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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Parenthood
Time, Mistakes, and the Past
Friendship, Family, Love, and Bravery
Reputation and Expectation
Death and Sacrifice
Summary
Analysis
Scorpius and Delphi are waiting—still in disguise— as Albus enters. They commend him on keeping Hermione away, though Scorpius thinks it’s weird that Albus had to kiss his aunt. They start to look for the Time-Turner, but as they do, Scorpius asks about what Harry said about wishing Albus weren’t his son. Scorpius says he relates, knowing that his dad sometimes wonders how Scorpius could be his son. Albus says that his father probably wonders how he can give Albus back.
As Scorpius talks to Albus about Harry’s horrible comment, the play emphasizes how both of these boys struggle with feeling like they don’t fully live up to their father’s expectations of them or feel fully accepted as their sons. But it also shows how they use this common struggle as a foundation for their friendship and how that friendship, in turn, helps each of them overcome these feelings of inadequacy.
Themes
Delphi, Scorpius, and Albus start to search the bookshelves, noticing how many cursed and banned books there are there. Scorpius pulls Sybill Trelawney’s My Eyes and How to See Past Them, and the book falls open on the floor and gives them a riddle, which Delphi believes will lead them to the Time-Turner. They soon puzzle out that the answer is “Dementors,” and they search for a book on dementors. As they do, the bookcase swallows Delphi violently and the boys work faster.
The play continues to illustrate parallels between Albus’s journey and Harry’s journey, particularly some of the challenges that Harry faced at the end of his first year at school, when he, Ron, and Hermione had to face a series of tasks to get to the sorcerer’s stone. It is only together that Albus, Scorpius, and Delphi can puzzle out these riddles. They are willing to sacrifice themselves to do what they believe is right.
Themes
Opening Dominating Dementors: A True History of Azkaban, the book starts to speak and gives Albus and Scorpius another riddle. They figure out that the answer is Voldemort, and the bookcase spits Delphi back out—now as herself, no longer as Hermione. Scorpius finds Marvolo: The Truth, and the book gives another riddle. The bookshelf continues to swallow up and spew out the kids (transforming them back into themselves) as they work together on the riddles. When Scorpius figures out the final answer is a shadow, he climbs up the bookcase and finds Shadows and Spirits. At this, the noise and chaos stop and the bookcase stops attacking them. Inside the book, they find the Time-Turner.
Alone, Albus and Scorpius likely wouldn’t have been able to solve the riddles and get to the Time-Turner. But with their friendship, they give each other the motivation and strength to overcome these magical obstacles. It’s also symbolic that they do so while transforming back into themselves, affirming how they don’t need to live up to anyone else in order to be brave and heroic.
Themes
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