JOIN US The wizarding saga of Harry Potter continues even 20 years since the release of the first book with the story continuing as a play, which premiered recently in London.
Bound in a book form, the script 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' is all about 'saving the spare' alluding to the heartbreaking sacrifice of the life of 17 year-old Cedric Diggory, who was Harry's 'spare' in the fourth Potter book 'Goblet of Fire'.
The Dark Lord Voldemort had then said, "Kill the spare."
Now, author of the Potter series J K Rowling with the help of writer Jack Thorne and theatre director John Tiffany, takes a journey back in time to change the present and the future by altering the past.
Only this time, the wheel of adventure is being steered not by the trio of Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley but an uncanny pair of Potter and Malfoy - Harry Potter's younger son Albus Severus Potter and Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius Malfoy.
'The Cursed Child' takes off from where the epilogue of the final of the series 'Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows' left off.
Both boys, owing to their skewed relationships with their respective fathers, end up becoming the best of friends. Interestingly, Albus is his first year is sorted into House Slytherin instead of Gryffindor.
Albus who constantly reels under the pressure of living up to the "brave" deeds of his father, takes upon himself with Scorpius tagging along to use the Ministry of Magic's time-turner and save Cedric from being killed in the Triwizard Tournament.
He tells Amos, Cedric's father, "I know what it is to be the spare. Your son didn't deserve to be killed Mr Diggory. We can help you get him back."
They change certain events that lead to Cedric's death, and thus follows one roller coaster ride, actually three, to alternate realities, where either Voldemort rules, or Harry Potter is dead and Ron and Hermoine never get married.
The journeys into the past serve like a quick re-run of all the previous books with flashes interspersed from the past episodes.
Seeing an alive Dumbledore, Cedric and Snape evokes a sense of nostalgia and empathy among readers with Scorpius who is tempted to not return to the present.
With every trip that Albus and Scorpius took by turning time, Ludo Bagman's announcement of the Triwizard Tournament, "Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you - the greatest - the fabulous - the one - and the only Triwizard Tournament..." becomes more and more haunting.
Meanwhile, both boys befriend Amos' nurse, Delphi who also happened to be Cedric's cousin. She is shown helping Albus and Scorpius steal the time-turner from the Ministry but when the two realise their mistake and decide to destroy the time turner, Delphi reveals herself as - to the boys' and readers' disbelief - Voldemort's daughter, who now lives to resurrect her father.
The dark Lord is prophesied to come back, "When spares are spared, when time is turned, when unseen children murder their fathers: then will the Dark Lord return."
It will not be too fantastical, on part of the readers, to expect that soon the letters of her name would rearrange like Tom Riddle's from "Chamber of Secrets" to indicate her association with Voldemort. They don't, however.
Ans thus, the time turner rotates again back to the Triwizard tournament, with Bagman's voice haunting more than ever, as the witch dragged the disarmed, bound boys along the maze from the final task.
The decisive battle at Godric's Hollow on the day when the James and Lily Potter were killed by Voldemort, is conspicuously fought between Delphi and Harry with Hermione, Ron, Ginny and Draco by hios side. They had eventually managed to travel back in time to save the two boys.
"I've never fought alone you see. And I never will," Harry tells Delphi as all the previous battles are recreated.
Delphi is captured and sent to Azkaban. Before the official release of the book that comes after nine years, since "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" was published in 2007, many were sceptical about the play format of the book.
The change of genre, in fact, has lent the narrative a pace that only increase as the plot becomes darker and more convoluted.
The writing is crisp yet descriptive enough to conjure vivid imagery punctuated with an impeccably timed humour that serves as a comic relief.
The fandom for the magical world that Rowling had drawn with the Harry's first flick of wand at Olivanders' in the Diagon Alley is still throbbing within Potterheads, perhaps never to die, but it is only sad to know that this was all that there was to the phenomenon called "Harry Potter."