than the alley leading to it, but it’s still dusty and a little neglected. These steps seem to shine bright white in contrast, and they lead to one of the basement shops.

It’s not a normal basement shop. It looks very grand, with a broad entranceway and a door of sparkling glass that’s covered by a black iron grill, presumably to stop any unsavoury customers from the bar next door causing any damage. Beside the door, set in a circular groove in the wall, is an hour glass, whose fine glass bell is filled with grains of bright white sand, pouring away the time until the shop shuts.

Above the door, and presumably the thing that stopped Albus in its tracks, is a magnificent stained glass window. The panes are myriad colours, a swirling rainbow of red and green and blue, glowing in the midday sunshine that’s pouring down from above. And at the centre of the window, in curlicued gold lettering, is written ‘T&C’.

“Oh,” Scorpius breathes.

“From the watch, right?” Albus glances at him, and he nods. “Do you want to go in?”

Scorpius very very much does want to go in, but he reluctantly shakes his head. “No. We don’t have long, and we’re here for a reason.”

“I can come back and get the blood another time. Look, there’s not long until closing time.”

Scorpius pauses because Albus is right. The sand is trickling quickly away. There must be less than half an hour until the shop closes. Finally, after several long and tortuous seconds, he shakes his head much more emphatically. “No. No, let’s do what we’re here for. And if it doesn’t take long, maybe we could come back on the way home?”

The beard hides the thin line of Albus’s mouth, but Scorpius has seen this expression on his face so many times that he knows what’s going on. It’s set and stubborn, considering abject refusal.

“Don’t forget where we are,” Scorpius says quietly, leaning closer to Albus. “We can’t rush into things here.”

Albus’s expression remains stony for a second, then melts. “Fine. But we can come back later.”

Scorpius nods. “If we have time.”

“We will. Come on.”

They march past the steps and along to the apothecary. Scorpius can tell by how purposefully Albus is walking that he fully intends to make it back to T&C before the sand runs out, and he’s more than happy to go along with that, although there’s a tight bubble of apprehension pressing inside his chest. He knows from his dad that anything ostentatious and magnificent in dark magic is only allowed to be that way because it’s dangerously confident. Whoever owns that place doesn’t feel the need to hide anything, and that is not the same as there being nothing to hide. They’re going to need to be exceptionally careful with whatever this is.

He continues brooding until they get to the apothecary, at which point all thought is driven from his mind by the smell of the place. There’s an exceptionally pungent smell of herbs in the air, like they’ve been chopped up and burned as incense. But that’s not the worst of it; underneath is the distinct smell of death, of meat and blood and boiled bones. Without the herbs it would be absolutely unbearable, and Scorpius is almost grateful for the awful incense, but not grateful enough that he doesn’t pinch his nose as he turns to Albus.

“Sure you want to go in here?”

Albus has gone a sickly grey colour, and he’s clenching his teeth together like he’s trying to swallow down vomit, but he nods silently and walks through the door without a second of hesitation.

Scorpius hangs back, examining the contents of the barrels outside. There are normal apothecary things — beetle eyes, herbs, skeins of unicorn hair — and there are also weird things. There’s a whole barrel of oozing entrails that’s attracting flies, a cauldron full of white gleaming objects that on closer inspection turn out to be fangs, and another barrel full of dried leaves that are translucent and gleam rainbow colours in the sunlight. There’s something hypnotic about the leaves, and when Scorpius looks away from them, the street seems to sparkle with the same rainbow colour and he feels strangely floaty. It takes him several seconds to remember how not normal that is, at which point he blinks several times, shakes his head, and hurries inside to get away from them.

He has to duck through a hanging curtain of what look like vines to get inside. They cling to his head and neck until he brushes them away and gets a safe distance into the shop, where he stands and lets his eyes adjust to the low light.

It’s not a large shop. There’s a counter across half its width in front of him, surrounded by boxes and barrels and bags. In the other half of the shop, at least the parts of it he can see, are shelves and cabinets laden with bottles of all shapes and sizes. Albus is standing in front of a small cabinet, peering at the bottles inside, and Scorpius realises as he joins him that every single one of the bottles contains a different red liquid. Some is thick and dark, some scarlet, some almost congealed, and each is labelled with the name of a creature: Hippogriff, dragon, Augurey, gnome.

“Is that...”

“Blood,” Albus breathes. “Yep. Look, they’ve even got-“ He points to the tiniest vial, tucked into a corner, full of silvery liquid, labelled with the word ‘Unicorn’.

“Merlin...”

“Welcome to Knockturn Alley,” Albus mutters.

“How has this place never been raided?” Scorpius whispers, trying to keep his voice as low as possible, because although he hasn’t seen a shopkeeper, that doesn’t mean that no one’s listening to them.

“I bet it has. They must have ways of hiding all this stuff in an instant, I mean look.” He glances around, then turns and points to a barrel in the corner that’s full of large, black seeds, all rattling like something angry is trying to break free. “Venomous Tentacula pods. They’re a class A Non-Tradeable Material. And over there...” He gestures to a box emanating a bright silver glow, that gleams like starlight in the dim shop. “Unicorn horns.”

“Wow...”

“If someone found all this they’d be in Azkaban for life.”

“Do you mind if we have a proper look around?”

Albus’s beard twitches as he grins. “I thought you’d never ask.”

For the next couple of minutes they make their way around the shop, taking every care not to touch anything, even the stuff they’re fairly confident won’t kill them. Every few seconds one of them will gasp, tug on the other’s sleeve, and exclaim things like: “Those are Occamy egg shells! They’re worth more than their weight in gold.” or “I think that might be a Phoenix talon...” or “Is that a Basilisk skull?” Then Albus distracts them both from the shelves by opening the unlocked door of a low cabinet, blasting them with chill air and the unpleasant smell of ageing meat.

While Scorpius coughs and splutters and wafts away the smell like it’s poisoning him, Albus holds his breath and sticks his head in the cabinet to find out what’s in there.

“I think these are dragon hearts...” he says, voice rather muffled. “Oh, and this is definitely some sort of liver. And these are spleens... Merlin, there’s a brain in here. It’s not labelled, but it’s massive, and close enough to a human brain...” He emerges from the cupboard looking faintly sick. “Do you reckon they butcher all this stuff here? Is that what the smell is?”

“I don’t think I’d be surprised.” Scorpius reaches past Albus to shut the cabinet so he doesn’t have to smell rotting flesh anymore. “Did they have your Thestral Blood?”

Albus nods. “Is there anything else we need while we’re here?”

“Not unless you want to get some putrefied mermaid tail or something, no.”

Albus doesn’t quite smile at that joke. “Alright. Let’s go then. And that gives us what, fifteen minutes to get back to the weird hourglass place?”

“Great.”

Albus retrieves his vial of Thestral Blood and takes it up to the counter. There’s no one there, but there is a tiny silver bell on the counter. Scorpius shoots Albus a hopeful look, and Albus rolls his eyes, giving Scorpius his cue to ring the bell. The sweet chime sings through the still, silent shop and Scorpius grins as he puts the bell back down on the counter. It’s a particularly satisfying bell.

For a few moments they stand and wait as its hum lingers far longer than it ought to in the air, then a hidden door behind the counter opens and a woman emerges.

Scorpius’s first thought is that she looks remarkably like Delphi. She’s young, with the same edgy vibe: torn up black jeans, heavy eyeliner, a fang hanging from a chain round her neck. She’s holding a cigarette delicately between two fingers and she exhales a stream of purple smoke as she eyes the two of them.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to buy this,” Albus says, sliding the vial across the counter.

She takes a drag on her cigarette, puffs out more purple smoke, then reaches out and spins the little bottle round so she can see the label. “Ten.”

“Um?”

“Galleons.” She says it with a roll of her eyes, like Albus is incredibly thick.

Scorpius can tell by Albus’s hesitation before he reaches for his pocket that it’s more than he expected to pay.

“We’ll give you three,” Scorpius chips in, before Albus has chance to get over his surprise.

The woman scoffs. “Fuck off. And I didn’t realise you were the one I was negotiating with.”

Scorpius glares at her and twirls his moustache as aggressively as he can.

“Five,” Albus says.

The woman looks at him. “Eight. And that’s the best I can do.”

“Shame. I can get it from my usual supplier for six. But I heard the quality was better here, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

“Six is daylight robbery.” The woman takes another drag and blows smoke in Scorpius’s face. “No wonder you heard the quality was better here. We don’t water ours down. I’ll do it for seven. Since it’s such good quality.” She leers at Albus.

“Six and seven Sickles.”

“Six, seven Sickles, and a Knut. I wouldn’t go lower than seven but since you’re a pensioner I’ll take pity on you.”

Scorpius snorts at the pensioner comment, and Albus lets her win. “Deal.” He puts the money on the counter and she makes a show of inspecting each coin, before nodding.

“Great. Anything else you want?”

“No, um. No, I don’t think so.”

“Wonderful.” She scoops the coins up and heads for the hidden door. “See you.”

“Thank you,” Albus calls after her.

“Yeah, sure.” The door slams shut behind her, leaving just a purple haze floating behind the counter.

When she’s gone he turns to Scorpius. “Well... She was...”

“Charming? Charismatic?”

