I Saw Harry Potter & The Cursed Child On Stage, & Unlike Its Script, It Did Not Disappoint!

I loved the live show, but the script remains problematic.

In 2016, the rehearsal script for the two-part stage production of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child was released for sale. I grabbed a copy right away and read it in one day. I kept in mind that this would contain only stage direction and dialogue, so I should not expect the same level of depth as I would a novel. Even with this in mind, however, the script still managed to disappoint. It didn’t quite disappoint me as much as it seemed to for most other fans, but there were issues with the plot that made me question the canonical validity of the whole thing (which I will address later in this post).

Despite the criticisms I and many other fans have of Cursed Child’s script, the live play’s reception has been overwhelmingly positive since it premiered 6 years ago. Even those who found the script problematic and lackluster found the play to be, paradoxically, phenomenal. So, what is it about this production that is so incredibly special? Although there is no answer that could adequately convey the play’s magic in words, alone, I will do my best to illustrate what I loved about The Cursed Child.

If you need a vague overview…

The Cursed Child revolves around two Slytherin outcasts and best friends, Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, the sons of Harry and Ginny Potter and Draco Malfoy, respectively. Influenced by Delphi “Diggory,” Voldemort and Bellatrix’s daughter in disguise, Albus and Scorpius go on a quest, with the help of a time turner, to save Cedric Diggory from his fate in Goblet of Fire. As the two change history, they create increasingly disastrous alternate realities, while Harry, Ginny, Draco, Ron, and Hermione race to find Albus and Scorpius.

So, the play…

The beginning of Cursed Child wastes no time rushing through Albus and Scorpius’s first 3 years at Hogwarts in 15 or so minutes. The fast-paced montage establishes Albus and Scorpius’s close friendship, their Slytherin sorting, their unpopularity at Hogwarts, their lack of talent in flying and Quidditch, Albus and Harry’s difficult father-son relationship, Scorpius’s mother’s death, and the well-known rumor that Scorpius is not the biological child of Draco, but the son of Voldemort, via time turner. Although the montage feels rushed, it is executed flawlessly, and it quickly and effectively establishes the visual cue for time and scene transitions that will be used throughout the play--background wizards on stage dramatically swishing one side of their cloaks high in the air, and although it didn’t necessarily impress at first, the transitions from year-to-year and scene-to-scene become increasingly stunning, in addition to serving their practical function.

In fact, many performers take the stage with the sole purpose to transition scenes, time periods, and to also set a scene’s tone. For example, following the intermission (which is preceded by a new reality where Umbridge rules Hogwarts, Harry died in the Battle of Hogwarts, and Voldemort won), the opening scene of act two begins with dark wizards dancing in a dramatic and intimidating way, and it ends with Umbridge happily walking down the center of the dark wizards (which is absent in this particular clip). It is extraordinary to watch. It would not, however, translate well on screen. Like much of this play, the best parts are exclusively for the stage.

One thing this play really instilled in me is that theater has the ability to tell stories and create spectacle in ways that film and television never could. This is an idea I knew something of but had never really witnessed for myself while watching any of the handful of live plays I had previously attended.

While many elements could only be executed successfully on stage, there was the odd thing here and there that worked better in film. The Sorting Hat, for instance, in Cursed Child is played by a man who sings the sorting song and announces each student’s house while holding a bowler hat over students’ heads. I don’t think I would be alone in thinking that the talking, battered wizard-style Sorting Hat from the films works better. The man is to be expected on stage, but I found it strange that the play chose to use a bowler hat instead of the more aesthetically appropriate wizard’s hat.

Once the story builds momentum, which is right after the introductory montage, the play stuns in its exceptional visual effects, character portrayals and acting, which give credence to the [problematic] plot by means of exceptional execution. But I am getting ahead of myself. Allow me to run down the list of highlights in the areas of visual effects and characters.

1. Visual effects

The dementors!

It would be more logical for me to start with something broader, but the dementors’ first appearance was the STANDOUT special effect moment for me. They were literally terrifying. I have ridden the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride at Universal Studios Hollywood many times, and it features film-accurate dementors who get right up in your face, invading your personal space, moving sinisterly, and emitting ominous noise, but the Cursed Child dementors were another level! I remember thinking as they descended, this is not far from the actual effect of dementors in the books…because they were chilling and horrifying.

