Harry Potter fans rejoice, witching hour has arrived.
Oh to be on the Hogwarts train nine years later - with sherbet lemons and acid pops, fizzing whizzbees and chocolate frogs, the magic made a comeback conjured like one of the strongest Patronus charms.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was released on Sunday, coinciding not only with author J.K. Rowling's birthday, but that of our beloved Harry too.
Officially been dubbed the eighth story in the series, the script book is based on the new play by Jack Thorne, which opened in London's West End on July 30.
It follows a 37-year-old Potter and his son Albus. We begin where the seventh book left off, with Harry, Ron and Hermione at King's Cross station waving their children off on the train to Hogwarts.
Now it's no secret being Harry has always been difficult. I mean when you're essentially destined to die and have the whole weight of the world resting on your shoulders, life isn't really going to be that easy.
Unfortunately for him, 19 years later, it hasn't got any better. He's now an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, and instead of battling Voldermort, he's battling teenagers. Being a father of three school-age children is no easy feat either.
While Harry's struggling against a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest, Albus, is struggling with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted.
Without giving too much away, it's a beautiful story about what friendship means and how important it is to anyone's life. It centres around the relationship between Albus and interestingly, Scorpius Malfoy, Draco's son.
It's also a story about a young boy and his dad.
In short, JK Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany have taken to any previous judgement I had about the story with their own kind of Cruciatus curse.
I, much like every other Harry Potter fan, was waiting for this day, in the same way a Hogwarts student would wait for their Sorting Hat inauguration. But because there was so much hype, I kept my expectations low. Thankfully I was proved wrong.
I opened the first page, and after four hours of speed reading I was done, and everything I thought I knew about the series, I knew no more. Characters I thought I understood were completely redefined.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is not great literature but it is wonderful story telling. Every page, filled with emotion, deals with a wider moral intent which keeps fans reflecting on the issues they relate to.
In short, it's theatre of the mind.
The language itself has matured too. Words have aged alongside loyal fans. Ideologies are a lot more complex, contextualising characters' interactions in ways you never thought would be possible.
It took me four scenes to get used to the play-script format, but then I was away.
I suppose that is the true disclaimer. You can't go into this comparing it to the previous books, because it's not the same. It's a play and has to absolutely be treated like its own beast.
Once you get over that, then the magic takes over and you forget very quickly all you're reading is dialogue. There have been concerns that there would be too many production cues but that is absolutely not the case. There's the occasional reference to the 'auditorium' but if anything it actually makes you feel like you're in the audience watching the play.
One thing to get used to is the time-travel. The story constantly jumps back and forth. Issues in the original Harry Potter series are revisited and you'll be happy to know some lingering questions are answered.
This is why I warn you now, if you're not familiar with the original books, good luck following the story as it dives straight into the action, with no pause for recaps.
So with that, much to the dismay of die-hard fans, J.K. Rowling has now confirmed she's cast her last spell. The story of 'The Boy Who Lived' has officially come to an end.
But I'm ok with that because, for the first time in nine years, I finally have closure.
As Dumbledore would say, "The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing."
Newshub.