“Great customer service skills.” He puts the vial of Thestral Blood in his pocket and throws one last look at the hidden door before turning to Scorpius. “What do you say about investigating the weird hourglass shop?”

“I say that it’s a terrible idea. But all of this is a terrible idea, so let’s go.”

Scorpius anxiously twirls his moustache as they make their way back down the street. Albus must be feeling tense too, because after a few seconds he slaps Scorpius’s hand with slightly more force than is necessary.

“Ow.”

“Sorry. You’re making me nervous.”

Scorpius holds his hands up in surrender, then stuffs them in his pockets and starts messing with his watch instead, flicking it open and closed.

“It’s just a shop,” Albus says. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing bad.”

Scorpius gets the distinct sense that he’s trying to convince himself as much as anyone else.

The steps down to T&C look rather intimidating when they’re standing at the top of them convincing themselves to walk down. Although the wide steps and grand door should be inviting, there’s something about the pristine cleanliness of the steps and the black bars spanning the door that isn’t quite welcoming. They stand side by side and look down at the door for several seconds before Albus nudges Scorpius.

“Go on. After you.”

Scorpius considers nudging him back, but he can see even from here that the sand in the hourglass has almost run out. If they don’t do this now they’re going to lose their chance.

“Together.” He tugs on the sleeve of Albus’s robes, and Albus nods and falls into step beside him.

Part of Scorpius expects the door to be locked when he tries pushing it. He’s not sure whether he’s relieved or disappointed when it swings seamlessly open to reveal a wide waiting room, with leather sofas on either side and a large clock at one end. A big glass coffee table in the centre is bare apart from four round marble drinks coasters and a neat pile of business cards.

“It’s not a shop...” Albus says, surveying the scene. “I was expecting- I don’t know. Not this.”

“Maybe if we wait we’ll be taken to the shop?” Scorpius asks.

“Maybe...” Albus crosses the threshold and goes over the coffee table. Nothing happens when he walks through the door; there’s no bell or any other sort of indication of a call for assistance.

“What if we’re too late? What if no one comes because there are only a couple of minutes until the shop closes?”

“Well we can at least have a look around. And here. I’ve already got an answer.” He holds out one of the business cards to Scorpius.

Scorpius goes over and takes it. It’s a very thick, textured cream card. It feels expensive, and it looks expensive too, with words written in embossed gold leaf.

Ticke & Chyme Ltd.

Makers of Finest Quality Magi-Horological Artefacts

358 Knockturn Alley, London

“What does ‘Magi-Horological’ mean?” Albus asks. “Isn’t horology like making watches and clocks and stuff? Maybe they did make your watch!”

“It’s not just making clocks,” Scorpius murmurs. “It’s studying time. There’s a Magi-Horology division in the Department of Mysteries.” He looks up at Albus. “They were responsible for creating the Time-Turners.”

A frown creases Albus’s deeply lined forehead, casting shadows. He’s dappled in rainbow coloured light from the stained glass window, and he meets Scorpius’s eyes. “So... so you’re saying that they might have... made our Time-Turners?”

“I’m saying it’s a distinct possibility.”

Albus swallows. “Okay... Okay.” He strokes his beard for a moment, cogs whirring inside his brain. “If they made two Time-Turners, doesn’t that mean that they know how to do it? And they could have made more?”

Scorpius doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

“Alright.” Albus holds his hands up, as if he’s trying to tell them both to slow down. “Say these people made the Time-Turners, say they made more — which we don’t have any proof of at all by the way — don’t you think it’s sensible to go and tell someone about this? We could go to my dad. He could investigate. That would be way more sensible than us poking around and getting into trouble.”

Scorpius nods. “I agree.”

“Great. So let’s go. Let’s pretend that we were never here. We just... happened to find this business card lying around.”

“He’s not going to believe that.”

Albus groans. “Have you got a better suggestion?”

Scorpius thinks. “Ooo! It was in my dad’s office. And I recognised the logo from my watch.”

“Doesn’t that get your dad in trouble?”

Scorpius shrugs. “I don’t know. I doubt it. Everyone knows he’s not a fan of Time-Turners either. He wouldn’t be having another one built.”

Albus nods. “Okay. Okay! So we go to my dad and say we saw this, and that there’s an address on it, and that we’re worried that-“

He’s cut off as the clock on the wall begins to strike the hour. The chimes are bold and resonant, echoing through the sparse room and humming through Scorpius’s bones. They both wait in silence for it to stop, but when it does they don’t get chance to finish their conversation before something else happens. Something much worse.

The door behind them begins to click. It’s a tiny sound in comparison to the chimes, but it’s sharp and precise, cutting through the air. Scorpius turns round to see what’s going on and sees that a series of gold bars have slotted into place across the inside of the door, perfectly matching the iron grille on the outside. Beyond the door, the hourglass at the bottom of the stairs has run out. As he watches, it flips over of its own accord and the sand starts to trickle away again.

“I don’t... think that’s good,” Albus says slowly, gesturing to the bars.

Scorpius goes over and tries the door. It doesn’t give an inch. “No. It’s not good at all. We’re locked in.”

“There must be a way out. We could-“ Albus screws his face up and whirls round in a flurry of robes. He loses his balance and stumbles sideways, collapsing onto one of the sofas. “No we couldn’t Apparate. Well, there must be an emergency exit somewhere.”

“In a doorless, windowless room? Albus, we’re trapped.”

Albus eyes the stained glass window. “We could break the glass...”

“How about we look for a non-destructive solution first?”

“You were the one who said we were trapped...” Albus surveys the room, then makes a beeline for the clock. Meanwhile, Scorpius goes over to the door and starts waving his wand over the gold bars locking them in.

He tries to cast a couple of spells that he only barely understands. They’re complex strings of incantations that are supposed to reveal the weakness of whatever he’s casting them on, but he’s not sure they’re working, because he’s not sensing any weaknesses in these locks. After a second and third attempt, he’s still not sure whether he’s doing the spell wrong or if there’s simply no way of breaking through this door. However, he’s spared from worrying about it for too long, because on the other side of the room, Albus has just given an exclamation of delight.

“Ha! It’s a door.”

Scorpius glances round just in time to see Albus triumphantly flick a switch right at the heart of the clock face, causing the clock to slide forwards a few inches before the entire wall splits in two and retracts sideways. It takes just three silent seconds for the wall to disappear as if it were never there, leaving only the clock standing proudly in the very centre, the pillar between two newly created arches that lead through to a brightly lit room beyond. After a beat of complete stillness, a soft ping resonates through the air. It’s not a sinister sound, but it still vibrates through Scorpius’s bones and sets him on edge.

“Before we open any more secret doors,” he murmurs, “can we talk about whether it’s a good idea first?”

Albus’s grin fades. “Sorry...”

“It’s done now.”

“And it might lead to a way out.”

“It might...”

Scorpius crosses the room to Albus and looks through one of the archways. It’s not that easy to see what’s beyond, because on closer inspection the arch is filled with a golden, shimmering heat haze. Beyond the trembling veil, Scorpius can make out bright light, broad space, and a series of benches littered with indistinct objects, but that’s about it.

He raises his wand and waves it at the hazy air, but all he finds out is that it’s a charm of some sort, which was pretty obvious. On the other side of the clock, Albus is having a similar amount of luck — not much at all. His shoulders slump as he frowns at his wand.

“I’m normally really good at that spell.”

“I think this charm is just particularly stubborn.”

Albus considers the haze for a moment, then he reaches out. Scorpius gasps because for a second it looks like Albus is about to stick his whole hand through. Thankfully Albus has learned at least a modicum of sense over the years. He stops with the handle of his wand just outside of the charm, then withdraws it and inspects it.

“No damage. And the charm is basically just a curtain. Maybe a couple of millimetres thick?”

Scorpius pokes at it with his own wand. “So what do we do? It might kill us if we walk through...”

“I doubt a shop this fancy would want to have to deal with dead bodies. More likely it’ll trigger some sort of alarm, or...” Albus shrugs. “It won’t be good. But it won’t be fatal.”

Scorpius eyes the charm. “If we walk through and this kills us...”

“You can tell everyone it was my fault.” Albus gives him a sparkly little smile. “Don’t say you don’t want to take a closer look at the next room.”

“Fine.” Scorpius holds his hands up. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Albus doesn’t need telling twice. “Here goes nothing.” And he steps through. Scorpius hesitates for a second longer, then he closes his eyes, holds his nose, and follows him.

There’s a sensation of pleasant warmth flowing over him, front to back, top to toe. It’s sort of tingly, and when it stops, once he’s stepped through, he feels remarkably clean and fresh. For a moment he wonders if it was some sort of cleansing spell, to keep the workshop sterile, but then he opens his eyes and looks at Albus and his heart sinks.

Albus looks like Albus. Where two seconds ago Scorpius had been looking at a wizened old man with a long grey beard, now he’s looking at the familiar messy black hair, sharp green eyes, and tight jaw of his best friend.

“At least it didn’t kill us?” Albus says, clearly trying hard to be optimistic.

Scorpius sighs and touches his face. “I was quite attached to that moustache.”

“I definitely prefer you without it.”

“I think it suited me.”

Albus pulls a face at him, then looks around the room they’re now in. “Have you seen this place?”

Scorpius stops mourning his moustache and follows Albus’s gaze, immediately deciding that it was worth sacrificing his impressive facial hair for this.

