Harry Potter (novel)/Fridge

General Part 1

 * The page of wand wood lore just adds a whole slew of this. For instance, Holly wands often choose wizards engaged in dangerous or spiritual quests.
 * Beware, lots of unmarked horcrux spoilers to follow: The inconsistency of Harry's scar always bugged me. He's glimpsing Voldemort's plans from a distance in book four when the only thing that happens in book one is some pain? Not to mention book seven, where it steadily gets harder for even Voldemort to block the connection, to the point where Harry only has to close his eyes during the final battle to view what Voldemort's doing, as opposed to book five where it only happened when Harry was asleep. Then I realized that the strength of the connection corresponds with the destruction of the horcruxes! Think about it:
 * Book One: Harry only feels minor pain when in close proximity to Voldemort.
 * Book Two: Tom Riddle's diary is destroyed, strengthening the connection.
 * Book Four/Five: Harry can now glimpse Voldemort's thoughts and actions while asleep. Voldemort can send false messages, and at the end, he can completely block himself off.
 * Book Six: Another horcrux is destroyed.
 * Book Seven: Voldemort can't block his mind out anymore. Harry now glimpses Voldemort's and even memories while awake, though only when Voldemort's feeling strong emotions. The locket and the cup are destroyed, and during the final battle all Harry has to do to activate Voldy-vision is basically just close his eyes. Voldemort is completely unaware of this, and has no control over it. This suggests that as the horcruxes are destroyed, Harry's control over the connection gets stronger and Voldemort's gets weaker.
 * It's not just their control that's changing: previously Voldemort has been the more powerful wizard, but not only is he literally losing fragments of his soul, his reliance on the Horcruxes that still exist is growing AND he's doing more damage to the Elder Wand with every spell he casts, making his magic increasingly erratic. Harry, on the other hand, has been undergoing some pretty awesome Character Development to become a cool-headed, mature wizard who chooses to open the connection, rather than having it forced on him.
 * In the first book, it's stated that Draco reminds Harry of Dudley. The comparison makes sense - both kids are heartless, spoiled-brat bullies with lackeys who verbally and physically abuse everyone and get away with it. But as the series commences, the parallels end up going further than that. Both get just barely redeemed and turn out to not be all bad. Both have mothers who turn out to truly care about them and not be all bad themselves (each of them has issues with her sister). Neither Draco nor Dudley's fathers get redeemed at all. The difference? The Dursleys (mostly Vernon) are intent on remaining a hundred-percent muggle, not acknowledging the magical world in the slightest, and they hate all wizards and regard them as freaks. The Malfoys (mostly Lucius) want to kill off all the Mudbloods, whom they regard as utterly worthless, and place wizards in control. The families are perfect mirror images of one another, but on opposing sides.
 * Adding to this, we can infer that both Lucius and Vernon are more similar than either would care to admit. After all, they are both shown (Vernon with the gun, as mentioned above, and Lucius throughout Book 7) to have the same single redeeming quality: their love for their families.
 * It used to really bother me how awful the "Dursley" sections of each book were, compared to the chapters in-between. The Dursleys seemed to me to be underdeveloped, derivative, irritating, and ridiculously lacking in redeeming qualities. I wondered why J.K. couldn't have made them slightly more sympathetic--or at least cranked their villainy up into so that they'd be delicious, fascinating, shudder-worthy "love-to-hate" types. But then I realized: these are people who have spent their whole lives struggling to be boring. And it's working very well. Harry feels just the same way we do.
 * Along the same line, the painfulness of those chapters make you ache for Harry's return to Hogwarts just as much as Harry himself is surely feeling.
 * Neville spent the best part of six years being told that he wasn't brave enough to belong in Gryffindor, and we know it hit home. We also know that Godric Gryffindor's sword presents itself to any member of its House it views as worthy of receiving it, going with Dumbledore's statement that "help will always be given at Hogwarts to those that need/deserve it". During the first part of Book Seven Neville becomes the leader of an underground resistance against the Death Eaters, taking several level in badass as he goes: this basically involves him standing up to Snape - the man whose form his Boggart used to take (i.e. his greatest fear). He then proceeds to talk down VOLDEMORT HIMSELF and fight half of the Battle of Hogwarts armed with only a sword. To reiterate - he pretty much brought a knife to a gunfight, albeit a magical one. The Fridge Brilliance comes in when you remember him standing up to the Trio back in Book One, and realise that Neville has been so brave, and so deserving of the Sword, all along.
 * "It's the quote from Dumbledore that it "shows great courage to stand up to our friends and not just our enemies" that is also evidence to him always being brave. Not to mention that that's exactly what Dumbledore felt he hadn't been able to do in regards to Grindelwald.
 * Hermione's parents are dentists. They fix people's teeth, fixing a part of their faces. In book 1, Hermione fixes Harry's glasses, and in book 7, she disguises him by disfiguring his face with a Stinging Jinx. Her cat Crookshanks has a squashed looking face. Also, remember it's Hermione who masterminded the effort to make the polyjuice potion in book 2, which changes how people's faces look, as well as the rest of them.
 * In the Muggle world, witches and wizards are constantly remarking upon things that are completely commonplace to us Muggles but useless in the wizarding world. So, of course, not being accustomed to things like matches, pureblood wizards are completely baffled by everyday Muggle objects. Think of how Molly is so confused by the regular postal service that she covers the letter with stamps or how Arthur is completely flummoxed by Muggle money. -Zig Zag
 * As a sub-bit of brilliance, people have said its illogical for Arthur to be perplexed by Muggle money when it uses a base ten system, as opposed to their nonsensical denominations. As anyone who's ever tried to explain metric to an American can tell you, this is nowhere near the case.
 * I would suggest this is not so much 'fridge brilliance' but 'one of the main overarching themes of the series.'
 * Headscratchers has an entry asking why Dumbledore never gave Snape an attitude adjustment, despite the fact that he very obviously needed one. JKR said it's because Dumbledore believes "that people in authority aren't always good" is a lesson the students have to learn. That's not the brilliant part; the brilliance comes in when you realize that every single book has featured at least one person at Hogwarts far, far worse than Severus Snape. First year, there was Quirrel, who has Second year, we have Lockhart, an arrogant buffoon who can't teach at all (say whatever you want about Snape, he is at least more competent than Lockheart). Third year, we get introduced to the man who actually sold the Potters to Voldemort,, a true coward and murderer. Year four has Karkaroff (coward) and  Moody, plus Cornelius Fudge, who refused to believe that Voldemort was back. Year Five: Umbridge's period of misrule, 'nuff said. Year six, Draco Malfoy joined the Death Eaters and cooked up at least two Russian Roulette-esque plans to kill Dumbledore, which nearly resulted in the deaths of Katie Bell and Ron Weasley. Oh, and he let other Death Eaters, like Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback, into the castle, too. Draco, ya little shit! And in Year Seven, the Carrows become the Muggle Studies and Dark Arts teachers, while Snape is made Headmaster , and at the end of the book, Lord Voldemort himself enters Hogwarts. I bow to the brilliance. -TenderLumpling
 * Resident Slytherin Libby Pansy Parkinson is always described as being "pug-faced" by Harry in the books. Pugs are a kind of dog. In other words, Pansy Parkinson has a bitchy face! -Aether Master
 * Possibly unintentional but Pansy Parkinson is also a pure-blood and British pugs are so inbred that the 10,000 in the UK have the gene pool of only 50 indiviuals.
 * It always seemed like some what weak writing that Harry never showed any curiosity about his family or the wider wizarding world, requiring Hermione to explain everything to him (and us) at every turn. I just accepted that Harry wasn't too bright until I remembered that the Dursleys spent a decade beating any curiosity out of him and never answered his questions honestly. He's not dumb, he just still hasn't gotten over that part of his horrible childhood, poor kid. -Math Camel
 * Also, the Dursleys were very authoritarian, and Hermione is pretty authoritative.
 * Voldemort's NAME, for heaven's sake. In French, "vol-" means "escape," "-de-" means "from" and "-mort" means "death." His entire name is a mashup of the phrase "escape from death." -- gravedancer 121
 * In Latin, "vol" means "wish", "de" means "of", and "mort" means "death". So in Latin, Voldemort with "death wisher" or "one who wishes death". Tie that in with the French translation meaning "escape from death", and J.K. Rowling is a genius on so many levels.
 * "Vol" can also mean "flight." This troper always thought the name meant "flight of death" and was just a really Badass sounding name. But this is just so much cooler!
 * "Vol" can be thief, or theft, too; both stealing from death, and stealing death itself. You can really tell J.K. Rowling was a languages scholar
 * In every book, at least one person mentions that Harry looks incredibly like his father, but has his mother's eyes. Dumbledore comments that while looking like his father, he is more like his mother in his heart. I realized that this proved true the old saying: The eyes are windows to the soul.
 * It bugged me (and it bugs a lot of Tropers) that Slytherin House is painted as almost unequivocally evil, but then it hit me: That's not bad writing, that's BRILLIANT writing! See, we're explicitly told that Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw are the "good" houses, so we just expect that anyone from those houses will do the right thing. Slytherin, on the other hand, has a reputation for churning out Dark witches and wizards like a machine, so we just expect anyone from that house to be evil. So when a Slytherin does something noble (i.e., stealing one of Voldemort's Horcruxes to try and destroy it) and a Gryffindor/Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff does something horrible (i.e.,  turning James and Lily over to Voldemort), it's that much more of a shock. It's proof of Dumbledore's statement: "It is not our abilities, but our choices, that determine who we really are." -Tender Lumpling
 * I think it's more because we're reading the books from Harry's point of view. Gryffindor and Slytherin are rivals - Harry never takes the time to get to know any of the Slytherins, whereas he meets both nice (Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood, Ernie MacMillan) and not-so-nice (Marietta Edgecomb, Michael Corner) people from both of the other houses. -calenloki
 * Also, once Slytherin got a reputation for being evil, anyone with other options stayed out of it, making it a vicious cycle- only those who are evil or wouldn't mind evil get in. -clcnova
 * This made Harry's words of comfort to Albus Severus (who is worried about being put in Slytherin) even more powerful. He's not just acknowledging that Snape is a brilliant man, but is showing that he has finally grown up and no longer sees good and evil as black and white (i.e. Gryffindor = Good, Slytherin = Bad).
 * IMO, this more generally comes from the Houses of Hogwarts and the traits they represent: Gryffindor = Courage, Hufflepuff = Loyalty, Ravenclaw = Intellect, Slyhterin = Ambition Is Evil. It occurred to me later that while all of these traits can be taken to extremes, the extremes most dangerous to other people are those of Slytherin (well, ambition, duh), with Hufflepuff (in terms of blind loyalty to the wrong people; yep, another oblique WWII reference) in second place. Excessive intellectualism is mostly just the ivory tower syndrome (detaching one from other people and the real world), while excessive courage is most dangerous to one's self (though of course other people can also get hurt that way). Perhaps that's why the Founder Slytherin left the school first, and why so many Slytherins became Death Eaters. -69BookWorM69
 * Exactly. It's not that they go bad because they're in Slytherin. It's that they're in Slytherin because of their personality - a personality that makes them more likely than average to go bad.
 * It's worth noting, however, that the particularly Gryffindor sense of justice, when misplaced, can be dangerously righteous and inflexible. -magesa
 * And hold your horses there, people. Ambition isn't Slytherin's primary quality. If we are going by the Sorting Hat's first year song, the word he specifically uses to describe Slytherin is "cunning" and not ambition. So Gryffindors are supposed to be brave and chivalrous, Hufflepuffs are supposed to be loyal and just, Ravenclaws intelligent and witty and Slytherins cunning and ambitious.
 * In a Fridge Brilliance moment triggered by previous Fridge Brilliance moments, Slytherins are kids with personalities that makes them more likely to go bad, and they grow up surrounded by other kids with personalities that make them likely to go bad. They probably influence each other that way
 * I never thought that the whole Statue Of Secrecy-thing made sense. If Muggles can't use magic, it surely wouldn't hurt anyone if they tried? Then I remembered the interview where Jo said that Muggles couldn't use magic, but if they happened to pick up a recently used wand, it could suddenly "explode" with magic. I realized: A Muggle who had heard about magic would probably try to use it - I know I would. If a Muggle picked up a recently used wand, they could damage themselves and people around them. -Luna Avril
 * After I received the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook for Christmas, a friend of mine pointed out that a lot of the food they eat is pretty bad for you, and why aren't all the Hogwarts kids fat, anyway? And I jokingly said that maybe magic in the Potterverse is like magic in Slayers and burns a prodigious amount of calories. And then I realized that actually, there might be something to that. Those characters who are described as being a bit on the larger side (Hagrid, Goyle, Neville in the earlier books) are also shown to be rather bad at magic, and the two LEAST magical characters in the whole series are... Vernon and Dudley. Neville is also said to have slimmed down corresponding with his taking a level in badass. Since I don't think JK is intentionally a fat-basher, given what she's said on the subject, the only logical conclusion is Slayers-style magical calorie burning.
 * I don't think that Vernon and Dudley really count, since it's implied that magic is something genetic (Muggle-borns are either a mutation or have a recessive gene coming to the fore). Also, it's never said that Hagrid is bad at magic - he actually seems quite good at it, considering how he's able to make pumpkins swell to an incredible size, but as his wand is snapped and kept in an umbrella, it's not the most reliable tool. But that's actually quite an interesting theory - it would explain to some extent why wizards seem rather tired after doing a lot of magic. Not that it's actually ever stated; only possible to infer from the text. However, I must point out that Molly does a whole lot of magic around the house, practically everything she does right down to cooking utilises magic, and she's described as 'plump'. -chantililly
 * I also have to disagree with this particular bit of logic, considering that Horace Slughorn, despite being introduced as an exceptionally powerful and talented wizard, is morbidly obese in the books and was even fat in his younger years. More appropriately, one could argue that the House Elves in Hogwarts doctor their food to be unnaturally healthy instead of arguing that only bad wizards are fat. After all, as Hagrid is half-giant, you have to exclude him, which leaves us only with Slughorn, Longbottom, Crabbe, and Goyle to look at. Slughorn became progressively huge after retiring from his first stint at Hogwarts (ergo no House Elf food), Longbottom is only moderately pudgy in his youth and can be seen more as shapeless than fat (which age and exercise would help overcome), and Crabbe/Goyle are total gluttons, thereby negating any positive benefit of House Elf food through sheer overeating. In shorter words, I believe it's the food itself that is healthy: not the competence of wizards that makes it so on an individual basis. -Bad Karma
 * Re above --Slughorn spends more of his time lolling on stuffed armchairs, eating candied pineapple and boasting about the shouldhers he rubs than doing a whole lot of magic. And he's the Potions teacher, which requires mixing ingredients, not magic, so the theory can still apply.
 * I always thought that the hundred and forty-two staircases that the students climbed daily helped work off most of those calories. That being said, it's kind of a wonder how people like Goyle and early Neville manage to maintain their heavyset frames for so many years...
 * Slightly related, but my friend once mentioned that JKR really gets into describing food in the books. During much of her time writing the first book, she was considerably poorer than she is now. Could the excessive descriptions of rich food have been wishful thinking?
 * The food mentioned in the book, as served at Hogwarts, can be seen as comfort food. Given that Harry was probably deprived of really nice food whilst living with the Dursleys (Dudley ate it all!), when he first arrives at Hogwarts, one of the first things he sees is a table laden with food. It shows how different his life is going to be. He's living in a very comfortable castle, sleeping in a four poster bed, and is able to eat really yummy food. So there may be some wishful thinking on the part of JKR. And remember, she wrote much of the first novel in a cafe. She was surrounded by food! No wonder it plays such a large part in the books.
 * Harry so seldom got to eat anything remotely fattening when he was growing up, it's also likely that he just notices whatever high-calorie foods are available more than any low-cal alternatives. If there's some wheat bread or apples on the table beside the cinnamon rolls and cherry pie, which ones are an undernourished kid more inclined to fixate upon?
 * A couple posters on a message board I frequent have mentioned the contemptible treatment of Muggles even by the best of the wizarding world. At best, Muggles are seen as sort of amusing children or even intelligent pets, but almost never are they seen as equals, or even remotely intelligent. (Another smaller Fridge Brilliance: The Muggle Prime Minister actually remarks on this in the sixth book, heavily disliking Fudge's condescending attitude each time he appears in the PM's office, despite the fact that he, Fudge, is not exactly competent himself.) I think those posters are presenting this attitude as a flaw in the writing, but if they are, I have to say I disagree. I think it's brilliant. It's a great cultural tidbit because it's so imperialistic. I think that the real-life Europe -- and by extension Muggle Europe in HP -- probably had this very same attitude towards the indigenous populations of the countries they colonized. So in that sense, one could argue that this plot device shows that Muggle culture and wizarding culture have that much more in common with each other -- and neither group even realizes it. JK herself even said that Harry leaves the Muggle world and finds that the exact same problems exist in the wizarding world. It definitely shows that whatever wizards might think about Muggles, they're more connected to them than they know. -Maiira

