12 Thoughts I Had While (Re)Reading the Entire Harry Potter Series For the 20th Time
Ever since I was a kid, I've been a diehard Potterhead. Like if the phrase had a spot in the dictionary, it would read: "Die-hard Potterhead: (n.) fan who has one or more Harry Potter tattoos, visits The Wizarding World of Harry Potter annually, has met Daniel Radcliffe and cried the entire time, can quote the movies by heart, is going all the way to England to see Cursed Child, and has read the series more than 20 times."
And as a diehard Potterhead, people always ask me, "Do you still get something new out of those books?" And as I read the series for the 20th (19th? 21st? Idk, I've lost track.) time, it was as if my brain began to work on a superhuman Dumbledore-esq level. I understood the books more thoroughly than I ever had before, and thus, didn't understand them at all.
Here are all the thoughts/questions/random epiphanies I had while reading the Harry Potter series for the 20th or maybe 23rd time.
1. Why didn't Hagrid get his wand back after he was proven innocent? Ok, I know the fandom has been asking this question for like 10 years, but seriously. Why???
2. How does the Trace work? The Ministry can only sense when magic is done in a certain area, which is why Harry got blamed for Dobby's hover charm in The Chamber of Secrets – he was the only wizard living at the Dursley residence. But in The Goblet of Fire, Arthur Weasley shows up and does all kinds of magic, but Harry doesn't get in trouble for that. Wtf?!
3. During the battle at the Ministry in Order of the Phoenix, why didn't the D.A. take the Death Eaters' wands once they Stunned them? I know they were scared and all, but Death Eaters are pretty much worthless without their wands.
4. And why didn't the Order just break the prophecy so Voldemort couldn't get it? Dumbledore and Snape were the only people who knew what it said, so if it was broken, the Order would be the only ones with the information! Harry was literally standing right outside the door when he went to trial, so he could have just done it then. I mean it wouldn't have been a big deal, since he basically destroyed the entire Department of Mysteries with like zero consequences from the Ministry.
5. What terrible memory did Dudley relive when the dementor attacked him? I want to know so badly.
6. J.K. Rowling should really combine all the Pottermore short stories into a book. It could be like a real life Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy! Because as much as I love Pottermore, I really don't have time to sift through a bunch of interactive cartoons every time I want to read about Snape's childhood (which is often).
7. OMG. This year I'm totally going to throw a birthday party for Voldemort instead of a New Year's Eve party.
8. In book 7, Harry and Hermione should have gotten food by Apparating into a grocery store after everyone had gone home for the night. They could have just put a simple freezing charm on the Muggle alarm systems, left some money, and saved themselves like months of near starvation. It probably would have also prevented Ron from leaving them, since food is basically his favorite thing about life.
9. Also, why do all the "Potterwatch" code names start with the letter "R" in book 7? Romulus, Royal, Rapier, River, Rodent! What does this mean??
10. Does Dean Thomas have a step-dad? When he was on the run in book 7, he said that he never met his dad, so he had no proof if he has a wizard ancestor. Then on "Potterwatch," Lee Jordan said that Dean's parents (plural) and sisters were worried about him. Dean's family life is obvi so important.
11. They definitely forgot to explain Sirius' two-way mirror in the movies. Harry just pulls a magical shard of glass out of his sock in the Malfoys' basement and starts talking to it like it's NBD. If I hadn't read the books a billion times before I saw the film, I'd have been v. Confunded.
12. Why can't the Death Eaters get into 12 Grimmauld Place? When Dumbledore, the Secret Keeper for the Order, dies, Molly Weasley says that everyone who he told the location became Secret Keepers. Since he told Snape, that would make Snape an SK with the power to bring in the Death Eaters, like Hermione accidentally did after the trio broke into the Ministry of Magic. So how on earth were Hermione, Harry, and Ron able to live there for like a month after going on the run with no Death Eater intrusions??
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