Chapter Text
Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy is deeply characterised by his feelings according to anyone who knows him well enough. His father often reminds him that his kind heart will always be his greatest strength, especially in the face of a world that believes him to be without one. Albus has always teased him for becoming over-encumbered with emotion so much as to give him a hug — which honestly shouldn’t be that big a deal, but live and let live — or when he frets over accidentally harming passing insects. When you don’t talk with people, you learn to both read them and understand the depths of their emotions and your own in ways that have never been quite fun to him, but that’s how he is and always has been, and there is nothing wrong with that. Well, until now, of course. Because the foreign feeling of nothingness is strangling him, and not in the sort of way that depression gives you, no , it’s a different numbness that comes with learning everything you know about the world has changed for the worse, and infinitely so.
Thoughts with attached pathos don’t fill his head as he makes his way out of the Forbidden Forest with Umbridge at his side, donned in a pair of conjured robes lightly damp from the lake water that chills his bones, and terrified beyond belief. It’s a straight outpouring of facts that dizzyingly run circuits in his mind, which may be the only reason the dementors that circle like hawks have not yet struck.
Harry Potter is dead. Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts. There is no Albus Potter.
He can’t even start to process the first sentence and might fully break down if he even touches the last so he continues to let the loop run, praying there’s some sort of absolution or peace to be found.
Harry Potter is dead. Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts. There is no Albus Potter.
There’s not. With every step through the forest of questions, he asks he learns more not-so-fun facts to add to the chain.
Harry Potter is dead. Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts. Muggleborns have all but been eradicated. There is no Albus Potter.
He feels the shift in the air around him as the dementors drift a little bit closer to the ground around them, sensing the internal torment that he is forcing himself not to feel.
Harry Potter is dead. Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts. Muggleborns have all but been eradicated. His family is at the right hand of the Dark Lord. There is no Albus Potter.
He’s learned how to mask well enough, to suffer in silence and put on a brave face and not provoke any more sadness in a father who is barely keeping it together in the face of tragedy after tragedy in their family. But he feels the quivers of his lips, the twitching in his fingers, and the slowing of his gait; a death knell to the anxiety attacks he was so famed for by friends and bullied for by enemies. He chokes it down as he nods his head and listens to the woman in hopes at least audio can ground him. It doesn’t but he can at least they can keep moving out of this place.
Harry Potter is dead. Voldemort won the Battle of Hogwarts. Muggleborns have all but been eradicated. His family is at the right hand of the Dark Lord. He’s Slytherin’s most-prized heir. There is no Albus Potter.
Being dragged back to the Entrance Hall by Umbridge isn’t exactly a homecoming, it is quite the opposite of it, in fact, as every inch of the castle is filled with stale air and looming dread that only deepens the pit in his stomach with each step. His father hadn’t exactly been kind to Hogwarts, and the place wasn’t exactly welcoming to Draco in turn. He’d been popular, sure, but his father was deeply troubled and Scorpius was too in these halls, and, albeit for other reasons, Hogwarts wasn’t fully a home for him, at least not in the way that everyone always talked about it. Albus, of course, made things easier, so that their dormitory felt like an escape from the loneliness that pervaded their lives outside those walls, but he has always been a pariah at Hogwarts be it for his intelligence or inherited legacy.
But, despite it all, he misses it now . Even if the other Slytherins scorned them, he and Albus had felt a sense of House pride that ignited each time they saw the hourglass full of their daily earnings and deductions or when green and silver colours were flown in the Great Hall. He’d never quite gotten along with the Hogwarts Ghosts —save the Grey Lady who he on occasion luncheoned when without Albus and sequestered in loneliness— but the castle feels emptier without their antics and jeers. He almost wants to be bullied here, to find a sense of reality in this alternate one, yet he cannot even have that.
