Harry always wanted a "normal life". You know... simple, peaceful, a home, a family, and no reporters constantly in his face. He never chased fame. All he ever really wanted was normalcy.
And yet… he marries Ginny Weasley, a professional Quidditch player. Which means their family is now under the spotlight not only because Harry is “the Savior of the Wizarding World,” but also because Mum is a famous ex-athlete. (I mean, I’m being generous assuming she was actually that good — good enough to be famous — but okay, let’s go with it.)
Ginny, who supposedly didn’t like Harry “just because he was famous,” chooses one of the most public, high-profile careers in the wizarding world. She could’ve picked any career, she could’ve even become an Auror, like Harry, but nah, she chose the path of celebrity.
Later on, Ginny settles into being a Quidditch correspondent at the Daily Prophet, which is less public-facing… but by then, she’s already made a name for herself as a Harpies star.
(I’m not saying it’s wrong or terrible that Ginny became a professional Quidditch player and earned fame on her own merit, that’s admirable. But to me, it’s clear that she enjoys a lifestyle and level of attention that Harry tends to avoid.)
In contrast, Draco Malfoy, someone who carries the weight of a controversial family name and a past tied to the Death Eaters, chose to step away from the spotlight, to avoid media harassment, suspicious looks, public judgment, and potential threats. He deliberately chose a quiet, discreet life, prioritizing the safety and well-being of his wife and son.
It’s curious how Draco ends up being the one who builds a family life rooted in privacy and emotional safety — exactly the kind of life that best aligns with what Harry always wanted.
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Of course, if Draco and Harry ever became a couple, the media and the public would never leave them alone. But apparently, the two of them would be perfectly comfortable keeping their life out of the spotlight.
I don't have many issues with cc but the Bellatrix Voldemort daughter is just so unrealistic. How do you explain that and the fact it's straight up from a wattpad fanfic?
I just don't think that it's unrealistic.
There have been different theories. Some have said that Delphi might have been conceived magically etc. Personally, I think that her being Bellatrix and Voldemort's daughter is plausible.
Bellatrix's absence between the battle of the 7 Potters and Malfoy Mannor makes it fine in terms of the timeline. Bellatrix' obsession with Voldemort surpassing the regular devotion other death-eaters showed is not fanon. It was in the text. It's also heavily hinted that Voldemort actually appreciated Bellatrix's commitment despite being unable to love and being downright cruel and abusive. I genuinely don't remember him trying to avenge any of his other followers' deaths, or losing control of his power to the point that he blasts back several people in a wide ratnge "as [his] fury at the fall of his last, best leutenant exploded with the force of a bomb."
I can understand why some fans struggle with someone as dehumanized as Voldemort, who actually wanted to exceed his mortality, having sex. How does it make sense for someone who doesn't feel love and who wants to transcend his humanity to have sex, right? I know the arguments that can be made against this choice. But Tom was also someone who was afraid of death. He split his soul, but he still clinged to a mortal body and spent several years trying to return to his own form. People who don't experience attraction are not necessarily above basic urges. Voldemort's twisted body is one of the few human-like things that he still has and carnal experiences are still part of that. Unlike love, he could process desire more easily: "He desired her, that was all," sneered Voldemort, "but when she had gone, he agreed that there were other women, and of purer blood, worhier of him - ".
There is a certain irony in Tom splitting his soul to ensure that he will endure, but having a child being the only part of him that does, as it tends to happen with regulat people, that I appreciate.
So I recently started listening to Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, a beautiful podcast that takes the idea that we can read literature in the way we would read a sacred text and applies that to Harry Potter. Each week they examine one chapter of the books through a specific theme, and inspired by that I decided to watch tonight’s performance of Hpplayldn with the theme of bravery in mind.
I expected to spend a lot of time thinking about the Malfoys — the reason I picked bravery as a theme is because it’s something that Scorpius talks about a lot, and I realised that it’s something which heavily influences Draco’s actions too. But as I was watching I was struck by just how much this theme underpins the Potters’ journey too, perhaps even more so.
At the beginning of the show Albus expresses a desire to be in a house of brave wizards, and so many of his actions reflect that. He’s grown up surrounded by Gryffindor heroes, and I realised just how much that affects him. His personal idea of bravery seems to be the swashbuckling, world saving type. He sees his dad as utterly fearless, and that standard is a constant pressure on him. I think that’s what drives him to want to save Cedric — not just that kinship he feels with the other spare, but a need to prove himself as the sort of person who is brave enough to save someone his dad couldn’t.
