Harry Potter / Tropes A to I

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A

• Aborted Arc: Harry's Occlumency training in Order of the Pheonix doesn't really go anywhere. The goal was to learn Occlumency in order for Harry to keep out visions from Voldemort, but in the end, the Occlumency classes are dropped, so the visions continue anyway.
• Absurdly Divided School: Hogwarts students are divided in four houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw), which compete each year in a contest about getting the most of points on good behaviour and school results and which have wildly differing cultures, such as Slytherin having more support for blood purity and Ravenclaw being more intellectual. Another facet of this divide is that the houses compete each year in a Quidditch tournament, fuelling the rivalry further.
• Abuse Discretion Shot:
  • The Dursleys, along with Dudley's friends, aren't directly shown abusing Harry but their actions are alluded to.
  • Likewise, Ariana Dumbledore's abuse isn't directly described, but the major effects making her the Woobie of Mass Destruction points to something very bad.
• Abusive Parents:
  • They aren't his biological parents, but the treatment Harry receives from his guardians Petunia and Vernon Dursley is certainly abusive. They lock him in the cupboard for weeks, interfere with his mail, deny him food as a form of punishment for something he for the longest time couldn’t even control, lie to him about his deceased parents, and lie to neighbors that he is a delinquent. Petunia nearly hits him over the head with a frying pan (he dodges just in time), Vernon strangles him, and so on.
  • Neville Longbottom's entire living family was abusive after his parents were tortured to insanity. His grandmother constantly subjected him to verbal abuse, saying he will never live up to his parents, while the rest of his family went to absurd and nearly fatal lengths to see if he had any magical abilities (such as tossing him off a pier or dropping him out a window several stories up), all because they neglected to see the signs that he could use magic.
  • Marvolo Gaunt subjected his daughter Merope to physical and verbal abuse up until his arrest when she was eighteen. His son Morfin also seems to fear Marvolo, obeying him unquestionably and encouraging him in his anger at Merope.
  • It is also implied Sirius' parents were abusive towards him, resulting in him running away from home when he was 16.
• Academy of Adventure: Hogwarts, though it's really not meant to be. For someone not Muggle-born or raised, the magic there is really just an extension of what would go on in their own homes. It's only when Harry is going there that this trope is active.
• Accidental Celebrity: When Voldermort attempted to use the Killing Curse on Harry and it backfired, Harry became famous all across Britain (and perhaps even world famous) for surviving a curse that was thought to be impossible to survive, and vanquishing the Dark Lord. Thing is, Harry was an infant at the time, so he most certainly never intended to do anything, much less become famous. It's constantly shown through all the books that Harry is rather uncomfortable with all his fame, especially after the media starts targetting him.
• Accidental Pun: The Norwegian translation rename Snape "Slur", with the translator having no idea (except possibly by inference) what the character would become most famous for.
• Achey Scars:
  • Harry's lightning-bolt scar, which magically hurts when Voldemort's in close proximity or feeling a particularly vivid emotion. The pains go away after Voldemort's death.
  • The scars he got from Umbridge also tingle whenever something reminds him of her. No word on whether it's magical or psychosomatic.
• Acquainted with Emergency Services: The Hit Wizards (the Harry Potter equivalent of a SWAT team) have reserved beds at St. Mungo's hospital.
• Admiring the Abomination:
  • Hagrid is prone to this almost to a fault when it comes to dangerous magical animals. Basically, if he makes a point of professing that it's a very misunderstood creature, then it's probably safe to bet that you should leave the job of handling it up to him lest you lose a few body parts.
  • The Elder Wand apparently tends to attract this level of fascination. Ollivander mentions that many wandmakers have been fascinated with the idea of studying the wand's unique properties despite its dark past and dangerous power, with Gregorovitch being one such wandmaker.
• Adoring the Pests: The Weasley family adopts a rat named Scabbers, whom they thought was a wild rat at the time. Turns out it was really a shape-shifted form of Peter Pettigrew.
• Adults Are Useless: In the later books, there's the explicit message "You can't rely on your elders to have all the answers." As wise as they might seem, your parents and your mentors have probably made more mistakes than they'd like to admit, and not all of your teachers can be trusted to handle power responsibly. Even Dumbledore makes mistakes, and when he sees Harry for the last time, he says "I have known, for some time now, that you are the better man." As a result, Harry and friends have to rely on themselves when fighting the Dark Lord and can expect little to no help from anyone that isn't a teenager. In the end, you can only rely on your own conscience.
  • Harry is sent home to the Dursleys every single Summer for most of the series — the family that once made him live in a cupboard under the stairs and treated him as a slave for most of his life. They would repeatedly lock him into his room and try to contain him so he couldn't return to Hogwarts. This is, whether intentionally or not, one of the greatest oversights the adults could make; knowing Harry is critical to defeating Voldemort because if they hurt or killed Harry, as abusers sometimes do if victims seem to be escaping their power, they could have done nothing about it. Even though that could mean the prophecy would be focused on Neville instead, it is a really stupid idea to gamble with the life of your only gambit against Voldemort. There's eventually an explanation for why Harry had to keep living there, but not for why there was no intervention to keep him safe.
    • Fortunately, later in the series, something has been done about the Dursleys, even if Harry never should've returned to them in the first place. In books 3 and 4, the Dursleys are threatened not to mistreat Harry when they learn that he had a criminal Godfather (he was innocent, but Harry keeps that fact from them). And at the end of book five, after the death of Harry's godfather, the Order of the Phoenix made up of adults who care about Harry, talk to the Dursleys, making it clear that they are not allowed to mistreat Harry, and there will be dire consequences if they find out they mistreated him—causing the Dursleys to be too afraid to abuse Harry for the rest of the series.
• Advanced Tech 2000: There's a whole series of Nimbus Exty-Thousand broomsticks. Harry himself owns a Nimbus Two Thousand... well, until it gets crushed by an animate tree. Magic is fun. Just a year after the 2000 was invented, the makers discovered a way to make the broom slightly faster and created a prototype new model called the Nimbus 2001.

• A Dog Named "Perro": Downplayed. Remus Lupin's last name is Old French for "Of a wolf" or "pertaining to a wolf", giving away that he is a werewolf.
• Aerith and Bob: The "Muggle" first names range from Dudley to Hermione; the wizarding ones, from George to Xenophilius. All in the UK. Same with the wizarding last names, which range from Potter and Black to Slytherin and Dumbledore. The old pureblood families are usually the ones to have the strangest names, and they also tend to have themed names. For example, the Black family and their various offshoots named their children after constellations and stars. Professor Dumbledore's full name is "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore".
• Aesop Amnesia: Harry and his friends repeatedly form a conspiracy theory involving a character or characters being involved in something shady or nefarious, despite being proven wrong every single time this happens. Though, Harry is actually right in book 6 as Draco is a Death Eater with a mission, responsible for the near-deaths of Katie Bell on Ron, but Ron and Hermione continually state the aforementioned aesops about Draco Malfoy.
• After-Action Patch-Up: They land in the infirmary for treatment frequently. It's often where the post-action discussion takes place.
• After-School Cleaning Duty: This is often given as a detention at Hogwarts. There is usually a requirement that the cleaning must be performed without magic.
• Age-Gap Romance: Tonks and Lupin have an age gap of around thirteen years; she's in her early twenties and he's in his late thirties when they fall in love. Lupin spends some time angsting over it, believing he's too old for Tonks and she'd be better off with someone closer to her own age, though they ultimately end up together.
• Agony Beam: The Cruciatus curse forces excruciating pain on whoever it is cast upon, with the severity depending upon how much the caster wants their victim to suffer. The curse is so horrible that it is one of three that was labelled "unforgivable" and criminalized.
• The Alcatraz: Azkaban is the wizarding prison. It's an island out in the middle of nowhere staffed by eldritch abominations that suck out every happy memory you have. The only individual known to have escaped unaided while Azkaban was under said abominations' watch is Sirius Black, thanks to his unregistered Animagus abilities and the fact that he was able to use the fact that he was innocent as an anchor to hold on to his sanity.
• All Crimes Are Equal: How the House "points" system at Hogwarts works. Later, we discover that this is how the Ministry of Magic treats "crime" in general. There appears to be only one wizard jail for UK wizards to go to. The very act of just being there is severe psychological torture, as every happy, positive thought you've ever had is forcibly removed from you, leaving you with nothing but the worst memories of your life. You even forget that this might end. Any crime that merits more than a fine warrants Azkaban. And it's even used for preventative detention of suspects.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: The series has a few examples of this trope but it never works out. Rowling's gone on record saying that fan-mail she receives from young girls romanticizing the bad boys is the type that distresses her the most.
  • Pansy Parkinson begins to fancy Malfoy more only after he becomes a Death Eater. It doesn't end well for him and he ends up marrying someone else.
  • This goes for both guys in the Lily/James/Snape Love Triangle. She didn't like James when he was "the" badboy but ends up marrying him when he becomes "the" good boy. Snape thought that messing around with dark arts would make her like him back but ended up pushing her away, cementing his role as the actual bad boy.
  • There's also a good guy wants a bad guy example in Dumbledore and Grindelwald. He admits much later on that he was so taken by this mysterious new guy that he looked away from several glaring red flags (like getting expelled from school). This Destructive Romance caused an innocent bystander's death.
  • Viktor Krum is a Dark Is Not Evil example for Hermione as an older, gruffer boy. They date for a little while but it doesn't go any further than staying on as pen pals. She ends up with the more overtly Nice Guy Ron.
• Alliterative Family: Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana Dumbledore. Marvolo, Morfin, and Merope Gaunt. Padma and Parvati Patil.
• Alliterative List: The Three "D"s of Apparition: Destination, Determination, and Deliberation.
• Alliterative Name: Has its own page.
• All Love Is Unrequited: It's a series about a coeducational boarding school where students aged eleven to eighteen live in near-seclusion for ten months out of the year. This trope is inevitable.
  • Harry's crush on Cho Chang, whose First Love was Cedric Diggory. After Cedric's death, Cho continued to mourn him and latched onto Harry because he was the closest to him before he died, at which point they were simply too incompatible for a relationship to work out.
  • Ginny's crush on Harry went unrequited for the better part of six years.
  • Severus Snape was madly in love with Lily Evans for all his life, even after her death.
  • Gellert Grindelwald was the love of Albus Dumbledore's life. Although not technically not unrequited because Grindelwald did love him back (evidenced by his giving his life to stop Voldemort from desecrating his tomb), they were only together for a few months one summer as teenagers and never got back together due to the latter’s cruelty.
• All Myths Are True:
  • Generally anything considered a silly myth in the series will turn out to exist like the Philosopher's Stone, Chamber Of Secrets and Deathly Hallows, the latter of which being the subject of a wizard fairytale.
  • Zig-Zagged with Luna Lovegood who's treated like an idiot for believing in unproven creatures in a world where countless magical creatures exist. Word of God said she ended up proving the existence of some of these creatured when she grew up.
• All of the Other Reindeer: In book 1, Harry is hated near the end for helping his house lose 150 points. In book 2, Harry is hated because his fellow students think he's attacking them. In book 4, Harry is hated because his fellow students think he sneaked his way into the Triwizard Tournament. In book 5, Harry is hated because the Ministry of Magic is running a smear campaign to paint him as a crazy, attention-seeking brat. In book 7, Harry is labelled "Undesirable No. 1" by the government — though in that case, it's because the government has been taken over by Death Eaters.
• All Therapists Are Muggles: The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy prevents wizards from revealing the existence of the Wizarding World to Muggles, even to seek out therapy. Many characters, including Harry, could benefit from therapy, but the only mental care St. Mungo's Hospital seems to offer is the Janus Thickey Ward for permanent residents.
• All There in the Manual: Pottermore is a hotbed of information barely even alluded to in the actual books. Lampshaded continually in-universe by Hermione via Hogwarts: A History.
