Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Ginny enters as Harry awakens from his nightmare; he tells her about Voldemort’s voice and Albus’s appearance at the end, dressed in robes of the Durmstrang School. Harry knows where Albus is.

Harry and Ginny tell the Headmistress, Professor McGonagall, about the dream and their belief that Albus is in the Forbidden Forest bordering the school grounds. Hermione, Ron, and Draco arrive as well, and the group proceeds to the Forest to look for the boys.

Albus and Delphini practice a Disarming Spell on the edge of the forest; Scorpius is unsettled by the rapidly developing closeness between them. Albus and Delphini plan to travel back in time to the Triwizard Tournament and derail Cedric’s performance on the first task. Scorpius is apprehensive about traveling so far back without a shorter trial run first, but Delphini dismisses this idea as they have no time to waste.

Delphini gives both boys Durmstrang robes to disguise themselves when they arrive in the past. The boys concur on Delphini staying behind, as she cannot blend in as a student. Delphini reluctantly agrees and kisses Albus on both cheeks before leaving.

Harry runs into Bane, a centaur, looking for Albus in the Forest. Harry asks Bane for help, to which Bane responds that he has seen Albus in the “movement of the stars” (110). A “black cloud” hangs around Albus, which could endanger everyone; Harry will find him again, but could also possibly lose him forever.

Albus and Scorpius come across a glorious view of the school in a clearing in the Forest. Scorpius tells Albus that he had always wanted to come to Hogwarts and find friends, just like the famous Harry Potter; he feels “crazily fortunate” to have found Albus, his best friend. Albus reciprocates the feeling of deep friendship. They heard Ron’s voice closing in on them and quickly use the Time-Turner; the setting changes, indicating a reverse passage of time.

Albus and Scorpius arrive at the scene of the first task in the last Triwizard Tournament. The competitors from each of the three competing schools are being announced, along with the details of the first task—retrieving a golden egg from a dragon’s nest. Albus and Scorpius have a brief conversation with a young Hermione before Cedric comes out to compete. Scorpius notices the Time-Turner ticking strangely just before Albus disarms Cedric and steals his wand. The Time-Turner’s ticking reaches a crescendo, and the boys are transported back to the present; Albus is in pain. Harry, Ginny, Draco, and a differently-dressed Ron swarm in on the boys, and Albus collapses.

Beside an unconscious Albus in the school hospital wing, Harry talks to a magical portrait of Professor Albus Dumbledore, one of the previous headmasters and Harry’s mentor. They discuss the difficulty of watching a child in pain; Dumbledore remarks that naming Albus after him was a “great weight to place upon the poor boy” (121). Harry asks for advice on protecting his son, to which Dumbledore asks Harry to “see him as he is” (122) and look for the source of his pain. Harry takes this to mean that Scorpius is hurting Albus.

Albus wakes up, and Harry tells him how worried everyone was at his disappearance. Albus lies easily about where they went, telling Harry that he and Scorpius had planned to escape to the Muggle (non-magical) world and start over. Harry believes that Scorpius encouraged this and orders Albus to stay away from him; he asserts his belief that Dark Magic is on the rise again and wants to keep Albus safe from Scorpius. Upon Albus’s protests, Harry decides to use a magical map—the Marauder’s Map—to watch him. Albus will no longer share any lessons with Scorpius, and outside of class time, he is to remain in the Gryffindor common room. When Albus points out that he is in Slytherin, Harry becomes angry and accuses Albus of “playing games.” Harry decides that Albus does not need to like him for Harry to be a good dad—Albus only needs to obey him.

As Albus argues with Harry, Ron enters—he is muted and sober, even dressed differently, his clothes “spectacularly staid.” Albus is surprised to find that Ron does not run a joke shop and is not married to Hermione—his wife is a woman named Padma, and they have a son, Panju. This is a different reality, in which Albus is, in fact, in Gryffindor house. As Ron leaves, Scorpius arrives, relieved to see that Albus is alright; Harry hurries Albus away, disallowing the two from having a conversation. Albus finally relents, telling Scorpius they will “be better off without each other” (130) as he leaves.

In Professor McGonagall’s office, Harry insists the Headmistress use the Marauder’s Map to watch Albus and ensure he stays away from Scorpius. McGonagall feels uncomfortable about this, unsure that Harry should completely trust Bane’s words or the advice from Dumbledore’s portrait. Harry is unrelenting, however, and harshly demands McGonagall comply, barring which he will use the Ministry to do so; Ginny is unnerved by the person Harry is becoming.

Albus attends a Defense Against the Dark Arts class and discovers Hermione is the teacher. She is bitter and mean, taking multiple points away from Gryffindor house when a confused Albus asks about Rose (who doesn’t exist in this reality), before resuming the lesson.

In a scene without dialogue, Albus and Scorpius encounter each other on one of Hogwarts’s magical, moving staircases. A teacher enters, gesturing for them to move apart; the boys do so wordlessly, their unhappiness palpable.

