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Here's what the new 'Harry Potter' play will be about

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The newest artwork for the new "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" play. www.harrypottertheplay.com

J.K. Rowling announced new details about her upcoming playHarry Potter and the Cursed Child" on Friday, both shocking and delighting fans.

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The beloved author updated her Facebook page with a new post which confirmed the play will “start where the seventh book left off.”

Pottermore, the fan website created by J.K. Rowling, confirmed that the “Cursed Child” would focus on Harry and his youngest son Albus.

Here is the synopsis:

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

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While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Thanks to the epilogue and J.K. Rowling’s continual updates to her magical universe, we already know a lot about Albus Severus Potter.

He is his father’s son in looks and personality: He’s a quiet and thoughtful boy who’s worried about being sorted into Slytherin. He has untidy black hair, green eyes, and he’s already a fan of the wizard sport Quidditch.

J.K. Rowling has previously admitted on the TV show “A Year in the Life” that she finds Albus to be the most intriguing of Harry’s children. 

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Albus Severus Potter talking to his father during the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II" movie. Warner Brothers

As for Harry, we know quite a bit about him after the final book ended, too. Harry became a talented Auror and received another scar on his right cheek — according to a Pottermore article J.K. Rowling wrote as "Daily Prophet's Chief Gossip Correspondent" Rita Skeeter — presumably from fighting dark wizards, and works with Ron at the Ministry of Magic.

Harry is also still famous. In that same Rita Skeeter article, it's noted that Harry still gets ample attention thanks to his status as the Chosen One:

When word swept the campsite and stadium that a certain gang of infamous wizards (no longer the fresh-faced teenagers they were in their heyday, but nevertheless recognizable) had arrived for the final, excitement was beyond anything yet seen. As the crowd stampeded, tents were flattened and small children mown down. Fans from all corners of the globe stormed towards the area where members of Dumbledore’s Army were rumored to have been sighted, desperate above all else for a glimpse of the man they still call the Chosen One.

And in the epilogue of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," Harry is attracting stares from everyone on Platform 9 3/4 as he says goodbye to his son, Albus:

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Students were hanging from the windows nearest them. A great number of faces, both on the train and off, seemed to be turned towards Harry.

“Why are they all staring?” demanded Albus, as he and Rose craned round to look at the other students.

“Don’t let it worry you,” said Ron. “It’s me. I’m extremely famous.”

As for Harry’s narrative arch in the play, though J.K. Rowling said that the Ministry of Magic is now a much better place to work thanks in part to Harry, Hermione, and Ron, it sounds like at the beginning of the play, Harry is exhausted from his job.

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It’s also likely that Harry is suffering psychologically from his traumatic childhood of fighting one of the most evil wizards to ever live and coming close to death multiple times.

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Harry Potter watches his children leave for Hogwarts with Hermione and Ron. Warner Brothers

Meanwhile his son Albus will likely be trying to create his own path in the wizarding world as anything other than “famous Harry Potter’s son.” Because he looks so much like his father, it’s likely that Albus will receive the same type of comments that plagued Harry throughout his schooling: “Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mum's eyes,” Hagrid told Harry in the first “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” book.

It will likely be hard for Albus to escape the great Harry Potter’s legacy.

The only part of the play we don’t know is how “both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

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Harry and Albus Potter. Warner Brothers

What is this darkness? Why is Albus cursed? We’ll likely have to wait until the summer of 2016 to find out.

Harry Potter Digital Culture JK Rowling
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