General Part 2

 * It took me a while to figure out why you'd name a torture curse "Cruciatus." Then I realized that the root of the word is "Crucifixion," which is the most brutal form of torture ever invented (and here's the kicker -- while normally used as a method of execution, you could use crucifixion as a non-lethal form of torture by simply taking the victim down from the cross every night and not beating him up or breaking his legs).
 * It's also the root for the word "Excruciating" -- an appropriate adjective for the curse's effects.
 * It's just a straight up Latin translation; Cruciatus translates to 'torture' or 'pain', which is rather apt.
 * If you think crucifixion is the most brutal form of torture ever invented, you're really naive.
 * Crucifixion was never designed to be torture. While it is definately a horrible experience to be put through, it isn't torture, which is defined as: the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something. Crucifixion is not that, although it was designed to be the most humiliating (by Roman standards) form of execution possible. 'Crucifixion' probably derives from 'Cruciatus' for that reason.
 * I thought 'Crucifixion' derives from 'Crux', which is the Latin of 'Cross'. But then again, it might be based on both words.
 * Why do the Wizards live in castles, and write, eat, and dress as if they were living in the middle ages? Because they always had magic, so their world never needed to evolve technologically like ours did.
 * Doesn't explain why fashion didn't change, though. Technology is not the only factor that affects the evolution of fashion.
 * Only it did change. There is at least one instance where someone(namely, Ron) was forced to wear dress robes that were "centuries" out of style. I had never thought about the evolution of fashion before this, but that does demonstrate that fashion did change. Robes never went out of style, but the adornments of them changed often.
 * Which is of course just like in the Muggle world. While the fashions and designs of clothes may have changed greatly over the years, effectively we're all still wearing exactly the same 'trousers, shirt, shoes' combinations that our paleolithic ancestors wore. No matter how often the fashion world claims to have something 'entirely new' it's either never worn by anyone off the catwalk (except Lady Gaga), or is based on the same designs we've had for millenia.
 * Every single character trait exhibited by Harry can be linked back to his time at the Dursleys: He's a good seeker because he was malnourished enough to be small and fast, and had gained excellent reflexes from constantly dodging their swings at him. He wants to protect and help others, because no-one helped him. He hates bullies, like Malfoy, because he was bullied. He doesn't try at school, because he was never encouraged at home, and in fact, was probably punished if he did better than Dudley. And so on.
 * Fridge logic and frige horror on this one; Okay, so Voldemort's madness was because his parents were only together due to a love potion. What does that say about every wizarding child by rape, arranged marriage or one-night-stand? Marrying for love is a pretty new concept, and that aside there must be a reason love potions were invented. Holy shit . ..
 * Actually he became evil because 1) he was convinced he's special, and better than anyone else and 2) he was convinced that it's only natural for an exceptional person like him to overcome death.
 * JKR said that he is incapable of love because he was conceived via a love potion.
 * Not because, it's symbolic of. HP is all about choices.
 * Although there is a case for part of his sociopathy stemming from genetics. While it's outright stated in the books that most of the pureblood families were intermarried, it's implied that the most extremist of these families - the House of Gaunt in particular - had no qualms about really keeping things in the family. (This is added Fridge Horror when you realize what Merope could have been forced to do if she hadn't run off with Tom Riddle Jr.)
 * Films-only, and possibly accidental. In the last film, Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Nagini all die and shatter into small pieces. With Bellatrix that's because of the weird... liquid nitrogen spell that Molly Weasley used. With Nagini and Voldemort, it could call back to the very first movie. Remember Quirrel when he touched Harry. Instead of burning, like in the books, Quirrel actually crumbled into ash, piece by piece. Scary, yes, but if that's a deliberate callback, that's pretty cool.
 * Why is Professor Snape so immediately and profoundly averse to Harry Potter? Along with the more obvious reasons given in the text,.
 * Look at the cover of Philosopher/Sorcerer's Stone. Look at the cover of Deathly Hallows. Stone has a sunset in the background. DH has a sunrise in the background. Symbolically, you'd think it should be the other way around, until you realize every end is a beginning and vice-versa. The end of the Marauders is the beginning of Harry Potter. The end of his story is a new beginning for the wizarding world.
 * "I open at the close"
 * Also pertaining to the covers, they were all done by the same artist, Mary GrandPré. Still, she uses a more mature style as the series progresses.
 * Alan Rickman does a great job of capturing Snape's complex character. So much so that watching the film version of Order Of The Phoenix and watching his scenes involving the Occlumency lessons makes you realize: Snape shows almost genuine worry for Harry, describing what Voldy could do if he got into Harry's head. He also seems to disparage traits associated with James or Sirius (such as being sentimental, foolhardy, or arrogant), whilst also praising traits such as self-control, mastery of the mind, and other such traits... that could easily be associated with Lily's strengths!
 * Rickman was the only person besides JKR who knew that Snape had been in love with Lily before Deathly Hallows came out, so not only was JKR dropping hints in all of the books, Rickman has been dropping some very subtle hints in his performance. I noticed that the only character movie!Snape ever looks in the eyes is Harry.
 * Oh my God, you Bastard!
 * The final scene of Half-Blood Prince was derided for taking out the big battle that was in the book. Then it struck me. The Death Eaters didn't plan an ATTACK. They planned an ASSASSINATION. Now the battle in the book seems kinda pointless.
 * Not exactly. In the book, the Death Eaters infiltrating the school are said to have met Harry's guard and members of the Order as they went for the topmost (Astronomy) tower. When you're somewhere you're not supposed to be and your antagonists see you, there's BOUND to be some kind of confrontation. That one of the Death Eaters actually managed to escape the blows being traded to cast the Dark Mark up there was just a chance; a lucky chance, admittedly, but a chance all the same, given the constant fighting that was going on at the base of the stairs. The movie and the book just present the circumstances differently, which is why the movie makes the book's confrontation seem a bit pointless.
 * The book was also from Harry's POV--IIRC, he didn't see much of the battle and was told about it later. When I read the book, I noticed that most of the battle at Hogwarts wasn't described as it happened; I thought this was so Half-Blood Prince wouldn't be too much like Order of the Phoenix.
 * When first thinking about Mad Eye turning Malfoy into a ferret, at first I thought it was funny. But then I realised, Malfoy's a daddy's boy, Moody is actually Barty Crouch Jr, who hates the Death Eaters who abandoned Voldemort, Lucius being one of them. When Draco mentions his father, he gets even more angry, because Lucius has made so much money out of not being loyal to Voldemort.
 * In Deathly Hallows, Xenophilius tells the story of the three brothers. One died for power (elder wand), one died for love (resurrection stone), and one greeted death like an old friend. In the final battle for Hogwarts, three very important characters die: Voldemort for power, Snape for love, and Harry greets death like an old friend.
 * The connection between Snape and the Resurrection Stone is flimsy at best. The alternative is Dumbledore himself, who tried to use the Resurrection Stone to see his dead little sister, Ariana, and activated the withering curse Voldemort placed on the Gaunt Ring Horcrux. Essentially, Dumbledore died for love, though it was a family instead of a romantic love.
 * While that is a valid point, it's still possible to go with the Snape interpretation in more of a thematic sense. After all, Snape died sharing with Harry his memories of love, in a sense, "resurrecting" his old feelings for Lily and giving them to Harry. Just seems to fit more thematically that way than Dumbledore dying while greeting an old friend...
 * This makes sense, if you consider Harry's description of himself, Voldemort, and Snape as "the abandoned boys." All are half-blood. Is it too much of a stretch to think that Snape might be related to the third Perrell brother (Harry's related to the youngest, Voldemort's related to one, and Snape the third)? It's not stated in the text, but it's possible, since Snape's mother, Eileen Prince, was pure-blood.
 * I thought the Deathday Party in Harry Potter was basically a Wacky Wayside Tribe to get Harry relatively isolated while he's looking completely off his rocker. Then I read it again after the fifth book, and realized holy shit, this is their shallow imitation of the afterlife. -- Doma Doma
 * I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the spring before the first film came out. I thought Draco Malfoy was a funny character, but really didn't think any more of him. Until two or three years later, when I realized that Draco Malfoy seemed to be crafted into a classic Threshold Guardian, as every decision Harry made in book one that defined him as a hero for most of the school year happened in response to Draco being a douche. When I figured out what Jo had done, I nearly died laughing. That brilliant beast! -- Laota
 * Although I've always loved Deathly Hallows, no matter how many times I read it in the months after it came out, I never understood all the convoluted, complicated explanations of Harry's and Voldemort's connection -- why Voldemort had to kill him for Dumbledore's plan to work, how Harry survived his "death" in the forest, could only Harry kill Voldemort only because of the prophecy, and was it entirely a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy... after nearly frying my brain trying to understand, I decided to give up, accept "Harry came Back From the Dead and A Wizard Did It" without letting it detract from my enjoyment of the rest of the series. Upon reading Book 7 for the first time in a few years, I understood it all with no effort! What had changed in the interim? I had watched Gargoyles! I read Dumbledore's explanation of how Voldemort using Harry's blood to resurrect himself linked Harry to him in such a way so that Harry would live because Voldemort lived as if for the first time, only this time, I thought, "Just like Demona and MacBeth!" Furthermore, I could now see that Harry's "death" was just like all the times Demona or MacBeth had been "killed temporarily." Someone only able to die if killed by a certain person? Nothing weird about that anymore. It's enough to make me wonder if JK Rowling ever watched that show... -Lale
 * Harry couldn't have lost a part of his soul, because only the most destructive and evil of acts (killing another person) splits your soul in half. When did Harry find time to kill someone? He didn't, so therefore his soul was still intact. The blood wasn't a symbol of Harry's soul, it was the power in the blood itself the ol' Voldy was after (Lily's protection). - Nimble Jack 3
 * So I suppose Quirrel doesn't count, then? I know Harry didn't plan to kill him, but burning the dude alive by touching him does seem to be pretty brutal for a kid to do.
 * I've realized that Ginny is the most logical person for Harry to marry. A somewhat important subplot in the books is Harry's relationship with the Weasleys, to the point where they might as while be his family. If Harry had married somebody else, he wouldn't be part of the Weasley family anymore, and that connection would be lost. -Redtutel
 * The books are - with a few brief exceptions - written in a limited third-person point of view from Harry's perspective. It makes sense that she wasn't developed as a romantic interest until Harry began to notice her. She's hardly discussed in the first four books, because he hardly notices her until befriending her in the fifth. -Redseven
 * You have to admire Rowling's strategy when it comes to explaining Harry's rebirth - she pulls it off by creating a situation that probably had never, ever happened before in the history of wizardkind. Nobody could possibly know what would happen when one human being first made five Horcruxes (which no one had ever done before) and THEN made another human being a human Horcrux (which had never happened before) and THEN tried and failed to kill that human Horcrux (with a curse that had never failed to be fatal before) and THEN used that human Horcrux's blood in a resurrection spell, and THEN tried to kill that human Horcrux again with that same spell, and failed again, and THEN joined with that human Horcrux through a paired-wand bond, and THEN tried to kill that human Horcrux a third time, with the same spell, while that human Horcrux was in possession (theoretically at least) of all three of the Deathly Hallows. I mean, you couldn't do a spell like that on purpose if you tried. It had to be a wholly unique event.
 * You got your order wrong, and there are more things. The order would be first making 5 Horcruxes, THEN offering a woman to spare her if she allowed him to kill his child (which he had never done before), THEN killing that woman (placing Harry under the blood protection), THEN trying to kill that child with a curse that had never failed before, THEN having his soul spontaneously split when the spell rebounded, THEN the part of the soul that split away taking refuge into the nearest living being (Harry), THEN the still free soul possessing other man and fighting with the living vessel and being defeated, THEN using the human Horcrux's blood in a resurrection ritual, THEN trying to kill the human Horcrux again with the same spell that failed before, THEN joined with that human Horcrux through a paired-wand bond in which he was determined to be the weaker one, THEN trying to kill that human Horcrux a third time, THEN possessing him, THEN using other person's wand to try to avoid the paired-wand bond and failing as the other person's wand breaks, THEN trying to kill that human Horcrux as he attempts to do a Heroic Sacrifice to save his friends, THEN having that human Horcrux survive AGAIN and finally trying to kill him AGAIN by using a wand that has been said many times to being unable to fight against his owner. All in all, a VERY long chain of events that are very unlikely to be repeated in the same form ever again
 * To spare everyone another even longer paragraph, I'll add in that Voldy didn't only take the blood of a horcrux and someone destined to be his equal: he took in Lily's protection. Word of God says that Lily's goodness was in Voldy's veins, and that's how he could've repented.
 * Um, Quirrell, anybody? While the whole "Harry kills Quirrell" is far more ambiguous in the book than it is in the movie, it is pretty much evident that Quirrell died pretty much directly because of Harry. Voldemort leaving just sealed the deal. While it is usually claimed that such a split only occurs through murder (which Harry's killing/moral wounding of Quirrell is most assuredly not), who is to say that is true? -Turtler.
 * Actually, Dumbledore does explain that Snape killing him won't harm Snape's soul because Snape is actually putting Dumbledore out of his misery by mercy-killing him. So, there is at least one instance where simply killing someone is different from "murdering" them. Though, if the intent is the catalyst, what about when Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange? He certainly intended to torture and possibly kill her, though he lacked the purity (admittedly, pure evil) of mind to do so.
 * It is not just murder, but cold-blooded murder, as in killing someone who either can't defend him/herself from you or who is weaker than you. What Harry was doing was attempting to defend himself from Quirrell, and the book makes it clear that what Harry was doing to Quirrell was just burning his skin. The one who killed Quirrell was Voldemort when he left his body. The example about Dumbledore being mercy-killed by Snape is a good one. And what Harry intended to do to Bellatrix Lestrange was to make suffer like he was suffering, but, as he discovered, righteous anger isn't enough..
 * It also cannot be done for the greater good. For example, someone stabbing evil-child-of-doom-quasi-Voldemort with a knife from behind in Goblet of Fire probably wouldn't have split their soul. It has to be cold, straight-up murder of someone innocent and doing no harm, done by your own choices (e.g. it can't have been somebody Imperiusing you into doing it, blackmailing you into doing it, etc.)
 * It also has to be done in conjunction with the proper spells and preparation, as Slughorn states in Half-Blood Prince. So a wizard could murder someone, even in cold blood, without creating a Horcrux.
 * And a good thing too, else every Death Eater except  would have a bunch of those things.
 * The first chapter of Goblet of Fire seemed kind of like filler. It established a little more about Voldemort's Muggle father, and it showed that Wormtail had found Voldemort and was helping him, but that could have easily been established later. Except it was also the first time we saw Nagini, and in fact her only appearance in the book (she next returns in the aforementioned scene in Order of the Phoenix, when Voldemort is ordering her to attack ). The chapter serves to introduce the character by name, so it makes more sense when we see her in the next book, and also to show us the time at which she became a horcrux, as Voldemort was still one short of his goal when he went to kill the Potters. That's not the brilliant part. --Spiri Tsunami
 * No. The misconception here is that Voldy did not want 7 horcruxes, he wanted to split his soul into 7 pieces. That means 6 horcruxes and the main fragment in his own body. Harry became the sixth horcrux by accident and unknown to Voldly. So he decided, he needed to make that seventh fragment and used Nagini... not realizing that Nagini was the eighth fragment. Which probably nullified any benefits of the magic of seven.
 * That theory seems to be Jossed by Voldemort's reactions in Deathly Hallows, particularly his interrogation of the Gringotts staff. --User:Doma Doma
 * It was certainly demonstrated to be false in Half-Blood Prince (and perhaps even before), because Dumbledore tells Harry that Lucius Malfoy was punished when Voldemort learned that the Diary had been destroyed after he gave it away. And, at the start of that book, Dumbledore has already destroyed Gaunt's Ring. In fact, at no moment does Dumbledore confirm that Voldemort knows when his Horcruxes are destroyed, in fact he says the opposite. I don't remember the exact words, but I think it was something along the lines of "As those pieces of his soul have been separated for so long from the main part of it, he is unable to detect their being destroyed". If Voldemort had been able to detect when one of his Horcruxes was destroyed, when he realised that the Gaunt's ring was destroyed, he would have started to relocate the other Horcruxes. - Milarq
 * Even if Voldemort couldn't directly detect the destruction of his horcruxes, he still had a connection to Harry's mind while our intrepid boy hero was seeking them out. Up until Harry's death, there's no reason why he couldn't exploit the connection like he did in Order of the Phoenix. Also, if Voldemort were truly thinking about protecting his horcruxes and aware of Harry's search, relocating them would be the last thing he'd want to do. Doing so risks leading Harry directly to them. He already had Nagini with him as a safety net, so leaving the rest alone in their hiding places would be relatively smart. - Ed Wood of Cakes
 * Ever since the end of Order of phoenix, Voldemort cannot inhabit Harry's mind without an intense amount of pain, more so then he has experienced, except for his soul being ripped from his body when he should have died. He would have needed an intensely urgent reason to try and read his thoughts. And as far as Voldemort knew, Harry was just running away - he had no idea he even knew about the Horcruxes.
 * Nagini didn't appear only in the first chapter of Goblet of Fire, she also appeared in the graveyard just before the duel started.
 * The situation is like this: before October 31st 1981 (James and Lily Potter' death and Voldemort's "first death"), Voldemort had 5 Horcruxes (Tom Riddle's Diary, Gaunt's Ring, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup, and Ravenclaw's Diadem, hidden in Lucius Malfoy's mansion, the Gaunt's shack, the cave (and then 12 Grimmauld Place, by Kreacher) and Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts vault), and had intended to make the 6th Horcrux with Harry's death, but the Avada Kedavra backfired and destroyed his body, while his soul was broken once more, and the part that didn't flee became Harry's scar. Voldemort didn't know this had happened because of the pain of his death (and, besides, Voldemort's willingness to kill Harry at every turn, even before he gets resurrected in Goblet of Fire, belies the fact that he actually knew about Harry being a Horcrux, because why would you try to kill a person who is actually keeping you alive?). In May-June 1993, Harry destroys Tom Riddle's Diary. In July 1994 Pettigrew finds Voldemort, and the next month Voldemort creates what he thinks is his 6th Horcrux, using Nagini as a vessel (and he was more or less correct, since it would be the 6th Horcrux at the moment as Tom Riddle's Diary had already been destroyed) but in fact it was his 7th Horcrux. - Milarqui (again)
 * This is only speculation though, but is it possible that in cutting Harry's hand in the Graveyard scene Voldemort was not only trying to draw on the power in Harry's blood but maybe also that of the soul that he put into Harry on accident in order to regenerate? In doing so, the fact that that soul piece and Harry's are so intertwined that part of Harry's may have come with it. I have nothing to back that up with and it's only speculation. But I also just realized that we have no idea what transverse effects that soul piece could have on a living person when the original maker of that horcrux uses it to continue living. We do know based on Harry as a case study that Voldemort's soul piece from the horcrux is heavily intertwined with his. -- youngcosette
 * Something occurred to me when I thought back to the first book after reading about the Horcruxes. Supposedly, in order to make a Horcrux you have to kill someone and cast a spell to place a piece of your soul into an object, but we're never specifically told what that spell is. Then it dawned on me... Avada Kedavra... it's been right in front of us all along! How it works is like this: You use the spell to kill someone and then immediately recast the spell at an object to which you will put your soul into. Objects can't die, and the sacrificial death of a human being warms up the curse allowing this transfer to happen. It does seem like a bit of a stretch, but then there's this to consider: we're constantly made aware that the earliest memories Harry has of infancy is Voldemort casting the Killing Curse on him. Number 1) Why would Voldemort want to kill the child he will turn into a Horcrux? Number 2) If that wasn't his intention, why would the killing curse suddenly choose to backfire? Because Voldemort had never applied the Horcrux curse on another human being, not to mention Lily's sacrifice tipping the bar. Number 3) Why did Harry become a Horcrux when the Killing Curse was cast at him? Because that's how a Horcrux is made, only with inanimate objects. The necessary human sacrifice for the curse (Lily) fueled the wand to perform the second function of the curse in the short range of time between Lily's death and Harry being hit with it. That also explains why making a person a Horcrux often results in their death. If you don't do it just right or in just enough time, you end up killing them. Just speculation, but it all seems to fit. -Rocky Samson
 * Sorry, completely and totally jossed. Harry was never intended to be a horocrux, this is explicitly clear in the books - Harry was supposed to die, and then THAT would have been the death used to make the final Horocrux. Harry became one purely by freak accident - his soul was so fragile and broken at that point, the blast from the Horocrux was enough to break off a new piece, which naturally went to a living thing.
 * This may seem like an odd question, but if Voldemort intended to make a Horcrux by killing Harry, what (inanimate object) was he going to put it into? And what happened to the object?
 * I just got the rest of the symbolism of the wands. Thinking about the thestral tail hair in . I got that Voldemort's wand was made of Yew, the whole "death tree symbolism", but   I hadn't realized that it was so intricately connected like that until just now. -JET 73 L
 * Going into that a little more, this troper realized the significance between -- (Not JET 73 L. Original poster, please sign.)
 * Rowling definitely did her research when it came to wands: Lily Potter's wand was made of willow, which is traditionally associated with healing, protection and love. Her last act on Earth was to give her son the protection of her love. Also Elder (sometimes known as witchwood) is linked magically to protection, often against lightning strike, but bad luck will fall on anyone who uses it without permission. In other words, Voldemort's use of a wand that wasn't strictly his brought about his death via a certain young man with a lightning scar... - User:Aelinuial
 * And just to top it off, the Elder Wand's core is of thestral hair. Thestrals can only be seen by those who have both witnessed and accepted the reality of death. Voldemort has never accepted death as anything but a disgrace or something to be defied, so has never accepted its reality despite having murdered hundreds of people. Harry, though he's only seventeen, has witnessed many, many deaths, accepted it can't be undone or defied, and walked uncomplainingly to his own death. Guess which one of them understands the Elder Wand's inner nature, and is worthy to receive it?
 * I recently realized something about Half-Blood Prince. The scene involving was nasty enough to begin with, but it becomes much worse when you realize what that potion actually does, as hinted by the flashbacks in Deathly Hallows:  -The Great Unknown
 * Made the connection before of 'worst memories' but seeing it here surrounded by other HP stuff just made me realize... The other major things in HP that make one relive horrible memories are Dementors! So possibly that potion uses... I don't know, liquid Dementor's breath or something? And it's said that Voldy can get Dementors to sort-of obey him. Maybe he has a deal where he somehow managed to get a couple to sign up for experiments and following orders and in return they get freer reign than normal? Getting into WMG, but yeah. -katrani