They’re now in a large workshop. The bright light they’d seen from the other side of the arch is coming from a big, circular skylight, through which is shining golden sunshine. Given that there’s a building on top of them, Scorpius guesses it must be enchanted sunshine, but it’s a flawless mimic for the real thing, and a long shaft of it is shining directly down onto a small stone sundial in the centre of the room. Although the space is full of timepieces under construction (tiny, delicate hourglasses; a glass dome with little glass planets resting on the bench next to it like marbles; a couple of clocks without hands or pendulums) this seems to be the only thing in the room that’s currently telling the time.

Alongside the half-finished clocks and watches, the surfaces are littered with all sorts of bits and pieces. On one bench are several long, metal spikes that might one day become clock hands. On another are piles of cogs of all shapes and sizes and colours, the metal teeth gleaming in the sunlight. There’s another bench with finely sawn wood, and piles of sawdust underneath, and yet another with bubbles and domes and bells made of flawless glass and crystal. And amongst it all are books, some open to inside pages and weighed down with spare cogs, some closed, most of them leather bound and worn with age and use.

“Oh wow,” Scorpius breathes, descending the two steps down into the workshop. He can’t help himself. Everything in here is so interesting and unlike anything he’s ever seen before, that he’s drawn in like a magnet. This space must hold hundreds of thousands of secrets, and he wants to know all of them. “This is pretty cool,” Albus murmurs behind him, and Scorpius nods as he moves from bench to bench, book to book, skim reading, inspecting the elements that go into making time tick, until on a bench in the far corner of the room he finds a book that he’s only ever heard of and never thought he would see.

It is very small, about the size of a postcard, but it’s thick, the pages bulging out like the covers can’t quite contain the scale of knowledge pressed within them. The cover is sky blue, and the cloth is wearing away in places from years of wear and tear. Each corner is protected by a delicate filigree of silver. And across the front is stamped fading silver lettering that spells out a title.

Turning Time: A Magi-Horological Study by Professor Evangeline Epoch

Scorpius stands stock still and stares down at the book on the table. He’s pretty sure his heart has stopped, and he hasn’t taken a breath in forever, but mundane things like heartbeats and respiration don’t feel so important any more because this book is lying on the table in front of him, like it’s just any other book. Like it hasn’t shaped his entire life.

“You’ve gone very quiet.”

Scorpius jumps as Albus‘s fingers graze across his shoulder blade.

“What have you found?”

“It’s a book,” Scorpius says, in a very strained murmur.

“I can see that.” There’s a smile in Albus’s voice, and he puts an arm round Scorpius’s waist and rests his chin on Scorpius’s shoulder. “I know you love books, but you don’t react quite like this to all of them.” He reaches past Scorpius to touch the cover. “What is it?”

Scorpius gently knocks Albus’s hand away. “It’s... it’s the Time-Turner book.”

“Okay?”

Scorpius inhales through his nose and turns round in Albus’s grip so he can look at him. “So... so you know about Croaker, right?”

“That’s the one who said you can’t go back more than five hours.”

“Correct. He helped the Ministry to develop their Time-Turners. He was more of an academic than an Unspeakable, but he figured out how to put the limitations on the Time-Turners. How to make them safe. His work built on this.” Scorpius taps the cover of the book. “Evangeline Epoch was his teacher. His mentor. His friend. She was the one who... who worked out how to manipulate time. She developed the mechanism of spells that make Time-Turners run.

“Of course she did a lot more than just that, but... This book...” He picks it up reverently, holding it across the flat palms of his hands, and he can practically feel the power of all that knowledge tingling against his skin. “This book is essentially an instruction manual. It tells you everything you need to know to build a Time-Turner.”

Albus blinks and shakes his head like he’s overwhelmed and needs to settle the information in his brain. “Hang on.” He holds his hands up. “There’s a book that tells you how to build Time-Turners? Why isn’t everyone doing it?”

“Well for one thing it’s exquisitely difficult. I mean, there might be a handful of people in the world who could do it. And for another, there are only three copies of this book in existence. This book was published not long before Croaker realised how dangerous time travel is. Once he told the Ministry, they destroyed all of the copies aside from the one kept by the Department of Mysteries, one held by MACUSA, and one reference copy in the British Library.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Albus says slowly, “but this shop isn’t the Department of Mysteries, MACUSA, or the British Library. So why is there a copy of the book here?”

Scorpius grins, and he knows his eyes are alight. Albus is probably judging for being this excited about a book, but he can’t help himself. “Well... rumour has it that the Department of Mysteries copy went missing at some point during the second war. That’s partly why the Time-Turners were never rebuilt. The Ministry couldn’t do it anymore.”

“So you think that this...”

“Is the Ministry’s copy. Precisely.”

“Wow...” Albus breathes. “I-“ He shakes his head in amazement. “So your granddad’s Time-Turners came from here. They used this book, and... Wow.”

Scorpius nods and runs his fingers over the edges of the pages, letting the soft paper brush past his fingertips. He can imagine it now, someone studying the magic in this book, following the instructions and mixing it with their own knowledge and craftsmanship to create the Time-Turners that he and Albus used to almost destroy the world. All those adventures, all that magic, everything they learned about themselves and each other and their dads — it’s all rooted here, in this workshop. In the dust and the heaps of cogs and the perfectly blown glass and the long shaft of sunlight.

He presses the book to his chest and hugs it. There’s a tight ball of emotion coiling up inside him, a tension, a conflict. All the excitement of finding this book and exploring this place is ebbing away like the tide, leaving behind pebbles on a beach. Except he doesn’t have pebbles; he has doubts.

“We need to tell your dad about this...” he murmurs, glancing at Albus.

Albus’s eyes are sharper than ever. He sees everything, including Scorpius’s hesitancy. “But?”

“But.” Scorpius looks down at the book. “I mean... it’s extraordinary magic. It’s beautiful. It’s... it’s life changing. You know that.”

“Yeah, but it’s not good. This is Dark Magic, Scorpius. Messing with time... it didn’t do anyone any favours. It never has.”

“I don’t think that’s strictly true,” Scorpius says, so softly that he’s not sure Albus even hears. He clears his throat and raises his voice. “It’s not dark, it’s murky. It’s complicated. But it’s so simple... It’s just time. Just a ticking clock. People living their lives, or- or not living their lives. I know what Dark Magic is, Albus, I’m a Malfoy. I’ve seen- I’ve felt-“ He swallows. “This isn’t that. It’s not. It’s possibility and hope and reconciliation and... and it’s love. Always. That’s why you did it. That’s why Delphi did it. And Hermione, and Harry, and... There’s nothing dark about that.”

“Scorpius,” Albus whispers. He reaches across and gently lifts the book out of Scorpius’s hands. “Love is... it’s wonderful, it is, but it’s not perfect. It doesn’t make you do the right thing. It’s just as messy, as murky, as everything else. And this.” He gestures to the book. “I can’t begin to understand what’s in here, but it’s too much power. That’s what makes it dark. You think ‘why shouldn’t I be the one to make history?’ but you can’t. It was you who told me that. So... so we’re going to leave this here.” He puts the book down on the side and hovers his hands over it. “This stays. And we go to the Ministry, we show them the card and the mark, and we let them deal with it. Okay?”

Scorpius stares unseeingly at the book, which is now just an unfocused blue and silver blur. “Okay,” he says, in a tiny, choked whisper.

Albus takes hold of his hands, then reaches up to cup his cheeks. “Okay.”

Scorpius looks at him, right into his eyes, and bows his head. Albus brushes a thumb across his lips, kisses him on the cheek, then pulls him into a hug. It’s so easy to get lost in the warm press of Albus’s body, the comforting, familiar solidity. Albus is the anchor amid Scorpius’s storm. He’s the lighthouse. Safety, stability, home.

“Okay,” Scorpius says again, when they part, and Albus reaches for his hand.

“Let’s find a way out of here and go home. Come on. There has to be-“

He stops. Scorpius’s heart stops too. As they turn back towards the centre of the room they realise for the first time that they’re not alone in the workshop.

A man in a neat, pin-striped suit, complete with pocket square and bright silver watch chain, is standing beside the sundial, with a pleasant smile on his face.

“Good afternoon.”

Albus looks at Scorpius, Scorpius looks at Albus, and then they both look back at the man.

“Um,” Albus says.

“Hi!” Scorpius gives a little wave.

“I don’t believe I was told to expect any more appointments this afternoon,” the man says, stepping forward and extending a hand towards Scorpius. “But nevertheless, here you are. Young master Malfoy. A pleasure.”

“Yes,” Scorpius squeaks, quickly shaking his hand. The man’s grip is exceptionally firm, almost painfully so, and Scorpius is relieved when he lets go.

“And you...” The man turns to Albus. “Must be Albus Severus.”

Albus looks distinctly uncomfortable about the man knowing his name. “Yes, that’s me. I don’t think I caught your name.”

The man’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, although it widens into fake brightness. “No, I didn’t give it. I am Barnabus Ticke, at your service. And I am currently quite interested in how I may be of assistance to two young gentlemen who have no appointment and presumably aren’t interested in acquiring or commissioning a Magi-Horological artefact.”

“We were joining some dots,” Scorpius says. “So to speak. And having joined them, we were planning to leave. Weren’t we, Albus?”

