Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two recap

Set nineteen years after the fall of Voldemort, the play follows Harry Potter's unhappy son Albus, who is sorted into Slytherin and befriends Scorpius Malfoy. Straining against his father's legend, Albus overhears the grieving Amos Diggory beg Harry to save Cedric with a Time-Turner, and, encouraged by Amos's niece Delphi, the boys steal the device and travel back to the Triwizard Tournament to prevent Cedric's death. Their meddling warps the present again and again, at its worst producing a nightmare world where Voldemort won and Harry is dead, which Scorpius barely undoes with help from a still-living Snape and others. Back in a restored present, Delphi reveals herself as the secret daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, bent on resurrecting her father. She forces the boys through time and travels to Godric's Hollow on the night in 1981 when Voldemort first attacked the Potters, meaning to change history in his favor. Albus and Scorpius summon Harry and the others; together they defeat Delphi and let the true past unfold. Harry and Albus, and Harry and Draco, are reconciled by what they have survived.

Over seven earlier books, the orphaned wizard Harry Potter discovered he was famous in the magical world as the only person to survive the killing curse of the dark wizard Voldemort, who had murdered his parents. Across his years at Hogwarts School, Harry, with his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, repeatedly thwarted Voldemort's return to power. In their fourth year, Voldemort returned to a body and a schoolmate, Cedric Diggory, was killed. Harry learned that Voldemort had split his soul into hidden objects to make himself deathless, and with Ron and Hermione he hunted and destroyed them, culminating in the Battle of Hogwarts, where Voldemort was finally killed and the wizarding world freed. Nineteen years later, Harry has married Ginny Weasley and has children; Ron and Hermione have married and have a daughter; and Draco Malfoy, Harry's old school rival, has a son of his own. The war is history, but its wounds and its enemies have not entirely faded.

As the play opens, Harry and Ginny's son Albus is starting at Hogwarts, dreading life as the famous Harry Potter's child. On the train he befriends Scorpius Malfoy, a kind and lonely boy shadowed by a nasty rumor, and the two become inseparable. To Albus's dismay he is sorted into Slytherin and proves a mediocre student, and over the next few school years he grows more miserable and more estranged from his father, until the two can barely speak without wounding each other. The grieving Amos Diggory arrives to confront Harry, demanding that the Ministry use a rumored Time-Turner to go back and save his son Cedric, who died long ago; Harry refuses. Albus, overhearing, resolves to do what his father will not. He meets Amos's niece Delphi, who encourages him, and determines to steal the Time-Turner and undo Cedric's death, hoping at last to prove himself and do something that matters.

Albus and Scorpius run away from the Hogwarts Express and, with Delphi's help, get hold of the Ministry's confiscated Time-Turner. Believing that saving Cedric is the right thing to do, they travel back to the Triwizard Tournament to sabotage his performance in the first task, reasoning that if he never wins the tournament he will never reach the danger that killed him. But changing the past has consequences the boys do not foresee. When they return to the present, the world has shifted around them in unsettling ways, relationships and lives rearranged by their interference. Alarmed, they realize that meddling with time is far more dangerous than they imagined, and that fixing one grief has unraveled things they never meant to touch. Determined to put matters right, they resolve to use the Time-Turner again, not understanding how much worse their next attempt can make things.

The boys' second attempt to save Cedric goes catastrophically wrong. Their interference humiliates Cedric so deeply that, in the timeline it creates, he turns to Voldemort's side, and the ripple of that change produces a nightmare present: Voldemort won the war, Harry is dead, and a cruel regime rules the wizarding world. Scorpius, separated from Albus and finding himself alone in this dark reality, must navigate a Hogwarts run by fear, where a still-living Severus Snape, along with Ron and Hermione as hunted rebels, help him understand what has happened. Snape sacrifices himself so that Scorpius can act, and Scorpius manages to reverse the change and restore the proper world, reuniting with Albus. Shaken but grateful, the boys return to a present that is nearly right again, their meddling seemingly at an end, still trusting the friend who first urged them on and unaware of who she truly is.

Delphi's true purpose is revealed: she is the secret daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, and she has used the boys all along to reach the past and restore her father's power. She seizes the Time-Turner, strands and threatens Albus and Scorpius, and travels to Godric's Hollow on the night in 1981 when Voldemort attacked the infant Harry, meaning to stop the curse that destroyed him. The boys contrive a way to summon Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Draco to that night. Together they confront and overpower Delphi, and Harry endures the agony of watching his own parents die rather than let history be broken, so that Voldemort's downfall unfolds as it truly did. Delphi is captured and imprisoned. In the calm afterward, Harry and Albus finally reach each other, their long estrangement healing into understanding, and Harry and Draco's old enmity gives way to a wary respect. Having learned that some griefs cannot and should not be undone, the two families face the future together.

Delphi is revealed as the hidden child of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, and her plan is to undo her father's defeat. After forcing Albus and Scorpius to help her travel back in time, she goes to Godric's Hollow on the night in 1981 when Voldemort came to kill the infant Harry, intending to stop the rebounding curse that destroyed him. The boys manage to summon Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Draco to that night. Together they confront and overpower Delphi, and Harry endures the anguish of standing by while his own parents are killed so that history runs its true course and Voldemort is once again undone. Delphi is captured and imprisoned. In the aftermath, the long rift between Harry and Albus finally heals as father and son come to understand each other, and Harry's old enmity with Draco softens into something like respect. Scorpius and Albus remain fast friends, having saved their world by choosing, in the end, not to change the past. The dangerous Time-Turner and the temptation it represents are set aside, and the two families step into a steadier future.