Things are all too quiet, and people become even more so whenever he steps in their direction as conversations in hushed whispers all but dissipate into silence. Those portraits that remain —that aren’t marred with gashes that obliterate both the subject and the memory thereof— are not speaking to the students who move with a military precision which could have the institution mistaken for Durmstrang. The joviality and carefree nature of the Hogwarts students that he always wished he could have is nowhere in sight, and all that remains is the absence of life and intellectual curiosity Hogwarts once stood for.
Instead stands memorials to what ruins of the wartorn castle hadn’t been fully rebuilt yet and statues that adorn the space in honour of the ‘heroes’— in this world, war criminals in his— lost to the cause. The spy, Augustus Rookwood, looms over students in his Ministry robes, with the arms hiked up just so that his Dark Mark remains on display as a sign of loyalty, which cost him his life at the Battle of Hogwarts, according to the plaque. Bellatrix Lestrange, who apparently died much later, is romantically adorned like a queen in regalia that the Black family lineage afforded her, so different than the prison robes and tattered rags she’s remembered in the texts and wanted posters from back home. The war hero who, funny story, apparently killed Neville Longbottom, Cedric Diggory, has the same charm in death as he did in life, but instead of sporting Hufflepuff Quidditch attire, he is donned in clothing that seemingly goes against everything his House stood for and also dons the Mark on his forearm. Severus Snape, too, has a likeness cast of him that is accurate to the renderings he’s seen in books, but the lack of a death date indicates he might still live which is a thought he will file away for later when he is not face-to-face with a statue of his Nana, surrounded in candles and flowers.
He cannot help but reach out to touch her hand, which fills him with an instantly regrettable iciness she’s never been known for. Her face is less worn than he knows, her hands with far fewer wrinkles, and her demeanour with far less humility. When he reads ‘ Narcissa Malfoy née Black (1955-1998) — Mother, Martyr, and Malfoy in the service of the Dark Lord and eyes of the righteous’ he wants to convince himself that this is some other woman, but the letters etched into both stone and mind do not lie. If nothing else, the statue still has her eyes, which is the worst of it. Those kind eyes that smiled upon him when they would walk the sands while summering in Sandbanks in Dorset or when he showed her what photos he had from his Hogwarts adventures with Albus shouldn’t be the same as an honoured Death Eater, but she looks on him the same way here, even though she is gone to his current world.
A cutting “Scorpius,” from the Headmistress pulls him back to reality —if one could call all of this that— so he can turn his attention to the only colour that fills this place, which distressingly just so happens to be an abhorrent pink. With what feels like a smattering false empathy as she tries a bit too hard, Umbridge states, “I know today can be… difficult… for you, but your grandmother’s loss was all for the Wizarding World’s gain. Still, your antics today aren’t befitting of her memory on such a joyous holiday as this for such a valued student and member of the Malfoy line.”
It feels almost blasphemous to hear this ridiculous standard she’s upholding his family to that contradicts everything his father cautioned him against. It’s always been hard to take pride in being a Malfoy; it’s a conscious decision he makes every day because of how his father and mother have tried to change that game. He has always worked to prove that he’s not every utterly nasty they believe him to be, and it’s been through learning his regrettable family history he’s been able to grow, and that’s why the Battle of Hogwarts anniversary had never been easy.
It is not because his Nana’s death was getting in the way of a bigoted sense of historical and ideological pride, but because it’s when the slander had always been the worst. They always stayed in, instead of going to memorial services and electing to pay their respects on the day prior to avoid the crowds and mourn in peace. Then, they didn’t have to publicly face the shame whenever he locked eyes with his father who wished he wasn’t saddled with the mistakes of their past constantly in private. But it’s not as if any of that matters in a place where their sins are celebrated and regret is made revelrous. The sickness of it all makes him want to vomit, but he doubts that would be appropriate for a ‘valued student and member of the Malfoy line’ on Voldemort Day.
