Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Parenthood
Time, Mistakes, and the Past
Friendship, Family, Love, and Bravery
Reputation and Expectation
Death and Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
In another dream, Aunt Petunia criticizes a young Harry for not cleaning the kitchen adequately and makes fun of him for wetting the bed. He says that he was having a nightmare—he thinks he saw his parents die. He recalls that a man shouted something strange, and he heard a snake and his mother screaming. Petunia explains that they died in a car accident before commanding him to get scrubbing.
Harry’s nightmare affirms not only the struggles he faced in childhood without parental figures who truly understand or care about him, but it also shows how he still fixates on his past trauma and lonely childhood, unable to fully work through his problems and change what he can in the present.
Themes
The stage contorts, trees rise, and the dream twists into something else. Albus appears in red robes and looks at the young Harry before Albus is pulled away. Parseltongue whispers reverberate around the stage, and Voldemort says, “Haaarry Pottttter.”
As the dream twists into a vision of Albus being pulled away from Harry and Voldemort returning, it suggests that Harry’s fixation on the past and inability to fully confront his struggles with his son in the present put Albus at risk of being lost to him forever.
Themes
