Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (replies will contain SPOILERS)

Oh, that sounds like fun!   I really wish I could see the play. I'm sure it could work very well as a play, though it would depend a lot on the special effects, quite the opposite of something like Shakespeare that depends almost entirely on the dialogue. The moving staircases with Albus and Scorpius gazing at each other must have been quite dramatic and emotional.

What a lot of interesting comments! I've just reached (in my re-read) the part where Scorpius meets Snape, and paused to do justice to it some other time. I found most of what I wanted to say has already been said. I too want to know why the time travelers remain unchanged while everyone else has a 'personality transplant' (lol) or disappears, or comes back from the dead, and what happened to the athletic Scorpion King Scorpius or the Albus who was sorted into Griffindor. Where did they begin? When did they end? Do all these alternate realities keep goin on in parallel universes? It makes no sense whatsoever.

The beauty of the time travel story in POA was that the kids did not change anything that had not already happened. I always assumed that Dumbledore had spotted the time travelling Harry and Hermione from Hagrid's window, and sent them back in time to fulfill destiny, not to change it. It was very logical and consistent. In this story, anything goes! Anyway, I guess if we were experiencing it as a play, we'd only have time to enjoy the experience, not ask all these questions.

Verity Weasley wrote:

One thing that I found interesting in the timeline was the mention of the Augurey. Umbridge says she has positively glowed about Scorpius in dispatches to the Augurey. Polly Chapman talks about what the Augurey says. There are Augurey flags at the Ministry. So I'm curious. In this timeline, presumably Delphi is still the Augurey but is openly acknowledged as the daughter of Voldemort. She seems to be held in even higher regard than LV, more feared even. So, why? How? Is that reasonable? I can't see Voldemort as the family type, encouraging his daughter to follow in his footsteps and go into the family business, even to the extent of usurping him as the supreme embodiment of evil and power. More likely, if Voldemort were still alive when Delphi's existence became known, he would have gone all Kronos (or other random figures from mythology) and had her killed - probably in some overly-convoluted way that would have assured her survival so she could later return to exact her vengeance, but that would be another story.

So, what's up with the Augurey business in this timeline?

Edited to add: Oh yes, Snape was awesome in this scene!

Does it say that Voldemort is still alive? Perhaps it is only Delphi who is around, following in her father's footsteps, making the world an evil place, celebrating his memory on Voldemort Day?

Hieronymus Graubart wrote:(Hey, lots of new comments. Hi, everyone!)


Did somebody say "Snape”? Let me take a guess now: Among all the people who died in the war against Voldemort, Cedric Diggory sticks out because he was the first whose death Harry watched, and this affected Harry so much that he learned to see Thestrals. (Harry watching his parents die when he was fifteen months old didn’t count for that.) In a world where Cedic Diggory had not been killed in that night on the graveyard in Little Winging, Harry’s behaviour during his fifth year must have been different.

Being less emotionally upset, Harry may have been able to actually learn Occlumency, and thus couldn’t be lured into the Ministry. Being a little bit less determined to keep Sirius safe on all costs, Harry may have opened the gift that would allow them to communicate and thus couldn’t be lured into the Ministry, because he wouldn’t have talked to Kreacher. Either way or in many other possible ways that don’t even come to my mind, the Battle of the DOM didn’t happen, and the Malfoy family didn’t fall into disgrace. (Even if Scorpius actually had read A History of Magic, history books in this timeline certainly don’t tell about Voldemort’s failed plans, nor do they detail in which specific ways these plans failed.)

Since Voldemort couldn’t blame Lucius Malfoy for Harry not showing up in the Hall of Prophecy, Draco never got the task to kill Dumbledore and Snape didn’t step in. If Snape still killed Dumbledore so that he would not die from the cursed ring, he did it secretly, nobody knew about it and Voldemort had no reason to believe that killing Snape would make him the master of the Elder Wand, but he also didn’t trust Snape enough to make him Headmaster at Hogwarts.

But since we don’t know what Voldemort did instead of waiting for Dumbledore’s death or Draco’s failure, some of Voldemort’s actions may have gotten in the way of Snape mercy-killing Dumbledore, so that technically Voldemort killed Dumbledore through his cursed ring and thus became the master of the Elder Wand, seriously diminishing Harry’s chance to win the last duel.

It’s also possible that Voldemort, lacking the bad experience of the combat in the Ministry’s Entry Hall, thought at some time during Harry’s sixth year that now was the time to engage the aging Dumbledore directly. Since Dumbledore was already weakened by the cursed ring, Voldemort succeeded before Dumbledore could tell Harry about the Horcruxes, thus making the Battle of Hogwarts happen early.

Does all this make sense?


Scorpius found such a neat causal chain from two suspicious students in Durmstrang robes appearing at the Fist Task to Ron and Padme being married, but now he totally ignores how Cedric being alive must have affected Harry and apparently believes that Cedric did something terrible in the Battle of Hogwarts and this single event changed everything? Scorpius must be obsessed with the idea that Albus doomed himself when he added his own flavour of humiliation to the original task of saving Cedric’s life. There’s no other way to explain this. He doesn’t even ask why Snape is still alive. (Well, asking Snape that might be a bit rude.)

Cedric Diggory didn’t do anything significant. He only killed Neville Longbottom, who was totally unimportant in this timeline. Neville may not even have had the chance to proof himself in the Battle of the DOM. Was Neville really supposed to kill Nagini after all that must have been changed? How would Neville failing to kill Nagini explain anything?  