If you saw the special behind-the-scenes features of the Prisoner of Azkaban film, you might remember PoA director Alfonso Cuaron talking about the dementor’s design. Originally, he had wanted them to look fluid, as if they and their cloaks were gliding through water. Cuaron abandoned the idea after an underwater trial showed that although the effect was beautiful, it was not practical for the film. The clip included a video of the dementors puppets in water, and the dementors in Cursed Child looked very much like this. They were eerily fluid in their movements. Their cloaks were somewhat transparent. The dementors, themselves, were huge—9 feet tall, perhaps. I am sure there were also real people in these cloaks because they moved in a sinisterly jerky way, as if they were the creepiest of twitching zombies, while their hands moved continuously like they wanted to reach out at you.

What lent to the dementors’ incredible effect was of course the context and execution of the dementors’ first appearance. The new 3 ½ hour show breaks for an intermission right after Scorpius emerges from a time jump without Albus in Hogwarts’ Great Lake. The two go back in time to put an engorging charm on Cedric Diggory during the second Triwizard task, but this change in history resulted in Cedric later killing Neville, which resulted in Nagini living, Voldemort winning the Battle of Hogwarts, and Harry dying. When Scorpius emerges in this reality, Hogwarts Headmistress Dolores Umbridge meets him and after Scorpius learns from Umbridge that Harry died and Voldemort reigns, Umbridge, annoyed with Scorpius’s sudden personality change, warns him of upsetting the dementors and ruining Voldemort Day. When the two leave the stage, a sinister screeching-like music plays and two dementors hover over the stage, and moments later another appears floating over the orchestra section of the audience.

The floating dementor sequence is NOT a short moment. The closing of act one features the dementors floating around to the horrible sounds for several minutes. How many minutes? I don’t know, but it felt like 5. It was probably around 2, but it goes on and on. It scared me. I checked on my 12-year-old daughter, and she had her fingers in her ears. I worried that this would scare her and give her nightmares, so I put my arm around her, but I could not help simultaneously leaning forward in my seat, absorbing the dementors’ full effect. Yes, I will freely admit, even at 39 years old, I took FULL advantage of the dementors’ realism and the fear they created, pretending for those few minutes that I was actually part of Harry’s world, facing real dementors. I let the surrounding audience melt away and I went full-blown nerdy adolescent escapist. I’m not even slightly ashamed. It was EPIC.

This wasn’t the only scene featuring dementors, though. When they appear again, it is to “kiss” Ron and Hermione in the Voldemort-reigning reality. Two beautifully terrifying dementors kiss Ron and Hermione as the latter two lie on stage. When the dementors rise from the floor of the stage, they do so clutching Ron and Hermione, who lie horizontally against the dementors, their arms hanging limp at their sides. It is a chillingly beautiful and seamlessly carried out effect. There are no visible wires or strings or even a moment where the dementors seem to be attaching the two actors to harnesses. They just magically rise together.

Polyjuice Potion

Theaters have stages with trick floors, allowing actors to rise and descend mid-stage, but the Polyjuice scene was the most impressive use of this theater trick that I have ever seen. In act one, Delphi, Albus, and Scorpius take Polyjuice potion to transform into Hermione, Ron, and Harry, respectively. The three young actors are on stage with no one behind them, and they each drink Polyjuice one at a time. Each of them shake and jerk around after sipping the potion, their arms retract quickly into their cloak’s sleeves, while other arms (of the older actors the 3 are transforming into) immediately sprout out of their robes. Still, there is no sign that there are more than three people on stage. Finally, the heads of Delphi, Albus, and Scorpius fall beneath the neckline of each of their respective robes, and the older actors appear: Hermione, Ron, and Harry. Immediately, they move enough on stage to show there are no others behind them; the actors playing Delphi, Albus, and Scorpius seemingly vanished into thin air.