Albus nods. “Absolutely.”

“Joining some dots.” Barnabus echoes, as he turns round so he has his back to them. In the split second he’s facing away from them, Scorpius decides to try something very stupid. He reaches behind himself and shoves Evangeline Epoch’s little book into the cavernous pocket of his robes.

“And what dots might those be?”

“You worked for his grandfather, didn’t you?” Albus chips in.

“I have built a number of fine timepieces for the Malfoys over the years. I believe there’s a clock that still sits on the library mantelpiece, is there not?” Barnabus turns back to look at Scorpius.

“Oh! Yes there is. Was that one of yours?”

“Yes. A rather beautiful thing it is too. It never needs winding, it never loses time, and it chimes much more softly after dark — Lucius Malfoy was a rather light sleeper and the library isn’t far from the master bedroom, you see?”

“But it wasn’t just clocks and watches,” Albus presses. “Was it?”

“No,” Barnabus says simply. “As you have both deduced, it was not.”

Scorpius steps forward. “What happened? My grandfather came to you and... and what, asked if you could help him turn back time?”

“It was more of an item for show. Of course, it was important that it worked perfectly, that’s why we made a prototype, and we would never have considered creating a finished product that was anything less than flawless. But it was a trophy. A jewel for his collection, rather than something for daily use. And we were rather proud of the final piece. It was a showcase of some of our finest work.”

“How did people find out that the Malfoys had a Time-Turner?” Albus asks. “I guess your work must be secret. Discreet projects. Private clients. All that. So how did it get out?”

Barnabus gives a very small, almost smug smile. “As a craftsman I do like to talk about my best work. That’s what generates future business.”

Scorpius stares at him. “So... the rumours started with you?”

“I am not a gossip, Master Malfoy.” He adjusts his cuffs, dusts a finger over the pristine surface of the sundial, then crosses to one of the workbenches where he picks up an oil-stained apron that he puts on. “I think you’ll find that people, particularly in certain circles, talk to one another. One person hears about Lucius Malfoy’s rather smart new artefact. Another hears, quite by chance, that the Dark Lord intended to secure his blood line. There is distortion, conflation, escalation, confusion. Most people are so poorly disposed to hold onto detail and nuance, and next thing you know...” He gestures to Scorpius.

Scorpius steams. He doesn’t know where it’s come from, but suddenly there’s a simmering cauldron of rage inside him, and it’s about to boil over. “So it was you. You talked, and it started... it started everything. All of it. You- You ruined our lives. And your beautiful inventions nearly destroyed the world. You can talk about craftsmanship and trophies until you’re blue in the face, but the truth is that I never had any friends because of you. A boy died because of you. Voldemort nearly came back because of you. But maybe that’s the sort of thing you want, since you’re so set on moving in the ‘proper’ circles. Magi-Horologist to the Death Eaters. What a great place to be.” He turns and grabs hold of Albus’s hand. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

Albus doesn’t have any chance of arguing. Scorpius drags him across the room, past Barnabus, and back in the direction of the door. It’s presumably still locked, but he doesn’t much care. He’ll blast it down if he has to.

“Not so fast.” Barnabus’s silky voice oozes out behind them. “I believe you have something of mine.”

Scorpius whirls round and takes the watch from his pocket. “This? It’s paid for. It’s mine. And it reminds me every day what meddling with time does to people’s lives.”

“No, I don’t care about your watch. I would like my book back.”

Scorpius feels Albus exhale beside him.

“You took it,” he whispers. “Scorpius, you idiot...”

Scorpius ignores him. “It’s not your book. It was stolen. Did my grandfather get it for you? What deal did you do with him? While Voldemort and the Ministry conveniently looked the other way?”

Barnabus dusts his hands on the apron and sighs. “I always thought the Malfoys were rather reasonable people. It seems that mixing Greengrass blood into the mix has made you rather difficult.”

“Don’t talk about my mum.” Scorpius’s wand is in his hand and pointing at Barnabus in an instant. Beside him, Albus groans softly.

“For your own good,” Barnabus says levelly, “I will allow you to give me the book and leave. I shall even unlock the door for you.” He draws his wand and holds it up, not threatening; simply loose in his hand and ready for spellwork.

Scorpius knows he should agree. This isn’t a fight that he can possibly win. But running alongside logic is the thread of memory. Of people whispering about him in the street, spitting on the ground in front of him; his classmates turning their backs on him when he joined them for the Sorting ceremony on his first day at Hogwarts; ‘son of Voldemort’ scrawled on his trunk in golden letters that he doesn’t know the spell to remove; people shoving him in the corridors, splitting his bag open so his ink bottles smashed and spilled on his books. Of the Manor gates closed for his entire childhood, not because anyone wanted them to be, but because it was the only way to keep them all safe in the face of a world convinced it knew their darkest secrets.

There’s pain too. The indescribable agony of the Cruciatus Curse. It’s like a lurking shadow over his existence, the knowledge that pain like that exists in the world; that it could be inflicted on him or anyone he loves at any moment. And all of it for a frigging Time-Turner.

He tightens his grip on his wand and shakes his head. “I won’t.”

“Obtuse and reckless.” Barnabus lowers his wand to point at Albus and Scorpius, threatening for the first time. “Very well.” He twitches his hand, a movement almost small enough to miss, and one of the sharp metal spikes rises from its bench, lying in the air, perfectly parallel to the floor.

There’s a clock tick in which everyone knows exactly what’s going to happen next, a beat of perfect stillness and anticipation, then they all move as one.

“Get down,” Albus yells.

Scorpius throws himself sideways and waves his wand in a desperate attempt to deflect the missile. Barnabus sends the unfinished hand slicing straight at where Scorpius’s head was a second earlier. It goes spearing past, through the arch, and straight through the stained glass window, which shatters into a thousand coloured pieces. Before Scorpius has made sense of what’s going on, Albus is pulling him to his feet and back through the arch to take shelter behind the clock.

“You should have given him the book,” Albus hisses. “We could have walked out of here and sent the Aurors back to clean up.”

“Don’t be naive. He’d have hidden it so your dad couldn’t find it.”

“You underestimate my dad.”

“You underestimate these people.”

Albus looks at him. “Since when was I the optimistic one?”

“You can’t be optimistic about Dark Magic. That’s not how it works.”

“Says the boy who was waxing lyrical about the beauty of Time-Turners five minutes ago.”

“That’s different! That’s-“

“Protego!” Albus points his wand past Scorpius’s face, covering them both with a shield, just as Barnabus rounds the corner and casts two Stunning Spells at them. The second one blasts the shield apart, but Albus’s charm has done its job. They stagger to their feet and each cast a spell back in return.

Barnabus swats them aside like they’re mildly irritating flies, and this time it’s Scorpius’s turn to shield, bracing himself as an onslaught of powerful spells ricochet around them.

“Split up,” Albus barks, and Scorpius nods. When the shield drops they hurl themselves in opposite directions. Albus is like a bullet, streaking back through the heat haze into the workshop, while Scorpius dives onto the floor behind the coffee table, slithering on the shards of broken glass.

He knows what to expect next. Barnabus will cast a spell that shatters the coffee table into pieces and sends the business cards flying everywhere. In response, Scorpius will shield, and do a fancy bit of spell work to weaponise all the glass and send it flying straight back at Barnabus, distracting him long enough for Albus to do something bold and idiotic and downright brilliant.

But that isn’t what happens.

What happens is that Barnabus very calmly lifts a pocket watch from within his waistcoat. He examines it and fiddles with the dial, as if he has all the time in the world, then he tucks it away again and saunters over to the big clock. Scorpius doesn’t manage to catch what he does, but when he steps back, the hands are at 12, the second hand is just beyond the hour, and the clock gives another of its resonant, thrumming chimes. Scorpius feels his stomach flip over like he’s done a loop-the-loop on a broom, and then-

Scorpius dives onto the floor behind the coffee table, slithering on the shards of broken glass. Confusion fogs his brain. Wasn’t he already on the floor, already sliding, almost to a stop? He just did this five seconds ago. And now he’s doing it again...

He looks up, assuming he’ll see Barnabus putting his watch away and adjusting the clock, just like he did only a moment before, but no. The clock hands are already at 12, and Barnabus is walking across the room towards him.

“I don’t under-“

Scorpius dives onto the floor behind the coffee table, slithering on the shards of broken glass. It’s happening again. Scorpius has had deja vu before but this is something distinctly different. This is time repeating itself.

He manages to twist his body round and look up as he skids to a halt, just in time to see that Barnabus is now right on top of him. Up close, Scorpius can see the fine embroidery on his waistcoat — a design of Roman numerals and cogs. Scorpius can also see the silver and gold chain leading to the pocket watch that he’d done something to just before time went weird.

He smiles down at Scorpius, an ugly, jagged leer, and he counts backwards, ticking the seconds off on his fingers.

“Three, two, one...”

Scorpius dives onto the floor behind the coffee table, slithering on the shards of broken glass. As he slides he sees an inexplicable flash of silver light from somewhere beyond the room, but he hardly gets chance to think about what it might be, because Barnabus is waiting for him.

“My book, if you please.” He seizes hold of Scorpius and starts patting down his pockets. Scorpius does his best to kick and punch; he even tries jabbing his wand into Barnabus’s midriff, but he’s no Albus. He’s not built for physical combat. And all his efforts seem to be just a mild annoyance to Barnabus, who tuts, casts Petrificus Totalus so Scorpius can’t move, and triumphantly pulls the book from Scorpius’s pocket.

