Book Review :: The Cursed Child, by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne
Series: Harry Potter #8
Published by Little Brown UK
on July 31st 2016
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 343
Goodreads

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes darkness comes from unexpected places.

Last updated on 19 March 2023

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What is The Cursed Child about? Back story

We begin our magical journey in the  ’19 years later’ time that we saw at the end of The Deathly Hallows, and Harry Potter is talking to his middle child, Albus Severus Potter.

Harry reassures a concerned Albus that if he really wants to be in Gryffindor, he can actually ask the hat. Albus gets onto the Hogwarts Express with Rose Granger-Weasley, who is also starting at the same time as him.

The two know the importance of finding a good compartment on the first day and open the door on one Scorpius Malfoy, who invites them in. Rose doesn’t like it, and leaves, but Albus stays. And it’s the beginning of a great friendship.

“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.”

In the world of our Golden Trio, Harry is now Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Ginny writes for the sports section of the Daily Prophet, Ron is running Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes (with no mention as to where George is, *sniff* Fred *sniff*), Draco has lost his wife Astoria, and Hermione is *drum roll* Minister for Magic. Of course, she is.

Professor McGonagall is Head of Hogwarts, and though he’s not actually in the story, dear Neville is still a Professor at the school.

Rumour has it that Scorpius is actually the son of Voldemort.

The rumour goes that the Death Eaters used the last Time-Turner (the Time-Turners having been destroyed by the Department of Mysteries) to send Draco’s wife Astoria back to Voldemort’s time so she could have his child, and Voldemort’s bloodline continues. The Malfoys obviously deny this, but that’s what the rumours are.

The play continues on from Platform 9 3/4, and there are scenes that jump the years, each having a snippet from the start of each new year with Albus and Scorpius. By the time they are well into their schooling life, Albus and Scorpius are great friends, despite their parents’ past dislike for each other.

What is The Cursed Child about? The real story

This is where the real story begins.

Albus overhears Harry being confronted by Amos Diggory. That’s right, you remember correctly – Cedric Diggory’s father. He’s furious, still to this day, at Harry for Cedric’s death. He wants Harry to give him the Time-Turner that Harry just retrieved from Theodore Nott and go back in time to the Triwizard Tournament and save Cedric.

Harry, knowing that ‘awful things happen to wizards who meddle with time’, refuses. Albus then decides to take it upon himself to save Cedric.

“The world changes and we change with it. I am better off in this world. But the world is not better. And I don’t want that.”

And from there, as you can imagine, chaos reigns.

With the help of Scorpius and Amos’ niece (and new character) Delphi, Albus steals the Time-Turner from the Ministry and they go back in time, to try and stop Cedric from winning the Triwizard Tournament with Harry. The play then shows us several different realities as the teens play with time, ever trying to save Cedric, and none of them are good.

Eventually, everything is back to normal and hunky-dory until – ha, just kidding. It’s an actual disaster.

While Scorpius may not be the child of Voldemort, someone else is (I’m not going to say who it is – you’ll need to read it for yourself), and they’re out to get revenge. They want to go back in time and save Voldemort.

It turns out that there was another prophecy, one that says that Voldemort’s child can bring him back and sit by him as they take over the world, and they need Albus to make this prophecy come true.

Obviously, all things turn out in the end – it’s Rowling (kinda) and Potter; they play with our emotions and rip us apart, but we always end up smiling with happy, but ugly, tears – but while it was a mess and things happen, lessons were learnt, tears were cried, all was well.

My thoughts on this Harry Potter play

Where to start, where to start. I think I liked the story on the whole. I think they took the parts of the series that we all love and played around a little more with them. We got to see both the Invisibility Cloak and the Maurader’s Map in play, as well as the Time-Turner, which is a definite highlight of Prisoner of Azkaban. 

A lot of the characters that we lost over the series make an appearance, because, you know, time travel. We get to see Cedric briefly, and Dumbledore is not a constant but there-sometimes kind of portrait. McGonagall has to remind Harry at times that the moving portraits are not actually the people they once were.

“Ah, really, what does my opinion matter anymore? I am paint and memory, Harry, paint and memory.” – Portrait of Dumbledore

But the biggest and most painful, perhaps, reappearance and that had to happen – of course, it did – was that of the one and only Severus Snape. Of course, it was in another reality, but it was still nice (though heartbreaking) to read his voice again.

While it is Scorpius who meets him and not Albus, the young Malfoy tells Snape that in his reality, Harry named his son after Snape and Dumbledore. That whole scene is just…sniff. I’m not crying, you’re crying!

While it was a little confusing at times, as to where the boys were jumping back in time, it did all make sense, and done pretty well. The stage directions were good, and so you could really ‘see’ the scene changes in your head as though they were playing out on the stage.

In terms of characters, at times I did sort of think things like ‘I don’t think Harry would have said that’ or ‘that was a weird thing for them to do’. But then at the same time, the kids we know and love from the series were just that – are just that – they’re kids.

In our heads, Harry and the gang will always be 18 max. We do really know that they grow up and have their own children, but for the majority of our lives, they were teenagers. Adult Golden Trio is a bit different, and I guess we’re just not used to it. I keep saying ‘we’ but it might just be me. Let me know what you think.

“Love blinds. We have both tried to give our sons, not what they needed, but what we needed. We’ve been so busy trying to rewrite our own pasts, we’ve blighted their present.”

I did like how Ginny and Harry had much more of a relationship in this though. In the series, we don’t really get to see them together for as long as we would have perhaps liked. In this play, we get to see them as a team, as two people who definitely know each other so well, and have been together for so long. It’s a lot less awkward teenage romance and more adult marriage – and so it should be.

Rose Granger-Weasley is the best combination of Hermione and Ron. She’s funny, but she’s smart. She’s a bit more carefree than Hermione but still logical and careful. Draco in this story I found to be much more likeable than Harry. Perhaps it’s because Harry is so hard on Albus for so long, and Albus is the main character so you’re cheering for him. Draco is still Draco, but he’s more adult about it. He knows what he did in the past was wrong – heck he knew it a bit then too – and he’s moved on. He’s at least acquaintances with the gang, if not friends.

Scorpius is not like his father very much. At least not like him at school. Scorpius is a geek. He’s a super geek who loves books and school, and he’s by far the best character. He’s hilarious and witty and is keen on Rose (fueling anybody’s Hermione/Draco ship with the next generation), and is a fantastic friend to Albus.

The plot was problematic for me, and probably the most annoying this about the play was the plot. There were good bits but the whole main idea I didn’t like at all, and didn’t think ‘would actually happen’ (in so far as fictional storylines ‘actually happen’).

But, like the book series, there are some fantastic lines in this play, great monologues, and sayings that I am going to try and incorporate into everyday life. The following quote is not one of them, but one that I particularly like.

“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.” – Portrait or Dumbledore

The greatest thing that I learnt about Harry in this book, despite the lead characters really being Albus and Scorpius, is that Harry is, in fact,  afraid of pigeons.

Some people on the internet aren’t enjoying it, others are boycotting it because it’s not really written by Rowling, but you know what? I, on the whole, enjoyed it.

Will I read it again? Probably not. And will I include it in my re-reading of the Harry Potter series? Probably Not. And will it even cross my mind to list it alongside the other stories …. ? Again, probably not. But it was a fun read.

What did you think of this, the eighth story? Did it live up to all the hype?