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 the girls’ bathroom, Albus and Scorpius again go over their plan. During the second task, Cedric used a Bubble-Head charm to swim through the lake, and they’ll use an Engorgio charm on his head so that he floats out of the lake and away from the task. Scorpius then asks how they’ll get to the lake in the first place. Just then, Moaning Myrtle emerges, and Albus asks her how they can get to the lake, explaining their plan. Myrtle directs Albus and Scorpius to a sink that has pipes that empty out directly into the lake. Albus pulls out gillyweed for them to take, and they remind each other that this time, they can’t let time expire. They take the gillyweed and disappear down the sink.
Even after seeing the dangerous ramifications that their actions in the past had on the present, Albus and Scorpius are still focused on “fixing” the past as a way to also fix the present. Like Harry, they are obsessing over the past rather than focusing on what they can actually do in the present to make change.
Themes
The stage warps, and time begins spooling backwards. Just then, Harry, Ginny, Draco, and Professor McGonagall arrive in the bathroom. Myrtle explains that Albus and Scorpius just disappeared, traveling under the Hogwarts grounds. Harry asks what they’re using, and Myrtle explains that they have a trinket they’re using to save Cedric Diggory. Harry wonders in horror if it’s possible that they could have gotten the Ministry’s Time-Turner.
As Harry and the others discover that the boys have been using a Time-Turner, they react in horror because they recognize the dangers of trying to change the past. Though the time travel in the play is, of course, the product of a magic, it is also symbolic, and advances the idea that it is more important to focus on solving problems or dealing with trauma in the present.
Themes
