WMG / Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

The Meta Reason Astoria Malfoy dies

is to punish Draco fangirls Since there isn't much canon personality of Astoria, she can easily adopt the personality of whatever character the writer wants, or the writer. The plot twist in Cursed Child, if accepted as canon, prevents fanfic writers who adore Draco from indulging in too much wish fulfillment. Come on, we all know this is why!

[[God sent the coronavirus pandemic to prove that Cursed Child isn't canon

]]It takes place in 2020. There are no references to the pandemic. Even if wizards aren't affected by the disease itself, there is no way it would go unnoticed and the affects on Muggle society wouldn't have an impact. This proves that Cursed Child is an alternate universe, because real world events in Muggle history are real in Harry Potter canon.

Delphi isn't actually Voldemort's daughter

Rodolphus Lestrange was the one to tell her she was, that doesn't necessarily mean it is true. There is a chance he was tricking her so she could bring back Voldemort. The Parseltongue could just be a convenience and a useful thing to help him convince her.

• Implying that Rodolphus was her real father? That seems unlikely, as all the known natural Parselmouths in the series are descended from Salazar Slytherin. There's no mention of any Parselmouths in the House of Black, so it probably didn't come from Bellatrix, meaning it came from the father. The Gaunts were the last known descendants of Slytherin, not the Lestranges. Besides, her proper Pureblood marriage to Rodolphus was loveless and probably sexless. Once Voldemort returned, it seems unlikely that she would have had eyes for anyone but the Dark Lord.
• Going with this and all the headcanons about her being intended as a Horcrux vessel: Voldemort is Delphi's father alright. But her mother is Nagini. Something this perverted would have been totally in character with Voldemort who considers himself an Übermensch and wouldn't touch another human in an intimate way. Also, Voldemort's mother wished for him to look as handsome as his father and I personally believe it was magic. What if Voldemort used the same magic to cast a glamour over his half (more-than-half?)-snake child?
  • Considering Fantastic Beasts ended up revealing Nagini was originally human, this isn't that far-fetched.
• As weak evidence toward this, Delphi is unknown in the future where Voldemort rules. On the other hand, his reason for having a child — bound to be utterly selfish — could explain it, because he could easily have had a child to use in a spell as he used his father's bones, and that could have killed her. Or he decided she was a potential rival after all, or even superfluous, and killed her. Still, her Parseltongue has to be explained. Perhaps a Squib cast off the Gaunt line produced a Muggleborn wizard after generations, and Voldemort picked her up as potentially useful.
  • She isn't unknown. The Augury is The Dreaded in that timeline; we just don't learn that she and Delphi are the same person until later.

Voldemort intended for Delphi to become his sixth Horcrux.

Voldemort clearly thought that having his soul split into seven pieces would make him invincible. With the diary's destruction, and him unaware of Harry's status, he thought he was one short (the locket, the cup, the diadem, the ring, the snake). Instead of wanting another object, he desired a living being that he could make into a servant, sort of like Nagini, except capable of casting magic. Voldemort has no desire for an heir, indeed the notion of one would offend him because it would imply that he would die. What he needed was a vessel for a piece of his soul.

• Why isn't this canon? It's actually a great idea.
• What if he intended on pulling out the bit of himself that was stuck in Harry and using Delphi as a vessel for it?
  • No way he'd willingly kill Harry if he knew that part of his soul was within Harry.

Delphi was conceived the night Dumbledore died.

If you look at the dates, it makes the most sense that Bellatrix got pregnant in June of 1997. She tells Snape and Narcissa "if I had sons..." in July of 1996, so she had to get pregnant after that. When she tortures Hermione and kills Dobby in late March of 1998, she's definitely not pregnant, and she dies about a month and a half after that on May 2nd, 1998, so she had to have already given birth by that point. There's almost a nine-month gap in between the end of June 1997 and early March 1998, though the baby would be a bit premature, which is not surprising given that Bellatrix was 47 at this point. She did fight in the Battle of the Seven Potters, but she would only have been about 1-month pregnant then, and may not have even known she was expecting yet. Draco is unaware of the existence of her child despite having lived in the same house with her during the last months of her pregnancy, though she does not wear a corset in the books, so it probably could have been concealed under her robes. Voldemort undoubtedly had one of his happiest moments when his hated enemy Dumbledore was killed, which is one of the only logical reasons why he would engage as something as human as sex.

• Going off of the above Troper's WMG, there's also the additional fact that Voldemort sometimes commemorated important murders by creating a Horcrux. He may have been intentionally creating the vessel for yet another Horcrux, the sixth one, which would split his soul again into the magically-powerful seven pieces to further spite the only one he ever feared.

Delphi was conceived by the start of the 6th book.