Since Cedric isn’t a famous hero who did something important, Scorpius probably didn’t find more than his name on some list of combatants, and we can’t expect to get any detailed information about how he turned evil. Since we don’t actually know what happened between the Third Task and the Battle of Hogwarts, there may have been much more to it than just "he was humiliated in the Second Task".

This is a very nice alternate chain of events! I can see two weaker points though. One is that Harry's memories of Cedric dying is not the only reason why Harry is so bad at Occlumency, nor do I think it is the main reason. His relationship with Snape, his distrust is another reason, and I would think Harry's personality is still another. If you don't mind a pun, I think Harry is too "open-minded" to master this kind of magic so young, and being less unhappy (because of Cedric) probably wouldn't make him a stronger Occlumens.

The other thing is Dumbledore's death. Voldemort may not order Draco to kill Dumbledore in this reality, but he would still be planning to have Dumbledore killed and his number one candidate for the job would still be Snape, who would still have to kill Dumbledore because of the cursed ring. Dumbledore would still want Snape to be Headmaster after him, which means that even if Snape killed Dumbledore in private, it would be an essential part of the strategy to let Voldemort know who did it so that Snape could be Headmaster and Voldemort's favourite. In the end, it would still make Voldemort conclude that Snape was the Master of the Elder Wand.  

However, I will say that sometimes a very little change can swing the balance the other way, and it may be enough to swing the balance just a little, so ultimately, your explanation is probably the most plausible one to account for all the differences.

It is definitely much better than the idea that Ron would never discover his love for Hermione if Hermione didn't go to the Yule Ball with Krum.

Lady Arabella wrote:

Julia H. wrote:
3. I wonder who exactly the cursed child is. It seems to be Albus with the black cloud around him . . .

I am way behind on my re-read, otherwise I'd comment on all the wonderful perspectives here, but at the end of the book I decided the cursed child was Delphi, and she was the "black cloud" surrounding Albus, since he was so taken with her and influenced by her.  (Although I'm still treating Bane's "black cloud" as mostly bad dialogue . . . .   )  And I was taking the word "cursed" in the sense of someone who is ill-fated, not someone who has been hit by a Wizarding curse.

Initially I did think The Cursed Child was meant to be Albus, but I had a completely different plot in my head after hearing the title.  Even before the play came out, I thought Albus Severus might be "cursed" by having the names of two legendary wizards and have a hard time living up to those names.

Lady A., that makes a lot of sense. Even if she is not a child at the time the story takes place, she is still "cursed" as Voldemort's child.

I only now realized that Voldemort may not be around anymore when Scorpius experiences timeline three. Did he, despite all his efforts to become immortal, eventually die of old age, leaving his heritage to the Augurey? Do people die because their aging body doesn't work anymore, or does the soul age and finally leave this world even if it is kept in an undestroyable container?

Harry learning Occlumency may not be one of my brighter ideas, but it's not actually necessary. Not being afraid of causing Sirius Black's death just by telling him what's going on through the two-way mirrors would be sufficient to change the events of OP and everything that follows.

One of my theories about the Cursed Child is that there may be no such thing like a cursed child, because neither ill fate nor witchcraft can curse somebody into being doomed; their choices always matter.

Mona wrote:I too want to know why the time travelers remain unchanged while everyone else has a 'personality transplant' (lol) or disappears, or comes back from the dead, and what happened to the athletic Scorpion King Scorpius or the Albus who was sorted into Griffindor. Where did they begin? When did they end? Do all these alternate realities keep goin on in parallel universes? It makes no sense whatsoever.

The beauty of the time travel story in POA was that the kids did not change anything that had not already happened. I always assumed that Dumbledore had spotted the time travelling Harry and Hermione from Hagrid's window, and sent them back in time to fulfill destiny, not to change it. It was very logical and consistent. In this story, anything goes! Anyway, I guess if we were experiencing it as a play, we'd only have time to enjoy the experience, not ask all these questions.

A certain circular logic is necessary with this kind of time travel. The kids want to go back in time to save Cedric, but that is only because they know Cedric died then and there. If they go back and successfully change history, Cerdic will not die, therefore, more than twenty years later they won't have a reason to go back in time and save him.  So will Cedric be dead or alive? Or even: Can you really change the event that you want to change and at the same time know that you have done it? What happens if not only Albus but both Albus and Scorpius never get to be born because of the changes in history they have made - how will these changes happen at all?  

In PoA, the trick was that the kids didn't know that Buckbeak had been saved (by them), so they did not change the original story, only made it happen. They went back to save Buckbeak because they thought he had been killed, but in fact, Buckbeak had never been killed because they had time-travelled and saved him. This was only possible because they only went back a few hours in time. The same trick in the case of Cedric would be that somehow everyone believes Cedric to have been dead for twenty-plus years, but in reality he is alive because the time-travellers secretly saved him back then.

How does this work in the case of Hermione's classes in PoA? She used the Time-Turner to be able to go to classes that took place at the same time. Since she had to be in two places at the same time and be present in both classes, both classes had to actually take place, and there is no reason to think that the class where she wasn't present at a given time did not take place parallel to the class in which she was present. Then she went back in time and attended the other class, while the class she had previously been to probably also took place again, only this time without Hermione. Since she had to participate in both classes to have memories of both, it is evident that both classes actually took place, just like the alternate chains of event in The Cursed Child, but only Hermione remembered the version that she went to first, while the others only remembered the final version.

Because Hermione needed to have memories of both classes she attended at the same time (she probably lost her notes of the first one anyway), time-travel must have worked there in the same way as in The Cursed Child: The operator of the Time Turner was aware of both versions while others were not. This is simply how the magic works. It makes me a bit doubtful about the "neat" version of the Buckbeak story, but who knows...