Interestingly, I think that what Albus and Scorpius learn about bravery over the course of the show is very similar. They both learn that bravery isn’t just about the sort of courage that storms into battle and save the world, it’s also about expressing emotions and revealing yourself to the people you love. Scorpius learns that that’s the bravery he himself has, and Albus learns that that’s the bravery he and his dad need to find to fix their problems.
Because running alongside that you have Harry’s story. Yes, Harry is very brave, very bold, very courageous. We know that. But in the show Harry’s actions are constantly led by fear. He is so scared for his son that he’s driven deeper and deeper down the path of doing deeply flawed things to try and protect Albus. He spends so much of the show running from the past, and as he says to Draco in Part Two, that’s what blights Albus’s present.
Another person who I was really fascinated by in the context of bravery was Hermione. In a way she’s the most fearless person in the show. She never really admits a vulnerability. Even when she’s falling apart, she puts on this brave face and pretends that everything’s fine. And in the normal timeline she’s the person holding things together and offering Harry reassurances that they can fight whatever they end up facing. I’m really excited to keep following her through Part Two, and see where she goes in terms of this particular theme.
There are so many questions I came out of Part One with, about specific characters and about societies — what is the idealised concept of bravery in the Voldemort timeline for example, a world where Gryffindor has been eradicated? — so I’m really excited to watch the second half of the show with this theme in mind tomorrow.
To round this post off there are a couple of final things I want to do, again that I’ve taken from the podcast. The first is to talk about how I’m going to apply what I’ve learned to my own life.
At the moment bravery is something that I really need, and it’s reassuring to know that there are so many different ways of being brave. Simply having the courage to get through something even if it’s hard is an act of bravery, and that’s something I want to remember. You don’t have to be saving the world or jumping off trains to be brave. Sometimes it’s just telling someone you love them, or asking for help, which is definitely the sort of bravery I could use more of.
The second thing is to offer blessings for one or more of the characters in the context of the theme, and I want to offer blessings for the three characters I’ve mentioned in this post so far.
I want to offer a blessing for Albus, and everyone who struggles to realise their own bravery. May you find and accept your own strengths and feel peace in who you are.
I want to offer a blessing for Harry, and everyone who is afraid. May you find clarity in your fear so you can better understand it and face it with courage rather than running away.
And finally I want to offer a blessing for Hermione, and everyone who has the courage and strength to reassure others. May you find reassurance from others where you need it and remember that you’re not alone as you lead the way.
So looking at @marisdrawings‘ Draco’s office scene art for too long has given me all sorts of meta feels, and I’m not okay, so I thought I’d share.
There’s a beautiful parallel that Jamie G and James have created between the scene in Draco’s office, and the final scene between Harry and Albus. When Draco says “there’s more of her in there than I thought” he points to Scorpius’s heart, and when Harry says “I know that heart is a good one” he does the same to Albus. I’ve never realised it so clearly before, but those lines are a perfect compliment to each other.
Both line says something so powerful about these two parents overcoming their past (their prejudices, the unstoppable and unfortunate course of their lives), and learning to see their sons for who they are, as people who are strong and brave and nuanced, and who are setting out on their own path through the world. Those paths aren’t the ones Harry and Draco would have chosen for them or expected of them, but in each of these scenes they’re seeing the core of their sons and coming to an understanding of the people they are and the choices they’ve made. They respect them and want them to succeed, and finally learn how to free their sons of the past: by accepting their sons and helping them carve out their own space in the world, whatever that space might be.
There’s a line in the scene between Harry and Draco in Harry’s office which is such a core part of the whole resolution of the play: “By trying to rewrite our pasts we’ve blighted their present”, and I think these scenes (which obviously come at very different moments in the play) reflect that resolution in a very compelling way.
This whole play is geared around time, and the past. The Time-Turner, aside from being an essential object within the plot, is actually a really powerful metaphor. The adults try to rewrite their past wrongs, and in doing so make their sons feel unloved and alone to the point that they go and try to fix things that cannot be fixed. They want to better their parents, not realising that the real way to do that is just to keep living and be themselves. They don’t realise that they’re enough as they are, because their parents don’t manage, for whatever reason, to tell them. So they take this artefact, destroy time, and only then do the adults truly realise the extent of the damage they’re unwittingly inflicting. What happens with the Time-Turner is a physical manifestation of the two families’ trauma.
