History Theatre / HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild

''Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'' is a stage play with a script by Jack Thorne (based on a story by Thorne, Creator/JKRowling and John Tiffany) and directed by Tiffany, with a musical score by Music/ImogenHeap. Notably, Rowling considers this play to be {{Canon}} and the official eighth Harry-focused instalment in the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' franchise. It debuted in [[UsefulNotes/BroadwayAndTheWestEnd the West End]] on July 30, 2016; a run on [[UsefulNotes/BroadwayAndTheWestEnd Broadway]] is set for 2018, while a third run at UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}'s [[UsefulNotes/{{Melbourne}} Princess Theatre]] is set for 2019.

** Theodore Nott, a background Slytherin student for much of the series, is arrested for [[spoiler:possession of an illegal Time-Turner]], which kicks off the major events of the play.

* FlawedPrototype: [[spoiler:Theodore Nott's confiscated Time-Turner]] is seriously flawed; it only works for [[RaceAgainstTheClock five minutes at a time]] and there's a serious risk of [[PortalCut Splinch-like injuries]] once those five minutes are up.

--->'''[=McGonagall=]:''' Keeping hold of a Time-Turner, [[WhatAnIdiot of all the stupid things!]] And in a ''bookcase''. You kept it in a ''bookcase''. It's almost laughable.

** Albus plans to use [[spoiler:a Time-Turner to go back to the 1994–1995 Triwizard Tournament, save Cedric Diggory by turning him into a balloon before the Second Trial, and spare Harry the pain of his death and guilt of Voldemort coming back. Instead, he creates a new timeline where Cedric is so bitter by the humiliation of losing the tournament that he joins the Death Eaters, helps resurrect Voldemort, kills Neville, and lets the Death Eaters take over.]]

* BloodstainedGlassWindows: The climax sees the BigBad blasting pews everywhere inside [[spoiler: Godric Hollow's chapel]] in an attempt to kill Harry.

* EvolvingTitleScreen: In between the two parts, the screens in the merchandise booths are replaced with [[spoiler: the Dark Mark]].

* PlotDeviceAllAlong: [[spoiler:Harry's baby blanket.]]

* RippleEffectProofMemory: The time-travellers remember the original timeline and not the alternate ones. Understandably, it leads to a lot of confusion and misunderstanding.

* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: Invoked; due to rumor's that Scorpius' real father is Voldemort, Harry asks Draco if he's sure of his son's fatherhood.

* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: Invoked; Harry asks Draco if he's sure.

* FlawedPrototype: [[spoiler:Theodore Nott's confiscated Time-Turner]] is seriously flawed; it only works for [[TimedMission five minutes at a time]] and there's a serious risk of [[PortalCut Splinch-like injuries]] once those five minutes are up.

* AlternateUniverse: Albus and Scorpius' TimeTravel leads them to two parallel universes, one of which is a real CrapsackWorld.

* AdaptedOut: A lot of characters get this treatment, likely due to the casting constraints that are inherent in theater. Ron and Hermione's son, Hugo, does not appear at all in the play, despite the fact that ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' had him present in the Epilogue, which is the play's opening scene. Teddy Lupin also is left out despite Harry having raised him and James, Albus, and Lily seeing him as their brother. Many of the extended Weasleys also don't appear in the play and whatever happened to Mrs Diggory is never explained.

* TheBusCameBack: Amos Diggory makes his first appearance since ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''.

* {{Revision}}: After some outcry from fans who read the Special Rehearsal Edition script about [[spoiler:Voldemort having a kid being out of character for the wizard who thought he would live forever]], a line was added to later productions that [[spoiler:called Delphi "the ultimate horcrux", to add some context to the decision.]]

