The Harry Potter franchise is one of those fandoms that everyone has an opinion on. Either you grew up with it and have remained a hardcore fan, or it’s just not your cup of tea. Either way, Harry Potter has remained part of our cultural zeitgeist not only because it’s a compelling story with great characters and action, but because it’s very easy to peel back the layers of the story and find new meaning in it as you grow up with it. Additionally, we interpret different things about the story in different ways as we gain new life experience, which is another reason why we still love it. We can take the story at face value and be entertained or we can dig a little deeper and find things in the story that others might have completely missed. There’s no wrong way to be a fan in that respect.
Some of the things we might miss might just come down to personal opinion and head-canons, like what Hogwarts house a previously unsorted character might be in or the state of a relationship in the story. Other things might end up blowing our minds as we think about the deeper meaning behind a thing in the franchise, like how we might judge a character badly before we have the life experience to know better. Still, other things we might miss are just kind of funny and worth thinking about for that reason. Regardless, here are 25 things even the most die-hard fans of the Harry Potter franchise might have missed.
25 Harry And Ginny Would Have Had Major Financial Disagreements
Harry and Ginny were definitely in love, but to be honest, these two would have had a lot to iron out before settling down into wedded bliss. Putting aside their obvious trauma related issues having to do with Voldemort, they would have a lot to talk about when it comes to their money situation. Ginny grew up having to pinch every penny since her family wasn’t rich, but that was worth it because they loved her. Meanwhile, Harry had all the money he could ever need for the rest of his life, but he grew up largely alone and didn’t really have a family before he got to Hogwarts. Needless to say, they’d need to talk some things through.
24 Harry Was A Father Before He Was A Father
Harry was actually a father long before he and Ginny had James Sirius Potter. That’s because Harry was godfather to Remus Lupin’s son with Nymphadora Tonks, Teddy. He was the one to make sure Lupin stayed with his family, but he ended up dying alongside his wife during the Battle of Hogwarts. As the godfather, Harry took in Teddy, making him a dad before he turned 18. On a heartwarming note, Harry basically got to step up and do what Sirius Black, his own godfather, had previously been unable to do: actually, be a guardian to his godson. To be fair to Sirius, that wasn’t really his fault, but still.
23 Hagrid Was A Straight Up Magical Genius
Hagrid was a frightening force of nature, guys. When we first meet Hagrid, he casts silent magic to make Dudley grow a tail. This is something that we find out later is extremely advanced magic, things Harry and his friends only learned in their sixth year. Hagrid got kicked out in his third year and had his wand snapped, but he was still casting magic because he hid his wand in his umbrella. That means that Hagrid is a self-taught wizard after his third year and was capable of doing things it takes advanced lessons to be able to do well. That means Hagrid was a low-key genius on the same level as Hermione.
22 Hagrid Was Probably A Slytherin
Hagrid never mentioned his Hogwarts house and we all just kind of assumed he was a Gryffindor because of how cool he was with the Gryffindor kids and how disdainful the Slytherin kids were of him throughout the story. However, there’s no way Hagrid wasn’t a Slytherin. Keep in mind, Voldemort framed Hagrid for opening the Chamber of Secrets because he knew the then 13-year-old Hagrid had befriended the giant spider Aragog. There’s no way Voldemort would have known that unless they were in the same house and shared space together. Voldemort was a Prefect when he did that, so he would have been in the perfect position to frame a Slytherin Hagrid, but not if he were in a different house.
21 The Marauders Weren’t The Cool Guys, They Were The Biggest Nerds In Their Year
We tend to think of the Marauders as the popular guys, the Rat Pack of the wizarding world. However, there’s no way these guys were anything other than the biggest dorks in the Gryffindor common room, if not their whole year. They had secret identities, animal personas (tell me the last time you met someone with a fursona who wasn’t a total dork at times, )archenemies, and a secret clubhouse and map. If the Marauders lived today, they’d be the kids who would LARP 24/7 and only refer to each other by the names they go by in their Dungeons and Dragons campaign. That’s why they were so relatable.