Verity Weasley wrote:I don't think Voldemort is dead in the alternative timeline. First we have this:

HERMIONE: To be clear: in this other world... before you meddled?
SCORPIUS: Voldemort is dead. Killed in the Battle of Hogwarts...

Then:

HERMIONE: We get this right, Harry’s alive, Voldemort’s dead and the Augurey is gone...

Both of these lines suggest to me that Voldemort is still alive, otherwise it wouldn't be noted as a change from the current (alternative) timeline.

Also, when I was looking back for these quotes, I cam across this one, which made me chuckle.

HERMIONE: Severus, I’m done with living off scraps...

We know how cranky the trio got when they were camping and making do with very little food. Imagine how cranky Ron and Hermione must be after twenty years of 'camping!'  

Yes, those lines imply that Voldemort is still alive. I did have a fleeting thought that, being Voldemort's daughter, Delphi killed Voldemort in this reality (just as Voldemort had killed his own father), and took his place as the ruler of the world without letting anyone know that Voldemort was dead. However, the idea that Voldemort won the war, killed Harry and still died of old age or got killed by his own daughter is just too awesome not to make it unambiguously clear if that is what we are meant to think.

So Voldemort is probably still alive. But perhaps he is affected by old age physically, mentally and magically (even if he can't die) and has become a sort of puppet or pawn while the Augurey is ruling the world in his name. After all, even the Voldie of the novels got corrupted by his Horcruxes. Who says the physical corruption will stop forever at a particularly ugly face and a weird voice? Things may get gradually worse and worse in time. Even though Voldemort expected to remain strong and powerful, his crimes may have bought him mere immortality, not eternal strength or youth. That would explain why he is "sharing" the power with his "family" -  perhaps he simply has no other choice.

So that's what Harry's death did to Ron. Harry's best friend became the soul of the resistance and, since they couldn't lose him too, everybody insisted on protecting Ron to a degree that he forgot all his skills, because he never got to use them.

– you travel back in the same spot you stand in ¬–

That's not how Hermione's Time-Turner worked in the book. But taking you to a save place near the spot where the Time-Turner had been at the time doesn't make sense for long range travel to a time when the Time-Turner had not yet existed.

I agree that Hermione and Snape get the best dialogues in this scene.

Shouldn't the changes to history be undone in reverse order, blocking Albus spell at the Second Task first? Even if this is not some natural law, doing so would be smart; it would take Hermione, Ron and Scorpius back to the much less dangerous second timeline (and Snape back to being dead), from where they could easily reverse the First Task. But it would result in much less drama, and we can't have that. Also, if Scorpius doesn't do this alone, it might replace Hermione prime and Ron prime with time travelling Hermione and Ron, who think of a world where Voldemort won as their prime timeline, aren't used to have been married for years and don't recognize their children. That would be awkward.  


Hermione blocks Albus's spell, and the Time Turner takes the quartet to the present time of timeline four, which isn't very different from timeline three. Hermione four still watched two suspicious students in Durmstrang robes at the First Task, but since nothing bad happened to Cedric, she had no reason to turn Viktor down, Ron got the opportunity to be jealous at the Yule Ball and Padme didn't enjoy to be with him, but then everything went downhill because Cedric was still humiliated out of the Second Task. Ron four and Hermione four may or may not have found the time to confess their love for each other, but since they are replaced by time travelling Ron and Hermione from timeline three, they don't remember their changed relationship anyway, and it apparently didn't have much impact on anything else. Since nobody spotted the time travelling quartet and thus they didn't introduce new changes to history, they find themselves in a situation that matches their experience in timeline three.

My willing suspension of disbelief is stretched thin here.


This time, Ron has been randomly injured.

Yeah, lots of drama. And there it is again. It really happens in every timeline, but the transition from having been friends for years to realizing that it's love is difficult and may always need some external trigger.

How much time has passed since Dolores Umbridge found Scorpius in the lake? At least three days, mentioned in scene III/1, but that was before Scorpius travelled to London to visit his father. On the other hand, it can't be a full week, because Scorpius didn't have a Potions class before Craig Bowker jr mentioned Snape. So let's make it four days.

Scorpius blocks Albus's spell in the Second Task and is taken to timeline five, which is identical to the prime timeline, because everything is undone now and no new changes have been induced by additional time travel. Only Albus and Scorpius remember that Ron had been married to Padme for some weeks, and only Scorpius remembers that Voldemort had won for some days. But wait, did Albus say that be looked at Scorpius and Scorpius had his wand out? Why would Albus's time travel companion have his wand out? Did Albus actually spot the other Scorpius, who time travelled solo?

Anyway, Scorpius last time travel terribly hurt time itself. Four days have just been killed, and nobody except Scorpius remembers that they ever existed. If this very convenient catastrophe did not happen, shouldn't Scorpius emerge out of the lake four days after Albus and Scopius left the girls bathroom through the large Victorian sink? And if he can't sneak back into the castle unseen, shouldn't everybody wonder how Scorpius got back into the lake when he is assumed to have been in detention for the last four days? Shouldn't Albus then, when he realizes that his time travel companion has just been replaced by a Scorpius who has done more time travelling, tell Scorpius that in his experience, they both were caught by Harry, Draco, Ginny and Professor McGonagall at the bank of the lake, and that his version of Scorpius had pretended to have lost the Time Turner because they still hadn't known whether their second change of history had saved Cedric's life?  