General Part 3

 * I didn't care much for Nymphadora Tonks, but then I realized she was Rowling's answer to Mary Sues! Think about it! Her hair and eye color literally changes according to her mood, she ends up with one of the most wanted characters in the series and in the end she ! - KT 4
 * Ironically, she's often accused of being a Mary Sue largely because she intruded on one of the biggest Slashfic ships in the series (Lupin/Sirius). - Jonn
 * I have just figured out that people's predictions aren't as far-fetched as they seem. Dynamic Dragon
 * Sure, it was easy enough to accept that Snape hated Neville because he was a Gryffindor, he was incompetent, and he was available, but it wasn't until some time after reading Deathly Hallows that I figured out that his particular hatred for Neville was due to - knave
 * After reading the seventh book, I understood Snape's hatred for Harry in a different light. Not only did Harry have his mother's eyes and look like his father (reinforcing the bond they had and the fact that Snape would never see Lily again), but he also might have been Snape's son in a different world. Hard to be friends with a kid like that. --Serene Shadow
 * The fact that Harry looks so much like James, and so little like Lily, probably made him a disappointment to Snape right from the start. Imagine how Snape must've felt, to see Harry across the dining hall in book 1 -- too far away to see his eyes, which were hidden behind cheap glasses to boot -- and not see any trace of the woman he'd loved there. He'd probably been hoping for ten years that Lily's child, at least, might preserve something of her that his mistake hadn't destroyed, yet all he could see sitting there was the spitting image of his old school enemy.
 * If you read "The Prince's Tale" with the mindset of "Snape views Dumbledore as a father figure" (which, considering Snape's real father, is not that far-fetched of an assumption), it adds a whole new dimension to Snape's resentment of Harry: Snape is very much the "Well Done, Son" Guy, constantly putting his life on the line for Dumbledore and doing everything he asks, which condemns him to a life of being hated by the entire Wizarding World when he kills Dumbledore, while Harry (in Snape's mind) will do much of the same and be worshipped by the Wizarding World, because everyone wants to see Voldemort killed. (Unfortunately, this makes Dumbledore seem pretty cold and even more manipulative than he already is, because it reads as though he deliberately took advantage of Snape's desperation for approval by a father-figure and tormented him with it.)
 * I realized how well-done the Harry Potter series was on the seventh or eighth time I read the first book. On the first trip on the Hogwart's Express, Ron has a smudge on his nose that won't come off. If you pay close attention to the conversation on the platform, it seems to be implied that the twins put the smudge on as a practical joke. - Comic Book Goddess
 * "Another Troper mentioned this on another page." Well, fine, but I'll mention it here and Fridge it correctly at the same time. In Prisoner of Azkaban, when Snape confronts Sirius, he says: "Give me a reason. Give me a reason to do it and I swear I will." Pretty harsh, but remember, this is the guy that almost got Snape eaten by a werewolf. Then in Goblet of Fire and Order of The Phoenix, they're a bit more civil to each other, but still obviously carrying grudges. Fast forward to Deathly Hallows . And the realization hits with a big KA-BOOM. Like the entire rest of the magical world, Snape had thought that Sirius betrayed the Potters and was responsible for, and only found out the truth after Voldemort's return (when he went to Voldemort two hours after the Triwizard final and would have seen Pettigrew there). Instantly did two things: put a whole new spin on that entire confrontation, and made you realize how far in advance JKR had planned out the whole thing. -- DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC
 * Also, Snape was in the Shrieking Shack while Sirius and Lupin were explaining the whole thing. I was re-reading it, and I heard the creak and thought "Oh my gosh, that's Snape!" He was late to the party, however, and only heard about his childhood days at Hogwarts: nothing about the Secret Keeper. He still thought Black was the one who betrayed the Potter's and that he was deluding Harry, Hermione, and Ron. - mermaidgirl45
 * Chew on this. After reading Deathly Hallows, I could not understand why, if Snape cared so much about keeping Harry safe, why he tried so hard to get him expelled (he'd be more vulnerable in the regular world), keep his grades low (can't defend himself if he doesn't learn anything), and belittle him constantly. Then I realized that he was trying to minimize or eliminate the threat Harry posed to Voldy, as that would make Voldy more likely to just leave it. -- 72.240.206.0
 * One that occurred to me involving Snape is that given that both are muggle-borns and teen geniuses, Snape's nasty treatment of Hermione might not be just because he's a jerkass, but also because she reminds him of Lilly, and he's probably angered by her friendship with Harry (who of course reminds him of James Potter)- Jordan
 * I thought at first that Voldemort's line "Stand aside, you foolish girl" and offering to spare Lily's life was unimportant. Then Deathly Hallows rolls around, and That is brilliant. -Darkloid_Blues
 * Yes, and another thing:  - Anon IP
 * On this very website, there seems to be a whole lot of people not understanding why Snape is obsessed with Lily, why he didn't just "move on" after she told him she wanted nothing more to do with him. If I may, I shall take this opportunity to present the "Snape moved on" sequence of events: Snape learns that Voldemort is going after the Potters. Snape does nothing. Since he doesn't love Lily anymore, he doesn't beg Voldemort for her life, meaning that Lily doesn't get the opportunity to "stand aside". This, in turn, renders her sacrifice worthless; after all, her fate is sealed. So, RIP Harry Potter: July 31st, 1980 - October 31st, 1981. Without Snape's creepy obsession with Lily, there is no story. So, Tropers... Still think Snape should have just "moved on"? - tenderlumpling
 * It's true that if Snape hadn't loved Lily, the story wouldn't have happened... but that in no way means that seeing his love as obsessive or creepy is a wrong or invalid view. - ILikeCrows
 * Yes, except he moves on to Alice Future-Longbottom!
 * ^ If Snape had done "nothing", Voldemort wouldn't have learned about the prophecy in the first place.
 * ....and would have kept right on enacting his magical holocaust, with absolutely no-one to stand in his way.
 * It's not "creepy" to still have feelings for someone after a few years, especially when you're a teenager and harbouring the guilt from knowing you alone are the reason they don't give you the time of day anymore. Not to mention he's not just missing the girl he had a crush on, he's missing his best and only friend. That also translates into the grander scheme of Snape's life - he's now harbouring the guilt of knowing he caused her death. I'm not arguing with the "obsessive" bit. Mind you, being assigned to guard her son and be forcibly reminded of the fact that she's not around anymore can't have helped him find closure.
 * I was always wondering why Luna was shot from either knee or waist height, or from a distance so that her feet was out of focus in the film adaptation of "Order of the Phoenix". Upon rewatching the film, it hit me that the only time that the camera showed her feet clearly was when she and Harry were in the Forbidden Forest, surrounded by the Thestrals, and Harry asked why she was barefoot.
 * I had a moment of fridge brilliance while reading the Crowning Moments of Awesome page about Harry Potter. It was basically around the part where I realized how the entire school basically rallied against Umbridge...then I realized, by rallying against Umbridge, they were rallying against the Ministry. If Umbridge hadn't been the DADA teacher, there would have been no reason for Dumbledore's Army to form. Dumbledore's Army was kind of its own family, and Umbridge helped form an allegiance between the entire student body and the teachers, as well as the ghosts. Without the family of DA or the entire schoolwide allegiance already established, nobody besides a few teachers would have been so willing to take up arms against Voldemort, both at the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, or the Second Wizarding War. Harry's support system would have been severely diminished, especially at the end of the seventh book. Harry would probably have not so eagerly led a group in rebellion, if it hadn't been for Dumbledore's Army. Basically, the whole reason anything in the sixth or seventh book worked at all, not to mention with as relatively few casualties there were, was because of Umbridge, and her Ripple Effect over the entire school in the fifth book. Jo, you are one clever bastard. katzgoboo
 * Remember how Trelawney in Prisoner of Azkaban makes a big fuss of there being thirteen people at the dinner table, because the first to rise will die? It was pointed out to me that in Order of the Phoenix there are thirteen people at dinner in Grimmauld Place: and  rises first. Also J K Rowling is oft quoted on fan rumour pages as saying that a huge fan of Harry's was going to die. People took this to mean Colin Creevey or Ginny, but as she says in Order of the Phoenix Harry is the person  most cares about. - Sweet-Indigo
 * I think you may be over thinking that one. I don't know the exact context of that particular quote but I would think the obvious answer is in the final battle. Sorry, I think in this case the spade is really just an old gardening tool. -Zig Zag
 * That quote was specifically about the death in Order of the Phoenix, but so many people are "special fans" of Harry (for a given value of specialness) that the quote basically amounts to a sophisticated Shrug of God. --User:Doma Doma
 * Actually, Molly rises first to get rhubarb crumble - just as Harry or possibly Ron rises first at a banquet of thirteen where  is seated. Some divinatory methods really are a hoax. --User:Doma Doma
 * Actually, it wasn't a hoax. If you re-read the page, it stated that Dumbledore spoke to Trelawny in a "slightly raised voice". The prediction came true- Dumbledore died first, because he raised his voice, not because he rose from the chair!
 * I have no idea how you noticed that but it was truly brilliant. Also, when Harry walked into Grimmauld Place for the first time (and I remember someone else pointing it out somewhere else on TV Tropes) he said it felt like "walking into the house of a dead man." Huh.
 * This one occurred to me after re-reading the seventh book. Take a good look at the prophecy lines "marked as his equal" and "has power he knows not". First, consider that Secondly, due to Voldemort's obsessive belief that Harry was the chosen one, it meant that he disregarded most everyone else's abilities as irrelevant. Now look at Neville, who 1) would be free to defeat Voldemort, and 2) clearly not deemed as important to Voldemort, would possess abilities which Voldemort did not know what they were. In short, up until the very end, it was still up in the air exactly whom the prophecy applied to. - Totemic Hero
 * Except Harry's scar, the attack by Voldemort, is what marked Harry as his equal. Also, Harry survived the killing curse  -Nick Falcon
 * Point of fact:  -Hyrin
 * -Milarqui
 * I Just realized the Brilliance in making the character Tonks so clumsy. Being a Metamorphmagus her center of gravity must be constantly changing as she changes shapes thus leaving her continuously unable to find her balance. -Transfan33
 * It suddenly occurred to me why the Dementor's Kiss was used as punishment instead of death: People can just come back as ghosts if their soul isn't harmed.-gumbal1

General Part 4

 * I realized that there was more to Harry's angst in Order of the Phoenix than just being a broody teenager. In Deathly Hallows, while taking turns wearing the locket Horcrux, whoever is wearing it feels miserable, and their situation seems even worse than it is (and it's pretty bad to begin with). Near the end of Deathly Hallows, we learn that  This also opens up more Fridge Brilliance about why Harry was more upset over Cedric's death than Sirius's. Because of Harry's connection with Voldemort, it made Cedric's death more tragic to him than to anyone else, except probably Cho. Harry was very upset after Sirius died at the end of Order of the Phoenix, but didn't seem to be afterwards. Voldemort started using Occlumency against Harry sometime between the fifth and sixth books. When Harry took off the locket in Deathly Hallows, he immediately felt much less miserable. After being directly connected   for an entire year, having Voldemort blocking himself from it was enough of a relief that he was able to get over Sirius's death faster than he could have with Cedric's. -Giga Metroid 99
 * Interesting, and completely believable. I hadn't even thought of the soul shard having a similar effect to the locket, and even Tom Riddle's diary (which I now believe was working on Ginny's emotions in a mystical way, and not just manipulating her via the conversations). Another reason that I just realized was that he dealt with the deaths differently. For Cedric's death, he locked down and got sad. For Sirius' death, he lashed out at others and actually segued his anger into his whole "why do I have to save the whole stupid freaking world!?" complex. In a way, his mourning of Sirius lasts through nearly the entire rest of the series, and not just the scenes where he focuses on it (mostly with the mirror). - JET 73 L
 * This would explain why Harry had trouble producing a patronus when he was attacked by dementors in Order of the Phoenix - it takes him three tries, and for a moment he thinks that he can't do the spell anymore. In Deathly Hallows, Hermione discovers that it's much harder to make a patronus while
 * Speaking of the locket's effects, anyone else notice that Kreacher's Heel Face Turn only happened after he stopped sleeping in the same cupboard with that damn thing?
 * This came to me a while back: JKR is known for her placement of Chekhov's Guns throughout the novels, like the locket and the diary, which are given an importance later on (though in the case of the diary, it was more of an explanation for why it could do what it did). And the reason Harry was able to get glimpses of Voldemort's plans...  -The Otaku Ninja
 * Nearly everything Jo says that isn't immediately important becomes important later. Chekhov would've been proud - she's a master of the economy of detail. She didn't limit it to items at all - characters, dialogue, descriptions, everything. The best are the ones where we think they've become important, but haven't. The book slipped into Ginny's cauldron becomes important when it's revealed as the cause of the Chamber opening, but later becomes MORE important when it turns out to be a Horcrux. The talk about breaking into Gringotts in the first book seems to have been leading up to the day's break-in and then goes away until the seventh book, where Harry breaks into Gringotts and runs into a dragon guarding a vault. -Redseven
 * Also note that there were a couple of throwaway lines between Harry and Hagrid about dragons possibly being used to guard the more important vaults. This aspect didn't even get mentioned in the break-in report.
 * When Petunia reveals that she knows what Dementors are (in the 5th book), she blushes and says "I heard that...awful boy telling her years ago" and Harry angrily says "If you mean my dad, just say his name". But after you read the 7th book, you discover that she didn't mean James at all. She was referring to Snape. It's a brilliant reference that frames the relationship between Lily, Snape, and Petunia, seeming like a useless remark from both characters until you read the last book.
 * When Dumbledore comes to get Harry in the beginning of The Halfblood Prince, he says to Petunia: "We have corresponded, of course." Harry thinks it mentions the time Dumbledore sent her a Howler to remind her of her promise to save Harry. In fact, he refers to the time she sent him a letter asking to let her come to Hogwarts, to which he politely answered she didn't have the required talents.
 * The entire "Snape's Worst Memory" sequence was set up to be much more meaningful in hindsight. At first, it appears that it is his worst memory simply because it shows him being bullied by James and his friends and ostracized at school. His encounter with Lily is just an afterthought as Harry is pulled out of the memory. Harry angsts about his father not being the hero he had pictured, and we move on. However, we later find out that this was his worst memory because, in an angry attempt to save face, he called Lily, his best friend who he had loved for years, a "filthy Mudblood", ruining their friendship (since he had already been hanging out with anti-Muggle, future-Death-Eater students who Lily hated, this was the last straw) and destroying his chances at being with her.-Kiirii XVI
 * In the film version of Goblet of Fire, Moody does a pitch-perfect imitation of Hagrid saying "Marvelous Creatures, Dragons." While kind of cool, it seemed to serve no real purpose. Then I realized something:  - Goblin27
 * This troper thinks that not much weight should be given to the movies in terms of canon. I'm almost entirely certain that this was merely cinematographic effect in order for the viewer to tell who was actually who. Also, had this been the case I think it would have been likely to have been at least hinted at in the books. In fact the books even show that this isn't true in DH when the trio sneak into the ministry under polyjuice. "“Looks like it,” Harry whispered back; his voice came out deep and gravelly. " Harry, who never met Runcorn (as Ron and Hermione got the hairs for him), would have no idea what his voice sounded like.
 * I think you misread. The troper you're replying to acknowledged that in the books the voice changes. But we know that isn't true for the movies, so it makes sense for the movies.
 * You all seem to have misunderstandings, namely as to which section this Fridge Brilliance moment needs to belong.
 * In Deathly Hallows, did anyone else catch the subtlety of the exact moment  - Spitfire71
 * Hermione can't get the House-Elves to unionize, but she can get humans to stop being dicks to them. You can't impose human ethics on a species that isn't human if they don't want them, but you can impose those ethics on humans. There's also a message about assuming house-elves think the same way humans do.--User:Jonn
 * It seemed at first that Voldemort cursed the position of the DADA teacher purely out of spite (if I can't have it, nobody can). Then, after the evidences of abysmal ineptitude of the general wizarding population were presented (like the Ministry of Magic having to buy hats imbued with a Shield Charm from a prank shop), I suddenly comprehended the strategic magnificence of V's move. He ensured that the DADA classes would become a total mess, no consistent teaching routine would be possible and before long the school would run out of decent DADA teachers completely, thus dealing a crushing blow to the opposition. - Gess
 * When reading Prisoner of Azkaban, I thought Sirus' nickname Padfoot was just a sort of pun like the rest of them because dogs have padded feet. Now, after looking into some of the British Isles mythology, the black dog is a death avatar that goes by many different names. One of them happens to be Padfoot. Now Trelawney's prediction makes a lot more sense. Sirus also is a death avatar; his friends from school all die rather violent deaths, so does Harry, and his cousin Tonks. - ashilles
 * Another one: Ron mentioned in Deathly Hallows that Voldemort had made his own name taboo--that is, if anyone said it, it would automatically dispatch the Snatchers, who would then rough them up (or, if it turned out to be Harry, turn his ass in). I thought it was brilliant from the get-go, but it took me a bit more time to unravel just HOW brilliant it was. He not only finds a way to separate Harry from everyone else (because he knows Harry's one of the few who has the balls to say the name), he also mocks Harry's (and by extension Dumbledore's) bravery. He wants to keep the wizarding world in a constant state of fear, and creating such an intense fear of his name alone is, in my opinion, sheer, terrifying genius. We're often told that Voldemort is super intelligent and super evil, but details like this really show it. -Maiira
 * Also points out some logical failure from the protagonists. If they REALLY wanted to be as brave as Dumbledore, they'd have called him Tom Riddle, the name he was born with, not the trumped up title he gave himself. -Meiriona
 * New Fridge Brilliance based on that last post! During Harry's final confrontation with Voldemort, he calls him Tom! See, it's symbolism for how Harry no longer fears him, and how Voldemort's name doesn't have any power now, coinciding with his spells not working, meaning Voldemort himself doesn't have any power now! Oh, but it all makes sense, in ways you cannot possibly understand!
 * Calling him "Tom Riddle" is also Harry's attempt to evoke any lingering trace of humanity that might be left in Voldemort, to give him one last chance to feel remorse and save his ruin-of-a-soul from the misery which awaited him after death.
 * I'm surprised no one seems to have picked up on this: throughout the series characters speculate on why Dumbledore never gives Snape the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. Generally, the idea is that Dumbledore doesn't trust him near the subject. Actually, its' because
 * It occurred to me that Lily might have been so good at potions (according to Slughorn) because she was . If that's the case, then Slughorn was right about
 * It took me a while to figure out why you'd name a torture curse "Cruciatus." Then I realized that the root of the word is "Crucifixion," which is the most brutal form of torture ever invented (and here's the kicker- while normally used as a method of execution, you could use crucifixion as a non-lethal form of torture by simply taking the victim down from the cross every night and not beating him up or breaking his legs).
 * It's also the root for the word "Excruciating" -- an appropriate adjective for the curse's effects.
 * To drop a quick Latin note, it's actually more literal than both of those. Crucio is a Latin verb – it means "I torment." (And excrucio means "I torment like hell.") The second wave of Fridge Brilliance in the name of the Curse is that cruciatus, "tormented one," describes the person on whom the curse is cast.
 * It also, kind of, in a round-about way, describes the person doing the casting. How tormented do you have to be to want, actually, deeply want, to cause that level of pain to another human being?
 * It just dawned on me that the Marauders are first mentioned in Prisoner of Azkaban in the order "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs". This just happens to be  - Bulbaquil
 * Unmarked Deathly Hallows Spoilers: In the seventh book there comes a time when Voldemort is calling for Harry to be given up, and then no one will get hurt. Pansy steps up to say Harry should be given to Voldemort, and not one of the Slytherins stands against her. Now, some people see this as a DMoS for Jo, and she could have shown that Slytherin's aren't all evil and had some stand up for Harry etc., But- how many of the Slytherins knew where their parents were? Their family members? Their loved ones? How many Slytherin's had people they cared for with Voldemort, and potentially in danger if they helped the 'good guys'? It's actually really sad for them, because they don't necessarily know if it's safe for their families if they decide to step up for Harry, so they don't, whereas the other houses don't have that same stigma attached! End Spoilers -User:Loracarol
 * A bit of casting brilliance here - after Bill Weasley gets savaged by Greyback in Half Blood Prince, he's described as bearing "a distinct resemblance to Mad-Eye Moody." Who plays Bill in the Deathly Hallows films? Domhnall Gleeson, the son of Brendan Gleeson, who plays Mad-Eye! - User:Bklyn Bruzer
 * One I noticed my first time reading Azkaban all those years ago (and expected to see on here) was this: Harry's dad was the genius behind the three Animagi -- an incredibly difficult transfiguration to pull off [no comment on how Rita Skeeter did it] which he pulled off at like thirteen years old. Back in Book one, Ollivander described Daddy Potter's wand as "good for transfiguration." Wand and wizard were more than just good; they were exceptional! User:glotof
 * We find out in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows that Neville became the herbology professor at Hogwarts. However, Word of God stated that he served briefly as an auror. Although he proved in the books to be adept at both herbology and auror-ing, I thought this was a bit of a strange career change to make. Then I realized it would make perfect sense if he ever found out his wife Hannah was pregnant -- Neville was probably worried about being in such a high-risk profession, not out of fear for his own safety, but because he didn't want his kids to grow up without a father the way he had to.
 * I think it's at least as likely that Herbology was Neville's passion - it was the class he cared most about, the subject he read books about for fun, etc.. Neville probably served as an auror while it was necessary to hunt down escaped Death Eaters and while Sprout was still in the Herbology position. When the position opened up, he would have taken it because his job as an auror was less necessary (and thus less compelling for him) and he was always more interested in herbology than fighting. -Redseven
 * The Beautiful All Along page led me to this thought: Why is Hermione still a buck-toothed geek in her fourth year? Because her Muggle dentist parents want her to stay with braces. Why do they want her to have braces instead of the inordinately faster, cheaper, and more painless shrinking of her front teeth? Because they haven't figured out all the little exploits of magic yet, or don't want to figure it out. - Landis
 * Possibly they could handle magic as an abstract, something that Hermoine does while she's away at school (since she isn't allowed to do magic at home), but something like changing her teeth would make it all too real. Note that her parents only come to Diagon Alley once, before her second year, so they likely have little to no contact with the magical world. -Hyrin
 * Thinking about it from a parental perspective, it's very possible it's neither of those possiblities. This might sound pretty phoned in, but what if they made her keep her braces to actually help her retain humility? Think about it? The wizarding world shows so many conveniences that maybe Hermoine's parents thought going through braces would help shape her up as a person. She'd learn to appreciate the conveniences the wizarding world adorns her, sympathy for other people's facial ailments (see above brilliance about her parents ties to her healing traits) and even remind her that the best things take time. Or, even more likely, what if Hermoine simply keeps the braces as a show of love to her parents and their profession? Any child, even unconsciously, shows small signs of loving their parents and what they do, and Hermoine would do so by going about dentistry the way her parents make a living off it, not the quick convenient magical way. -Rocky Samson

