Fridge / Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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Fridge Brilliance

• In The Deathly Hallows Part 2 film, during the McGonagall vs. Snape fight in the Great Hall, one of McGonagall's spells bounces off of Snape's defensive spell and knocks the Carrow siblings (two Death Eaters placed in Hogwarts by Voldemort as teachers to assist Snape during his time as Headmaster) unconscious. But if you watch closely, you'll notice that Snape actually redirects the spell towards them, intentionally knocking them out before fleeing, but subtly enough to not make it obvious. Since he was really on Dumbledore's side the whole time, it makes perfect sense that he would do this.
• Once again, it was a mother's love that saved Harry from Voldemort.
• Ginny is one of the most logical people 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 well be his family. The marriage to Ginny only underlines this, and since Hermione marries Ron, all three of the trio end up as part of the Weasley family.
• The symbolism of the wands. There's a Thestral tail hair in the Elder Wand. Voldemort's wand was made of yew, a tree held as symbolic of death, but his and Harry's wands were connected by the same phoenix, the bird of rebirth.
• The seventh book shows 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 Snape and Lily had and the fact that he would never see her again), but he also might have been Snape's son in a different world.
• 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.
• In Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Trelawney is wary of sitting at the Christmas dinner table, as it would mean that there were thirteen people there, and when thirteen sit at a table, the first to rise will be the first to die. This is played for laughs when Harry and Ron get up at the same time until the book later reveals that Scabbers was also present. In Deathly Hallows, there are thirteen people sitting down mourning Moody's death. Lupin rises first to offer to locate the body. Lupin is killed at the Battle of Hogwarts, and is the first of the thirteen to die.
• In the epilogue, Harry's son is worried that he'll be in Slytherin. His name is Albus Severus Potter, making his initials A.S.P. Therefore, it would actually be quite appropriate for him to be in Slytherin. Stealth Pun?
• Snape's last words are "look at me", directed at Harry. He wants the last thing he sees to be Lily's eyes. This is more explicit in the film, when his last words are "You have your mother's eyes."
• Deathly Hallows and its long stretches of the protagonists camping out while on the run. Rowling likes to borrow from certain types of English fiction, and this kind of setting is a lot like The Thirty-Nine Steps and Rogue Male.
• Hermione's group and Dean's group both ending up at the same random countryside place independently in the chapter The Goblin's Revenge, so that Harry can overhear the crucial story about the sword of Gryffindor, need not be a complete Contrived Coincidence. Hermione and Dean were both raised by Muggles; it could be that there is a popular Muggle camping ground nearby that they both visited separately as children, and which they thought of as a place to go because it had plenty of secluded terrain.
• We find out in the epilogue of this book 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 battling dark wizards, this was a bit of a strange career change to make. But 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.
  • Another possibility is that Neville joined the Aurors largely to clean up the remnants of the Death Eaters, and then quit to pursue his own passion for Herbology.
• The film gives Ron's cover as Reginald Cattermole a little Adaptation Expansion, adapting a little too well to his cover. It makes perfect sense: Cattermole is a Ministry worker whose wife is a Muggleborn on trial. Ron is in love with and later marries Hermione, a Muggleborn witch. No wonder it hits him so hard.
• In another case of mirror imagery between Harry and Voldemort, Voldemort is 71 in this book and Harry is 17.
• The deaths of Voldemort, Snape, and Harry mirror those of the brothers in "The Tale of the Three Brothers" perfectly right down to age order: The eldest, Voldemort, died in pursuit of power. The second, Snape, died for lost love. And the youngest, Harry, greeted Death like an old friend, willing and ready.
  • It's even more brilliant when you note that the two youngest, Ignotus and Harry, are actually related by blood.^note Ignotus's granddaughter was married to Hardwin Potter, meaning that Harry is Ignotus' direct descendant.
• Lily's Patronus was a doe. James' Patronus was a stag; therefore the Spear Counterpart to Lily's doe. Snape's Patronus was a doe; he loved her, symbolised by the same deer Lily had, but he could not be her counterpart, as James was.
  • This also casts Snape mocking Tonks about her Patronus changing in a much harsher light, since his Patronus is also that way because of unrequited love!
• 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 artefact, 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 corrects him. It's because he knew that he would come back. 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.
• The murder of the Potters and Voldemort's first downfall happened on Halloween, also known as All Hallows Eve.
• Instead of leaving a corpse, Voldemort's death in the film mirrors that of Professor Quirrell in the first movie.
