Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

HERMIONE: What can I say? My parents were dentists, I was bound to rebel at some point. Forty is leaving it a little late, but . . . You’ve just done a brilliant thing. You’re certainly not being told off — I just need you to look at your paperwork every now and again, that’s all. Consider this a gentle — nudge — from the Minister for Magic.

HARRY hears the implication in her emphasis, he nods.

How’s Ginny? How’s Albus?

HARRY: It seems I’m as good at fatherhood as I am at paperwork. How’s Rose? How’s Hugo?

HERMIONE (with a grin): You know, Ron says he thinks I see more of my secretary, Ethel, (she indicates off) than him. Do you think there’s a point where we made a choice — parent of the year or Ministry official of the year? Go on. Go home to your family, Harry, the Hogwarts Express is about to depart for another year — enjoy the time you’ve got left — and then come back here with a fresh head and get these files read.

HARRY: You really think this could all mean something?

HERMIONE (with a smile): It could do. But if it does, we’ll find a way to fight it, Harry. We always have.

She smiles once more, pops a toffee in her mouth, and leaves the office. HARRY is left alone. He packs his bag. He walks out of the office and down a corridor. The weight of the world upon his shoulders.

He walks, tired, into a telephone box. He dials 62442.

TELEPHONE BOX: Farewell, Harry Potter.

He ascends away from the Ministry of Magic.

ACT ONE, SCENE SIX

HARRY AND GINNY POTTER’S HOUSE

ALBUS can’t sleep. He is sitting at the top of the stairs. He hears voices below him. We hear HARRY’s voice before he’s revealed. An elderly man in a wheelchair is with him, AMOS DIGGORY.

HARRY: Amos, I understand, I really do — but I’m only just home and —

AMOS: I’ve tried to make appointments at the Ministry. They say, “Ah, Mr. Diggory, we have an appointment for you, let’s see, in two months.” I wait. Very patiently.

HARRY: —and coming to my house in the middle of the night — when my kids are just getting ready for their new year at school — it’s not right.

AMOS: Two months pass, I receive an owl, “Mr. Diggory, I’m awfully sorry, but Mr. Potter has been called away on urgent business, we’re going to have to shift things around a little, are you available for an appointment in, let’s see, in two months’ time.” And then it repeats again, and again . . . You’re shutting me out.

HARRY: Of course I’m not. It’s just, I’m afraid, as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement I’m afraid I’m responsible —

AMOS: There’s plenty you’re responsible for.

HARRY: Sorry?

AMOS: My son, Cedric, you do remember Cedric, don’t you?

HARRY (remembering Cedric hurts him): Yes, I remember your son. His loss —

AMOS: Voldemort wanted you! Not my son! You told me yourself, the words he said were, “Kill the spare.” The spare. My son, my beautiful son, was a spare.

HARRY: Mr. Diggory, as you know, I sympathize with your efforts to memorialize Cedric, but —

AMOS: A memorial? I am not interested in a memorial — not anymore. I am an old man — an old dying man — and I am here to ask you — beg you — to help me get him back.

HARRY looks up, astonished.

HARRY: Get him back? Amos, that’s not possible.

AMOS: The Ministry has a Time-Turner, does it not?

HARRY: The Time-Turners were all destroyed.

AMOS: The reason I’m here with such urgency is I’ve just heard rumor — strong rumor — that the Ministry seized an illegal Time-Turner from Theodore Nott and has kept it. For investigation. Let me use that Time-Turner. Let me have my son back.

There’s a long, deadly pause. HARRY is finding this extremely difficult. We watch as ALBUS moves closer, listening.

HARRY: Amos, playing with time? You know we can’t do that.

AMOS: How many people have died for the Boy Who Lived? I’m asking you to save one of them.

This hurts HARRY. He thinks, his face hardens.

HARRY: Whatever you’ve heard, the Theodore Nott story is a fiction, Amos, I’m sorry.

DELPHI: Hello.

ALBUS jumps a mile as DELPHI — a twenty-something, determined-looking woman — is revealed, looking through the stairs at him.