Yeah, that's probably too complex to bring it to the stage, and I won't even try to discuss how convoluted the timelines might become if Myrtle, Harry, Draco, Ginny and Professor McGonagall didn't act exactly the same in the prime and second timelines, or if Albus and his companion, realizing that Cedric was still dead, had started a third attempt to change history before the more experienced Scorpius returned from the last timeline and could convince Albus that saving Cedric's life is actually a very bad idea.    

My willing suspension of disbelief is stretched very thin now, but since Croaker's law is so vague about which kinds of serious harm might happen to time travellers or to time itself, I still can't pretend that the plot can't have happened.

What are you wearing? Yes! You're in Slytherin.

So we are in movieverse. You can tell a student's house just by looking on their robes or tie. That makes

If you are in Hogwarts robes people will expect to know who you are

from scene II/4 more plausible, but there were still far less Durmstrang students than Slytherin students.


Where did Hermione suddenly come from? She is back to being Minister for Magic, so she wasn't at Hogwarts all the time. Did McGonagall send her an owl to tell that some serious time manipulation had been discovered at Hogwarts and that her presence was required so that the Headmistress could tell her off?

Julia H. wrote:How does this work in the case of Hermione's classes in PoA? She used the Time-Turner to be able to go to classes that took place at the same time. Since she had to be in two places at the same time and be present in both classes, both classes had to actually take place, and there is no reason to think that the class where she wasn't present at a given time did not take place parallel to the class in which she was present. Then she went back in time and attended the other class, while the class she had previously been to probably also took place again, only this time without Hermione. Since she had to participate in both classes to have memories of both, it is evident that both classes actually took place, just like the alternate chains of event in The Cursed Child, but only Hermione remembered the version that she went to first, while the others only remembered the final version.

Because Hermione needed to have memories of both classes she attended at the same time (she probably lost her notes of the first one anyway), time-travel must have worked there in the same way as in The Cursed Child: The operator of the Time Turner was aware of both versions while others were not. This is simply how the magic works. It makes me a bit doubtful about the "neat" version of the Buckbeak story, but who knows...

That's actually not how it worked. In PA 12, Ron tells Harry

I heard her talking to Professor Vector, that Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were going on about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't've been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Ernie McMillan told me she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them, either!

Obviously, Ernie and Professor Vector remember other timelines than Ron, regardless of which one may have been the last.

I guess there may be a difference between deciding to go back after the fact (when Harry and Hermione went back to save Buckbeak, and everything in The Cursed Child), and having planned to take both classes in advance (solving

the most trivial problems of time-management

as mentioned in the Pottermore article that does no longer exist.) The latter may allow contradictory timelines to coexist while the time traveller relives time, as long as nobody else gets contradictory experiences like going from classroom to classroom and noticing that Hermione sits in Divination and in Arithmancy. Obviously this kind of time-management works best in places where events are heavily scheduled and nobody should randomly go from room to room.

Hieronymus Graubart wrote:

Julia H. wrote:How does this work in the case of Hermione's classes in PoA? She used the Time-Turner to be able to go to classes that took place at the same time. Since she had to be in two places at the same time and be present in both classes, both classes had to actually take place, and there is no reason to think that the class where she wasn't present at a given time did not take place parallel to the class in which she was present. Then she went back in time and attended the other class, while the class she had previously been to probably also took place again, only this time without Hermione. Since she had to participate in both classes to have memories of both, it is evident that both classes actually took place, just like the alternate chains of event in The Cursed Child, but only Hermione remembered the version that she went to first, while the others only remembered the final version.

Because Hermione needed to have memories of both classes she attended at the same time (she probably lost her notes of the first one anyway), time-travel must have worked there in the same way as in The Cursed Child: The operator of the Time Turner was aware of both versions while others were not. This is simply how the magic works. It makes me a bit doubtful about the "neat" version of the Buckbeak story, but who knows...

That's actually not how it worked. In PA 12, Ron tells Harry

I heard her talking to Professor Vector, that Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were going on about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't've been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Ernie McMillan told me she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them, either!

Obviously, Ernie and Professor Vector remember other timelines than Ron, regardless of which one may have been the last.

I guess there may be a difference between deciding to go back after the fact (when Harry and Hermione went back to save Buckbeak, and everything in The Cursed Child), and having planned to take both classes in advance (solving

the most trivial problems of time-management

as mentioned in the Pottermore article that does no longer exist.) The latter may allow contradictory timelines to coexist while the time traveller relives time, as long as nobody else gets contradictory experiences like going from classroom to classroom and noticing that Hermione sits in Divination and in Arithmancy. Obviously this kind of time-management works best in places where events are heavily scheduled and nobody should randomly go from room to room.

Thanks for the response, HG!

That is quite horrible if it's so, and it must be so because of the quote about Professor Vector, Ernie and Ron. Even in a magical world, it just does not make sense to me at all. How can time-management and planning affect the magic of time-travel?

Vector, Ernie and Ron, each can remember only one timeline, namely the one in which Hermione is in the same place where they are. How is it decided which of them remember which timeline though? Can Hermione decide it at the beginning of the time-travel? If not receiving contradictory information is the key, well, Ron has received some (from Ernie, for example), and if Professor Vector talks to his colleagues, he may just hear how well Hermione did in another class at a time when he thinks she was in his class. This is also contradictory information if not quite as shocking as actually seeing Hermione in two places at the same time.

Oh, well... it's time-travel.  Thanks again for the information!

Verity Weasley wrote:A short one, because if I try to think too much about timeline five and timeline three and the prime timeline, my head will explode!