Umbridge, however, doesn’t seem to notice the constant state of existential crisis he’s experiencing as she continues prattling on, “As a good friend who cares for your well-being here, I recommend you return to your dormitory and regain your composure; some careful meditation and mediation should set you straight. We wouldn’t want you to stray from the straight and narrow, now would we?”
“Yes, Headmistress,” he replies robotically. The tension within makes him go rigid as a board, but thankfully he can muster up the correct form of address to not further anger the petulant woman.
“Ah good, so we’re remembering,” she says with a smile laced with condescension, which he can only awkwardly nod in agreement to before a carefully manicured hand on his shoulder makes him go rigid again.
“That’s the promising future Head Boy I know,” she says, pleased with herself for his compliance. “Off with you now, and do not try to attract any more dementors than you already have today.”
Before he can say much more, she is off with the clack of her magenta lace-up kitten heels echoing through the chamber behind. The room, despite the foot traffic of students, feels oddly silent, and he meekly looks around to try to engage someone, anyone , of the onlookers. With each awkward wave or invitation to speak, they either duck out of the way or bow their heads in submission, save those who place their hands to their hearts, touch their wrists together, and say what sounds like, and he really hopes isn’t, ‘For Voldemort and Valour.’ A few offer condolences as they walk by, dropping flowers at the memorial to Nana, before shuffling down the staircase to the dungeons.
He had hoped that the fear that radiates off of the students with each of his footfalls was because of Umbridge accompanying him. If she is even half as horrible here as she was described in the most recent edition of Modern Magical History compounded with his own personal experience, it’s a shock that the students aren’t all petrified, figuratively and literally. But, the funny thing —that isn’t so much as funny as it is an absolutely terrifying indication of just who he might be here— is that now that the Headmistress has gone back to scaring children or whatever she does in her spare time, the students still avoid him like the plague.
Being invisible sans Albus’s cloak is not new to him, and most times it serves him better than being noticed by those who would scorn him, but this is a different sort of ignorance; the isolation is not because he doesn’t matter enough to exist to people now, it seems like here, it’s because he does , which is, quite literally, one of the worst things he can fathom in a place such as this.
When Scorpius arrives in the dungeons, a singular, utterly horrifying, thought strikes him: there is no Slytherin House. There are not any houses, because there is no need for them when Voldemort has won, because now everyone is an evil blood purist, apparently — but Scorpius knows this stretch of wall is where the Slytherin common room is, because it has to be because that’s where it is in his damn universe and he just needs something to be normal. Please.
It’s only when he realises that he has not a single potential postulation as to what the password could be that he is screwed. He’s screwed. Utterly, singularly, audaciously screwed over worse than he ever has been before because Voldemort won in this universe and his best friend’s whole family is dead and— apparently— Nana is dead too, a martyr for the cause of Death Eaters that he knows in his soul she never truly believed, at least in his universe.
“Pureblood?” He tries. Obviously the password is going to be something of that nature; Scorpius just doesn’t know how far the students here might take it.
The wall stays silent and shut. Damn.
This is abominable; this situation is sickening and Scorpius just wants to go home. He’s talking to a wall and he just wants this all to be some twisted, corrupt nightmare that Albus will shake him out of, that Albus will rescue him from.
“Magic is might?” Scorpius tries again, feeling nauseous at the phrase.
His father had sat him down one day when Scorpius was eight, his face grave and wan and drawn. He’d explained much of his past, his cowardice, his ignorant hatred and how it had all been lies and propaganda fed to him by a culture that was afraid of change and trying to grasp at power with slippery hands. I was wrong, his father had said. And I need you to know that what I did was not right. I will never be able to take back what I did, I can only do better now. And, my son, I can teach you not to make the mistakes I did.
And he had gone on to do just so. He taught Scorpius everything he’d learned about blood purity and then disproved it all in the next sentence viciously, like he still had to fight those battles internally with himself every day; like he loaded up on all the spells to cast before walking out into battle, ready to hurl the facts like hexes at anyone that might question him.
