r/harrypotter • • 1d ago

Announcement Halloween Event: Brawl in the Great Hall!

4 Upvotes

Special Subreddit Event: Saturday, October 31

Halloween: The day it all started in-universe for baby Harry Potter and the day the lives of Lily and James Potter were cut short. Depending on who you ask, it is also the day of Severus Snape's deepest betrayal, or his greatest sacrifice.
 
The r/harrypotter subreddit will be celebrating Halloween this year by 'fighting' out the James/Marauders vs. Severus Snape question in a special Brawl in the Great Hall event!
 
For the 24 hours of October 31, from midnight to midnight Eastern US Time (New York Time), this subreddit will ONLY be allowing posts about Snape and/or the Marauders. Was Snape a bad guy or a regular guy caught in a bad situation? Was James an egregious bully or a teenager who just needed to deflate his head? Where do YOU stand? Feisty debate is encouraged. The gloves are coming off. Fight it out! Have a Brawl in the Great Hall! But remember --- No hitting below the belt!
 
IMPORTANT NOTE: The 'Brawl' theme applies to your words about the CHARACTERS ONLY! Bans for personal attacks on other users will be quick and lengthy. Please do not be the reason we cannot have fun events here.
 

Event Rules:

 
-- NO PERSONAL ATTACKS! Debate the story characters, NOT the other users. Any attacks on a user's character, personality, intelligence, reading comprehension or any other shots taken at the person behind the keyboard WILL result in a subreddit ban. Excessive personal attacks will also end the event. This is not negotiable.
 
-- Discuss the characters, not the fans. No asking 'Why do people like Snape?' or 'How can people possibly not think James is awful?'. Tell us how YOU feel about the character and let others do the same.
 
-- Discuss the characters, not the actors. This is not about Alan Rickman or Paapa Essiedu or anyone else from the real world. CHARACTERS ONLY.
 
We will be removing all posts about Snape and/or James/the Marauders until October 31 in preparation for the event.
 
Watch this space for the starting bell!
 


r/harrypotter • • 7h ago

Question Could Fawkes theoretically tank unlimited Avada Kedavras?

68 Upvotes

In Order of the Phoenix, Fawkes literally swallows Voldemort's Killing Curse, bursts into flames, and gets reborn.

So couldn't he theoretically keep doing this forever? Is there any canon limit to how many times a phoenix can be reborn, or is the only problem that he'd be a tiny chick after each hit?

And theoretically, couldn't Dumbledore just hold baby Fawkes in his hand and use him as a shield against Avada Kedavra?


r/harrypotter • • 11h ago

Question Prime Grindelwald vs. Prime Voldemort (No Horcruxes or Elder Wand)

147 Upvotes

Who would win in a fight between Grindelwald and Voldemort if both were in their prime, going all out, and had thoroughly prepared for the fight beforehand, assuming Voldemort had no Horcruxes and neither possessed the Elder Wand?


r/harrypotter • • 3h ago

Discussion I just love Minerva McGonagall

29 Upvotes

That's it. But seriously, she's the most phenomenal characters in the series.

She was often seen as harsh, but she pushed students to achieve what they could. And I doubt she'd take any shit if you came to her and told her that someone had been bullying you, or about something personal.

And I think this is why she cared about the students so much, especially during the war. Yes, some of it was maternal, but it would be unfair to put it all to that. I think a huge part of it was her emotional and actual real world investment in them - she spent years teaching them not only to turn matches into needles but also how to be a witch/wizard in the modern word, lessons on morale and on being human.

She was never vulnerable, but she wasn't above helping others to be either.

These are just some (incredibly biased) opinions and i'd love to hear yours/just rant about how amazing she is.


r/harrypotter • • 4h ago

Discussion Why is Peter Pettigrew made out to be an idiot?

34 Upvotes

I’m rereading the books, and something stuck out to me: how Voldemort, Snape, and Sirius talk about and address Peter Pettigrew when, if you think about it, he’s actually a pretty clever and powerful wizard.