General Part 5

 * Harry's ultimate plan for was to put it back where it was, and die a natural death undefeated in order to break its power. On the surface, and given Word of God that he becomes an Auror, this seems like a bad plan. But then it hit me,  ownership passes from one owner to the other upon the first person's defeat or murder. The opponent doesn't even need to know what they'd done, as proven by  doing it by accident. So in the event Harry is ever defeated, possession would go to that person, and if that person were defeated, it would go to whoever beat him, and so on and so on until  power is effectively broken by the simple fact that nobody knows who's supposed to be using the thing. -- Sgamer 82
 * In the Half-Blood Prince movie, when Dumbledore is trying to convince Draco that he doesn't have to kill him he says "Years ago, I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices, please don't become him." He seems to be referring to Tom Riddle, especially since this echoes his words at the welcoming feast in the beginning of the movie. However, I realized that it makes more sense if he's referring to Regulus Black. There are very few parallels between Draco and Tom Riddle, while Word of God has said that Draco and Regulus are very similar. They both got in a little too deep, but they weren't prepared for the consequences. Dumbledore doesn't seem to see Draco as someone who could possibly become the next dark lord. He seems to see that he's trapped and wants to help him. As far as Dumbledore knows, Regulus is a boy who made the 'wrong choice' to join the Death Eaters, got too far in, backed out, and got killed for it. Dumbledore doesn't want Draco to suffer the same fate, and perhaps wishes to offer Draco the protection he couldn't give to Regulus. - That Crazy Girl With Glasses
 * Re-reading that line, I thought Dumbledore was referring to himself. Everyone knows his early ambitions were less-than-awesome and it cost him his sister, his brother, and his friend. But the Regulus bit really is brilliant. - mermaidgirl45
 * Further interpretation: It refers to so many of the characters. Snape, Regulus, Tom, himself, possibly Grindelwald. Dumbldore is including Draco in a whole litany of characters who either should have been better than they were, or should have been recognised for defying their natures. Since Draco is at the turning point, where he will either become the bad (Grindelwald/Voldemort) or the good who should be better recognised (Snape/Regulus) it becomes prophetic of which one he will become when he doesn't kill Dumbledore.
 * I really don't think it would refer to Regulus... Because Dumbledore knowing Regulus' past would imply that he knew about Regulus' involvement with the locket...
 * iirc, it was known that Regulus backed out and was killed by Voldemort for it, so Dumbly could be referring to Reggy there.
 * Just a small one from Chamber of Secrets: the flying car plummets out of the sky at the precise moment that it crosses the boundary of the Hogwarts grounds. That is, when it hits the various enchantments and protections, negating its Hovering Charms.
 * Or the fact that technology doesn't work on Hogwarts grounds?
 * In the first book, I overlooked a small detail with Hagrid showing up at the cabin at the sea; namely, the fact that Vernon Dursley had a gun. Being an American reader, I thought nothing about it. It was only then that I realized why this was a big deal: there is a strict gun ban in the UK. It was only then that I really began to understand and appreciate Vernon's predicament, being a man so paranoid that he resorted to criminal acts in order to protect himself. - The Albino Primid
 * By extension, this made me appreciate how dangerous Sirius Black was perceived to be by Muggle standards, as well; in the US, a news story about someone killing a dozen people would have faded out in a week; in the UK, it would have been talked about for months.
 * Eh, maybe. Gun control in the UK was much looser until 1996, after the Dunblane massacre. It would have been perfectly reasonable, if a little bit morally questionable, for Vernon to get a shotgun at short notice in Britain in 1995. When JK wrote this, and for the year it was published and the year it was set, this isn't really correct.
 * Slytherins are ambitious, but it's not the way one first things when asked to describe someone whose defining trait is ambition. They're grabbing what power they can in any way they can. Crabbe and Goyle didn't subjugate themselves under Malfoy because they're minions, they did so because they were presumably taught from a young age that they would be nothing on their own, and they could only grasp power by being the (non-intellectual) giants on whose shoulders Draco stood while holding onto his bootstraps as he rises to the top. Petty, cruel bullies like Pansy Parkinson and overtly violent bullies like Millicent Bulstrode push everyone else down; they are ambitious in the short-sighted way that bullies in high school, middle school/junior high, and even elementary school are bullies. As long as they're better than any random person, and especially anyone who stands against them (thus challenging their dominance), and can prove it one way or another, that's all they need to be better than everyone. Even Draco in the sixth and seventh books is showing ambition (a steady and sharp decline from his lofty expectations of the first couple or few books), be it in an increasingly desperate way: he's still playing the field as of the end of the sixth book, not necessarily hesitating out of courage or loyalty and certainly not hesitating because he calculated his best odds of survival, and by the time of the seventh book he's doing everything he can to survive under Voldemort's reign (until the Power of Love prompts a change in philosphy). If the houses were more integrated, Slytherin would probably pick off the easiest-to-manipulate First Years from Hufflepuff, but as it is, there are too many aspiring leaders and not enough lackeys so nobody (except Draco, who got Crabbe and Goyle ahead of time thanks to family connections) can build up enough of a power base to get out of the Crab Bucket. -JET 73 L
 * Ron Weasley as a Keeper? Brilliant. At first, it seemed to this troper like an odd position for Ron to take (considering his portrayal, he always seemed like more of a get-up-in-front Chaser type, like Ginny). However, remember the Chess Motifs. Ron, while by no means a genius on par with Slytherin cunning, is shown to have a talent for tactics, and has always stood behind Harry by "having his back". Just like a King would on the chessboard. Ron's position in Quidditch? He's a keeper, which requires him to stay in one spot and guard the goals. If he didn't have his team's back by doing that, the opposing team would simply keep scoring. Just like a King would on the chessboard. What song do the Slytherins sing, later to be modified and made awesome by the Gryffindors?  Weasley is our KING . Mind=Blown.
 * The reason Harry and Ginny's relationship doesn't get as fleshed out as some people would like is that those are their moments. Harry's famous (both in-series and out), but it's mentioned that the moments he has with Ginny are just ordinary, sweet, romantic moments, and he feels as if they were stolen from the life of someone without a lightning scar. The author decided to give Harry some privacy. It's not just lazy writing--Harry's relationship with Cho Chang got plenty of development before it crashed and burned.
 * In an old (pre-"Order of the Phoenix") chat interview, someone asked about Riddle's mention (in "Chamber of Secrets") of Hagrid raising werewolf cubs under his bed, and whether they were "the same kind of werewolves" as Lupin. Rowling stated that this never happened: "Riddle was telling lies about Hagrid, just slandering him". Of course, back in "Chamber of Secrets" no one would have batted an eye at a mention of werewolf cubs, but Professor Lupin gets introduced later and we find out that werewolves are really just people with an incurable magical disease. To call their children "cubs" and imply that they can be raised under a bed like dogs is seriously offensive Fantastic Racism, but coming from the young Voldemort, it's no surprise.
 * Lily's patronus is a doe, and she dies to protect her son. As her son grows up, he sees the mysterious horns of the stag that was his father's patronus, but later ends up summoning the patronus himself, essentially taking his father's place. Bambi motifs, anyone?
 * When I first read Prisoner of Azkaban, I thought Snape was just being a jackass because he hated Sirius and Lupin from their school days. But now, now I realize that he believed Black had killed the woman he loved, and Lupin was defending him. It all makes so much more horrible, horrible sense. No wonder he was angry. Anyone would be.
 * In Order of the Phoenix, when Molly Weasley encounters a Boggart in a locked cabinet, we're told what forms it takes - the lifeless bodies of her family: Ron, Bill, Arthur, Fred and George, Percy, and finally Harry. Did you notice that one tiny detail? Fred and George. Not even in Mrs. Weasley's worst nightmares could she imagine the twins being separated. -iheardavoice
 * Dumbledore, Riddle (Voldemort), Snape and Harry are four of the important characters in the series, and shared more than a few similiarities. All four could be considered the best representatives of their respective generations. All four were half-bloods. All four considered Hogwarts their true home.
 * Except Dumbledore is a pureblood.
 * His mother was a muggle.
 * His mother was Muggle-born, not a muggle.
 * Could Harry be called a Half-blood? Both his parents were wizards. He's more like a Quarter-Blood.
 * I think it says somewhere that even if both of your parents are magical, if one of them has Muggle parents then the child (e.g. Harry) is considered a Half-Blood. It's why Bellatrix and Narcissa ostracized Andromeda after she married Ted Tonks; he was a wizard, but his parents weren't. It also caused a bit of confusion when Voldemort called Lily a "filthy Muggle" in one of the books - to him, and the other Pureblood supremacists, there's no difference between a Muggle and a "Mudblood".
 * Petunia and Lily both have flower names. Sure, but there's nothing really brilliant about it - until you think about the flower meanings of both. The petunia can mean anger and resentment, while one of the meanings of the lily is death.
 * While still irresponsible, Fudge's skepticism regarding Harry's assertion that Voldemort was back makes a lot more sense when you consider what had happened (or, as it turns out, Snape convinced him had happened) the previous year: specifically, that Harry had been confunded by Sirius to convince him that the guy was innocent. We don't know a whole lot about the mechanics of the Confundus Charm, but just look at Dawlish's experience with it in Deathly Hallows, where being charmed lets everyone and their grandma (literally, in Neville's case) get the drop on him. Throw in Rita Skeeter's various articles throughout Goblet of Fire, and it's not that surprising that Fudge would see Harry as mentally addled at best, crazy at worst. All the evidence was indicative of just that!
 * It had always annoyed me slightly that Harry was so scorchingly rich. Obviously Lily didn't bring any wizard gold into the family and James, while from an old line, didn't seem to come from that kind of money. And they didn't live long enough to earn that kind of cash. Then I realized that Harry would have been the world's most famous orphan, of course people would have been donating money from all over to help raise the Boy Who Lived.
 * But Word of God says that James was wealthy before he died. So part of the money still came from Harry's parents. Still a good thought, though. -TE Gs Factual 0527
 * Also, didn't Sirius's uncle leave him a crapload of money as well? Sirius probably chipped in - not to mention he never really had to pay rent having spent a huge chunk of his adult life in Azkaban and then the remaining years as the owner-by-default of a house that had been in his family for generations. He probably gave James a bit of his money to help take care of the family once it became clear that they were going to have to go into hiding.
 * Something i never understood was why almost every spell came from greek or latin words except for one, "Riddikulus". but then i started thinking that maybe most spells were developed way back when, when greek and latin were still spoken and developed from those languages but riddikulus was developed as recently as the emergence of the the proper english language. YMMV but the idea that it took that long to find a spell against a boggart is kinda Nightmare Fuely
 * Actually, 'Ridiculous' comes from the latin too; "ridiculus", meaning "laughable", or, well, "ridiculous".
 * Why would Voldemort, who Dumbledore claims is afraid of the idea of death, use Inferi (AKA Dead bodies reanimated by magic)? You would think that the Inferi would remind him that no matter how much magic someone has, they will still die. But it makes sense when you consider that Voldemort uses them to convince himself that he has some sort of control over death.
 * I just realized who Hermione would have become if she hadn't befriended Ron and Harry : Percy Weasley. And that explain why Ron made her cry so easily. He struck right where it hurt immediately and didn't even think about it probably because that's how Percy is treated in his family (notably by the twins). The fact that Hermione realized that those two were ready to risk their lives to save her made her lie to protect them in return and generally gave her the first clue that rules aren't always the most important things which gave her the chance to prove how remarkable she could be under her bossiness. It's sad that Percy never had the chance to show this (does he even have friends in the book ?). I'm kind of curious as to whom Ron could have become if he hadn't met Harry and Hermione to cool his temper sometimes or whom Harry would have become if he had make another friend first like Neville for example.
 * The dormitories for Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are above ground in towers, while those for Hufflepuff and Slytherin are in the cellars. This arrangement corresponds to each House's animal mascot: lions like to stand atop tall rocks to survey their territory and eagles perch on clifftops or trees, whereas badgers and many species of snakes retreat underground to sleep.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

 * In Harry Potter, Ronan the Centaur is angry at Firenze for saving Harry from Quirrel/Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, as it goes against the stars' foretelling. Harry is destined to be killed by Voldemort in the forest, but not until 6 years later. -- calenloki
 * Also dealing with the unicorn blood scene: Everyone at first thinks Quirrel's stuttering and turban come from a bad encounter with a Vampire in Albania. He did indeed have a bad encounter, but with Voldemort, so I finished the book the first time thinking this rumor was false. Cut 3 years to my first re-reading, where I realize that Voldemort makes Quirrel drink blood on his behalf. -- scoop 712
 * Also dealing with Quirrelmort: When we're introduced to Quirrel, his constant fear is explained as coming from a supposed vampire encounter in Albania. We later learn that it was actually Voldemort he met in Albania, which put the other story out of my mind. Rereading the first book 12-odd years since I first did, I realized that Voldemort 1) drains Quirrel's life-force, and 2) SURVIVES BY (having Quirrel) DRINK BLOOD. --rthomas 2
 * His constant fear is also explicable to the other teachers, who probably blame it on his having heard how the DADA position is jinxed.
 * I first read Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone the spring before the first film came out. I thought Draco Malfoy was a funny character, but really didn't think any more of him. Until two or three years later, when I realized that Draco Malfoy seemed to be crafted into a classic Threshold Guardian, as every decision Harry made in book one that defined him as a hero for most of the school year happened in response to Draco being a douche. When I figured out what Jo had done, I nearly died laughing. That brilliant beast! -- Laota
 * I realized how well-done the Harry Potter series was on the seventh or eighth time I read the first book. On the first trip on the Hogwarts Express, Ron has a smudge on his nose that won't come off. If you pay close attention to the conversation on the platform, it seems to be implied that the twins put the smudge on as a practical joke. -- Comic Book Goddess
 * I heard this one that for some reason had never clicked before. The mirror of Erised. Read it backward. -- Jahwn Lemonjello
 * The entire phrase "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" that is carved on the mirror can be read backwards as well, reading "I show not your face but your heart's desire." -Kiirii XVI
 * And it says this in mirror language.
 * It being written backwards is pretty brilliant to. If you held the writing up to a regular mirror, you'd be able to see what it said.
 * Well, sort of. Mirror writing is not the same thing as writing something backwards. But yes, it might be easier to see what it said in a mirror, because your naturally pattern-finding brain will reverse the letters that need it. Redrum!
 * The sorting hat tells Harry that he could be great in Slytherin. In other words, it was trying to appeal to Harry's ambition. That's a clever way to see if someone should be in Slytherin.
 * And Harry showed courage by asking the hat not to put him in Slytherin.
 * All of which helps juxtapose Harry to Tom, whom I can imagine making the opposite choice -- becoming overcome by his "thirst to prove himself." As Dumbledore says, it is our choices that matter. That said, I realized after the seventh book that  -magesa
 * When Scabbers (who is actually Pettigrew, though we don't know that til PoA) bites Goyle in the scene on the train--Harry and Ron are on the verge of fighting them because, in part, Malfoy insulted Harry's parents. -- meanderling
 * Okay, whoever posted the above, I have officially fallen in love with you. Brilliant!
 * Also, Ron's attempt to turn Scabbers yellow didn't just fail because it wasn't a very good spell, but because it specified a rat as its target, and Scabbers isn't really a rat. Or stupid, for that matter.
 * Scabbers chewed on Ron's sheets after the post-Sorting banquet. Want to bet that portly young Peter Pettigrew'd really savored those opening-day feasts when he was a student, and was frustrated that he hadn't been able to do more than smell all that food?
 * When Dumbledore commends Nevile Longbottom for trying to stop the Trio, he comments that while it takes courage to stand up to one's enemies, it takes a great deal more to stand up to one's friends, at the time it seemed to this troper like he was merely ensuring that Griffindor would win the house cup. However in the last book that we find out that Dumbledore's greatest regret was not standing up to his friend Grindelwald earlier, which caused the death of his younger sister, and his eventual rise to power.
 * Hermione's line, "I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled," at first seems humorous, with Ron's (film) response about her priorities getting the expected laugh. However, while reading the Fate Worse Than Death trope, it occurred to me that, considering that those expelled from Hogwarts have their wands broken and are forbidden to use magic in a world where magic-users rule and those without it (Squibs/Muggles) are treated as second-class at best...Well, the best possible outcome is re-integrating into Muggle Society and you spend your life *knowing* that there's a magic world that you can never access again. Hermione actually has the right of it. -zenfrodo
 * Snapping your wand on grounds of expulsion isn't a usual thing, its only in Hagrids case because he was framed for such an extreme crime - i.e. bringing in a creature that killed another student.
 * This troper is only passing something on that a fanfic writer points out in a piece called "Oh God, Not Again", and I actually did a fanfic based on the whole idea. (Here if you're interested.) Basic summary: The first potion that Snape demands of Harry is "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Seems to be nothing other than a potions master asking a student the concoction that such a combination would make, and kicking off the theme of Snape bullying Harry. Nothing special. Until you look into plant languages. Asphodel is a type of Lily. Clever in itself. The flower has delicate petals of white with pink-red stripe through their centre. Sweet, pure, but not without an angry streak. Feeling creeped out yet? What does that lily mean in flower language? Headscrewed yet? It get's better. Wormwood means  What do you get if you combine those two plants together, other than a Draught of Living Death? This message:  And now, for that final kicker. In Slughorn's first lesson, the students are asked to make the Draught of Living Death.  J.K you clever clever woman, do you never stop breaking our hearts? -- sakekun
 * In the shack on the island where Vernon takes the Dursleys, Harry asks Hagrid what happened to Voldermort. Hagrid's response: "Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die." That's exactly what happens: Voldemort doesn't die --Alex_N
 * Near the end of this book, when Harry is trying to convince Hermione and Ron to break school rules to save the Stone, Harry tells them that this is more important than school rules: "Haven't you heard what it was like when he was taking over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll either flatten it or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts!" --Vericrat
 * Just a small thing, but in the holidays, Fred and George charm snowballs to bounce off the back of Quirels turban. At the end of the book, it is revealed that
 * Likewise, when Harry first feels pain in his scar, it's when he takes a good look at Snape up at the teachers' table during the opening-day feast. What's Snape doing when Harry sees him? Talking face-to-face with Quirrell, which means that

