Cursed Child Act One Scenes 6-11

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Act One Scene 6 - 11

[kneels down and puts hands on shoulders] delphinus potter, you were named after a dolphin in the sky how fucking sick is that. there’s a dolphin in the sky.

(its Delphi she's here I love her) Her plan is to get Albus to steal the plot device from Harry so she can go back in time and do a bunch of dumb stuff that will cause her to rule the world. Just adding that Bellatrix picked Delphi's name in accordance with the Black constellation theme, so I hope you're all taking notes on what happens when the women get to pick the names. That means you, Padma.

Act One Scene 6 (Harry and Ginny Potter's House)

We open with Harry speaking to an elderly Amos. Albus, in the grand Potter tradition of "your privacy is my prerogative" is eavesdropping on the conversation from the top of the stairs. Amos is berating Harry for dodging his appointments; looks like the Ministry is still playing silly buggers with people they'd rather avoid, and Harry comes off like a coward hiding behind his secretaries. Its such a reversal from the Harry of OOTP, HBP and DH who fought the Ministry's bureaucratic dictates, their oppressive and pointless laws to which he was subjected (remember Amos used to be a ministry worker?) that I can't help wonder if its intentional. Well, Harry's the man now. Let's see how he deals with the plebs.

What Amos wants is his son back, using the plot device mentioned last time, and he's willing to harangue Harry to get it. Everything Amos is saying is calculated by Delphi (who has him under the imperius) to play to Harry's sense of a) grandeur and b) guilt so keep that in mind, but Harry is such a fathead that he actually buys it. "There's plenty you're responsible for" "Voldemort wanted you not my son" "How many people have died for the Boy Who Lived? I'm asking you to save one of them." You have to give Delphi credit: these overtures completely ignore the fact that people could have died for reasons other than Harry's personal salvation (aka its flattering), they play right into Harry's hero complex/self-indulgence that he never got over even though he's a middle aged bureaucrat who doesn't do his paperwork, its melodramatic, its sentimental, as a piece of social engineering, its perfect. Delphi, my beautiful schemer you see that? Hook, Line, Sinker.

Sucker count: 1. One sucker down, one to go.

Delphi interrupts Albus's eavesdropping. She's "a twenty-something, determined looking woman" Albus asks her who she is, considering this is his house, he's the protagonist, this is his spotlight, no girls allowed, etc.

She says she's a thief, come to steal everything he owns. His gold, his wand, his chocolate frogs. My heart. Actually she's Delphini Diggory, here to shepherd Amos around as his dutiful nurse. They commiserate over being bullied about their names before Amos dragged Delphi away back to St Oswalds Home for Elderly Witches and Wizards (where their sons and daughters stick their old people so they can get their inheritances early, probably), Upper Flagley. She's posing as Amos's niece, who took the job as a nurse to look after him. She tells Albus that "its not easy to live with people stuck in the past" before inviting him to visit some time.

Amos calls Delphi away, flippantly introducing Harry as "the once-great Harry Potter, now a stone cold Ministry man" (its so true feel that burn Harry what happened to the outlaw revolutionary you pretended you were when you were 17??) before leaving. "Albus watches on, thinking carefully"

Sucker count: 2.

Act One Scene Seven (Albus' Room)

Ok this is the scene in which Harry's shitty parenting skills are put on full display. I always knew he'd be a bad father, considering he could never emotionally relate to someone unless their problems were an exact mirror of his, but this is *kisses hands in the chef gesture* perfect. Harry is exactly the sort of parent who wants to impress his trauma all over his kids (hence the walking tombstone names), he is exactly the sort of parent to smother his kids with his own issues by way of a mouldy blanket, he is exactly the sort of parent who relates to his kid by talking solely about himself and his suffering, and this is the scene that proves it.