So, yes, I did not appreciate the characterisation of Ron as a bumbling idiot. They have been two of the most wanted wizards in the country for more than 20 years, and he can't even manage to hold his wand the right way round?

After all Scorpius has been through and seen and after the lecture from McGonagall, I can't believe Scorpius would have not handed the time-turner over right then and there. OK, so maybe he is a little concerned about the security of it if it is returned to the Ministry, but he should know by now that no good can come of it, and should have just relinquished it.

Also, what exactly do you need to do to get expelled from Hogwarts? Clearly, almost bringing about the end of the world as we know it, is not enough.

Good points.

Poor Ron.

LOL@

Also, what exactly do you need to do to get expelled from Hogwarts? Clearly, almost bringing about the end of the world as we know it, is not enough.

That's one way Hogwarts is similar to the school where I teach. The difference is that we aren't able to totally undo the consequences of naughtiness.

Julia H. wrote:
Vector, Ernie and Ron, each can remember only one timeline, namely the one in which Hermione is in the same place where they are. How is it decided which of them remember which timeline though? Can Hermione decide it at the beginning of the time-travel?

It always seemed "logical" (odd word to use with time shifting) to me that a person would only remember what they actually experienced - Hermione isn't deciding what each person remembers.  So yes, Professor Vector, Ernie and Ron remember Hermione in the same place as they.

In PoA, I never thought of Hermione's Time-Turner use as creating separate time lines - more as creating loops within the same timeline.  But she would have had to re-set time for everyone when she went back and repeated her hour in a different classroom - they would go back and repeat their last hour in the original way, otherwise they'd end their day before Hermione. Hermione's hour would be different and she'd remember experiencing both hours.  (Which begs the question never answered - why would the Ministry give a 13-year old such a thing just to take extra classes?  Couldn't Buckbeak be saved with a different plot device?  But I digress  . . . . )

I'm stepping away from the massive headache that is time travel and going back to earlier scenes.  Did we ever find out WHY Harry's scar hurt?  If the Horcruxes were destroyed, including the one in Harry's scar, the scar should never have caused pain once Voldemort was dead.  If it is hurting, then some part of Voldie is still within Harry. But then Voldemort didn't actually die in DH.  And if that Voldie "essence" is activated by Delphi, why is the scar only hurting NOW?  Delphi has been alive for 22-23 years (?????)

Or is Harry's scar hurting because in an alternate universe, Voldie is still alive (thanks to Scorpius and Albus)?  But would Harry's scar be that sensitive?  And shouldn't it start hurting only after Scorpius and Albus steal the Time Turner? (That's not really stepping away from the massive headache that is time travel, is it? )

Lady Arabella wrote:

It always seemed "logical" (odd word to use with time shifting) to me that a person would only remember what they actually experienced - Hermione isn't deciding what each person remembers.  So yes, Professor Vector, Ernie and Ron remember Hermione in the same place as they.

In PoA, I never thought of Hermione's Time-Turner use as creating separate time lines - more as creating loops within the same timeline.  But she would have had to re-set time for everyone when she went back and repeated her hour in a different classroom - they would go back and repeat their last hour in the original way, otherwise they'd end their day before Hermione.

I thought she created separate timelines specifically because she re-set time for everyone. Why would the other classes simply repeat their last hours while Hermione is attending a different class than previously? (I'm pretty sure a class with Hermione in it is totally different from one without Hermione.  ) The logical thing seems to be that the others would have a class without Hermione this time. That is how it works in The Cursed Child at least, where everyone experiences a new chain of events. In the "Voldie won" timeline, there are no characters who remember that Voldemort was defeated or that Ron and Hermione got married (except Scorpius himself). E.g., Umbridge was nowhere near the Triwizard Tournament, where the original changes occurred, yet she didn't just "repeat" the original twenty plus years until finding Scorpius in Hogwarts, because she totally fits the new timeline.

It seems in PoA Hermione is indeed simply present in two places at the same time instead of travelling back in time or truly re-setting time, but then why is the device called a time turner and not a person duplicator? I realize that at the end of the novel they need it to be a time turner otherwise Harry and Hermione couldn't go back into their past, but that seems to be a totally different type of magic than the way Hermione used the time turner to organize her timetable.

Julia H. wrote:(I'm pretty sure a class with Hermione in it is totally different from one without Hermione.  )

You're right . . . . . . . I guess the way I thought that the Time Turner in PoA worked, was that during the first "time loop" Hermione went to Arithmancy.  At the end of that hour she set the Time Turner back one hour and then went to Care of Magical Creatures.  But because she had already created the first loop, the Arithmancy students would again experience a class with Hermione in it (just not realize that they were repeating the hour, rather like "Ground Hog Day"). While in the second loop, now running concurrently with the repeated first loop, those students would remember Hermione in that class, just not remember they are repeating the hour.  And since they don't remember they are repeating, they aren't able to compare an hour with Hermione and an hour without At the end of the repeated hour, time keeps moving forward as one time frame, with both the first and second loops in the remembered past.

I dunno . . .  the more I try to think that through, the worse it gets.       It is indeed like being in two places at the same time - but if that were the case she wouldn't have needed a time turner, just a duplicator, as you said.  Or a Time Splitter - it splits the stream into two ongoing streams that merge back into one later on.

And it certainly isn't how the Time Turner seems to work in Cursed Child - although a lot of things in Cursed Child work differently than in the books.  The Cursed Child seems to show alternate universes splitting off based on certain actions taken.