* IdiotBall: Hermione, the cleverest witch of her day and now the Minister of Magic, decides to "hide" an incredibly powerful and dangerous Time-Turner in the bookcase of her own office, and specifically and intentionally creates a series of clues and puzzles to help anyone who'd like to find it. She could have locked it in a vault in Gringotts or even used a simple safe that was magically sealed, but instead created a puzzle that was easily solvable by a pair of underage wizards. Professor [=McGonagall=] even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] how dumb this was in the third act.
-->'''[=McGonagall=]:''' Keeping hold of a Time-Turner, [[WhatAnIdiot of all the stupid things!]] And in a ''bookcase''. You kept it in a ''bookcase''. It's almost laughable.

* StableTimeLoop: Despite previous acts asserting that you can MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight via TimeTravel,[[note]]See TimeyWimeyBall, below.[[/note]] this trope is featured in the final climax. While trapped in the past, with no way to prevent the villain from horrifically altering the past, thus destroying their present, the child heroes come up with a method to send a message to the future of their own original timeline. They write a hidden message on a blanket, telling adult-Harry when and where they are trapped, knowing that the message will become visible at a specific moment in the future (but their own personal past). In the future, Harry does indeed receive this message, and travels back to the past to join the children, and successfully stops the villain from altering the timeline. Thus, the timeline only remained intact because Harry was able to receive the message, but of course Harry was only able to receive the message because the timeline had remained intact. Thus, from the objective point of view of the timeline, adult-Harry had "already" travelled back to the past to save the day, otherwise the timeline wouldn't have existed in the future when he received the message.

* TimeyWimeyBall: ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'' implies that time travel results in a StableTimeLoop,[[note]]Harry sees his future self save him from Dementors.[[/note]] but this play has time easily being changed. On the other hand, Hermione also mentions in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' that Time-Turners were banned because wizards kept accidentally killing their past selves, so changing the past was always established as a possibility. In Act Two, Scorpius mentions "Professor Croaker's law", which apparently sets the furthest someone can safely travel back in time at five hours; presumably further travel cannot form a stable loop.
** This is compounded further when, after the first two acts clearly and unambiguously show that travel to the past creates AlternateTimelines, the climax depends on another StableTimeLoop: The villain and heroes travel to the past. The child heroes have no way of stopping the villain from changing time, thus preventing the Good Present that they know and love. Their solution is to send a message forward in time to Albus' father, Harry. Harry gets the message and goes back in time to stop the villain's plan. Without Harry coming back in time, the villain would have succeeded in changing time, so that the timeline in which Harry got the message never existed. Summarily, the only way for Harry to know to come back to the past was for Harry to come back to the past. Under the TimeTravel methodology established earlier in the play, as soon as the villain and heroes travelled back to the past, all of time from that point forward should have changed, and adult-Harry never should have existed.

* ManlyTears: At Halloween's Eve, Harry tears up over the fact that [[spoiler:Albus is lost in time, possibly as a result of Harry's arguments with him, and that time and again people he loves have had to sacrifice their lives to save his life]].

* BigBad: The main conflict is between Albus and Harry, but a straight-up villain does appear in the form of the Augurey, [[spoiler: real name Delphi Riddle]].
** Thanks to TimeTravel, the Augurey manages to be both TheDragon ''and'' the BigBad without actually being a DragonAscendant. [[spoiler:During the BadFuture, she is Voldemort's Dragon, running Hogwarts in her father's absence. Once Scorpius travels back to the present, she reveals her true colours and becomes the BigBad for the rest of the play]].

* BackToTheEarlyInstalment: The climax involves Harry, Ron, and Draco travelling back in time to the death of Harry's parents [[spoiler:in order to prevent Voldemort's daughter from completing her father's victory]] by distracting her at the right moment. By preventing her from warning Voldemort, they ensure he is defeated by murdering Harry's parents, which sets off the long gambit that leads to his own final death.