Honestly some other people were saying that Harry in this scene is OOC, but honestly, to me, this nasty father who wants his kids to join in the glorification of his own life story, thats who he is. To me, at least. Like how abuse victims perpetuate the cycle of abuse by abusing others? Thats him. Its not that he's being abusive here, I mean, this play is what, PG-13, its just that the way his character was presented over the course of seven books makes me think he'd be a bad father in exactly the way he's being a bad father here.

Anyway, James is throwing a snit fit because his hair's turned pink after Ron sent him a gag comb that turned it that way. He says he'll have to use his invisibility cloak to hide it, and Ginny appears telling him that thats not why Harry gave him that cloak. I thought the accepted canonical trivia tidbit was that James stole it, but the gift is now a sentimental thing (continuing the Peverelle tradition of giving the cloak to the eldest). Lily's sentimental gift are fairy wings that probably look pretty cool on the stage (she says she loves them and they flutter), even if they make me worry that the Potters are pressing 1950s gender roles on their kids too hard. Like what if she wants monster trucks? Or a broom? Like a broom that Ginny never got?

Albus got a gift of love potion from Ron (Albus "okay. a Love Potion. okay") And superficially we know (even if none of the characters appear to have realised, even Ron, who took that dose from Romilda) that love potions are bad because they hijack people's emotions, try to control them into making them feel a certain way and act on it, I think its here ~dramatically to highlight how Harry is attempting to make Albus empathise with his own trauma and bad childhood feels.

Ginny, who was present in this scene chasing after James, "softly walks away," leaving the special boys to have their important emotional boyfeels together. No girls allowed in the central conflict of the play, we're all about the father/son relationship here.

Harry presents Albus with "the last thing I had from my mum. The only thing. I was given to the Dursleys wrapped in it. I thought it had gone forever, and then, when your Great Aunt Petunia died, hidden amongst her possessions, Dudley, surprisingly found this, and he kindly sent it on to me, and ever since then - well, anytime I've wanted luck I've found it and tried to hold it, and I wondered if you -" (wanted to hold my mouldy trauma blanket as well)

Albus touches the blanket, for luck, but only briefly (when was the last time it was washed? sensible, imho), and says Harry should keep it, but Harry isn't done expositing about his childhood trauma. "I think - I believe - Petunia wanted me to have it, and thats why she kept it, and now I want you to have it from me. I didn't really know my mother - but I think she'd've wanted you to have it too. And maybe - I could come find you - and it - on All Hallows' Eve. I'd like to be with it on the night they died - and that could be good for the two of us..."

See what I mean about re-enacting his trauma using his own kids as props? Its right there. Its right there. This is something he really needs therapy for, honestly. Not to drag his kid into a dramatic re-enactment of his grandparents' murder. Like don't deal with your issues by throwing them all over your children. Dude, you're an adult. A parent. Your problems come second to that of your kids now. Thats how it works. Like Sirius could man up enough (almost) not to burden Harry with James' ghost, its time to put your grief aside. Save it for the therapist man, come on.
Also I note how he's imputing motives to two female characters here, his mum and his aunt, and yet Ginny (his wife) is barred from having any important lines in this scene. Women are so much easier when you can just imagine what they feel instead of having them there and having them actually tell you.

Albus, who is not a therapist, tries to shut this thing down as tactfully as possible, by pointing out that Harry probably has a lot of Ministry work to do (true we know he doesn't do his paperwork), but Harry is determined to make his problems Albus' problems, so Albus has to shut him down, and if he can't do it the easy way he'll do it the hard way.

Harry is "desperate to reach out" but he keeps relating to his son, as I said before, through the prism of his own egoism. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Harry: "Do you want a hand packing? I loved packing, leaving Privet Drive and going back to Hogwarts, I know you don't love it -"
Albus: "I know, for you its the greatest place on earth, the poor orphan, bullied by his aunt & uncle, traumatised by his cousin, blah blah blah, the poor orphan who went on to save us all - do you want me to curtsey?"
Harry says he never wanted gratitude. Albus says he never wanted a mouldy blanket. Harry's offended by Albus calling the blanket mouldy. Well, when was the last time it was washed, Harry? Do you do the laundry in this house?