First, he learned how to become an Animagus, along with the others, which is not an easy feat.

Second, he blew up an entire street, killing 13 people at once. That is a powerful bit of magic by any standard.

Third, he disguised himself and remained hidden for 13 years, during which everyone assumed he was dead.

Then, upon escaping from Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Sirius, he managed to locate Lord Voldemort in Albania.

He subsequently nursed Voldemort back to the point where he had a rudimentary body.

He then prepared what I assume was an extremely complex magical potion to resurrect Lord Voldemort.

So why is he consistently portrayed as a bumbling, cowardly idiot when he has clearly demonstrated numerous credible feats of intelligence, resourcefulness, and powerful magic?


r/harrypotter • • 1h ago

Behind the Scenes I just learned that they initially gave Emma false teeth to better match Hermione's description. Spoiler

• Upvotes

Like Daniel's green contacts, the false teeth were dropped after the first day of filming. You can see them in the ending scene of Philosopher's Stone. It took me 25 years to notice.

In the books, Hermione had large front teeth until Goblet of Fire, when she had Madame Pomfrey shrink them while being treated for Malfoy's hex.


r/harrypotter • • 5h ago

Discussion Vanishing cabinet

8 Upvotes

In The Chamber of Secrets, Peeves destroys a vanishing cabinet. I don't think it's really alluded to in Half-Blood Prince, but is it the same one Malfoy spent all year trying to repair?


r/harrypotter • • 1d ago

Fanworks Halloween is here! How'd we do with our Thrift Store finds?

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977 Upvotes

We pieced together some stuff from Thrift Stores and Amazon (wigs). How'd we do? Kinda weird that Moody and Bellatrix are married.


r/harrypotter • • 18m ago

Help Please Help Me Find New Jily Fanfiction

• Upvotes

I feel like I've been reading Jily fanfiction forever and I feel like I've read all the good ones. Any recommendations would be amazing


r/harrypotter • • 1d ago

Discussion Oh Dumbledore they could never make me form a solid opinion on you

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3.7k Upvotes

"You've been raising him like a pig for slaughter" sounds about right


r/harrypotter • • 49m ago

Discussion Wand ownership is a debated topic in the wizarding world.

• Upvotes

I’ve seen some comments about the subject and want to share my piece.

I think not everyone agrees that the wand chooses the wizard, some more or less think they know better.
This is like someone who thinks they know better than a doctor or mechanic and will do something a professional would discourage.

So there are 3 examples.

In the first book we see 3 people.

Draco malfoy meets Harry when getting his clothes for school and tells Harry that his mother is currently getting his wand from ollivander. This is odd and a bit contradictory as the wand has to choose its master. However I could see the malfoys being so superior that they think their wand has to serve as a status symbol so I think she simply went in prepared with a list of qualities in a wand for her son which would represent a higher quality in him. Ollivander would warn her and encourage she bring her son to be tested but she dismissed him and he just gives her a wand that she approves of. By chance it does work for Harry.

Ron. Ron first wand was a hand down from Charlie which raises a question of why did Charlie get a new wand for ?
But anyways Ron did struggle with magic a bit until he got a new one in 3rd year.
I believe the reason is because Ron’s wand didn’t recognise him as a master, it belonged to Charlie but it did sense Ron was Charlie’s brother thus it didn’t resist him too much. Molly likely didn’t know about the whole wand choosing the wizard thing and believed a 2nd hand wand was good enough.

Neville. It’s noted that his wand belonged to his father that his grandmother gave him thinking he would be as great as his father and Neville was notoriously bad at magic.
She being old fashioned likely believed passing down wands is a birthright and that Neville getting his father’s wand was a worthy respectful thing to do.

So my point is ollivander words on wands choosing their master is likely just a substitution he believes in but most down. Likely some even think it’s just a way to make money.

But in truth it exposes how little people know and respect about wands.
Wands are suppose to be respected and cared for by their master, they are extensions of themselves but most just serve them into their pockets.