The visual effect of the Polyjuice transition was incredible, but what really sold this scene were the actor’s performances. The actors who play Hermione, Ron, and Harry were now Delphi, Albus, and Scorpius, and each actor “understood the assignment,” if you get my meaning. In the Harry Potter films, Polyjuice is used a handful of times by the trio--in Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron transform into Crabbe and Goyle, and in Deathly Hallows, Harry, Ron, and Hermione transform into Ministry employees Albert Runcorn, Reg Cattermole, and Malfada Hopkirk. I did not have any issues with these scenes in the films, yet in Cursed Child, I was more convinced of the unseen characters underneath; I didn’t doubt for a second that they were anyone else than Delphi, Albus, and Scorpius. The actor playing Ron was incredibly funny, capturing Ron a bit more accurately than the films portrayed the character, and although Albus is not a naturally funny character, Albus-Ron delivered humor that was as funny as the true Ron but still felt like it was Albus. When Albus-Ron goes to kiss the real Hermione, I seriously cringed, because I truly saw it as Albus kissing his aunt more than Ron kissing his wife, even though it was the Ron actor playing out the scene. Scorpius, who is easily the most entertaining, insightful, and hilarious character in the play, becomes Harry Potter, and I did not forget for a moment that this man on stage was actually Scorpius. At one point, Scorpius-Harry runs off stage to hide as the real Harry approaches, and maybe I missed something, but I am sure that Scorpius-Harry exits stage left and almost immediately reappears as real Harry stage right. How did the actor move so quickly? I don’t know. Magic? The portrayals of Polyjuice in Cursed Child trumped every portrayal of Polyjuice in the films as far as believing the Polyjuiced [faux] person was really the unseen character who took the Polyjuice.

Spells

So many spells are cast in Cursed Child, and it is easy enough to throw up beams of light on stage, but the effects don’t stop there. When Avada Kedavra is cast, green flames burst across the stage, and the victim, Craig Bowker Jr., falls backward in slow motion, defying gravity. This effect is used a few other times with characters falling backward in ways that defy physics but still never do they show a visible sign of wires or other contraptions to assist in the effects.

In Harry’s kitchen, Harry and Draco duel (you know, for old time’s sake), and each of them, as well as the furniture, fly into the air in ways that are accurate to the corresponding spells cast. For example, Draco casts Levicorpus, and Harry rises into the air upside down, stationary in mid-air until he, Harry, casts the counter curse to let himself down. Again, there are no signs of wires, even when the furniture flies around. I am not suggesting there are no wires, just that the production somehow expertly concealed any sign of them.

Another standout effect among too many others to mention, is a cloak and phone booth effect. There are two instances where the red phone booth that leads to the Ministry of Magic appears on stage, and each time, 1 or 3 people are seen from behind before the phone booth sucks in the cloak, giving off a magical “apparating”-like quality. Clearly these were just cloaks with no one in them, but it was convincing and expertly executed. My daughter turned to look at me after the second time and mouthed “HOW?” so dramatically, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

The last effect I want to mention is the effect of the time turner when it moves backward through time. This effect may be one of the simplest for the special effects team to execute, but it is also one of the most effective and extraordinary in the whole production. The only time we have visually seen time travel in Potter is in Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry and Hermione travel back three hours while standing in the hospital wing. During this shot, we hear bursts of sped up voices speaking backwards, and we see the events of that day in the hospital wing unfold at high speed around Harry and Hermione as they stand stationary. The latter effect is not possible on stage, but the voice effect is. In each instance of time travel in Cursed Child, the voices and words that were recently uttered are repeated in quick, overlapping audio, speaking “forward” (or… normally) instead of backward (unintelligibly) like heard in the PoA film. However, this successful effect pales in comparison to the visual effect the play creates in place of the images of people and events unfolding in reverse at warp speed. Every time Albus and Scorpius move backward in time, the many clocks on stage move backwards, which is followed by a deep, audible, vibrating, and booming pulse that emits across every inch of the theater--in every seat. While this latter effect occurs, the stage and its side pillars… “warp!” The entire stage and its pillars move in warped waves as if the stationary, rigid set on stage tangibly pulsates like it were made of half-set Jell-O. The first few times this happened, I heard ripples of awestruck murmurs move across the audience, and I was equally wowed. It took over two hours of the over 3 hour run time for me to figure out how the effect of warping solid objects was achieved: LIGHTING. So simple. So elegant. So incredibly effective and stunningly impressive. With all the visual magic that the production continuously and convincingly demonstrated, the simplest trick may have been the most incredible: Well-designed light.

2. Characters and acting

Scorpius Malfoy

One thing I loved reading the script was Scorpius Malfoy’s character--Draco’s highly entertaining, nerdy, awkward, and hilarious son. Hearing and watching actor Jon Steiger (pictured here) bring Scorpius to life, however, was infinitely better than reading his lines on a page. Scorpius has Hermione’s nerdy brilliance, but he also delivers the funniest insightful lines written in the entire Harry Potter franchise.

