Act four, scene nine

GODRIC’S HOLLOW, ST. JEROME’S CHURCH, SANCTUARY, 1981

ALBUS is sleeping in a pew. GINNY watches him carefully. HARRY is looking out the opposite window.

HARRY: No. Nothing. Why isn’t she here?

GINNY: We’re together, your mum and dad are alive — we can turn time, Harry, we can’t speed it up. She’ll come when she’s ready, and we’ll be ready for her.

She looks at ALBUS’s sleeping form.

Or some of us will be.

HARRY: Poor kid thought he had to save the world.

GINNY: Poor kid has saved the world. That blanket was masterful. I mean, he also almost destroyed the world, but probably best not to focus on that bit.

HARRY: You think he’s okay?

GINNY: He’s getting there, it just might take him a bit of time — and you a bit of time too.

HARRY smiles. She looks back at ALBUS. HARRY does too.

You know, after I’d opened the Chamber of Secrets — after Voldemort had bewitched me with that terrible diary and I’d almost destroyed everything —

HARRY: I remember.

GINNY: After I came out of hospital — everyone ignored me, shut me out — other than, that is, the boy who had everything — who came across the Gryffindor common room and challenged me to a game of Exploding Snap. People think they know all there is to know about you, but the best bits of you are — have always been — heroic in really quiet ways. My point is — after this is over, just remember if you could that sometimes people — but particularly children — just want someone to play Exploding Snap with.

HARRY: You think that’s what we’re missing — Exploding Snap?

GINNY: No. But the love I felt from you that day — I’m not sure Albus feels that.

HARRY: I’d do anything for him.

GINNY: Harry, you’d do anything for anybody. You were pretty happy to sacrifice yourself for the world. He needs to feel specific love. It’ll make him stronger, and you stronger too.

HARRY: You know, it wasn’t until we thought Albus had gone that I truly understood what my mother was able to do for me. A countercharm so powerful that it was able to repel the spell of death.

GINNY: And the only spell Voldemort couldn’t understand — love.

HARRY: I do love him specifically, Ginny.

GINNY: I know, but he needs to feel it.

HARRY: I’m lucky to have you, aren’t I?

GINNY: Extremely. And I’d be delighted to discuss just how lucky at another time. But for now — let’s focus on stopping Delphi.

HARRY: We are running out of time.

A thought occurs to GINNY.

GINNY: Unless — Harry, has anyone thought — why has she picked now? Today?

HARRY: Because this is the day that everything changed...

GINNY: Right now you’re over a year old, am I right?

HARRY: A year and three months.

GINNY: That’s a year and three months she could have killed you in. Even now, she’s been in Godric’s Hollow for twenty-four hours. What’s she waiting for?

HARRY: I’m still not entirely following —

GINNY: What if she’s not waiting for you — she’s waiting for him... to stop him.

HARRY: What?

GINNY: Delphi’s picked tonight because he’s here — because her father is coming. She wants to meet him. Be with him, the father she loves. Voldemort’s problems started when he attacked you. If he hadn’t done that...

HARRY: He’d have only got more powerful — the darkness would only have got darker.

GINNY: The best way to break the prophecy is not to kill Harry Potter, it’s to stop Voldemort doing anything at all.