Over the weekend @ohscorbus came up with the idea of Scorpius looking for his parents in the crowd when he and Albus visit the first task, desperate to catch a glimpse of his mum in particular. He knows she’s there, alive and well and happy (and probably wearing a Potter Stinks badge), and I can imagine that just the idea of seeing her again even for a second, even a version of her he never knew, would be something he’d be really excited about.
And then, as I was considering that beautiful piece of angst, I watched the scene in Hermione’s office, where the boys and Delphi find the Time-Turner, and I couldn’t help but wonder at what point Scorpius realises exactly what the Time-Turner could mean for him. Does he know, the moment they open the book and see it there, that it could be the key to getting his mum back? Is he barely holding back hope the whole time they’re travelling from St Oswald’s to the Ministry? We certainly know he’s considered the idea that turning time might mean bringing his mum back.
“There was a moment when I was excited, when I realised time was different, a moment when I thought my mum hadn’t got sick. Maybe my mum wasn’t dead.” (Act Two, Scene Sixteen)
He’s so unwilling to participate in anything to do with the Time-Turner to begin with, and it’s Albus that drives him on, but at some point he apparently gets on board with the concept. There’s a line in the slumber party scene, Act Three, Scene Fourteen, which I’ve never really understood.
“And saving Cedric – that wasn’t such a bad idea – not in my head anyway...”
Scorpius is so resistant to anything to do with Time-Turners. He says he’s not a massive fan, he tells Albus whatever was holding his brain together has completely snapped when he suggests it, and we never really see that change. Except I think if you read between the lines you can work out when it happened.
I can’t help but wonder whether Scorpius started to think of Cedric as a proof of concept. If you can save one person then you can save two people, surely. If they can get Cedric alive then maybe they can get Astoria too. Perhaps that’s why he goes along with Albus’s strategy after the library scene. Despite the mess they’ve already made, maybe there will still be a moment when he’s excited when he realises time is different...
I know that personally I’ve always felt that Scorpius wasn’t giving up much in the Voldemort timeline. He says: “I am better off in this world. But this world is not better. And I don’t want that,” (Act Three, Scene Nine) but that’s never been really satisfactory for me. I’ve never seen Scorpius as someone who’s interested in notoriety and popularity and praise. In terms of position and power he’s better off certainly, but why would he care about those things? That world is horrific and he knows it, and of course Albus isn’t there, so he’s not really better off at all.
But if you look at it from the point of view that Scorpius is thinking of saving Cedric as a test run for saving Astoria, you realise that actually Scorpius is giving up an awful lot by accepting that that world is not better. It’s a terrible world, saving Cedric failed, so many people are dead, his dad is no longer his dad, he is no longer himself, and his best friend doesn’t exist. These are the consequences of saving people. And in accepting that, in giving up on the idea of saving Cedric, he’s also giving up on the idea of saving his mum. It’s giving up on the idea that people can be saved and everything will turn out okay. That is the sacrifice he’s making in that moment, and it really is, in Scorpius’s head at least, him giving up his mother for good.
I think this also brings new significance to the line: “I can hear my mother. She wants me – my – help, but she knows I can’t – help,” (Act Three, Scene Nine) because he’s realised by then that he really can’t help her. He thought he could, but he can’t, and of course as much as Astoria would have wanted to be saved if she could have been, she always knew she was never destined for old age.
And just imagine then, the significance for Scorpius, of that talk with Albus in their dorm, where shows him why they can’t try again. He’s been thinking about it all day, coming up with the right words, because he needs Albus to be as convinced as he is. Imagine how important it must be for him to find the right spell to destroy the Time-Turner, the last hope of getting his mum back, his mum who taught him all about magic, probably including the fact that choosing the right spell is a much underestimated part of modern witchcraft.
Imagine him in the maze, about to stop Albus from talking to Cedric because it might damage time, but realising what Albus is saying and just bowing his head and letting it be said. Because if he had another moment with his mum he’d want to tell her he loved her, or he’d like to have someone do it on his behalf at least. And imagine the moment when he finally sees the Time-Turner lying shattered on the ground, when they’re trapped and alone, and Delphi has disappeared, and he knows he’s failed, that despite his best efforts Voldemort is going to rise again, and Albus is going to disappear, and he’ll be alone in hell once more.
Also, if you will, imagine Scorpius sleeping with the Time-Turner under his pillow in both the timelines when he doesn’t have Albus, keeping it safe and close. We know he keeps it under there at night, because we see it in that slumber party scene.
Here he is with the power to change things, but helpless to actually do anything because he doesn’t now how, and he doesn’t know what terrible things could happen. He wants to get Albus back, to get his mum back, and he knows he could in theory, but he also knows he can’t do either because of the damage it might do. He’s always been sort of alone, but he’s never felt lonely like this, lying in the darkness, lost and powerless, unable to sleep, tears pouring down his face.
I think that perhaps, when Draco says of the Time-Turner: “I’ve been holding onto it, barely resisting using it even though I would sell my soul for another minute with Astoria...” he’s speaking for both himself and Scorpius. And isn’t it funny, that the thing which could have given her back – their conduit, their light in the darkness, the thread that tied their family together – actually turns out to be the thing which brings the two of them together and helps them understand each other. I think that’s quite beautifully poetic.