• All Witches Have Cats: A cat is one of the animals which wizarding students can bring as a pet to Hogwarts. In this case, the cats are merely pets, not familiars. A witch and teacher, Professor McGonagall, can turn into a cat. Hermione owns a cat, and Umbridge decorates her office with excessive amounts of cat pictures (but according to Word of God thinks real cats are "too messy"). There is also a Crazy Cat Lady who lives near the Dursleys who turns out to be a Squib (a non-magical person born to two magical parents). In an interesting subversion, the only cat in the series that acts like a witch's familiar belongs to the one non-magical person at Hogwarts, Filch.
• Ambition Is Evil:
  • The usual trait of those put in Slytherin House is ambition. Unfortunately, most of the shown Slytherins are either a giant Jerkass or outright evil.
  • This is a general theme, in that many wizards put ambition over family, friends, and morality. Dumbledore was frustrated by Small Town Boredom because he felt that his ambitions were thwarted by being Arianna's caretaker. He eventually comes to realize that the more humble Aberforth was the better man and likewise moderates to a life of service, leaving behind a great legacy of magical and social achievements.
  • Tom Riddle is essentially the picture of this trope, sacrificing his humanity and conscience for becoming the "most feared wizard of his age". He succeeds, but in the end, becomes a shell of a man and ends up in limbo. In the end, people stop being afraid of him as well.
  • Severus Snape wanted to become a great wizard, rise high in Voldemort's favour, and become a major Death Eater. But he also wanted to gain Lily's love at the same time. Eventually, he spends most of his life in a job he hates, serving as a Double Reverse Quadruple Agent and using his considerable skills to serve Dumbledore's Zero-Approval Gambit.
  • Dumbledore argues that Harry is himself the true aversion in that he isn't tempted by power at all. Likewise Hermione, despite being highly knowledgeable about magic, wants to improve the lot of the less fortunate and help other people. Ron is also tempted by ambition, but ultimately comes to terms with valuing himself in comparison to his more talented brothers and friends.
• Ancestral Name:
  • Several characters have middle names that are derived from their parents' given name (Harry James Potter, William Arthur Weasley, and Ginevra Molly Weasley), to the extent that fanon assumes that this is the case for every character, including those whose middle names are not given.
  • Harry would eventually name his eldest son James (referred as James Potter II in the wiki), who had inherited his namesake's penchant for mischief and trouble-making.
  • The House of Black use stellar names for almost every member of their family — and, considering how long they've been around, there's bound to several repetition. Harry's godfather Sirius is the third in the family tree to bear that name (thus making him Sirius Black III), as is his paternal grandfather, Arcturus Black III, and one of his maternal uncles, Cygnus Black III. This strict naming pattern shows how narrow-minded and restrictive the family's legacy is, and this is one of the reasons why Sirius hates his family and ran away to live with James when he was 17.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: A house-elf is freed from its master if it is given an article of clothing, which is actually sort of an inversion; the clothing itself isn't the reward (at least, not the only reward), but rather a symbol of the reward. Even more an Inverted Trope, clothing is most often seen as an extreme form of punishment. To be given clothes and set free means to be without a master and a family, and the lowest moment for a House Elf. Dobby, the most openly Free Elf seen in the books, is often looked at with absolute shame by other elves, and treated with sheer contempt when discussing the topic of wages.
• Animal Lover: Hagrid loves all animals, both normal (such as his dog Fang) and weird (such as his other dog, Fluffy, who has three heads). As he loves legimately dangerous creatures, he is often met with incredulity. He teaches how to care for magic animals.
• Animal Espionage: Animagi can turn themselves into animals so as to go around without attracting suspicion as a human, though there's always an element to the disguise that identifies his/her human form. In Rita Skeeter's case, she turns into a literal surveillance bug (a beetle).
• Animal Motifs:
  • An Animagus's animal form generally fits their personality (and a wizard can't pick their Animagus form).
  • On the other hand, wizards do seem to have some control of the form of their Patronus, which all wizards can create, not just Animagi.
• Animate Dead: Inferi, first mentioned in Half Blood Prince, are corpses that are animated and turned into what amounts to attack dogs using Dark Magic. Lord Voldemort makes use of them to terrify the people of Britain, especially throughout The Half-Blood Prince.
• Animorphism: Animagi are witches and wizards that can transform into an animal at will.
• Anomalous Art: Many of the works of art present in the Wizarding World are shown to be magical in origin, most notably photographs and paintings (especially the many, many portraits littered across the halls of Hogwarts) being animate to the point of being sentient.
• Anonymous Benefactor: Harry has at least four through the course of the series: Dumbledore gives him the invisibility cloak. Sirius gives him a Firebolt. Barty Crouch is a malicious benefactor who helps Harry by proxy. Snape leaves the Sword of Gryffindor in the woods for him to find.
• Anyone Can Die:
  • Not so much in the earlier books, but after Goblet of Fire, all bets are off. By the time book seven was announced, and Rowling herself stoked the fires by claiming that more people would die, entire websites were devoted to betting on which major characters were going to bite the big one, including the three main characters.
  • Professional betting odds establishments made a fortune on the last two books. One professional bookmaker lost over 60,000 pounds on the outcome of the last book because Harry both died and didn't die, and he ended up having to pay everyone.
• Apathy Killed the Cat: Harry just tunes out whenever magical theory comes up. Hermione has to fill him in whenever it becomes plot-relevant. Despite this, he is actually said to have been reasonably good at Muggle school.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Luna Lovegood is constantly going on about the bizarre magical creatures her father writes about in his magazine. Even in a world where there's magic, dragons, and the like, hardly anyone else believes that they exist.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Believing Harry Potter was the subject of a prophecy regarding his death, Voldemort set out to kill him as a child, only for Voldemort's own curse to rebound off the child and destroy the Dark Lord's power. From that day, Voldemort spent every waking moment trying to find a way to restore his power and prove to the world that Harry Potter was no match for his Dark Magic; meanwhile, Harry Potter came to loathe Voldemort for killing his parents and waging war against the world he loved. As the Prophecy dictates, the two must face each other, as neither can live while the other survives.
  • In the beginning of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry mentally labels Draco Malfoy as his archenemy, which is sort of hilarious when you take his relationship with Voldemort into consideration.
• Arc Number: The number seven comes up numerous times throughout the series.
• Arc Villain: The first four books have these until Voldemort returned proper at the end of Goblet of Fire.
  • Philosopher's Stone: Professor Quirrell, who is revealed to be quite literally working directly for Voldemort to get the Philosopher's stone and was the one trying to kill Harry throughout the story.
  • Chamber of Secrets: Lucius Malfoy, who gave the diary to Ginny Weasley, which possessed her and led her to open the chamber, releasing the Baslisk on several muggle-borns.
  • Prisoner of Azkaban: Peter Pettigrew, who turned out to be the real culprit who betrayed the Marauders.
  • Goblet of Fire: Barty Crouch Jr., who infiltrated the Triwizard Tournament so he could lead Harry to Voldemort.
• The Artifact:
  • The House Point system is this. In the first book, winning the House Cup was serious business, but as the war against Voldemort gets more prominent the House Cup fades into the background. In Harry's last few years at Hogwarts, it isn't even mentioned who won at all.
  • Hogwarts's Quidditch games were pushed increasingly into the background after the third book. The fourth book has them cancelled for the Triwizard Tournament, the fifth and sixth spend nowhere near as much time on them, and the seventh has none.
• Artifact of Death: Several: Tom Riddle's diary, the Elder Wand, and Marvolo Gaunt's ring. The latter includes a literal Artifact of Death.
• Artificial Insolence: Wizard chess plays like regular chess, except the pieces are alive and are very vocal in their criticism of the player, refusing to carry out a move if it would put them in danger, etc.
• Artificial Outdoors Display: The ceiling of Hogwarts' Great Hall is enchanted to always correspond with the weather outside.
• Artistic Licence – Biology: "Magic is a dominant and resilient gene." Given the number of wizards born to Muggle parents (and the extreme rarity of the reverse), this blatantly flies in the face of middle school genetics. You could say that A Wizard Did It (it is magic, after all), but a better explanation would perhaps be that magic is recessive and that Squibs have mutations that block or repress the magic gene, but that does not explain why the children of a magician and a muggle have magical powers. Alternatively, it could be controlled by several genes.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: The zombie-equivalents are named Inferius in singular form and Inferi in plural form. According to proper latin grammar, the plural of "Inferius" should be "Inferii".
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Many of the characters of non-British origin have names that do not fit their background.
  • For example, "Cho Chang" consists of two Chinese surnames, so the Chinese translation renamed her "Zhāng Qiū". However alternately Cho Chang can be interpreted as a name rendered in the more archaic Wade-Giles romanization system (more commonly used by the "old-stock" Chinese diaspora) where it would convert to "Zhuo Zhang" in the modern Pinyin system. Zhuo (倬) is a fairly common unisex given name in Chinese, and can be rendered in other perfectly valid given names in Chinese.
  • Bulgarian surnames almost always end in -ov/-ev (male) or -ova/-eva (female), but Viktor Krum and his Bulgarian Quidditch team-mates have surnames that do not fit this pattern.
  • The name of Durmstrang Institute sounds German, but doesn't actually mean anything (though it resembles, and was possibly inspired by, the phrase "Sturm und Drang" - storm and stress). Just to make matters worse, Durmstrang is said to be located in far northern Europe (most probably northern Norway), not Germany.
• As You Know:
  • An in-universe example. In the Daily Prophet, Muggle terms are occasionally defined to the readers: a gun is a "kind of metal wand which Muggles use to kill each other", and a policeman is "a Muggle law-keeper".
  • In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the text reminds the reader of the purpose of Polyjuice Potion, which becomes significant near the end of the book. This reminder is missing in the film, which would make the film harder to understand for somebody who had not seen Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
• Audience Shift: As Harry and the original audience grew older, the maturity level of the books "grew" as well, making it so that whereas the early books are straight children's literature, the later ones fall more into the YA genre. Though it will be tricky for future generations of Potter fans, it makes sense when you realize the series took over a decade to be released in full; the 10-year olds who were reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997 were 20-year olds by the time they were reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007.
• Author Usurpation: While J. K. Rowling has written books after finishing Harry Potter, discussion about her career always focuses on Harry Potter and nothing else.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Animagus transformation is largely considered more trouble than it's worth. To begin with, it's a particularly difficult branch of the already particularly difficult art of Transfiguration, and the consequences of botching the job are said to be disastrous. Even when carried out successfully, one is instantly labelled a criminal unless one gives full public disclosure of one's skill and animal form to the government to prevent misuse, which rather jives with the fact that stealth and inconspicuousness are the skill's main use. Even with all this, the form taken by the Animagus is fixed and determined by their personality, so they can easily end up with a useless conspicuous form for all their trouble. Cats, dogs, and beetles? Useful and mundane-looking in any backdrop. Huge deer? Not so much.

B

• Bad Powers, Bad People: Double Subverted: Parseltongue is usually an ability only found in evil wizards, or Slytherins as they are usually called. Harry is good and runs into trouble when people assume that he's bad because he possesses it. It turns out in the last book that the reason Harry has it is because it belongs to Voldemort, who gave him the ability when he accidentally turned Harry into a sixth Horcrux. And when Harry loses the fragment of Voldemort's soul residing in his body, he supposedly loses the ability with it.
• Badass Family: The Weasley siblings already include a curse-breaker, a dragon rancher, and a prefect when the books begin, and all of them go on to be successful in various fields. And let it be put on record that the matriarch of this family, Molly, kills Bellatrix, who is the second-most-powerful Death Eater after Voldemort himself. The fact that they happen to be close friends of Harry Potter (who himself is considered a member of the family, in more ways than one) certainly helps.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name:
  • Hermione's name was changed to "Hermine Granger" in the German translations.
  • The Swedish translation changes Gilderoy Lockhart to Gyllenroy Lockman, so that the reference to "gilded locks" in his name will be retain in Swedish ("Gyllene lockar").
  • The nature of the person who stole Voldemort's Horcrux at the end of book six relied on identifying who initialed the letter to Voldemort "RAB". Barring the introduction of a new character, there were a few characters who could have those initials running around, but then the fans got online and compared the line in various translated works across multiple languages and found that each separate translation had one character who was consistently on the list: Regulus Arcturus Black. Not only that, but it spoiled where the Horcrux was taken.
