Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

No luck, as yet, with the Time-Turner searching. They’re negotiating with the Merpeople to dredge the lake.

He sits down uncomfortably.

This is a nice room.

ALBUS: Green is a soothing color, isn’t it? I mean Gryffindor rooms are all well and good but the trouble with red is — it is said to send you a little mad — not that I’m casting aspersions . . .

HARRY: Can you explain why you tried to do this?

ALBUS: I thought I could — change things. I thought Cedric — it’s unfair.

HARRY: Of course it’s unfair, Albus, don’t you think I know that? I was there. I saw him die. But to do this . . . to risk all this . . .

ALBUS: I know.

HARRY (failing to contain his anger): If you were trying to do as I did, you went the wrong way about it. I didn’t volunteer for adventure, I was forced into it. You did something really reckless — something really stupid and dangerous — something that could have destroyed everything —

ALBUS: I know. Okay. I know.

Pause.

ALBUS

wipes away a tear,

HARRY

notices it and takes a breath. He pulls himself back from the brink.

HARRY: Well, I was wrong too — to think Scorpius was Voldemort’s son. He wasn’t a black cloud.

ALBUS: No.

HARRY: And I’ve locked away the map. You won’t see it again. Your mum left your room exactly as it was when you ran away — you know that? Wouldn’t let me go in — wouldn’t let anyone go in — you really scared her . . . And me.

ALBUS: Really scared you?

HARRY: Yes.

ALBUS: I thought Harry Potter wasn’t afraid of anything?

HARRY: Is that how I make you feel?

ALBUS

looks at his dad, trying to figure him out.

ALBUS: I don’t think Scorpius said, but when we returned after failing to fix the first task, I was suddenly in Gryffindor House. Nothing was better between us then either — so — the fact that I’m in Slytherin — that’s not the reason for our problems. It’s not just about that.

HARRY: No. I know. It’s not just about that.

HARRY

looks at

ALBUS

.

Are you okay, Albus?

ALBUS: No.

HARRY: No. Nor me.

ACT THREE, SCENE TWELVE

DREAM, GODRIC’S HOLLOW, GRAVEYARD

YOUNG HARRY stands looking at a gravestone covered in bunches of flowers. He has a small bunch of flowers in his hand.

AUNT PETUNIA: Go on then, lay down your grotty little flowers and then let’s go. I already hate this poxy little village, I don’t know why I even had the thought — Godric’s Hollow, Godless Hollow, more like, the place is clearly a hive of filth — go on, chop-chop.

He approaches the grave. He stands a moment more.

Now

, Harry . . . I don’t have time for this. Duddy has his Cubs tonight and you know he hates to be late.

YOUNG HARRY: Aunt Petunia. We’re their last living relatives, right?

AUNT PETUNIA: Yes. You and I. Yes.

YOUNG HARRY: And — they weren’t popular? You said they didn’t have any friends?

AUNT PETUNIA: Lily tried — bless her — she tried — it wasn’t her fault, but she repelled people — by her very nature. It was her intensity, it was her manner, it was her — way. And your father — obnoxious man — extraordinarily obnoxious. No friends. Neither of them.

YOUNG HARRY: So my question is — why are there so many flowers? Why are there flowers all over their grave?

AUNT PETUNIA

looks around, she sees all the flowers as if for the first time and it moves her hugely. She approaches and then sits by her sister’s grave, trying hard to fight the emotions as they come to her but succumbing all the same.

AUNT PETUNIA: Oh. Yes. Well, I suppose there are a — few. Must have blown over from the other graves. Or someone’s playing a trick. Yes, I think that’s most likely, some young rapscallion with too much time on his hands has gone around collecting flowers from all the other graves and deposited them here —

YOUNG HARRY: But they’re all marked with their names . . . “Lily and James, what you did, we will never forget,” “Lily and James, your sacrifice . . .”

VOLDEMORT: I smell guilt, there is a stench of guilt upon the air.

AUNT PETUNIA (to YOUNG HARRY): Get away. Get away from there.

She pulls him back.

VOLDEMORT

’s hand rises into the air above the Potters’ gravestone, the rest of him rises after. We don’t see his face but his body provides a jagged, horrific shape.

I knew it. This place is dangerous. The sooner we leave Godric’s Hollow the better.