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

 * There is a the part in "Chamber of Secrets" in which the Weasleys continuously come back to the Burrow because some of the them forget their items. One of these times is when Ginny goes back to the house to get her diary. Sneaky little detail there, JK Rowling. -turtlewizard
 * I thought the Deathday Party in Harry Potter was basically a Wacky Wayside Tribe to get Harry relatively isolated while he's looking completely off his rocker. Then I read it again after the fifth book, and realized holy shit, this is their shallow imitation of the afterlife. (And then, of course, there's that bit where the entire fandom considered the entire book a filler arc. Moo ha ha.) -- Doma Doma
 * Sorry, but what bit was that again? With the exception of the epilogue, I can't think of a single moment I thought Damn, that's some bad filler, much less considered an entire book a filler arc.
 * Chamber of Secrets was kind of considered an off episode. It seemed to have less to do with the overall plot until the sixth book. Then you realize that a lot happened in book 2.
 * When the security at the school is stepped up, one of the first rules to be introduced is that students must be accompanied in the bathrooms. The teachers don't know about the Chamber, but they know where Myrtle died.
 * Harry is revealed to be a Horcrux in the seventh book. All other Horcruxes were destroyed by basilisk venom in some way. Harry nearly died from being bitten by the basilisk... ever wonder how Harry manages to survive all sorts of horrible ordeals, including getting knocked out at least twice a book? He was a Horcrux, and normal maiming wouldn't work on him! The scene in Chamber of Secrets was the only time in the entire series where Harry really was in danger of dying... but Fawkes saved him, and Harry stabbed Riddlemort's diary with the basilisk fang, destroying it and the bit of soul inside. -pankitty
 * Possibly, although I'm not sure Harry ever survives anything that would have killed another wizard. The best candidates are the fall from the broom in Prisoner of Azkaban and the Priori Incatatem of Goblet of Fire, both of which have other explanations (Dumbledore slowed his fall, dual wand cores). Unless
 * Not quite. Horcruxes aren't actually indestructible. They have to be beyond magical repair altogether. Basilisk venom is one of the methods by which it's done (you'll recall that the Diadem was actually destroyed by Fiendfyre). It's also established that magic cannot bring someone back from the dead, *meaning* death is officially "beyond magical repair." So if Harry had died by any other means than Voldemort killing him in the Forest, which had so very many factors contributing to Harry coming back, he would have been stone dead anyway.
 * Ravenclaw's Diadem wasn't destroyed by Basilisk venom in any stretch of the imagination. It was destroyed by Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement. Only in the movie was is destroyed by the Basilisk fang.
 * At the beginning, why did Vernon try to stop Harry from "escaping"? He wants nothing more than Harry gone...-- Gamer From Jump
 * He doesn't want Harry around,true, but he also wants him to be miserable. When he found out that Harry wasn't allowed to use magic, he probably saw that as a chance to get rid of the problem Harry represented. If he couldn't go back to school, he wouldn't learn magic, which he hates even more than Harry.-- Metroid Life
 * It's also possible that, being the kind of man Vernon is and having been very abusive to Harry all throughout childhood, it would only make sense that Vernon wouldn't want Harry learning more magic in the event that Harry would ever choose to use that magic to get back at his family (something that, although accidental, is not entirely untrue). -Rocky Samson
 * The amazingly casual mentions of the Vanishing Cabinets throughout this book just astound me after reading Half Blood Prince. First, Harry hides in the one in Borgin and Burkes - leaving the door open a crack, thank heavens, because at this point they were both still working. Later, Nearly-Headless Nick convinces Peeves to drop the Hogwarts one above Filch's office - breaking it and thus setting up Draco's entire plotline in Book 6. Stunning! -- Histry Luvr
 * Harry can hear the Basalisk whispering through the pipes. Why does nobody else hear this? What sound does a snake make in it's natural habitat? That's right, a hiss. What sound does a pipe make in it's natural habitat?
 * In the movie, Acromantulas such as Aragog and his children look like colossal wolf spiders, not true tarantulas. It turns out that the word "tarantula" is originally Italian and was once used to describe what are now called wolf spiders.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 * Remember Snape's line just as he entered the Shrieking Shack and was staring down Lupin and Sirius, of how he dreamed about getting revenge on the both of them? Well, it didn't hit this troper until Order of the Phoenix, during Harry's one Occulmency lesson with Snape that accidentally revealed Snape's most traumatic memory and just how much hatred and revenge he wanted to foster to these two.
 * Actually, the real reason that he wanted revenge against Sirius was And while he was able to pretend in front of Voldemort, because he knew attacking him would be futile, he had no reason to hold back when he thought Sirius was the traitor. It's the same reason that he continually harassed Pettigrew at the start of the 6th book.
 * I don't believe that Snape had no knowledge about pettigrew being the spy- he was a death eater and Voldy probably didn't care for peter's spying enough to keep it a secret from the rest of the death eaters, especially since Snape was the one who told V about the prophecy, so he must have been in his good graces even then. The whole thing about snape's character is that he isn't a noble, misunderstood hero- he is still vindictive towards his former bullies, hateful towards gryffindors in general etc. His only saving grace is his, and from that stem his good characteristics, for instance- he never used the word mudblood apart from that one time he shouted it at Lilly.
 * Pettigrew was never a spy, per-se - he was worse, a turncoat. He didn't work for Voldemort until the day that he was named as the Potters secret keeper, and by then it would be too late for Snape to ever find out. Its impossible any other way - Snape came to Dumbledore and pledged his life in return for Lily's service before James and Lily went into hiding, and thus before they named Pettigrew secret keeper, so if he had known Pettigrew was a spy, he would have told Dumbledore right away that Pettigrew was a spy working for Voldemort, and they would have just, I dunno, shot him or something. Pettigrew was always a coward, hiding beind those with more power who would tolerate him. and he now had a way to make sure Voldemort, the most powerful wizard alive, tolerated him. So basically, Pettigrews defection and betrayal would be known buy only four Witches and/or wizards - Pettigrew, Sirius (by virtue of figuring int out), Voldemort, and the Death Eater Pettigrew contacted to get the information to Voldemort. Who was probably in Azkaban.
 * I have just figured out that people's predictions aren't as farfetched as they seem.  -Dynamic Dragon
 * "Another Troper mentioned this on another page." Well, fine, but I'll mention it here and Fridge it correctly at the same time. In Prisoner of Azkaban, when Snape confronts Sirius, he says: "Give me a reason. Give me a reason to do it and I swear I will." Pretty harsh, but remember, this is the guy that almost got Snape eaten by a werewolf. Then in Goblet of Fire and Order of The Phoenix, they're a bit more civil to each other, but still obviously carrying grudges. Fast forward to Deathly Hallows, . And the realization hits with a big KA-BOOM. Like the entire rest of the magical world, Snape had thought that Sirius betrayed the Potters and was responsible for, and only found out the truth after Voldemort's return (when he went to Voldemort two hours after the Triwizard final and would have seen Pettigrew there). This instantly did two things: put a whole new spin on that entire confrontation, and made you realize how far in advance JKR had planned out the whole thing. -- DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC
 * Also, Snape was in the Shrieking Shack while Sirius and Lupin were explaining the whole thing. I was re-reading it, and I heard the creak and thought "Oh my gosh, that's Snape!" He was late to the party, however, and only heard about his childhood days at Hogwarts: nothing about the Secret Keeper. He still thought Black was the one who betrayed the Potters and that he was deluding Harry, Hermione, and Ron. ~mermaidgirl45
 * I thought at first that Voldemort's line "Stand aside, you foolish girl" and offering to spare Lily's life was unimportant. Then Deathly Hallows rolls around, and That is brilliant. -Darkloid_Blues
 * Yes, and another thing: - Anon IP
 * Except, you know,, which shows how much of a raw deal he got -- unless one accounts for the fact that all these people mentioned died before  took place, so the protection came too late for those already killed off.
 * Remember how Trelawney in Prisoner of Azkaban makes a big fuss of there being thirteen people at the dinner table, because the first to rise will die? It was pointed out to me that in Order of the Phoenix there are thirteen people at dinner in Grimmauld Place:, and rises first. Also, J. K. Rowling is oft quoted on fan rumour pages as saying that a huge fan of Harry's was going to die. People took this to mean Colin Creevey or Ginny, but as she says in Order of the Phoenix, Harry is the person  most cares about. - Sweet-Indigo
 * I think you may be ove- thinking that one. I don't know the exact context of that particular quote, but I would think the obvious answer is in the final battle. Sorry, I think in this case the spade is really just an old gardening tool. -Zig Zag
 * That quote was specifically about the death in Order of the Phoenix, but so many people are "special fans" of Harry (for a given value of specialness) that the quote basically amounts to a sophisticated Shrug of God. --User:Doma Doma
 * Actually, Molly rises first to get rhubarb crumble - just as Harry or possibly Ron rises first at a banquet of thirteen where is seated. Some divinatory methods really are a hoax. --User:Doma Doma
 * Actually, it wasn't a hoax. If you re-read the page, it stated that Dumbledore spoke to Trelawny in a "slightly raised voice". The prediction came true- Dumbledore died first, because he raised his voice, not because he rose from the chair!
 * I have no idea how you noticed that, but it was truly brilliant. Also, when Harry walked into Grimmauld Place for the first time (and I remember someone else pointing it out somewhere else on TV Tropes), he said it felt like "walking into the house of a dead man." Huh.
 * Alternatively, the prediction was dead-on, but didn't count on the effects of the Stable Time Loop which probably saved both Harry and Ron's lives at the end of the book.
 * It suddenly occurred to me why the Dementor's Kiss was used as punishment instead of death: People can just come back as ghosts if their soul isn't harmed. -gumbal1
 * Though whether coming back as a ghost is particularly desirable is another question all together.
 * Sir Nicholas, the Gryffindor's ghost, says that being a ghost is what happens when one is so afraid of what happens after dying that they remain in the normal world, a behaviour regarded as cowardy.
 * ...Does that mean that we could very well see a ghost of Voldemort floating around nineteen years later?
 * No, Rowling's said his soul is too broken to become a ghost. He's forced to stay as that flayed baby in the afterlife.
 * Well, what about Bellatrix Le Strange?
 * Rereading the series, and just realized something: when Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Ginny are confronted by the Dementor on the Hogwarts Express in Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry passes out because, to paraphrase Lupin's later quote: "There are horrors in Harry's past that the others don't have." However, remember that of the other four kids, the one most affected is Ginny, "who was huddled in her corner looking nearly as bad as Harry felt". Not much emphasis is put on this, but the reason is that she's only two months removed from having been Mind Raped by Diary Horcrux-Voldemort. -Di Sc Or Dt He Lu Na Ti C
 * Also Neville was very pale and his voice was higher then normal. Neville's parents were tortured into insanity and can no longer recognize him, thats pretty traumatic. -FIREFLYER 88
 * When reading Prisoner of Azkaban, I thought Sirius's nickname Padfoot was just a sort of pun like the rest of them, because dogs have padded feet. Now, after looking into some of the British Isles mythology, the black dog is a death avatar that goes by many different names. One of them happens to be Padfoot. Now Trelawney's prediction makes a lot more sense. Sirus also is a death avatar; his friends from school all die rather violent deaths, so does Harry, and his cousin Tonks. - ashilles
 * A padfoot is also sometimes slang for a thief. Make of that what you will.
 * It just dawned on me that the Marauders are first mentioned in Prisoner of Azkaban in the order "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs". This just happens to be - Bulbaquil
 * One I noticed my first time reading Azkaban all those years ago (and expected to see on here) was this: Harry's dad was the genius behind the three animagi -- an incredibly difficult transfiguration to pull off [no comment on how Rita Skeeter did it] which he pulled off at, like, thirteen years old. Back in Book one, Ollivander described Daddy Potter's wand as "good for transfiguration." Wand and wizard were more than just good; they were exceptional! User:glotof
 * Just realized why Voldemort has so much control over Dementors, and why Dementors don't seem to affect him like everyone else: Voldemort's soul is so tiny, the Dementors see a creature similar to them, and thus, are more likely to follow him! Also, the fact that his soul is so small means that the Dementors wouldn't get much out of it. On the flipside, the reason Harry is so affected by Dementors, and why they always seem to go for him: Harry is established as having a particularly powerful soul, full of all the things that Voldemort has ignored in his pursuit of immortality. To the Dementors, they see something so unlike them, that they need to put it out, to consume Harry's soul would be like a rare feast, since his heart is full of the things that Dementors feed on.
 * Several different people mention that Dumbledore dislikes Dementors. While he let's them guard the school, he doesn't let them enter the grounds and is furious when they do. This seems perfectly reasonable - Dementors are, after all, nasty creatures - but there is a simpler explanation:
 * Has he ever faced a boggart on screen?
 * Nope, but it's implied that would be his worst memory by the cave scene in the sixth book. Still, when you've lived as long and been through as much as Dumbledore, it's not likely he'd just experience Ariana's death again. That would probably be most prominent, but he's also dealt with the pressures of leading the wizarding world, the war against Grindelwald (who he was in love with, mind), his utter and abysmal failure to prevent Tom Riddle becoming Voldemort, the war against Voldemort... really, the only thing that would make someone tastier to a Dementor than the trauma Harry's gone through, is old age.
 * On the American English hardback jacket, the preview information gives plenty of information on Sirius, From a Certain Point of View. It implies guilt, but does not explicitly state it as fact. Additionally, the last sentences are "Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst". At the bottom of this fold in the jacket is a rat, which unlike everything else on the cover, is small, casts a large shadow, and seems unnecessary. It's even standing on its hind legs. --User:Wanderlust Warrior
 * The third Harry Potter film has a chock full of these to make up for its Adaptation Decay and Narm. Several moments in the film foreshadow things that will happen later in the series:
 * Harry's number in the Quidditch game - his shirt says "POTTER 7". Harry eventually turns out to be Voldemort's seventh horcrux.
 * Harry sees Sirius's face in a crystal ball calling his name. Sirius is the reason Harry finally hears the prophecy.
 * When Harry is coming to after his Quidditch accident you can hear one of the twins say "Let's throw you off the Astronomy tower and see how you look", a rather dry joke about another character who later gets thrown off the Astronomy Tower.
 * This is actually more of a Funny Aneurysm than Fridge Brilliance as the PoA movie came out a year before HBP was released. -Zig Zag
 * Unless Rowling let something slip. Months before Deathly Hallows was even finished, she accidentally let the fact that Dumbledore would play a significant role in that book slip to the cast on the set.
 * Rowling herself mentions the 'accidental' foreshadowing in one of the interviews on the DVD. Cue crazed fans scrutinizing the movie.
 * When Lupin and Harry discuss Harry's parents Lupin mentions that Lily had a gift for seeing the good in everyone, "even when that person could not see it in themselves". Initially we assume he's talking about himself but he had three best friends and amazing adventures with them, he felt great. He was really talking about Snape whose only real friend was Lily.
 * Interesting theory, but there's no evidence to suggest that Lupin ever realized that Lily did see good in Snape. If he had, he would have trusted him more.
 * Lupin was describing his own friendship with Lily, but his description also describes her friendship with Snape as well.
 * Snape shields Harry, Ron and Hermione from the werewolf Lupin when he attacks, foreshadowing his true allegiance.
 * Ron and Hermione's future relationship is foreshadowed such as when she grabs his hand during the Care of Magical Creatures class and when she turns to him for comfort after she thinks Buckbeak has been killed.
 * In the third film, despite the choir singing an ominous Shakespeare verse, among other dark aesthetics, the film ends on a rather happy note. Many found this strange, until they realized that the events of the film set the stage for the return of Voldemort in the next one. -dmeagher101
 * One small moment in this movie seems to hint at Snape's true allegiance, something which Rowling did not reveal until the seventh and final book. The moment comes after the characters have emerged from the Whomping Willow. Snape regains consciousness without realizing that Lupin has turned into a werewolf. As soon as he sees the werewolf, a look of terror shoots across his face, and he immediately spreads out his arms to shield the children from the werewolf. It's hard to believe he'd do that--not only a very brave act, but one that looks instinctive--if he was loyal to Voldemort.
 * This is one I realized ages ago, but every animagus in the series turns into an animal indicative of his or her true personality. James became a stag, a proud leader (plus possible Bambi references). Sirius became a dog, and he was very loyal, a prized trait in dogs. Peter Pettigrew became a rat, Wikipedia has them as "vicious, unclean, parasitic animals that steal food and spread disease" and further comments "It is a term (noun and verb) in criminal slang for an informant - "to rat on someone" is to betray them by informing the authorities of a crime or misdeed they committed. Describing a person as "rat-like" usually implies he or she is unattractive and suspicious." Rita Skeeter became a beetle, which are often seen as pests. As for Mc Gonagall, well...

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

 * The first chapter of Goblet of Fire seemed kind of like filler. It established a little more about Voldemort's Muggle father, and it showed that Wormtail had found Voldemort and was helping him, but that could have easily been established later. Except it was also the first time we saw Nagini, and in fact her only appearance in the book (she next returns in the aforementioned scene in Order of the Phoenix, when Voldemort is ordering her to attack ). The chapter serves to introduce the character by name, so it makes more sense when we see her in the next book, and also to show us the time at which she became a Horcrux, as Voldemort was still one short of his goal when he went to kill the Potters. That's not the brilliant part. --Spiri Tsunami
 * No. The misconception here is that Voldy did not want 7 Horcruxes, he wanted to split his soul into 7 pieces. That means 6 Horcruxes and the main fragment in his own body. Harry became the sixth Horcrux by accident and unknown to Voldly. So he decided, he needed to make that seventh fragment and used Nagini... not realizing that Nagini was the eighth fragment. Which probably nullified any benefits of the magic of seven.
 * That theory seems to be Jossed by Voldemort's reactions in Deathly Hallows, particularly his interrogation of the Gringotts staff. --User:Doma Doma
 * It was certainly demonstrated to be false in Half-Blood Prince (and perhaps even before), because Dumbledore tells Harry that Lucius Malfoy was punished when Voldemort learned that the Diary had been destroyed after he gave it away. And, at the start of that book, Dumbledore has already destroyed Gaunt's Ring. In fact, at no moment does Dumbledore confirm that Voldemort knows when his Horcruxes are destroyed; in fact, he says the opposite. I don't remember the exact words, but I think it was something along the lines of "As those pieces of his soul have been separated for so long from the main part of it, he is unable to detect their being destroyed". If Voldemort had been able to detect when one of his Horcruxes was destroyed, when he realized that the Gaunts' ring was destroyed, he would have started to relocate the other Horcruxes. - Milarqui
 * Nagini didn't appear only in the first chapter of Goblet of Fire, she also appeared in the graveyard just before the duel started.
 * The situation is like this: before October 31st 1981 (James and Lily Potter' death and Voldemort's "first death"), Voldemort had 5 Horcruxes (Tom Riddle's Diary, Gaunts' Ring, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Cup, and Ravenclaw's Diadem, hidden in Lucius Malfoy's mansion, the Gaunts' shack, the cave (and then 12 Grimmauld Place, by Kreacher), and Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts vault), and had intended to make the 6th Horcrux with Harry's death, but the Avada Kedavra backfired and destroyed his body, while his soul was broken once more, and the part that didn't flee became Harry's scar. Voldemort didn't know this had happened because of the pain of his death (and, besides, Voldemort's willingness to kill Harry at every turn, even before he gets resurrected in Goblet of Fire, belies the fact that he actually knew about Harry being a Horcrux, because why would you try to kill a person who is actually keeping you alive?). In May-June 1993, Harry destroys Tom Riddle's Diary. In July 1994, Pettigrew finds Voldemort, and the next month, Voldemort creates what he thinks is his 6th Horcrux, using Nagini as a vessel (and he was more or less correct, since it would be the 6th Horcrux at the moment, as Tom Riddle's Diary had already been destroyed), but in fact it was his 7th Horcrux. - Milarqui (again)
 * This is only speculation though, but is it possible that in cutting Harry's hand in the Graveyard scene, Voldemort was not only trying to draw on the power in Harry's blood, but maybe also that of the soul that he put into Harry on accident in order to regenerate? In doing so, the fact that that soul piece and Harry's are so intertwined that part of Harry's may have come with it. I have nothing to back that up with and it's only speculation. But I also just realized that we have no idea what transverse effects that soul piece could have on a living person when the original maker of that Horcrux uses it to continue living. We do know based on Harry as a case study that Voldemort's soul piece from the Horcrux is heavily intertwined with his. -- youngcosette
 * No. For starters, it's Wormtail who cuts Harry's arm. Second, Voldemort states many times that he only wants Harry's blood for what he assumes is a powerful magical blood-based protection - that, and killing him. Also, he knows that he has the connection with Harry thanks to Snape, but he never thinks that it might be due to the piece of his soul in Harry's scar. Thus, his constant attempts to kill Harry would make no sense.
 * Goblet of Fire has another small moment of brilliance. When the trio is trying to figure out how Rita Skeeter was able to overhear private conversations, Harry suggests Rita had Hermione “bugged” with an electronic device. Of course, that isn’t possible because electronics don’t work in the wizarding world. However, Harry was onto something, because by the end of the book we find out Rita Skeeter’s secret: Hermione literally was bugged!
 * This is actually an in-universe example -- Hermione cites Harry's line about her being "bugged" as what led her to realize the truth.
 * In the film version of Goblet of Fire, Moody does a pitch-perfect imitation of Hagrid saying "Marvelous Creatures, Dragons." While kind of cool, it seemed to serve no real purpose. Then I realized something: - Goblin27
 * This troper thinks that not much weight should be given to the movies in terms of canon. I'm almost entirely certain that this was merely cinematographic effect in order for the viewer to tell who was actually who. Also, had this been the case, I think it would have been likely to have been at least hinted at in the books. In fact, the books even show that this isn't true in DH when the trio sneak into the Ministry under Polyjuice. "“Looks like it,” Harry whispered back; his voice came out deep and gravelly." Harry, who never met Runcorn (as Ron and Hermione got the hairs for him), would have no idea what his voice sounded like.
 * I think you misread. The troper you're replying to acknowledged that in the books the voice changes. But we know that isn't true for the movies, so it makes sense for the movies.
 * The Beautiful All Along page led me to this thought: Why is Hermione still a buck-toothed geek in her fourth year? Because her Muggle dentist parents want her to stay with braces. Why do they want her to have braces instead of the inordinately faster, cheaper, and more painless shrinking of her front teeth? Because they haven't figured out all the little exploits of magic yet, or don't want to figure it out. - Landis
 * As muggle dentists, who spent yearsc training and studying their craft, then years more using it to slowly and painfully correct childrens' teeth, I would imagine they consider using magic to do the same as the worst kind of cheating, just as a muggle chef would feel against Molly's cooking, for instance.
 * At the end of the book, Jo specifically mentions that Dumbledore's eyes "lingered on the Durmstrang students" when he said that all the guests would be welcome back at Hogwarts at any time. At that point, it's implied that he's thinking of the school's Dark Arts reputation. In the light of his one-sided relationship with Grindelwald, however, one wonders what he's really hoping for... --AMA
 * If you're implying what I think you're implying, that's disgusting.
 * Not just disgusting, but very unfortunate. Just for the record: Gay =/= paedophile.
 * And most of the Durmstrang students are 17 or 18, which is safely above the age of consent in Britain. And there's no harm done in looking, in any case.
 * OP responding: No, that was not what I was implying! Rule34 has made people too suspicious.... I meant that he's thinking about how Durmstrang students are taught Dark Arts so they are more likely to become evil. He is hoping that, instead of the good students (Hogwarts, Dumbledore) being influenced by the bad (Durmstrang, Grindelwald), the Durmstrang students can return and make better, more moral choices. --AMA
 * For a less unpleasant and homophobic reading of that scene in light of Dumbledore's relationship with Grindelwald: he wanted the Durmstrang students to know they had the choice to return to Hogwarts, see a different way, and walk a different path than the one they're on now, a choice Grindelwald didn't bother to make
 * Re-reading the book, I realized that in Ron and Harry's big fight, Ron actually makes an effort to make up before Harry does. Reading between the lines of the scene where Ron interrupts Harry's conversation with Sirius, it becomes clear that Ron was waiting up for Harry, presumably to try to make up with him, but when he came down Harry was so rude to him that he gave it up for the moment. Note also that Ron doesn't retaliate when Harry throws a badge at him and he acts less distant towards him the next day.
 * I always wondered what the difference between a ferret, a stoat, and a weasel as a kid (thank you Redwall). Scientifically speaking all three share the same family and genus making them the biological equivalent of distant cousins. So fridge!Brilliance struck me when I recalled Draco insultingly refers to the Weasleys as weasels and he got turned into a ferret. Considering Arthur claims the Malfoys are distantly related to the Weasleys, this is hilarious.
 * When Ron states that he is only interested in "pretty girls," no matter their personality, and then rejects Eloise Midgen as a date because her nose is very slightly off center, I always thought that Hermoine was overreacting to his comments, then I remembered: at this point, Hermoine still has her buck-teeth, so she isactually reacting to hearing the boy she has a crush on state that he likely has no interest in her because she isn't 'pretty' by his standards!
 * When Snape tells Harry that he knows that he took boomslang skin and gillyweed from his private stores, Harry automatically thinks that he is thinking back to the Polyjuice from Chamber of Secrets.
 * In the scene where Mrs. Weasley is cooking, she accidentally puts too much energy into a potato-peeling spell and knocks the whole pile onto the floor. This happens because she's a mite miffed with Fred and George over a prank they'd pulled on Dudley.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 * I didn't care much for Nymphadora Tonks, but then I realized she was Rowling's answer to Mary Sues! Think about it! Her hair and eye color literally changes according to her mood, she ends up with one of the most wanted characters in the series, and in the end, she ! - KT 4
 * Ironically, she's often accused of being a Mary Sue largely because she intruded on one of the biggest Slashfic ships in the series (Lupin/Sirius). - Jonn
 * Honestly, she's clumsy as all hell, shown to be likable and capable but not brilliant, and is barely present for most of the books. I don't see the Mary Sue-dom.
 * It's actually fairly common for Mary Sues to be clumsy - usually endearingly so. Also, like Tonks, Potter Sues frequently wear Muggle clothing. Basically, Tonks is what a character who would be a Mary Sue in the hands of a n00b writer looks like in the hands of a competent writer.
 * I don't recall it ever being said that Tonks's hair and eye color changed with her mood, aside from her hair turning red once, which was SPECIFICALLY in the film version, and therefore isn't exactly canon. And I don't remember her eyes ever changing in either version.
 * I had a moment of fridge brilliance while reading the Crowning Moments of Awesome page about Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was basically around the part where I realized how the entire school basically rallied against Umbridge... then I realized, by rallying against Umbridge, they were rallying against the Ministry. If Umbridge hadn't been the DADA teacher, there would have been no reason for Dumbledore's Army to form. Dumbledore's Army was kind of its own family, and Umbridge helped form an allegiance between the entire student body and the teachers, as well as the ghosts. Without the family of DA or the entire schoolwide allegiance already established, nobody besides a few teachers would have been so willing to take up arms against Voldemort, both at the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, or the Second Wizarding War. Harry's support system would have been severely diminished, especially at the end of the seventh book. Harry would probably have not so eagerly led a group in rebellion, if it hadn't been for Dumbledore's Army. Basically, the whole reason anything in the sixth or seventh book worked at all, not to mention with as relatively few casualties as there were, was because of Umbridge, and her Ripple Effect over the entire school in the fifth book. Jo, you are one clever bastard. katzgoboo
 * I just realized the Brilliance in making the character Tonks so clumsy. Being a Metamorphmagus, her center of gravity must be constantly changing as she changes shapes, thus leaving her continuously unable to find her balance. -Transfan33
 * I realized that there was more to Harry's angst in Order of the Pheonix than just being a broody teenager. In Deathly Hallows, while taking turns wearing the locket Horcrux, whoever is wearing it feels miserable, and their situation seems even worse than it is (and it's pretty bad to begin with). Near the end of Deathly Hallows, we learn that This also opens up more Fridge Brilliance about why Harry was more upset over Cedric's death than Sirius's. Because of Harry's connection with Voldemort, it made Cedric's death more tragic to him than to anyone else, except probably Cho. Harry was very upset after Sirius died at the end of Order of the Phoenix, but didn't seem to be afterwards. Voldemort started using Occlumency against Harry sometime between the fifth and sixth books. When Harry took off the locket in Deathly Hallows, he immediately felt much less miserable. After being directly connected   for an entire year, having Voldemort blocking himself from it was enough of a relief that he was able to get over Sirius's death faster than he could have with Cedric's. -Giga Metroid 99
 * The reason for Harry's unusual Jerkass behaviour this whole year? Say it with me- Harry is having PTSD from seeing Cedric get killed!
 * When Snape reads Harry's mind during an occlumency lesson, he looks back to the time when Harry was an infant and Voldemort is attacking their house. Why? Snape wanted to see ! --User:synthetique
 * At the end of the book, Harry is in Dumbledore's office and yells that "People don't like being locked up!" . But at his words, Dumbledore immediately shows his first sign of emotion: "Dumbledore closed his eyes and buried his face in his longfingered hands." Why did he react so strongly?   --User:synthetique
 * And what about Harry himself? He was left with the Dursley's, by Dumbledore, presumably for his own good as well. For the bulk of his time with them, he was kept in the cupboard under the stairs, as well as being briefly locked up by Vernon in the second book.
 * In the movie, Harry sarcastically comments to Dudley, "Five against one, very brave," in reference to Dudley and his friends beating up a ten-year-old. Later, not counting Harry and the Order members who arrive, it's five against one, and yes, it truly is very brave. Instead of five or six large teenagers picking on a small kid, it's one large man doing far worse than trying to beat up five teenagers, and the teenagers try to fight back, not just out of self-preservation but to help the one singled out.
 * Order of the Phoenix came out three years after Goblet of Fire -- the longest gap between any of the two books, which was especially frustrating because Goblet of Fire ended on a cliffhanger. In the first few chapters of Order of the Phoenix, Harry spends a lot of time angsting about being kept in the dark and not knowing what's going on in the wizarding world. This wasn't just to set up Harry as a character that was going to do a lot of angsting, but a way for JK to acknowledge the audience's frustration -- "Yes, I know, writing this did take longer than expected, and yes, I'm sorry, and see? Harry is frustrated too!"
 * Regulus Black's name hints at his  actions   Specifically,
 * It gets even better: what House does that represent?
 * Remember that spell that James used to humiliate Snape? Well, in "Half-Blood Prince", this very spell is in the Half-Blood Prince's text book as one of the jinxes that the Prince had invented. And, since
 * Remember that spell that James used to humiliate Snape? Well, in "Half-Blood Prince", this very spell is in the Half-Blood Prince's text book as one of the jinxes that the Prince had invented. And, since