Then we get to the bit where Albus, in a pretty typical bit of teenage melodrama, says that he wishes Harry wasn't his dad. Harry, in a typical (for him) bit of adult bad parenting says, yeah, well maybe I wish you weren't my son. (Harry Potter the boy who lived to be a bad parent - who'd've guessed it?)
Honestly, its not even as if Albus' tantrum is that unwarranted. He's having a hard time at school, being bullied (which neither his father nor the teaching staff gaf about), his grades are bad, his besties' mother is dead, etc, and Harry wants to live-action roleplay a) his own parent's death (creepy) and b) happy families perfect funhour. Like Harry doesn't even ask his kid whats going on in his head or in his classroom, he just says "I'm done being made responsible for your unhappiness. Because at least you have a dad. I didn't" when Albus has reasons that don't involve Harry for being unhappy, Harry has to put himself not only at the centre of his own universe, but at the centre of his son's.

Unfortunately the rest of the play will go on to validate Harry being at the centre of his own universe, his son's, his wife's, the wizarding world's, etc, because the main conflict involves Voldemort who cared about killing Harry to the exclusion of pretty much all else in DH, but I still have to applaud Albus for attempting to have a life outside Harry's family melodrama.
Even if it doesn't last.

Act One Scene 8 (Hut on the Rock)

This scene is just an extremely self-indulgent Harry dream scene in which he re-imagines the scene when Hagrid told him he was a wizard. Petunia's dialogue is different from that in PS, as in, Petunia is more overtly verbally abusive towards Harry, but Hagrid's dialogue is pretty much exactly the same. You're a wizard, you're the most special wizard ever, etc, etc.

Anyway I think this dream scene is interesting because right at the moment when his kid has an actual problem that relates to him being an actual person and not just a replica of his father or dead grandparent Harry's subconscious chooses to have a re-enactment of his own childhood drama and resurrect his own childhood nemesis.

Act One Scene 9 (Harry and Ginny Potter's House)

Harry wakes up from his nightmare. I wonder if Ginny ever gets nightmares from her year in DH and Harry has to comfort her? Nah.

Anyway, Ginny is on hand to sooth Harry's wounded soul or whatever the fuck. She says not to blame himself over what Amos said, but Harry's feeling persecuted here, Ginny, and honestly he's starting to like it. She also knows about the mishap with Albus and the blanket. She says "it was a nice try" when the actual reality was it was a stupid bad idea from a self-indulgent bad father. They then go on to have a conversation that purports to be about Albus when it is actually all about Harry's self image and his image of Albus. Observe:
Ginny: [I know that] when the time is right, you'll say sorry. That you didn't mean it. That what you said concealed... other things. You can be honest with him Harry. That's all he needs.
Harry: I just wish he were more like Lily or James
Ginny: maybe don't be that honest.
Harry: No, I wouldn't change a thing about him... but I can understand them, and
Ginny: Albus is different and thats a good thing. And he can tell, you know, when you're putting on your Harry Potter front. He wants to see the real you.
Harry: "The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing and should therefore be treated with great caution."
Ginny: Dumbledore left a child in an abusive home and this bit of pseudo-profundity of his is not pertinent to the situation.

Ok, the last bit was me, but in this bit of dialogue Harry is still not considering that his kid has problems that don't revolve around him. He's being bullied and only has one (1) friend, Harry you moron. "the real you" was the bit where you got mad at him for not playing along with your stupid orphan saviour re-enactment fantasies. You know, the ones you're having right now.

Ginny: A strange thing to say to a child
Harry: Not when you believe that child will have to die to save the world.

^^^^^ those fantasies, Harry.

