Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

DRACO: My father thought he was protecting me. Most of the time. 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.

GINNY: He’s right.

DRACO: Tom Riddle didn’t emerge from his dark place. And so Tom Riddle became Lord Voldemort. Maybe the black cloud Bane saw was Albus’s loneliness. His pain. His hatred. Don’t lose the boy. You’ll regret it. And so will he. Because he needs you, and Scorpius, whether or not he now knows it.

HARRY

looks at

DRACO

, he thinks.

He opens his mouth to speak. He thinks.

GINNY: Harry. Will you get the Floo powder or shall I?

HARRY

looks up at his wife.

ACT TWO, SCENE SIXTEEN

HOGWARTS, LIBRARY

SCORPIUS arrives in the library. He looks left and right. And then he sees ALBUS. And ALBUS sees him.

SCORPIUS: Hi.

ALBUS: Scorpius. I can’t . . .

SCORPIUS: I know. You’re in Gryffindor now. You don’t want to see me now. But here I am anyway. Talking to you.

ALBUS: Well, I can’t talk so . . .

SCORPIUS: You have to. You think you can just ignore everything that’s happened? The world has gone crazy, have you noticed?

ALBUS: I know, okay? Ron’s gone strange. Hermione’s a professor, it’s all wrong, but . . .

SCORPIUS: And Rose doesn’t exist.

ALBUS: I know. Look, I don’t understand everything but you can’t be here.

SCORPIUS: Because of what we did, Rose wasn’t even born. Do you remember being told about the Triwizard Tournament Yule Ball? All the four Triwizard champions took a partner. Your dad took Parvati Patil, Viktor Krum took —

ALBUS: Hermione. And Ron got jealous and behaved like a prat.

SCORPIUS: Only he didn’t. I found Rita Skeeter’s book about them. And it’s very different. Ron took Hermione to the ball.

ALBUS: What?

POLLY CHAPMAN: Sshhhh!

SCORPIUS

looks at

POLLY

and drops his volume.

SCORPIUS: As friends. And they danced in a friendly way, and it was nice, and then he danced with Padma Patil and that was nicer, and they started dating and he changed a bit and then they got married and meanwhile Hermione became a —

ALBUS: — psychopath.

SCORPIUS: Hermione was supposed to go to that ball with Krum — do you know why she didn’t? Because she had suspicions the two strange Durmstrang boys she met before the first task were somehow involved in the disappearance of Cedric’s wand. She believed we — under Viktor’s orders — cost Cedric the first task . . .

ALBUS: Wow.

SCORPIUS: And without Krum, Ron never got jealous and that jealousy was all-important and so Ron and Hermione stayed very good friends but never fell in love — never got married — never had Rose.

ALBUS: So that’s why Dad’s so — did he change too?

SCORPIUS: I’m pretty sure your dad is exactly the same. Head of Magical Law Enforcement. Married to Ginny. Three kids.

ALBUS: So why is he being such a —

A

LIBRARIAN

enters at the back of the room.

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.

LIBRARIAN: Ssshhh!

ALBUS

thinks quickly.

ALBUS: Fine, let’s go back — fix it. Get Cedric and Rose back.

SCORPIUS: . . . is the wrong answer.

ALBUS: You’ve still got the Time-Turner, right? No one found it?

SCORPIUS

takes it out of his pocket.

SCORPIUS: Yes, but . . .

ALBUS

snatches it from his hand.

No. Don’t . . . Albus. Don’t you understand how bad things could get?

SCORPIUS

grabs for the Time-Turner,

ALBUS

pushes him back, they wrestle inexpertly.

ALBUS: Things need fixing, Scorpius. Cedric still needs saving. Rose needs bringing back. We’ll be more careful. Whatever Croaker says, trust me, trust us. We’ll get it right this time.

SCORPIUS: No. We won’t. Give it back, Albus! Give it back!

ALBUS: I can’t. This is too important.

SCORPIUS: Yes, it’s too important — for us. We’re not good at this stuff. We’ll get it wrong.

ALBUS: Who’s saying that we’ll get it wrong?

SCORPIUS: I say. Because that’s what we do. We mess things up. We lose. We’re losers, true and total losers. Haven’t you realized that yet?