20 Peter Pettigrew Was More Than A Rat And That’s What Makes His Betrayal That Much Worse
It’s easy to think of Peter Pettigrew as this hanger-on to the other three Marauders because of who he turned out to be. However, that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Peter Pettigrew was just as much of a friend as the other Marauders were and he was equal to them in every way, at least in their minds. If anything, if the order of the names on the Marauder’s Map is anything to go by, Peter achieved his transformation first. They would have had deep friendships with him and been totally willing to lose their lives for him. That’s why it’s that much more tragic and heartbreaking that Peter Pettigrew ended up betraying them.
19 Severus Snape Was Even Worse Than We All Thought
Severus Snape is a complicated figure in the wizarding world canon because many fans think that he’s redeemed because of his love for Lily Potter. However, that actually makes him come out worse than he did before we found that out. Before we find out Snape loved Lily, we knew him as the professor who terrorized children, threatened to hurt their pets, showed favoritism by rewarding the bullies and punishing the victims, and getting their lycanthrope co-worker (Lupin) fired. After we find this out, Snape is still all of those things, but now on top of that, he’s a creeper who called his childhood best friend a racial slur and still felt entitled to her love. I will die on this hill, guys.
18 Sirius Black And Andromeda Tonks Had To Have Been Friends
When you’re the black sheep in your family, you tend to find the other black sheep in the family and create an alliance where you stick together against the rest of the family. In the Black family, the black sheep were literally burned off the family tree, forcing those burned off names to make their own way. Two great examples of that in action is Sirius Black and Andromeda Tonks. Both were burned off the family tree for different reasons, but both managed to make their own way. There’s no way these two weren’t friends while they were biding their time for a way to leave.
17 Dumbledore Represents Death
It’s been well established that the Three Brothers who talk to Death and receive the Deathly Hallows from him are representative of three major characters: Voldemort for the Elder Wand because he wanted power above everything, Snape for the Resurrection Stone because he did everything for a woman (no matter how twisted that was,) and Harry for the Invisibility Cloak because he just wanted to live his life. However, there’s another layer to this: Dumbledore. Dumbledore is the person who had all three Hallows and was in a position to give them out, and he played a major part in the deaths of all three characters.
16 Voldemort Was Dumb Because He Forgot Basically Anything Can Hurt Infants
Voldemort’s whole problem was that he used a spell to try and eliminate Harry, the spell backfired, and he turned into a weird spirit thing who needed to leech off of human people to survive. The weird part is he definitely didn’t have to do all of that. Voldemort wasn’t going up against a guy like Grindelwald or Dumbledore, he was going up against a literal baby with no magical abilities whatsoever. You can hurt babies by just holding them wrong. All he needed to do was defeat Harry in a non-magical way, but Voldemort was so arrogant that he didn’t think of it.
15 Dumbledore Was Condemned To His Fate Back In The Third Book
Believe it or not, the foreshadowing for Dumbledore’s end went really far back. One great example of how Rowling set this up was the Christmas dinner in the third book. In the scene, Trelawney freaks out because she doesn’t want to sit at a table with twelve people at it because “the first to rise is the first to die.” Dumbledore stands up to be nice when they all hear this. We dismiss this as readers, but at the end of the third book, we find out that Ron’s rat Scabbers was a human, Peter Pettigrew, and he was sitting in Ron’s pocket during that scene. This means that there were already thirteen people sitting at the table. That’s when Dumbledore stood up and sure enough, he was the first to lose his life.
14 Fred and George’s Fates Were Confirmed By Their Names
Fred and George are pretty common names, which is pretty lucky for the Weasleys because wizard parent naming sense is just weird. The Black family members are all named after stars, while the Malfoys have draconian naming origins. Meanwhile, we have old-timey names in the mix as well with other families. The only people who have common names are either Muggle-borns or people from blood-traitor families. That being said, Fred and George are both named after people in the British royal family. George becomes king after the untimely loss of Frederick. When George just lost an ear, Fred was basically doomed.
13 Hogwarts Had Very Strange Rules About Parental Permission
Hogwarts was a messed up place, not because of the constant danger the students were all being put in, but because of the crazy double standards. Think about all the craziness kids had to deal with in just the years we see. First, we have OSHA violations because of the moving staircases, ghosts, and actual dementors from Azkaban. Second, we have crazy teachers who mess up the learning environment. Thirdly, we have a sport that involved balls knocking kids off their brooms at hundreds of feet up. All of that, Hogwarts doesn’t make you get a permission slip for, but if you want to visit the cute wizarding town next door, you need a permission slip. That’s just nutty.