Bellatrix tells Narcissa that she would be honored to give up her “sons” to the service of the Dark Lord, which is weird for someone with no sons to say to someone with only one son, which could imply that one was already on the way. Not to mention, in the book, Bellatrix was strangely out of the action for the 6th book, including the Battle of the Tower and Dumbledore’s assassination, which is strange for her given her participation in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. She was likely either very pregnant or had recently given birth, but had recovered enough to participate in the Battle of the 7 Potters and take up her usual role once Voldemort completely took over the Ministry.

• Bellatrix's absence during Dumbledore's assassination can likely be chalked up to the fact that Voldemort didn't think Draco would actually succeed, which is why he planned for Snape to actually do it, and why he sent a B-team (including the incompetent Carrows, the werewolf Fenrir Greyback, and accidental Team Killer Thorfinn Rowle), to accompany Draco. The whole thing was a Uriah Gambit to punish Lucius for his failure, because Evil Cannot Comprehend Good and Voldemort likely assumed that Dumbledore would kill Draco in self defense. Voldemort wouldn't have wanted Draco's aunt, no matter how loyal she may be, to be there in case she decided to save her nephew.
  • She could have been conceived around the night of the Battle at the Department of Mysteries, with Rodolphus back in prison.

Delphi already is a Horcrux.

Pure guesswork on this one, but if Delphi was bred to become a Horcrux, Voldemort may have succeeded. If she was born before the Battle of the 7 Potters, Voldemort would have since personally killed a number of important people, including Mad-Eye, Scrimgeour and Grindelwald. Could this be the plot of a potential sequel?

• Unless Voldemort was saving her for Harry, the most significant murder of all.

Voldemort winning in the alternate timeline wasn't solely due to Cedric killing Neville

In the play, Scorpius guesses that the Bad Future came about because the humiliated Cedric became a Death Eater and killed Neville Longbottom before he could kill Nagini, the last horcrux, and render Voldemort mortal. However, they may be another reason - it could be partially down to this, as still having a surviving horcrux would have course meant that Voldemort was going to survive his final confrontation with Harry - but the inexplicable detail that brought about this theory is the survival of Snape. Snape was killed by Voldemort in an attempt to gain mastery of the Elder Wand before the Battle of Hogwarts, meaning the death of Neville in the battle should have no effect on this, and he should still be dead. However, what if Evil!Cedric worked out that the Elder Wand had in fact passed onto Draco, not Snape? If Voldemort knew this, not only would he have spared Snape, but he would have been able to win the final battle - he died because he dueled Harry believing he was the master of the Elder Wand when it was actually Harry due to his earlier disarming of Draco. Perhaps Cedric was present at Dumbledore's death in the alternate timeline, because after all, if you have a death eater working inside Hogwarts, he's probably going to be fighting in the battle, and he would likely be there when the headmaster and leader of the fight against Voldemort is killed. He could have seen Draco disarm Dumbledore before Snape killed him, realized what had happened later, and told Voldemort, leading to him either taking the Elder Wand from Draco before Harry could disarm him, giving him the upper hand in the final duel, or realizing that Harry was now its master and abstaining from challenging him in a duel, either way leading to Harry's death, Voldemort's victory, and the creation of the alternate timeline.

• However Voldemort's understanding of the Elder Wand was that the master needed to be killed, so this while a good explanation, doesn't explain away this understanding.
  • Another theory that goes further: Cedric Diggory started his Face–Heel Turn by joining the Inquisitorial Squad during Umbridge's tenure. At the end of the year Cedric's presence would've stopped Harry's friends from dispatching the Squad, even after getting rid of Umbridge, preventing Harry from going to the Ministry of Magic and retrieving the prophecy, so Lucius Malfoy was never arrested. Without the need to punish Lucius, Voldemort wouldn't have given the task to kill Dumbledore to Draco, maybe not even making him a Death Eater yet. Dumbledore would still get cursed by the ring but the circumstances of his death would be different, probably even dying on his own terms as in his original plan. The power of the Elder Wand would be lost, and without it Harry would still end up sacrificing himself, only this time he died for good. All the Horcruxes except for Nagini would still be found and destroyed but by killing Neville, Cedric prevents Voldemort from being defeated in the Battle of Hogwarts, and after finding the Elder Wand was powerless so he had no need to kill Snape at any point.
  • Cedric wouldn't necessarily have been present at Dumbledore's death in the bad timeline, because he wouldn't have been at Hogwarts. He'd have graduated the previous year. Harry's fourth year was Cedric's sixth. Additionally, Dumbledore wouldn't have hired Cedric for a job at the school, because as far as we know the only staff opening was for Potions Master, and Dumbledore needed Slughorn to fill that role in order to carry out Harry's lessons. Besides, Dumbledore would likely have shared Armando Dippet's view that one should have real-world experience before taking up a teaching post. Admittedly, however, this doesn't preclude Cedric from being included in the team sent to assist Draco at the end of the 96-97 school year.