  • In the Hungarian translations, some characters, instead of getting a full Dub Name Change or keeping their original names, have their names slightly altered:
    • Minerva McGonagall to Minerva McGalagony.
    • Argus Filch to Argus Frics.
    • Vincent Crabbe to Vincent Crak,
    • Blaise Zabini to Blaise Zambini
    • Igor Karkaroff to Igor Karkarov.
    • The Death Eater named Rowle gets his name changed to Rowell, because the name "Rowle" was used in an earlier book as Tom Riddle's middle name to keep his Significant Anagram.
  • In French the Gryffindor house become the Gryffondor house.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Ghosts are people who either refused or were too scared to accept death and move on. Apparently, there's no take-backs later on if you change your mind.
• Batman Gambit: Much of Dumbledore's extensive plan for the year following his death as explained to Harry at the end of Deathly Hallows was based on how he expected Harry, Ron, and Hermione to act.
• Battle Couple: Many. Examples include Lupin and Tonks, Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione, and Arthur and Molly.
• Beam-O-War:
  • Spells have been known to clash and cancel each other out, though there's at least one instance of two characters firing spells at each other where the beams hit each other and ricochet off at angles, each hitting the person standing right next to the intended target.
  • Priori Incatatem, the current image for the trope page, is a magical phenomenon known exactly for this. It occurs when two wands which share the same (or directly related) cores are used against one another in combat. The wizards involved are surrounded by golden light as their wands connect by a partially tangible golden thread, and the two have a more internal battle of will and determination.
• The Beautiful Elite:
  • The students of Slytherin House (many of whom are from wealthy and/or "pureblood" wizarding families) tend to be very physically beautiful if they don't have ugly inbred looks, as do their parents. Draco Malfoy is an example, although he can be snivelling and cowardly in his school years, whilst Blaise Zabini as more sophisticated and haughty as befits this trope, though they still don't come across as quite as willfuly evil as their elders are.
  • Lucius Malfoy has a pale, pointed-featured visage like his son, and if being a horribly-Fantastic Racist jackass isn't bad enough, he's also a first-generation Death Eater who willingly served Voldemort's first campaign of terror and does so again following the Dark Lord's return. It's also implied that Blaise Zabini's mother, who's mentioned to be famously beautiful, is a Black Widow.
  • In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hogwarts plays host to two other schools for the Triwizard Tournament. The Students of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic had a reputation for skilled witches, the most skilled of which would have turned up to compete in the Tournament and they were noted for turning the heads of the attending pubescent boys
• Because Destiny Says So: Played with. Harry's destiny is self-fulfilling precisely because Voldemort insists on fulfilling it. Dumbledore suggests that not all prophecies must be fulfilled.
• Begin with a Finisher: Despite having plenty of other powerful spells up his sleeve, the Big Bad Lord Voldemort usually just fires a Killing Curse at anyone who dares oppose him.
• Beleaguered Boss: Downplayed in the case of Quidditch: While Wood takes the sport as Serious Business, organizing training sessions at dawn and keeps reminding his players between classes that the match is coming up, the team is sufficiently well-knit that it can be played for humour. Then in fifth year, Angelina Johnson becomes Captain and admits she might have been too hard on Wood (the fact that one of the teachers personally hates them and Ron is a very sub-par replacement for Wood doesn't make it easier). When Harry takes over in his sixth year, he not only has to deal with the usual Slytherin attacks and sabotage but Ron's lack of self-confidence and Cormac, the backup Keeper who clearly thinks he should be Captain and often acts as though this is the case, accidentally costing Griffyndor a match when he was explaining to a Beater how to do their job and ended up knocking Harry out.
• Big Bad: Voldemort. Harry's nemesis, Dark Lord, leader of the Death Eaters, and the initiator of two Wizarding Wars. Almost everything bad that has happened from the past 50 years to the Wizarding World can be traced back to him in some way.
• Big Labyrinthine Building: Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic. Hogwarts in particular has all kinds of tunnels and underground caverns that few or no people know about, like the subterranean passageways to Hogsmeade that are an important plot point in Prisoner of Azkaban and the giant room deep underneath the school that houses the basilisk in Chamber of Secrets.
• Big "SHUT UP!":
  • Harry notably says this to Severus Snape in Chapter 14 of Prisoner of Azkaban. Snape is trying to bust Harry for illegally sneaking into Hogsmeade and launches into a tirade of insults about Harry's father, which leads to Harry saying this to him and admitting that he knew James saved Snape's life while they were in school.
  • Played for Laughs in Order of the Phoenix after Harry is found innocent after his hearing at the Ministry of Magic and Fred, George, and Ginny say, "He got off, he got off, he got off" over and over again, which Mrs. Weasley finds so annoying that she ultimately says this to them.
  • Downplayed in Chapter 3 of Half-Blood Prince when Dumbledore is discussing the minutiae of Sirius' will and reveals that the Black family's house elf, Kreacher, has passed into Harry's ownership. Kreacher of course protests this, and repetedly says that he "won't", to which Harry responds by saying this to him. This not only shuts Kreacher up, but proves that Harry is indeed his new rightful owner, rather than Bellatrix Lestrange (which, according to Dumbledore, would have been the alternative).
  • In the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, when the apparently dead body of Harry is presented to the survivors at Hogwarts, Voldemort says this to them to quell them after they all begin screaming and crying with grief. Voldemort succeeds in silencing them with a silencing spell, but only briefly.
• Birds of a Feather:
  • Harry and Ginny are both Quidditch-loving Leos with dark senses of humour. They also share a history with Voldemort that leads to their first deep conversation in Order of the Phoenix when Ginny is the only one who can reassure Harry that Voldemort isn't possessing him because she knows what that would be like.
  • Neville and Hannah share an interest in Herbology, fierce loyalty, and courage as members of Dumbledore's Army, and massive self-esteem issues which hold back Neville for years and cause Hannah to have a breakdown in the middle of her O.W.L. exams.
• Birthday Buddies: Downplayed. Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter were actually born a day apart — 30th and 31st of July 1980, respectively — but this turns out to be an incredibly Significant Birth Date since the prophecy that pushed Voldemort to kill Harry's parents (and thus kick-start the whole plot) specifies that "the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies." Voldemort took this to mean Harry, but it could have also very easily been Neville, which is also noted by the characters in the story.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Quirrell and Umbridge both fake niceness in order to conceal extreme evil. The latter is arguably the queen of this trope.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Prisoner of Azkaban. Even though Sirius manages to convince Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, and Lupin of his innocence, Wormtail still gets away, preventing Sirius's true exoneration before the Ministry and eventually bringing about Voldemort's resurrection a year later. And the only good and skilled Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher quits to avoid being fired after Snape reveals that he's a werewolf.
  • Deathly Hallows. Even though Voldemort is finally dead, and most of the Death Eaters are killed or captured, Hedwig, Moody, Dobby, Colin, Fred, Lupin, Tonks, and Snape all died in the process.
• Black-and-White Morality: The series starts out this way. Dumbledore is the Big Good, Harry and his friends are the heroes, the other students are generally nice except for the Slytherins, and Voldemort is the Big Bad. As the series goes on, it adds more and more shades of grey with turncoats on both sides, a corrupt government opposing Voldemort, heroes paying evil unto evil, and Harry discovering that his father and Dumbledore have... complicated backstories.
• Black-and-Gray Morality:
  • Played with. The Ministry of Magic is definitely grey; although they're much better than the Death Eaters, they have more than their share of Quislings, Fantastic Racists, and Obstructive Bureaucrats. Harry and his friends/family are more on the unblemished side, but not entirely.
  • Harry occasionally slips towards this in battle; when crossed or when his friends are threatened, Harry can become quite pitiless, instinctively resorting to the nastiest/most powerful curses he can think of (save Avada Kedavra). He even casts the Cruciatus Curse at a few points (though he never uses it very effectively; as Bellatrix explains after he tries it on her, in order to cast an Unforgivable Curse successfully, you have to really want to go through with it — the one time Harry does the spell properly, he really does mean it).
• Black Cloak: Death Eaters wear them. Dementors wear them. The Hogwarts school uniform includes black robes.
• Black Widow: Heavily implied in the case of Blaise Zabini's mother, who has had seven husbands who each died under mysterious circumstances and left her large amounts of gold.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: The Expelliarmus spell, which is intended for exactly this purpose. Amusingly, the spell seems capable of disarming a person of anything, whether it's a weapon or a book.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: In the books, if you pool the main and beta trios, you get one of each gender — Neville (whom JKR once stated she pictured as a blond) and Luna the blondes, Harry and Hermione the brunettes, and Ron and Ginny the redheads.
• Bloodless Carnage: The Killing Curse's inability to leave physical injuries on bodies provides a convenient excuse for not describing much blood and gore, so most deaths in the series play this straight because they are bloodless and painless. That said, there are spells for dismembering, and they can get bloody indeed. Sectumsempra in particular averts this trope by slashing the target with essentially invisible blades, with predictable results.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: House-elves, like Dobby and Kreacher, are so fiercely loyal to their masters/mistresses (this includes their family and anyone who is given ownership of said house-elf) that they will do almost literally anything for them. They would even maim themselves if it means their master(s) would be pleased!
  • However, due to a lot of mistreatment by many owners, they can make use of loopholes within their masters' orders to try and help other people. They will, however, still obey their masters when given a direct order.
  • House-elves seem to enjoy being enslaved, sometimes even feeling insulted should their masters try to reward them materially.
  • Crossing over with Cool and Unusual Punishment, the old house-elves of the House of Black having their heads stuffed and mounted on a wall was considered their highest honour (probably out of respect for their services)!
• Boarding School: Students at Hogwarts generally live at Hogwarts and go back home during holidays.
• Boarding School of Horrors:
  • Adventurous though it may be, Hogwarts plays this trope to the hilt in a lot of ways:
    • On Harry's first day at school, there's an announcement to the student body to please not enter the third floor corridor unless you want to die horribly.
    • There is a rampant, unchecked bullying problem that has been ongoing for at least half a century (Harry's father was a bully himself, while Harry and later, Harry's son were both victims of it).
    • Dumbledore knowingly hired two different teachers he knew for a fact were incapable of doing the job he hired them to do, while two other staff members display, at the best of times, undisguised disdain for students.
    • Voldemort himself went there half a century ago and arranged a lot of "nasty incidents", including the murder of another student (who still hangs around as a ghost).
    • It gets, if possible, worse during the brief tenures of Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the Carrow siblings in Deathly Hallows as temporary Headmasters of the school. During the latter, some prefects took to using the Cruciatus curse on first years (about 11 years old) for refusing to use it themselves in the now-mandatory Dark Arts class (Defence Against the Dark Arts having been dropped from the curriculum).
  • Smeltings Academy, the all-boys Muggle school Dudley goes to and that Uncle Vernon attended in his youth, seems to channel the Victorian schools that originated this trope. The uniform includes a gnarled stick for the students to hit each other with when the teachers are not looking. This is supposedly a great help in preparing the students for the future.
  • This is presumably the case at St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys, the school that Harry attends in the cover story that Uncle Vernon tells his sister Marge to prevent her finding out the truth about Harry. At Vernon's prompting, Harry admits to receiving frequent beatings intended to stamp out his deviant behaviour. It's unclear if the school actually exists in the narrative, or if Uncle Vernon fabricated it for the story.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Massive amounts from Voldemort, who does many things that the Evil Overlord List advises you not to do. Probably more a case of Sanity Has Advantages than anything else.
  • Mentioned frequently by Dumbledore, that Tom Riddle/Voldemort never bothered to study those powers he already considered useless, meaning Voldemort's plans could always be defeated by such "trivial" things as Love.
  • He did follow the Evil Overlord List's suggestion to leave (one of) the item(s) that is the source of his power and his greatest weakness in his safe deposit box instead of a dungeon (well, somebody else's safe deposit box), but that doesn't stop the heroes from stealing it anyway.
  • He also followed #101, by not delegating away the task of killing "the infant who is destined to overthrow [him]", but trying to kill Harry himself. That worked rather brilliantly.