“Thank you. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Scorpius glares at him, and hopes against hope that in a second he’ll be able to move again, because now he has a plan. The second until time loops back takes a lifetime, but finally...

Scorpius dives onto the floor, mercifully free of the spell, and skids the familiar path behind the coffee table. His wand is still in his hand, and he tries to twist his body round so he can point it at Barnabus’s retreating back. He only has one chance to get this right, because if he messes up then he has to start over again, but Barnabus gets to keep going, now ready for an attack.

Albus would probably have decided that it’s worth taking a risk to save time, but five or six seconds isn’t long, and Barnabus doesn’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry. He’s inspecting the book for damage as he crosses the room, and Scorpius knows he has time.

In the few remaining seconds, he tries to memorise how he twisted his body, and work out the exact angle he’ll need to aim at to make this work. This time, when his stomach flips over, he’s ready.

He dives onto the floor behind the coffee table and drags his arm through the glass to try and slow himself down as he slides. Sharp, slicing pain makes him grit his teeth, but he pushes up off the floor, aims, and thinks the spell with all his might.

“Accio Watch.”

There’s a heartstopping second in which he doesn’t think it’s worked. Now he only has six seconds to play with, that instant drags on for years. He inhales, exhales, heart hammering far too fast. He must be running out of time by now.

He squints towards Barnabus and sees hope. The watch is straining against its chain, doing its best to get free. Scorpius wonders if he could cast Diffindo and help it, but then-

The chain snaps and the watch flies towards him. He leaps up and snatches it from the air with what must be an instant to spare. His stomach lurches... and then settles. He remains on his feet behind the coffee table, watch clutched triumphantly in his hand, and in front of him, Barnabus is in the same position he was six seconds ago.

He turns to look back at Scorpius, expression apoplectic, and Scorpius shields without thinking, knowing that he has probably less than twelve seconds to decide what to do next.

It’s a curious sensation, watching time flip back without him. A gentle wind brushes over him, but he remains perfectly still at the centre of the storm.

When he acts again, it couldn’t be better timed. While Barnabus is still reeling from being wound back, Scorpius casts another silent Accio, which hits a second before he can shield. The book flies out of his hand, leaving his fingers gripping nothing, and Scorpius clutches it to his chest.

“You’re not having it.”

“We’ll see,” Barnabus growls. He raises his wand, but Scorpius knows he only has an instant left so he isn’t too concerned. There’s something comforting about that — the knowledge that his assailant will have to start from square one again while he gets to carry on.

An instant later the loop resets. Barnabus is back where he was, and Scorpius braces himself to duel. Except no attack comes. Barnabus does raise his wand, but he doesn’t point it at Scorpius. He points it at the clock and shouts something that Scorpius doesn’t catch.

A bolt of midnight blue shears through the air and strikes the clock face right in the centre. The hands break off and fall to the floor with a clatter; the face cracks into a spider web of fissures; and a wave of pressure rushes through the air, knocking Scorpius off balance. He just about manages to stay on his feet, and when he steadies himself he sees Barnabus facing him, a look of fresh triumph on his face.

“No more games, Malfoy. And I notice your friend has abandoned you. It’s just you and me now.”

Scorpius knows, he can feel in his heart, that the time loop is over. They’re back on a level playing field. And for the first time in the last fraught minute or so, he realises that he has no idea where Albus is. He must have made it into the workshop before the time loops started, and Scorpius can only hope that he’s hiding while he comes up with a plan.

“I don’t need any help,” he calls. “This is just the way I want it.”

“Is it now?”

Barnabus makes three brutal slashes in the air with his wand. The first one slams into Scorpius’s shield so hard that it jars his arms. His shield collapses and he only just manages to keep hold of his wand. It’s a close run thing with the second; he ducks it by an inch and feels it singe across the top of his head. The third, however, finds its mark.

It hits Scorpius square in the chest and he collapses backwards, all the air knocked out of him. He lands amongst the rainbow of glass shards and lies spread-eagled on his back, gasping for breath.

His brain is all fuzzy, a galaxy of stars flare and fade as he blinks up at the ceiling. It takes him a second to comprehend that he’s alive and conscious, and another to realise that his hands are empty. He’s not holding anything. Not his wand, or the book, or-

The book.

The room orbits slowly around him, lopsided and off-kilter, as he pushes himself up onto one arm. He lets out a soft hiss of pain as the glass mashes into his skin again, but he manages to grab hold of the book. Right now that seems more important than his wand, because he thinks he understands the sort of person that Barnabus is.

There are dark wizards who are cowards. His grandfather was one, maybe his dad once was too. They want the power and the privilege and the status. They want to break the rules and push the boundaries of magic to make themselves look special and above everyone else. But most importantly, far more than all that, they’ll sacrifice anything and everything to look good, to look respectable, to be able to run and hide when it suits them. Their depravity will take them wherever it needs to in order to maintain their standing, but there are things that they are incapable of. There’s no compassion there, there’s no love or empathy or caring, but there’s also no commitment or strength. There’s nothing to respect and nothing to fear.

Barnabus isn’t going to kill Scorpius for this book. He’s not going to cause him any permanent harm at all. Because if he does there’ll be consequences, and this sort of person is all about avoiding consequences. So all Scorpius needs to do is hold onto this book for as long as it takes for Albus or someone else to come and rescue him, and hope that he’s read Barnabus’s character right.

He curls himself into a ball around the book, knees pressed against his chest, arms locked around it — an immovable cage of muscle and bone.

Behind him he hears footsteps, which stop a short distance away.

“This is your last chance to let it go.”

Scorpius doesn’t respond. He presses his eyes tight shut and screws his body up in anticipation of the pain. Even thinking about it makes him tremble with fear, but he’s withstood it before and he’ll do it again.

“Very well. Cruci-“

“Don’t you dare.”

Scorpius hears Albus’s voice cutting through the air, then running footsteps. He feels something very solid hit him hard, before a warm weight like a blanket folds over him. Then there’s an explosion of glass shattering, the splatter of thick liquid, and Barnabus screams.

“Are you alright?” Albus gasps, scrambling up onto his knees and pulling the Invisibility Cloak off them.

Scorpius gingerly sits up, and Albus takes hold of his arm to steady him. “I think so?” He hasn’t quite caught his breath yet, and he’s shaking.

“He didn’t get you with the spell, did he?” Albus runs his hands over Scorpius’s shoulders, like he’s trying to satisfy himself that Scorpius is in one piece.

Scorpius shakes his head. “No. No, you got there first.”

“But you’re bleeding.” Albus takes hold of Scorpius’s wrist and gently moves it so he can see the cuts on his arm.

“Just a bit of glass. It’s fine. I-“ Scorpius exhales a trembling breath. “I’m okay. But...” He turns round to look at Barnabus, who’s cowering on the floor over by the clock.

There’s dark red blood, so dark it almost looks black, splattered across his face and staining his clothes, but he doesn’t seem to be hurt. He is, however, curled up in a ball with his hands covering his head, whimpering like a child.

“What did you do to him?” Scorpius asks.

Albus gives a very grim smile. “I threw the Thestral Blood at him.”

Scorpius frowns. “Which is dangerous because... because it makes you think about death?”

Albus nods. “If it splashes your skin it gives you a sudden awareness of your own mortality. I guessed that a guy who’s obsessed with clocks and turning back time might not exactly enjoy that...”

“I think you’ve broken him,” Scorpius murmurs, watching as tears dribble down Barnabus’s face, and he rakes his fingers through his hair. “And you got that blood for your potion.”

“I don’t think I care. I don’t think it matters. He was about to torture you. He could have killed you.”

“But he didn’t.” Scorpius stumbles to his feet, using Albus’s shoulder as a leaning post. “But I don’t think we should stay here any longer. Have you spotted a way out?”

Albus shakes his head. “No, but I-“

An almighty explosion rocks the room, and Albus hurls himself at Scorpius, throwing them both to the ground. The door to the shop is blasted off its hinges, locks buckling and tearing like they’re made of paper. When the dust begins to settle, Scorpius coughs and waves a hand in front of his face to clear the air. He crawls onto his knees, and beside him Albus sits up too, expression glowing with sheer relief when he sees the person standing in the doorway.

“Dad! Thank Dumbledore. I thought you’d never come.”

Harry waves his wand and the dust clears. As the scene in the room becomes visible — the broken glass and shattered clock, the blood staining Scorpius’s robes, and the man in the sharp suit sobbing in the corner — he sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair. “Do I want to know what’s happened here?”

“So then we split up,” Albus says, glancing up to make sure his dad is following. “That’s when I cast the Patronus to call for you. After that I saw something... really weird? Happening in the room. So I stayed outside until I realised Scorpius was about to get hurt. Then I- Then I, um, I cast a spell and that’s how the man, Barnabus, Mr Ticke, ended up like that. And right after that you arrived to save us!” He finishes his story with a smile that Scorpius admires for its optimism. Given how stony Harry’s expression is right now, he’s not sure either of them have cause for much hope. Although Harry has dragged them to the Ministry promising that they’re not under arrest, Scorpius doesn’t trust that promise to hold up under duress.