• Wormtail dies by his own silver hand when he hesitates to kill Harry. All the way back in Goblet of Fire, when Voldemort gave him the silver hand to replace the one Wormtail gave up, he says to the healed Wormtail, May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail.
• When we see the trial of a Muggleborn, the justification given is that she somehow must have stolen her magic, and is thus not really a witch. Voldemort is running a reverse witch hunt.
• In Chamber of Secrets, Harry tells Dobby "Just promise never to try and save my life again." In Deathly Hallows, Dobby dies while saving Harry's life.
• A big part of Voldemort's M.O. was to achieve immortality. He died at age 71, less than the average human lifespan. An average muggle lifespan, no less. Dumbledore was around 150 years old and still spry when he died, Elphias Doge is the same age and, while not exactly spry, still able to get out and about. Meanwhile, Hagrid is 63 when we meet him.
• One for the film version of Part 2: during Harry and Voldemort's final fight, they were still fighting in mid-air, via apparition — and during this, the two of them briefly merged together in the process. You may question why, because Harry is no longer connected to Voldemort or his Horcruxes. However, at the time of this, Nagini (Voldy's last Horcrux) was still alive and kicking, unlike in the book. Therefore, it's not Harry reacting to Voldemort, but the other way around; the Horcrux part of his maimed soul is trying to reclaim what it lost. The problem is, it can't, because the Horcrux inside Harry was destroyed. And in addition, the two of them are yelling during the merge, which implies they were suffering great pain, much like they both did when Voldemort tried to possess Harry in Order of the Phoenix.
• According to the Tales of Beedle the Bard, each Peverell uses the cloak to escape Death enough to hand it over to his heir. James doesn't escape death, but Harry does twice.
  • The cloak, in a sense, did help its master become undetectable by Death. No known master of the cloak died while possessing it: Ignotus only died after handing it over to his son, James only died after handing it over to Dumbledore, who only died after handing it over to Harry. And Harry survived two Killing Curses aimed at his face while owning the cloak.
  • Given that James fought in a war as a young man, it's very probable that the Cloak did save his life at least once, and we just never hear about it.
• The Horcruxes are destroyed in the same order that they were created! First, the diary: created in Tom Riddle's school years, destroyed in Harry's second year. Then, the ring: created late in Riddle's school years after he killed his father, destroyed by Dumbledore in Harry's sixth year. Then, the locket and cup: impossible to say which Voldemort technically created first, but both created around the same time (Riddle's early adult years working at Borgin and Burke's) and both destroyed around the same time; while the Trio were on the run. Then there's the diadem, created years later after Voldemort had risen to power, and shortly before he began the First War, followed by him accidentally creating the Horcrux in Harry at the end of said War, and then Nagini after his return. All three are destroyed, in that order, during the Battle of Hogwarts.
• Ron and Parseltongue. Now, skilled in impersonation as he may be, Ron couldn't have achieved perfection for three months of running around, hunting artifacts, and evading capture. However, he has heard Harry speak Parseltongue on another occasion — when they ventured into the Chamber of Secrets in their second year. Knowing Ron's desire to be more like Harry so that he could be a hero too, he learned to impersonate the Parseltongue speech he remembered over the years.
• There's a good chance that a large chunk of the Death Eaters were captured, fought, and/or thrown in Azkaban by Moody himself during the First War. Which meant that not only had a good number of Death Eaters been nursing a 15-year personal grudge, but Moody also had the most advanced reputation of any of the seven Potter 'protectors.' Logically, many would assume that the real Harry Potter would be with the strongest fighter.
  • This also points towards him taking Dung as his partner/Fake Harry. Moody may have expected him to be the one assumed to be the real Harry, and thus the most likely target. Mundungus was the most expendable, and the one most likely to flee — in other words, if Moody fell, Mundungus would either run away or get captured — and either way, it wouldn't be much of a loss.
  • Having the real Harry be with Hagrid also makes sense—since Hagrid's half-giant, he's invulnerable to pretty much everything except a direct Killing Curse, not to mention having the souped-up motorbike.
• In Snape's memory, we see he didn't want to teach Harry because among other things, "he seems to relish his fame." What's one of the first things Snape says to Harry as his teacher? "Clearly, fame isn't everything, is it, Mr. Potter?"
• If one unites the Deathly Hallows, they become Master of Death. Grindelwald thought this meant the power to raise the dead. It is implied that Dumbledore assumed it would be immortality, or thought Voldemort would assume that had he known about the Hallows. But in truth, becoming Master of Death turns out to mean that one masters the art of dying — without struggle, accepting death as natural and normal.