Scorpius knows who he is. He knows the legacy of the families Malfoy, Greengrass, and Black that he carries around with him every step, and he knows how hard his parents have worked to undo that legacy.
This feels like besmirching everything he’s ever known. Even just saying the weakest phrases of propaganda are making his head spin, his hands clutching at his robes with how much they want to shake. He’s not bigoted. He’s not bigoted, not like strangers think he is, not like they accuse his father of being, not like they believed was true of them so fiercely that it ran Nana out of the country.
But here? The Scorpius of this universe?
It would be a miracle if he was anything less than an utter slug.
Scorpius takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He needs to get a damn grip, and he needs to do it quickly. He’ll figure out the password no matter how long it takes and slip away into his dormitory and only then will he be able to break down in peace.
But until then, he needs to be poised. And no matter how qualmish it might make him, he needs to keep suspicion off of himself— it wouldn’t do to get himself killed, or he’ll never be able to fix anything.
Right. He swallows, nods to himself, and then tries again.
“Voldemort Day.”
Still nothing happens, and it is almost enough to make Scorpius lose all the composure he worked so hard to gain. His hands tighten around the fabric of his robes again, compulsively, and he bites his lip and suits his eyes for just a moment, just a moment, just a moment, just a—
“Scorpion King!” A voice calls, jarring Scorpius out of his reverie with a mild shock. He looks blankly at the person striding towards him with a wicked grin, a boy with sharp features that Scorpius… recognises, actually, because that’s—
“Karl?” Scorpius asks, his voice much higher than he’d like for it to be. It’s just that he’s never seen Karl Jenkins not dressed in red Gryffindor robes, and he’s never seen the other boy down near the Slytherin dorms because he hates Slytherins and used to bully Albus for being a Potter in the “evil house” and so the way he’s smiling at Scorpius is making him want to shoot up red sparks.
And did Karl call him Scorpion King? What kind of stuffy, deplorable, unoriginal, tyrannical nickname is that? Merlin, he hopes that people in this universe do not regularly call him that, but with his luck that’s going to be the only way he’s addressed.
“Glorious Voldemort Day to you,” Karl says. His hair is slicked back like those old photos of his father’s and the black robes are still making Scorpius unbalanced, but he pulls himself together and nods sharply.
All that he is supposed to do is pretend to be a snobbish, stuck-up pureblooded boy. That’s not going to be hard at all.
“And to you as well,” He says imperiously while also trying to sound casual. He probably fails, but schools his features into a pensive expression, like he’s distracted and that’s why he’s not behaving as the Scorpion King normally would.
“Ah,” Karl says, his smile fading as if he’s just realised something. “My condolences to the Malfoys, Narcissa’s sacrifice was for Voldemort and Valour and will not be forgotten.”
And now Karl is talking about Nana like he cares? The statue of her in the hall rises in Scorpius’s mind, and his stomach churns. He doesn’t know if the Narcissa Malfoy of this world believed in Voldemort’s cause, and the uncertainty shakes him. He doesn’t know if it would be better or worse if she did.
He needs to stop thinking about this immediately if he does not want to go off the rails, so Scorpius nods again in response to Karl. This time it’s softer, more of a bow of his head in thanks than his previous acknowledging nod. “Thank you.” He sounds a little unsteady, but if he’s grieving a family member then Karl flipping Jenkins can give him a modicum of empathy.
They stand there for a moment, and Scorpius wants to fidget so badly that it takes an unprecedented amount of effort to keep himself still with how awkward and stupid this feels. Karl Jenkins is not nice to him, Karl Jenkins avoids him unless he’s bullying Albus, Karl Jenkins is a Gryffindor Beater and he’s absolutely terrifying, normally, but Scorpius almost feels more scared of him now because of how irregular this all is. He wants to go to his dormitory more than ever, if only he knew the… wait.
Karl Jenkins lives in this universe. Surely he knows the password; all Scorpius has to do is get him to say it. Okay. Time to act. He can do this; just imagine what the worst person in the world would say, and then say it with the most amount of scorn he can muster up. Easy.