Scorpius and Albus Potter’s intense friendship is palpable in the live play. There is a real love there, and it is heavily implied the two are romantically interested in each other, yet the implication does not outshine the substance of their friendship. You do not get the impression that they are friends BECAUSE they are attracted to each other, but the other way around.

When Harry interprets the darkness surrounding Albus, as seen by the centaur Bane, to be Scorpius, Albus says what we’re all thinking, “Have you met Scorpius?!” This kid is pure of heart and even further, he is the voice of reason in Albus’s ear as events spiral out of control. Unlike Albus, Scorpius is not concerned with his own lack of popularity at school, just as long as he has Albus’s friendship, and when Scorpius enters a reality where Albus doesn’t exist, it is Scorpius who must save the day on his own, seeking out Snape for help.

An interesting feature of this darker reality is that we hear from other characters what Scorpius is like in this reality—not the time traveling Scorpius, but the one that already inhabits this world. In this Potter-less reality, Scorpius is known as “Scorpion King.” He is a bully, not unlike his father Draco was, and when Scorpius hears distant screams of the muggle-borns who are being tortured in the dungeons, Umbridge reminds him it was his own idea to punish the muggle-born students in this fashion. Because of this reputation, Scorpius finds it difficult to immediately gain Snape’s trust, but he does in the end by revealing information that Scorpius could not possibly know; Snape loved Lily.

Snape

The scene with Snape was one I both looked forward to and dreaded seeing live. After Scorpius earns Snape’s trust, Snape brings Scorpius to a hide out where Snape houses the now middle-aged fugitives Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. I loved this part when reading the script, but I was apprehensive about it, too. The death of original Snape actor Alan Rickman hit me as hard as a brick, and I could not imagine or abide by anyone else filling that role. I also found the scenario of Snape hiding Ron and Hermione for two decades very hard to believe, so I knew that the believability of the live-action version would come down to the production and actors’ execution. The execution, however, as you may have guessed, was perfect. Whatever doubts the script instilled, the actual play erased. It is funny how much the playing out of a piece of writing can validate (or ruin) its contents. Actor Geoffrey Wade (different actor than pictured), who played Snape in this production, was perfect. He looked like Rickman enough, and he acted like him just enough, but it was by no means an imitation. Most characters in this play do not attempt to be the film actors’ versions of their respective characters, but Snape is different, because Alan Rickman was different. His Snape WAS Snape, and even if every other character can be reinvented, there is something about Rickman that demands a trace of his portrayal remain in any future endeavors. Wade’s Snape did not disappoint. He made it his own with a nod to Rickman. With this portrayal, I also believed that Snape absolutely would hide Hermione and Ron, because he did so with a Snape-like apathetic attitude that suggested he still disliked his former students, even if it obvious he actually cared for them. The whole scene worked. The end of this scene ends with three dementor’s kisses. So, here is where the eerie dementors appear again. Before Snape is kissed, bravely dying again, the dementors kiss Hermione and Ron.

Draco

Another highlight of the script was Draco’s much-deserved redemption arc. The play now runs 3 hours 30 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission, but for 5 years, The Cursed Child was a 5+ hour runtime, which was split into two separate shows. Cutting around 2 hours of the production meant trimming down some scenes and entirely cutting others. The scenes cut entirely seemed to mostly be Harry’s dream and flashback sequences involving Hagrid and Aunt Petunia. To be honest, I didn’t even notice they were missing, and the last time I read the script was around one year ago. However, while the trimming of scenes worked on-the-whole, one sacrificial cut was part of Draco’s dialogue that I immediately noticed was missing. I noticed this cut in real time because it was one of the parts of the script I most looked forward to hearing.

This cut was part of Draco’s dialogue in the Potters’ kitchen following his and Harry’s impromptu duel. Most of Draco’s dialogue, persuading Harry to see how much Albus and Scorpius need each other, remains in the play,

“You can’t talk to Albus. I can’t talk to Scorpius. . . . My father thought he was protecting me, most of the time. . . . If you’ve learned to hate your parents and you have no friends, you are alone. . . . I was alone. . . . Tom Riddle was also a lonely child. You may not understand that, Harry, but I do, and I think Ginny does too.”

However, in the script, following the statement that he, Draco, cannot talk to Scorpius (about the death of Scorpius’s mother or other difficult, emotional topics), Draco opens up about himself a bit,

Draco: “I always envied you [and] 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 [and] those friendships more than anything else.”