• Throughout the series, we hardly see Fred without George, nor Crabbe without Goyle. And they are always named in the order Fred and George or Crabbe and Goyle. And Fred dies shortly after Crabbe does.
• Why is Harry able to cast the Cruciatus Curse after Amycus spits on McGonagall? Not only is she one of two adult women that he seems to be close to throughout the books (the other being Molly), his descriptions of her are that she's tough but fair, a contrast to Molly. McGonagall also encouraged him to become an Auror and personally stood up to Umbridge over it. She's basically the second-closest thing to a mother that Harry has. No wonder his anger isn't righteous.
• The Dursleys' relationship with Harry are all summed up in a single moment the last time he sees them: Dudley is friendly and states he knows Harry isn't worthless (Dudley and Harry manage to have a positive relationship as adults), Petunia is proud of Dudley but doesn't say anything to Harry himself (Petunia does have some affection for her dead sister and her nephew, but has buried them under so much bitterness and resentment that she can't express it herself), and Vernon ignores the whole thing (Vernon and Harry pretty much loathe each other and have no relationship).
• According to Pottermore, Lucius Malfoy escaped jail time after Book Seven by testifying against other Death Eaters, like what Karkaroff did. That's pretty obvious, since he was imprisoned in book five for assaulting Harry and you can't exactly walk away from Azkaban. It also makes him not so different from Karkaroff, who did the same thing, only with Voldemort dead, Lucius has no fear of Dark Lord retribution.
  • Lucius also now knows, for good and true, that not only is Voldemort dead and not coming back, but that he's been backing the wrong horse all this time. The Malfoys were only valuable to Voldemort as long as they were useful. Despite his pureblood superiority rhetoric, Voldemort really only cares for results, and the Malfoys have consistently disappointed him on that front, leading to Voldemort punishing them profusely. Lucius may not be able to entirely set aside his prejudices, but it's become blatantly clear to him that if he doesn't at least try to change his ways posthaste, the new world that's dawning will have no place for him or his son.
• Why doesn't Draco have a job as an adult? It actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the Order's surviving members worked at cleaning up the Ministry, including getting rid of any Death Eater employees that could buy their way out with gold. What's more, Draco seems very concerned with keeping his son out of the public eye, given the Trio sees Scorpius for the first time at King's Cross, and a Ministry job like what his father had as school governor would be very public.
• While at Xenophilius's house, each of the trio states what they think to be the best/most powerful of the Deathly Hallows. For Hermione, it's the cloak, Ron thinks it's the wand, and Harry's is the stone. Each of these fits their individual experiences and personalities. Hermione chooses the invisibility cloak because it's the only one that never brings harm to the user and is capable of hiding someone from death, making it the most logical choice (she also has extensive practical experience with Harry's cloak, and knows for a fact how useful it is and raises that exact point when her choice is challenged). Ron, who's been overshadowed by his older siblings his whole life and was seen as little more than the Sidekick to Harry, chooses the wand since it was stated to be the most powerful and would make someone a stronger, better wizard. And Harry, who's lost several people he cared about, would likely love nothing more than to have them back, and chooses the resurrection stone that would allow him just that, forgetting for a moment that they would Come Back Wrong.
  • And when Harry does get the Stone, it's when he's going to face his death at Voldemort's hands, to destroy the Horcrux within himself. He's accepted death, he's not afraid of it or trying to hide from it or undo it, and he uses the Stone the right way: not to bring someone back from death, but to have friendly guides for his own journey forward into it. That he ultimately declines to make the journey at that time is immaterial; in that moment, and probably for the rest of his life, Harry Potter understood Death, and was prepared to greet him as a friend, and walk away with him as an equal.
• Throughout the books, it's mentioned that, while Harry looks like his father, he has his mother's eyes. At first, it seems like nothing, but between the fifth and seventh books, it becomes clear that, while he looks like his dad, he doesn't look down on people (even the ones he actively hates), he never has a period as a bully, he ends up trying to befriend the people who are considered weird or weak, and he was disgusted when he saw his dad bullying Snape in the flashbacks. These are all traits from his mother, but it becomes even clearer in the final book as, instead of running to fight Voldemort (like James), Harry goes to see him to die, to surrender, to sacrifice himself for others (like Lily), and ends up protecting all the people participating in the Battle of Hogwarts. Essentially, Harry has Lily's eyes because the eyes are the window to the soul — and his soul is a lot more like Lily's than James'. Dumbledore pointed this fact to Snape in the flashbacks.
