It was the day of the Second Task, 1995.
“My father is a living scar,” Albus replied bitterly. “And he’d rather I were someone else. What if we just… tweak one thing? The Triwizard Tournament. The second task. What if Cedric Diggory never felt the humiliation of losing? Then he wouldn’t have been in that graveyard. He wouldn’t have died.”
Albus and Scorpius woke on the cold floor of the Tickling Teapot, the shard in pieces between them. The rain had stopped. And in the doorway, holding a too-large umbrella, stood Harry Potter—disheveled, exhausted, and utterly terrified.
“We don’t have to do this,” Scorpius said, his pale hair plastered to his forehead. “My father said these things leave scars on time itself. Like cutting a living creature.” Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One an...
“The prisoner’s son,” this Harry sneered. “Interrogation Room Seven. Now.”
They turned to face Delphi, the Death Eaters, and the fallen world. No Time-Turner. No prophecy. Just two boys, a borrowed wand, and a choice.
“No,” Scorpius whispered, tears cutting tracks through the ash on his face. “We go together or not at all.” It was the day of the Second Task, 1995
The Hour of Unseen Things
He understood that Harry Potter hadn’t been trying to erase Albus’s flaws. He had been trying to protect him from a world that punishes difference. That love isn’t about fixing the past. It’s about sitting with someone in the broken present.
But Albus had already snapped the Shard. They fell through a tunnel of melting clocks. When they landed, gasping, on damp grass, the air smelled different—younger, less tired. The Forbidden Forest loomed, but the castle ahead shimmered with a pre-war brightness. What if we just… tweak one thing
She pointed at the hourglass around her neck. “The only way to restore the timeline is for one of you to stay here. Forever. A soul for a soul.” Albus looked at Scorpius—his only true friend, the boy who chose him when his own family couldn’t. Then he looked at the twisted reflection of his father. And for the first time, he understood.
“Albus?” Scorpius whispered.
“Cedric,” Albus called, stepping from behind a boulder. “You’re about to lose. Badly. But it’s not about winning. It’s about… showing mercy. Use the Bubble-Head Charm, but when you see the hostages? Don’t take the fastest route. Wait. Stumble. Let Harry Potter catch up.”
When dawn broke, the Temporal Shard on Delphi’s neck cracked—not from magic, but from the weight of two stubborn boys refusing to become ghosts. Time shuddered, reset, and snapped back into place like a rubber band released.
“You thought you were saving my father,” she said softly, stepping over a broken hourglass. “But you only delayed his shame by one day. The night after the Task, he still went to the graveyard. Only this time, he didn’t die. He watched . He saw Potter fail to save the Diggory honor. And when Voldemort offered him a chance to make the world ‘fair’—he took it. Cedric Diggory is the new Lord Voldemort. And I am his daughter.”