For me, this portion of the scene was the most poignant. Proud, bullying Draco admitting out loud that he envied the friendships Harry had at Hogwarts was a pivotal moment in Draco’s entire arc. Speaking aloud what the audience already knows is, in this context, incredibly powerful, and solidifies the growth Draco has achieved through the love he has for his own son. This is nothing Lucius would have done. If Draco were in trouble, Lucius would not allow himself to be vulnerable with a long-time rival to help Draco. This distinction between Draco and Lucius is important. However, this particular piece of the scene was cut, and it is a real shame. Draco still achieves his redemption arc, but this bit really lent to the arc’s weight.

It was moving, as well, to see Draco with Harry as they watch Voldemort kill Lily and James in Godric’s Hollow. After the bullying and jabs at Harry’s orphaned status in their youth, it felt truly gratifying to see the two share this awful moment. A moment that will forever bond the two. On the page, this scene felt underwhelming, but in person, the unity of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Albus, and Scorpius broke me.

Moaning Myrtle

Although I could write for days about the different character portrayals on stage, I will end with this somewhat random mention: Moaning Myrtle! In this production, the actor who normally plays Delphi was absent, and Delphi was played by Cynthia Jimenez-Hicks, who normally plays Moaning Myrtle. The actor who then stepped in as Myrtle was Melanie Brezill (not pictured here), and she was PHENOMENAL. I would go so far as to say she easily outshone film-Myrtle’s Shirley Henderson. Brezill took every cue of Myrtle from Henderson’s performance, but Brezill added a certain “flair” to the heavily implied sexual inappropriateness of Myrtle. She was so much fun to watch; her few short minutes on stage managed to be an unforgettable moment in the entire play. When I see the play again, I will be very disappointed if Jimenez-Hicks returns to the role, which has nothing to do with her, but is only because Brezill was so fantastic that I want to see no other version.

__________________________________________________________

So, I greatly enjoyed this play! However, the issues with canon still stand. Here is a rundown of what may be canon and what cannot possibly be canon in Cursed Child:

Deathly Hallows introduced both Albus Severus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, both of whom are the central characters of Cursed Child. I believed then, and still do now, that the relationship development between the two is canon. I also believe the redemption arc Draco receives (and should have had in Harry Potter) is also canon, even if there are details in the Cursed Child version of his arc that are probably not canon.

Voldemort and Bellatrix having a secret child is also canon, I believe. Delphini “Delphi Diggory” Riddle was born around the end of Harry’s 6th year at Malfoy Manor, and despite Bellatrix’s presence at the top of the Astronomy Tower in the Half-Blood Prince film where and when Dumbledore was killed, Bellatrix was suspiciously absent during this event in the book. In the beginning of Deathly Hallows, Voldemort speaks to Bellatrix of pruning her family tree, suggesting that she kill her niece Tonks, of which Bellatrix eventually does. The comment, although hardly irrefutable proof, still suggests Voldemort’s interest in Bellatrix’s family tree, which is odd unless it affected Voldemort. Why should he specifically request that the family be rid of a half-blood who is to marry a werewolf and potentially introduce part-werewolf children into the family’s line? JK Rowling has a plethora of material and facts that never made their way into the books, which is to be expected; she had conceptualized a fully developed world, and she certainly wouldn’t have reason to force in every element unless the element was relevant. This is true of all good writers.

So, what is not canon?

Well, most of the plot points. There is a lot here, so I will review only what stood out the most for me.

1. The biggest issue is the pre-established canon for the rules and functions of time turners.

We have solid canon regarding how time travel works in Harry Potter, because of Hermione’s time turner in Prisoner of Azkaban. Different stories approach time travel differently, but in Potter what you go back in time to change is what happened the first time. When Harry and Sirius are attacked by dementors by the lake, time-traveling Harry saves them both by conjuring a corporeal patronus from the opposite bank. Before Harry and Hermione travel back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius, however, this event already happened. Because Harry had not yet time traveled, he believes, at first, that the patronus had been mysteriously conjured by his father.

So, when Albus and Scorpius time travel repeatedly, encountering MCU-like “multiverses” with entirely different outcomes of the Battle of Hogwarts, Triwizard Tournament, etc., it does not abide by the time traveling rules Potter canon has already established.