• When Snape gives his "turn over Harry" speech in the movie, he never actually says anyone will be punished.
• In one of the earlier books, it was mentioned that Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin were best friends, but Slytherin's obsession with blood status was a wedge between them that one day tore them completely apart. Now, cross-generational parallels are a norm for the series, so it was notably odd to include that anecdote when no one outside of Slytherin was noted to be friends with anyone in it. Then comes the revelation that Lily Evans/Potter and Severus Snape were best friends, but Snape's obsession with blood status was a wedge between them that one day tore them completely apart. Makes one wonder if Slytherin ever came to regret how he left things with his best friend.
  • There's also Harry and Draco. Bitter rivals, Gryffindor and Slytherin respectively, and Draco definitely buys into the blood status prejudice that Slytherin espoused. But eventually, Draco learns and grows and becomes a better man, and while he and Harry may never become friends, they at least stop being enemies. The rift that began with Godric and Salazar is mended, at least in part, in Harry and Draco.
• Throughout the series, the student who Snape bullies the most besides Harry is Neville. At first, it seems to be simply because of Neville's poor Potions performance, but between Neville potentially being the other subject of the prophecy and the revelation that Snape loved Lily, there's another layer to it: if Voldemort had decided to kill Neville rather than Harry, Lily would (possibly) still be alive. It becomes Fridge Horror when you notices that, from Neville's perspective, Snape was bullying and hating him for no apparent reason.
• Half-Blood Prince actually foreshadows the Elder Wand. When Aragog dies, Hagrid and Slughorn sing, And Odo the hero, they bore him back home to the place that he'd known as a lad. They laid him to rest with his hat inside out and his wand snapped in two, which was sad. The practice of snapping a dead witch or wizard's wand must have started when someone figured out that wands learn from their masters.
• Ron's poor attitude during the Horcrux search isn't just due to him being used to three square meals a day, despite what Harry thinks. Just after leaving the Ministry, he ended up splinched and lost a lot of blood, and even after the initial wound was healed, he'd still need protein to repair the damage done to his body. He wasn't just hungry, he was likely severely anaemic, which couldn't have possibly mixed well with starvation rations (meaning he wasn't receiving the necessary nutrition to heal from a life-threatening wound) and a Horcrux messing with his head. (This means that Harry mocking Ron over his pampered upbringing just before the latter leaves is even more out of line.)
  • Additionally, Hermione's parents are safely out of the way, she has no other close family that we know of, and while Harry has dealt with the loss of loved ones before (he's been an orphan as long as he can remember and dealt with the death of Sirius and Dumbledore), Ron's never had to. Of course he's the one most worried about the Weasleys!
• Snape's usage of "Dumbledore" as the password to his office isn't just a Heartwarming Moment. It would also be a great way to keep the Carrows or any other Death Eaters out when he needs to confer with Dumbledore's portrait. After all, that's the one thing they would never guess.
  • That Snape can use the office at all is another clue to his true allegiance. In Order of the Phoenix, when Umbridge is wrongfully proclaimed Headmistress by the Ministry, the office locks her out and will not let her in, stating the office is only for Hogwarts' true headmaster.
• Snape's Worst Memory shows him apologizing to Lily for calling her a Mudblood. But a little Fridge Brilliance shows that it wasn't the fact that he called her a Mudblood in and of itself which caused their separation. He doesn't have an answer to her Armor-Piercing Question, and continues to hang out with Malfoy and co afterwards, showing that he has no regret for his action or understanding of why it was wrong. Instead of beginning to spy for Dumbledore right away during the war, he waits until Lily is in direct danger. He's not apologising for calling her a Mudblood; he's just saying "sorry I hurt your feelings!"
• When Snape confronts Dumbledore about raising Harry "like a sheep to slaughter," the latter doesn't deny it, even though he was pretty sure by that point that the linked blood would allow Harry to survive. Nor does he ever tell Snape about the Horcruxes, even though someone like Snape who is knowledgeable about the Dark Arts, very close to Voldemort, and an expert at more subtle magics, would be well-placed to find them. Why? Because he's The Spymaster, and keeping his spy on a need-to-know basis! Even if Voldemort ever discovers Snape's treachery and breaks him, he will never find out about the Horcruxes or that Harry has an excellent chance to survive if he dies by Voldemort's hand.
  • In retrospect, it also explains why Snape almost never is seen interacting with other Order members — as the spy, he's in the most danger of capture and interrogation, so the less he can tell Voldemort about any of the other Order members, the better (well, that and the fact that he has very few social skills and probably doesn't think he'd be welcome anyway).