It's a fanfic, in-universe

• By Bellatrix's ghost.
  • Alternately: the fanfic is a Dying Dream of hers, explaining the breaks from canon and more outlandish elements of the Bad Future. If she's dying, she's not going to worry about proper worldbuilding or plausibility.

It's an alternate timeline created by the Time Turner

The 'original' timeline in the Cursed Child is actually not the 'original' timeline as in the book.

• It goes like this (borrowing Fandom-Specific Plot from many fanfics): Someone (let's call them Self Insert OC) used the Time Turner to go to the past and 'redeem' Voldemort so he may understand love. They think they failed, nothing changed at all, but actually something indeed changed. Voldemort understood 'love' enough, logically, to create Delphi. The change had happened far in the past, even before Harry's generation was born. The Butterfly Effect kicked in which affected the characters in the present (maybe in this timeline, Mr. Granger is married to a black woman instead, thus resulting in Hermione). The 'white-face' dialogue doesn't happen in this timeline. This also explained any OO Cness (maybe in this timeline, Cedric had a different upbringing, which resulted in a different outcome).
• Basically, it's just like the movies, which had differences from the book. The play also had a lot of differences, it is still canon, but not the same book canon. The existence of the Time Turner itself basically confirmed many alternate timelines as canon.

Cedric didn't become a Death Eater because he was humiliated in the tournament

Voldemort held the lives of his parents and/or Cho on the line. Cedric only became a Death Eater to save them. He killed Neville so that one of them wouldn't die or be tortured into insanity otherwise.

• At first I guessed he was going to be revealed as a Snape expy - being double agent, killing Dumbledore, ended up killed by Voldemort.... just replace Dumbledore with Neville instead since it is more in character. The above guess could be possible, too.

Jack Thorne was inspired by My Immortal

They say good artist copy and great artist steal. My guess is while the script was being written, Jack Thorne was hit so hard by writers block because his mind was being plagued by the torment of not being able to match the high quality writing of Ms. Rowling and the standards of the fans. To make himself feel better, he went to the internet searched My Immortal. He and his fellow colleagues had a laugh trip, but then he realized that Ms. Gillespie's work had potential, all it needed was a little polish. Cured from his writers block he began to work. He failed to realize though that basing your work on a laughable piece of crap, your work ends up becoming crap. And that's how we got this book. He was too embarrassed to cite his inspiration.

• Though, to his credit, he did leave out the black convertible that plays MCR demos like "Desolation Livers." That would've just been silly. Of course, it could be lurking in a deleted scene somewhere….

The reason for Astoria's death is a meta one.

Namely, Thorne wanted to give Draco a wife who would push him to be better than he'd been, and succeed. Problem was, the Astoria he had in mind would have tugged the plot in a much different direction. In the Bad Future, her presence would have kept Draco from becoming Head of Magical Law Enforcement, perhaps turning him into an underground resistance fighter or a smuggler of some sort. Thorne liked the plot ideas he had more than he liked the idea of Draco being happy. So, he turned Astoria into The Lost Lenore, playing her death for angst and leaving readers to wonder just what the play would have looked like, had she been allowed to live.

General observations about the Bad Future, and whether it's actually a "Delphi Wins" timeline instead of a "Voldemort Wins" timeline.

Caveat: Script-reader only. Please let me know if anything here has changed in the final version of the play.
With both Draco and Snape alive in this timeline, we can assume that in the Bad Future version of Deathly Hallows, the fight at Malfoy Manor went down very differently - either Draco and Harry never met or simply never fought. It could also imply that Voldemort went after Dumbledore himself directly during the Bad Future version of Half-Blood Prince, meaning that his Elder Wand quest in Hallows would end with Grindelwald when he realized he had what he wanted all along. And given Dumbledore's health during the events of Half-Blood Prince, it could not have been a pretty fight.

Additionally, having double-checked the Rehearsal Edition script, there are no indicators that Voldemort is actually alive and ruling in Part II's Bad Future. It's an assumption made by Scorpius after Umbridge tells him that Harry was killed in "a minor coup", which is this timeline's version of the Battle of Hogwarts. Both Ron and Hermione are still alive and fighting, and would definitely want to avenge Harry's death, so it's plausible they would continue to hunt Voldemort's horcruxes and then kill him after Voldemort's temporary victory. This would cause Delphi, The Augury, to come out of hiding and unleash her Reign of Terror right where dear old Dad left off.

Further evidence to suggest that Delphi is the true mastermind at Hogwarts creating a twisted legacy in her father's memory are the holidays we learn about in this timeline, particularly Voldemort Day. Voldemort himself, even with his massive ego, would never make a national holiday named after himself. But it makes perfect sense for Delphi as a memorial day for her father. Similarly, the Blood Ball, the wrist crossing and "For Voldemort And Valour" - perfect melodrama keeping in character with Delphi's obssession. Either father and daughter have reunited and he let her run the school how she liked, or, if my theory is correct, she went nuts with the melodrama after Ron and Hermione brought him down.