It show cases that a lot of the wizarding world are ignorant.


r/harrypotter • • 6h ago

Discussion THEY GAVE CHARLIE AN ACTOR!!!

3 Upvotes

I’m so so excited for this


r/harrypotter • • 1d ago

Discussion Dumbledore's design

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361 Upvotes

Dumbledore's costume design has been consistently disappointing. In the books he's described as wearing a lot of vibrant colours, but this is rarely reflected in live action.

Harris' costume closest resembles the book description and Jude Law was a step in the right direction colour-wise albeit too similar to standard Muggle garb, but Gambon and Lithgow's designs are very bland in comparison and I think he appears more generic, taking away from idea the contrast of how powerful he is compared to how flamboyant and eccentric he appears.

Thoughts?


r/harrypotter • • 19h ago

Question GoF - the second task?

26 Upvotes

I’m listening to the full cast audio books for the first time and they’ve been really entertaining. That being said, while listening to GoF I found myself wondering how underwhelming it would have been to be in the crowd during the second task at the lake.

Like, you’re sitting in the in the stands, the champions all dive into the lake, and then we just sit and stare at the water for the next hour wondering what is happening down there? Can’t have been that entertaining for the crowd. Obviously we get the rescue scene from Harry’s POV, but I’d be pissed if I attended the second task and just sat and stared at the water for an hour.

Probably being critical, but has anyone else ever thought about this?


r/harrypotter • • 2h ago

Discussion How is it determined which creatures fall under the statute of secrecy and which ones don't?

1 Upvotes

My wife has been rewatching the Wizarding World films lately and she just got to the Fantastic Beasts movies. It got me to wondering: How is it decided which creatures need to have their existences hidden from Muggles? It makes sense of course to hide the existence of especially dangerous or magically potent creatures (unicorns, dragons, phoenixes, etc) but others like the puffskeins are comparably mundane. Further complicating this is the fact that many normal animals have highly potent magical properties when used in potion making.


r/harrypotter • • 19h ago

Discussion possible reason why draco's wand answers to him

14 Upvotes

In the 1st book draco tells harry that his mother is getting his wand at olivanders while hes getting his robes, could his mother have bought a large batch of olivander wands made of the best materials as she felt her son deserved the finest wand and after doing so they returned home [The only reason i can think about why they didnt test them at olivanders is because they didnt want to be seen in such a small dusty shop] so draco could try all of them out until he found the wand that chooses him and then they threw the rest out.

what do you all think?

also too those who only watched the films harry and draco first meet in diagon alley when they where getting there robes, at the time draco didnt know he was tlking to harry potter till after they meet again on the hogwarts express where they first became enemys rather then at the castle like in the film


r/harrypotter • • 1d ago

Discussion Wizards in Harry Potter undoubtedly underestimate technology and Muggles to a fault

32 Upvotes

Aside from Grindelwald, the entirety of the wizarding community does so; though, to be fair, we cannot blame them entirely, as it is a direct consequence of the segregation and isolation they imposed upon themselves.

The perfect example to contrast this occurs in The Dresden Files novels, a series about a wizard who helps the Chicago Police Department fight supernatural threats. In that universe, the average wizard is far more destructive than the average wizard in Harry Potter. All kinds of supernatural beings exist there (wizards, vampires, werewolves, etc.) and, just like in J.K. Rowling's work, they hide from normal humans. However, the protagonist himself, Harry Dresden, explains the exact reason for this secrecy: a spell can be highly powerful, but it will do you no good if humanity throws a tank, bombs, napalm, or nuclear weapons at you.

The crucial difference between both worlds is that in Harry Potter, wizards did not just hide—they isolated themselves completely. They did not witness human technological advancement firsthand, and they likely assume that humanity is still stuck in 1692 (the year the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was signed). In contrast, in The Dresden Files, the magical community hid but never isolated themselves from normal humans; they witnessed firsthand the World Wars, atomic power, the Cold War, and the space race.