• Ron gives Hermione plenty of honest compliments in this book, which confuses but pleases her. Harry deduces that he's going to find a chapter about compliments in the book Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Ron got the book as a present in the previous year and one of the first things we see him do after his birthday is expound at great length about how awesome Hermione was at her apparition test.
• Why doesn't Kingsley question Arthur after the latter's Papa Wolf moment when he hears his son has been hurt? Because it's total O.O.C. Is Serious Business, and it's doubtful if any of the Death Eaters would be able to imitate that level of concern for a blood traitor (as most of the ones still loyal to Voldemort don't seem to be particularly bright and/or sane).
• Snape managed to get into 12 Grimmauld Place even though Moody set up the "anti-Snape" charm because Snape didn't murder Dumbledore - it was a mercy kill.
• In the movie we see that a few Death Eaters pulled a Screw This, I'm Outta Here after Harry revealed that he was alive. It actually makes sense when you realized that, at this point, they know that Harry survived Voldemort trying to kill him like 7 times, including two Killing Curses, the last one with them as witnesses. If they believed that the first time Harry survived the Avada Kedavra was out of luck, seeing first hand how Harry survived the second one make them think he's pretty much unkillable.
• Lots of people like to question why Dumbledore didn't leave Harry with another family, instead of the blood protection the Dursleys afforded at the cost of being abused. This book implicitly answers it—Voldemort takes on McGonagall, Kingsley, and Slughorn, three very accomplished wizards (two of whom at least are experienced fighters), all at once, and holds his own. Quite simply, if Harry had gone to live with absolutely anyone else, they would've been slaughtered after Voldemort returned in Book 4 (which Dumbledore had always suspected he would). The only way around this would have been if Dumbledore had taken Harry in himself, and aside from the fact that Dumbledore probably would not consider himself good parental material and is a pretty busy man, it would also paint an even bigger target on Harry's back.
• At the end of his life, Ignotus Peverell is said to have greeted Death "as an old friend." That may have another meaning — considering that he lived to a great age, he inevitably saw many of his friends and family pass away, or in other words, he saw Death many times before he finally came for Ignotus himself. He went with Death gladly, not just because he had accepted the inevitability of death, but also likely because he was ready to be Together in Death with the friends and family he had lost.
• In the movie, Voldemort hugs Draco in an extremely awkward way after calling him to the front of both armies. In Voldemort's backstory, it's revealed that his mother died in childbirth and was never shown any affection as a child. As a result, he was unable to feel any form of love for someone else. Voldemort has literally no clue how to express affection or love and was only doing what he thought was affection. Many viewers have described the hug as coming from someone who has "never seen or felt a hug in his life and only read about them in books," which is completely accurate.
• A lot of fans thought that Hermione should have married Harry, but her marrying Ron makes more sense in the long run. Even if she and Harry felt that way about each other, it would only work out between them if they didn't have kids. Since the Wizarding World doesn't have primary school, one parent usually takes charge of raising the kids while the other is the breadwinner. And Harry and Hermione aren't likely to give up their dreams to be stay-at-home parents. After Rose and Hugo are born, Ron does a lot of the parenting so Hermione can focus on her career. Ron's not perfect, but he's the kind of husband she needs.
  • On top of that, if there's one thing the Weasleys know better than everyone else, it's family relationships. If you want your children to have a happy, loving childhood, marry a Weasley. Meanwhile, Harry never knew family love at home, and Hermione is a bossy know-it-all Workaholic who is heavily implied not to have had any friends prior to starting Hogwarts. As great as they are, they don't make the best combination for raising a family.
  • Furthermore, many of those fans are probably familiar primarily with the movies, which tend to elide many of Ron's bravest and most compassionate moments while playing up the Harry/Hermione chemistry. Film!Ron does not have the chemistry with Hermione or the courage and loyalty to Harry that his book counterpart possesses, which can make it hard to see why Hermione would want to be with him. For example, in the novel Prisoner of Azkaban Ron stands on a broken leg between (who he thinks is) a mass murderer and Harry, declaring that Sirius will have to kill them all to get to Harry. Movie!Ron just lies on the bed and whimpers. Another example is when Snape calls Hermione a know-it-all; Movie!Ron agrees that Snape has a point while book!Ron passionately stands up for her.
• Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin, Snape, and (temporarily) Harry all die in this book. What do all of them have in common? They were all Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, albeit that Harry was unofficial, in previous years. Looks like the curse had struck once again, even years later.
