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
At Harry’s office in the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore appears in his portrait. He asks what Harry is doing, and Harry says he’s going through papers to see if he’s missed anything, trying to figure out what he can do to help Albus. Harry grows frustrated that Dumbledore is just showing up now, explaining that Dumbledore is always absent when Harry needs him most.
In this scene, Harry comes to terms with the fact that he and Dumbledore had a difficult relationship just as Albus and Harry have a difficult relationship. Dumbledore never fully understood how best to help Harry, and as a result, Harry felt alone and abandoned, just as Albus did.
Themes
Harry says that “love blinds us” was terrible advice and that Albus is fighting Harry’s battles just as Harry fought Dumbledore’s. And Harry has now left Albus in places where he felt unloved, just as Dumbledore left Harry at Privet Drive for years without knowing why he was there or that anyone cared about him.
Harry brings up some of the childhood trauma that have been plaguing him throughout the play, specifically being left with the Dursleys when they abused him so terribly—and he knows that Albus feels similarly miserable at Hogwarts. This again creates a parallel between Harry and Albus, as Harry is frustrated with Dumbledore for not fully supporting him or understanding how best to care for him, just as Albus feels about Harry.
Themes
Dumbledore starts to cry, saying that he loved Harry, even though he knew he was going to have to hurt him. He laments that he has never loved anyone without causing harm. Harry wishes Dumbledore had said this when Harry was in school. Dumbledore weeps, acknowledging that he didn’t realize Harry needed to hear that Dumbledore loved him. Harry is overcome with emotion as well, and he says that he loved Dumbledore, too, before Dumbledore disappears from his portrait.
As Dumbledore and Harry have this reckoning, the play illustrates the problems with not feeling fully accepted or understood, and as a result, how that hampers a good parent-child relationship. Dumbledore hiding his deep fatherly love for Harry was an attempt to protect himself, but as a result, Harry felt neglected. Now, as they try to reconcile, the play argues for the importance of having an open and honest relationship, because that improves the bond between a parent and child.
Themes
Just then, Draco arrives, remarking that Scorpius said that in the alternate reality, Draco was Head of Magical Law Enforcement, not Harry. Draco says that he never really wanted to be a Ministry man anyway—his father wanted him to be one. He goes on, explaining that the Time-Turner that the Ministry found was a prototype—it was limited, only being able to go back for five minutes. Draco’s father, he explains, had a Time-Turner without the five-minute problem, producing it for Harry. Harry smiles, explaining that Hermione kept the first Time-Turner for fear that there was a second. Draco says he didn’t come forward with this because of the rumors about Scorpius’s parentage.
Just after Harry grapples with his relationship with Dumbledore, Draco explains his own issues with his father not seeing him for who he was as well. This again reinforces the problems with parent-child relationships in which children don’t feel fully understood, but it also shows how Draco and Harry are both still affected by their childhood traumas in a way that has made it difficult for them to work through their relationships with their sons, underscoring the problems with focusing on the past at the expense of the present. This obsession with the past is only underscored by the symbol of the Time-Turner. And yet, now, Harry and Draco have begun to be open and honest with each other, to act as allies if not friends, and to gain strength from that bond.
Themes
Get the entire Harry Potter and the Cursed Child LitChart as a printable PDF.
Draco explains that Astoria was always very sick, and he didn’t want to risk her health by having children. But Astoria knew she wouldn’t live into old age, and she wanted Draco to have family after she died. She didn’t want him to be lonely, plagued by the past. So he hid her away when she was having Scorpius so that she would have time to recover and to conserve her strength. But as a result, suspicions emerged—worse than Draco ever endured.
In explaining the story of how Scorpius was born, Draco acknowledges the profound burden that rumors and reputation have had on both himself, as a former Death Eater, and on Scorpius, as the alleged son of Voldemort. Those burdens, Draco illustrates, led him to choices he now regrets.
Themes
Harry says that he and Draco both tried to give their sons what they themselves needed—not what Scorpius and Albus needed. They’ve been so busy trying to rewrite their pasts that they’ve failed their sons. Draco says that’s why they have to use the Time-Turner—they have to find their sons. Harry protests, saying that they have no idea where or when they are, and searching would be a fool’s errand. It’s up to Albus and Scorpius now to save them.
Here Harry acknowledges two of the major themes in the play: first, that Harry and Draco focusing more on what they needed, rather than what Scorpius and Albus needed, has added to the conflict between them and in some ways actively led them to the dangerous situation that they’re in now. And it shows the problems with Harry and Draco fixating on their pasts, rather than trying to focus on what they can do in the present to improve their relationships with their sons.
Themes
