Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

ALBUS: Dad…

ALBUS pulls on HARRY’s robes. HARRY looks down.

Do you think—what if I am—what if I’m put in Slytherin…

HARRY: And what would be wrong with that?

ALBUS: Slytherin is the House of the snake, of Dark Magic… It’s not a House of brave wizards.

HARRY: Albus Severus, you were named after two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.

ALBUS: But just say…

HARRY: If it matters to you, you, the Sorting Hat will take your feelings into account.

ROSE: The rumor is that he’s Voldemort’s son, Albus.

A horrible, uncomfortable silence.

It’s probably rubbish. I mean… look, you’ve got a nose.

The tension is slightly broken. SCORPIUS laughs, pathetically grateful.

SCORPIUS: And it’s just like my father’s! I got his nose, his hair, and his name. Not that that’s a great thing either. I mean—father-son issues, I have them. But, on the whole, I’d rather be a Malfoy than, you know, the son of the Dark Lord.

SCORPIUS and ALBUS look at each other and something passes between them.

ALBUS: At Harry Potter and his disappointing son.
HARRY: What does that mean?
ALBUS: At Harry Potter and his Slytherin son.

[…] HARRY look at ALBUS, concerned.

HARRY: Al—
ALBUS: My name is Albus, not Al.
HARRY Are the other kids being unkind? Is that it? Maybe. if you tried making a few more friends… without Hermione and Ron I wouldn’t have survived Hogwarts, I wouldn’t have survived at all.
ALBUS: But I don’t need a Ron and Hermione. I’ve—I’ve got a friend, Scorpius, and I know you don’t like him but he’s all I need.
HARRY Look, as long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters to me.

ALBUS: When Amos Diggory asked for the Time-Turner my father denied they even existed. He lied to an old man who just wanted his son back—who just loved his son. And he did it because he didn’t care—because he doesn’t care. Everyone talks about all the brave things Dad did. But he made some mistakes too. Some big mistakes, in fact. I want to set one of those mistakes right. I want us to save Cedric.

SCORPIUS: Okay, whatever was holding your brain together seems to have snapped.

ALBUS: I’m going to do this, Scorpius. I need to do this. And you know as well as I do, I’ll entirely mess it up if you don’t come with me. Come on.

DELPHI: I can think of one reason why you should trust them, Uncle.

They stop.

They’re the only ones volunteering to help. They’re prepared to bravely put themselves at risk to return your son to your side.
In fact, I’m pretty sure they put themselves at risk even getting here…

AMOS: This is Cedric we’re talking about…
DELPHI: And—didn’t you say yourself, having someone inside Hogwarts might be a massive advantage?

DELPHI kisses the top of AMOS’s head. AMOS looks at DELPHI, and then turns to look at the boys.

AMOS: Why? Why do you want to put yourself at risk? What’s in it for you? ALBUS: I know what it is to be the spare. Your son didn’t deserve to be killed, Mr. Diggory. We can help you get him back.

SCORPIUS: From the moment I first heard of it, I was desperate to go. I mean, Dad didn’t much like it there but even the way he described it… From the age of ten I’d check the Daily Prophet first thing every morning—certain some sort of tragedy would have befallen it—certain I wouldn’t get to go.

ALBUS: And then you got there and it turned out to be terrible after all.

SCORPIUS: Not for me.

ALBUS looks at his friend, shocked.

All I ever wanted to do was go to Hogwarts and have a mate to get up to mayhem with. Just like Harry Potter. And I got his son. How crazily fortunate is that.

ALBUS: But I'm nothing like my dad.

SCORPIUS: You're better. You're my best friend, Albus. And this is mayhem to the nth degree.

HARRY: I’ve never asked how you felt about me naming him after you, have I?

DUMBLEDORE: Candidly, Harry, it seemed a great weight to place upon the poor boy.

HARRY: I need your help. I need your advice. Bane says Albus is in danger. How do I protect my son, Dumbledore?

DUMBLEDORE: You ask me, of all people, how to protect a boy in terrible danger? We cannot protect the young from harm. Pain must and will come.

HARRY: So I’m supposed to stand and watch?

DUMBLEDORE: No. You’re supposed to teach him how to meet life.

HARRY: How? He won’t listen.

DUMBLEDORE: Perhaps he’s waiting for you to see him clearly.

ALBUS enters and walks up one staircase.

SCORPIUS enters and walks up another.

The staircases meet. The two boys look at each other.

Lost and hopeful—all at once.

And then ALBUS looks away and the moment is broken—and with it, possibly, the friendship.

And now the staircases part—the two look at each other—one full of guilt—the other full of pain—both full of unhappiness.

DRACO: My father thought he was protecting me. Most of the time. People say parenting is the hardest job in the world—they’re wrong—growing up is. We all just forget how hard it was.

As hard as he tries to resist them, these words resonate with HARRY.

I think you have to make a choice—at a certain point—of the man you want to be. And I tell you that at that time you need a parent or a friend. And if you’ve learnt to hate your parent by then and you have no friends… then you’re all alone. And being alone—that’s so hard. I was alone. And it sent me to a truly dark place. For a long time. Tom Riddle was also a lonely child. You may not understand that, Harry, but I do—and I think Ginny does too.

SCORPIUS: Have you heard me, Albus? This is bigger than you and your dad. Professor Croaker’s law—the furthest someone can go back in time without the possibility of serious harm to the traveler or time itself is five hours. And we went back years. The smallest moment, the smallest change, it creates ripples. And we—we’ve created really bad ripples. Rose was never born because of what we did. Rose.