  • Umbridge was a DADA teacher as well. While she doesn't die, she's stunned and is left to the mercy of the dementors, and is later thrown in Azkaban. Looks like she didn't escape unscathed either.
  • The Carrow siblings took up the position of DADA (technically just Dark Arts) this year, and what happens to them? Their boss is killed and all of their associates are left either dead or on the run, with no leader or reason to continue fighting. You can't get more unlucky than that!
  • That means the only DADA teachers who didn't fall prey to the curse this year were Quirrel (who had died six years earlier), Barty Crouch Jr (who was dementor kissed then was never mentioned again, but he wouldn't be a "person" anymore anyway), and Lockhart (who lost his memories and is committed for life at St. Mungo's). Lockhart seems perfectly happy, however, so he of all people actually got out (mostly) unscathed.
    • Further brilliance when you take into account that Lockhart was the one who introduced Harry to expelliarmus, the spell that saved him in the fourth book, and the one he uses that ultimately results in Voldemort's downfall. So it's fitting that Lockhart ends up with the best outcome out of all the DADA teachers.
• Harry gets quite a few lucky breaks leading to discovery and destruction of the Horcruxes, where Voldemort got unlucky a few times like how the Elder Wand became loyal to Harry instead of him because Malfoy happened to disarm Dumbledore before Snape killed him, and Harry disarmed Malfoy, resulting in Voldemort's ultimate demise, and his overlooking of important details also led to Harry being immortal while Voldemort lives. This could be part of Voldemort living a cursed life as a result of killing a unicorn and drinking its blood.

Fridge Horror

• Snape's memories provide a Once More, with Clarity flashback to his 'worst memory' and show that it's not the bullying that makes it the worst memory: It's that that is the moment that he lost Lily's friendship. The Fridge Horror? The bullying was an unremarkable everyday occurrence for him.
  • Two things make it even worse: we don't know exactly how Snape's father treated him, whether he treated him with bullying, negligence, or both, but the bullying he faced at school may well have mirrored some of what he dealt with at home. And, as far as we know, the Marauders never faced any kinds of consequences for bullying Snape, even though Sirius's prank nearly killed him (that being said, we don't know that Snape ever faced any consequences for attacking James and Sirius; it's not as if he was an innocent who was always the one being picked on).
• 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. Also, with possible laws against marrying Muggle-borns put into place, the Wizarding race would have to resort to incest to survive until they went extinct. In case you didn't hear that right, Voldemort would have basically doomed all of humanity to extinction because of extreme prejudice.
• Neville Longbottom offhandedly mentions that the Hogwarts "Dark Arts" classes post-takeover have involved practising the Cruciatus Curse. On first years. You know, the curse that inflicts horrible, unimaginable, incomprehensible pain? You know, the curse that drove Neville's parents—adult Aurors in their prime—insane?
  • On a side note, we now have a whole generation of students who know how to cast the Cruciatus curse, and they’re probably skilled with it too, because they’ve had a whole year of being forced to repeatedly practice the curse by their teachers over and over again! It’s like the equivalent of equipping an entire school of children with portable torture devices and then forcing them to learn how to use these devices to become torture experts! And even though the war against Voldemort is over, having that many people who know how to use Cruciatus loose in the Wizarding World can’t possibly end well, can it?
• In Deathly Hallows Part 1, Hermione finds the bloody room and Nagini inside of Bathilda. Killing with Avada Kedavra doesn't leave any blood, so what Hermione saw was likely the aftermath of Voldemort flaying Bathilda so Nagini could hide in the skin. And since nobody knew precisely when Harry was going to head to Godric's Hollow, that body could have been decomposing for months.
• In The Deathly Hallows, Luna is kidnapped and kept at Malfoy Manor for months! Considering that Bellatrix and Greyback (a sadist with a history of attacking children) had took residence there, imagine what she must have been through.
• 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.
  • On the subject of Umbridge, at her first appearence in Book 5, she was a thoroughly unpleasant person, but she never expressed any of the explicit signs of prejudice against normal-borns she's oozing with during the "trial" in Hallows. Now, maybe she was just hiding it, but then again, it could be that a certain event in her life pushed her over the edge and infused with particular hatred against "mudbloods". Namely, when a muggle-born Hermione tricked her into being abducted by a herd of angry centaurs. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
  • Voldemort just kills people. Umbridge makes them stop existing entirely, in a world with both ghosts and an afterlife. Who is supposed to be the worst of the two again?