“Dare I ask what spell you cast on him?” Harry asks. “He was in a pretty bad way, Albus.”

Albus is a terrible liar. He twists his hands together and does an over exaggerated shrug. “I... I don’t remember?” Clearly he realises how implausible that is because he quickly leaps back in before his dad can speak. “I mean... it was very spur of the moment. I sort of just acted without thinking really.”

Harry pushes his glasses up his nose. “Albus...” He doesn’t have to outright tell Albus to be truthful. His look is enough. Albus quails and bows his head.

“Fine, I threw some Thestral Blood at him... I didn’t know if it would actually work, but I thought it was worth a try. He was about to cast the Cruciatus Curse on Scorpius! That was pretty much all I could do.”

“And where did you get Thestral Blood?”

Thus far Albus has been gently skirting the truth about their trip to Knockturn Alley, a strategy Scorpius hasn’t been sure about from the start, and now it’s all about to unravel.

“I bought it,” Albus mutters to his shoes.

“You bought a Class B Non-Tradable Substance?” Harry doesn’t look angry. He just looks amazed. “Let me get this straight. You snuck out of Hogwarts to go on an illegal shopping trip to Knockturn Alley, where you bought prohibited items-“

“A prohibited item,” Albus corrects. “There was just one.”

Scorpius is normally all for getting the facts straight, but he privately thinks that this may not be the moment.

Harry holds his hands up. “Okay. A prohibited item. You then broke into a shop-“

“It was open when we got there!” Scorpius chips in, against his better judgement. It seems that pedantry is catching.

Harry rubs his forehead and closes his eyes, like he’s praying for strength.

“We went into a shop,” Albus supplies. “Which was open when we got there-“

“But closed shortly thereafter,” Scorpius adds.

Harry exhales a thin stream of air and opens his eyes. “And once you were there, you duelled a dark wizard, destroyed a good portion of his shop, and then threw an illegal substance at him, albeit in self-defence.”

Albus and Scorpius glance at each other.

“I think that covers it,” Scorpius says.

Harry shakes his head. “Remind me never again to make the mistake of thinking of you two as the quiet ones. I don’t think even Fred and George, even my dad and his friends, would have had the audacity...”

“I thought you realised that years ago,” Albus murmurs, and Scorpius makes a desperate squeaking sound to try and get him to shut up.

“Realised but never quite processed.” Harry takes his glasses off and buries his face in his hands.

Beside Scorpius, Albus shuffles his feet, robes rustling in the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m glad I didn’t take you home,” Harry mutters. “Your mother would have murdered us all. And I’m glad you didn’t call Draco as well as me.” He drags his fingers through his hair, then replaces his glasses and looks at them. “Do either of you have anything else that you shouldn’t have? Potions ingredients? Artefacts you stole from that shop? Anything that could get you in trouble?” His expression is pleading with them to say no, and Albus quickly turns his pockets out onto the table.

“Nothing, look. Just some coins — those are mine; my wand... oh, and a Pepper Imp. I forgot I had that.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, an exhalation of genuine relief. “Scorpius?”

Scorpius can feel Albus’s expression pressing into him. He’s emanating waves of despair, because he knows what’s in Scorpius’s pocket. But what he doesn’t know is the depth of Scorpius’s foresight.

Malfoys have been hiding nefarious artefacts and spell books from Ministry officials for centuries. It’s in Scorpius’s blood. Disguising the book wasn’t even a thought, it was an instinct.

He pulls out his money bag, his wand, his half-eaten bag of Jelly Slugs, a rather battered self-inking quill, and finally the book. Its cover is blank; all its pages are empty apart from the first, which contains just the day’s date and five words:

Scorpius Malfoy

Knockturn Alley Notes

“I guessed it’d be an interesting trip,” Scorpius explains, showing Harry the page. “So I thought I’d bring a notebook and write some stuff down. You know, cool ingredients I saw in the Apothecary that I’d like to look up the properties of later, titles of books to check out in the Restricted Section, that sort of thing. Turns out I didn’t have much time for note taking.”

He shoots Harry a sheepish smile and puts the book down next to the quill. Albus’s mouth is hanging open in a suspicious expression of surprise, so Scorpius stands on his foot.

“Ow!”

Harry looks up and frowns at Albus, who quickly makes his jaw crack, winces, and makes a show of rubbing it.

“Sorry, I must have tweaked something while I was duelling.”

Harry looks immensely unconvinced as he looks back at the book. He riffles through the pages, then mercifully seems to decide that he really doesn’t want to know.

“Fine,” he says, holding his hands up. “Thank you. I hope I can trust you both.”

“I hope so too,” Scorpius says. “I-I’m sorry we were so stupid. But Knockturn Alley is fascinating, don’t you think? And my dad has never let me visit it before. We thought we could cope, but... Clearly we overestimated ourselves.”

He hangs his head as he scoops his belongings back into his pockets, deliberately leaving the book for last.

Harry sighs. “I would have hoped you’d know better by now. Both of you. There’s a reason why Draco doesn’t let you go there, Scorpius. And I know you’re both adults now, you’re both very accomplished wizards, and I’m proud of you. I’m sure Draco would say the same. But that just means you should know to be more careful. What do we say, Albus?”

“Constant Vigilance,” Albus parrots in a monotone as he picks his stuff up off the table.

“The difference between an alive wizard and a dead one isn’t skill. It’s recklessness.”

“Says you,” Albus mutters, and this time Scorpius doesn’t bother to hide anything by stamping on his foot, he elbows Albus straight in the ribs.

“Oof. What was that for?”

“Stop talking!” Scorpius squeaks.

Albus looks at his dad and goes pink. “Right. Sorry. I’m just saying though. I got it from you.”

Harry rolls his eyes and gets up. “Alright. That’s enough. I’m sending you back to school. McGonagall will want a word.”

Scorpius and Albus both deflate. McGonagall will be worse than Harry. Much worse. But at the same time, Scorpius is aware that they deserve it.

“You can take the Floo to her office. She’s expecting you.”

“We’re going to be in detention until the day we leave school,” Albus groans.

“If you’d rather I arrest you, I can. But that’s a lot of paperwork for a Saturday afternoon.”

Albus holds his hands up. “No, no. I don’t want to make extra work for you.”

“Great. Off you go then.”

They shuffle over to the fireplace and each take a handful of Floo Powder. Just before they step into the flames, Scorpius glances back at Harry.

“Thanks for coming to rescue us.”

Albus nods. “Yeah, thanks Dad. That’s the second time you’ve done that.”

“I’m just glad I found you both in one piece.”

“Us too,” Albus murmurs.

“Please don’t do it again. If I have to rescue you a third time it’ll have become a habit.”

“Don’t worry,” Albus says. “It definitely won’t happen again.”

“Hopefully,” Scorpius sings under his breath.

Albus pokes him in the arm. “It won’t. Now... let’s not keep McGonagall waiting.”

Scorpius can’t remember having been in so much trouble since fourth year. In some ways this is actually worse. There were mitigating factors in fourth year, especially for him, having survived Voldemort’s world. This time there’s nothing but their own idiocy. No coercion or manipulation, no acts of courage, just sheer and utter stupidity.

They each get a month’s worth of detentions, and they’re banned from all Hogsmeade visits for the rest of the year. The shame is worse than the punishment though. McGonagall is brilliant at making them feel as though they’ve personally let her down with their actions. It reduces Scorpius to the size of a Doxy, and all he can do is hang his head and murmur apologies as she tells them to get out of her sight and not be so stupid ever again.

It’s a miserable evening. Even though Scorpius has healed his arm, he doesn’t think he’s done a brilliant job because it feels prickly and uncomfortable. Albus is moping about the detentions and about the fact that he won’t get chance to make his potion now. And alongside all that, pressing in on Scorpius, is the knowledge that the book is sitting in the pocket of his robes, and he has no idea what he’s going to do with it now.

Perhaps he should have given it to Harry — that would have been sensible; that was what he was meant to do with it. Harry would have been safe. He would have put it somewhere that no one could use it. He’s Harry Potter. He’s Albus’s dad. Scorpius can trust him. He can trust him.

But there’s something in his heart — a small, cold pebble of doubt — that makes him pause. Maybe it’s the same doubt that made him lie about the Time-Turner once upon a time. Maybe it’s even the same doubt that has made him keep his feelings to himself for most of his life, and the same doubt that made him check every morning that Hogwarts was still standing after he got his letter.

The world is so vast and complex, and people do stupid things for the most inexplicable reasons. Trusting anyone is impossible, especially people who have a clear vision of how the world should be. Good and bad, right and wrong, it’s so rigid. There are spaces in the shadows — in the grey, liminal gaps that most people rarely realise are even there, let alone an option — that are flexible and malleable and shape themselves around complex decision making.

Those are the decisions upon which the world stands. Decisions that barely feel like decisions and much more like survival. It’s down to Scorpius to make one of those decisions now. Where is the tipping point between the hopeful beauty and possibility of time, and the bleak pain and suffering and sheer darkness of it? Does the bad outweigh the good?

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Albus murmurs, rolling onto his side on the very edge of his bed, so he’s as close to Scorpius as he can get without crossing the space between them. “Are you okay?”

Scorpius nods. “Yes... Yes, I’m fine.”

