Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Harry Potter, #8)(44)

SCORPIUS: The big one?

ALBUS: “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . .”

SCORPIUS joins in.

SCORPIUS and ALBUS: “. . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . .”

SCORPIUS’s face falls with every word.

SCORPIUS: It’s my fault. I told her that prophecies can be broken — I told her the whole logic of prophecies is questionable —

ALBUS: In twenty-four hours’ time Voldemort curses himself trying to kill the baby Harry Potter. Delphi is trying to prevent that curse. She’s going to kill Harry herself. We need to get to Godric’s Hollow. Now.





ACT FOUR, SCENE THREE





GODRIC’S HOLLOW, 1981

ALBUS and SCORPIUS walk through the center of Godric’s Hollow and it’s a bustling, beautiful little village.

SCORPIUS: Well, there’s no visible signs of attack that I can see . . .

ALBUS: This is Godric’s Hollow?

SCORPIUS: Your dad’s never taken you?

ALBUS: No, he tried to a few times but I refused.

SCORPIUS: Well, there’s no time for a tour — we have a murderous witch to save the world from — but regard: The Church, St. Jerome’s . . .

As he indicates a church becomes visible.

ALBUS: It’s magnificent.

SCORPIUS: And St. Jerome’s graveyard is supposedly magnificently haunted, (he points in another direction) and that’s where the statue of Harry and his parents will be —

ALBUS: My dad has a statue?

SCORPIUS: Oh. Not yet. But he will. Hopefully. And this — this house is where Bathilda Bagshot lived, lives . . .

ALBUS: The Bathilda Bagshot? A History of Magic Bathilda Bagshot?

SCORPIUS: The very same. Oh my, that’s her. Wow. Squeak. My geekness is a-quivering.

ALBUS: Scorpius!

SCORPIUS: And here it is —

ALBUS: The home of James, Lily, and Harry Potter . . .

A young, attractive couple leave a house with a baby in a pushchair. ALBUS moves towards them, SCORPIUS pulls him back.

SCORPIUS: They can’t see you, Albus, it might damage time, and we’re not doing that — not this time.

ALBUS: But this means, she hasn’t . . . We’ve made it . . . She hasn’t . . .

SCORPIUS: So what do we do now? Get ready to fight her? Because she’s pretty . . . Fierce.

ALBUS: Yes. We haven’t really thought this one through, have we? What do we do now? How do we protect my dad?





ACT FOUR, SCENE FOUR





MINISTRY OF MAGIC, HARRY’S OFFICE

HARRY is hurriedly going through paperwork.

DUMBLEDORE: Good evening, Harry.

A beat. HARRY looks up at the portrait of DUMBLEDORE, his face passive.

HARRY: Professor Dumbledore, in my office, I’m honored. I must be where the action is tonight?

DUMBLEDORE: What are you doing?

HARRY: Going through papers, seeing if I’ve missed anything I shouldn’t have. Marshaling forces to fight in the limited way we can fight. Knowing that the battle is being raged far away from us. What else can I do?

Pause. DUMBLEDORE says nothing.

Where have you been, Dumbledore?

DUMBLEDORE: I’m here now.

HARRY: Here just as the battle is lost. Or are you denying that Voldemort is going to return.

DUMBLEDORE: It is — possible.

HARRY: Go. Leave. I don’t want you here, I don’t need you. You were absent every time it really counted. I fought him three times without you. I’ll face him again, if needs be — alone.

DUMBLEDORE: Harry, don’t you think I wanted to fight him on your behalf? I would have spared you if I could —

HARRY: “Love blinds us”? Do you even know what that means? Do you even know how bad that advice was? My son is — my son is fighting battles for us just as I had to for you. And I have proved as bad a father to him as you were to me. Leaving him in places he felt unloved — growing in him resentments he’ll take years to understand —

DUMBLEDORE: If you’re referring to Privet Drive, then —

HARRY: Years — years I spent there alone, without knowing what I was, or why I was there, without knowing that anybody cared!

DUMBLEDORE: I — did not wish to become attached to you —

HARRY: Protecting yourself, even then!

DUMBLEDORE: No. I was protecting you. I did not want to hurt you . . .

DUMBLEDORE attempts to reach out of the portrait — but he can’t. He begins to cry but tries to hide it.

But I had to meet you in the end . . . eleven years old, and you were so brave. So good. You walked uncomplainingly along the path that had been laid at your feet. Of course I loved you . . . and I knew that it would happen all over again . . . that where I loved, I would cause irreparable damage. I am no fit person to love . . . I have never loved without causing harm.

A beat.

HARRY: You would have hurt me less if you had told me this then.

DUMBLEDORE (openly weeping now): I was blind. That is what love does. I couldn’t see that you needed to hear that this closed-up, tricky, dangerous old man . . . loved you.

A pause. The two men are overcome with emotion.

HARRY: It isn’t true that I never complained.