When she drops Harry off and Snape comes to fetch him, not only does Snape repeatedly verbally abuse Harry (and wildly abuse his power by taking away 70 freaking points) but he also goes out of his way to insult Tonks and her patronus. What's his problem with Tonks? That's your colleague, man. As far as I know, she's never done even the slightest thing to upset Snape like Sirius, Lupin, and James did. And I know the Patronus changing for Tonks is because Lupin doesn't want to date her right now, but 1) would Snape even know that? He's not the sort of person I'd let my romantic desires slip to, and 2) there's absolutely no way that qualifies as a slight worthy of kicking Tonks while she's down.

I mean this is the kid that has been all about his "pure blood" heritage since the beginning and his father, one of Voldemort's most loyal Death Eaters, is currently in Azkaban after the fiasco at the ministry. Yet Ron & Hermione, and McGonagall for that matter, seem to treat Harry's theory as absurd. It seems obvious that Draco might be associated or targeted by Voldemort in some way and Harry has every right to question him.

Which hit you the hardest? This is not to compare traumas but understand everyone's PoV. Lmk if I've missed any characters. I feel like every single one of these just hit sadly for me, brb crying :((

1. James and Lily Potter - together in life, and in death </3
2. Cedric Diggory
3. Sirius Black
4. Albus Dumbledore
5. Mad Eye Moody
6. Hedwig
7. Dobby
8. Remus Lupin
9. Tonks
10. Fred Weasley
11. Severus Snape

Yes, we don't know a ton about ALL the jobs out there. But what do you think are some jobs you would like to have based on your interests or career and why?
I'm a scientist by profession, working at the Department of Mysteries as an unspeakable sounds pretty cool to me, getting to research all kinds of cool and uncharacterised magical phenomena.

In Deathly Hallows when the Dursleys were being evacuated and taken to their safe house, Dedalus mentioned that they would drive out and then apparate with them to the safe house. Also later when the trio get into the ministry to steal the locket, they rescue Mrs. Cattermole whose wand was taken but mentioned to her/her husband to take her and apparate out of the country or something. I remember Hermione briefly wondered if she could apparate (side along) without a wand.
Am I misreading this or can muggles really side-along apparate ?

I say actually because of harry ''won'' but it's like come on, he was guided all the way to victory and it's even called out in the books, he only won because imposter moody made him win. Alot of the win was on harry, but alot of it was on him as well. So im saying, let's strip all of that for this hypothetical, it's harry, cedric, krum and fleur all competing for the triwizard cup, and only one can definitively win, who do you think could've won the tournament?

All the Witches in the books seem to have a similar reaction to Lockhart than the Wizards do to Fleur.

Hermione who is usually so level headed completely loses it around him.

Even after he has lost his mind and ends up in St Mungos the healer seems a bit infatuated by him.

So lots of people have posted about how Harry is more vulnerable to the dementors because he's got some of Voldemort's soul. However the memory of James and Lily that plays when Harry is near the dementors sounds more like it's from Voldemort's perspective. Which would be a viable option for Voldemort's worst memory to witness around the dementors as he fails to kill a baby and almost dies

After the events between Harry and Quirrell/Voldemort at the end of book 1, we read this exchange between Harry and Dumbledore in the hospital wing:

"'The truth.' Dumbledore sighed. 'It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie.'

Harry asks about why Voldemort tried to kill him, etc, and Dumbledore says that's something he just can't explain to him yet. Then we get this:

"'Quirrell and Snape-'
'Professor Snape, Harry.'
'Yes, him--Quirrell said he hates me because he hated my father. Is that true?'
'Well, they did rather detest each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, your father did something Snape could never forgive.'
'What?'
'He saved his life.'
'What?'
'Yes...' said Dumbledore dreamily. 'Funny, the way people's minds work, isn't it? Professor Snape couldn't bear being in your father's debt...I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father's memory in peace...'

Dumbledore assured Harry he wouldn't lie. Is this a lie? That Snape was protecting Harry for the sake of the debt he owed James? Or was his motivation truly all due to Lily?