SCORPIUS: Sometimes—sometimes I find myself thinking—maybe they're true too.

ALBUS: No. They’re not true. And I’ll tell you why. Because I don’t think Voldemort is capable of having a kind son—and you’re kind, Scorpius. To the depths of your belly, to the tips of your fingers. I truly believe Voldemort—Voldemort couldn’t have a child like you.

Beat. Scorpius is moved by this.

SCORPIUS: That’s nice—that’s a nice thing to say.

ALBUS: And it’s something I should have said a long time ago. And you don’t—you couldn’t—hold me back. You make me stronger—and when Dad forced us apart—without you—

SCORPIUS: I didn’t much like my life without you in it either.

SCORPIUS: You—Polly Chapman—want me to take you to a—ball?

There is the sound of screaming behind him.

What is that screaming?

POLLY CHAPMAN: Mudbloods, of course. In the dungeons. Your idea, wasn’t it? What’s going on with you? Oh Potter—I’ve got blood on my shoes again…

She bends and carefully cleans the blood of her shoes.

Like the Augurey insists—the future is ours to make—so here I am, making a future—with you. For Voldemort and Valor.

SCORPIUS: For Voldemort it is.

POLLY walks on, SCORPIUS look agonized. What is this world—and what is he within it?

HERMIONE: We get this right, Harry’s alive, Voldemort’s dead, and the Augurey is gone, for that no risk is too great. Though I am sorry what it will cost you.

SNAPE: Sometimes costs are made to be borne.

SNAPE: Listen to me, Scorpius. Think about Albus. You’re giving up your kingdom for Albus, right?

SCORPIUS is helpless. Consumed by all the dementor is making him feel. And SNAPE knows he needs to open his heart to save him.

One person. All it takes is one person. I couldn’t save Harry for Lily. So now I give my allegiance to the cause she believed in. And it’s possible—that along the way I started believing in it myself.

SCORPIUS steps decisively away from the dementor.

SCORPIUS: The world changes and we change with it. I am better off in this world. But the world is not better. And I don’t want that.

ALBUS: And why was I so determined to do this? Cedric? Really? No. I had something to prove. My dad’s right—he didn’t volunteer for adventure—me, this, it’s all my fault—and if it wasn’t for you everything could have gone Dark.

SCORPIUS: But it didn’t. And you’re to thank for that as much as me. When the dementors were—inside my head—Severus Snape told me to think of you. You may not have been there, Albus, but you were fighting—fighting alongside me.

SCORPIUS: An Augurey?

DELPHI: Haven’t you met them in Care of Magical Creatures? They’re sinister-looking black birds that cry when rain’s coming. Wizards used to believe that the Augurey’s cry foretold death. When I was growing up, my guardian kept one in a cage.

SCORPIUS: Your… guardian?

DELPHI looks at SCORPIUS, now she has the Time-Turner she’s enjoying the game of this.

DELPHI: She used to say it was crying because it could see I was going to come to a sticky end. She didn’t like me much. Euphemia Rowle… she only took me in for the gold.

ALBUS: Why would you want a tattoo of her bird, then?

DELPHI: It reminds me that the future is mine to make.

CEDRIC: Emancipare! Emancipare!

The boys are freed.

And now I can go on? Finish the maze?

The boys look at CEDRIC—they know exactly what it means for him to finish the maze.

ALBUS: I’m afraid you have to finish the maze.

CEDRIC: Then I shall.

CEDRIC walks confidently away. Albus looks after him—desperate to say something, unsure what to say.

ALBUS: Cedric-

CEDRIC turns towards him.

Your dad loves you very much.

HARRY: “Love blinds us”? Do you even know what that means? Do you even know how bad that advice was? My son is—my son is fighting battles for us just as I had to for you. And I have proved as bad a father to him as you were to me. Leaving him in places he felt unloved—growing in him resentments he’ll take years to understand—

[…]

DUMBLEDORE: No. I was protecting you. I did not want to hurt you…

DUMBLEDORE attempts to reach out of the portrait—but he can’t. He begins to cry but tries to hide it.

But I had to meet you in the end… eleven years old, and you were so brave. So good. You walked uncomplainingly along the path that had been laid at your feet. Of course I loved you… and I knew that it would happen all over again… that where I loved, I would cause irreparable damage. I am no fit person to love… I have never loved without causing harm.

A beat.

HARRY: You would have hurt me less if you had told me this then.

DUMBLEDORE (openly weeping now): I was blind. That is what love does. I couldn’t see that you needed to hear that this closed-up, tricky, dangerous old man… loved you.

DRACO: Astoria always knew that she was not destined for old age. She wanted me to have somebody when she left, because… it is exceptionally lonely, being Draco Malfoy. I will always be suspected. There is no escaping the past. I never realized, though, that by hiding him away from this gossiping, judgmental world, I ensured that my son would emerge shrouded in worse suspicion than I ever endured.

HARRY: Love blinds. We have both tried to give our sons not what they needed, but what we needed. We’ve been so busy trying to rewrite our own pasts, we’ve blighted their present.

HARRY: Voldemort is going to kill my mum and dad—and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

DRACO: That’s not true.

SCORPIUS: Dad, now is not the time…

ALBUS: There is something you could do—to stop him. But you won’t.

DRACO: That’s heroic.

GINNY takes HARRY’s hand.

GINNY: You don’t have to watch, Harry. We can go home.

HARRY: I’m letting it happen… Of course I have to watch.

HERMIONE: Then we’ll all witness it.

RON: We’ll all watch.