The Trolley Witch is a ghost

It's revealed that the present-day Trolley Witch is the original, that there never has been another — meaning that she has been doing the same job for 190 years, hence is at least 210 years old. That's rather a long lifespan, even for the wizarding world.

• Long lifespan, yes, but not implausible in the HP world. Dumbledore's predecessor, Headmaster Armando Dippet, canonically lived from 1637 to 1992, with no involvement from Horcruxes or a Philosopher's Stone (though he was apparently getting pretty senile past the 1980's). The somwhat more important character of Bathild Bagshot was Grindelwald's great-aunt (reminder: Grindelwald was as old as Dumbledore), and she was still alive and kicking in 1997 when Nagini got her. And if you accept movie canon, the limits go right through the roof, as the oldest wizard alive is 755 years old.
• Except Harry Potter ghosts can't do magic or interact with the physical world. She couldn't very well pick up a chocolate frog or pumpkin pasty to sell if she was a ghost.
  • A poltergeist seems like a logical explanation, but even that doesn't quite fit her…peculiarities.

None of the events in Cursed Child are canon, or even real.

Many readers have complained about various breaks from canon established in the original series, out-of-character moments, and other implausibilities. The reason for this is simple: Before dying, Voldemort cast a jinx over the entire UK wizard population, ensuring that at his death, a massive curse whose effects were similar to those of a gas leak would envelop them all. Therefore, the entirety of Cursed Child is actually a shared hallucination, which not only explains Cedric Diggory becoming a Death Eater, wizards in the Bad Future celebrating Voldemort Day, Voldemort and Bellatrix having a daughter, and Amos Diggory being meaner than he was in canon, but the fact that no one seems to see these deviations from the norm as unusual.

• So basically Community season four? Makes sense to be to me.
  • We can't blame it all on the gas-leak curse.

Absolutely all of the non-canon romance subplots were written in by accident.

Except Scorpius's crush on Rose, which is explicitly addressed as existing, so it's "canon" to the play. Albus's crush on Delphi, the relationship of him and Scorpius, the moments between Draco and Hermione, all of the ones that aren't Draco/Astoria (did that even appear?), Hermione/Ron (though, this one feels forced), and Harry/Ginny (which was, surprise, underwritten) were 100% totally on accident by two people who seem to have no idea how relationships between people work. And, presumably, by two people who, like the mastermind behind the films, really hates the Weasley family and so underwrote all of them. Albus included, since he's Ginny's son. It would explain why every single one of the actual, canon, explicitly addressed romances seems forced or underwritten- the ones that aren't specifically stated as romantic (but ended up being that way) were totally on accident.

• This would offer a sound explanation for why Astoria was killed off so quickly: One less relationship to write, and one less character to develop.

Delphini is the Lestrange's legitimate daughter

• Rodolphus disguised himself as Voldemort (Harry proves it's doable) in order to bed his wife, resulting in Delphini. Why? Perhaps he truly loved his wife but seeing her insane attraction for their boss drove him to desperate measures, perhaps he wanted to eventually overthrow Voldemort and secure his position by subverting the boss' Number Two, perhaps he wanted revenge for being cuckolded... We've already seen the results of a child born of one-sided love, such a coupling (featuring unrequited love from both parents/ unrequited love from one and hate from the other) would not be likely to result in a good-aligned, mentally healthy child. And there's historical precedent: Merlin existed in this verse, and one of his less savory tasks was disguising Uther Pendragon so he could bed Arthur's mother.
  • That wouldn't explain her ability to speak Parseltongue.
  • Maybe either of them were related to Salazar.

Delphi is a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, but not via Voldemort.

Delphi is a descendant of Isolt Sayre, a founder of Ilvermorny and herself a descendant of the House of Gaunt. One of her daughters, Martha Steward, was a Squib who chose not to live in the magical world, but who did have children, and as magic can skip generations, Parseltongue abilities can too. If any remaining Death Eaters heard of a muggleborn Parselmouth child being raised in the non-magical world in the United States, it would be unsurprising that they kidnapped her and brainwashed her. Being born in the United States would also mean that Hogwarts never knew of her, hence her never attending.

Delphi was conceived by magic instead of sex

This explains why Bellatrix was never pregnant, and why Delphi exists at all considering Voldemort is probably asexual.

The play is actually a play in the Harry Potter universe, written by Rita Skeeter

We know that she dislikes Harry, has no problem twisting things and lying, and never met a fact she didn't cast aside to make her story better. When viewed as being a play in the vein of the Asgard play from Thor Ragnarok suddenly a lot of the most questional aspects disappear.