Everything We Know About The New Harry Potter Script So Far

It's hard to believe that the day is finally here, but the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child script will hit bookshelves on Sunday, July 31. Of course, HP fans know that the 31st is both Harry and J.K. Rowling's birthday. And the play that brings the script to life officially opens the night before. There has been a lot of news about the play and its script scattered around over the past few months, so here's a nice primer rounding up all the important things we already know aboutThe Cursed Child.
It's a script — not a novel, and not a prequel. People were actually very confused about this at first, so Rowling clarified on Twitter (#NotANovel #NotAPrequel). So it is not an eighth Harry Potter book nor a Harry Potter prequel.

It's not only by Rowling. Respected British screenwriters and playright Jack Thorne and Tony Award-winning theater director John Tiffany helped Rowling pen the script, working off of an original story she wrote.

It picks up right where we left off. After the end of the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, there was an epilogue that fast-forwarded to 19 years in the future. Harry and Ginny and Ron and Hermione were at Platform 9 3/4, seeing their children off to Hogwarts for the first time.

Harry is now an overworked family man. "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 the father of three school-age children," reads the official site.

Draco Malfoy is back. And the fan-favorite Slytherin has a son — named Scorpius, of course.

Things are going to get dark. "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," it says on the play's site. "As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places."

You can get it as an eBook or hardcover. If you haven't ordered your copy yet, Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both selling digital and hardcover special editions (which you'll want to snag before they sell out).

The actual play is doing very well. The show has been doing preview performances since June. On Saturday, July 30, it will officially open at the Palace Theatre in London's West End. The cast is awesome, the reviews are great, and the attendance is crazy. The two-part show — which you can see in one night or two — is sold out until May 2017, according to the New York Times. The good news is it's just been announced that another 250,000 tickets are being released for the rest of the 2017 run.