** Harry distrusts Scorpius Malfoy -- Albus's ''only'' friend -- entirely because of the bad blood between Harry and Draco, a failing famously displayed in two people who made Harry's life miserable: Vernon Dursley and Severus Snape. It should be noted that Draco Malfoy was both a bully and a Death Eater that tried to kill Harry at several points. And never performed the FaceHeelTurn that Snape performed. So it is more of a case of a JustifiedTrope.

* SacrificialLamb: [[spoiler: Craig Bowker Jr., an older Slytherin student]], who is killed by the BigBad simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time ([[CallBack mirroring Cedric's death]]).

* SadistTeacher: The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in Act II is basically a carbon copy of Snape. And it turns out to be [[spoiler: Hermione]].

** Harry distrusts Scorpius Malfoy -- Albus's ''only'' friend -- entirely because of the bad blood between Harry and Draco, a failing famously displayed in two people who made Harry's life miserable: Vernon Dursley and Severus Snape.

* NotSoDifferent: Harry and Albus spend most of the story angsting about their apparent differences (Harry is a famous, gifted Gryffindor who sees Hogwarts as his true home while Albus is an awkward, magically inept Slytherin who never fitted in at school) before realizing how similar they are below the surface. [[spoiler: Largely that they're both brooding, insecure trouble-makers with a heroic streak despite themselves, and are fiercely independent and loyal to their few friends. A major problem was that Albus only saw the confident celebrity Harry Potter rather than the more vulnerable Harry when he was a teenager.]]

''Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'' is a stage play with a script by Jack Thorne (based on a story by Thorne, Creator/JKRowling and John Tiffany) and directed by Tiffany, with a musical score by Music/ImogenHeap. Notably, Rowling considers this play to be {{Canon}} and the official eighth Harry-focused instalment in the Franchise/HarryPotter franchise. It debuted in [[UsefulNotes/BroadwayAndTheWestEnd the West End]] on July 30, 2016; a run on [[UsefulNotes/BroadwayAndTheWestEnd Broadway]] is set for 2018, while a third run at UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}'s [[UsefulNotes/{{Melbourne}} Princess Theatre]] is set for 2019.

* ChekhovsGun: Human Transfiguration, which is mentioned in the books and taught in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', is used as a PoorMansSubstitute for Polyjuice Potion in Act IV. Naturally, [[RealityEnsues it doesn't work very well]].

* AdaptedOut: Ron and Hermione's son, Hugo, does not appear at all in the play, despite the fact that ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' had him present in the Epilogue, which is the play's opening scene.

* BackToTheEarlyInstallment: The climax involves Harry, Ron, and Draco travelling back in time to the death of Harry's parents [[spoiler:in order to prevent Voldemort's daughter from completing her father's victory]] by distracting her at the right moment. By preventing her from warning Voldemort, they ensure he is defeated by murdering Harry's parents, which sets off the long gambit that leads to his own final death.

* RealityEnsues:
** Just because Harry may be one of the most famous and powerful wizards in Britain, if not the world, doesn't mean his superiors at the Ministry will suddenly treat him with the utmost respect and dignity. Not even if he and his boss have been among the best of friends since he was eleven and is married to his ''other'' best friend he knew since he was eleven. At the end of the day, Harry is equal to every other witch and wizard who works for them: an expendable employee who can be replaced in a heartbeat.
** This play also shows Harry has a difficult experience being a father. Part of the reason for this is not ''despite'' but ''because of'' his upbringing with the Dursleys. Of course, Harry is ''FAR'' from the {{Abusive Parent|s}} that the Dursleys were to him (to which, unfortunately, there is TruthInTelevision), but the fact that he had very few positive, stable role models for fatherhood during his childhood and adolescence causes him to struggle in that department. [[spoiler:Harry himself acknowledges this to Albus in the final act.]]
** Even though the Malfoy family did switch sides and played an important role in the final defeat of Voldemort decades before the events of ''Cursed Child'', the fact that the Malfoys ''had'' a good relationship with him to begin with makes them the primary suspect for the family of Voldemort's child.