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Hermione was twenty-four the first time she met her son.
It was rather unconventional, of course, because he was already twelve years old, and she was simply trying to wolf down her lunch before her next meeting when he suddenly popped into existence on the other side of her desk. Mid-bite, with her fork raised still to her lips, she nearly choked when he turned around and said, “oh, Mum! I didn’t mean to!”
Hermione dropped her fork into the plastic container on her desk, swallowing much too quickly to be safe. She coughed a few times before choking out a response to the boy. “ Mum ?”
The boy blinked. He was thin and lanky, his eyes a unique slate grey. His hair was a stunningly bright shade of blond—practically the opposite of her own, yet nearly as curly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, he had it laying out and I knicked it and I know stealing is bad but it was so pretty and James dared me and it was just on his desk so I thought it was safe but then I fiddled with it and now—“
“Stop, god, stop,” Hermione interrupted the child, whose lip had begun wobbling and his eyes shiny with the beginning of a breakdown she was simply not equipped to handle. “Slow down, please. Sit.”
Obediently, the boy rounded the chair in front of her desk and sat, his hands still holding what Hermione could only assume was a Time-Turner. Who in God’s name thought it intelligent to leave a Time-Turner about where a child could happen across it? Weren’t they destroyed years ago, anyway? She took a deep breath as she tried to gather her thoughts. “We’ll start slow, okay?” He nodded, and she continued. “Who are you?”
“Scorpius,” the boy said in a soft voice. Her eye twitched. What a name to saddle a child with. Surely, she did not select it. “Okay, Scorpius,” Hermione said, putting forth great effort not to let her voice waver. “You called me Mum?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “You’re my mum. Hermione Granger, my mum.” He considered her for a moment. His eyebrows, a slightly darker shade of blond than his pale hair, furrowed. “But… not yet, I guess.”
“Right,” she pressed her fingers to her temples as she continued, a migraine already stirring in her brain as she processed the existence of the boy in front of her. Her son . “What year are you from?”
“2017,” he answered. “I’m twelve.”
Hermione quickly did the math. He was going to be conceived in the next year?! She didn’t even have a boyfriend, let alone someone she’d consider having an entire human child with. Especially not with the particular prat the young boy resembled, a possibility Hermione had no interest in entertaining. Dread pooled in her stomach as she worked up the courage to ask, “what’s your last name, Scorpius?”
The boy shifted in his seat. “Granger-Malfoy.”
In four syllables, her fear was confirmed. How could she possibly have a child within the next year with Draco Malfoy ? Surely, this was a joke. A cruel prank. This was not her son before her, but a random imposter hired by someone to throw her off her game. Likely Malfoy himself, just for a laugh. Yes, that must’ve been it. He hardly even looked like her.
Except his curly hair. And his face shape. His round cheeks. And his eyebrows.
She felt dizzy.
Hermione inhaled deeply, suppressing the urge to question everything the child knew of her—their future. “Could you tell me what exactly happened?”
Scorpius swallowed hard. “I was with James and Uncle Theo while you and Father were out to lunch. And—and he dared me to take this necklace, so I did,” a blush crept over his soft cheeks, “I wanted to impress him. I’m sorry. And then when Uncle Theo dropped me off to your office was when I started playing with it. I was startled when you and Father walked in and—I must’ve triggered something to happen. I’m sorry.”
Hermione couldn’t help but stare at Scorpius, his posture sinking even further as shame overtook him and he avoided her gaze. She couldn’t imagine what his parents were feeling in this moment, over a decade in the future, even if she was by all technicalities one of them.
“Scorpius,” she said, fighting to keep her voice soft. The boy’s head slowly came up so he could meet her gaze. “What you have is a Time-Turner. You’ve gone back in time by about thirteen years,” he became somehow paler, “but it’s alright—it’ll last at most a day, okay? Until then…”
What was she to do with a child that wasn’t hers yet for a full day? For Merlin’s sake, she was at work . She took a breath as she considered her options. He needed to be somewhere familiar, so when he did remanifest in his time, his parents would easily be able to find him. “In your time, does your father own a Potions store? In Diagon Alley?”
Scorpius nodded vehemently, his grey eyes brightening at the thought of familiarity. “Yes.”