Another lesser-known breach of canon is the rule of time-travel aging. Rowling’s official website Wizarding World, under a time turner article written by Rowling, herself, speaks of a witch who traveled 400 years into the past: “. . . .Eloise Mintumble became trapped, for a period of five days, in the year 1402. Now we understand that her body had aged five centuries in its return to the present and, irreparably damaged, she died in St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries shortly after . . . .”

We know from this that those who travel time also age accordingly. If Harry and co. traveled to 1981, as they do in Cursed Child, each would return to the year 2020 39 years older, but they do not.

2. Another big canon-continuity problem involves the functions of the Fidelius Charm and the sink in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

When Albus, Scorpius, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco travel to Godric’s Hollow, 1981, they watch Voldemort kill Lily and James Potter, but as the Fidelius Charm was still active during this event, and Peter Pettigrew never told any of them the location of the Potter’s home, they should not be able to see it. Harry, perhaps, would be able to, but none of the others.

Also, Albus and Scorpius travel to the lake through Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom sink, but this sink leads not to the lake but to the Chamber of Secrets, and it requires parseltongue to open.

3. As much as I love seeing Snape again, his existence in the Voldemort-reigning reality doesn’t make sense.

In this timeline, Cedric killed Neville, so Nagini wasn’t killed, and Voldemort didn’t die. However, Snape was killed by Voldemort long before Nagini died. Snape was killed because Voldemort though him the master of the Elder Wand, and nothing in this reality suggests that assumption would have been different. Snape should still be dead.

4. The last I’ll discuss is not as objective as those listed above but is rather my “expert” opinion on some alternate reality character behaviors.

In Walter Fisher’s Narrative Theory, which outlines the qualities of successful and persuasive narratives, there are two central tenets: narrative fidelity and narrative coherence. Narrative fidelity means that the audience can identify and connect with character’s experiences, struggles, emotions, etc. Narrative coherence means that events make sense in the context of the story and characters do not suddenly act out of character for no apparent reason. There are two big violations of character’s narrative coherence in Cursed Child.

1. The first is violation is Hermione Granger in the alternate reality where Ron marries Padma Patil and Hermione ends up a Hogwarts professor. Apart from the unlikelihood that Ron and Hermione’s marriage was reliant upon Ron getting jealous of Hermione and Krum at the Yule Ball, this version of Hermione violates narrative coherence because of her uncharacteristic shift in personality. Professor Granger is a harsher version of McGonagall. She has no warmth toward students, treating them with borderline cruelty, and her attitude toward Ron and Harry bears no resemblance to the dynamic of their relationships in the books and films.

Hermione has always been the most rational voice of reason next to Dumbledore, and her insight into human nature and motivation is sharper than most other’s. The idea that Hermione would suddenly abandon these traits and adopt an apathetic, mean persona is completely out of character, based on the plethora of established canon.

2. The second violation is Cedric Diggory in the alternate reality where he killed Neville in the Battle of Hogwarts, leading to Harry’s death and Voldemort’s victory. Again, apart from the issue at hand that Harry would not have died simply because Nagini didn’t, due to the extra blood protection Voldemort afforded him when the latter took Harry’s blood to resurrect himself, there is an issue pertaining to the narrative coherence of Cedric’s out-of-character development.

This timeline is the result of Scorpius and Albus using an engorgement charm on Cedric during the second Triwizard task. Cedric ended up floating to the top of the lake, losing the task, and in his embarrassment, became a… Death Eater. A Death Eater! Cedric is a Hufflepuff, and Hufflepuff is the only house to never produce a dark wizard. Rightly so, because Cedric, a true Puff, is a deeply kind, selfless, humble, and fair human being. I cannot envision any scenario that would tempt Cedric to join Voldemort, least of all a moment of embarrassment—one that occurred long before, perhaps years before, Cedric would have had an opportunity to join Voldemort’s forces.

This development is lazy writing at best. It is completely unbelievable.

So, while the play shines, it cannot be fully accepted as canon. JK Rowling tweeted that it should be accepted as canon, but I do not think she meant this. For one, Rowling wrote this play with two others, not on her own, and more importantly, Rowling has not introduced any writings or character profiles on Cursed Child in her official website Wizardingworld.com, which includes both Potter and Fantastic Beasts, but omits Cursed Child, with the exception of a few quizzes created by other contributors.

#HarryPotterandtheCursedChild #HarryPotter #TheCursedChild #CursedChild #DelphiDiggory #Delphini #ScorpiusMalfoy #AlbusSeverusPotter #ScorpiusandAlbus #TimeTurner #CedricDiggory