Joanne Rowling - Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

SCORPIUS leans in and reads.

SCORPIUS: The 30th October, 1981. Day before Hallows’ Eve, thirty-nine years ago. But — why is she? Oh.

SCORPIUS’s face falls as he realizes.

ALBUS: The death of my grandparents. The attack on my dad as a baby . . . The moment when Voldemort’s curse rebounded on himself. She’s not trying to bring about her prophecy — she’s trying to prevent the big one.

SCORPIUS: The big one?

ALBUS: “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . .”

SCORPIUS joins in.

SCORPIUS and ALBUS: “. . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . .”

SCORPIUS’s face falls with every word.

SCORPIUS: It’s my fault. I told her that prophecies can be broken — I told her the whole logic of prophecies is questionable —

ALBUS: In twenty-four hours’ time Voldemort curses himself trying to kill the baby Harry Potter. Delphi is trying to prevent that curse. She’s going to kill Harry herself. We need to get to Godric’s Hollow. Now.

ALBUS and SCORPIUS walk through the center of Godric’s Hollow and it’s a bustling, beautiful little village.

SCORPIUS: Well, there’s no visible signs of attack that I can see . . .

ALBUS: This is Godric’s Hollow?

SCORPIUS: Your dad’s never taken you?

ALBUS: No, he tried to a few times but I refused.

SCORPIUS: Well, there’s no time for a tour — we have a murderous witch to save the world from — but regard: The Church, St. Jerome’s . . .

As he indicates a church becomes visible.

ALBUS: It’s magnificent.

SCORPIUS: And St. Jerome’s graveyard is supposedly magnificently haunted, (he points in another direction) and that’s where the statue of Harry and his parents will be —

ALBUS: My dad has a statue?

SCORPIUS: Oh. Not yet. But he will. Hopefully. And this — this house is where Bathilda Bagshot lived, lives . . .

ALBUS: The Bathilda Bagshot? A History of Magic Bathilda Bagshot?

SCORPIUS: The very same. Oh my, that’s her. Wow. Squeak. My geekness is a-quivering.

ALBUS: Scorpius!

SCORPIUS: And here it is —

ALBUS: The home of James, Lily, and Harry Potter . . .

A young, attractive couple leave a house with a baby in a pushchair. ALBUS moves towards them, SCORPIUS pulls him back.

SCORPIUS: They can’t see you, Albus, it might damage time, and we’re not doing that — not this time.

ALBUS: But this means, she hasn’t . . . We’ve made it . . . She hasn’t . . .

SCORPIUS: So what do we do now? Get ready to fight her? Because she’s pretty . . . Fierce.

ALBUS: Yes. We haven’t really thought this one through, have we? What do we do now? How do we protect my dad?

HARRY is hurriedly going through paperwork.

DUMBLEDORE: Good evening, Harry.

A beat. HARRY looks up at the portrait of DUMBLEDORE, his face passive.

HARRY: Professor Dumbledore, in my office, I’m honored. I must be where the action is tonight?

DUMBLEDORE: What are you doing?

HARRY: Going through papers, seeing if I’ve missed anything I shouldn’t have. Marshaling forces to fight in the limited way we can fight. Knowing that the battle is being raged far away from us. What else can I do?

Pause. DUMBLEDORE says nothing.

Where have you been, Dumbledore?

DUMBLEDORE: I’m here now.

HARRY: Here just as the battle is lost. Or are you denying that Voldemort is going to return.

DUMBLEDORE: It is — possible.

HARRY: Go. Leave. I don’t want you here, I don’t need you. You were absent every time it really counted. I fought him three times without you. I’ll face him again, if needs be — alone.

DUMBLEDORE: Harry, don’t you think I wanted to fight him on your behalf? I would have spared you if I could —

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: If you’re referring to Privet Drive, then —

HARRY: Years — years I spent there alone, without knowing what I was, or why I was there, without knowing that anybody cared!

DUMBLEDORE: I — did not wish to become attached to you —

HARRY: Protecting yourself, even then!

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.

A pause. The two men are overcome with emotion.

HARRY: It isn’t true that I never complained.

DUMBLEDORE: Harry, there is never a perfect answer in this messy, emotional world. Perfection is beyond the reach of humankind, beyond the reach of magic. In every shining moment of happiness is that drop of poison: the knowledge that pain will come again. Be honest to those you love, show your pain. To suffer is as human as to breathe.

HARRY: You said that to me once before.

DUMBLEDORE: It is all I have to offer you tonight.

He begins to walk away.

HARRY: Don’t go!

DUMBLEDORE: Those that we love never truly leave us, Harry. There are things that death cannot touch. Paint . . . and memory . . . and love.

HARRY: I loved you too, Dumbledore.

DUMBLEDORE: I know.

He is gone. And HARRY is alone. DRACO enters.

DRACO: Did you know that in this other reality — the reality Scorpius saw into — I was Head of Magical Law Enforcement? Maybe this room will be mine soon enough. Are you okay?

HARRY is consumed in his grief.

HARRY: Come in — I’ll give you the tour.

DRACO walks hesitantly inside the room. He looks around distastefully.

DRACO: The thing is, though — never really fancied being a Ministry man. Even as a child. My dad, it’s all he ever wanted — me, no.

HARRY: What did you want to do?

DRACO: Quidditch. But I wasn’t good enough. Mainly I wanted to be happy.

HARRY nods. DRACO looks at him a second more.

Sorry, I’m not very good at small talk, do you mind if we skip on to the serious business?

HARRY: Of course. What — serious — business?

Beat.

DRACO: Do you think Theodore Nott had the only Time-Turner?

HARRY: What?

DRACO: The Time-Turner the Ministry seized was a prototype. Made of inexpensive metal. It does the job — sure. But only being able to go back in time for five minutes — that’s a serious flaw — it isn’t something you’d sell to true collectors of Dark Magic.