Albus bows his head and fiddles with a bit of silver embroidery on his blankets. “Okay good. Because I... I just want to say that I’m sorry. If I hadn’t suggested going to Knockturn Alley none of this would have happened. I think my brain is a magnet for stupid decisions. They just...” He gestures to his head. “Come to me. One after another. And then you end up getting hurt because of them.”

“I don’t think this one was your fault,” Scorpius says gently. “The blood was your idea, but if we’d stuck to that we’d have been fine. It was the watch that got us into trouble, and that was me.”

“But I pushed it.”

“If I hadn’t taken the book he’d have let us leave,” Scorpius points out. “This one’s on me.”

Albus clenches his jaw in defiance but doesn’t argue. “Now you’ve got the book, what are you going to do with it? Will you study it? I bet you’re smart enough to build a Time-Turner. That would be a project and a half.” He grins and Scorpius gives a tiny smile in response.

“It would, but... I don’t know. I want to do the thing that...” He considers for a moment. “The thing that I can be proud of. Whatever that is.”

Albus tucks his hands under his chin, lifting his head up a bit off the bed, and his smile turns to a sweet glow. “You’re extraordinary. Not the right thing, but the thing you can stand by. I like that. I like that for you they’re not the same. For most people they would be.“

“Unfortunately I’m not most people.” Scorpius sighs and flops down on his back on the bed.

He can feel Albus’s eyes on him, and it’s not scrutiny, it’s a gentle wash of something akin to admiration. Appreciation. Pride. Love.

“Fortunately,” Albus whispers.

Scorpius doesn’t respond.

Just over a week later. Hallow’s Eve. A crystalline sharpness hangs in the air, manifesting in a sheen of frost and a fine halo around the moon. The few leaves still clinging to the skeletal branches of their trees are burnished bronze. Scorpius wakes to that heavy, hollow Halloween feeling that he can never quite explain.

Is it the excitement of Christmas just around the corner? Is it the spectre of death reaching out on a day when the veil is at its thinnest? Or is it the reverent and hopeful weight of memory that haunts this day so particularly? Whatever it is, it makes Scorpius feel different and strange, and it must do the same for Albus because he’s unusually quiet and melancholy as they make their way through the day’s lessons.

Harry comes to visit at lunchtime, so Scorpius spends the hour alone, moping in the dorm. He tries to read but can’t concentrate, so instead he does what he’s taken to doing over the last week — he sits with Professor Epoch’s book in his lap, staring down at the front cover and trying to decide what to do with it. When he leaves the dorm for his afternoon classes he slips the book into his bag. It’s not as if he’s going to do anything with it or read it, but this feels like a good day to carry it with him.

Not much happens in afternoon classes. This year more than ever, everyone’s excited for the Halloween feast. There’s a strange sense of bittersweet nostalgia about it, because this will be their last one ever.

When Professor Flitwick finally releases them from charms with a long-suffering sigh of “well... I certainly hope the feast lives up to your well-discussed expectations”, Albus and Scorpius head not for the dorm with everyone else but straight down to the grounds.

They started this tradition in fifth year, when Albus couldn’t stand to spend even a couple of hours cooped up in the castle between class and the feast, and Scorpius got so agitated by his pacing back and forth across the dorm that he snapped and demanded they go for a walk. That night they sat by the lake and talked for so long that they were almost late for the first course. It helped, so they did it again last year, and this year it was an unspoken understanding that they’d do it one last time.

Twilight draws in around them like an inky blue, velvet cloak. The night is studded with ice crystals and stars, but there’s something about the darkness that feels immensely comfortable and welcoming. Its embrace folds around them and makes them invisible and small and inconsequential, especially next to the vast, blazing beacon of the castle, and the inconceivable streams of stars and galaxies spilling across the clear sky overhead. On this night more than any it’s nice to be reminded that they’re nothing more than two grains of sand, two ticks of a clock, and that nothing they will ever do or not do, nothing they’ve ever done or not done, has any impact on whether the sun still sets, the moon still rises, and the earth keeps spinning its way through the universe.

Albus pulls two bags of marshmallows out of his school bag and drops them onto the grass at the base of their favourite tree. The reflection of the moon on the lake is feathered and ruffled by a gentle breeze. Scorpius draws his wand and casts a small, golden flame that hovers an inch or so above the frozen ground.

“Ready for toasted marshmallows?” Albus asks.

“Is that a serious question? I’m just concerned that if we eat all these we won’t appreciate the feast...”

Albus grins, face glowing and eyes aflame in the firelight. “I’m sure you’ll make room.”

Scorpius groans. “I’ll have to, won’t I?” He leans back against the tree and gathers his cloak around himself for warmth. “How was your dad?”

Albus shrugs and rips open the first bag. “Alright, I suppose. Coping. It’s never his happiest day... He seems to have forgiven us for last weekend. Although he did ask how you were getting on with your notes.”

Scorpius frowns. “My notes?”

“You know, the notes you were supposedly making on cool stuff to remember about Knockturn Alley.”

Scorpius sighs. “Ah yes. Those notes. They’re... not going brilliantly, I’ll admit.”

“Do you still not know what you’re going to do with the book?” Albus glances at him, then looks away to concentrate as he levitates one of the marshmallows over the fire.

Scorpius uncrosses his legs and instead hugs them to his chest. “No... I- It’s difficult? Impossible, really.”

“Mmhmm?” Albus gives his wand a little twitch and the marshmallow begins to slowly rotate, toasting itself evenly on all sides.

Scorpius takes a marshmallow of his own from the bag and throws it into his mouth without bothering to toast it. “Yeah.” He‘s muffled by sticky, sugary fluff. “There’s just... a lot. A lot of ways of seeing it. A lot of right and wrong things to do. How do you make a decision like that?”

“You said you wanted to be proud of whatever you decided.” Albus looks up from his marshmallow. “What would make you proud? What’s your best option?”

Scorpius knows what it is, but he suspects it’ll sound mad even to Albus. “I don’t know.”

“Well what’s the range of options then?”

Scorpius runs his fingers through his hair and rests his chin on his knees. “Ugh. So many things? Giving it to your dad, giving it to McGonagall, giving it to my dad, taking it to a library or an institute or... keeping it, burying it. Take your pick.”

“You didn’t list throwing it off the Astronomy Tower,” Albus says. “Everything else, but not that.”

“I could throw it at Myrtle, like your mum did with Riddle’s diary.”

“You could lock it in the Chamber of Secrets,” Albus laughs. “That would get rid of it!”

“Or feed it to a Blast-Ended Skrewt.”

“Or give it to the Giant Squid to drown.”

“Or- your marshmallow is on fire.”

“My what? Oh, shit.” Albus blows on his marshmallow to extinguish the flames, then he takes it off the fire and levitates it up to his mouth.

“Albus...” Scorpius says, gritting his teeth. There’s no way that thing isn’t painfully hot.

Albus bites into the marshmallow and the reaction is instant. As molten marshmallow dribbles down his chin he gasps and starts bouncing up and down, fanning at his mouth, face screwed up in pain.

His tongue is sticking out, so Scorpius can barely make out the litany of swear words and pained desperation, but it sounds something like: “ooohhhh that’s hot. Ow ow ow. It burns. Oh fuck. Oh, Merlin save me.”

Scorpius bites his lip and tries very hard not to laugh. He fails.

Albus is still bouncing around in pain, and at one point it looks like he’s considering dunking his entire head in the lake. But finally he swallows the marshmallow, at which point he aims his wand at his mouth and sprays a jet of water straight in. After several gulps he wipes his chin and casts a healing charm, then he straightens up and gives Scorpius a dignified smile of complete composure.

“I’m fine.”

Scorpius clutches his stomach and gasps for breath. “A-are you sure? Because it seemed touch and go for a second there.”

“I’m sure.” Albus draws himself up straight and lifts his head high. “Completely sure. I think we were going through your list.”

“You can change the subject but I’ll remember that forever.”

“Don’t think you can blackmail me, Malfoy. Two can play at that game.”

“Oh, I know.” Scorpius gives him a wicked grin. “I’ll just keep the memory for my own enjoyment. Maybe I’ll get a Pensieve and start a collection of Albus’s most embarrassing moments.”

“I don’t even know where I’d start with that...” Albus muses. “I’ve had some terrible moments. But anyway.” He shakes his head and levitates another marshmallow.

“Anyway...” Scorpius echoes.

They lapse into silence, Albus concentrating on his marshmallows, Scorpius leaning his back against the tree and staring up at the infinite sky above them. It’s like looking at time itself. He read a Muggle science book when he was younger that talked about starlight; the way the light they can see is coming to them from across hundreds and thousands and millions of years. The stars burning in the darkening sky are probably dead now, but he can still see them. Every single pinprick of light up there is a final breath. A swan song. A cry for help, for recognition, like a flare. And they’re reaching him. Right here, right now, on this Hallow’s Eve, where Albus is toasting marshmallows and he’s trying to decide what to do with a book that has the power to change people’s lives forever.

“I do know,” he murmurs, breath ghosting in the air in front of him.

“Mmm?”

“What I need to do about the book.”

Albus floats his marshmallow away from the fire to let it cool, and looks at Scorpius expectantly.

“I just... don’t think I’m brave enough to do it.”

