Today is Harry Potter’s 42nd birthday. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was in theaters earlier this year, and was received, somehow, even less well than its predecessor, Crimes of Grindelwald. This puts into doubt whether the films continue. The following is a version of a possibility suggested by the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, in which Harry’s son Albus Severus Potter gets into (time travel) trouble. This will not be an attempt to write out fan fiction, but rather sketch a scenario.
Fantastic Beasts: A Game of Quidditch
The years pass. Newt Scamander settles into a quiet existence of searching out fantastic beasts and writing. It is a lonely one, as he has never reunited with Tina Goldstein. He’s left his American adventures behind. Dumbledore’s last request of him was to, if he could, track down a hippogriff that has been sighted in the Romanian countryside, apparently nesting with the dragons. His brother Theseus visits, one day, and suggests attending the Quidditch World Cup. They depart for the festivities with a woman named Joanne Weasley, who’s been assisting Newt.
Meanwhile of course Grindelwald is still hard at work. The world has plunged into war again, and he has entrenched himself into the European theater as well, and once more pursuing the same beasts as Newt, the same hippogriff. But it’s not the hippogriff he seeks but rather its rider. He is alone, now, but unbowed. He, too, decides to attend the World Cup. Tina Goldstein pursues him.
At the World Cup a most unexpected match is being played between British and American teams. Americans are hardly known for their interest, or prowess, in Quidditch, and their best player, Linfred Stinchcombe, was totally unknown prior to this season, and yet they are now the favorites to win.
The match is spectacular, and Stinchcombe, as Seeker, plays brilliantly. The only blemish on the day is when the sky darkens immediately on the American victory, sending happy spectators home in dampened moods. Dumbledore has met Newt and friends at the pitch, and suspects something sinister, and Grindelwald specifically, but can’t prove it…
Grindelwald has pulled Stinchcombe aside, in all the confusion, and tells him he knows who he really is, a time traveling Albus Potter, and that he knows how long he’s struggled to find his place in the world, and that of course Grindelwald can help him find it. He once again raises the specter of the atomic bomb, now imminent, and the last piece of the puzzle, a Japanese wizard named Musashi who lives in Hiroshima, who will help Grindelwald and Albus achieve their goals.
Tina observes all this, but is discovered by Grindelwald in the process, and is quickly overwhelmed by his attack, but the timely intervention of the hippogriff they’ve been seeking, who is of course Buckbeak, sends her on her way, into the waiting hands of Newt and friends.
Who must now prepare for their final confrontation with Grindelwald, as they head toward a collision course with history. But not before being joined by one more party… Harry Potter himself.
Fantastic Beasts: The Boy Who Lived
This final installment begins with watching Albus having one last argument with his father and escaping with Buckbeak into the past, and Harry following after him, arriving in Hiroshima, where he meets the supposed wizard Musashi, who is really a Muggle, a baker, like Jacob, who in fact had a business with Jacob and Queenie until the war sent him back to Japan.
Newt and Tina are tasked by Dumbledore to find an Ouroboros, a fantastic beast capable of shielding them from the blast of an atomic bomb, living somewhere in the islands the Americans and Japanese are currently fighting across. They are finally forced to reconcile as they navigate the dangers, and once and for all fall in love.
Harry and Dumbledore have the strangest reunion ever. Harry tries to explain everything that will happen, but Dumbledore is evasive, yet somehow suggests he knows, and they instead talk about Albus, and through Dumbledore, Harry makes his own peace with the struggles he and his son have had.
Albus, meanwhile, is in the thrall of Grindelwald, and as they arrive in Hiroshima, not even the truth of Musashi’s existence, or Jacob and Queenie intercepting to protect him, changes this, until Harry and Dumbledore appear, with Newt and Tina close behind.
Harry says he trusts his son, that he will make the right choice, and Albus realizes he’s been making the wrong ones, and an enraged Grindelwald strikes, and Dumbledore at last engages in his famous duel, and the bomb drops on them, and the Ouroboros shields them, and…
The goodbye is Newt’s. He’s sad that the Ouroboros had to sacrifice itself in order to shield them, but he’s happy that everyone gets a second chance to get things right. Musashi, Jacob, and Queenie decide to stay in Hiroshima, to rebuild in the ashes, Harry and Albus ride Buckbeak back to their own time, and Dumbledore heads back to Hogwarts, inviting Newt to a teaching position.
Which he declines, to instead head off into the unknown, with Tina.
