DRACO: Do you think Theodore Nott had the only Time-Turner?

HARRY: What?

DRACO: The Time-Turner the Ministry seized was a prototype. Made of inexpensive metal. It does the job - sure. But only being able to go back in time for five minutes - thats a serious flaw - it isnt something youd sell to true collectors of Dark Magic.

HARRY realizes what DRACO is saying.

HARRY: He was working for you?

DRACO: No. My father. He liked owning things that no one else had. The Ministrys Time-Turners - thanks to Croaker - were always a little vanilla for him. He wanted the ability to go back further than an hour, he wanted the ability to travel back years. Hed never have used it. Secretly I think he preferred a world without Voldemort. But yes, the Time-Turner was built for him.

HARRY: And did you keep it?

DRACO reveals the Time-Turner.

DRACO: No five-minute problem, and it gleams like gold, just the way the Malfoys like it. Youre smiling.

HARRY: Hermione Granger. It was the reason she kept the first, the fear that there might be a second. Hanging on to this, you could have been sent to Azkaban.

DRACO: Consider the alternative - consider if people had known that I had the ability to travel in time. Consider the rumor that would have been given increased - credence.

HARRY looks at DRACO, understanding him perfectly.

HARRY: Scorpius.

DRACO: We were capable of having children but Astoria was frail. A blood malediction, a serious one. An ancestor was cursed . . . it showed up in her. You know how these things can resurface after generations . . .

HARRY: Im sorry, Draco.

DRACO: I didnt want to risk her health, I said it didnt matter whether the Malfoy line died with me - whatever my father said. But Astoria - she didnt want a baby for the Malfoy name, for pureblood or glory, but for us. Our child, Scorpius, was born . . . it was the best day of both our lives, although it weakened Astoria considerably. We hid ourselves away, the three of us. I wanted to conserve her strength . . . and so the rumors started.

HARRY: I cant imagine what that was like.

DRACO: Astoria always knew that she was not destined for old age. She wanted me to have somebody when she left, because . . . it is exceptionally lonely, being Draco Malfoy. I will always be suspected. There is no escaping the past. I never realized, though, that by hiding him away from this gossiping, judgmental world, I ensured that my son would emerge shrouded in worse suspicion than I ever endured.

HARRY: Love blinds. We have both tried to give our sons, not what they needed, but what we needed. Weve been so busy trying to rewrite our own pasts, weve blighted their present.

DRACO: Which is why you need this. I have been holding on to it, barely resisting using it, even though I would sell my soul for another minute with Astoria.

HARRY: Oh, Draco . . . we cant. We cant use it.

DRACO looks up at HARRY, and for the first time - at the bottom of this dreadful pit - they look at each other as friends.

DRACO: We have to find them - if it takes centuries, we must find our sons - HARRY: We have no idea where they are or when they are. Searching in time when youve no idea where in time to search, thats a fools errand. No, love wont do it and nor will a Time-Turner, Im afraid. Its up to our sons now - theyre the only ones who can save us.

ACT FOUR, SCENE FIVE.

GODRICS HOLLOW, OUTSIDE JAMES AND LILY POTTERS HOUSE, 1981.

ALBUS: We tell my granddad and grandma?

SCORPIUS: That theyll never get to see their son grow up?

ALBUS: Shes strong enough - I know she is - you saw her.

SCORPIUS: She looked wonderful, Albus. And if I were you Id be desperate to talk to her. But she needs to be able to beg Voldemort for Harrys life, she needs to think he might die, and youre the worst spoiler in the world that didnt turn out to be true . . .

ALBUS: Dumbledore. Dumbledores alive. We get Dumbledore involved. We do what you did with Snape - SCORPIUS: Can we risk him knowing your dad survives? That he has kids?

ALBUS: Hes Dumbledore! He can cope with anything!

SCORPIUS: Albus, there have been about a hundred books written on what Dumbledore knew, how he knew it or why he did what he did. But whats undoubtedly true - what he did - he needs to do - and Im not going to risk messing with it. I was able to ask for help because I was in an alternate reality. We arent. Were in the past. We cant fix time only to create more problems - if our adventures have taught us anything, theyve taught us that. The dangers of talking to anyone - infecting time - are too great.

ALBUS: So we need to - talk to the future. We need to send Dad a message.

SCORPIUS: But we dont have an owl that can fly through time. And he doesnt have a Time-Turner.

ALBUS: We get a message to Dad, hell find a way to get back here. Even if he has to build a Time-Turner himself.

SCORPIUS: We send a memory - like a Pensieve - stand over him and send a message, hope he reaches for the memory at exactly the right moment. I mean, its unlikely, but . . . Stand over the baby - and just repeatedly shout HELP. HELP. HELP. I mean, it might traumatize the baby slightly.

ALBUS: Only slightly.

