The play’s very first moments—which is the same scene depicted in the epilogue in
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—establish some of the burdens of expectation that Albus carries. He worries about being placed in Slytherin, a house particularly notorious for dark wizards, because he wants to be placed in Gryffindor like his famous father. In this way, Albus hints at the fact that he feels a weight of expectation. It also sets up Harry and Albus’s dynamic at the beginning of the play, where Harry feels able to understand Albus’s nerves in going to Hogwarts because Harry similarly felt unsure of himself as a child, but in fact the root cause of Albus’s nerves is different from Harry’s.