Rewritten || Scorpius x Hermione Time Travel AU

4 | Scorpion King

The remaining days of summer flew by and before Scorpius knew it, Ditzy was hauling him out from his bed to prepare him to board the Hogwarts Express. With mild amusement, he watched as his personal house-elf thrust articles of clothes into his arms while carefully packing all of his things in his school trunk.

Scorpius tore his shirt away to don a clean set of wizarding robes, resolutely refusing to look at the Dark Mark on his pale forearm.

The days after his Marking went by in a blur for Scorpius. He mostly kept to himself, constantly questioning his life choices, and welcoming Narcissa's loving embraces. He had been wracked with remorse for going back into time, perhaps ruining his life by getting himself Marked without any fight. His father would be horrified if he discovered his son bore the Dark Mark, too, like him.

Amidst all the suffocating guilt, Scorpius comforted himself into thinking that at least, his father had not experienced the painful ceremony of getting the Dark Mark. He was still trying to accept that Draco Malfoy was nonexistent in this timeline, but Scorpius at least was relieved his father did not have to go through everything. Maybe, his plan of going back into time and saving his father was a success after all. Now, the only thing that Scorpius had to work on was how to haul his arse back into his right timeline and get rid of the stupid, stupid mark.

"Master Scorpius must make haste!" Ditzy cried, snapping him off from his musings. "The Hogwarts Express will leave soon."

"Ditzy, really, you have to calm down," Scorpius cajoled, placing a gentle hand on his frazzled house-elf's shoulder.

Ditzy, with tears in his eyes, reverently held Scorpius' hands and bowed his head. "Ditzy will terribly miss the young master," he confessed. "Ditzy worries for Master Scorpius all the time. Master Scorpius must promise Ditzy to eat enough, chew slowly, and decrease his consumption of chocolate frogs!"

His heart warmed a bit and he chuckled. Despite a different timeline, Ditzy was still the same. It had comforted Scorpius that his personal house-elf was familiar to him. "Yes, yes, Ditzy, I will miss your mothering, too," he joked, fondly patting Ditzy's head with a smile.

The house-elf sniffed and pulled away. He then snapped his fingers and instantly, Scorpius' school trunk disappeared. "The Mistresses Malfoy awaits in the foyer, Master Scorpius."

Scorpius took a last-minute look at his full-length mirror, smoothed some invisible wrinkles from his clothes, before striding out of the room he begrudgingly accepted as his own. He took a mental note of procuring posters of his favourite Quidditch team, the Tutshill Tornados, and plastering his bedroom walls with them. If he were to come back here in the break, then Scorpius should at least make it feel like home.

Narcissa greeted him with a smile when he stepped into the foyer. Scorpius couldn't help but grin as she fussed over his impeccable robes, smoothing and brushing and straightening until he latched onto her hand to stop her fussing. "Mother, really, you're worse than Ditzy," he joked.

His Nana's eyes widened with his words, prompting him to frown. "Is something the matter?" he inquired.

"Are you quite all right, my son?" she tentatively asked. "You're... different."

"Different?" Scorpius echoed.

Narcissa nodded and then smiled. "You used to get terribly irritated with me when I fuss," she explained. "Not... cajole."

Eyes widening, Scorpius realised that his father wasn't exactly the joking type. It was second nature for Scorpius, to tease Astoria when she was starting to smother him, and his mother didn't bother reprimanding him anymore for being an ungrateful, little boy.