PLATFORM NINE AND
THREE-QUARTERS — 2019
The stage is swarming once again with wizards and witches, but there is a new air to the platform. Minister of Magic, PERCIVAL CLEARWATER, early forties, is taking attention away from the families of outbound students. PERCIVAL, joined by his entourage of bodyguards and assistants, is too busy fielding questions from the Daily Prophet REPORTERS to notice the arrival of the Potters. HARRY and ALBUS are first to enter.
ALBUS: You didn't need to bring me to the station, Dad.
HARRY: But I wanted to be here.
ALBUS: Then I'm just asking if you'll — if you'll just stand a little away from me. Everyone's staring at us again.
HARRY: Third years don't like to be seen with their dads, is that it?
ALBUS: No. It's just — you're you and — and I'm me and —
GINNY enters with JAMES and LILY, who is pushing a trolley of her own. GINNY can see from HARRY's expression that it's off to a bad start.
HARRY: It's just people looking, okay? People look. And they're looking at me, not you.
ALBUS: They're looking at Harry Potter...and his disappointing son.
HARRY: What does that mean?
ALBUS: At Harry Potter and his Slytherin son.
HARRY looks desperately at GINNY and she encourages him with a gesture. Awkwardly, HARRY pulls ALBUS into a side hug before reaching into his pocket for a leaf of parchment.
HARRY: Third year. Big year. (in a proud voice) Here — is your Hogsmeade permission form.
ALBUS: I hate Hogsmeade.
HARRY: How can you hate a place you haven't actually visited?
ALBUS takes the parchment from HARRY, crumples it, and throws it across the platform. HARRY goes after the parchment as JAMES provokes LILY, using his wizard's cap as a prop for the Sorting Hat.
JAMES: I've sorted high, I've sorted low, I've done the job through thick and thin. So put me on and you will know which House you should be in.
LILY: Stop it this instant.
JAMES: Are you afraid of what you'll hear? Afraid I'll speak the name you fear?
On the other side of the stage, HARRY continues to have trouble connecting with his son.
HARRY: ...there were Dementors all around the school, searching for the escapee, who — and I didn't realize this at the time — was my Godfather! It was extremely shortsighted of them to use Dementors, of course. Any number of students could've been —
ALBUS: Well, perhaps if you had been resourceful enough to use Dementors, Pariah Prince would've been caught by now.
HARRY (dazed): What?
LILY pushes her brother's cap away from her head.
LILY: Mum. He keeps saying it.
GINNY: James...stop being a nuisance.
JAMES: I only said she might be in Slytherin. And she might, so...
LILY (to GINNY): Do you think — what if I am — what if I'm —
YOU ARE READING
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (The M. Clifford MOD)
Fanfiction"It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and the father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where...