Albus snorts. “Don’t be daft. You’re the bravest person I know.” He blows on the marshmallow, picks it out of the air with his fingers to check it’s cool enough to eat, then pops it into his mouth and licks his fingers. “What is it?”

Scorpius swallows. “You’ll think it’s really stupid.”

“I’m the king of stupid decisions. Try me.”

Scorpius pulls his school bag across to him and fishes the book out of it. “I’m going to do something. If, when I do it, you think it’s the wrong thing to do, will you stop me?”

Albus swallows his marshmallow in one go and eyes him. “Okay...“

“Okay,” Scorpius says.

He raises his wand towards and aims it at the golden flame he’d conjured earlier. It flares brighter and bigger, flickering, a hungry tongue licking at the air, and he doesn’t give himself another moment for indecision. He holds the book over the fire and watches as the pages catch light, sending smoke curling up into the night.

“What are you doing?” Albus gasps. “Scorpius!” He stares open mouthed as the flames curl up the front cover. His wand is held loosely in his hand, and it would be so easy for him to put the fire out, but he doesn’t.

Scorpius withdraws his fingers from the book as the flames creep closer, and instead holds it up with his wand, manipulating fire and book at once in a sort of destructive, magical juggling act.

“When I thought about all the people I could give it to,” Scorpius says, looking up at Albus, “all the places I could take it, I couldn’t think of a single one where I could guarantee it would be safe. Where I knew that one day, in the future, someone wouldn’t find it and use it and-and cause the same destruction we did all over again. We were taught a lesson, Albus. And isn’t the whole point of a lesson that you’re supposed to learn something from it? I can’t think of a better thing to learn from our experiences than the simple fact that no one should meddle with time.”

“But...” Albus swallows and pauses. The flames are throwing long, wavering shadows across his face and away across the lawn behind him. “But you said yourself, how beautiful this magic is. How extraordinary it is. How it’s not bad or good, it’s just complicated. Complicated and brilliant. And you’re... you’re burning it...”

Scorpius sighs, lost for how to explain. “I don’t... think that I’m some grand custodian of Time-Turner magic, where I have any right to get to decide what happens to it. I’m not. I’m just me. And you’re just you. But... but I think that’s the point.”

“Go on,” Albus murmurs.

The solid board structure of the book’s cover begins to curl up as the fire takes hold. Flaming shreds of fabric and paper scatter in the gentle wind, like tiny orange fireflies dancing before burn out and fade to nothing.

“I know what it did to me,” Scorpius says softly. “It made my entire life a little bit murkier than it might have been. Which is nothing compared to darkness on a cosmic scale, you know, Voldemort level darkness. But aren’t rumours and speculation and whatever bad enough?

“We’ve got a bit of darkness right here and we can get rid of it. It won’t fix what happened to us, and it won’t stop anyone being shunned or tortured or killed ever again. But it might make a tiny little difference to someone’s life. Maybe. Isn’t that worth it?” He looks desperately across at Albus. “Please tell me it’s worth it, because I’m burning a book right now, and that’s the most sacrilegious and unforgivable thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

Albus shakes his head. “No, I do. Think it’s worth it. But Scorpius... what about all the good it did? It helped you fix things with your dad. It let my dad to come and save us. And even though we couldn’t save Cedric, we got to talk to him...”

“I don’t know,” Scorpius whispers, as the pages of the book shrivel up and turn to ash. “I-I really don’t know. Maybe this is a terrible mistake. Maybe this will end up destroying everything. But I do still think... I think, on balance, it’s better gone than kept.”

Albus silently gets to his feet, nudges the bag of marshmallows towards Scorpius, then sits next to him and slides an arm round his waist. “This is what I mean. About you being braver than me.”

Scorpius twists sideways to look at him. “Why?”

Albus rests his head against Scorpius’s shoulder and traces a finger down his arm. “Because. Your stupid decisions are so well reasoned and they break your heart when you make them. Mine are all spur of the moment, worry about the consequences later type things that I end up regretting. But you know what the consequences are before you start, and I admire that about you. It destroys you and you do it anyway.”

Scorpius makes the book turn in the air, so the other edge of the pages catch light. “I’m not admirable. I’m overwrought.”

“Whatever you are, I love it.” Albus presses a kiss to his cheek. “I love you. Mistakes, murkiness, stupid decisions and all.”

“So you don’t think think this was the wrong thing to do?”

Albus shrugs. “I don’t know. But that’s okay. It’s done now. No more Time-Turners.”

“Unless MACUSA have a secret stash...” Scorpius points out.

Albus pokes him in the side. “Don’t ruin the moment. Let’s enjoy this for a second at least.”

“Okay, okay!” Scorpius holds his free hand up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I am enjoying this.”

He turns the remnants of the book over again, and a pile of ash scatters onto the ground. Almost all that’s left now are glowing embers and a couple of final curls of parchment, which shrivel up and turn grey as they watch. The evening breeze carries one last scatter of ash and curl of smoke up into the darkness, and they’re left with just themselves, their marshmallows, and the golden flame.

“It’s all gone,” Albus breathes. “You just burned a book.”

Scorpius drops his wand to the ground by his side and shudders dramatically. “Please don’t remind me. I need cleansing. I need to go and personally apologise to every single book I’ve ever owned or interacted with.”

Albus rolls his eyes. “I don’t think I’d be surprised if you did.”

“Oh, I intend to. Completely. But in the meantime...” He picks up another marshmallow and pops it into his mouth. “I’ll have to settle with eating my guilt.”

Albus wraps his arms round Scorpius and gives him a tight squeeze. “How does it feel though? Knowing that no one can make any more illicit Time-Turners?”

Scorpius gathers Albus close and leans down so he can bury his face in Albus’s shoulder. The wool of his cloak is cold but soft, and there’s a lingering scent of fire smoke that’s fresh and autumnal and comforting. It’s the smell of bonfires and crisp air and fallen leaves. Of the world throwing out the old and preparing itself to start afresh. Not death or decay but hope and possibility and anticipation.

“It feels good,” Scorpius murmurs. “I think I feel free.”

Albus sighs, his body relaxing in Scorpius’s arms in a sudden release of tension. “Me too.”

They pull back and look at each other, hands still held loosely between them, then after a second they move together.

It’s at times like this that Scorpius wonders at the way fortune has brought them together. Amongst the entirety of time and space, they found each other in a train carriage all those years ago. They’re two tiny pinpricks, thrown together by luck or fate or destiny or whatever it was, and even changing the past couldn’t quite manage to change that.

The kiss is sticky and sugary and simple. Scorpius smiles at the taste of slightly charred marshmallow, and brushes his fingers through Albus’s hair, dislodging a small scattering of ash. He shivers when Albus strokes a thumb over his cheek, and presses gently into the kiss, while Albus grazes his teeth against Scorpius’s lower lip.

They don’t quite part after that. They sit facing each other, foreheads resting together, fingers lightly entangled, bathed in the wash of firelight.

“No more worrying about the past,” Albus murmurs. “I mean, I guess my dad will always have his head there a little bit, and so will yours, but we don’t have to.”

“We don’t,” Scorpius agrees, brushing his thumb against Albus’s. “Now we can focus on our much bigger problems.”

Albus frowns, and Scorpius can feel the wrinkle of his forehead. “Which are?”

“The future. Mostly. This is our last Halloween here, Albus. Every time we do something now, we’ll never get to do that thing here again. We’ve already had our last September 1st, this is our last Halloween feast, soon it’ll be Christmas, and then it’ll be the end and we’ll have to be ready for whatever comes next.”

“It’s a scary thought, but I’m not really afraid.” Albus traps Scorpius’s thumb under his, and squeezes his hands tighter.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve got you.” Albus says simply.

He’s so close that he’s a soft-focused blur, but he’s smiling, and he looks like familiarity and comfort and home.

“Good answer,” Scorpius murmurs. Then he sits back and picks two marshmallows out of the bag. He hands one to Albus and raises his like he’s raising a glass. “Here’s to the future.”

Albus snorts at the ridiculousness of it, but he still lifts his marshmallow up and bumps it against Scorpius’s. “To the future.”

They chew on their marshmallows as their golden flame burns and the waters of the lake lap gently at the shore. The remaining embers and ashes of the book stir in the wind and scatter. Overhead, a couple of wispy clouds scud across the moon, lit silver and grey and purest white. The stars wink down at them from across eons, and Scorpius’s pocket watch steadily ticks away the seconds until the feast begins, taking them incrementally further into a future that’s free of interference from the past.

Eventually they extinguish the flame, pack up the sweets, and head back towards the castle, hand in hand. Inside the Great Hall the pumpkins are lit and a cloud of bats are fluttering around the ceiling. The ancient halls and corridors of the school echo the noise of a thousand excited voices, all heading down for the feast.

As he pushes open the heavy, gilded doors into the entrance hall, Scorpius glances back at Albus and makes a choice. They’ve spent so many Hallow’s Eves dwelling on the past, and it would be so easy to spend this one thinking about the future. But tonight he’s going to focus on the present.

All he can control is what’s in front of him, and right now that’s the boy he loves, a mountain of delicious food, and the chance to be happy with where and who he is right now.

He pauses to let Albus close the doors behind them, shutting out the darkness, then he takes Albus’s hand, kisses him on the cheek, and bounces into the Great Hall to enjoy the best Halloween feast of his life.