Top 20 Crazy Harry Potter Details You Missed
#20: Dumbledore's Connection to Neville
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Throughout the series, Hogwarts’ Headmaster seems to focus solely on Harry. However, he has a close connection to another Griffyndor than many never noticed. At the end of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone”, Dumbledore awards 10 points to Gryffindor for Neville’s bravery in standing up to his friends. At first, it seems like Dumbledore is just trying to overturn Slytherin’s victory. However, in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” we learn that it took Dumbledore decades to work up the courage to confront his friend Grindelwald. He must have truly respected Neville for succeeding where he struggled.
#19: Draco the Matchmaker
Draco Malfoy would be mortified to know that he predicted two of the biggest “Harry Potter” couples. In “Chamber of Secrets” after Ginny defends Harry, Draco taunts that she must be Potter’s new girlfriend. At this point, Harry only sees Ginny as Ron’s little sister, but eventually, their relationship would shift to one of romance. Malfoy could also, apparently, see the sparks fly between Ron and Hermione because, in “Prisoner of Azkaban” when the two are looking at the Shrieking Shack, Malfoy asks if they’re shopping for their new home. Of course, this is meant as a jab but, it is sort of weird that he predicted things twice. We assume Ron and Hermione’s first home was a little nicer than the Shrieking Shack, at least.
#18: The House of a Dying Man
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When Harry finally ends up at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, it’s not quite what he expected. Even though it’s the home of his godfather, Grimmauld Place is gloomy, dark, and dank. In fact, book-Harry compares the atmosphere to “[entering] the house of a dying person”. Although this could certainly just be an on-point metaphor, it’s hard not to see the grim foreshadowing of Sirius Black’s future after knowing it happens. As it turns out, it was exactly like entering the house of a dying person.
#17: The Room of Requirement
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We love the little hints in the books for faithful readers, and the Room of Requirement definitely fits that bill. While chatting with Igor Karkaroff in “Goblet of Fire”, Dumbldore mentions this magical location. He explains that one time, he was in desperate need of a chamber pot and the castle provided an entire room of them… And that he would later be unable to find the room again. On the surface, this seems like just another fun demonstration of the Headmaster’s conversational quirkiness and the castle’s curious nature. However, it all starts to make sense in “Order of the Phoenix” when the Room of Requirement becomes a big plot device. In fact, Harry himself makes the connection when Dobby explains the room’s function.
#16: Family Relations
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Keeping track of magical family trees in the “Harry Potter” series can get a little confusing. After all, not all of them are printed on a bedroom wall like in the Black family home. Luckily, we come to understand that Harry Potter is a descendent of the Peverell family – the three brothers in the story of The Deathly Hallows – through the tradition of passing down the Cloak of Invisibility. From Ignotus, it traveled down all the way to Harry. Since Tom Riddle’s grandfather had the Resurrection Stone as a family heirloom, it can be assumed it was also passed down to him from the Peverells. If that’s true, Voldemort and Harry Potter could be distant relatives. That would definitely be an awkward family reunion.
#15: That Awful Boy
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After Harry and Dudley are attacked by Dementors, Aunt Petunia lets slip that she knows the soul-sucking creatures guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. Appalled at herself, Harry’s aunt quickly explains that she heard about it from “that awful boy”. Everyone assumed she was referring to her late brother-in-law, James Potter. However, in the final book we learn that Snape knew Lily and Petunia when they were all children and that Petunia picked up her magical trivia while spying on the two. If Petunia had actually used the wizard’s name, maybe she and Harry could’ve bonded over their shared dislike of Professor Snape.
#14: Foe-Glass Foreshadowing
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Until that pivotal peek into Snape’s memories in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, his allegiance was hotly debated. However, there was a very clear hint in the fourth book, for those who knew where to look. After the Dark One’s return, Harry is taken to recover from his ordeal in Professor Moody’s office. Harry sees McGonagall, Dumbledore and Snape in the paranoid professor’s Foe-Glass. The revelation that the deranged Barty Crouch Jr. had been impersonating Moody in order to help Voldemort makes this a very important detail. Since a Foe-Glass shows the owner’s enemies, it confirms that Snape was on the opposite side of the Death Eaters.
#13: Myrtle Knows
Moaning Myrtle is well known at Hogwarts for hanging out in bathrooms. Although not the best location for making new friends, it does frequently give her the inside scoop. It’s not surprising, then, that the ghost was the first to know about an imposter at Hogwarts. When she approaches Harry during his bath in “Goblet of Fire”, Myrtle asks if he and his friends have been making polyjuice potion again. Harry is so focused on his Triwizard task (and taken aback at being interrupted in the bath) that he doesn’t press Myrtle for exactly what she means. It’s also not far-fetched to assume she was referring to second year. Maybe if Harry had asked for a few more details, however, he’d have known about Barty Crouch Jr. much earlier.
#12: A Nightmarish Prediction
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After his very first day at Hogwarts, Harry has a crazy nightmare. In it, he’s wearing Professor Quirrell’s turban and it keeps telling him to transfer to Slytherin. Since Harry was anxious about his encounter with the sorting hat, this dream seems understandable. However, by the end of “Philosopher’s Stone”, this dream seems way too detailed to be a coincidence. And how did Harry make this wild realization in his dreams? It could also have been an early hint at the connection created by the piece of Voldemort’s soul that lives in Harry. In the future, his ability to learn about the Dark One in dreams would become very important.