  • In perhaps his final big villain stupidity moment, he makes one of his lackeys check to see if Harry is dead, not doing it himself or using a messy non-magic way of ensuring his greatest opponent remains dead. Of course, he's physically exhausted from the backlash of his curse, so he can't well do it himself.
• Book Dumb: Ron isn't a diligent student, though when he does try, he proves to be quite adept. Fred and George are even worse academically, but they're experts in magical joke item inventions, which eventually gets them far in the business world.
• Bookends:
  • Harry's life with the Dursleys. When he was one, having recently lost his parents and disembodied Voldemort, Hagrid brings him to Privet Drive riding Sirius' magical motorcycle. When he is about to become seventeen, with the magical protections about to fall, Hagrid is the one that carries Harry out of Privet Drive on the same motorcycle. Hagrid even lampshades it.
  • Also, in book one: Ron: "Are you a witch or not?" In book seven: Hermione: "Are you a wizard or what?"
  • Harry's thoughts on Snape is first a question, "Who is that man?" His thoughts on him after Voldemort's final defeat and after Snape's death? It's an answer to that very question, "The bravest man I ever knew."
  • The entire series effectively begins and ends with Voldemort getting the Avada Kedavra curse reflected back at him by Harry. In the first book, Voldemort's power is negated by Lily's selfless sacrifice; his spells won't keep during the final battle because Harry willingly gives his life to save his friends (he gets better).
  • The entire series also ends with the death of a couple with a young son: James and Lily Potter at the beginning, leaving their son Harry an orphan, and Lupin and Tonks, leaving their son Teddy an orphan.
  • Also invoked for students at Hogwarts. When first years begin at Hogwarts, they are taken by boats to the school (in Harry’s case led by Hagrid). For the remainder of their tenure at Hogwarts, they ride carriages pulled by Thestrals until their graduation at the end of their seventh year, in which they ride the boats away from Hogwarts.
  • The third-to-last chapter of Book 1 is called "The Forbidden Forest"; the third-to-last chapter in Book 7 is called "The Forest Again". In both, Harry encounters Voldemort in some capacity.
• Boomerang Bigot:
  • Played with with Voldemort. One of the goals of the Death Eaters is the elimination of any wizard who isn't pure-blooded, especially if they are Muggle-born, but Voldemort himself is a half-blood (his father was a Muggle). But then, he is based on Adolf Hitler (see below). However, there are implications that he doesn't actually care about blood supremacy and is just using it as a front to gather followers and gain power. This leaves whether or not he's actually a boomerang bigot open to interpretation.
  • Snape is a double hitter — in his youth, he was highly prejudiced against Muggles and Muggle-borns despite being a half-blood himself and in love with a particular Muggle-born; as an adult teacher, he mocks Hermione for being, as he once put it, "an insufferable know-it-all" — ironic coming from Snape, who is himself an Insufferable Genius.
• Boring, but Practical: The Expelliarmus and Stupefy spells. They are not overly flashy and don't cause any funny hexes to their victims, but they disarm them or knock them unconscious, rendering them incredibly helpful in most perilous situations. This is discussed in book 5, when Harry teaches Dumbledore's Army the Expelliarmus spell: One of the students complains that this spell is boring, whereupon Harry sharply remarks that this spell had saved his life.
• Born of Magic:
  • The most obvious example of magically-generated consciousness is the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, after "the founders put some brains in [him]" via unspecified magic.
  • Most 'common' magical items are not differentiated as being sentient, or merely enchanted to appear as such.
• Brain Bleach: The reason why Rowling has yet to reveal the exact method of creating a Horcrux. It supposedly made one of her editors vomit. (For note, one of the steps is committing murder in order to split your soul to place it in the Horcrux. Murder is one thing, but the entire process is implied to involve crossing the Moral Event Horizon, and it's certainly treated as such in-universe. For one Horcrux.)
• Break the Haughty: The last two books are an extended exercise in Break The Haughty for the Malfoy family, after Lucius bungles the retrieval of the prophecy at the end of Order of the Phoenix. Draco's assignment to kill Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince is essentially elaborate torture for the Malfoys, as Voldemort believes Draco will fail and die in the attempt, or he'll fail and Voldemort will kill him. Draco himself is horrified when his Vanishing Cabinet stunt winds up letting the homicidal monster Fenrir Greyback into Hogwarts. Deathly Hallows finds the Malfoy family the Butt Monkeys of the Death Eaters, living in utter terror of Voldemort. In his last appearance, Lucius has a black eye.
• Brick Joke:
  • In the opening chapter of the first book, Hagrid mentions borrowing a motorbike from Sirius Black. Two books later, we learn that Sirius Black was arrested soon after this; twelve years later, he escapes the wizard prison Azkaban in order to hunt down Peter Pettigrew, who faked his death after betraying the whereabouts of Harry's parents to Voldemort.
  • In Chamber of Secrets, Peeves the poltergeist breaks an "incredibly valuable" vanishing cabinet at the behest of Nearly Headless Nick. In Order of the Phoenix, Fred and George stuff Montague into the same cabinet in order to shut him up. In the very next book, the cabinet becomes one of the most lethal parts of Chekhov's Armoury in the entire series, allowing the Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts and usurp the current management.
  • In what is perhaps the most elusive brick joke in the series, at the start of book 5, Harry and Dudley are attacked by Dementors. After Harry fights them off, he attempts to explain to his aunt and uncle what happened, only to realize it's hopeless because neither of them have any idea what he's talking about. Petunia finally says that "they guard the wizard prison, Azkaban", and Harry asks how she could possibly know that. Petunia responds with "I overheard — that awful boy — telling her about them, years ago." At the time (and even after finishing the series), everyone simply assumed "that awful boy" to be Harry's father, James Potter. However, at the very end of book 7, we find out that it was actually Severus Snape. While watching his memories, Harry witnesses the scene "first-hand", but it's played so quickly and amidst so many other things very few people pick up on it.
• Broken Aesop: Has its own page.
• Building of Adventure: Hogwarts is the setting for many, many adventures.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Neville "Why's It Always Me?" Longbottom is always the punchline in slapstick jokes. His family tried to kill him in order to see if he had magical skills, for God's sake.
  • Peter Pettigrew (during his days at Hogwarts) did little but get mocked by his peers.
  • In addition to being the Butt-Monkey of Houses, many Hufflepuff characters are this:
    • Ernie Macmillan is laughed at because his first attempt at Apparition involves him entering his target hoop by performing "a kind of pirouetting leap" and acting like he successfully teleported;
    • Hannah Abbott gets exam nerves aplenty in Book 5, followed by her mother dying in Book 6;
    • Justin Finch-Fletchley is almost attacked by a snake at the duelling club and is later Petrified;
    • Susan Bones has had most of her family die, including her aunt Amelia in Book 6, and gets Splinched in Apparition lessons;
    • Zacharias Smith is repeatedly belittled due to his cynicism about the D.A., then Ginny hexes him for prying into the events at the Battle of the Department of Mysteries (and she gets off scot-free).
  • There is a minor character (Dawlish) who is sort of a background Butt-Monkey in that the only time we see him, he gets defeated in one hit, and whenever he is mentioned, he has been cursed or failed in something. Neville's grandmother even puts him in St. Mungo's. This is pretty shocking when you consider he's an Auror, the equivalent of magic police (who above that are also elite dark wizard catchers), and is therefore supposed to be skilled at defensive magic.
• By the Eyes of the Blind: Thestrals are only visible to people who have witnessed death first-hand. Not only that, but they have to fully comprehend what they saw — Harry wasn't able to see thestrals when he first came to Hogwarts despite having witnessed the murder of his parents, but he is able to see them when he comes back for his fifth year after he saw a friend die.

C

• Calling Your Attacks: Played straight at first, but justified in that you have to say the name of the spell in order to cast it. However, it gets subverted when a major portion of the sixth-year curriculum turns out to be learning how to cast spells without calling them, specifically so that you don't alert your enemies as to what you are doing.
• Canis Latinicus: Downplayed. Some of the spells are genuine Latin, others correct Latin but improperly conjugated for the given purpose, and some only vaguely resemble anything in real Latin.
  • "Accio", "Crucio", "Reparo" etc. are all correct Latin incantations that just describe the effects of the spell with the first-person singular form of the relevant verb ("I summon", "I torture", "I repair" etc.).
  • "Expecto patronum" is authentic Latin for "I await (my/the) protector" (inflecting "patronus" into the accusative form). However, other spells like "Oculus reparo" leave the object in the nominative.
  • Imperio is the incantation for the Mind Control curse as if it meant "I command", possibly because it sounds more euphonic than the correct "impero". "Imperio" is a word, but is the dative form of the word for "empire" (and is also the Spanish word for "empire").
• Can't Live Without You: Inverted by the prophecy in the fifth book — "Neither can live while the other survives."
• Capture and Replicate: Polyjuice Potion can allow one to mimic any person, but it requires a piece of the person, usually a hair. The piece must be recent and taken while the subject is alive, so in order to impersonate them for more than a few hours, it's necessary to keep them captive somewhere. To protect against the technique, people who are at risk of being replaced use Trust Passwords.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Godelot, a historical personage and author of Magick Most Evile, revelled in his villainy (although a passage quoted in Half-Blood Prince indicates that even he would not dare go into the field of Horcruxes).
• Catchphrase: Several characters have one.
  • Hermione: "I read about it in Hogwarts: A History."
  • Moody: "Constant vigilance!"
  • Umbridge: "Hem hem."
  • Slughorn: "Merlin's beard!"
• Category Traitor: The Death Eaters consider wizardry to be in the blood. They also feel that all "real" wizards are obliged to be "loyal" to "their own kind", and thus despise all regular humans, fantasy creatures, and above all else, the so-called "mud-bloods" — Muggle-born wizards (and later, once they resurface and begin openly fighting the Order of the Phoenix, any and all wizards who don't agree with the Death Eater ideology's arbitrary definition of a "real" wizard). Unsurprisingly, their contempt for pure-blood and half-blood wizards who care for muggles and "mudbloods" turns out to become a big part of their undoing, as young Snape loses faith in them because of his love for the "mud-blood" witch Lily Evans.
• Catlike Dragons: The Chinese Fireball dragon — which is loosely based upon the mythical Chinese long — is alternately known as the "lion-dragon" and sports a leonine visage with a mane of spikes around its neck and a short, cat-like snout.
• Cats Are Magic: Cats are one of three pets allowed in Hogwarts, the others being owls and toads. Hermione adopts a cat she names Crookshanks; Crookshanks is eventually revealed to be part Kneazle (a near-sentient literally magic cat).
• Cardboard Prison: Despite being reportedly inescapable, Azkaban can't hold any plot-relevant characters for more than a book. We first learn about the prison when it's learned that Sirius Black has escaped, then Goblet of Fire reveals an escapee who preceded him, and Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows both feature mass break-outs, though those are attributed to the jailors (the Dementors) favouring their evil inmates to the lawful Ministry.
• Censored Child Death: Although there are at least two children whose deaths are important to the backstory, Myrtle and Ariana, both of them are long dead by the present and their deaths are only described secondhand. The closest the series gets to killing a child on the page is when Voldemort kills two German kids in the last book but even then Harry's vision cuts away as he kills their mother first.
• Central Theme: Love is what makes us strongest. Prejudice and bigotry are bad. Everybody has to die eventually.
  • For her part, J. K. Rowling says that the central theme is death: "The theme of how we react to death, how much we fear it. Of course, I think which is a key part of the book because Voldemort is someone who will do anything not to die. He's terrified of death. And in many ways, all of my characters are defined by their attitude to death and the possibility of death."
  • Also, whether certain values — courage, intelligence, hard-work, and cunning — can be easily sorted and identified. People can be brave in all sorts of unexpected ways, even the Bookworm can't know everything, and everyone needs a good deal of cunning to survive. Even the best magic in the world can't identify What You Are in the Dark, and there are many cases where people "sort too soon" and judge too readily.