To me the POA events seem to have their own internal logic, because nothing is actually changed. For example, Hermione finishes her Divination hour with Harry and Ron, gives the time turner a twist, goes back an hour, and attends Vector's Arithmancy class. At the end of that she gives the Time Turner two twists, goes back two hours and attends Muggle Studies with Ernie. This means there is a Hermione in all three classes at the same time, but she's not three different persons, just the same person from different time periods. The one in Divination is present time Hermione, the one in Arithmancy is from an hour into the future, and the one in Muggle Studies is from two hours into the future. No one will have to repeat their hour, because it was always fated that Hermione would be present in all three classes at the same time, with the help of the Time Turner's magic. On the other hand, she seems to have existed in this world for three hours instead of one hour like the others, and in the end that did take a toll on her.

Posting in a hurry, hope this makes sense, or at least as much sense as a time travel discussion can make.

The Slytherin dormitory has been moved. Thanks for pointing that out, Verity; I didn’t notice.

Bane talked about the black cloud surrounding Albus in the prime timeline, and Harry remembered that in the second timeline. The assumption is that this, unlike who’s married to Ron, doesn’t depend on whether Hermione watched suspicious Durmstrang students at the first task and thus, Bane’s divination and everything that came from it was the same in both timelines. This includes Harry, Draco, Ginny and Professor McGonagall running to the lake after missing Albus and Scorpius in Myrtle’s bathroom. In the restored prime timeline, both attempts to change the events of the Triwizard Tournament failed, but the second attempt still happened at the same time as in the second timeline, just when Harry and Draco wanted to talk to their sons. (Ron and Hermione not being married was only a small side effect. In the third timeline, everything was different because there couldn’t be much that didn’t depend on Harry not feeling guilt for Cedric’s death; it led to Voldemort’s victory, and that changed everything.)

I was suddenly in Gryffindor house, nothing was better between us then either – so the fact that I'm in Slytherin – that's not the reason for our problems.

Well, Harry had promised that that wouldn't be a problem.


There's another foreshadowing dream, and this time it isn't a flashback.


I'm running out of witty comments for scenes where I don't have anything to say.


That's actually the first scene that requires Scorpius to be a Slytherin, otherwise he shouldn't be in this dormitory.

Cedric was a different person entirely – dark, dangerous.

Scorpius actually met Cedric? How did this happen? Was Cedric a teacher at Hogwarts? Did Scorpius meet him when he visited his father in the Ministry? Or does he just talk about what he read, heard and imagined about Cedric (what he read and heard can't have been much).

Only you and I have experienced how dangerous this is, that means you and I have to destroy it.

SPOILER: And then stupid Albus immediately owls Delphi, who certainly doesn't want the Time Turner to be destroyed. Apparently Albus still didn't experience enough of the danger; Rose not existing wasn't such a great loss to him as it was to Scorpius, and he has never seen the new Dark Age.


I guess Craig Bowker jr is a Slytherin prefect.

How much time has passed? So much appears to have happened, but since the days Scorpius spent in the new Dark Age don't count, this is probably still the night after Myrtle revealed that Albus and Scorpius used a Time-Turner.


Finally, Delphi shows her true face. She was raised by Euphemia Rowle (who may be married or related to the Death Eater Thorfinn Rowle we've seen in DH 9), she used spells on Amos Diggory, she would have used spells on Albus and Scorpius if they hadn't done what she wanted anyway, and all the time she tried to bring Voldemort back.

Scorpius claims that

The Rowles were pretty extreme Death Eaters.

If Euphemia was known to be a "pretty extreme Death Eater", shouldn't she have been imprisoned? How could she raise a foster child? I guess "the Rowles" are not meant to be "Thorfinn and Euphemia Rowle".

Verity Weasley wrote:
There's just no getting away from the time travel confusion. The Harry in the scene with Albus in the Slytherin dormitory seems to be the Harry from the timeline when Albus was in Gryffindor. He apologises for thinking Scorpius was a black cloud and says the map will be locked away. So this is not prime timeline Harry, but other aspects of the timeline are prime. Albus is in Slytherin. Ron and Hermione are married. Rose exists.

But isn't Act III Scene xi the restored "original" time line?  Bane talks to Harry in Act II Scene v, and the next scene (vi) is where the boys use the Time Turner for the first time.  So Bane was prime timeline.  And the scene with Albus in the Slytherin dormitory (III/xi) is after the "Voldemort wins" line is ended.  So we should be back to normal.  If you can call it that.  Or did I miss something?

But for additional/other timeline confusion - Act II Scene xiv, timeline 2:  Delphi is in the changed future but knows what happened in the original timeline?  Then Act II, Scene xix, timeline 2.  The boys disappear down Myrtle's sink (and in the books it was the toilets the emptied into the lake).  The stage directions say that   " . . . time stops.  And then it turns over, thinks a bit, and begins spooling backwards . . . .  The boys are gone."  If time has already begun spooling backwards, then the boys have used the Time Turner and we should be in timeline 3.    But then Harry,  Draco & McGonagall enter the bathroom looking for the boys still in timeline 2.

Act III Scene vii, timeline 3, (Voldemort wins) - I absolutely loved the line:  "So you're telling me that the whole of history rests on  . . .  Neville Longbottom?????"     as well as:  "I didn't just quote Dumbledore, did I?"

Act III, Scene ix, timeline 3 (Voldemort wins) - how does Scorpius know that Lily's Patronus was a doe?

On my re-read another thing that I though strange in the early scenes was Draco's insistence that the Ministry refute the rumors of Scorpius' parentage.  Isn't there a Wizarding equivalent of a paternity test?  Surely a Mediwitch could wave her wand over Scorpius and then over Draco and determine if Scorpius is Draco's child or not.