#11: Snape's Hidden Message
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In his very first potions class, Harry is peppered with questions by Professor Snape. It seems like the cranky teacher is just picking on the famous student. The questions are so difficult, there isn’t a chance that any first-year could know the answers… well, except Hermione. The first impossible question concerns asphodel and wormwood and is more than just a set of potion ingredients. Once you learn that asphodel is a type of lily and wormwood symbolizes regret and sorrow, it’s hard to miss this secret message. Snape is telling Lily’s son exactly how he feels about her death. When paired with the last thing he expresses to Harry, it’s truly an incredible set of bookend moments.
#10: Myrtle's Murderer
In “Chamber of Secrets,” Harry, Ron, and Hermione are working to solve the mystery of what is petrifying their fellow students at Hogwarts. Along the way, they come across something curious in the trophy room- an award with Tom Riddle’s name on it which he won for “services to the school.” While they’re hypothesizing about what this could mean, Ron jokes that maybe he was the one who killed Moaning Myrtle and says “that would've done everyone a favor.” In the end, though, that’s exactly what happened, because Tom Riddle was the one who opened the Chamber of Secrets. We’re pretty sure that’s not what the award was for, though.
#9: Correspondence Confusion
In the sixth book, Albus Dumbledore comes to number four Privet Drive to collect Harry during the summer. While there, he of course makes the Dursleys very uncomfortable, but also drops a hint to something readers wouldn’t learn more about until the final book. When he sees Petunia he says, "We have corresponded, of course,” which could have simply referred to a howler that he sent to their house once. We later find out though that Petunia wrote to Hogwarts when she was a child, disappointed that her sister was offered admission when she was not.
#8: Who Broke the Vanishing Cabinet Much of the sixth book revolves around Harry’s attempts to prove that Malfoy is up to something sinister at Hogwarts. In the end we find out that of course Harry was right all along, and Malfoy had been attempting to fix a broken vanishing cabinet in order to transport Death Eaters into the school. Several books earlier, when Harry is having a confrontation with Filch, he hears Peeves the Poltergeist drop a large cabinet above the caretaker’s office. Perhaps these two cabinets are one and the same? If so, that’s some seriously subtle foreshadowing.
#7: Snape's Last Words
Longtime fans of the series probably recall the fact that for many years before the final book was published, it was hinted that there would be an important meaning behind the fact that Harry had his mother’s eyes. This finally came to fruition in the final chapters of “Deathly Hallows” when with his dying breaths Snape says to Harry, “look at me.” Only later do we find out about Snape’s feelings for Harry’s mother Lily when Harry delves into the professor’s memories. It’s never explicitly spelled out, but you can assume that Snape wanted the last thing he saw to be the eyes of the woman he loved.
#6: Snowball Fight
This delightful “easter egg” must have been intentional. During the winter of Harry’s first year at Hogwarts, he watched Fred and George Weasley bewitch snowballs to follow Professor Quirrell around and “[bounce] off the back of his turban.” Of course, at the end of the first book we learn that Lord Voldemort has partially taken over Quirrell’s body, and his face is situated at the back of the professor’s head. Now you can re-read that passage and laugh while you imagine snowballs hitting Voldemort right in the face.
#5: The Gleam of Triumph
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At the end of “Goblet of Fire” when Harry has just escaped his encounter with Voldemort in the graveyard, he is discussing his experience with Dumbledore when something curious happens. Harry notices a “gleam of something like triumph” in the headmaster’s eyes. Considering readers had to wait three years for the next book to come out, they had plenty of time to speculate about this oh so subtle hint. It was only in the final novel, though, that this was finally clarified, because Voldemort using Harry’s blood for his resurrection meant that he would never be able to kill him.
#4: The Three Brothers
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In “Deathly Hallows,” Harry learns of the tale of the Three Brothers. The brother who chose the elder wand wanted power, the brother who chose the resurrection stone longed for his lost love, and the brother who chose the invisibility cloak greeted death like an old friend. These characters are mirrored by three of the major players in the “Harry Potter” books: Voldemort, Snape, and Harry himself. Voldemort wanted power, Snape loved and lamented the loss of Lily, and in the end Harry showed that he was not afraid of death -- who, by the way, may be the part Dumbledore plays in all this.
#3: A Horcrux Hint
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This is one of those tiny details that could possibly be a coincidence, or could be a well-buried hint. Professor Trelawney is making predictions about Harry, and hazards a guess that he was born in “midwinter.” This is of course wrong, because his birthday is July 31st. Readers could just take this as one of the many examples of Trelawney being a bit of a crackpot. Interestingly though, Voldemort’s birthday is December 31st, which is midwinter, and in “Deathly Hallows” we find out that a part of Voldemort has always been within Harry. Could it be that she was sensing someone else’s birthday?
#2: Plausible Predictions
While trying to get through their divination homework in “Goblet of Fire,” Harry and Ron put in the least amount of effort possible by making up wildly bold predictions, all of which involve horrible things happening to Harry. The thing is, though, as the story unfolds, all of these things come to pass. They say he will be "in danger of burns," which corresponds to the first task of the Triwizard Tournament, that he will "lose a treasured possession," which corresponds to the second, and that he will "come off worse in a fight," which is essentially what happens when he encounters Voldemort in the graveyard. Are your minds blown yet?
#1: Unlucky 13
At Christmas in “Prisoner of Azkaban”, Professor Trelawney won’t sit down for dinner because that would make for a group of thirteen, which would mean the first person to rise from the table would die. Everyone dismisses her folly, but in actuality there already were thirteen people around the table if you include Peter Pettigrew disguised at Ron’s rat, Scabbers. Dumbledore was the first to rise, and also the first of the group to die. In book five, there are thirteen people dining together when Sirius is the first to rise, which foreshadows his untimely death.