Act One Scene 10 (The Hogwarts Express)

We're heading back to school, so its time for us to be reminded of Rose's existence. Here she is, on hand to attempt to bestow some pity friendship upon poor Albus.
Rose: Its the start of a new year for us, so I want us to be friends
Albus: We were never friends
Rose: Thats harsh! We were friends when we were six.
Albus: That was a long time ago.

Well, it would be nice if Rose was here to be friends/ an integral part of the plot but actually she's just here to dispense the latest on the plot device. Its at the Ministry after Harry's raid on Fort Nott. Shame that the character people were hoping would be a protagonist could be replaced by Albus reading the newspaper to find out plot critical information, but thats how it is (when you're a girl).

Albus needs to extract himself from the girl cooties and get to Scorpius ASAP. They have a plot to enact! Anyway the kicker is that Rose is only making the effort because his mum owled her dad (see how Ginny is trying to help Albus (offstage) while Harry is only thinking about himself?) and Albus is naturally displeased to be the object of pity of adults and tries to shake her off only to run into Scorpius, whose attempts at seduction are as follows:
Scorpius: Hello Rose, what do you smell of?
Rose: What do I smell of?
Scorpius: No I meant it as a nice thing, you smell like a mixture of fresh flowers and fresh bread -

Its not unique in this series when boys/men describe women as a cluster of attributes (smells) that remind them of other objects, but its especially annoying that Scorpius is growing up to be a troglodyte like every other man who gets the spotlight in this series. This is what passes for romance in this series, woman as nice-smelling object. Anyway that's as far as Rose's character gets developed so now its time to tip her back in the garbage bin so the boys can get back to work.

By back to work I mean they hug to say hello, a purely platonic hug now that the heterosexual credentials have been sufficiently brandished. And then they get back to work. Albus has ~plans. ~Plans that involve getting off a moving train.

He explains the plan to Scorpius. The plan is to deal with his son-father issues through the proxy of Amos and the dead Cedric. They're going to need the plot device to do it. Some people have been asking why Cedric's memory was tarnished as opposed to any of the other dead characters, but its just because of the father-son connection, as in Harry and Albus need a reflection of Cedric and Amos to realise their noble father-son bond, so we just need Amos and Cedric to awkwardly stand in the background and re-enact the main story while they do it. They're not actually part of the story, ie characters in their own right, they're just moving set pieces. Kind of callous, imho, but if thats all the author is capable of conjuring up in the way of drama, that's what it will have to be.

But first we have to get off this train.

Act One Scene 11 (Train Roof)

Anyway they're on the roof of the train and Scorpius has some banter that would be cute if he were capable of talking to Rose like she's a person instead of a perfume, and then we encounter...

The terminator... (its the Trolley Witch)

Trolley Witch: People don't know much about me. They buy my cauldron cakes but they never really notice me. I don't remember the last time someone asked my name.
Albus: What is your name?
Trolley Witch: I've forgotten. All I can tell you is that when the Hogwarts Express first came to be - Ottoline Gambol herself offered me this job...

Yeah its bad. The mention of Ottoline Gambol (I'd never heard of her - turns out she's one of the Headmistresses of the past, who definitely existed, much like the female Ministers that were being strong women occupying positions of power in the Wizarding World, but not during the course of the main story so we didn't have to listen to their whiny female voices) sent me to Pottermore, which suggests that JK is doubling down on one half of her Pottermore stuff, while removing and contradicting the other half (the time-turner article was removed).
Oh, that reminds me, there are three new books coming out; I think its just the pottermore stuff but in ebook format and you have to pay to read it??? Maybe Ottoline Gambol will reappear there?

Anyway, there's no salvaging the trolley witch. It gets worse, her pumpkin pastys turn into grenades, her hands turn into spikes, Sirius and the Twins get name-dropped (please leave them out of this). Like you know sometimes when someone else is doing something embarrassing you get second hand embarrassment watching them do it that gets worse when they don't realise they're doing something embarrassing? That was me this entire passage. I really wish they'd just left the Trolley Witch alone as one of the lower class set dressing pieces to bolster the nostalgia of the text because turning her into some kind of inhuman terminator is really rubbing me the wrong way, honestly.