Act III Scene xvi (restored timeline) - when did Albus have time to send an owl to Delphi, and what was he thinking???

The prophecy for restoring the Dark Lord is puzzling me - to whom was it made and why can several people retrieve it? (Ginny & Harry from the lamp in Act III, Scene xxi; and Delphi says Rodolphus Lestrange told her.)  But it isn't actually about Delphi herself, unless she is part of the "When time is turned . . . " line.

If Delphi was born at Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts, why wasn't anyone else at Malfoy Manor aware, such as Draco?

I'm having a hard time understanding why JKR allowed her name to be on the script. Perhaps the script should be Vanquished.  There is some very good and very consistent fanfiction out there that would be far better than this hash.  

I had to get all my comments in - the book has to back to the library today.  I made notes for what they're worth.

Does anyone have any ideas what the dream is supposed to mean? Other than just giving Harry a generally malevolent warning that all is not well? Also, why doesn't Harry ever sleep in his bed? First we have him apparently sleeping on the staircase. Now he's apparently sleeping in the kitchen!

In Scene 14 Albus clearly shows that he is still in denial about the absolute stupidity of his behaviour.

Albus wrote:"The stupid thing wasn’t going back once – anyone can make that mistake – the stupid thing was being arrogant enough to go back twice."

Really? Anyone could make the mistake of thinking that it would be a good idea to go back in time twenty years and try to change the past?

Yes, when did Albus have the chance to send an owl to Delphi? This is the gillyweed situation all over again. Albus is sleeping when Scorpius wakes him and tells him he still has the time turner. They decide to destroy it, but for some reason, can't do that in their dormitory or common room and head for the Owlery instead. Unless this is not the same night, when did Albus send the owl to Delphi, allowing enough time for the owl to make the journey and for Delphi to make her way to Hogwarts, which apparently has an 'open-gate' policy now? Perhaps we're missing some dialogue:

SCORPIUS: Been working on it all day.

ALBUS: Ha ha. Yes, good one. Yes we should definitely destroy the time turner so no one else can ever be as stupid as we were. Although, to be fair, anyone could have almost destroyed the world as we know it by accident. But we can't do it here, we might wake up our unnamed Slytherin dormitory-mates.

SCORPIUS: How about we go to the common room and destroy it there? There won't be anyone up at this time of night.

ALBUS: No, it might still be too noisy. We should go to the Owlery to do it. Because we're already in detention for the rest of our lives, we may as well break a few more rules and go sneaking around the school at night.

SCORPIUS: OK, let's go!

ALBUS: What? Now? No, I'm too tired now. How about tomorrow night?

SCORPIUS: I've got that Potions assignment to finish. That's going to take half the night. What about Friday?

ALBUS: Hmmm. I don't know. I was planning to practice gobstones on Friday. I really want to make the team this year.
Thinks a little.
Next Tuesday would work for me. How about you?

SCORPIUS: Yeah, OK. Next Tuesday. I'll just keep this supremely powerful and dangerous object safely hidden with absolutely no security measures until then.

ALBUS: Great!
Settles back down in his bed and goes back to sleep.

Lady Arabella wrote:

Verity Weasley wrote:
There's just no getting away from the time travel confusion. The Harry in the scene with Albus in the Slytherin dormitory seems to be the Harry from the timeline when Albus was in Gryffindor. He apologises for thinking Scorpius was a black cloud and says the map will be locked away. So this is not prime timeline Harry, but other aspects of the timeline are prime. Albus is in Slytherin. Ron and Hermione are married. Rose exists.

But isn't Act III Scene xi the restored "original" time line?  Bane talks to Harry in Act II Scene v, and the next scene (vi) is where the boys use the Time Turner for the first time.  So Bane was prime timeline.  And the scene with Albus in the Slytherin dormitory (III/xi) is after the "Voldemort wins" line is ended.  So we should be back to normal.  If you can call it that.  Or did I miss something?

But for additional/other timeline confusion - Act II Scene xiv, timeline 2:  Delphi is in the changed future but knows what happened in the original timeline?  Then Act II, Scene xix, timeline 2.  The boys disappear down Myrtle's sink (and in the books it was the toilets the emptied into the lake).  The stage directions say that   " . . . time stops.  And then it turns over, thinks a bit, and begins spooling backwards . . . .  The boys are gone."  If time has already begun spooling backwards, then the boys have used the Time Turner and we should be in timeline 3.    But then Harry,  Draco & McGonagall enter the bathroom looking for the boys still in timeline 2.

Act III Scene vii, timeline 3, (Voldemort wins) - I absolutely loved the line:  "So you're telling me that the whole of history rests on  . . .  Neville Longbottom?????"     as well as:  "I didn't just quote Dumbledore, did I?"

Act III, Scene ix, timeline 3 (Voldemort wins) - how does Scorpius know that Lily's Patronus was a doe?

On my re-read another thing that I though strange in the early scenes was Draco's insistence that the Ministry refute the rumors of Scorpius' parentage.  Isn't there a Wizarding equivalent of a paternity test?  Surely a Mediwitch could wave her wand over Scorpius and then over Draco and determine if Scorpius is Draco's child or not.

Act III Scene xvi (restored timeline) - when did Albus have time to send an owl to Delphi, and what was he thinking???

The prophecy for restoring the Dark Lord is puzzling me - to whom was it made and why can several people retrieve it? (Ginny & Harry from the lamp in Act III, Scene xxi; and Delphi says Rodolphus Lestrange told her.)  But it isn't actually about Delphi herself, unless she is part of the "When time is turned . . . " line.

