Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

SCORPIUS: I had one of those too. Called Flurry. We fell out over the correct rules of Gobstones.

DELPHI: Albus needs you, Scorpius. That’s a wonderful thing.

SCORPIUS: He needs me to do what?

DELPHI: That’s the thing, isn’t it? About friendships. You don’t know what he needs. You only know he needs it. Find him, Scorpius. You two — you belong together.

ACT TWO, SCENE FIFTEEN

HARRY AND GINNY POTTER’S HOUSE, KITCHEN

HARRY and DRACO sit far apart. GINNY stands between them.

DRACO: Sorry about your kitchen, Ginny.

GINNY: Oh, it’s not my kitchen. Harry does most of the cooking.

DRACO: I can’t talk to him either. Scorpius. Especially since — Astoria has gone. I can’t even talk about how losing her has affected him. As hard as I try, I can’t reach him. You can’t talk to Albus. I can’t talk to Scorpius. That’s what this is about. Not about my son being evil. Because as much as you might take the word of a haughty centaur, you know the power of friendship.

HARRY: Draco, whatever you may think . . .

DRACO: I always envied you them, you know — Weasley and Granger. I had —

GINNY: Crabbe and Goyle.

DRACO: Two lunks who wouldn’t know one end of a broomstick from another. You — the three of you — you shone, you know? You liked each other. You had fun. I envied you those friendships more than anything else.

GINNY: I envied them too.

HARRY looks at GINNY, surprised.

HARRY: I need to protect him —

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.