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It's 2:49 a.m. and I just finished "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child."

The latest magical installment from J.K. Rowling went on sale around the world at 12:01 this morning, and I'm not alone in tearing through it before the sun has even thought about coming up.

Of course, this "Harry Potter" book is not a 

 — it's a script, for a play that opened last night in London. Finishing a 300-page script in one sitting is eminently more doable than trying to race to the end of the 759-page "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" — the last book, which came out in 2007. Not that I didn't try that, too.

Everything you need to know about 'Harry Potter' in two minutes

I grew up reading "Potter": The first book hit the U.S. when I was in fifth grade, the last one came out when I was in college. I've read them all. I've seen all the movies (do yourself a favor and skip the first two). I've had a lightning bolt drawn on my forehead more than once in my life.

 there would be no more "Harry Potter" books. But since this isn't a 

... consider "The Cursed Child" a sneaky way around that oath. She crafted it in collaboration with playwright Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.

Ever since the news broke that the play would be coming, that we really hadn't seen the last of Harry, Hermione and Ron, that Rowling just couldn't leave Hogwarts behind, fans have been debating: Will it be worth it? Can it compare to the books?

Here's my caffeine-soaked, slightly bleary-eyed, listening-to-the-crickets verdict: Yes and yes. It may not have all the connective tissue of the books (it is, after all, confined to stage directions and dialogue), but Rowling has built a world so detailed and engrossing that it's easy, and almost comforting, to slip back into a reality where you can run through train station walls and consult oil paintings for advice.

And if that's all you want to hear before you dive in and see for yourself, stop reading now, because here be spoilers.

'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' brings back the magic

The script picks up twenty-plus years after the grand finale of the books: the fateful (and very fatal) battle at Hogwarts. Harry Potter is now near 40. Hermione's the Minister of Magic. And Ron can't sit down without an "oof" sound. (Wizards, it turns out, are not exempt from midlife joint pains.)

But the story is not about them. It's about the next generation — specifically Harry's son Albus, who befriends none other than Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius. Anyone who felt that Harry's and Draco's contentious and complicated relationship wasn't sufficiently resolved in the original books can now watch the sins of the fathers visited upon the sons.

Whereas Harry and Draco ruled their respective Hogwarts houses, Albus and Scorpius appear to be unremarkable, unpopular and as unlike their fathers as possible. Both are in Slytherin (Gasp! Harry Potter's son is in Slytherin? You're as scandalized as most of the peripheral characters in this play.), and they make it to their fourth year in Hogwarts before the trouble truly starts. Whoever thought teaching the most critical lessons of magic to teenagers, just as they hit their most hormonal and angsty, was a good idea deserves to have their wand revoked.

The trouble is the return of Voldemort (yes, that's always the trouble, in every book). Rumors are swirling that he sired an heir — a "Cursed Child" that will bring him back to power. After two decades of peace, no one wants to dismiss those rumors more than Harry, but when his scar starts hurting for the first time in 20 years, he knows that evil is rising.

Driving the play is the troubled relationship between Harry and Albus: Harry can't understand how his son could be so different from him, and Albus resents the constant, burdensome comparisons to his legendary father. Their rift drives Albus to try and make a name for himself, by attempting to undo one of the most tragic moments of the original series.

If anyone else, after the "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" book came out, thought: 

Gee, these time-turner devices that allow people to go back in time and change the course of  history seem like they are way more dangerous than anyone else is admitting

, then "The Cursed Child" is a vindication of your paranoia.

You can feel Rowling's playful delight in this plot: Sending Albus and Scorpius back in time to romp through — and occasionally destroy — the so-carefully-plotted events of her original books. She rewrites her own story — the one so many know by heart — punching holes and asking, "But what if?"

Fans really should have seen this coming. In 2014, Rowling 

that she felt she'd made a mistake in the books: Ron and Hermione never should have gotten together, she said. In "The Cursed Child," she toys with righting that wrong.

Despite all this magical revisionist history, the core of "The Cursed Child" is the same as the books before it: Friendship is hard. Love is harder. But they may be the only things that can save you from the dark.

In this time-traveling, father-son-reckoning return to Hogwarts, not everything is perfect: The story feels rushed. (And not just because it's almost 3 a.m.) The new fleet of characters, mainly the offspring of characters we know and love, are not as developed. I wish Hermione had more to do.

And I'm still curious, as I think all fans are, about the theatrical format. Why not a novel? Rowling tweeted last June that she was "confident that when audiences see the play they will agree it was the only proper medium for the story." 

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/614336514609278976

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/614336680158433280


Having only read it — since I don't live in England and I don't have 

 — this one's still up in the air for me. Maybe when it expands to Broadway and beyond, which Rowling 

 that it will soon, we can all see for ourselves.

For now, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is absolutely worth reading for any fans who have been missing Hogwarts these last ten years. This may really be the last we hear from the boy (now man) wizard. Rowling 

at the play's premiere that there would be no more — that "Harry is done now."

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Tracy Mumford

Author

The latest installment in J.K. Rowling's magical series brings readers back to the magic of Hogwarts after a decade away.

I stayed up all night and read 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'

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