The Time-Turner is a crucial object in the play, used to move events along in significant ways. It also serves as a symbol for time itself, an important concept for multiple reasons. Besides traveling through time—an essential aspect of the play’s story—time itself is also key to the play’s context. The play is set in the Harry Potter universe; although an independent story, it involves characters first introduced in the book series, many of whose backstories are linked to the play’s events and themes in significant ways. There is constant reference to past events, and the play is replete with callbacks to things from the original series. The Time-Turner, thus, carries out multiple functions within the play. At a basic level, it is an important object or prop that hurries along dramatic action; at a deeper level, it serves as a symbol for history; at a metalevel, it alludes to the history within the universe of the play that is encompassed in the books that came before it.

Harry’s dreams and memories are a dramatic device and a recurring motif in the play. As a dramatic device, the dreams appear in the first three acts, replaying scenes from Harry’s childhood; however, the third and final dream shows events that never took place.