
WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD IN THIS STORY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
The Harry Potter series and tears are synonymous for me.
I cried when Sirius died. I sobbed when Fred was killed. But when Dumbledore died in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince? Crying is an understatement – I howled and ugly-cried until my face was swollen and the pages smudged and tear-stained.
Yes, I get a little too attached to book characters.
I was ready to repeat this with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the final ‘installment’ of the series released yesterday. After securing myself a copy, I shut myself in my room, curled up on my bed and started to read, exactly as I had done just over nine years ago with the final book and all the books before it.
I really wish I hadn’t.
A few hours later (this one’s nowhere near the ready-made doorstop size as its predecessors) I closed the book.
I hadn’t cried once.
The pages were pristine. There was a faint smile or internal ‘ha!’ in a few places but despite the usual events of death, admirable displays of friendship and good triumphing over evil, my eyes were dry. NOTHING. (And this coming from someone who tears up in adverts.)

Expectation versus reality. Image: Supplied
Written by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne and overseen by JK Rowling, Cursed Child is the script of the play of the same name currently showing in London.
Picking up 19 years later, where the epilogue in the Deathly Hallows left off, Harry, Ron and Hermione are all parents of next-generation Hogwarts students.
The play centres on Harry and Ginny's middle son, Albus, and his friendship with Scorpius Malfoy - yes, Malfoy - after they both get sorted into Slytherin (I know!). We see Albus struggle to live up to the reputation of his wizarding legend father, and Harry in return struggle to have a relationship with a son who is so unlike him.
It's got all the characters we know and love, plus their children we've long imagined. Harry, Ron and Hermione are grown up, a little tired and flawed - just like we are. But that's where the similarity to the other seven books really ends. (Post continues after gallery.)