Hermione nodded as she thought. So, Malfoy was still maintaining his shop. Taking him to the familiar place would be the best option, however she loathed to explain to Malfoy that their future child had popped into her office. They were hardly even acquaintances—and sure, he was fit, and they had snogged that one time at last year’s Ministry Christmas party, but he was also a right shithead and he’d never shown any further interest in her after that night.
With a sigh, Hermione waved her wand to summon her Patronus. She told the otter, “find Draco Malfoy. Tell him we need to talk. I’ll be at his store in—ten-ish minutes. He’ll want to shutter it.”
With a graceful flip, the otter went the way of the window and out of sight. Her attention turned back to Scorpius, who was still avoiding her gaze. She supposed he expected her to punish him, even now as someone who didn’t know him; it was strange to be associated with someone’s parent so closely.
Well. She supposed she was the parent.
Hermione shook her head of the thought. “We’ve got to get onto the street so I can Apparate us to Malfoy’s shop, but people must not know who you are, alright?”
Scorpius nodded seriously, standing from his seat and dropping the Time-Turner against his chest.
Hermione led him from her office, relieved that her secretary had already taken her lunch and thus left the adjoining office empty. Now, it would just be the issue of getting through the corridors and Atrium. Scorpius trotted after her with curious eyes as he looked around the Ministry, his pace just a tad slower than her own as the magic happening around them caught his interest. It made her ache in a way; he was just as enraptured by new things as herself.
Despite the strange circumstances, she found that she dearly hoped this incident wouldn’t alter his—or her own—future. Even taking into consideration his father.
“Hermione!” Someone called across the Atrium, causing her to cringe. Slowly, she stopped, Scorpius following suit beside her as they both turned towards the voice.
Ginny hurried towards them, a wide smile on her face and a two-year-old James perched on her hip.
Hermione forced her own smile. Of all the times… “Ginny, what are you doing here?”
“Surprising Harry for lunch,” she replied by way of explanation. Noticing the child next to her, Ginny’s head ticked to the side. “Who’s this?”
Hermione blinked. “Oh, this is, ah, Roonil.”
Ginny cocked an eyebrow. Scorpius remained blessedly silent beside her. “Roonil?”
“Yes—he’s, er, Diana’s son. I’m just taking him home now,” Hermione quickly elaborated.
Ginny’s eyes flickered between the two as she adjusted James against her. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he looks just like—“
“We really must be off,” Hermione interrupted before Ginny could finish. Unperturbed by the disturbance, Ginny only nodded in understanding.
“Ah. All the better. I think Jamie’s had a wee accident, anyway,” she said with an affectionate eyeroll and a kiss to the toddler’s forehead. Hermione flashed her a weak smile and quickly took off once again, followed by a snickering Scorpius.
When they were out of Ginny’s sight and onto the street, Hermione asked, “What’s funny?”
Scorpius smirked—another trait from his father, of course. “James shat his nappy in front of me.”
Hermione rolled her eyes at his familiar mirth and linked arms with the child in preparation to Apparate.
********
With instruction to Scorpius to stay outside, Hermione pushed through the entrance of Malfoy’s shop, annoyed to find it still open to patronage. She waited in line until the two customers ahead of her left, tapping her foot impatiently all the while until she met his steely eyes.
“I’m sure I told you to close up.”
“And I’m sure I’m not one of your Gryffindor lackeys that acts on your whim,” Malfoy replied smoothly.
She huffed. “You’ll want some privacy for this.”
Malfoy cocked an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk. “You want privacy, Granger? That’s all you had to say.”
With a flick of his wand, the blinds were drawn shut and the sign on the door flipped to display the word ‘Closed’. Hermione rolled her eyes at his brazen attempt at flirting, a habit he had picked up in their recent years of occupying the same spaces. “Save it. We have a situation.”
He crossed his arms. “We?”
“We,” she nodded, reflecting his body language. “I was eating lunch—“
“You actually remembered to eat? I shall owl the Prophet. It’ll be front page news.”
She scowled. She had fainted once because she’d forgotten to eat for 35 hours, and no one ever let her forget it. Her friends look turns bringing her dinner for a month afterwards; Malfoy, too, was in the rotation whenever someone wasn’t able to on their day. “You’re not funny. Anyway, I was eating lunch, and—“
“Mu—Miss Granger?” A small voice called as the door to the shop opened. Hermione’s heart raced as she glanced at the door to see Scorpius’s blond head of curls peeking into the room. “Can l come in yet? People are staring at me…”
Hermione heaved a sigh. “Yes.”