For Draco and Scorpius, the Voldemort timeline is their shared personal nightmare. It exposes everything Scorpius has ever feared about his dad, and I imagine it exposes everything Draco has ever feared about himself. And they get the beginning of their resolution at the end of their scene together – when Draco recognises his son’s potential for goodness, and listens to him, and tells him that he’s not everything he fears he is, that he has his mother in him.
And Harry and Albus’s moment in the final scene, surrounded by Harry’s baggage, having faced the maze and Godric’s Hollow and everything that these two fragments of time represent for Harry, is exactly the same. Having come through all that, Harry manages to tell Albus that truly, whoever he is, whoever he wants to be, that he’s a good person who he loves and respects, and that he’s a good son who Harry values. In so many ways it’s just the same as the moment between Draco and Scorpius. The two sons’ arcs with their fathers are parallel and intertwined, and I love that the simple matching action of a father pointing to his son’s heart can show the extent of that, and how deeply these arcs run within every aspect of the play.
It’s things like this, revelations like this, that after more than a year and a half of watching this show keep me going back again and again. There’s always more to find. Always.
Can we talk about Scorpius on the Hogwarts Express at the start of fourth year? His context in that scene, what he’s bringing into it, isn’t as immediately obvious as Albus’s. We know what’s just happened to Albus: he’s just had that huge fight with his dad, he’s heard his dad refuse to help someone who loves his son, he’s upset and angry and determined. But what about Scorpius?
A year ago on that day, Scorpius was heartbroken and in tears in the train carriage because his mum had just died. When he boards the Hogwarts Express for fourth year, it’s probably only a small handful of days since the anniversary of his mum’s death. He’s probably feeling sad and reflective (we often see Scorpius looking miserable and uncertain in the background while Albus and Rose are talking about the Time-Turner). He’s probably also looking forward to seeing Albus and being cheered up by him. It’s been a year to the day too of course since Albus promised to be his good friend.
In the scene with Rose and Albus, and then in the scene with Albus alone, Scorpius cracks jokes, he throws himself into Albus’s quiz; he’s giving everything to be up beat and entertaining, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s trying to distract himself. Is this his way of coping with everything that’s going on in the background? By pretending there isn’t anything else going on, and focusing on whatever Albus’s latest mad scheme is?
I also can’t help but wonder how he feels when Albus brings up the Time-Turner. Time-Turners are something that have plagued Scorpius’s life for a long time, we know that, but there’s also what Albus is proposing doing with it. Albus wants to bring someone back from the dead with it. Maybe that makes Scorpius immediately think of his mum, or maybe it takes a while for that to dawn on him. However long it takes, we know that Scorpius is excited for time to be different. Perhaps that hope, the possibility of what a Time-Turner can mean, is part of what sends him up onto the train roof.
I think there are a lot of things going on with Scorpius that day that make him go along with the plan rather than trying to talk Albus out of it: Albus’s hug, the memories of last year and Scorpius’s loyalty to Albus’s friendship, the hope that the Time-Turner provides, the need for a distraction... On any other day, would Scorpius follow Albus onto the roof? Maybe, probably, but possibly not. However, on that day he does, for a variety of reasons, and those reasons are also what bring about the argument in the library scene. Scorpius’s positivity shows him hope during the train ride, and reality brings that hope crashing down around his ears over the next couple of acts...
Who or what do you really think was the dark cloud that Bane said was around Albus? Do you think it was Albus's pain like Draco said in The Potter's kitchen or do you think it was Delphi?
I think it could be both? Ultimately, of course, it’s probably Delphi. She’s the real child of Voldemort, and the first black cloud Harry thinks of is Voldemort, he just cuts Albus off from the wrong person as a result of that, because he doesn’t have all the information.
But I do think it’s important to note that Harry often jumps to conclusions with Albus based on his own past. The idea that the black cloud could be Voldemort very much comes from Harry’s experiences. Voldemort was definitely the black cloud around his childhood, so why would it not be around Albus’s too?
And that’s not the only example we see of that (all of the blanket scene, and Harry giving Albus the Hogsmeade permission form, bringing him to the station every year). Harry says, “we tried to give our sons not what they needed but what we needed”, and that’s where all his problems come from with regard to Albus. He doesn’t know how to be the parent Albus needs, he only knows how to be the parent he needed when he was growing up. Which works for Lily and James, but not for Albus because he’s so different and feels so much pressure from Harry’s past.