Anyway with Albus and Scorpius off to badger Amos after jumping off a train, I'll leave it there until next time.

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Okay, I haven't read the-fanfic-that-is-canon yet, but -

It gets worse, her pumpkin pastys turn into grenades, her hands turn into spikes -

No. Seriously? You were *serious* about the 'terminator' reference?

Gawd blimey.

... while removing and contradicting the other half (the time-turner article was removed).

This is the most interesting element of CC for me; to pick up the new canon errors, plot holes, contradictions with the previous canon and so forth.

And this - her removing old articles from her site?

Priceless.

Oh, that reminds me, there are three new books coming out; I think its just the pottermore stuff but in ebook format and you have to pay to read it???

From an article I read just yesterday - might have been on The Leaky Cauldron - it's *mostly* Pottermore stuff, but some NEW ORIGINAL MATERIAL WRITTEN BY J. K. ROWLING HERSELF OMG RUSH TO BUY BUY BUY LET'S HEAR THOSE CASH REGISTERS RING! and they cost roughly three ... dollars? Euros? Three somethings. :-)

The cash cow continues to just roll along ...

[penguinsuzie.livejournal.com]

To my oldest son I give one of my most prized possessions; the Invisibility Cloak, one of the Deathly Hallows and passed down from my grandfather to my father and eventually to me. To my only daughter some fairly cool fairy wings. To my youngest; my horrid aunt didn't bin this when I was dumped on their doorstep and I just found out it exists, so here's some old blanket that survived the horrific event that killed your grandparents.

[traverse.livejournal.com]

when your Great Aunt Petunia died

This is just a blip under the radar in the grand scheme of things, but didn't she die rather early? '19 years later' she was what, barely into her fifties? With female life expectancy at over 80? Sure, illnesses and accidents happen, but shouldn't we then be told? In any case, this would be a moderately tragic event, even if there was never any love lost between Harry and the Dursleys. It's his mother's sister who died after all, his only family who actually knew her, and Harry is angsting over a blanket he never knew existed until it was invented as a plot device?

But good to see that Harry never grew out of his special-snowflakiness.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

"...Because at least you have a dad. I didn't"

At least whoever wrote this got something right. My mother was orphaned young, and she would throw the distaff version in my face every time we'd argue or I'd get all teen-angsty on her. At least Harry hasn't thrown in the bit about never arguing and always obeying... yet.

[thesleepingbeauty]

Damn, Harry fails SO HARD at being a dad. He's not a good husband either imo.

I want to sympathize with him because I know he how cheated he was of a childhood, and how he always wanted a family life, but ... I think Harry just liked the idea of marriage/kids, not the actual reality of it. Maybe it's because he still puts his parents on a pedistal and thinks his parents were some kind of tragic fairytale. Also, he never got the therapy he so clearly needed and JKR obviously didn't feel the need to write that. I don't know, but the guy has plenty of issues and apparently he's taking them out on his family.

But it's "the boy who lived", so I guess that means most of the characters/fandom won't acknowledge how immature and selfish he can be at times.

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

I'm going to put in a slightly different point of view. Of COURSE Harry fails as a dad! Where had he ever seen a GOOD one to model himself after? Where would he have ever learned how to be a good one?

And it isn't as if there appear to be 'mind healers' available to help one figure out the right ways to aim to raise 'healthy" in mind children.

The series is filled with failed families. Harry sees the Weasleys as the best standard - and they certainly are dysfunctional in their own ways! A family where the children do not appear to be treated equally, so why would Harry think he treating children equally should be a concern. Yes, he knew it bothered Ron, but he never 'understood' why since compared to his own childhood vs Dudley, he didn't see the favoritism as all that bad in the Weasley family.

