31 Genius Harry Potter Details You Totally Missed If You Only Watched The Movies
Movie adaptations of books are notoriously less than satisfactory. And Harry Potter is no exception. While the eight films are certainly wonderful and magical and perfectly acceptable, a LOT of content never made it into the script. Which means that if you've only ever seen the films and never read the books... you missed out on a ton of side plots. Some of which were actually super important.
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1.Ginny actually has a personality.
2.Harry was the one who funded Fred and George's joke business.
3.The Marauders' Map was created by Harry's dad, along with his friends Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew.
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The Marauders' Map is shown in the film in all its glory. But we never get the reveal that Harry's dad and his BFFs were the ones who actually created it.
4.Dumbledore sent the Dursleys a Howler when they were thinking of kicking Harry out after the Dementor incident.
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Just as Vernon was throwing Harry out the door, a Howler arrived, which boomed, "Remember my last," in Dumbledore's voice. Petunia instantly insisted that Harry stays in the house.
5.Hermione's S.P.E.W. club.
6.Ron and Hermione were prefects.
7.Harry randomly finds — and dismisses — two Horcruxes before he even knows what they are.
8.Muggles can't see Hogwarts.
9.And electronic devices don't work there.
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If a Muggle-born kid tried to bring their GameBoy (this was the '90s, remember) to Hogwarts, it'd simply short-circuit and stop working.
10.Muggle Studies is a subject that is taught at Hogwarts.
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The movies only focus on the sexy subjects like Defense Against The Dark Arts and Potions. But other subjects taught in the books include Muggle Studies, Ancient Runes, Astronomy, and Arithmancy.
11.Snape can kinda read minds.
12.Fred and George were the ones who gave Malfoy the idea to smuggle Death Eaters into Hogwarts.
13.And in fact, the whole reason this cabinet was broken was because of Harry.
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In Chamber of Secrets, Harry was in trouble with Filch. To distract the caretaker, Nearly Headless Nick persuaded Peeves the Poltergeist to drop a cabinet right above the office. That cabinet was the same Vanishing Cabinet that later became so integral to the story.
14.Percy fully turned his back on the whole Weasley family.
15.But his redemption came during the Battle of Hogwarts, literally seconds before Fred died.
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Percy came back to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts, rejoining his siblings in the fight for a sweet reunion. Just as they're celebrating, an explosion rips through the corridor and kills Fred.
16.Nearly Headless Nick had a Deathday party that was just full of ghosts.
17.Filch and Mrs. Figg are "Squibs" — people who are born into Wizarding families but don't have magical abilities.
18.Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, is a half-blood.
19.Snape is also a half-blood.
20.Rita Skeeter is an Animagus, meaning she could turn into a beetle whenever she wanted.
21.When Fred and George left school in defiance of Umbridge, they turned a corridor of Hogwarts into a swamp.
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In the movies, they left on their brooms in a shower of fireworks, but in reality, they made a much bigger problem for Umbridge. Flitwick even left a little portion of swamp behind as a memento, roping it off and complimenting the twins' magic.
22.The Sorting Hat sings a new song every year before the Sorting Ceremony.
23.When boys try to enter the girls' dormitory, the entry stairs turn into a slide and whoosh them back down.
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Hermione can get into Ron and Harry's dorm, but when the pair try to visit Hermione, the stairs transform into a slippery slide so they can't get in.
24.Harry has a terrible date with Cho at a teashop in Hogsmeade that ends with her leaving in tears because Harry mentioned he was meeting Hermione later.
25.Trelawney is low-key an alcoholic.
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She's seen stumbling around while drinking cooking sherry, one of the things that led to her being fired by Umbridge.
26.Harry and Ginny broke up at the end of sixth book, just after Dumbledore's funeral.
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Harry was trying to keep her safe from Voldemort and the Death Eaters while he went out Horcrux hunting.
27.Hagrid's motorbike once belonged to Sirius Black.
28.Neville could have been The Chosen One, instead of Harry.
29.Voldemort, when he was still Tom Riddle, desperately wanted to be the Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.
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Dumbledore turned him down, and ever since then, no DADA teacher has stayed at the school longer than a year — leading people to believe Voldy cursed the job.
30.Aunt Petunia was in contact with Dumbledore when she was a kid.
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She begged him to let her go to Hogwarts with her sister Lily. When he said no, it began her hatred of the Wizarding World.
31.Hermione and Ron's first kiss is actually in front of Harry.
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In the movie, they snog in the Chamber of Secrets. But in the book, it's in a corridor in front of Harry. Ron says something about wanting to save the house elves in the kitchen, and Hermione can't control herself, launching in for a cute lil' makeout session.
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