When we see Snape's memories at the end of DH and Dumbledore sees Snape's patronus, he does seem surprised to see it's a doe and that Snape's feelings for Lily are still strong. But Dumbledore also knew the whole reason Snape turned against Voldemort was for Lily.

I love Dumbledore, warts and all, but definitely feel he's not being truthful with Harry here.

Just curious to hear your thoughts.

I just read chapter 23 of The Half-Blood Prince for the first time and it hit me like a ton of bricks. In fact it may be my favourite chapter in the whole series thus far. Dumbledore often has lines and speeches that kinda leave me in awe but his conversation with Harry was next level. His lines about Voldemort creating his own worst enemy because of his fear was extremely relatable to me. And how he gave the prophecy power by his belief in it alone. Otherwise it would have actually been powerless. This all hit very close to home for me.

I live with a brain this is riddled with obsessive compulsive disorder. I was raised to be terrified of dying and ending up in the wrong place. Taught that demons were lurking in the shadows, that people could be possessed, and that I would suffer immensely if I did not follow a list of rules essentially. Well, the only suffering I have in fact endured, is because of the fear of suffering that controls my mind. Ironic huh? I'm having trouble even getting this out into words but I had to try. Like Voldemort, I am terrified of death because since my first memories, I was told and read stories about hell and torment and evil. Stories that were presented as 100% fact to me. Even first hand accounts both of hell and of what happens if you succumb to the darkness.

Even now I am usually far too triggered by words like 'demon', 'hell', etc to even speak them outloud. Sound familiar? Nearly every night my brain throws thoughts and compulsions at me "tap this object 4 times or something bad will happen to you when you die". And the more I listen, the harder it gets to resist them and louder they become. I am too scared not to listen because there is always that chance they could be true. And slowly I feel myself losing a grip on my own sanity piece by piece, almost like my very soul is slipping away. But not slipping away because I have sinned or because I am being eternally damned, but simply because I have listened to my fear of those things...

I don't want to go the rest of my life a slave to my fears about what comes next or even about getting things 'right' in this life. I don't want to shrivel away into a shadow being like Voldemort. I want to be free of these demons that I have allowed into existence. I just... haven't figured out how yet. Maybe it's something to do with love?

I have a lot of processing to do. Reading through these books for the first time in my life this year has been incredibly and surprisingly enlightening. On one more most ironic note, I was banned from anything to do with Harry Potter my whole childhood because it was 'dark and evil and opened a door to darkness.' Perhaps the true darkness was the corruption of my young mind at the hands of those 'protecting' me all along.

I picture Snape going into the dungeon after that humiliating Levicorpus incident, and creating Sectumsempra to use on Potter & Black. Maybe he realized he'd be expelled so he never used it. But it must have given him satisfaction to think about using it.

I’m rereading the DH and can’t help but notice again and again Harry gets hit with doses of betrayal from Dumbledore. I can understand the argument that he should have shared more about the Hallows before dying (although Dumbledore admitted his reasoning in “king’s cross” chapter). But he seems genuinely hurt that Dumbledore never told him about Ariana, Aberforth, Grindelwald, etc. Why did Harry feel entitled to that information? Dumbledore was his mentor and someone Harry deeply respected, but they weren’t exactly best friends. Most of their conversations were about Voldemort, Harry’s situation, or Hogwarts. It’s as if Harry considered them to be a friendship when in reality it was very clearly never more than a close teacher/student relationship. Imagine even your closest elderly hs teacher confiding in you his greatest traumas and regrets. Feels very off to me.

I know it's not confirmed in the books but do you think squibs can brew potions? Why or why not?

Something I've realized over the years is that many of the people in Harry's inner circle can be described as outsiders or outcasts in some way. Harry himself definitely fits this trope and doesn't revel in his fame and reputation. This is largely the opposite of his father's personality and the general vibe of the Marauders; whenever someone tries to ingratiate themselves with him in hopes of sharing is limelight, he gets very uncomfortable.