  • How do our childhoods, for better or worse, shape who we become? Harry's bad childhood made him compassionate and heroic but Voldemort's broadly similar one made him a sadistic megalomaniac. Dumbledore's childhood made him secretive and manipulative, traits he shares with his brother, etc.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The darkness of the plot was there from the beginning, but it gets more visible as the story progresses, so that a fun mystery-adventure story turns into a mid-war drama about mortality and grief.
• Chameleon Camouflage: The Dissillusionment Charm has this effect, and if done well enough, can confer actual invisibility. Putting it on a garment is one way to make an Invisibility Cloak, though the charm fades over time.
• Changeling Fantasy: Harry's is fulfilled when Hagrid takes him to the wizarding world. From a life of abuse and misery at the hands of the awful Dursleys, he is suddenly told that he is a wizard and plucked into a whole new world.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The book titles all follow the pattern of "Harry Potter and the..."
• Chekhov's Armoury: Chekhov's Gun is common in the series; e.g., The Deluminator. Fans obsess over details in earlier books, looking for hidden Chekhov's Guns, to the point where J.K. Rowling made a public apology about accidentally giving a minor, unimportant character the same last name as Harry's mum.
• Chekhov's Boomerang:
  • Felix Felicis is a potion Harry acquires in his Potions classes that provides the drinker with good luck. Hermione and Ron think Harry spiked Ron with it for one of the Quidditch matches — he hadn't — and the confidence Ron gained from the thought brought him up enough to win the game. Later, Harry uses it to get the true memory from Slughorn where Tom Riddle asked him about Horcruxes. Soon after that, Harry gives his friends the rest of the potion when he and Dumbledore leave Hogwarts, thinking that is when Malfoy is going to make his move. It causes every spell shot at Harry's friends to miss, saving their lives.
  • Sirius's magical mirror is given to Harry in The Order of the Phoenix as a gift. Harry doesn't make actual use of it until the seventh book, where Harry begins to start seeing Dumbledore's eyes in the mirror. In a bind, Harry gives a plea for help into the mirror, allowing Dobby to find and rescue them. Later, in Hogsmeade, Harry and co. get saved by a stranger who turns out to be connected to the mirror: Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, had the other half of the mirror and used it to see Harry and know he was coming to Hogsmeade when he did.
• Chekhov's Classroom: Hermione pulls one of these in nearly every book. The other characters do, too, to a lesser extent.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The series has its own page.
  • More accurately, Chekhov's Wand. We learn that Harry and Voldemort's wands share a common source for their magical cores; it takes on plot significance from book 4 onward. Also, the Vanishing Cabinet, and Godric Gryffindor's Sword. Along with a fair laundry list of other objects. Of the six Horcruxes, we actually see five of them before they are recognized for what they are: Tom Riddle's diary, Slytherin's locket, Ravenclaw’s lost diadem, Nagini the snake, and Harry himself.
  • The vanishing cabinets are first mentioned in book 2, one at Hogwarts and the other at a Knockturn Alley shop. This particular gun waits until book 6 to be fired.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Mrs. Figg. Harry's dotty old neighbor lady on Privet Drive, who occasionally babysits Harry when the Dursleys want him gone for a while, as described early in the first book. Book 5 reveals that she is a Squib, that unlike some Squibs she is still in contact with the magical world, and she has been keeping an eye on Harry for years for Dumbledore.
  • Cedric Diggory is introduced in a brief and basically unimportant cameo in Prisoner of Azkaban, as captain of and Seeker for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. This appearance, in which Cedric offers to replay the match after an appearance by the dementors results in Harry fainting and Cedric catching the Snitch, serves to establish Cedric as decent and honourable. Cedric then becomes a pivotal character in the next book, Goblet of Fire.
  • Grindelwald, mentioned in the Philosopher's Stone and barely ever brought up again until Deathly Hallows.
  • The barman at the Hog's Head, first seen but not named in book 5, when Harry thinks he looks "vaguely familiar" when the students meet at the Hog's Head to form a Defense Against the Dark Arts club. In book 6 Harry, who still doesn't know his name, spots the barman at Albus Dumbledore's funeral. In the last book he's revealed to be Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, and he's pivotal to the plot.
  • The name Regulus Black briefly comes up in one of the books, then becomes significantly more important in Deathly Hallows.
  • The name Sirius Black gets mentioned in passing in the very first chapter of the very first book; he only comes up again in the third book, as the title character.
  • The Lovegoods also get a brief mention early in The Goblet of Fire, although Luna doesn't become important until the next novel, and her father until the 7th.
  • In a way, Slytherin's Monster. She only appears in one book, as one of the main antagonists, and it seems like she probably shouldn't be important to the plot after she dies... Wrong. It's later revealed that her venom is one of the only ways of destroying Lord Voldemort's horcruxes, something that comes to bite the Dark Lord in the butt. Repeatedly. If only that one horcrux hadn't opened the Chamber again...
  • Griphook, the goblin who shows Harry to his vault in Philosopher's Stone, reappears in Deathly Hallows with an important role. Mr. Ollivander, who sells Harry his wand in Philosopher's Stone, also is more important to the plot in Deathly Hallows.
  • Scabbers, Ron's pet rat, mentioned occasionally as comic relief in the first two books and then part of a comic subplot in the third book when Hermione's cat wants to eat him. He's revealed to be Peter Pettigrew, the villain of the third book, and he's pivotal to how the rest of the series plays out.
  • Harry receives a warning letter from Mafalda Hopkirk of the Improper Use of Magic office. She also sends him a notice in Order of the Phoenix and is impersonated by Hermione in Deathly Hallows.
  • One of the kids' textbooks throughout the series is A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, who becomes important in Deathly Hallows.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • Ron's aptitude for wizard chess becomes important in getting the group past the defences for the Philosopher's Stone.
  • Harry's prodigious skill with casting a Patronus becomes useful in a variety of situations involving Dementors beyond the initial purpose of defending himself from Dementors during Quidditch games.
  • Hermione having taken Ancient Runes comes into play in the seventh book, as her copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard was written in runic alphabet.
  • Neville's skill at Herbology becomes useful during the final battle, when he weaponizes Mandrakes against the bad guys.
  • Harry's Quidditch playing. He's good at flying and good at spotting and getting ahold of small golden objects. This comes in handy when he has to catch a flying key in The Philosopher's Stone, and when he has to get the dragon's egg in the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament.
  • Harry's Seeker skills and the generally harmless "Expelliarmus" spell both play key roles in Harry's final defeat of Voldemort.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Several:
  • Of the Unlucky kind, Snape was friends with Lily when they were kids, and loved her, but she ended up with James instead.
  • Of the Victorious kind: Ginny, for Harry. Ron, for Hermione.
• The Chooser of the One: Voldemort (unknowingly) got to choose his arch-enemy, and picked Harry.
• The Chosen One: Harry Potter. Played with, in that it's the Big Bad, Voldemort, who himself is The Chooser of the One. As Book 5 points out the prophecy could have been interpreted as referring to Neville Longbottom. Still, Voldemort did choose Harry and made him The Chosen One. Harry even says "I am the chosen one" to Slughorn in Book 6, when he's badgering Slughorn into giving up a crucial memory.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Harry does sort of have a "saving people thing", as Hermione puts it. This is also lampshaded by Ron in the fourth book. He mentions that Harry couldn't help "playing the hero."
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Ludo Bagman plays an important role in the fourth novel, however he never appears again after escaping from the goblins. He is only briefly mentioned in the next book.
  • Cornelius Fudge was not seen at all in the last book. It's unknown what happened to him following the take over at the Ministry.
  • Florean Fortescue was kidnapped at the beginning of the sixth book yet we never learn about what happened to him.
  • Sally-Anne Perks was sorted right before Harry in book one and is never mentioned again. Even in the exams in book five, her name was skipped.
• The Clan:
  • Deconstructed with the House of Black, a well-known pure-blood family known in previous generations for its fixation with blood purity. Was once wealthy but the loss of numbers and the fact that quite a few of its named members are a bit nuts, has veered more toward Big, Screwed-Up Family.
  • The Weasleys, despite their massive numbers (even outside the ones directly introduced in the series), don't meet the requisites otherwise — until arguably the epilogue, by which point Arthur and Molly Weasley's children and children-in-law include professional athletes, successful businessmen, known geniuses, war heroes, dragon experts, the Minister of Magic... and Harry Potter himself.
• Classical Chimera: While they don't appear directly, chimeras are mentioned in the books, in particular in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where it is said that Elphias Doge encountered chimeras in Greece. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them gives a more specific description, where it's stated that a chimera has a lion's head, a goat's body and a dragon's tail.
• Clever Crows: Ravenclaw House, although intelligence is its defining trait and it is not the most sinister of the Houses. Despite the name, Ravenclaw's mascot is an eagle.
• Clock of Power: The Time-Turner is described as a "tiny, sparkling hourglass attached to a very fine, long gold chain". Turning it allows the wearer to go back in time one hour.
• Coincidental Disguise-Complementing Trait: This happens a few times when characters are disguised as somebody else, using Polyjuice Potion, and accidentally do something that puts them even more in character.
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: When Harry and Ron disguise themselves as Malfoy's less intelligent cronies Crabbe and Goyle, they struggle with the act at first. When Ron is surprised by something Malfoy says, his jaw drops so that Crabbe looks even more gormless than usual. Soon after this, they completely fail to laugh at Malfoy mocking Colin Creevey, and Malfoy demands "What's the matter with you two?". The narrative notes that perhaps Crabbe and Goyle are always slow on the uptake.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: When Hermione is disguised as Bellatrix, she meets another Death Eater, who is surprised to see her out and about. In reply, she sneers that the Dark Lord forgives those who have been faithful to him in the past, and adds that perhaps his credit with him is not as good as hers.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The Cruciatus Curse inflicts extreme pain and is one of the three illegal Unforgivable Curses. Prolonged exposure to the curse, as happened to Neville's parents, can cause severe and permanent mental damage.
  • Umbridge's detentions are also an example of this, as she forces Harry (and later Lee Jordan and probably others) to use a dark magic quill that cuts the words onto the back of the writer's hand and uses their blood as ink.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Various colours are strongly associated with both good and evil across the story:
  • Red — either heroic spirit (House Gryffindor, The Weasleys, Ginny in particular, Lily Evans, also the non-lethal Stupefy and Expelliarmus spells) or evil tendencies (Voldemort's eyes in the book, the Cruciatus curse).
  • Green — either the mark of a powerful wizard or witch who is loving and self-sacrificing (Lily and Harry's eyes, later inherited by Albus) or the colour of the bigoted and often villainous House Slytherin as well as outright sinister powers such as the Killing curse and dark revival potions.
  • Blue — almost uniformly associated with calm and reasonable types (House Ravenclaw, Dumbledore's eyes), although Ron Weasley also has Innocent Blue Eyes mostly to contrast with his red hair and impulsive character. In the film, Patronuses are glowing blue and on the evil side, Voldemort has Icy Blue Eyes which fit well in his scenes in Hollywood Darkness.
  • Yellow — either friendly, down-to-earth people (House Hufflepuff) or evil magic such as the Imperius curse or a Basilisk's eyes.
  • Purple — either the sign of a great benevolent force (Dumbledore) or Dark magic (Quirrell's turban and Antonin Dolohov's signature curse).
  • White — almost uniformly connected to goodness (Albus Dumbledore, Patronuses), except Voldemort's unnatural chalk-white skin. The final stage of Voldemort's body regeneration potion is also glows so bright white that Harry sees it through eyes screwed shut.
  • Gray — linked to sneaky characters (Scabbers) or outright evil ones (Fenrir Greyback). The cold and haughty Malfoys have grey eyes.
  • Black — mostly perceived as evil, though the Black Cloak is worn by the school students and evil characters alike. Averted by Harry and James' black hair, Sirius Black, and Severus Snape. Played straight with the Dementors, Death Eaters, and the rest of the Black family.
  • Gold — paired with red (Gryffindor) symbolizes heroism Harry's Polyjuice Potion is also gold. Paired with green (Slytherin's locket, Tom Riddle's awards before The Reveal of his identity) hints of an evil presence.