If Delphi was born at Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts, why wasn't anyone else at Malfoy Manor aware, such as Draco?

I'm having a hard time understanding why JKR allowed her name to be on the script. Perhaps the script should be Vanquished.  There is some very good and very consistent fanfiction out there that would be far better than this hash.  

I had to get all my comments in - the book has to back to the library today.  I made notes for what they're worth.

Good points.

You are totally right about Delphi. I guess it could be explained why she knows about the original timeline when she is in timeline 2, she might have special and rare powers as she is Voldemort's daughter, or perhaps it is enough to know about the time-travel to remember the original timeline(????), perhaps she has a Time Turner, too, and she has been following the boys secretly, but it is never explained. BTW, Dephi having a Time Turner would make the boys' actions totally unnecessary, because she could do everything herself. But to be honest, I don't understand why on earth she wants the boys to do the job instead of just taking the Time Turner from them by force at the very beginning. Is she afraid? But then why isn't she afraid in the end?

Yes, Scorpius seems to be very knowledgeable about Harry's family, knowing even what Lily's Patronus was. It is not so unbelievable, if we suppose that there are lots of books about the Potter family in timeline 1, and Scorpius likes reading, and it is possible that he and Albus sometimes talk about Harry despite everything.

I'll come back later with more comments.

Lady Arabella wrote:
If Delphi was born at Malfoy Manor before the Battle of Hogwarts, why wasn't anyone else at Malfoy Manor aware, such as Draco?

Well, Draco may have been aware of it (Bellatrix was his aunt), only we were never in Draco's head. It is still an intriguing question where Delphi's birth would fit the timeline. (We don't know her exact age, do we?) Bellatrix came out of Azkaban at the beginning of OotP (August?) but we don't actually get to see her until the end of the school-year, in the Ministry (June?). There is just barely enough time for her to get pregnant and give birth to a child and then fight for the Dark Lord in the MOM, but we'd have to suppose that she got pregnant as soon as she got out of prison. She was, of course, happy to do anything for Voldemort any time, but would Voldemort really be attracted to a witch who has just come out of that place and hasn't even had time to recover from the influence of Dementors, which ruined her famous beauty and made her quite mad? Or would Voldie like just that? Of course, it is also possible that Bellatrix is pregnant when the Battle of the MOM happens, provided the pregnancy is at a very early stage.

At the beginning of HBP, Bella says if she had sons, she would be happy to give them up to the service of the Dark Lord, so she doesn't have sons, but she might still have a daughter. Or not yet.

At this point, Bellatrix doesn't seem to be as close to Voldemort as before, which Snape puts down to the fiasco at the Ministry, but perhaps Voldie has got tired of Bella in more ways than one. Alternatively, it is also possible that Bellatrix tried her feminine charms  (whatever) on Voldie after the Ministry fiasco in the hope of getting back into his favour that way. The Spinner's End chapter takes place during the summer before the beginning of the HBP school-year, and the next time we see Bellatrix on page is at the beginning of DH, in the Malfoy Manor, where she doesn't appear to be pregnant, nor does she seem to be Voldemort's favourite Death Eater though she is as devoted to him as ever before. So there is plenty of time for her to give birth to Delphi between the beginning of OotP and the beginning of DH. In DH, we see Bellatrix often enough to notice a pregnancy at some point, so Delphi was probably born before the Malfoy Manor chapter. Voldie doesn't seem to appreciate her as the mother of his only child - but that's not really surprising.

Verity Weasley wrote:
SCORPIUS: Been working on it all day.

ALBUS: Ha ha. Yes, good one. Yes we should definitely destroy the time turner so no one else can ever be as stupid as we were. Although, to be fair, anyone could have almost destroyed the world as we know it by accident. But we can't do it here, we might wake up our unnamed Slytherin dormitory-mates.

SCORPIUS: How about we go to the common room and destroy it there? There won't be anyone up at this time of night.

ALBUS: No, it might still be too noisy. We should go to the Owlery to do it. Because we're already in detention for the rest of our lives, we may as well break a few more rules and go sneaking around the school at night.

SCORPIUS: OK, let's go!

ALBUS: What? Now? No, I'm too tired now. How about tomorrow night?

SCORPIUS: I've got that Potions assignment to finish. That's going to take half the night. What about Friday?

ALBUS: Hmmm. I don't know. I was planning to practice gobstones on Friday. I really want to make the team this year.
Thinks a little.
Next Tuesday would work for me. How about you?

SCORPIUS: Yeah, OK. Next Tuesday. I'll just keep this supremely powerful and dangerous object safely hidden with absolutely no security measures until then.

ALBUS: Great!
Settles back down in his bed and goes back to sleep.

 It would be quite a realistic scenario. Teenagers.

Albus probably has a crush on Delphi and wants to see her again, so he simply takes the opportunity to invite her to Hogwarts on the pretext that it's fair to let her know of their decision. You are right that getting the message to Delphi would take some time though.

The lack of security at Hogwarts is very surprising. If anyone can get in, then probably anyone can get out. How do they stop their students from invading the pubs in the village on a daily or nightly basis?

Regarding the meeting with Delphi, I'm totally shocked by Ron's irresponsibility. He sees his fourteen-year-old nephew on the roof of the school at night in the company of what appears to be an "older girlfriend" (a twenty-plus-year-old woman), and he is merely happy that his love potion worked??? I see that at the moment he is drunk, but the next day, when he is (supposedly) sober, he still thinks it's all right and nobody finds that strange? Just how moronic did Ron get over the years?