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

 * It seemed at first that Voldemort cursed the position of the DADA teacher purely out of spite (if I can't have it, nobody can). Then, after the evidences of abysmal ineptitude of the general wizarding population was presented (like the Ministry of Magic having to buy hats imbued with a Shield Charm from a prank shop), I suddenly comprehended the strategic magnificence of V's move. He ensured that the DADA classes would become a total mess, no consistent teaching routine would be possible, and before long the school would run out of decent DADA teachers completely, thus dealing a crushing blow to the opposition. - Gess
 * I'm surprised no one seems to have picked up on this: throughout the series, characters speculate on why Dumbledore never gives Snape the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. Generally, the idea is that Dumbledore doesn't trust him near the subject. Actually, it's because
 * It occurred to me that Lily might have been so good at potions (according to Slughorn) because she was . If that's the case, then Slughorn was right about
 * A bit of casting brilliance here - after Bill Weasley gets savaged by Greyback in Half-Blood Prince, he's described as bearing "a distinct resemblance to Mad-Eye Moody." Who plays Bill in the Deathly Hallows films? Domhnall Gleeson, the son of Brendan Gleeson, who plays Mad-Eye! - User:Bklyn Bruzer
 * Arthur Weasley is promoted out of the understaffed Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office because war is imminent and it's not a priority. The same thing must have happened in the First Wizarding War - how else could Sirius could keep hold of an illegal flying motorbike?
 * Throughout the first five books, Hermione performs brilliantly at potions, while Harry, failing to pay close enough attention to Snape's instructions, is mediocre at best. In the sixth, he starts making each potion perfectly by following the Prince's advice, which is what he should have been doing all along!
 * Who is the Half-Blood Prince and why is Lily mentioned in here more than in any other book?... Gotcha. --
 * A comment from my sister helped me grasp  much better, instead of just a last minute change (as the author herself was unsure). In this book, Snape is about to kill Dumbledore, and Dumbledore is left begging, "Severus please...". At first it seems like he's weakly shocked at betrayal by Snape.  .- blueflame724
 * I put this in the WMG section, but it deserves as much to be over here (or maybe in Fridge Horror...if you think so, please move it). Blaise Zabini. First off, he doesn't exactly come out of nowhere - he's mentioned in passing in Book 1 because he was (alphabetically) the last new student in Harry's year. Of course, from then, the Fandom tried to make a character out of him...or "her" in some fanfics. Then we finally find out (partially through the movie) that he's indeed a Black male. He gets into the Slug Club because his mother is famous. She married seven times, each time to a wealthy husband. Each husband died mysteriously, leaving Blaise and his mother with all the wealth. Of course, the implications there are obvious. Zabini's mom is a "Black widow." The black widow, of course, is a spider that's known for being very poisonous, first off, and second, killing her mates - and the term has been used for a woman who has killed a succession of husbands or boyfriends. The fact that Zabini's mom (more than likely) literally is a Black widow (in terms of race) just makes this even more brilliant.
 * The Death Eater attack of the Burrow put in the film seems pointless but earlier Ron told Harry his mother had not wanted Ron and Ginny to return to Hogwarts because it wasn't safe anymore and to stay home. The attack on the Burrow during Christmas made it clear that nowhere was safe from Voldemort and his followers, not Hogwarts and not even people's homes.-Tapol
 * Rewatching the eighth movie, I just thought of something. When Dumbledore was trying to convince Draco to give up, not kill him, and go into hiding, might he have been trying to course-correct. He might have known Draco disarming him would screw up his plans to break the power of the Elder Wand and hope to win it back by defeating Draco, by convincing him to surrender so the original plan, having Snape kill him without ownership of the Wand passing from him. Brilliant.
 * When Snape gives Harry several weeks of detention, the sessions begin getting longer at the expense of Harry's time with Ginny. Snape was quick to point this out and gloat at him over it, and it wasn't just because he was being his nasty self. He was purposely keeping the Potter boy from spending time with his beautiful, talented, and red-haired girlfriend. -- User:Mira Shio

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 * Although I've always loved Deathly Hallows, no matter how many times I read it in the months after it came out, I never understood all the convoluted, complicated explanations of Harry's and Voldemort's connection -- why Voldemort had to kill him for Dumbledore's plan to work, how Harry survived his "death" in the forest, could only Harry kill Voldemort only because of the prophecy, and was it entirely a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy... after nearly frying my brain trying to understand, I decided to give up, and accept "Harry came Back From the Dead and A Wizard Did It" without letting it detract from my enjoyment of the rest of the series. Upon reading Book 7 for the first time in a few years, I understood it all with no effort! What had changed in the interim? I had watched Gargoyles! I read Dumbledore's explanation of how Voldemort using Harry's blood to resurrect himself linked Harry to him in such a way so that Harry would live because Voldemort lived as if for the first time, only this time, I thought, "Just like Demona and MacBeth!" Furthermore, I could now see that Harry's "death" was just like all the times Demona or MacBeth had been "killed temporarily." Someone only able to die if killed by a certain person? Nothing weird about that anymore. It's enough to make me wonder if JK Rowling ever watched that show... ~Lale
 * Harry couldn't have lost a part of his soul, because only the most destructive and evil of acts (killing another person) splits your soul in half. When did Harry find time to kill someone? He didn't, so therefore his soul was still intact. The blood wasn't a symbol of Harry's soul, it was the power in the blood itself the ol' Voldy was after (Lily's protection). - Nimble Jack 3
 * I've realized that Ginny is the most logical person for Harry to marry. A somewhat important subplot in the books is Harry's relationship with the Weasleys, to the point where they might as while be his family. If Harry had married somebody else, he wouldn't be part of the Weasely family anymore, and that connection would be lost. -Redtutel
 * You have to admire Rowling's strategy when it comes to explaining Harry's rebirth - she pulls it off by creating a situation that probably had never, ever happened before in the history of wizardkind. Nobody could possibly know what would happen when one human being first made five Horcruxes (which no one had ever done before) and THEN made another human being a human Horcrux (which had never happened before) and THEN tried and failed to kill that human Horcrux (with a curse that had never failed to be fatal before) and THEN used that human Horcrux's blood in a resurrection spell, and THEN tried to kill that human Horcrux again with that same spell, and failed again, and THEN joined with that human Horcrux through a paired-wand bond, and THEN tried to kill that human Horcrux a third time, with the same spell, while that human Horcrux was in possession (theoretically at least) of all three of the Deathly Hallows. I mean, you couldn't do a spell like that on purpose if you tried. It had to be a wholly unique event.
 * You got your order wrong, and there are more things. The order would be first making 5 Horcruxes, THEN offering a woman to spare her if she allowed him to kill her child (which he had never done before), THEN killing that woman (placing Harry under the blood protection), THEN trying to kill that child with a curse that had never failed before, THEN having his soul spontaneously split when the spell rebounded, THEN the part of the soul that split away taking refuge into the nearest living being (Harry), THEN the still free soul possessing another man and fighting with the living vessel and being defeated, THEN using the human Horcrux's blood in a resurrection ritual, THEN trying to kill the human Horcrux again with the same spell that failed before, THEN joined with that human Horcrux through a paired-wand bond in which he was determined to be the weaker one, THEN trying to kill that human Horcrux a third time, THEN possessing him, THEN using another person's wand to try to avoid the paired-wand bond and failing as the other person's wand breaks, THEN trying to kill that human Horcrux as he attempts to do a Heroic Sacrifice to save his friends, THEN having that human Horcrux survive AGAIN, and finally trying to kill him AGAIN by using a wand that has been said many times to be unable to fight against its owner. All in all, a VERY long chain of events that are very unlikely to be repeated in the same form ever again.
 * To spare everyone another even longer paragraph, I'll add in that Voldy didn't only take the blood of a horcrux and someone destined to be his equal: he took in Lily's protection. Word of God says that Lily's goodness was in Voldy's veins, and that's how he could've repented.
 * Um, Quirrell, anybody? While the whole "Harry kills Quirrell" is far more ambiguous in the book than it is in the movie, it is pretty much evident that Quirrell died pretty much directly because of Harry. Voldemort leaving just sealed the deal. While it is usually claimed that such a split only occurs through murder (which Harry's killing/moral wounding of Quirrell is most assuredly not), who is to say that is true? Turtler.
 * Actually, Dumbledore does explain that Snape killing him won't harm Snape's soul because Snape is actually putting Dumbledore out of his misery by mercy-killing him. So, there is at least one instance where simply killing someone is different from "murdering" them. Though, if the intent is the catalyst, what about when Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange? He certainly intended to torture and possibly kill her, though he lacked the purity (admittedly, pure evil) of mind to do so.
 * It is not just murder, but cold-blooded murder, as in killing someone who either can't defend him/herself from you or who is weaker than you. What Harry was doing was attempting to defend himself from Quirrell, and the book makes it clear that what Harry was doing to Quirrell was just burning his skin. The one who killed Quirrell was Voldemort when he left his body. The example about Dumbledore being mercy-killed by Snape is a good one. And what Harry intended to do to Bellatrix Lestrange was to make her suffer like he was suffering, but, as he discovered, righteous anger isn't enough.
 * I just got the rest of the symbolism of the wands. Thinking about the thestral tail hair in . I got that Voldemort's wand was made of Yew, the whole "death tree symbolism", but I hadn't realized that it was so intricately connected like that until just now. -JET 73 L
 * Going into that a little more, this troper realized the significance between -- (Not JET 73 L. Original poster, please sign.)
 * Rowling definitely did her research when it came to wands: Lily Potter's wand was made of willow, which is traditionally associated with healing, protection and love. Her last act on Earth was to give her son the protection of her love. Also Elder (sometimes known as witchwood) is linked magically to protection, often against lightning strike, but bad luck will fall on anyone who uses it without permission. In other words, Voldemort's use of a wand that wasn't strictly his brought about his death via a certain young man with a lightning scar... - User:Aelinuial
 * Sure, it was easy enough to accept that Snape hated Neville because he was a Gryffindor, he was incompetent, and he was available, but it wasn't until some time after reading Deathly Hallows that I figured out that his particular hatred for Neville was due to - knave
 * After reading the seventh book, I understood Snape's hatred for Harry in a different light. Not only did Harry have his mother's eyes and look like his father (reinforcing the bond they had and the fact that Snape would never see Lily again), but he also might have been Snape's son in a different world. Hard to be friends with a kid like that. --Serene Shadow
 * If you read "The Prince's Tale" with the mindset of "Snape views Dumbledore as a father figure" (which, considering Snape's real father, is not that far-fetched of an assumption), it adds a whole new dimension to Snape's resentment of Harry: Snape is very much the "Well Done, Son" Guy, constantly putting his life on the line for Dumbledore and doing everything he asks, which condemns him to a life of being hated by the entire Wizarding World when he kills Dumbledore, while Harry (in Snape's mind) will do much of the same and be worshipped by the Wizarding World, because everyone wants to see Voldemort killed. (Unfortunately, this makes Dumbledore seem pretty cold and even more manipulative than he already is, because it reads as though he deliberately took advantage of Snape's desperation for approval by a father-figure and tormented him with it.)
 * Chew on this. After reading Deathly Hallows, I could not understand why, if Snape cared so much about keeping Harry safe, why he tried so hard to get him expelled (he'd be more vulnerable in the regular world), keep his grades low (can't defend himself if he doesn't learn anything), and belittle him constantly. Then I realized that he was trying to minimize or eliminate the threat Harry posed to Voldy, as that would make Voldy more likely to just leave it. -- 72.240.206.0
 * One that occurred to me involving Snape is that given that both are Muggle-borns and teen geniuses, Snape's nasty treatment of Hermione might not be just because he's a jerkass, but also because she reminds him of Lily, and he's probably angered by her friendship with Harry (who, of course, reminds him of James Potter). - Jordan
 * On this very website, there seems to be a whole lot of people not understanding why Snape is obsessed with Lily, why he didn't just "move on" after she told him she wanted nothing more to do with him. If I may, I shall take this opportunity to present the "Snape moved on" sequence of events: Snape learns that Voldemort is going after the Potters. Snape does nothing. Since he doesn't love Lily anymore, he doesn't beg Voldemort for her life, meaning that Lily doesn't get the opportunity to "stand aside". This, in turn, renders her sacrifice worthless; after all, her fate is sealed. So, RIP Harry Potter: July 31st, 1980 - October 31st, 1981. Without Snape's creepy obsession with Lily, there is no story. So, Tropers... Still think Snape should have just "moved on"? - tenderlumpling
 * It's true that if Snape hadn't loved Lily, the story wouldn't have happened... but that in no way means that seeing his love as obsessive or non-creepy is a wrong or invalid view.
 * Wait.. Wouldn't Lily still have sacrificed herself to protect Harry, even without Snape's intervention?
 * The idea is that, for that to work, you actually have to be given the chance to step aside. Harry could have easily run away and leave all of his friends to die, but instead chose to sacrifice himself and die. The thing here is about choice: if Snape hadn't begged Voldemort to spare Lily, Voldemort wouldn't have given her the choice to step aside, and thus Lily's death has no chance to choose to sacrifice herself for her son.
 * This one occured to me after re-reading the seventh book. Take a good look at the prophecy lines "marked as his equal" and "has power he knows not". First, consider that Secondly, due to Voldemort's obsessive belief that Harry was the chosen one, it meant that he disregarded most everyone else's abilities as irrelevant. Now look at Neville, who 1) would be free to defeat Voldemort, and 2) clearly not deemed as important to Voldemort, would possess abilities which Voldemort did not know what they were. In short, up until the very end, it was still up in the air exactly whom the prophecy applied to. - Totemic Hero
 * Except Harry's scar, the attack by Voldemort, is what marked Harry as his equal. Also, Harry survived the killing curse ~Nick Falcon
 * JUST came to this thought after rereading Deathly Hallows. (being put in spoilers just in case.) Stealth Pun?
 * As noted by others, an asp is a kind of snake. A.S.P could also stand for A Slytherin Potter.
 * One more thing about Al's name:
 * Also regarding and his initials..., he might be a Parseltongue.
 * No, Harry was only a Parseltongue due to the fragment of Voldemort's soul attached to his. I seem to recall something about Harry having lost the ability after that fragment was destroyed.
 * Yes, that was Word of God, although I can't remember where she said it... An interview somewhere.
 * This one only took a chapter or two to hit me (if that), but it's still the same type of hidden bonus justification. Snape's are "look at me", directed at Harry. He wants . *sniffle*
 * That was Fridge Horror for me. Yes, I saw it as moving at first, but then I remembered that Snape is staring lovingly into the teenaged son of his crush. He's staring at Harry as he would stare at Lilly. Ew...
 * My friend helped me realize this one AND took it a step further: Not only is he staring into "her" eyes...in his mind her eyes are all he needs to be with her. He's dying, finally happy, in the arms of the only woman he ever loved. Double *sniffle*...
 * This is even quite explicit in the movie version, wherein Snape's dialogue has been extended by one sentence: "You have the eyes of your mother."
 * There's another way to interpret this: when I read it in the book, the intonation in my head was different to that in the movie. It was more like he was asking Harry to really look at/into "him", as in finally see his true intentions and secrets, by seeing his memories. The movie clears up the ambiguity, but I like that it can be read both ways.
 * Best way of all to interpret it could be both: he wanted Harry to see the truth of what he'd been trying to achieve, so he could die while looking into Lily's eyes and seeing forgiveness in them.
 * In the Deathly Hallows film (part one), I was shocked at the scene with Ron and the Horcrux. It was so incredibly freaky and I-can't-even-imagine for Ron. I was wondering why Harry had it so (comparatively) easy in the second book. Then I realized. Harry was a Horcrux. Even Riddle, as a memory, somehow knew that Harry was bad news, and tried to kill him, but he still recognized him as a fellow Horcrux, so he didn't try too terribly hard. Ron? Fair game. -mermaidgirl45
 * Take into consideration when in Voldemort's life both of those Horcruxes were made. The diary was his first horcrux, back when he was - while still evil, not as irrevocably villainous as he was when he made the locket. Thus, while Memory-Tom tried to kill Harry, he wasn't as moral-less as he was when he made the locket a horcrux. Ron's experience was so much worse because Voldemort had become so much worse and was more willing to pull out all the stops, so to speak. -Andi Nightshade
 * Also, Ron had been wearing the locket on and off for months. This was the equivalent of what Ginny did in CoS. So the locket could have tried to possess him, like the diary did to Ginny. Diary Riddle didn't try to Mind Rape Harry, because it hadn't actually had the chance to get a proper look into his mind/soul. It only knew enough about him to know that he'd try to save Ginny... and he was probably relatively sure about that from what Ginny would have said already.
 * I realized something about Deathly Hallows and its long stretches of the protagonists camping out while on the run. Rowling likes to borrow from somewhat obscure English popular fiction (such as the school story), and it occurred to me that this kind of setting/plot is a lot like The Thirty Nine Steps and Rogue Male - same idea of a sinister force threatening England in a Day of the Jackboot way and camping while on the run.-Jordan
 * In Deathly Hallows, did anyone else catch the subtlety of the exact moment - Spitfire71
 * Another one: Ron mentioned in Deathly Hallows that Voldemort had made his own name taboo -- that is, if anyone said it, it would automatically dispatch the Snatchers, who would then rough them up (or, if it turned out to be Harry, turn his ass in). I thought it was brilliant from the get-go, but it took me a bit more time to unravel just HOW brilliant it was. He not only finds a way to separate Harry from everyone else (because he knows Harry's one of the few who has the balls to say the name), he also mocks Harry's (and by extension Dumbledore's) bravery. He wants to keep the wizarding world in a constant state of fear, and creating such an intense fear of his name alone is, in my opinion, sheer, terrifying genius. We're often told that Voldemort is super intelligent and super evil, but details like this really show it. -Maiira
 * Also points out some logical failure from the protagonists. If they really wanted to be as brave as Dumbledore, they'd have called him Tom Riddle, the name he was born with, not the trumped up title he gave himself. -Meiriona
 * Funnily enough, your statement just gave me a Fridge Brilliance moment. There's a difference between being brave and being fearless - Harry and company called him Voldemort to display that his fear tactics wouldn't hold them back. However, they were still afraid of his power and brutality, and rightfully so. Dumbledore was the only one who called him Tom, because as a powerful wizard in his own right and someone who nearly became evil due to the Deathly Hallows, he looks past the mass murders and all the power to see, underneath, just a man who he holds in contempt and pity. Plus, Harry actually does call him Tom Riddle - in their very final battle. This is after Harry sacrificed himself and had his talk with Dumbledore in the world between life and death. There, Dumbledore explains that since Harry had ownership of all three items, but more importantly had come to terms with his own mortality, he was the Master of Death. Harry didn't just call Voldemort "Tom Riddle" to mock him or to emulate Dumbledore, it was because he had completely overcome his fear of dying at Voldemort's hand and had completely surpassed the Dark Lord (and more importantly was on an equal level with Dumbledore, one might say). That little change signifies Harry's final step in his journey to become the great heroic wizard Dumbledore knew he could be. - Dominus Temporis
 * Unmarked Deathly Hallows Spoilers: In the seventh book, there comes a time when Voldemort is calling for Harry to be given up, and then no one will get hurt. Pansy steps up to say Harry should be given to Voldemort, and not one of the Slytherins stands against her. Now, some people see this as a DMoS for Jo, and she could have shown that Slytherin's aren't all evil and had some stand up for Harry, etc. But -- how many of the Slytherins knew where their parents were? Their family members? Their loved ones? How many Slytherins had people they cared for with Voldemort, and potentially in danger if they helped the 'good guys'? It's actually really sad for them, because they don't necessarily know if it's safe for their families if they decide to step up for Harry, so they don't, whereas the other houses don't have that same stigma attached! /End Spoilers -User:Loracarol
 * However, Jo has said that some Slytherins came back, which is a fridge moment in and of itself. The two houses that had the most people stay were Gryffindor (duh, loyalty and bravery) and Hufflepuff (loyalty and hard work). That leaves Slytherin and Ravenclaw -- the house of the cunning and the intelligent, respectively. The Slytherins and Ravenclaws were being disloyal, but they were smart enough to realize that there was no way that Hogwarts students and the tiny Order of the Phoenix fighters could defeat Voldemort, who had taken over England at that point. Some, if not all, of those students came back with Slughorn at the end of the battle! --AMA
 * We find out in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows that Neville became the herbology professor at Hogwarts. However, Word of God stated that he served briefly as an auror. Although he proved in the books to be adept at both herbology and auror-ing, I thought this was a bit of a strange career change to make. Then I realized it would make perfect sense if he ever found out his wife Hannah was pregnant -- Neville was probably worried about being in such a high-risk profession, not out of fear for his own safety, but because he didn't want his kids to grow up without a father the way he had to.
 * In Deathly Hallows, Ron is disguised as a ministry worker whose wife is a Muggleborn on trial, and as we all know, Ron later marries Hermione, who is a Muggleborn. No wonder it hits him so hard; he's in love with Hermione, and this parallel just brings it right home, reminding him of how much danger she's in just because of her blood status.
 * It's even stronger in the movie.
 * There was that whole stink about Moral Dissonance regarding Dumbledore training Harry to, essentially, . But think about it... when did this training start? . What happened in ?
 * Harry's ultimate plan for was to put it back where it was, and die a natural death undefeated in order to break its power. On the surface, and given Word of God that he becomes an Auror, this seems like a bad plan. But then it hit me --  ownership passes from one owner to the other upon the first person's defeat or murder. The opponent doesn't even need to know what they'd done, as proven by  doing it by accident. So in the event that Harry is ever defeated, possession would go to that person, and if that person were defeated, it would go to whoever beat him, and so on and so on until  power is effectively broken by the simple fact that nobody knows who's supposed to be using the thing.
 * So Harry and Voldemort are the opposite of each other, right? Good vs evil, compassion vs heartlessness, life and death. According to TV Tropes's character page, Voldemort is 71 on the final book. What's Harry age on the seventh book? 17!
 * When Dumbledore leaves Harry the sword of Gryffindor in his will, I finally realized that Dumbledore knew Harry couldn't get it from his will, and that Harry would remember that the imbibed sword could kill Horcruxes. By putting it in his will and not letting Harry get to it, he was able to make Harry want to get it by making him believe that it was truly his, and then with the thoughts of getting the word filling up his mind, he would remember that one fight in the Chamber of Secrets, and then remember that he can kill Horcruxes now. When the trio was lamenting about how they weren't very close to killing the Horcruxes as they were to finding them, they actually were getting closer by aiming to get the sword! OH, DUMBLEDORE! -- Mahoghany Antarctican
 * The deaths of  mirror that of the brothers in "The Tale of the Three Brothers" perfectly, right down to age order: The eldest, , died because of power. The second,  , died for lost love. And the youngest,  , greeted Death like an old friend, willing and ready.
 * As shown in this picture.
 * Grindelwald's sign /  being worn by Xenophilius (in a completely innocent gesture that nonetheless greatly offends) directly parallels the way Swastikas are treated by the public today.
 * It also parallels the way fundie nutjobs have treated the entire Harry Potter series since the beginning - there are webpages out there dedicated to "proving" how everything in the books is really an evil Nazi and/or Satanic symbol. In many ways, Xenophilius Lovegood seems like a Take That to anti-Harry Potter and anti-witchcraft conspiracy nuts out there.
 * Lily's patronus is a doe. What famous deer do we know who died while her son watched?
 * On the same note; Lily's patronus was a female deer, without the antlers. James' patronus was a deer with antlers; therefor a male deer and the natural couterpart to Lily's deer. patronus was a deer without antlers; he loved her, symbolized by the same deer Lily had, but he could not be her natural counterpart, as James was.
 * No, patronus was a doe, the same as Lily's, to signify that the  was so strong  patronus matched hers.
 * During the sequence where Harry travels through Snape's memories, there's a scene where Snape asks Dumbledore why he destroyed the ring before calling him, and whether he thought destroying it might stop the curse. Dumbledore just sort of halfheartedly agreed to it. But since when has Dumbledore been mistaken about magic? No, the real reason he waited to call Snape was to destroy the Horcrux! The Sword of Gryffindor can only be used when it is needed or when the wielder has proven themselves worthy of the blade, and there's no evidence that Dumbledore ever proved he had the particular type of bravery needed to wield the sword--remember, while he was certainly brave, he was never the same kind of brave as Harry, Ron, or Neville; he was a genius, never put into a situation beyond his ability to handle, and in situations that were beyond his control, he seemed accepting, rather than defiant. So he had to take the blade because he needed to destroy this source of evil before he died. If he had waited for Snape to stop the curse, the condition of "need" would no longer have applied, and he couldn't have destroyed the Horcrux!
 * The deaths of Lupin and Tonks directly paralleled those of James and Lily - both couples died because of Voldemort; both left a young son that was raised by a maternal relative; both women initially weren't supposed to die (Snape begged Voldemort to let Lily live; Tonks was initially at home with Teddy before she left to fight in the war); both fathers were Marauders. However, Harry was raised by people that did not act as his family, whereas Teddy was raised by people who loved him as one of their own, leaving him happier and safer through his childhood, showing that the loss of his parents did not mean the loss of a family, as it initially did with Harry.
 * I thought that the second film was awesome, but didn't quite get why Voldemort's talk/showdown with Neville had so much emphasis put on it. Then I remembered- Neville could have been the chosen one, so he's facing the man who almost marked him as his equal!
 * During Voldemort's death scene in Deathly Hallows Part 2, the music playing is called Lily's Theme. Why is this important? Because the greatest Dark wizard of all time, in the end, was destroyed because a twenty-two-year-old mother refused to step aside and let her child die. Lily Potter vanquished Voldemort just as much as Harry did.
 * When Ron is given the Deluminator by Dumbledore in his will, one could think at first it is a sort of condescending gesture towards the supposedly least successful member of the Trio. Soon, he finds the Mundane Utility of the artifact, because turning off the lights can be useful in many situations. But then Ron discovers that it can be used to find his friends. Ron supposes that it is because Dumbledore thought he would leave his friends, but Harry sets him right: it's because he knew that he would come back. Then, when you realize that Dumbledore knows very well what can happen when you make a bad choice in anger and are unable to go back on it, and gave Ron the Deluminator to make sure that he didn't find himself in the same situation Dumbledore was so many years ago. - Milarqui
 * This occurred to me when rereading the scene where Harry enters Voldemort's camp in the woods to allow himself to be killed. Before Harry reveals himself, Voldemort seems extremely solemn, almost disappointed, that Harry hasn't shown up, whispering "I thought he would come ... I expected him to come". The odd thing is that Voldemort has spent the last three books basically calling Harry a Dirty Coward who lets everyone sacrifice themselves for him, so why would he expect Harry to willingly walk to the slaughter, and why such disappointment? But consider how Voldemort "sees death as a shameful human weakness", something all mere humans must inevitably submit to -- exactly the idea that terrifies Voldemort, which he tries to rebel against. Proving himself mightier than death is how Voldemort (described plenty of times as a classic malignant narcissist) makes himself greater than any mere human, proving that he alone stands above human weakness. So if the cowardly little boy also has the strength to resist the call of death and not go humbly to the slaughter, it means Voldemort isn't standing above anyone. His narcissism is deflated and leaves him only as human as anyone else ... Voldemort's worst fear.
 * OK, so Voldemort planned to make his sixth and final horcrux by killing Harry as a baby. But, what object did he bring with him to use? Nagini, who eventually did become the last horcrux, is never indicated to be with him. My personal theory? He was going to make his wand a horcrux, thinking to link its power with him even closer.
 * This came to me while reading through the TV Tropes pages on Harry Potter, on 10/19/2011. Somehow, in the years since I read the first one (what is it, 7, 8 years now?) I forgot that the murder of the Potters and Voldemort's first downfall happened on Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve. Deathly Hallows?
 * "Hallows" just means something sacred or "hallowed". Having said that, you have a point about the date they died; All Hallows' Eve is said to be the night when the veil between our world and the other is thinnest, so spirits can travel more freely - perhaps foreshadowing that the four people who had the Killing Curse turned or rebounded on them that night would all come back in their own ways.
 * Saving Malfoy from The Fiendfyre in Room of Requirement. Knowing that Malfoy was a total jerk in the series, Harry's decision to save him was not convincing for Harry's goodness was not a satisfying enough reason. Then, looking past, during the Malfoy Manor, Malfoy's failure to confirm Harry Potter was technically saving Harry's life so it becomes more like I.O.U for saving Harry's life. Malfoy's incompetence as a death eater saved a crucial plot point.
 * I didn't realize this until just about my fourth reread of book seven. It may or may not be deliberate, but at the beginning of the book Then, near the end,  The idea that JK was foreshadowing the latter in such a subtle fashion blew my mind a little. I hope that was deliberate, because it's an amazing touch if it was.
 * Voldemort's closeness with Nagini seems a little unusual, given that he's a narcisstic, sociopathic megalomaniac. But then you realize:  -The G Dude
 * At the end of "Deathly Hallows: Part 2" what's the very last thing we, the audience hears?  This very well could be a farewell from the filmmakers to those in the audience who started watching the series as little kids, and saw it all the way through to the very end...a piece of their childhood saying farewell at the end of a journey from one stage of life to another.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