  • Silver — can be good when paired with light (Patronus charm), neutral (memories in the book), or sinister (House Slytherin, Wormtail's hand). The Malfoys have silvery blonde hair.
• Coming of Age Story: Harry Potter is as much about growing up as it is about wizards.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Lord Voldemort is the consistent Big Bad, but each individual book also has its own secondary antagonist whose nature and motivations often say much about the themes and conflict at the heart of each instalment.
  • The Philosopher's Stone has Quirinus Quirrell, the frail and cowardly servant of the crippled Voldemort.
  • The Chamber of Secrets has "Tom Riddle", the ghostly echo of Voldemort's former self.
  • The Prisoner of Azkaban has Wormtail, the confidant of the Potters who betrayed his friends out of cowardice.
  • The Goblet of Fire has Barty Crouch Junior; Voldemort's mole at Hogwarts, the troubled young Death Eater initiate who remains faithful to Voldemort in the wake of his downfall.
  • The Order of the Phoenix has Dolores Umbridge, the corrupt Ministry bureaucrat who denies Voldemort's return.
  • The Half-Blood Prince has Draco Malfoy, who finally openly joins Voldemort after six years of lurking in the background at Hogwarts.
• Contrived Coincidence: A lot:
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
    • Subverted. While it might seem like it is a coincidence that Lucius Malfoy gave Tom Riddle's Diary to Ginny Weasley, who is the sister of Harry's best friend, but the animosity between the Malfoys and the Weasleys was mentioned the first time Harry met Ron (and the second time he met Lucius's son Draco). Slipping her the Diary was retaliation for Arthur's pro-muggle laws.
    • The victims of the Basilisk were stupendously lucky - they all just happened to look it in the eyes indirectly, so they got petrified instead of killed. Said indirect ways include: in a puddle of spilled water, through a camera (in the dark of the night, mind you), and through a ghost. The last victim specifically used a mirror to look around the corner, but the timing was still impeccable - if she was attacked half an hour earlier, she'd been dead, but if the Basilisk lingered a few more minutes, she would've reached a member of faculty with her newfound knowledge of the attacker's identity, and the whole plot would've been screwed.
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:
    • The plot kicks off because 1) The Weasleys win the wizard lottery, 2) this nets them a photo in the newspaper, 3) Ron's pet rat is in said picture, and 4) Cornelius Fudge just happens to be carrying this exact issue when he goes to visit Sirius Black.
    • Ron, who became Harry's best friend two years ago, is the owner of a pet rat that's really an animagus responsible for the murder of Harry's parents.
    • Fred and George happen to give Harry the Marauder's Map, which was created by Harry's father and his friends, in the same year that one of those friends is a teacher at the school and another broke out of Azkaban to kill the fourth. A sequence of events leads Lupin to regaining the Marauder's Map.
    • Harry also uses the Marauder's Map to get to Hogsmeade, and at a public pub just happens to overhear Hagrid, McGonagall, Fudge, and others discussing the truth about Harry's parents and godfather.
    • The one year that the plot relies on Time Travel just so happens to be the one year that Hermione owns a device capable of it.
  • In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a servant of Voldemort looking for his master runs into the only person in the wizarding world who can give the location of another, much more capable servant.
  • In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Voldermort is caught in a duel with Dumbledore long enough for the Minister of Magic and other Ministry employees to arrive to the scene and see him, proving Harry's and Dumbledore's claim that he had returned.
  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it is one hell of a coincidence that Harry was the one to receive Snape's old potion book full of nifty hints that won him a plot-essential luck potion and directed to the solution that saved Ron's life. Both assassination attempts by Draco Malfoy only failed to claim lives due to contrived coincidences.
    • Felix Felicis, lucky potion, works by exploiting contrived coincidences-Harry "accidentally" bumps into Ginny, leading to her having an argument with Dean and breaking up with him; Filch conveniently forgets to lock the doors, Slughorn just happens to be coming out of the greenhouses when Harry is there, etc.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
    • Right at the beginning, when dozens of Death Eaters chase Harry and his six impersonators the Order used as a diversion, naturally it's the real Harry who is engaged by Stan Shunpike, who Harry knows is under Mind Control. Harry therefore holds back, using his signature Disarming Spell, and exposes himself.
    • Later the Trio are looking for a very important locket. Not only did they happen to pay special attention to that specific locket out of all the assorted junk in a mansion a couple years ago, but then it turns out, that out of hundreds or thousands of wizards who could have bought the locket from a petty thief who stole it, it was not only a person that the kids knew, but the one with a peculiar enough appearance that the thief would remember her and they would recognize her from his sketchy description.
    • The Trio infiltrates the Ministry of Magic to track down that one particular person, disguising themselves as random Ministry officials. Almost immediately one of those disguises is invited by their mark to assist her at a hearing in a conveniently secluded location where they can safely steal the locket. Plus, in the film all the folks they impersonate with Polyjuice Potion (being just the first three people they could steal hair from) just happen to have the same hair colors as the actual Trio, so viewers can still easily tell who is who.
    • In all of Britain, Harry, Ron, and Hermione happen to be camping right near some goblins when they reveal plot information about the sword.
    • When Voldemort needs to check if Harry is dead, he chooses out of the dozens of his followers the only one who would have a reason to lie to him.
    • Harry only receives critical information because Voldemort murders Snape at a very particular time and in a very particular way and doesn't check if he's immediately dead.
    • Xenophilius Lovegood happens to wear an amulet with the Deathly Hallows symbol to Bill and Fleur's wedding in the same book in which Harry becomes the master of all three Hallows, all of them as a result of this trope: The Cloak of Invisibility is a family heirloom; Harry wins the Elder Wand because he disarmed Draco, who didn't know he was the master of the Elder Wand at the time; and he receives the Resurrection Stone from Dumbledore, who got it by accident when he was tracking down the Horcruxes, as Voldermort had turned it into one. And Voldemort had it because it was a family heirloom; he wasn't even aware that it was one of the Deathly Hallows.
    • Everything that relays to the Malfoy Manor incident and the Cup of Hufflepuff is one massive ball of coincidences. The heroes are captured because Harry randomly blurts out Voldemort's name. Their captors decide against taking them to the Ministry as they were supposed to do, and they cannot summon Voldemort directly, so they take them to the Malfoy Manor instead. While there, the Malfoys drag their feet with calling Voldemort long enough for Bellatrix Lestrange, who just happens to also be there at the time, to come in, see that the kids have the Sword of Gryffindor, which they have only recently acquired, and freak out, because the sword was supposed to be in her bank vault, and she's also the one Death Eater that Voldemort entrusted his Soul Jar, which she also placed inside the vault. This causes her to delay summoning Voldemort and put the kids in a dungeon cell (and she's also a psychotic sadist, so she opts for prolonged torture to find out about the sword instead of a quick mind probe). They escape because the guard duty was given to the only Death Eater who was in Harry's debt and would hesitate to kill him. While they're at it, they save a group of people kidnapped by the villains, which includes two of their friends, a goblin (the same goblin Harry met on his first day at Gringotts, no less), who can help them sneak into the bank vault, and someone who can serve as Mr. Exposition to tell them about the Elder Wand. Also, Hermione just happens to have a hair of Bellatrix on her sweater, so she can use Polyjuice Potion to disguise herself as Bellatrix.
    • Tracking down and the destruction of Ravenclaw's Diadem is also only possible because of a string of coincidences. It just happens to be the random thing Harry picked up and put on a bust's head to mark it a year earlier, which unlike the other horcruxes is conveniently not hidden or protected by any means due to Voldermort's villain stupidity. Helena Ravenclaw just happens to be the house ghost of Ravenclaw and also the only person who knows what's happened to her mother's diadem. Then one of the dumbest students happens to conjure up a powerful magical fire that can destroy horcruxes, which accidentally touches it, but is not engulfed in it, allowing the heroes to know for certain that it's destroyed.
    • Voldemort decides to stop a battle to bring forth the Sorting Hat, the only thing that can conjure Gryffindor's Sword, which can destroy horcruxes and is convenient for killing snakes, when Nagini, which is both of those things, happens to be nearby.
    • Dumbledore's plan and many of his predictions relied on this trope happening to ridiculous extents. Given what we learn of Dumbledore late in the series, it's entirely possible any or all of the above were deliberately engineered by him.
• Conveniently Coherent Thoughts: Averted with Legilimency, which reveals thoughts in a disjointed manner and requires much training to sort out which thoughts are important.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Receiving a Howler: a reprimanding letter in a red envelope, which screams the words for everyone to hear, before bursting into flames. Ron receives a humiliating one from his mother in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; Neville receives one from his grandmother in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; and Hermione receives several in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from her ill-wishers after Rita Skeeter's article about her.
• Cool Train: It's pulled by a steam locomotive and carries the students to and from Hogwarts at each end of the school year, as well as for holidays.
• Corporal Punishment: Not unexpected, given the Boarding School setting. Early on, it's played relatively comically, with Argus Filch constantly bemoaning the fact that he's not allowed to string misbehaving students up by their ankles anymore. It gets rather darker later, with Order of the Phoenix featuring a quill that carves whatever you write into your hand, and God-only-knows-what going on at Hogwarts during Deathly Hallows.
• Counterpart Artifacts: The wands of Harry and Voldemort are rare in that they both contain a feather from the same phoenix and react when used against each other.
• Crapsaccharine World: Once you get past the initial cool factor of the magical world, the Harry Potter universe is not an exceptionally happy one. Fantastic Racism of absurd extremes permeates every level of the wizarding world, and the government seems to be run by evil, scheming, political glory hounds (regardless of their allegiance to "good" or "bad"). The justice system is a Kangaroo Court, the regulations on dangerous magic are feeble at best, the very system of instruction in magic carries a high injury/mortality rate due to constant attack by dark forces, the entire population as a whole seems to have crippling naiveté about the non-magical world, the "magical" ecosystem is implied to be highly degraded, and the overall respect for human, sapient non-human, or animal life is appallingly low. The in-universe explanation is that this was a cultural reaction to Voldemort, and that it supposedly went away once he was defeated. When Kingsley Shaklebolt becomes Minister of Magic temporarily after Voldemort's death and later on permanently, things start to go uphill again slowly, as the law is reformed to remove the Fantastic Racism and the Corruption from the Government.
• Create Your Own Hero: Harry Potter has a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy variant of this: when learning that a child with the potential to kill him would come, Voldemort tracked down the baby and tried to kill him. This ironically resulted in him marking the kid as his equal, just as the prophecy foretold.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • Luna "Loony" Lovegood may act like she ain't playing with a full deck, but when it comes down to an actual battle... watch yourself. She participates in several battles, but the only time she gets injured the entire series is when a door gets blown off its hinges into her face and she flies across the room.
  • Neville Longbottom, Butt-Monkey poster boy in the early years, becomes a seriously competent fighter in his own right from the latter parts of the fifth year on. In the battle of the Department of Mysteries in Order of the Phoenix, he is the only other student besides Harry who stays fighting right up until the end, whereas everyone else gets incapacitated one way or another during it. He also weaponizes his talent for herbology in Deathly Hallows, and even takes out Nagini, Voldemort's last horcrux, by drawing the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat.
• Crushing Handshake: The Slytherin quidditch team captain tends to do this when he shakes hands with the Gryffindor captain at the begining of a match. In the first few books, Oliver Wood is able to give as good as he gets, but Angelina and Harry (during their respective stints as captain in the later books) have to keep themselves from wincing.
• Cryptic Background Reference: At one point Harry sees some warlocks drinking at a pub, but whatever makes a warlock different from a wizard is never mentioned. Simply being a male witch as is typical is unlikely, as the series treats "witch" as the female equivalent of "wizard".
  • The difference is finally explained in one of Rowling's footnotes in Tales of Beedle the Bard: a warlock is either an unusually fierce-looking wizard or an unusually skilled and accomplished wizard.