Back at their home, Harry and Ginny are on the brink of an argument; they hear a knock on the door, and Ginny exits to let in Draco. Draco confronts Harry about keeping their sons apart, as Scorpius is miserable; Harry responds with an insinuation that he doubts Scorpius’s parentage. Draco and Harry duel, the fight breaking up as Ginny re-enters the room.

Delphini secretly visits Scorpius at Hogwarts; she is fascinated by the school, having never attended herself. Delphini tells Scorpius that their “time-turning” didn’t work. Although history did change, Cedric still died, as failing the first task only made him more determined to do better in the subsequent ones. She also wants to help Scorpius reconcile with Albus because she knows Albus is miserable and says the boys “belong together.”

In the aftermath of their fight, Draco apologizes to Ginny for the state of the room. Draco confesses to Harry that he always envied Harry’s friendships with Ron and Hermione. His lack of real friendships growing up, coupled with the troubled relationship with his father, sent Draco to a dark and lonely place for a long time. Draco suggests that Tom Riddle was similarly alone, and the failure to emerge from his darkness led him to become Lord Voldemort; perhaps the “black cloud” Bane saw around Albus was, in turn, his loneliness. Draco advises Harry not to lose Albus, who needs Harry and Scorpius in his life. On hearing this, Harry stops to think, then prepares to leave the house.

Scorpius sneaks up on Albus in the Hogwarts library to have a private conversation. The boys discuss the new reality they now inhabit, in which Rose was never born, which Scorpius tells Albus was owing to their interference. The brief conversation they had with Hermione in the past led her to mistrust the Durmstrang students, and she turned down an invitation to attend the Christmas Yule Ball with Viktor Krum, who was the Durmstrang school champion. Ron and Hermione attended the ball as friends. He also danced with Padma Patil, whom he later married. There was no place for Ron’s jealousy over Hermione and Krum, which originally played an integral part in bringing Ron and Hermione together. Scorpius is particularly disturbed by the lack of Rose’s existence.

Albus thinks they should go back and fix things, but Scorpius believes they will mess things up further. The boys wrestle for possession of the Time-Turner, and Scorpius blows up at Albus, accusing him of being unable to care about anything except his relationship with Harry; Scorpius says his life has been much worse and Albus is being a terrible friend.

Professor McGonagall hears the boys and investigates; Albus quickly conceals them underneath the invisibility cloak he stole from James. McGonagall guesses the boys are underneath the cloak but decides to leave them be. Albus apologizes to Scorpius for his past behavior and gratefully acknowledges his kindness and friendship; they hug. Together, they decide to travel back to the scene of the second task and humiliate Cedric to save him from death.

Still in the new reality, Ron runs into Hermione on one of the Hogwarts staircases. They have an awkward interaction, discussing how Albus believes they are married and parents to a daughter. They go their separate ways and exchange lingering looks on their way out.

Draco, Harry, and Ginny arrive at McGonagall’s office. McGonagall begins to say that she does not want to keep the boys apart, and Harry apologizes for his last conversation with the Headmistress. Harry and Draco want to see their sons. The group consults the Marauder’s Map, which shows the boys together in the first-floor girls’ bathroom.

Albus and Scorpius practice an Engorgement Charm in the girls’ bathroom, as Albus reveals his plan to Scorpius. The second task involved the four champions needing to retrieve loved ones from the bottom of the school lake; Cedric had used a Bubble-Head Charm that allowed him to breathe and swim underwater, and Albus plans on engorging Cedric’s head so that he floats out of the lake entirely.

Scorpius wonders how they will get to the lake before they travel back when Moaning Myrtle—the ghost of a girl who died in the bathroom—appears before them. Albus and Scorpius tell her of their plan to save Cedric and ask for her help to get to the lake. Myrtle shows them a sink that connects straight to the lake; the boys swallow Gillyweed, a weed that Harry used in the second task to help him breathe underwater, and dive into the sink.

Harry, Ginny, Draco, and McGonagall arrive as the boys leave, wondering how they are disappearing off the map. Myrtle describes the “trinket” they are using to do so, revealing Albus’s plan to save Cedric; Harry realizes that Albus may have overheard his conversation with Amos and that the boys are traveling through time.

It is the scene of the last Triwizard Tournament, and the four competitors have begun the second task. Inside the lake, Albus and Scorpius fire an Engorgement Charm at Cedric, whose bubble-head begins to grow until he floats out of the lake and into the air; he is humiliated. As Albus and Scorpius triumphantly swim upwards, the world goes dark; Scorpius emerges in the present, but Albus is missing.

Whispers of “He’s coming” in Parseltongue (the language of snakes) surround Scorpius; he is then found by Dolores Umbridge—an ex-Ministry official who is now serving as Headmistress of Hogwarts. When Scorpius requests her help to save Albus, she denies the existence of such a student—Harry Potter is dead, having been killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort’s voice is heard whispering “Harry Potter” in the background, and Dementors (black-robed creatures that guard the wizarding prison, Azkaban) surround the scene. Umbridge hurries Scorpius along, scolding him for upsetting the Dementors and ruining “Voldemort Day.”