So I think that in the end, although Voldemort is present and has a hold on Albus, Draco is also right. Albus is full of misery and pain that Harry doesn’t seem to recognise, or if he does recognise it, he doesn’t know what to do about it. I think it’s telling that in the scene in Albus’s dorm he asks for the first time if Albus is okay, and Albus says no. Maybe before that he hadn’t even realised how much of a mess Albus was in, he just assumed Albus was being obstructive and angry for no reason. That scene is the start of Harry recognising Albus’s problems, and Draco’s words are actually a part of that. He asks Albus that question maybe a few hours after the duel chronologically, so it must still be in his mind.
I think you could also make the argument that Harry himself is Albus’s black cloud. The pressure of the Potter name, having to live up to his father’s legacy, all that expectation, and Albus feels himself failing over and over again. He knows he’s failed, because he talks to Scorpius about it (his speech in the ‘slumber party’ about going back for Cedric is all about how he’s failed, failed himself, failed the world, failed his best friend, and failed again to be as great as his dad was). And we also know that he hates being compared to his dad (“My father proved that you don’t have to be grownup to change the Wizarding World.” “So I should allow you to help because you’re a Potter. Relying on your famous name, are you?” “No!”).
All of the pain and misery and failure Albus feels stems initially from his dad. It’s a lot of other things too, but his father’s history, his family, even the names he’s been given, add to the dark cloud. And isn’t it sort of poetic that both Harry and Voldemort are Albus’s black cloud? They’re wrapped up together in that. A continuation of their shared story and conflict all tied up in Harry’s son. And ultimately, of course, they defeat Voldemort, and Harry works out how to connect with Albus, so on a sunny hillside, Albus’s dark cloud melts away.
This is really stating the obvious, but it just hit me like a ton of bricks that the whole trip to the graveyard, Harry and Albus standing among Harry’s baggage, Harry showing Albus Cedric’s grave, is literally “Be honest with those you love. Show them your pain”.
I knew the lines about Harry’s fears were in reference to that, but really it’s the whole scene. About how scared he is of being a father to Albus. About his relationship with Voldemort, and all the things he had to learn. About the loss of Cedric and how he’s still trying to say sorry. Every single thing is the embodiment of Dumbledore’s advice to him.
I try to avoid thinking about Act Four, Scene Twelve if I can help it, but sometimes it comes floating into my head and brings intense pain with it. So let’s talk about one of Albus’s lines!
Albus takes his hand. Harry grasps hold of it. He needs it.
Albus: He did everything he could.
That’s Albus comforting his dad. During the time he spends in Godric’s Hollow, Albus begins to understand the pain his dad has gone through. He sees his grandparents and the beautiful life his dad had with them for a very short time, and he realises what a gift it actually was to be given the blanket; how important that was.
And that all culminates in this moment, when Albus looks beyond himself and focuses completely on his dad’s struggle. It’s a direct reconciliation, in a way, for the earlier exchange:
Harry: At least you’ve got a dad. Because I didn’t okay?
Albus: And you think that was unlucky? I don’t.
He’s seeing the importance and the loss of Harry’s dad, and he’s also realised how important Harry is to him. He’s really there for Harry in that moment, because he wants to be and he needs to be. He offers Harry a hand, and the small words of comfort he can come up with, because he knows how hard it must be for Harry.
I think they both need each other in that moment. Harry needs Albus’s support and love, the love of his family, and Albus needs his dad to help him through this horrific thing they’re witnessing. Albus needs Harry to be okay. He’s just saved Harry’s life once, and now they’re all there saving it again by letting these awful events happen as they’re meant to.
And actually, what Albus is letting happen is the root of all his issues with Harry. So much of the pressure on Albus comes from Harry being ‘The Famous Harry Potter’, and having to live up to that. And Harry became famous because of this moment. When Lily and James are killed, but Harry survives the killing curse. This is the creation of the figure that Albus has always struggled with, happening right in front of his very eyes. And he’s okay with letting it happen because for the first time he’s managed to see beyond that.
He’s seen his dad just as a person, not as a hero. He’s watching his dad break down and cry next to him. He’s seen his dad’s plan fail, and had to step in and help save him. He’s realised that he does have something to contribute, and that his dad does love him. So he’s okay with letting the famous and terrible events happen, and with helping his dad let them happen, because he's starting to understand that whatever happens, despite the fame and heroism, in the end his dad is just his dad.
It’s going to take him a while longer to really process all that, and wrap his head round it. That doesn’t really properly happen until the end of the play, in the graveyard. But he’s getting there, and he’s already beginning to work it out, even if he doesn’t quite understand it all yet. And I think this is a huge moment in him figuring it all out, and beginning to accept everything.