• Cue O'Clock: The Weasley family has a clock that has nine hands and doesn't tell time at all. It just shows where each of the family members currently are. ("home," "school," "work," "travelling," "lost," "hospital," "prison," and "mortal peril.") After Voldemorts return is made public, every single hand is pointing at "mortal peril" all the time. Molly also has one to tell her to do things like "Time to make tea", "Time to feed the chickens" and "You're running late".
• Cultural Posturing: Even the Muggle-born wizards are condescending toward Muggles.
• Cultural Translation:
  • Editors at Scholastic Books forced a change from "Philosopher's Stone" — a genuine item of folklore and alchemy — to "Sorcerer's Stone" for the American editions on the grounds that American children would have no idea what a Philosopher's Stone was. Due to the negative reaction, British terms and slang in the later books, such as "jumper",^*Sweater "taking the mickey",^*Taking the piss, aka bringing someone down a notch with humour "snogging",^*Kissing, making out and "trainers"^*Sneakers were left in.
  • Inverted in the French version of Philosopher's Stone, where Nicolas Flamel is so well-known that mentioning the Philosopher's Stone would make it a Spoiler Title. The title was changed to Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers (Harry Potter at Wizarding School).
• Curse:
  • Spells that have a major negative effect are often referred to as "curses." More minor curses are called "hexes" and "jinxes."
  • Hogwarts has never retained Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for longer than a year in half a century. This is because a young Voldemort (still known as Tom Riddle) cursed the position after Dumbledore rejected him for it.
• Cursed Item: Many of these are mentioned throughout the Harry Potter series, and a major part of Arthur Weasely's job involves tracking down ordinary objects that have been cursed to attack Muggles. These items include:
  • A cursed hat that made Bill's ears shrivel up.
  • A pair of shoes that eats the wearer's feet and are impossible to remove, given to a random minor character seen at St. Mungo's.
  • Harry's Nimbus 2000 becomes one during one Quidditch game, when a curse is placed on it that causes the broom to try to knock Harry off.
  • A necklace seen in Borgin and Burke's that's caused the deaths of many owners. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Katie Bell is given the necklace and touches a small part of it, causing her to lose her mind and be unconscious for months.
  • Harry has had many items confiscated from him on suspicion of being cursed items sent to kill him. Such items include his Firebolt when first given to him, and all the inherited items from Dumbledore.
  • Marvolo Gaunt's ring, in addition to being a Horcrux, also carries a powerful curse. When Dumbledore puts it on, he dooms himself to a slow and inevitable death. This is in contrast to other Horcruxes in the series, which have a corrupting influence but are not necessarily fatal.

D

• The Daily Misinformer:
  • The Daily Prophet knowingly published libelous articles by Rita Skeeter, but truly becomes this trope by Order of the Phoenix: In accordance to the Ministry's policy of denying anything is wrong, it spends the first year of the return of Voldemort defaming Potter and Dumbledore to the point the wizarding public becomes more susceptible to manipulation by Death-Eaters.
  • The Quibbler of Xenophilius Lovegood publishes stories about conspiracies (one even accuses Cornelius Fudge of cooking goblins!) and cryptozoology. However, it becomes an inversion in Order of the Phoenix, after it publishes an exclusive interview with Harry that starts to repair his reputation among the student body.
• Darker and Edgier: A downplayed version in that the movies don't really add any darker content than the books (in addition to cutting out stuff).... However the atmosphere of the movies as a whole feel much darker especially compared to the early children books. The film's iconic theme alone gives the first story a much more somber atmosphere than its book counterpart.... And thats not counting the brilliant use of cinematic techniques and technology such as white and black flashbacks, giving the films feel of targeting older demograph than their books until Harry is past 16.
  • The series gradually gets darker and darker as it moves forward. Although the first book starts in the aftermath of a double homicide, so...
• Dead End Job: Nobody in the series is able to hold the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for an entire book, as something always happens in the last month of the school year that results in the professor vacating the position. By Goblet of Fire, "Mad-Eye" Moody coming out of retirement to teach is seen as a desperation move, as Ron notes that just in the time he and his friends have been at Hogwarts they've had one teacher die, another get his mind wiped, and a third sacked. Half-Blood Prince reveals this has gone on even longer than that, as the position has been literally jinxed ever since Voldemort tried and failed to convince Dumbledore to give him the post.
• Dead Guy Junior: The epilogue has several children with names honoring people who died fighting Voldemort and his forces, including James Sirius Potter, Lily Luna Potter (even though Luna Lovegood doesn't die), Albus Severus Potter, and Fred Weasley II.
• Deadpan Snarker: Honestly, if you took a shot every time a character made a wry comment, you'd be pretty messed up early on in the series. There are so many examples, it has its own page.
• Death Ray: The Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra. The reason that Harry is known as "The Boy-Who-Lived" is because he's the only person in the wizarding world to have ever survived the spell.
• Declining Promotion:
  • Horace Slughorn is described as "preferring the backseat." However, it's not so much exerting power as it is enjoying being able to influence the world thanks to former students he gave a boost to (e.g., casting a vote for a new junior minister or getting free tickets to a Quidditch match). Harry has a mental image of a spider pulling a webstrand to bring a juicy fly closer.
  • It's stated several times Mr. Weasley could have easily been promoted within the Ministry years ago, but enjoyed where he was in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office too much. The truth was that Arthur was being held back because of his fondness for Muggles and refusal to subscribe to the myths about blood purity. He does finally take a promotion AND get rank in the Order of Phoenix as the series goes on, however.
  • Albus Dumbledore was repeatedly offered the chance to become Minister for Magic. He declined every time in order to remain at Hogwarts. It turned out that he was afraid of his weakness for power. Minister Cornelius Fudge still badgered Dumbledore for advice in his first years in office, though.
• Deconstructed Trope: Happens a lot in the series, especially concerning character dynamics. A character is a Butt-Monkey? Turns out that they have some pretty depressing baggage and it motivates them to become a total badass later. Another is a Cloudcuckoolander? They are relentlessly teased and bullied over it and have very few friends. Our main man is a Chosen One and Famed In-Story? They really hate it. Kid Genius? Is seen as an Insufferable Genius (which they sometimes are).
• Discouraging Concealment:
  • Hogwarts is disguised to look like a dilapidated, condemned ruin to Muggles, unless they are allowed in by a wizard.
  • Portkeys are teleporters that Wizards use to travel, and are ordinary items that act like old trash so Muggles won't pick them up.
  • St. Mungo's Hospital is hidden inside a condemned department store in London.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The treatment Harry received from the Dursleys for most of the eleven years prior to his acceptance into Hogwarts, and occasionally afterward as well, when it WAS even retribution for something. He was confined to the cupboard under the stairs until age 11 just for existing, yelled at for asking questions or innocently mentioning strange dreams, and punished (up to and including being denied meals) for exhibiting signs of the hated magic, which he neither understood nor was able to control. For example, in the first book he gets locked in the cupboard for much of the summer just for talking to a snake after the "vanishing glass" incident.
• Direct Line to the Author: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard are all presented as reprintings of in-universe books. The Tales of Beedle the Bard also makes reference to the existence of a seven-volume biography of Harry Potter, thus implying that the main Harry Potter series exists in its own universe as non-fiction as well.
• Disowned Sibling:
  • Bellatrix's aunt disowned her son Sirius for running away from home. When his uncle (confirmed by Word of God, in the Black Family Tree, to be her brother) left him money in his will, the uncle also got disowned.
  • While it's implied earlier that many magical families disowned members who married muggles (non-magical people) or even children born to muggle couples (called "Mudbloods" by these families), this is made more explicit by Bellatrix, sister of Narcissa, about the marriage of the daughter of the third sister:
  She is no niece of ours. We - Narcissa and I - have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This brat has nothing to do with us, nor any beast she married.
• Ditch the Bodyguards: In several books, Harry is being threatened by someone (usually Voldemort) and everybody tries to keep him safe. It never works; somehow, for some reason, he always finds his way to the source of the problem to face it himself.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The Death Eaters are a group who believe in "purity" who overtake the government in an effort to eradicate "nonpure" people and are led by an extremely creepy-looking dude.
  • The symbol of the Deathly Hallows looks suspiciously like The Illuminati symbol. And it was originally an innocuous symbol that was co-opted by wizarding supremacists (Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore) as a symbol of their movement to subjugate the "lesser peoples".
  • A few events in the Expanded Universe seem to happen right around the same time as similar events in the Muggle world — for instance, Gellert Grindlewald's rise to power corresponded directly with Adolf Hitler's, while the Squib Rights marches happened in 1968-69, right as the American Civil Rights movement was wrapping up.
• Domestic Abuse: It's implied in Order of the Phoenix that Snape's father was at the very least verbally abusive to Snape's mother, and that this was a large contributing factor in his anti-Muggle attitudes.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: According to J. K. Rowling, the Central Theme of the series has always been death. It doesn't really come to the forefront until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where Dumbledore states that Harry is the Master of Death not because he owned all three of the Deathly Hallows, but rather because through his experiences where he unknowingly gathered all three, he came to realize that death is inevitable and that there are far worse fates than dying, and accepted his death. The Tale of the Three Brothers, where the legend of the Deathly Hallows comes from, shows that if you try to escape death or are unable to accept the death of a loved one (the first and second brothers, represented by Voldemort and Snape in The Deathly Hallows), then death will be a gruelling bastard. However, if you accept death as inevitability (the youngest brother, represented by Harry), then death will greet you like an old friend. All of this stems from Rowling's own experiences with the death of her mother.
• Door Jam: The climax of a few of the books involve Harry heading into a room with the villain, only for some magic to cut off him from escaping or his friends from coming with him.
• Doorstop Baby: The series begins and hinges on Harry being one of these. He is left on the doorstop of the Dursley house, with a note.
• Doorstopper: All of the books from the fourth onwards; the fifth, weighing in at 766 pages for the Bloomsbury hardback edition and over 800 pages in some American editions, is the winner here. (Books 1-7, put together, are said to total 1,084,170 words.)
  Stephen Fry: So if any of you hear someone pronounce her name "Rohw-ling", you have my permission to hit them over the head with — not with Order of the Phoenix, that would be cruel. Something smaller, like a fridge.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Zigzagged with love potions.
  • In most circumstances in the franchise, it's played straight. Love potions are treated as a joke, and it's perfectly acceptable for someone to force romantic feelings onto someone else.
  • In a flashback in Half-Blood Prince, it's averted. Merope's usage of love potions to brainwash Tom Riddle Sr. into marrying her is likened to magical enslavement, and their relationship would ultimately create Voldemort.
• Downer Ending:
  • The Goblet of Fire marks the first time Voldemort scores a victory, managing to gain a huge advantage over the forces of good and traumatizing Harry in the process.
  • The Order of the Phoenix ends with a major character death that plunges Harry into a deep grief, as everyone fears the impending Second Wizarding War.
  • The Half-Blood Prince ends with the villains in a stronger position than ever before as several heroes betray their allies and pull off a plot commissioned by Voldemort himself.
• Dr. Genericius: A lot of wizards have names ending in "us": Albus, Bilius (Ron's middle name), Lucius, Regulus Arcturus, Remus, Rubeus (Hagrid), Severus, Scorpius, Sirius... It seems to be more frequent in the Pureblood families, though.
• The Dreaded: Each side has their own. Voldemort is easily the most feared being on the planet. His power and cruelty are legendary; people are terrified of even speaking his name long after he is thought to be dead. Even he has his own in Dumbledore, the only person Voldemort ever feared.
• Dub Name Change: "You-Know-Who" and "He Who Mustn't Be Named" (see Do Not Call Me "Paul" above) are fused in Spanish as ''El Innombrable" ("The Uncallable").
• Dub Species Change:
  • The first Italian translation changed the Whomping Willow into a plane tree, since the translator couldn't find a good allitteration with the proper translation of "willow" ("salice").
  • The Spanish translation changed Trevor, Neville's toad, into a turtle.
• Duelling Messiahs: Flashbacks reveal that there was once a legendary duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore. The former wanted to lead the wizards out of hiding whereas Dumbledore sided with the muggles.
• Dysfunction Junction: Who doesn't have some deep-seated issues or undergoes trauma?