 * In the first book, a couple of young wizards throw snowballs at Professor Quirrel's turban. Only at the end do we find out that
 * Doubles as Hilarious in Hindsight. Snowballing  in the face? BRILLIANT
 * In the Forbidden Forest, the unicorn-drinking Quirrel is described as "crawling across the ground like some stalking beast" - now imagine Quirrel crawling backwards across the floor, letting the Voldemort face on the back of his head do the drinking...

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

 * Ron tries and fails to perform "Ferreverto" on Scabbers (turning him into a fuzzy goblet with a twitching tail instead of a crystal goblet). Funny at the time, right? Now... remember that little tidbit about Scabbers?
 * Throughout his time at Hogwarts, Tom Riddle was sent back to the orphanage during the summer holidays, and this notably upset him. According to Word of God, The Chamber of Secrets takes place during the 1992-93 school year, and the Chamber was originally opened fifty years before that, meaning circa 1942. Given that Riddle was a fifth year in 1942, that means he was repeatedly sent back to an orphanage in London during the Blitz.
 * Actually, according to The Other Wiki, the Blitz only lasted from 7 Sept 1940 to 10 May 1941, while the Hogwarts school year starts 1 Sept and ends approximately in the beginning of June (I don't remember precisely). Assuming Riddle could stay at Hogwarts over Christmas like Harry could, he wouldn't have been in London during the Blitz at all.
 * Although it'd be pretty safe to assume that London wouldn't have been in good shape when he went back. That might explain his reluctance to go back for the summer.
 * He probably knew all about World War Two and the horrors of World War One as well. While he probably didn't know about the Holocaust until later, just looking at what Muggles did to the cities of other Muggles probably affected his view of them. It wasn't just the Germans, the Allies did the same thing to many German and Japanese cities, including Dresden and Tokyo, and of course by 1946 Voldemort would probably have known about the a-bomb and the Holocaust. It's clear that his goal of establishing wizarding dominion over Muggles was motivated by a desire for power and control and not a wish to "save the Muggles from themselves." Nevertheless, his knowledge of the horrors of World War Two probably helped shape his view of Muggles and led him to believe that it's ok for wizards to treat us the way we sometimes treat each other.
 * As the original post stated, he was in his fifth year. So really, it still would have been during the Blitz.
 * Can Muggles see ghosts? I've read those books backwards and forwards, and I can't remember a single instance confirming one way or the other if Muggles can see ghosts. If they can't -- then imagine what it would have been like for Myrtle's parents, visiting the school, being told their little girl died in a horrific accident that they can't understand -- and with Myrtle floating behind them, unable to communicate with them in any way.
 * She could talk to one of the wizards and relay it.
 * It's mentioned in Deathly Hallows that the cemetery in Godric's Hollow has a reputation for being haunted, because of the number of wizarding-folk graves there. Presumably those rumors got started somehow, so at least some Muggles probably do see ghosts ... not that seeing Myrtle's, and learning that she's stuck that way forever, would necessarily be much comfort to her parents.
 * I only realized this after reading the books after age 20. Fridge Horror 1 is that the Dursleys are not just petty jerks, they're child abusers. Including, in the first two books, actively trying to prevent Harry from escaping so that they can continue to abuse him. Fridge Horror 2? Dumbledore knows that Harry lives in the cupboard under the stairs, Dudley's second bedroom, and in book 2 even knows on the same night that Harry has been rescued by the Weasleys. He can't be unaware of the Dursleys' treatment, but apparently sees no need to intervene at any point during Harry's childhood. It would only have taken ten minutes a year for Dumbledore to pop over there and intimidate them into being decent, but he doesn't do that until Harry is sixteen (and they'd given up at the end of book 3). Basically Dumbledore seems okay with child abuse so long as it's not deadly--oh, and Harry doesn't come into Hogwarts with a big head. His guardians didn't have to encourage their son to beat Harry up every day in order to not grow up an egotistical prat, Albus.
 * I see your point...but the Dursley's didn't really encourage Dudley to beat Harry up.
 * Fridge Logic: Dumbledore did check on them and Obliviate Harry afterwards. We see the Dursleys being nice.
 * A rather minor one, but consider Voldemort's preferred means of disposing of dead bodies  Now imagine what was in store for
 * Do we know whether or not the Basilisk can choose who it kills with its gaze? Because if it just kills ANYONE who stares it in the eye, what would happen if Draco happened upon it? Could it have killed him too? Lucius's level of evil or at least arrogance that he knows what he's doing is even more disturbing when you realize he let a monster loose in the school that could have killed HIS OWN SON, and he never showed any sign that he thought that Draco might be in danger. Not only was it capable of killing muggleborns, the basilisk could have killed ANYONE who looked into its eyes, including teachers as well as students! The ones who were petrified were extremely lucky, considering that their condition was able to be cured.
 * Lucius didn't know what the diary was, so how could he have known it would set a Basilisk on the school? If he knew it was going to do something horrible, then he probably just thought it would kill Ginny.
 * Anyone else notice that the developmental process for the Mandrakes included them throwing a party? Yes, it was a joke about teenage behavior, but it also suggests an unsettling degree of cognitive ability and emotion on the part of organisms that Professor Sprout was raising for the express purpose of cutting them into pieces and stewing them.
 * Anyone else notice that the developmental process for the Mandrakes included them throwing a party? Yes, it was a joke about teenage behavior, but it also suggests an unsettling degree of cognitive ability and emotion on the part of organisms that Professor Sprout was raising for the express purpose of cutting them into pieces and stewing them.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
"Ron: I let you sleep in my bed!"
 * In the third book, when Percy is parading his Head Boy badge, Fred and George threaten to stick it to his head with a Permanent Sticing Charm. In the fifth, we see that the effects of such a charm are Exactly What It Says On the Tin when the Order is unable to remove the portrait of Mrs. Black. So in essence, there is a charm that sticks things together, permanently, with no counterspell, that can apparently be used on humans (and presumably other living things as well)...when you think about it, there are countless horrific ways to use a spell like that, some of which could easily be thought of as mere pranks by the people doing it.
 * Made even worse when you realize there is a way to get rid of those things, given that wizards have been shown to heal large, missing chunks of a body, and even reattach limbs, without much trouble... -Hyrin
 * To be fair, skin is flaking off constantly, so it'd be a lot easier than with a wall...
 * In Harry Potter, Percy and Ron Weasley handled Peter Pettigrew's poop for 12 years and were likely naked in front of him.


 * On a lesser note, how much revolting rat food has Pettigrew had to subsist on in that time?
 * On this note, during all of the time that Percy and Ron had Peter in their rooms it was highly likely that Fred and George had *the Marauder's Map and used it often. Why didn't they tell Percy or Ron that they were shown sleeping in the same space as a dead person?
 * One of the books Harry reads mentions the witch burnings and about how they were ineffective because any real witch or wizard would just cast a protective charm on themselves. Which is very nice... for the wizards whose captors helpfully left them their wands, the freedom to use their hands, and presumably their mouths too. For those who were searched and tied properly, on the other hand...
 * And even if witches and wizards back then were savvy enough to take precautions about hiding their wands on their person in case they got captured, the essay title explicitly states "Witch-Burning in the 14th Century was Completely Pointless". Anyone familiar with history knows that witches were being burned long before the 14th century. Meaning someone must have invented the Flame-Freezing charm in the 1300s, long after four witches and wizards decided that they really, really, really needed to build a secret magic school. Suddenly, Salazar Slytherin's mistrust of muggles doesn't seem all that bigoted anymore...
 * Also, the Flame-Freezing Charm specifically applies to Witch-Burning. As stated on the Burn the Witch page, the majority of English accused witches were hanged.
 * Wingardium Leviosa, pretend to be dead, then when no one is around, Diffindo the rope and run away.
 * Furthermore, the entire point of that story is that witch-burning was pointless, in that it didn't kill any actual witches or wizards. Meaning that, as far as the textbook's author is concerned, all the Muggle deaths in witch hunts don't really matter, just as long as the witches and wizards were safe. And this is the official textbook used to educate every child in Britain. Under Dumbledore's authority.
 * Not necessarily. Passage sounds just like stating cold facts. Burnings in 14th century didn't kill any true witches, which was their goal, and thus were pointless. How many muggles were killed is another matter entirely...
 * But notice the almost humorous tone in which the section is written, no offense to Bathilda, but I don't think she took witch burning seriously.
 * Azkaban is bad enough on the surface. And then you start thinking about it, and oh my God . ..
 * Percy getting shoved into a pyramid in PoA. It's mentioned briefly and clearly meant to be a joke. Percy can be a pompous jerk, but one has to wonder a few things. Just how long was he in that pyramid before he got himself out or someone else did? And everyone else seems to see nothing wrong with this. Okay, Percy can be an idiot, but still...

