Rewritten || Scorpius x Hermione Time Travel AU

18 | Magic is Weird

He was roused from his sleep due to the incessant knocking on his bedroom door. Groaning, Scorpius forced himself to sit up and glance at the small clock on his bedside table. It blared three-thirty in the afternoon, and he was quite disappointed this day wouldn't hurry up and end.

"What?!" he snarled.

The intruder pushed the door open and Scorpius was honestly expecting to see an annoying bushy-haired girl at the other side. Instead, Harry Potter stood outside his threshold, an unreadable expression on his face. For a minute, Scorpius stared back at his best friend's father, waiting for Harry to at least explain his sudden intrusion.

"Well?" Scorpius snapped irately. "What the hell do you want?"

Harry invited himself in and closed the door behind him. There was something in his eyes that unsettled Scorpius immensely, but he refused to squirm under the Gryffindor's weird stare.

"Everybody's participating in a Quidditch game and we need another Seeker," Potter replied.

Scorpius' eyes almost popped out of their sockets. He wasn't expecting that from The-Boy-Who-Lived. "Well, isn't the Weaslette a decent Seeker?" he asked. "Why don't you offer that position to her instead?"

"Ginny insisted on being a Chaser," he grumbled, looking away in annoyance. "And you know how Hermione's irrationally afraid of riding a broom. She actually suggested that we invite you instead, seeing that you've been a Seeker for the Slytherin team before... Err... well, assuming that you were a seeker in your time."

The blond snorted, not surprised that it would be Granger's idea to include him in their little game. "And you're the one inviting me here instead because...?"

Harry glared at him darkly but Scorpius couldn't help but notice the red tinge on his cheeks. "Just because, Malfoy," he snarled. "So are you in or not? Or are you too afraid to lose against me?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Really, Potter, I'm actually quite a brilliant Seeker in my time," he snapped back. "Because of me, the Slytherin team had been consistently winning the Quidditch Cup for years. In fact, if people aren't too blinded with the fact that I'm the bloody son of an ex-Death Eater, they'd acknowledge that next to you, I'm the second best. Even your bloody son could vouch for that."

He wasn't quite sure why he'd suddenly said all those things. Perhaps, now that the DA Core knew about his darkest secret, all the mundane things from his past – well, their future – just suddenly poured out from his mouth.

The irritation on the raven-haired boy disappeared, replaced by that unreadable expression on his face again. "So, are you joining or not?" he asked in the end.

Scorpius, actually bored out of his wits, knew it would be pointless to brood inside his room until Christmas Day ends. The least he could do was to distract himself and Quidditch was a brilliant distraction. He wouldn't let this opportunity pass.

"Let me just get my gear," he said, pushing himself off his bed and sauntering closer to his trunk. He half-expected Potter to leave now, but when he turned, all his gear hugged tightly against his chest, he was surprised to see that the Gryffindor was still standing inside his room.

Conflicting emotions raced on Harry Potter's face. They may not be close in this timeline, but Scorpius had been around Albus to know that something was wrong. His best friend always had that same look on his face when he was about to ask something sensitive or announce a piece of bad news. Scorpius wasn't sure which he wanted to hear more.

"What is it, Potter?" he finally snapped. "You look like you ate something really atrocious."

The conflicting emotions continued to run through Potter's face until only exhaustion and clear curiosity remained. He plopped down on the only decent chair in the room and looked at him squarely in his eyes. "When we viewed your memories in the pensieve, there's something that really bothered me."