12 Hufflepuffs Are Some Of The Toughest People In The Series
As a Hufflepuff myself, that house is objectively the best. That being said, putting my own bias aside, Hufflepuffs were absolutely some of the toughest people in the whole series. Newt Scamander was a Hufflepuff and he’s a pretty tough cookie, but in the Harry Potter series itself, we have a few examples. First, we have Cedric Diggory, who fully intended to split the Wizarding Cup victory with Harry because it was fair. Next, we have Nymphadora Tonks, Auror extraordinaire and one of the best witches of her age. We don’t get to meet too many Hufflepuffs in the series, but when you dig beyond the story itself, you find that Hufflepuffs kind of keep the wizarding world from falling apart.
11 You’re Sorted Based On Your Values, Not Your Personality
Let’s be real: some people in certain houses might have done better in other houses due to their personalities. For example, Fred and George Weasley would have made wonderful Slytherins, while Neville would have made a great Hufflepuff and Cedric a great Gryffindor. However, it’s not really about that, it’s about your value system. That’s why so many families end up Sorted into the same Houses: they’re taught to value the same things. There are some deviations to this rule, like the Patil twins, and Sirius and the rest of his family, but they just serve to prove the rule further: values show who you are more than your personality or what you show people.
10 The Teachers Must Have Memory Charms Themselves To Learn Everyone’s Names
The professors at Hogwarts aren’t divided up by grades, they’re divided up by subject. This means that the professors we see are teaching their subject, making different lesson plans, grading homework, and managing the behavior of every single kid in the school. Think about your own teachers and how long it takes for them to learn your name when they’re just dealing with thirty kids and how stressed they could get with their classes. The Hogwarts professors don’t seem to have those issues, which means only one thing: they’re using Memory Charms to keep track of everyone. It’s the only explanation that doesn’t make these professors literal super-humans.
9 Harry Potter Is The Most Underrated Character In His Own Series
Think about who your favorite character in this series is. Chances are, you didn’t pick Harry Potter himself. I know my favorite character isn’t Harry, to be honest. He’s great and interesting and we root for him, but our favorite characters are probably someone different. This is actually kind of crazy considering how great of a person Harry Potter actually is. He doesn’t get angry at Peter for betraying his parents because he understands how a person could become that. He’s a good friend and a well-adjusted person despite spending his entire childhood in a closet under the stairs and neglected. Harry Potter isn’t everyone’s favorite character, but to be honest, he kind of should be.
8 Magical Kids In Muggle School Would Be The Best Thing Ever
Schooling for wizarding kids starts at age eleven, which means that before that, kids basically have to learn from their parents or some other way because no way can you go to Hogwarts without learning how to read and write. This means that in the wizarding world, there are either wizarding daycares that teach those skills or magical people are just sending their magical kids to school. To be fair, Draco’s throwaway line about not knowing whether his lackeys could read could actually be indicative that some pureblood kids actually don’t get those skills and struggle in school. Honestly, this just means that the wizarding world needs a better education system.
7 Harry Potter Is A Seeker Because He Was Mistreated As A Kid
This is going to sound crazy, but think about it: every quality that makes Harry Potter a great Seeker comes from the fact that he grew up the way that he did with the Dursleys. Seekers need to be small-ish in stature, which Harry is because he never got enough to eat and spent his childhood in a really cramped space. They need to be fast, which Harry is because he was constantly running away from bullies, whether at home or outside. They need to be able to sense changes in the atmosphere, which Harry basically had to learn to do in order to keep himself safe from the ire of the Dursleys. Even the emotional connection he has with his broom is symbolic because Harry wanted to escape that life. It’s really sad, but it’s true: Harry’s horrific childhood gave him the skills to be a Seeker.
6 Who Was The Fifth Guy In The Marauders Dorm?
There are five people in Harry Potter’s Gryffindor boys dorm, implying that there are always around that many kids in each dorm for each year. Rewind back a few years and we have four boys in the Gryffindor dorm, the Marauders. This raises a question: who shared a room with those guys and was left out of all of the Animagi/werewolf shenanigans? The best possible candidate for that spot would have probably been Kingsley Shacklebolt because he knew the Marauders without being introduced. To be fair, he might not have felt that loneliness too much because even though he wasn’t a Marauder, he probably didn’t want to be because they were always getting into something.