He clears his throat and glances at Karl. “Are you going to say the password yet, or shall I continue to wait?” He taps one foot against the stone floor twice for emphasis, trying to look bored and aloof.
Thankfully, Scorpius’s act works, and Karl looks away nervously before hastily saying, “Of course, of course. Erm, purity always conquers.”
Oh hell, of course it’s the Malfoy family motto. Of course that’s what it is. The door swings open to Karl’s tune without a hitch, as silent and magical as it always has done that it’s uncanny.
Scorpius wants to say thank you, so instead he brushes away from Karl without another word, keeping his nose further up in the air than he would ever be comfortable with back home. He feels like an idiot, but he’ll do what he has to do to get back to his own— probably private, if Albus is gone— dormitory.
Except, when he’s walking through and passing by the low-backed, green velvet couches, the students sitting there snap to attention when they see him, all trying to get his attention at once.
“Scorpion King!”
“Come join me in remembering Valiant Narcissa, whom we honour this day—”
“Malfoy, nice to see you. Where have you been?”
“Glorious Voldemort Day, Scorpion King!”
“My deepest condolences to the Malfoys, Scorpius—”
Scorpius is losing his mind. Overtaken by panic, he uses all of his skills at avoidance he’s gathered over the years of being a nobody and rushes down the hall, not acknowledging anybody who so much as looks at him.
When he comes upon the door that, in his own universe, leads to his and Albus’s dormitory, it only takes one glance to confirm that the room still belongs to him, trimmed in silver and his name engraved on a placard on the door with his family crest underneath it, Latin proclaiming Sanctimonia Vincet Semper in some sort of cruel mockery that he does not have time to contemplate right now when he could still be accosted by another classmate in the corridor.
He yanks the door open, entering before he whirls around to slam the door shut and then lean against it with his whole body, one side of his face resting on its surface. He stays there only for a moment before realising that, still, anyone could feasibly enter his room if they tried hard enough, and he scrambles for his wand from his pocket.
“ Colloportus, ” he casts, and then after a moment, adds the anti-alohomora charm, the imperturbable charm, and a Muffliato — he can’t be too careful here.
And then, with that, Scorpius has had enough of this, this— this shit . He has had enough of this universe which is a literal, brought-to-life nightmare that Scorpius and Albus caused into being and now Albus’s existence has been overwritten and Nana is dead and the version of himself that exists here is a prick.
There’s really nothing else for him to do but cry because he’s so overwhelmed, he’s so ashamed and his body burns with it. He’s full of grief for himself, for the world, for his family that made all the wrong choices here. He’s incredulous and horrified at what this version of him seems to be, how people flinch from him or look at him like they’re his sycophants in equal measures, how people are dressed in their all-black robes and Hogwarts feels empty, empty, empty of people but also of cheer and curiosity and magic. He cries for Albus, for the Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley of this world, for the people that he, in effect, killed through trying to change the past.
He can feel the pain in his chest, a physical thing like rot inside of him, eating him from inside out, a spore planted in his lungs that will kill him slowly, drawn out in the way his mother wasted away day by day by day.
He’s choking on the sobs, sitting on the floor of this room that’s his-but-not, one bed gone and the other too big. He doesn’t look around, doesn’t want to see any more glaring differences or evidence that the Scorpion King is even more of a terrible human being, and instead shucks his outer robe on the floor and gets up to collapse on the too-large bed.
His sobs turn into laughter for just a moment, sardonic and ironic at the fact that the sheets are the same print and material that he uses at home, in his own universe, before it twists inside him, ugly, and it makes him cry harder instead. Scorpius throws a pillow over his head and keeps letting the tears come. He deserves this release, he has earned this grief.
Exhausted, when his tears run dry, Scoprius slips into sleep’s escape, hoping desperately that when he wakes, he will be back where he belongs.