Furthermore, in Dresden's universe, advanced technology does not just fail around magic—it actively malfunctions or explodes. Despite this biological and magical limitation, wizards respect technology deeply, and it actually frustraites them that they cannot use it. The protagonist himself has to drive a classic car with zero electronic components and frequently relies on revolvers as backup. If a world where technology is inherently hostile to magic still respects and fears human advancement, it proves that the isolation of Harry Potter wizards is nothing but total blindness to the true power of the Muggle world.


r/harrypotter • • 21h ago

Video Games I NEED this to be Canon

8 Upvotes

I don't know if the developers of the game did this on purpose or not. Perhaps they envisioned a version of the Gaunt family from a time when their name and reputation still had weight, but if you do the simple math of when Hogwarts Legacy actually takes place, 1890, it forces you to realize a few important details about Ominis Gaunt as a character:

The most important detail is that he would be an immediate contemporary of Marvolo Gaunt, the grandfather of Lord Voldemort; very likely his own brother, or perhaps a first cousin, but we know for sure that they were alive at the same time and would have known each other. This is very interesting to me, first of all, because Ominis is presented in the game with a very aristocratic presentation in both his speech and his appearance, not to mention his tendency to drop his family's name as leverage. However, Dumbledore very explicitly states in HBP that the Gaunts had squandered their fortune generations before Marvolo was even born, which applies by extension to Ominis, who would be well aware of this fact. That means that his high-born persona is in fact a thin veneer masking a quickly decaying household.

Second of all, the chapter "House of Gaunt" in Half-Blood Prince provides a lot of immediate context and a demonstration as to the kind of family life Ominis would have had, not as an abstract concept of the family's future, but his actual reality. He might not have been living in squalor yet, but if the behavior of Marvolo and Morfin are anything to go on, saying his family was obsessed with blood status is an understatement, to put it lightly. If you found his introduction where he expresses resentment toward Salazar Slytherin to be a bit heavy-handed or out of place for the time period, as I have seen some suggest, then consider this: Whether or not Slytherin himself was really a maniac obsessed with pure-bloods or if there was more nuance to him makes no difference to Ominis because the Gaunts were this to the absolute extreme, and their connection to their ancestor would come up every time they chose to torture him with the Cruciatus Curse, so to him, Salazar Slytherin is essentially the cause of his trauma and suffering. If anything, you don't actually hear a huge amount of pure-blood fanaticism within the game at all. Ominis could in this context be one of the first individuals to sound the alarm as someone who has seen first-hand what that kind of obsession will often lead to.

Thirdly, and this is something I wish we could actually see in the sequel, is the understanding that Ominis more likely than not would not have survived his family. It is very easy to imagine that someone like Marvolo would not take kindly at all to a person he perceives as an embarrassment to his family name, and we know from the book that by the time Bob Ogden comes to arrest Morfin, he, Marvolo, and Merope are the only descendants left of Slytherin. If a blind relative roughly the same age as Dumbledore was around during this time, Dumbledore would have known about it, since they would have attended school at the same time during Ominis's seventh year.

For these reasons, it would be very interesting and personal for Marvolo to be at least a villain in the next game, if not the primary antagonist, as a looming threat over Ominis. It would tie in perfectly with the book lore, even if the developers didn't fully intend to write it this way. If they did, bravo! If not, then they accidentally struck gold with this potential. This is my full post, probably identical to what I've already shared, but I NEED it to make waves.


r/harrypotter • • 2d ago

Discussion Meeting goyle

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1.4k Upvotes

r/harrypotter • • 2d ago

Question Is it a crime to have a beard before the age of 100 in Harry Potter?

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1.6k Upvotes

r/harrypotter • • 2h ago

Discussion TV Show Casting (NOT about that one)

0 Upvotes

Ok, aside from the one issue that has been discussed to death, what do you think about the show’s casting? Good? Bad? Ugly?