  • Actually, even though she may be a sadistic bitch in Book 5, Book 7 seems to take it up to eleven. What is she shown wearing during the trial? Slytherin's locket, aka the Horcrux. It makes you wonder if she acts cruel during the trials all on her own, or from the Horcrux's influence, just like Ron temporarily leaves the group because of it. And depending on how much you assume the Horcrux affects her, it may show that Voldemort is still, possibly, the worst.
• 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."
  • 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.
  • Alternatively, this could still be a case of Fridge Horror, because what if Harry did cast it successfully, and Carrow fell unconscious because of the sheer pain and agony he was experiencing? Fainting due to immense pain is a thing that can happen in real-life, after all.
• This is more of a Fridge Tear Jerker, but by the end of Deathly Hallows, Andromeda Tonks has lost both her husband and her daughter in the space of a few months. Poor thing.◊
• In the film, at the Battle of Hogwarts, there was one scene where a group of Death Eaters Zerg Rush across a bridge while shouting "DEEAATH!". Since none of them use magic, it seems really stupid. But we already know the Death Eaters use the Imperius Curse, and in the sixth book, we hear that they use it on Muggles too, since one of Prime Minister John Major's associates had to be locked up. That group that was Zerg Rushing the bridge? Those were Muggles who had been brainwashed to act as cannon fodder. They had no idea what they were doing. Alternatively, they knew what they were doing, but were unable to stop themselves. Any of them who had shown resistance to the spell would have been killed the moment their resistance was noticed.
• Lupin was probably already dead when Tonks arrived at the battle. Aberforth mentions that he last saw him fighting Dolohov (who is revealed by Word of God to have killed him) and says that he hasn't seen him since… which adds some horror to Tonks' death. Her discovering that her husband was dead could have given Bellatrix the perfect chance to kill her.
• To George Weasley, every mirror is now the mirror of Erised.
• What happened to Dumbledore's sister 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, some Muggle boys saw her doing magic and were very frightened. So they "wanted to make her feel powerless" in retaliation — details of what they did are not given, but it left her permanently and severely psychologically damaged. The implication is 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.
  • They may have tried to get rid of her the old-fashioned way: by setting her on fire. Drowning is also an option. Or they could have raped or molested her.
• Now with the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, we are introduced to Obscurials, which are children with magic that were traumatised or abused when they were younger, and as a result, they remain unable to control their powers. Knowing Ariana's backstory, it's highly likely (actually confirmed in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore) that she was an Obscurial, and that this is how Grindelwald learned of them before he met Credence Barebone and came to blows with Newt Scamander and MACUSA.
  • It also strongly suggests that Ariana had suffered severe brain damage from whatever those Muggle bullies did to her. The damage destroyed whatever part of her brain would've made it possible to control her magic, but didn't actually diminish her power.
    • And what exactly did those boys do to her? Well, Dumbledore never elaborates, but there's an implication.
  • Didn't Vernon Dursley state way back in Philosopher's Stone that part of his and Petunia's motivations to hide the existence of wizardry from Harry and abuse the everliving crap out of him lay in the hopes that they could "stomp it out of him"? Had Hagrid never come to the rescue, the results could have been catastrophic...
• We learn that some 20 years prior to the events of the book, a Death Eater called Regulus Black turned against Voldemort, stole one of his Horcruxes, and ordered his house-elf Kreacher to destroy it. Kreacher did his best but failed, because Horcruxes are almost indestructible. The thing is, elves in this universe are a Slave Race, and they suffer from an irresistable compulsion to severely punish themselves when they fail their master's order. When Kreacher retells this story, he says that "he tried, failed, punished himself, and tried again". Since Regulus had died shortly after giving the order, and he'd forbidden Kreacher from ever telling anyone, there was no one to release Kreacher from it, and, for all we know, he had been torturing himself for 20 years and would've continued to do so for the rest of his life, had Harry not destroyed the Horcrux. To add insult to injury, Regulus actually liked Kreacher. In fact, his revolt against Voldemort was largely because of the latter hurting the elf. He simply didn't give a thought about what he was condemning his servant to. Makes you wonder how many other elves suffered because of carelessly worded orders.
• Word of God confirmed that Hermione found her parents and restored their memories after the events of the series. However, imagine how the whole experience would have affected their relationship. If you knew a close loved one could and would willingly, under the right circumstances, alter your mind to such an extent, would you ever be able to fully trust them again?
  • It's possible, however, that Hermione didn't let them know what she actually did and just modified their memories to make them believe that they were just on holiday during that year.