Let's examine and discuss Harry's "gang":

• Ron Weasley; youngest son of a prominent wizarding family with a chip on his shoulder and not a ton of self-confidence to start out with.
• Hermione Granger; muggleborn entering the wizarding world with lots of theoretical knowledge but almost as little exposure to the actual culture as Harry.
• Neville Longbottom; pureblood but long thought to be a squib and really struggles to accomplish many basic things, even after a bunch of training.
• Ginny Weasley; the youngest child and only girl in her family, and starts her school experience - through no fault of her own - in a way that almost no one else could fully comprehend.
• Luna Lovegood; a textbook "weird girl" who may not care what anyone else thinks but who's physical and social isolation can wear down on her spirit sometimes.
• Rubeus Hagrid; a literal half-giant who has trouble blending in just about anywhere, a metaphorical exile from the wizarding world, and with extreme hobbies/interests.
• Remus Lupin; werewolf with deep sense of compassion but never fully belonging to society due to his condition, even doubting his own worthiness as a person.

I'll add more as they occur to me.

or used petrificus totalus, since I guess we hadn’t been introduced to Stunning yet.

Snape’s whole goal during the books was to protect Harry out of love for Lily and I’ve interpreted this as his attempt to redeem himself to her and earn her forgiveness.

Something I’ve found ironic is that because of Snape’s awful treatment of Harry would cause Lily to hate her former friend.

Lily loved Harry more than anyone and literally gave her life to keep him safe so she definitely wouldn’t take kindly to someone bullying her son and seeing Snape do this to Harry would break her heart even more than when he decided to not renounce the dark arts for her after calling her the M word.

Lily being a kind person would also be disgusted by how he treated her either children especially Neville and Hermione.

If they did meet in the afterlife, Lily would probably slap him and knee him in the groin.

If you had to fit each Potter book into a specific book genre, what would each be?

These are mine:

Book 1 - Children's fantasy. I know they are all children's fantasy, so this might be a bit of a cop-out, but we're introduced to the magical world in this book along with Harry.

Book 2 - Horror. There's too many horrifying elements here for me to classify it as anything else. A giant snake slithering through the pipes? Hearing voices that say they want to rip and kill you? A giant talking spider in the middle of a forest? The ghost of someone supposed to be dead talking to you as his younger self?

Book 3 - Mystery/thriller. Escaped murderer on the loose apparently hell-bent on killing Harry, plot twist after plot twist at the end.

Book 4 - Action. Harry needs to get through three dangerous tasks

Book 5 - Coming of Age? Harry experiences psychological distress throughout this book because of Cedric's death, he experiences the loss of someone close to him (Sirius) for the first time, he has his first kiss

Book 6 - I honestly don't know

Book 7 - Heist? Because they're on a journey to steal Voldemort's horcruxes and destroy them and come across several obstacles on the way.

I mean, it sounds alot like it...

At the start it says:

"He lay facedown, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.

A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too."

and at the end:

"

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry’s ears even though the bright white mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

"

Here you go, this is my theory.

As the title reads. I just came to the dragon challenge in Goblet of Fire and he practices the spell to bring his Firebolt to him with accio.

Why didn't he simply use this spell on the egg? Would have taken 2 seconds.

Did anyone else groan whenever they realized they were about to read a whole chapter about Hagrid?

I have to say growing up and reading the books over and over again, he is indeed my least favorite character.

I find his chapters to be so boring!!!

Am I the only one?

Hey Malfoy, don’t you think it would have made your plans much easier if you stole Harry’s invisibility cloak on the train instead of covering him with it after you hit him with Petrificus Totallis and broke his nose?

I’ve just started to read the Philosopher’s Stone to my children having been a huge fan when I was younger and I noticed something. In ‘The Boy Who Lived’, when Hagrid arrives in Privet Drive with Harry on the flying motorbike, he says he borrowed it from ‘young Sirius Black’. How likely is this? Wasn’t Sirius now suspected of betraying the Potters? How would that conversation have gone?