My biggest beefs are: 1. I don’t love John Lithgow’s voice for Dumbledore. Maybe this is just a “me” thing, but I’ve always found his voice annoying, even in serious roles. 2. Once again, they cast a very pretty actress for Hermione. Her awkwardness is a big part of her early development and we don’t really get to see it.

Biggest positives: 1. I think Bel Powley was NOT an obvious choice, but seeing her in character, it actually seems to work. 2. James and Lilly both seem inspired, at least looks-wise.

Biggest question mark: I like Nick Frost, but I remain unconvinced he can pull off Hagrid, and I’m worried he’ll see the role as ONLY comic relief. Obviously Hagrid has some very funny moments, but he’s also a somewhat tragic/heroic character we can be deeply emotionally invested in.


r/harrypotter • • 5h ago

Discussion The Tragedy of Being Harry

0 Upvotes

I won't pretend to be a major fan of the series, even as a kid in 90s and 2000s, I was sort of annoyed with a lot of the narrative and characters. Funny thing though, as I got older, got into writing and became a daycare worker... I really started to appreciate very specific aspects of the story. The Tragedy of Harry Potter is the biggest one.

Harry is a deeply abused kid, he's never known love and sadly never does. Yes he gets people in his life, but everyone of them had really uncomfortable and unhealthy expectations of him. Dumbles sees him as a human sacrifice, Molly coddles and ignore his needs based on how she wants him to be, Sirius sees him a Second shot of James, Snape as a promise to be kept for Lily and Against James, Ron is willing to fight for him but holds no issue in using Harry for the perks of attention...

And the few that could really be considered bordering on loving him will always put everything above him. At the best, he will ever be a tool and that's the problem...


r/harrypotter • • 2d ago

Discussion The Unregistered Rat

525 Upvotes

"But Professor Lupin… Scabbers can’t be Pettigrew… it just can’t be true, you know it can’t…” “Why can’t it be true?” Lupin said calmly, as though they were in class, and Hermione had simply spotted a problem in an experiment with grindylows. “Because… because people would know if Peter Pettigrew had been an Animagus. We did Animagi in class with Professor McGonagall. And I looked them up when I did my homework—the Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on witches and wizards who can become animals; there’s a register showing what animal they become, and their markings and things… and I went and looked Professor McGonagall up on the register, and there have been only seven Animagi this century, and Pettigrew’s name wasn’t on the list—”

Hermione just found out that Sirius was an animagus but wasn't on the list. And yet, her objection was that Peter wasn't on the list so he couldn't be an animagus.


r/harrypotter • • 6h ago

Question What are the subplots removed from the movies

0 Upvotes

As m an only movie watcher m curious how many subplots were removed from the movie ? Like we have 4 houses yet in the movie we only talk about Slytherin and Gryffondor, I don’t get it how harry and ginny became a thing they suddenly became interested since the 6th movie, I do intend to read the book, but m curious how deep is the iceberg of the Harry Potter’s lore that we didn’t see on screen.

Thank you in advance for reading my post and taking your time in the answers and I apologize for my uneducatedness regarding the subject m a novice in the Pottermore family


r/harrypotter • • 6h ago

Fanworks Harry's and Voldemort's wands are "brothers" - I mapped every link around Fawkes into one tree

0 Upvotes

Rewatching Goblet of Fire, I wanted to see the whole web at once: Fawkes gave exactly two tail feathers. Ollivander put one in Harry's holly wand and one in Tom Riddle's yew wand, and that's why Priori Incantatem happens in the graveyard.

So I mapped it: Fawkes → the two feathers → the two wands → Harry and Voldemort, plus Dumbledore (Fawkes's owner), Ollivander, Lily, James and Snape around them.

Things that stood out once it was laid out:

  • Dumbledore is linked to both wands through Fawkes, years before either boy got them
  • The wands are "brothers", but their owners are linked only through Voldemort's choice to mark Harry
  • Snape's whole arc hangs off one link: Lily

What connection did I miss?

Disclosure: I built the tool I made this in, Tree Tier. Happy to share the interactive version if anyone wants to click around.