Draco’s gaze followed the child as he approached her side. She swallowed, awaiting his reaction—in the same room, there was no denying that the two shared DNA. Scorpius was a near carbon copy of his father. The boy in question displayed a shy, abashed smile. Draco’s gaze magnetized to her after he spent a few moments appraising Scorpius.
“He must be the… situation,” he said carefully, his tone guarded. Hermione nodded.
“This is Scorpius. He’s gotten his hands on a Time-Turner. Courtesy of Theo, apparently,” she rolled her eyes. “He appeared in my office.”
“In your office?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Granger, he is obviously my sprong. Why would he materialize in your office?”
“She’s my mum,” Scorpius offered helpfully, his eyes skipping between herself and Malfoy. Hermione watched as the wizard’s jaw opened and closed, whatever ammunition he had prepared dying on his lips. His grey eyes, so clearly similar to Scorpius’s, widened significantly.
“You’re taking the piss.”
“Am not,” she scoffed. “Be a rather dodgy thing to lie about.”
He glanced between Hermione and child before him. The truth seemed to finally settle within him. “No… no. This can’t be right. We wouldn’t—”
“Malfoy—!” She hissed between her teeth, and then shot a look at Scorpius. The boy shifted on his feet, his hands clasped together behind his back. There was a divot between his eyebrows, an expression of dismay so familiar to her that it made her heart twist in her chest. She’d seen it in the mirror so many times before, after all. “Malfoy, I am not lying to you.”
His eyes continued to dart between them, and he inhaled sharply after a beat. “Can you work the Time-Turner, then?”
She scrunched her nose in distaste. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous? I know you’ve handled one before, Granger, Potter and Weasley both said—“
“Not that,” she shook her head impatiently. “We can’t send him back. It’d be far too dangerous. Time travel is unpredictable and delicate, especially when in the hands of a twelve year old boy—no offense, Scorpius—and it wouldn’t be prudent to have one of us go back with him. If we see ourselves, that’ll create a whole new batch of problems.”
Draco sucked on a canine as he appraised Scorpius once more. “What do we do, then?”
“Wait for it to wear off,” Hermione sighed. “He should return to his own time in a little less than 24 hours. That’s why I’ve brought him here—he says you still own this shop in his time. When he crops back up, hopefully we—err, his parents—will be present.”
“Wh—“ Draco scowled as he tracked his gaze back to her. “Granger, I have a shop to run.”
“You can afford to take a day off.”
“So can you.”
Her voice dropped to a hissed whisper as she leaned over the counter. “I can’t very well keep him in my office overnight.”
His tone lowered to match hers. “Well I didn’t sign up to be a minder today, hardly even know what to do with a child—“
“He’s your child, Malfoy, figure it out—“
“Oh bollocks, probably spelled his hair so you could unload him onto me—“
“You think I’d saddle a child with a constellation name on my own, you absolute prat —“ instead of being cut off by Malfoy, this time her attention turned to the sound of shoes running across the concrete flooring of the store. Scorpius had disappeared from beside her, making her heart drop. Her head whipped back to Malfoy, her hair nearly smacking her in the face. “Now look what you’ve done!”
He fixed her with an incredulous look. “What I’ve done? What I’ve done? Granger—“
Hermione took off in the direction she thought Scorpius may have ran before Malfoy could finish whatever drivel he had to say. She’d only visited Malfoy’s shop a few times; to her knowledge, it was a pass time to him more than an actual career. She internally rolled her eyes at the thought that he could simply buy a store out of boredom. She supposed he would’ve had to have the proper education to become a Potions’ Master, at least.
“He’s most likely in the storage room,” the wizard in question grumbled as he quite rudely pushed past her towards the back of his store. She blew a loose curl out of her face and followed him, her face hot with frustration.
To Hermione’s chagrin, Malfoy was right; as soon as he shouldered the door open the silvery blond of Scorpius’s hair caught the corridor light, even with his face buried in his arms. She maneuvered around Malfoy and crouched before Scorpius. “Scorpius?”
Slowly, the boy looked up, his eyes shining once again. Her heart clenched at the sight. “I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to upset you.”
“ We ,” she heard Malfoy scoff behind her, which she promptly ignored.
Scorpius sniffled as his slate eyes met hers. “I’ve never seen—I’ve never seen my mum and dad fight before.”