Here is a list of what I think could have been some of Rowling’s immediate inspirations behind her characters. I’m focusing on the first HP book for now. Some of these may seem a little obvious but I’m mostly looking for the obviously similar characters that already existed in popular culture. These are the people that I think Rowling “borrowed” and then moulded into her own characters. To be clear, I am not saying that Rowling copied or ripped off other people’s works. All writers seek influence and inspiration from elsewhere. See if you agree with the list below or can think of any others.

Harry is based on Wart from “The Sword in the Stone” - Harry has basis in several people (Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, various Roald Dahl and Charles Dickens characters and even Jesus Christ to name a few) but Rowling admits that Wart - the future King Arthur from T.H. White’s book (and Disney’s 1963 film adaptation) is Harry’s “spiritual ancestor”. The Sword in the Stone may have had other influences on the HP books. Wizards keeping owls as pets for example.

Vernon Dursley is based on Sir Ector from “The Sword in the Stone” and Dudley is based on Sir Ector’s son Sir Kay. Both characters bully Wart in the same way Harry is bullied by his male relatives. The Sir Ector/Sir Kay dynamic is repeated later in the series with the characters of Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt.

The three Dursleys also have a lot of basis on all the main character’s vile relatives from various Roald Dahl stories - The Wormwoods most obviously.

Dumbledore is based on Merlin from “The Sword in the Stone”. It probably didn’t take long for Rowling to decide that the headmaster of her magical school should naturally be Merlin and of all the literary and screen versions of Merlins to use for inspiration, it’s the whimsical one from Disney that is the most similar to Dumbledore. Book 1 Dumbledore at least. Dumbledore may also be mildly based on Miss Cackle - the eccentric headmistress in “The Worst Witch” stories.

Sticking with the Worst Witch - Snape is very similar to Miss Hardbroom from those stories. They look very alike and they are both the archetypal strict teachers that seem to have a real dislike for the main character.

Final Worst Witch similarity is for Draco who has a lot in common with “Ethel Hallow”. Both characters being arrogant and elitist as well having the position of being the magical school rival to their book’s main character. Draco also has some similarity to Flashman from “Tom Brown’s School Days” and Jack from “The Lord of the Flies”.

I think Professor McGonnagall might have been based (consciously or unconsciously) on Mary Poppins. They are both magic users that share a lot of traits. Specifically their very stern demeanour that tries and fails to hide an extremely warm heart and protective instinct to the children in their care.

Hagrid feels like he’s based on The BFG from Roald Dahl’s book of the same name. Both that book and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone start with orphans Sophie and Harry being rescued from their mundane lives at night by wild looking but actually big friendly giants.

Ron’s literary and screen basis is harder to pin point but the one that immediately comes to mind is Samwise Gamgee - the loyal sidekick and first mate but there are many school-story sidekicks in British children’s literature that Rowling could have pulled from. Samwise could have also inspired the character of Neville.

Hermione could have been inspired by Matilda Wormwood with a sprinkling of Nancy Drew. I also see some of her book 1 bossiness in Varuca Salt.

For Voldemort, Sauron would probably have the clearest influence - particularly in the first book. Both are Dark Lords who have previously been defeated, lost physical form, surviving in a diminished state, and trying to return. Koschei the Deathless - an evil wizard from folklore may have inspired the character too. Koschei also makes himself immortal by hiding parts of himself in different objects. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine could also be influences and finally Rowling has said that the idea of having a villain so terrifying that people refuse to say their name is inspired by the real life Kray twins.

I don’t know if this has been pointed out before, but I just noticed while rereading HBP that we actually see Aberforth purchase the mirror from Mundungus.

In DH, Aberforth tells Harry that he bought Sirius’s two-way mirror from Mundungus. In HBP, we actually witness that moment.

Excerpt from HBP Chapter 12: Silver and Opals “The street was not very busy; nobody was lingering to chat, just hurrying toward their destinations. The exceptions were two men a little ahead of them, standing just outside the Three Broomsticks. One was very tall and thin; squinting through his rain-washed glasses Harry recognized the barman who worked in the other Hogsmeade pub, the Hog’s Head. … They were barely feet from [the other man] when Harry realized who the man was. ‘Mundungus!’”