SCORPIUS: A bit of trauma now is nothing compared to whats happening . . . and maybe when he then thinks - later - he might remember the faces of us as we - shouted - ALBUS: Help.

SCORPIUS looks at ALBUS.

SCORPIUS: Youre right. Its a terrible idea.

ALBUS: Its one of your worst ideas ever.

SCORPIUS: Got it! We deliver it ourselves - we wait forty years - we deliver it - ALBUS: Not a chance - once Delphi has set time the way she wants shell send armies to try and find us - kill us - SCORPIUS: So we hide in a hole?

ALBUS: As pleasurable as it will be to hide in a hole with you for the next forty years . . . theyll find us. And well die and time will be stuck in the wrong position. No. We need something we can control, something we know hell get at exactly the right time. We need a - SCORPIUS: Theres nothing. Still, if I had to choose a companion to be at the return of eternal darkness with, Id choose you.

ALBUS: No offense, but Id choose someone massive and really good at magic.

LILY exits the house with BABY HARRY in a pram, she carefully puts a blanket on him.

His blanket. Shes wrapping him in his blanket.

SCORPIUS: Well, it is a moderately cold day.

ALBUS: He always said - its the only thing he had from her. Look at the love with which shes put it on him - I think hed like to know about that - I wish I could tell him.

SCORPIUS: And I wish I could tell my dad - well, Im not sure what. I think Id like to tell him that Im occasionally capable of more bravery than he might think I am.

ALBUS has a thought.

ALBUS: Scorpius - my dad still has that blanket.

SCORPIUS: That wont work. If we write a message on it now, even really small, hell read it too soon. Time will be spoilt.

ALBUS: What do you know about love potions? Whats the ingredient they all contain?

SCORPIUS: Amongst other things, pearl dust.

ALBUS: Pearl dust is a relatively rare ingredient, isnt it?

SCORPIUS: Mainly because its pretty expensive. Whats this about, Albus?

ALBUS: Dad and I had a fight on the day before I went to school.

SCORPIUS: This I am aware of. I believe it kind of got us into this mess.

ALBUS: I threw the blanket across the room. It collided with the love potion that Uncle Ron gave me as a joke.

SCORPIUS: Hes a funny guy.

ALBUS: The potion spilt and the blanket was covered in it and I happen to know for a fact Mum hasnt let Dad touch that room since I left it.

SCORPIUS: So?

ALBUS: So its coming up to Hallows Eve in their time as well as ours - and he told me he always finds that blanket, he needs to be with it on Hallows Eve - it was the last thing his mum gave him - so he will look for it and when he finds it . . .

SCORPIUS: No. Still not getting you.

ALBUS: What reacts with pearl dust?

SCORPIUS: Well, it is said that if tincture of Demiguise and pearl dust meet . . . they burn.

ALBUS: And is tincture of (hes unsure how to say the word) Demiguise visible to the naked eye?

SCORPIUS: No.

ALBUS: So if we were to get that blanket and write on it in tincture of Demiguise, then . . .

SCORPIUS (eureka): Nothing would react to it until it came into contact with the love potion. In your room. In the present. By Dumbledore, I love it.

ALBUS: We just need to work out where to find some . . . Demiguises.

SCORPIUS: You know, rumor has it Bathilda Bagshot never saw the point in witches and wizards locking their doors.

The door swings open.

Rumor was right. Time to steal some wands and get potioning.

ACT FOUR, SCENE SIX.

HARRY AND GINNY POTTERS HOUSE, ALBUSS ROOM.

HARRY is sitting on ALBUSs bed. GINNY enters. She looks at him.

GINNY: Surprised to find you here.

HARRY: Dont worry, I havent touched anything. Your shrine is preserved. (He winces.) Sorry. Bad choice of words.

GINNY says nothing, HARRY looks up at her.

You know Ive had some pretty terrible Hallows Eves - but this is undoubtedly at least the - second worst.

GINNY: I was wrong - to blame you. I always accuse you of jumping to things and it was me who - Albus went missing and I assumed it was your fault. Im sorry I did that.

HARRY: You dont think this is my fault?

GINNY: Harry, he was kidnapped by a powerful Dark witch, how can that be your fault?

HARRY: I chased him away. I chased him to her.

GINNY: Can we not treat this as if the battle is already lost?

GINNY nods. HARRY starts to cry.

HARRY: Im sorry, Gin . . .

GINNY: Are you not listening to me? Im sorry too.

HARRY: I shouldnt have survived - it was my destiny to die - even Dumbledore thought so - and yet I lived. I beat Voldemort. All these people - all these people - my parents, Fred, the Fallen Fifty - and its me that gets to live? How is that? All this damage - and its my fault.

GINNY: They were killed by Voldemort.

HARRY: But if Id stopped him sooner? All that blood on my hands. And now our son has been taken too - GINNY: Hes not dead. Do you hear me, Harry? Hes not dead.