Hermione winced. Gods. Future her was going to have to pay out the nose for a mind healer. “Can I level with you, Scorpius?” His ash blond eyebrows twitched together, but he nodded. “You’ve gone ways in the past. A whole lifetime— your whole lifetime.” She inhaled. “Malfoy and I—your mum and dad—they didn’t always get along. Did you know that?”
He fiddled with a rip in the knee of his denims. “Yeah.”
So he wasn’t completely unfamiliar with their tumultuous past. “Right. So, you’re visiting at a strange time. Alright?”
Another sniffle, and his eyes avoided her own. “What—what if I’ve messed everything up? What if you guys never get along after this, and then Lyra and I are never born?”
They had two children together? The idea of any type of accidental pregnancy was moot after those words. Hermione ignored her urge to question the existence of Lyra in favor of schooling her expression into a reassuring smile. “This is just one day, Scorpius. One day in thousands. Okay? Everything that’s meant to be works out in the end.” She wasn’t oblivious to Malfoy’s complete silence behind her; perhaps he was spiraling as much as she was.
Her words seemed to be working, though. Scorpius’s gaze touched hers as he blinked away the wetness in his eyes. “Promise?”
Hermione offered her pinky. “I promise.”
He smiled at that, hooking his finger with hers. “Mum always does that.”
She returned his smile with a grin of her own. “See? You don’t have to be afraid. I’m the same person as your mum, just a little younger. Okay?”
He nodded. From the doorway, Malfoy finally spoke. “Scorpius.”
His gaze shifted to the wizard behind her. “Yeah?”
“I have a very, very important question to ask you.” Hermione shifted to shoot a questioning look at Malfoy. His lips were quirked in a smirk.
“Okay,” Scorpius said beside her.
“What House were you sorted into?”
“Malfoy,” she chided as Scorpius answered, “Slytherin.”
Malfoy’s face broke into a satisfied grin, and he took a few steps forward and offered his hand to Scorpius. “That’s my boy.”
Scorpius laughed—a delightful sound, Hermione thought before she could help it—and accepted the offer of help to stand. “You—my dad was so happy when I wrote him. He sent me the newest Firebolt as a gift.”
Hermione stood with a roll of her eyes as Malfoy continued to grin. “Do you play Quidditch?”
The boy nodded. “I love Quidditch.”
Gods. She had really produced a miniature Malfoy—perhaps even two. “Malfoy, you must stop questioning him.”
“My mum always says curiosity should be rewarded,” Scorpius supplied. Malfoy gestured to him and raised his eyebrows in agreement.
Hermione sighed. “I’m sure she does, but this is a rather unique case where questions are not… the best use of time.”
“What should we do, then?” Scorpius asked.
********
The answer was board and card games. Malfoy finally closed his store and the three of them played until Malfoy ordered in dinner; afterwards, Scorpius’s eyelids seemed to grow heavy, and he dozed off on the couch. Quietly, the two adults made their way to the kitchen as not to wake the child.
“So,” Malfoy started.
Hermione was tired herself—it had been a long day, and her mind was overrun with information about her future. Their future. “What is it?”
He shrugged. “We have children together.”
“So it seems,” she replied.
“Don’t you think that warrants a chat?” His arms crossed, his jaw clenching.
She crossed her own arms and cocked her hips. “Oh, but snogging at party doesn’t?”
He frowned. “Excuse me, I thought you didn’t want to be contacted. I thought you would reach out.”
Her lips parted in shock. “Excuse me , you started it! That means it’s on you to—to continue it!”
“Says who?”
“Says—“ she threw her arms up. “I don’t know!”
He laughed darkly, the prick. “I don’t, either!”
A tense silence rose between them, their eye contact blistering. His throat bobbed in a swallow, the muscles in his jaw feathering. She knew her cheeks were flaming with annoyance and her tussled curls sparking with magic.
It was hard to say who broke first; Hermione only knew it was seconds before their lips crashed together in a rough kiss and her arms were thrown around his broad shoulders as his hands gripped her waist to keep her close, as close as they could be.
When he pressed her against the kitchen counter, Hermione broke the kiss with a pant, her eyes wide as she looked up at him. “We—we have a lot to figure out.”
His hand came up, his thumb running over her cheek as his lips twisted into a slow grin. He ticked his head towards the living room. “We’ll be okay, Granger.”