Harry's standard for 'all is well' is set incredibly low.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Everything Amos is saying is calculated by Delphi (who has him under the imperius)/

Oh, that's why he's bringing this up now. I thought that it was silly that Amos was only now telling Harry to get his son back and blaming him for Cedric's death when he and his wife didn't blame Harry for anything at the end of GOF.

/He says he'll have to use his invisibility cloak to hide it, and Ginny appears telling him that thats not why Harry gave him that cloak./

So, why did Harry give James the Invisibility Cloak? In fact, this is something that Albus could have brought up during their argument. Harry has 3 kids. One who seems to be popular at school, another who's not in school yet, and another who's being bullied. Who do you think would get the most use out of the Cloak?

I mean, I know that Albus shouldn't use the Cloak all the time as an escape from his problems, but I'm sure that he'd appreciate the brief respite that the Cloak could give him.

/Albus got a gift of love potion from Ron/

A date rape drug. He gave his nephew a date rape drug. One that he's experienced the effects of personally. But, hey, it's fine! Nothing truly bad happened to Ron while he was under the Love Potion. Nobody tried to assault him while he was drugged, so surely it'll be the same way for everybody.

/Harry presents Albus with "the last thing I had from my mum./

And why did Ginny have to be absent from this? Why couldn't she still be there while Harry gave the blanket (which nobody cared about until this play) to Albus? She was there when her other kids got gifts. Is it because she would've realized what a big jerk Harry was being to their son and told him to cut it out, thus undercutting the melodrama of this scene?

/I'd like to be with it on the night they died - and that could be good for the two of us..."/

The "two of us?" So, it wouldn't be good for James Jr. and Lily Jr.? Does Harry plan to bring his other two kids along? Why does Albus Severus have to bear the brunt of this? Does Harry tell James Jr. that his gift is important because if his grandfather had had it with him when Voldemort came knocking, he might not have died? And why would Lily Sr. want Albus Severus specifically to have the blanket, as opposed to, again, her other two grandchildren?

/Harry, in a typical (for him) bit of adult bad parenting says, yeah, well maybe I wish you weren't my son./

Harry, you're not a teenager. You're a grown man. It's one thing for a teenager to throw out this line, it's quite another for the parent to say it.

/Because at least you have a dad. I didn't/

Now I remember a line from Lady Clarke in "The ABC Murders" by Agatha Christie.

"‘I didn’t like her. I never liked her. Car thought all the world of her. Used to go on about her being an orphan and alone in the world. What’s wrong with being an orphan? Sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise. You might have a good-for-nothing father and a mother who drank — then you would have something to complain about.’"

/I wonder if Ginny ever gets nightmares from her year in DH and Harry has to comfort her?/

Or her year in CoS.

/Well, it would be nice if Rose was here to be friends/ an integral part of the plot/

I know that some people would argue that if there was a Trio, it would just be a rehash of HP, but why couldn't Rose have been the Hermione of the group? Or the Ron, even? Why couldn't she have come with the boys on their adventure? But, if she's still going to be an arrogant brat, then maybe it's a good thing that she didn't.

/I mean they hug to say hello, a purely platonic hug now that the heterosexual credentials have been sufficiently brandished./

Honestly, there was really nothing stopping the writers from making Albus/Scorpius canon. They're new characters, JKR already said that Dumbledore was gay in an interview so it's not like that door hasn't been opened yet, and the myriad of yaoi ships in the HP fandom has been established for years, so they wouldn't have to worry about a huge backlash from fans. If they really wanted to make Albus and Scorpius fancy girls (because the whole Rose/Scorpius farce adds so much to the play), then they could've made them bisexual.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

They commiserate over being bullied about their names

In her case, that may have something to do with the fact that Delphinius is a male name; the female version would be Delphinia. Given that old wizarding families like giving their children Latinate names, they really ought to have grokked the difference between the masculine and feminine genders by now...