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

 * Where did Voldemort get a baby to possess in Goblet of Fire??
 * He didn't. He made that body himself. Not explicitly stated, but very obvious when you pay attention.
 * It also says so directly in the book, although I believe he states Wormtail made it for him.
 * Rowling said somewhere that she horrified her editor when she told him how he got that body. A bit of my own WMG, but I think it's Bertha Jorkin's fetus. Which Wormtail helped to make. - Joebro
 * GAAAAAAH... *shudder*
 * All of the interactions between Neville and Mad-Eye Moody in the fourth book become horrifying when you find out that Long story short: Neville  and he had no idea. Considering how eager he is in the fifth book to have a go at duelling/killing, how would he have reacted if he'd have known who  really was? Especially when you realise that the demonstration of the Unforgivable Curses was probably
 * In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, one of Dumbledore's notes mentions that the main difference between an animagus and a human that's been transfigured into an animal is that the animagus keeps his sense of self and magical abilities. A transfigured human actually forgets who they were, forgets that they can do magic and has to have someone turn them back, lest they stay that way permanently. This makes the whole "Draco Malfoy, the Amazing Bouncing Ferret" thing quite disturbing; what could have happened if they'd let him run away without turning him back...?
 * This is somewhat confusing, because it's implied that every animal has their own language, and thus have the sapient intelligence of humans. Also, owls are described as being able to understand human speech. If snakes and owls are the only non-human animals that are sapient, a person who was transfigured into a snake or an owl would not forget who they were because they'd still have human-level intelligence.
 * Then Malfoy would never have managed to allow the Death Eaters to infiltrate Hogwarts, and the most obnoxious phenomenon of the fandom would never have arisen? Seriously though, the implications ARE rather horrifying.
 * The way it happens in the books, it looks like Draco Malfoy was perfectly cognizant of what was going on, because the first thing he does is trying to run away towards the dungeons, where Snape (the only adult he trusts in the school) is at the moment.
 * It could be that it takes more time for the person to lose their sense of self, and Draco was only a ferret for a few moments. (That, or the ferret was just utterly terrified and bewildered at being in a crowd full of people and happened to pick the dungeons as a direction to flee.)
 * All of Neville and Mad-Eye Moody's interactions become incredibly disturbing in hindsight. Neville was alone in an office  and he never even knew it. The fact that Mad-Eye also uses the opportunity of Neville's bad reaction to the Cruciatus Curse being performed in class to provide him "comfort" in the form of a Herbology book is also sickening considering
 * Also, since : What would Neville feel or do should he find out about it?
 * And on the subject of Fake!Moody, remember how we all laughed when he turned Draco into a ferret and bounced him up and down on the ground? We were laughing at a fourteen-year-old boy being picked up and dropped on a stone floor repeatedly. It's a wonder he didn't break any bones. And then if you read Quidditch Through the Ages, you learn that being turned into an animal gives you that animal's brain. Which means that we were laughing at an innocent, frightened ferret being smashed against the floor. And then consider that neither McGonagall, Snape, nor Dumbledore, to whom it must have been reported, seemed to think this out of character. What sort of friends did Dumbledore have?
 * A few fanfics, most notably The Draco Trilogy, have pointed that out. Sympathy for The Devil is very easy when a male role model just slammed him into the ground several times.
 * All memory charms are Fridge Horror. The wizards running the Quidditch World Cup are continually doping up the Muggle running the park with memory charms. He's going to inexplicably be unable to remember an entire summer, and no one sees any problem with this.
 * Not correct. Memory Charm can be used not only to erase, but to modify memory as well. Meaning he'll probably have memories of extremely uneventful summer.
 * Or alternatively, that awesome summer he spent working at the camp ground with those interesting people, like the guy in the skirt and the huge group of red-heads
 * What, so the largely unregulated ability to destroy, modify, and create memories, and the regular use of this power by government officials, is okay as long as the memories are cool? I second the original post--all memory charms are Fridge Horror.
 * With most of the Harry Potter novels, if you remove the fantastic elements from the climax, it doesn't mean all that much (the possible exception being the third book). But look at the end of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Now remove the magic. What you have is a fully-grown man tying up, humiliating, torturing, mocking, and otherwise tormenting a fourteen-year-old boy. While more adults stand by and watch.
 * And people still mock Harry for being "Emo" in Order of the Phoenix, when he was clearly suffering from PTSD due to, you know, the kidnapping and torturing and murder of a classmate in front of his eyes.
 * We've seen that medical magic can achieve amazing cures that aren't possible for mundane science, from re-growing absent bones overnight to flawlessly re-attaching splinched body parts. Nevertheless, Mad-Eye Moody became crippled and horribly scarred over the course of his Auror's career. So what sort of over-the-top destructive forces caused so much damage to his face and leg, that even St. Mungo's couldn't repair? Or was he injured so badly that he couldn't even make it to a hospital for treatment, and had to lie there in agony for weeks while his burns healed non-magically? Nightmare Fuel, either way. ** After the  incident, I just assumed that normal muggle and magical accidents are easy for magical medicine to fix, but that Dark Magic is cast with the specific addendum that it can't be fixed (or at least not easily) with magical medicine.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 * Dolores Umbridge's punishment in Order of the Phoenix? Terrifying. Look up the mythology of centaurs. They have a history of not-so-kind treatment of women. Children may not catch the implications of her being dragged into the forest with them and turning up in a dazed, traumatized state later on, but it should not have gone over an adult's head. But the truly horrifying thing about this is that it was HERMIONE'S idea. Sure, it may have partially backfired on them, but what was done was still done. Beware the Nice Ones indeed. - E Teezey
 * There are so many things wrong with this picture...including the fact that, well, if centaurs are essentially all horse below the waist, then presumably they're...hung like horses, too. GAH.
 * To those who are too lazy to look it up,
 * Several feminists actually caught on to this implication, and, needless to say, they were outraged.
 * Which of course bears the question of 'what exactly are they so pissed off about?' The book was written by a woman, so they can't exactly say that the author is a woman-hater, can they? Not to mention that Umbridge is a smugly-superior evil racist bitch that practically begs you to hate her, so she kinda deserves it.
 * Wait, what? Women aren't automatically excluded from misogyny just because they're women, and NO ONE deserves rape.
 * To be fair, whatever is implied (or inferred, in the minds of readers), the actual post-rescue description of Dolores is that there's apparently nothing wrong with her except some twigs in her hair. I'm assuming Madam Pomfrey has some kind of magical rape-kit, if centaurs are "known" for that sort of thing (ahem). And, honestly, would Dumbledore have allowed the centaurs to stay in the forest after that? Doubtful. He may not have liked Dolores, but he wouldn't have allowed a violent assault on a teacher any more than he'd allow one on a student.
 * To offer an alternative that doesn't require Brain Bleach afterwards - the centaurs found Umbridge too repulsive to even WANT to touch, left her tied up in a corner and argued over what to do with her until Dumbledore came and got her. If you think about it, Umbridge has such a hatred for "half-breeds" that even the kidnapping itself would probably be fairly traumatic. Add that to the hostility Bane and the others would have shown her, her state of mind after doesn't necessarily have to stem from rape. Hopefully.
 * Another alternative. In classical mythology, pretty much the only centaur who wasn't a rapist was Chiron, who, among other scholarly pursuits, was a noted astronomer. Astronomy (or at least astrology) is sort of the Hat of centaurs in the Potterverse. This could be taken to mean that JK's centaurs were all more like Chiron and were not, in fact, a species of rapists. I'm inclined to believe this, as the other interpretation has people like Dumbledore and Hagrid being perfectly fine with a herd of quadrupedal, equinely endowed rape-monsters chilling out next to a school full of adolescents, many of whom are female.
 * Or they tied Dolores to a tree and used her head as a stand to practice their archery - William Tell style. I imagine they practiced firing at targets while on the move, which is why Umbridge panicked whenever she heard a sound like centaur hooves. That's equal parts horrifying and hilarious.
 * I think we can assume it's called the "Forbidden Forest" for a damn good reason.
 * Consider this one. In the fifth book, Harry, then proceeds to freak out and do everything in his power to  . When Hermoine tells him that he needs to verify that   first, he   This leads to   Then you remember that this entire thing could have been avoided if he had simply remembered the mirror Sirius had given him, that would allow Harry to contact his godfather at any time.
 * Harry didn't know what it was at the time, he only unwrapped the gift afterwards. Given his state of mind, it's not implausible that he'd forget about that lump of paper that Sirius had given him several months prior.
 * In Order of the Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge is not shown to be a particularly talented witch, being utterly unable to combat Fred and George's wild array of spells, but she has complete confidence in her ability to cast the Cruciatus Curse (described as a very hard curse to bring off) on Harry. The most likely explanation? She's had plenty of practice using it before.
 * The listing of floors at St. Mungo's suggests that the hospital is equipped to deal with every possible kind of magical malady, but not to deal with common mundane ailments such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer. Going by Ron's reaction to the word, wizards don't have any faith in Muggle doctors' capabilities, and none of them know any mundane biology beyond what a ten-year-old Muggle would've been taught, so if a wizard or witch comes down with a non-magical illness, they're going to be stuck with whatever crude home remedy their medically-ignorant families can whip up. Mrs. Crouch's terminal illness might well have been averted if she'd ever thought to go to a Muggle hospital.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

 * I recently realized something about Half-Blood Prince. The scene involving was nasty enough to begin with, but it becomes much worse when you realize what that potion actually does, as hinted by the flashbacks in Deathly Hallows:  -The Great Unknown
 * Made the connection before of 'worst memories' but seeing it here surrounded by other HP stuff just made me realize... The other major things in HP that make one relive horrible memories are Dementors! So possibly that potion uses... I don't know, liquid Dementor's breath or something? And it's said that Voldy can get Dementors to sort-of obey him. Maybe he has a deal where he somehow managed to get a couple to sign up for experiments and following orders, and in return they get freer reign than normal? Getting into WMG, but yeah. -katrani
 * When you realise what that potion did, you can't help to be incredibly amazed at Regulus Black. True, Dumbledore must have seen many more things at the age of more than 100 years than Regulus at his 20s, but Regulus was still a Death Eater and he lived with his family, which wasn't exactly the best one. Dumbledore could only drink three mouthfuls of that potion before Harry had to help him do it. As you hear Kreacher tell his tale, you realise that at no moment he says something about helping Regulus drink the potion, which means Regulus was able to drink it all on his own. - Milarqui
 * Amortentia, Love Potion, is, essentially, a magical date-rape drug. They distribute these openly. ~KCS
 * Furthermore, think of the Power Perversion Potential of polyjuice potions. What is your creepy stalker going to do when they get one of your hairs and essentially have a free run with your body?
 * Polyjuice potion is supposed to be difficult to make, so it could be that very few people actually manage to make any. Of course, three 12 year olds manage it, and there is at least one adult (Mad-Eye) with a stockpile of the stuff, which kind of calls into question how difficult it really is to make.
 * It might have been quite difficult in the sense of being "beyond the talents of a second-year student" as well as containing items that couldn't usually be procured through legal means. But one of said 12-year-olds was a Pre-teen Genius that got her hands on the exact instructions, and the other was  - who probably would have also been privy to the same instructions one way or another.
 * Here's a little tidbit you might be interested in knowing about: Voldemort's mother Merope used a Love Potion on Tom Riddle to get him to "love" her and have a child. Yes, Voldemort is a Child By Rape and it's implied that he is a Complete Monster and The Sociopath as a result of this. Unfortunate Implications.
 * During Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, there's an army of Dementors "breeding" all over Britain and no one controlling them. Not only that, there's no spell described in the books that can actually kill them (a Patronus just repels them) and Word of God says they're immortal.
 * Presumably, though, they are killable by Killing Curse, which Aurors are allowed to use.
 * Fenrir Grayback is a werewolf who tries to bite as many people as possible, in order to get enough werewolves to overcome the wizards. He specializes in biting children, even putting himself close to them so he'll infect them when the moon turns full. There are some very deliberate parallels with pedophilia, but the metaphor gets even more horrifying when you learn or remember that victims of pedophiles have a higher chance of becoming molesters themselves. Now think about what this means for Lupin.
 * ... oh my god. Is that why he was so worried about having a kid ?
 * And it gets worse. Because according to Word of God, Fenrir went after six-year-old Remus because he wanted vengeance on Remus's father for something unspecified. Ergo, Lupin not only has to worry about his child inheriting lycanthropy in much the same way that some children of infected mothers are born with AIDS, but he also has to fear Fenrir, who's still free, seeking out Remus's child in second-generation revenge--and either turning the child or killing him. Also, just for yucks, Fenrir persistently talks about children in terms of satisfying his hunger/taste/need/appetites. So it's not really clear whether or not he sexually molests his victims before turning or killing them. And the Ministry is being run by Voldemort's supporters at that point, so if anything happens to his child, he'd most likely be the one blamed for turning or killing the baby and would be either banged up in Azkaban or given the Wizarding version of capital punishment--having his soul sucked out and eaten. Small wonder he was in a panic before Teddy was born.
 * There's also the possibility that lycanthropy is an allegory for HIV/AIDS... In which case this allegory means that a pedophile raped a young boy and gave him AIDS.
 * Word of God, it is an allegory for HIV. At least in Lupin's case.
 * Also when they all get captured in Deathly Hallows Fenrir very much looks forward to having free reign with Hermione. The whole scene is very creepy and certainly reminds you the above mentioned implications. Luna Lovegood was in the Malfoy Manor for months and might have come across Fenrir during that time.
 * The Sectumsepmpra spell which is noted as "for enemies"by its creator...Gee, I wonder who those enemies were? Answer?
 * stole Snape's book at one point. How else did know 'Levicorpus' when ? They probably yanked his book, saw the note about Sectumsempra, and (although they didn't know what Sectumsempra did) figured out that he was plotting revenge. And they both knew that he was fascinated by the Dark Arts as well.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

 * In the Deathly Hollows movie, when Ron is listening to the radio, the announcer lists a number of disappearances that day, and says "Thankfully, the list is short today." Said "short list" is Thirty One Names Long. How many are on the long lists?!
 * Are you sure that wasn't a sequence of several days and thus several lists? That was the impression this Troper got, but I could be wrong.
 * If Voldemort actually won, the wizarding world wouldn't be the only place in danger, considering his hatred of Muggles and half-blood types. If left unchecked he honestly may have attempted to take out everyone on the planet that wasn't in tune with what he wanted. Genocide on a mass scale.
 * Rowlings word remains. Gun beats wand. If he attempted open warfare, he would have to face the British army, followed by every other army that felt threatened by him. Openly declaring war on Muggles would have been a very bad idea, and there is no way he couldn't have known that. He would have been subtle about it, but a genocide wouldn't have been possible at all.
 * Gun beats wand, yes, but wizards have the upper hand in stealth and can teleport with ease. They don't even need to fight a war. Kill off farmers, blight crops, poison drinking water - all incredibly easy to do if you have magic at your disposal.
 * Oh, geez. And never mind what would happen if wizards got a hold of modern weapons and found a way to harness them with magic. Note that most small arms still aren't computerized - hence, they wouldn't be incompatible with magic. Picture the British (or any other) Army marching down the street, when they're suddenly faced with a full squadron's worth of machine guns that are firing, but don't have anyone there physically pulling the trigger. Levitating a gun in place and using some sort of telekinesis spell to fire the gun without presenting a clear target for the enemy to shoot would probably be no object for a decently powerful wizard. Hell, they learn the levitation spell about a month or two into their education.
 * When rewatching Deathly Hallows Part 1, I braced myself for the scene at Bagshot's house. I was prepared for the  but it took me a while to realize why what Hermione finds is so horrifying. Killing with Avada Kedavra doesn't leave any blood, so what Hermione saw was likely  . And since nobody knew precisely when Harry was going to head to  . Perhaps a bit obvious to most viewers, but it took me a while to realize all the ramifications.
 * Harry nearly had his soul sucked out by a dementor at the end oc Prisoner of Azkaban (when he and Sirius are at the lake and a bunch of dementors are around, one dementor lowers his hood and is about to give Harry the kiss when the time-turnter Harry comes with the patronus. If Time-Harry hadn't come he would of lost his soul. This thought only gave me shivers until I got to the end of Deathly Hallows and found out that part of Voldemort's soul was in Harry the entire time. If the dementor had taken Harry's soul in PoA Voldemort's would probably still be in there. Harry would then become a second Voldemort. -bookaddict
 * Doubtful. The dementor would probably have eaten the extra soul fragment as well.
 * In The Deathly Hallows, Luna is kidnapped and kept at Malfoy Manor for months! Considering that Bellatrix and Greyback (a sadistic Complete Monster and a child rapist + cannibal) had took residence there, imagine what she must have been through.
 * Hmmm, they couldn't have really done much to her because they promised Xeno she would be safe as long as he published journalism against Harry. But if Xenophilius refused to obey...
 * Also, Luna is pure-blood so Bellatrix wouldn't really have much to say about her. The things Greyback would have done to her, however, are too horrible for words, especially since she's so innocent.
 * Luna may have been a pure-blood, but so was Neville. So were Frank and Alice Longbottom. So was Sirius. They would have been seen as blood traitors in Bellatrix's eyes, just like Luna.
 * And Greyback was traveling with the other Snatchers hunting Muggle-borns down, so he couldn't have been at the Manor there for long periods of time.
 * When Dolores Umbridge resurfaces in Book 7, she is seen with several fully corporeal Patronuses. Now, as Book 3 stated over and over again, the basis for creating a corporeal Patronus is a fair bit of magical power combined with thinking happy thoughts. So Umbridge, being the evil Witch With a Capital B that she was (pun completely intended), got her Patronus-jollies from sentencing people to A Fate Worse Than Death. Voldemort might have been the most powerful dark wizard, but Umbridge just on the strength of her pure sadism was a villainous Badass Normal.
 * Applies only to the film version of Deathly Hallows Part 2, but where is Parvati Patil?! Her sister Padma is seen, so where's Parvati? Considering what happens to the other twins in this film, my paranoia is justified.
 * In Deathly Hallows, Harry successfully casts Crucio on a Death Eater. Think about what this means. The spell causes pain of a magnitude so great that enough time under it can drive the victim into permanent insanity. According to the text, you have to sincerely want to cause another person this amount of pain in order for the spell to work. And you have to go on wanting it while you watch your victim writhing on the floor and shrieking in mind-shattering agony. Harry's only response after casting it successfully is to murmur, "Bellatrix was right. You have to really mean it." Brrrrr.
 * To be fair, he had recently learned that Hogwarts had basically been turned into a concentration camp, and that the Death Eater he was Crucying and his sister had been using that same curse to torture the children they were supposed to be teaching; when Carrow said he was going to blame some kids and put them at Voldemort's (nonexistent) mercy to save their own asses, Harry snapped. And he didn't keep the curse on Carrow for any length of time; he just threw him across the room.
 * Actually, this could be a case of misunderstood Fridge Brilliance in disguise. Harry knocks Carrow through the air, whereupon the death eater falls unconscious. Crucio very clearly doesn't knock people unconscious, or even send them flying--just the pain. So in saying that you "really have to mean it," Harry might be acknowledging the fact that he didn't actually cast the curse successfully, and doesn't have it in him to do so, even when presented with such an obvious and available symbol of everything he hates.
 * The Fate of Umbridge. Harry knocks her out, extinguishing her Patronus, and leaves her, unconscious, in a room full of Dementors.
 * Word of God said that she ended up convicted for crimes against muggle-borns and locked in Azkaban, so it should be assumed that she survived that, soul intact.
 * Of course, as a candidate for most despicable fictional character of all time, falling prey to the Dementors' Kiss would have been a well-deserved fate for her. Assuming she had a soul to be sucked out by the dementors in the first place.
 * This is more of a Fridge Tear Jerker, but by the end of Deathly Hallows
 * Word of God says
 * What happened to  decades before the time the story is set? We are just told that when she was a small child, too young to have any control over her magic,   Implication made even worse by how young she was.
 * And to add to that, Dumbledore's father was sent to Azkaban for going after those boys after they attacked her.
 * When you are a kid the fact that Slytherins are bad people is easy to accept. But when you grow up you realize that 25% of the school population are seen as evil by everyone else from their 11th birthday. No surprise that Voldemort had so many followers there : they probably don't have anyone else.
 * Even Dumbledore is horrible to them, pretending they won the cup in the first book before giving it to Gryffindor, and explaining to Harry not that "being Slytherin would have been alright" but that "what matters is that he choose not to become one". And let's not forget that in the 7th book McGonagall
 * No she didn't. She told them to leave the School because she couldn't trust them, which isn't too out there really. A lot of them must have had parents or relatives among the Death Eaters, and the entire school was united against them because of years of institutional bias, and one of them had just said that they should hand over the almost-literal Messiah.
 * In Deathly Hallows part 2, during The Prince's Tale, you see Snape go to the Potter's house and cry over Lily's dead body. You see baby Harry crying in his crib in the background. in the movies, Hagrid is still the one that brings Harry to the Dursleys. That means that Snape had come and gone before Hagrid got there, and he made no effort to take Harry to safety or anything. It really makes you question if Snape actually cares about Harry.
 * He didn't. If Voldemort had killed Harry and James and left Lily alone, Snape wouldn't have had the Heel Face Turn in the first place.
 * Wouldn't having a (as far as anyone except Dumbledore knew) Death Eater bring Harry to the Dursley's be rather suspicious to everyone else?
 * That isn't even getting into the strong possibility that Snape hit the Despair Event Horizon and never recovered. He had heel realization but does he ever seem happy? Its possible he simply wanted to distance himself from the son of the person he loved who he helped kill.
 * Indeed, he may have felt at the time that he didn't have the right to have anything to do with the child he'd just helped to orphan: not after he'd failed Harry's mother so terribly. How he justify staying near the only thing that was left of the woman he'd loved?
 * Moody's body must have been discovered by agents of the Ministry, as his eye turns up on Umbridge's door. He never has a funeral, however, as the Ministry doesn't want the public to know it's lost one of its most formidable Aurors. Just days later, the Ministry falls under Voldemort's control, when Mad-Eye's corpse is probably still being held in a Ministry-run morgue. We know the bad guys make use of Inferi...

Unsorted Fridge Horror

 * From cracked.com, [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19397_the-5-most-depraved-sex-scenes-implied-by-harry-potter.html?
 * The very concept of the Wizarding World is Fridge Horror. Think about it. A bunch of people, who at best either know nothing about us at all or regard us in an extreamly condescending way, secretly Mind Rape us into not realizing they exist. And then they say we deserve not to know based on the logical fallacy that we wouldn't "believe" in magic sufficiently enough anyway, whatever that's supposed to mean.
 * and wizards have completely forgone science and technology in favor of magic. So all those world dooming problems (i.e. global warming/climate change, energy crisis, economic decline, etc.) that muggles caused and know about, wizards have almost no knowledge of. So wizards aren't going to be able to fix anything before we all start to die.
 * You know how "Avada Kedavra" sounds a lot like "Abra Kedabra"? The obvious implication is that someone heard the phrase, didn't know it's implications but knew it sounded/meant something awesome, and it got passed onto fake magicians as a catch phrase. The horror comes from the fact that it's now a common catch phrase and analogous to the sound of a magic gun going off. In book 7, dark wizards could accidentally return fire on muggle kids who scream it too loudly. Inquisitors are bound to shackle up street performers who use it in gambling alleyways (remember that inquisitors live long and leave their atticks clean of pop-culture, Holmes style). AND NOW HAPPY-GO-LUCKY TRICK MAGICIANS AROUND THE WORLD ARE CONSTANTLY SAYING "PLEASE #$%^ THIS SAWED WOMAN TO DEATH".
 * Consider the following: Voldemort had an army. In order for someone to have an army - and to even spend some time with power in their hands - there has to be at least some measurable degree of support. In the real world, even the most horrid regimes are supported, if not by a majority, by a loud and not-too-small minority of the people in it - or they would simply fall apart in a few days rather than in a few years. It must, in short, be politically viable. So, Voldemort might be a very powerful wizard, yes, but he only gathered an army and managed to actually control things for a while because his ideology is politically viable in that particular environment. Meaning that, unless there was a purge of sorts (and these aren't exactly foolproof, nor necessarily much of a way to keep the moral high ground) or something, his ideas are still shared by quite a lot of people, some of whom have money and/or political/magical power (the Malfoys being the most iconic example, and they clearly lived). Said people might, in that setting, try and get into power by hook or by crook in the future.