• The fridge horror is in the realization that “Bathilda” was silent around Harry and Hermoine because she would speak in parseltongue, and that would reveal her to Hermione.
• The final line of the last book: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well." Now this seems like a happy ending, but why was Harry able to sense Voldemort? The piece of soul in him. So that would mean that Harry is no longer a parseltongue, but it also means that he can no longer sense Voldemort. Which would mean that even if Voldemort rises again, Harry wouldn't be able to sense it next time.
  • Made more confusing by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which reveals that Harry's scar pained him again when Delphini attempted to Cosmic Retcon Voldemort back into existence, with no explanation for how this takes place without the Horcrux or without Voldemort's actual presence.
• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald reveals that Nagini was once a human woman. This means the disposal of Charity Burbage was not merely an animal devouring prey, but an act of cannibalism.
• During the flight sequence at the beginning, Ron is said to have cast a "stupify" spell at someone's face, which would have knocked that person unconscious. Over a hundred feet high in the air. Yeah, Ron probably killed a guy there.
• The giant that the trio elude by hiding inside the fallen bell in Part 2? It's using a Quidditch hoop as a weapon. Even Harry's favorite pastime is being sullied, by the enemy turning it, too, into a deadly weapon against those he cares about.
• Imagine if Voldemort had known that Harry was a Horcrux. He wouldn’t have killed him, since that would be endangering his own immortality, and it’s not like Harry would be a threat to him anymore. But nobody else would be able to kill him either, unless they put two and two together and killed Harry. And if that happened, the fact that Voldemort used Harry’s blood for his resurrection wouldn’t save Harry from being killed by anyone else, so he’d be dead for real.
• During his trial in Goblet of Fire, Karkaroff outs Mulciber as a Death Eater and tells us that what he specializes in is the Imperius Curse. Cut to Deathly Hallows, and Lily tells Snape she saw Mulciber trying to do something to a girl named Mary Macdonald which she qualifies as "creepy". Keep in mind that the Imperius Curse gives the caster complete control over his or her victim. Hogwarts is also full of horny teenagers. Put the pieces together and the whole situation looks absolutely horrifying.
• Molly's Boggart is seeing her family (and Harry, who might as well be family) dead. But while it's shuffling through the different members, it becomes both of the twins at once. Even in her worst nightmares, Molly could not imagine Fred and George would be separated.
• Snape passes on his memories to Harry in his dying moments, which finally reveals everything to the boy, and what Dumbledore had planned for him to do all along. That's all well and good, except for the fact that Snape legitimately had no idea Harry was just outside the room the whole time, meaning from his perspective, Harry arriving at that moment was just a one-in-a-million coincidence. Snape must have been absolutely terrified once he finally caught on to why Voldemort wanted to see him, as he surely must have realized in that moment that he would never be able to fulfill Dumbledore's final request, and Harry would still be left in the dark about everything. God only knows what must have been going through his head before Harry ran into the room.
  • Worse, if Harry hadn't been there at that moment, Snape would have died alone knowing he failed Dumbledore, and Harry would have never discovered the truth about him being a horcrux and needing to die, meaning there would have been a heck of a lot more deaths than there already were once Voldemort decided to step in personally. And there would be no Narcissa Malfoy covering for him once he was hit by the second killing curse, meaning Voldemort could easily have killed him off for real once it was discovered Harry was still alive.
• When Harry sees Snape's memories, specifically the one where Snape is treating Dumbledore after he was cursed by Marvolo's ring, Dumbledore regards his foolish act of wearing it as merely a Moment of Weakness. But we had seen previously that Horcruxes are capable of preying into and feeding from people's vulnerabilities (as shown with Ginny and the diary and Ron with the locket) as well as acting up in self-defense when they sense danger (the locket trying to strangle Harry when he tries to get to get Gryffindor's sword, and creating illusions on Ron to try and break him before he could stab it). So the ring probably sensed Dumbledore's intentions to destroy it, but also his guilt over what happened to his family, and therefore compelled Dumbledore to put it on his finger to trigger the fatal curse as a defense mechanism. Thankfully, Dumbledore still manages to snap out of it enough to destroy it, but it's still horrifying to think how much of a close call this one was.

Fridge Logic

• Did that Thief's Downfall water in Gringott's that undoes magical disguises re-enlarge Hermione's teeth that she had Madam Pomfrey shrink back in Goblet Of Fire?
  • Doubtful, since that's not a kind of disguise; honestly, though, we don't know enough to say for certain either way.

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