  • Harry is orphaned, has an abusive childhood and is then forced to fight an powerful evil wizard, losing one parental figure after the other in the process.
  • The Gaunts, Blacks and Durselys are all abusive as a result of their bigotry.
  • Sirius grows up in an abusive home, then his best friends get killed, partly due to his fault, he gets framed and spends 12 years in prison, getting psychologically tortured, and after he escapes, he is forced to spend the rest of his life trapped in the house he grew up in, finally dying with the knowledge that he leaves his godson behind.
  • Let's not forget the many, many issues of Severus Snape.
  • At the end, pretty much every character has lost a friend/family member, or has been tortured.

E

• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Several supporting characters are mentioned in passing long before their importance to the plot is revealed, among them Mrs. Figg, Cedric Diggory, Mundungus Fletcher, the Lovegoods, Grindelwald, Aberforth Dumbledore, Bellatrix Lestrange, Sirius Black, and his brother Regulus Arcturus Black.
  • Several creatures in Order of the Phoenix were mentioned in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them prior to their appearances, and even Thestrals earned a minor, blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference under "Winged Horse".
• Early Instalment Weirdness:
  • In Philosopher's Stone, when Harry sets off with Hagrid for the first time, Hagrid casually mentions that he flew to the island on the rock, and they have to take the Dursley's boat back to shore. By the time of Deathly Hallows, every wizard is astonished that Voldemort knows how to fly unaided.
  • In Philosopher's Stone, Hagrid is described as vanishing from view in a blink of an eye, despite it being explained in Half-Blood Prince that such a thing is nearly impossible for an untrained (and, particularly, unlicensed) wizard to do. Furthermore, Hagrid never uses this ability again throughout the rest of the series.
  • On the other hand, Dumbledore takes most of the day to travel to and from London at the end of Philosopher's Stone, enough time for Harry and the gang to learn he was gone, wait several hours for nightfall, then fight their way to the titular stone. Later in Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore makes the journey from the Ministry to Hogwarts in an instant via Floo Powder.
  • Side-Along Apparition is introduced in Half-Blood Prince. Such a concept would have been useful to have during various plot points prior to this, such as during the many times Harry needed to be transported securely during Order of the Phoenix.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Voldemort is defeated, the wizard world is at peace, Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione are happily married with children. But that's after a whole lot of pain and suffering and, in books 4-7, a high body count.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Salazar Slytherin apparently intended to use the Chamber of Secrets as this, doubling as a Supervillain Lair after the schism with the other Founders. Unfortunately, by the time the heroes get there nine hundred years later, the place is in ruins and partially flooded, and it's essentially a glorified burrow for the Basilisk.
• Elixir of Life:
  • The Elixir of Life is mentioned in the series, where it is created (by methods unknown) from a Philosopher's Stone. This version of the Elixir gives health and youth to whoever drinks it, but has to be drunk regularly, as the body will start aging again after each rejuvenation. In the first book, Lord Voldemort mostly seeks the Philosopher's Stone because he wants to use the Elixir to remake a body for himself, hinting there may still be more the Elixir can do.
  • Unicorn's Blood also functions as a dark counterpart to the Elixir of Life: drinking it can somehow stave off imminent death by malady, but it carries a curse that will make the body even weaker in the long run. Elixir of Life is said to counteract this curse, though this may just have been a lie Voldemort told Quirrell to get him to go along with drinking Unicorn's Blood.
• Elemental Motifs: The four Hogwarts Houses have a loose association to the four major Classical Elements. Gryffindor, with its courageous members and red and gold scheme, corresponds to fire. Slytherin, with its flexible and ambitious members, corresponds to water. Hufflepuff, known for hard workers, is closest to earth (its yellow and black colour scheme represents wheat and soil). And Ravenclaw, the house of thinkers, is associated with blue and birds, therefore, the sky and air.
• Embarrassing Password:
  • The Ministry of Magic encourages people to devise security questions with their loved ones. One of the security questions between Mr. and Mrs. Weasley is:
    Mr Weasley: What do you like me to call you when we're alone together?
    Mrs Weasley: Mollywobbles.
  • The password to Dumbledore's office is always a type of candy. At one point in Goblet of Fire, Harry, trying to get inside, lists off every single magical candy he can think of, only to find the correct one is "Cockroach Cluster".
    "Cockroach Cluster? I was only joking."
• Emotion Bomb:
  • Dementors are attracted to strong emotions and happiness, which they consume and replace with only miserable memories.
  • Cheering Charms are spells that make people happier.
• Emotional Powers: The Patronus spell is fuelled by the caster thinking of their happiest thoughts or memories. Which makes you wonder what would happen if someone hit you with a Cheering Charm before you cast the Patronus spell...
• Empathic Weapon: Wands are said to choose the wizard who will use them, and they don't work as well for anyone who is not the original owner and hasn't defeated the previous owner in some form of combat.
• Emphasize EVERYTHING: Capital letters are often used when characters shout, sometimes for entire paragraphs: most usually from Uncle Vernon, Hagrid, and Harry himself, especially in Order of the Phoenix, when Harry losing his temper is a key feature of the book.
  Harry: SO YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN'T YOU? YOU'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! I'VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEYS' FOR OVER A MONTH! AND I'VE HANDLED MORE THAN YOU TWO'VE EVERY MANAGED AND DUMBLEDORE KNOWS IT - WHO SAVED THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE? WHO GOT RID OF RIDDLE? WHO SAVED BOTH YOUR SKINS FROM THE DEMENTORS?
• Enforced Cold War: The House rivalries, especially between Gryffindor and Slytherin, are established by the school and its professors through the House and Quidditch Cups which pit the students against each other. According to the history of Hogwarts's founders, it's actually closer to Slytherin versus everyone else. It goes down a lot after Voldemort is defeated.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry both come to the perfectly valid conclusion that Voldemort tried to get a job at Hogwarts in an attempt to get ahold of an item belong to a Hogwarts Founder for use as a Soul Jar. In Deathly Hallows, Harry realizes they had it backwards: Voldemort used the interview to hide one of his Soul Jars in a hidden room on the way to Dumbledore's office — actually getting the job would've just been a bonus.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
  • Draco Malfoy's only redeeming quality is his love for his family.
  • Although Voldemort is incapable of real love, his mother's sad death is his motivation for some of his crimes.
  • Narcissa Malfoy's main motivation by the end is making sure her family is safe, to the point where she lies to Voldemort.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Lucius Malfoy loves his wife and son. He abandons Voldemort at the end of the 7th book to search for Draco.
  • The only redeeming quality of Vernon and Petunia Dursley is that they try to be supportive of each other and that they care about Dudley.
  • Snape's Heel–Face Turn was provoked by his desire to protect Harry's mother Lily who he was deeply in love with.
  • Aragog considers Hagrid a friend and prevents his children from harming them.
• Everyone Has Standards: Pottermore reveals that the Malfoy family, while obsessed keeping their bloodline pure and Muggle-free, drew the line at incest, unlike the Gaunts and Lestranges, and would marry half-bloods if necessary.
• Everyone Is Related: Wizards are already operating within a limited gene pool (unless they marry muggles, which doesn't always work out well), but some pureblood wizards take it to another level by only marrying into families that meet their standards for "purity."
  • Harry and Voldemort are both descended from the twelfth century (or thereabouts) Peverell brothers, specifically Ignotus and Cadmus.
  • Book five reveals that Sirius Black is the first cousin of Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy, both of whom were introduced (sans maiden names) in the previous book, as well as a first cousin once removed to the newly introduced Nymphadora Tonks, a second cousin once removed to Arthur Weasley, and a cousin by marriage to Molly Weasley (nee Prewett). The later-released Black family tree shows that he is also related to the Crabbes, the Macmillans, the Bulstrodes, the Flints, the Burkes, the Longbottoms, the Crouches, the Yaxleys, and the Potters.
  • Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa are most likely cousins to the minor character Evan Rosier, who died before the series began, through their mother Druella Rosier.
• Everyone Must Be Paired: Towards the end of the series, Harry and Ginny end up together, as well as Ron and Hermione. In the last installment of the original series, there is a big 19 Years Later epilogue, where they all have got children. The same counts for former bully Draco, who now has a son with someone named Astoria Greengrass (pureblood sister of some former classmate). While Neville only gets mentioned as a teacher in the book, J.K. Rowling made sure to inform us after that she paired him up with herbology-loving Hufflepuff Hannah Abbott. Luna on the other hand got children with Rolf Scamander (the grandson of Newt Scamander, a famous magizoologist only mentioned as an author in the books. George is paired up with former Quidditch companion Angelina Johnson and Percy gets a wife called Audrey apparently. Even teenagers Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley are already paired up in the epilogue. Let alone that both their parents started as unlikely pairings (Remus & Tonks, Bill & Fleur).
• Everyone Went to School Together
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Voldemort was conceived through the use of a love potion, making this the magical equivalent to a Child by Rape. When his father was released from the enchantment, he (not unreasonably) left his pregnant "wife" and returned home, and his mother Merope subsequently died giving birth to him. She seemingly wanted to die and left him to be raised in an orphanage. Since it was the 1920s/1930s, this meant Tom Riddle got no treatment for his mental issues and he grew up without learning how to understand love at all.
• Evil Counterpart: Has its own page.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: Tom Riddle (Voldemort) was a handsome student, but by the time he is reborn, he is bald, has pale white skin, red sclerae and slits for nostrils. We see him earlier in a Pensieve memory Dumbledore has of him entering his office to ask to be the Defence of Dark Arts professor after he began dabbling in Dark Arts but before he gained power, and Harry notes that he had already lost his good looks by then and was beginning to resemble the pale, snake-like creature he would fully become later on. Even many years before that when Tom Riddle was still pretty handsome, he is stated to have already begun to look a little pale by the time he took a job in a store to get ahold of an ancient artefact.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Inverted. Voldemort is described as having a high, cold voice.
• Evil Tainted the Place: Voldemort leaves behind a pretty nasty Soul Jar during his time at Hogwarts but his left overs are small potatoes next to the nigh demonic Basilisk the founder of the Slytherin House stored in the pipes.
• Evolving Attack: Spell casting is divided into three levels of complexity (in regards to learning and reliably using them) that don't enhance their potency but rather the time required to cast them. First, wizards have to execute a wand movement and clearly pronounce the spell's name. When they reach their sixth year, they are taught to cast them non-verbally but still use their wands. Outstanding wizards such as Big Good Dumbledore and Big Bad Voldemort are shown casting spells non-verbally and wandlessly. It's implied massive amounts of practice and magical talent are needed to accomplish such a feat. Between the first and second levels, practice can also help in reducing the casting time because of the very straightforward fact that, the more you use a spell, the more familiar you become with the wand movements.
• Exclusive Clique Clubhouse: Each of the four Hogwarts Houses have their own exclusive dormitories, complete with password-locked entrances: Gryffindor has an entire tower to itself, as does Ravenclaw, befitting the idealism of the former and the intellectual high-mindedness of the latter; the down-to-earth Hufflepuff House has a cosy dorm situated one floor below ground level; Slytherin's palatial common room is situated down in the dungeons, befitting their shadowy, underhanded nature.
• Exotic Entree: Voldemort dines on unicorn blood in The Philosopher's Stone (though there is a magical justification for this).
• Extranormal Prison: Azkaban is a prison for evil wizards, guarded by the soul-sucking dementors.
• Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: The denizens of the Wizarding World deal with many of the same problems found in the non-magical world: political corruption, excessive bureaucratic red tape, manipulated media, and most importantly, Fantastic Racism in the form of pure-blood wizards hating those with muggle ancestry. This is even lampshaded in Half Blood Prince, during the meeting in the first chapter between the Muggle Prime Minister, and the Minister of Magic:
  Prime Minister: But you're wizards! You can do magic, surely you can sort out anything!.
  Minister of Magic: The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.
• Eye of Providence: The Sign of the Deathly Hallows bears a remarkable resemblance to the typical Eye of Providence, being a vertical line and a circle within a triangle. The icon represents the Deathly Hallows, Ancient Artifacts believed to possess phenomenal magical power even by Wizarding standards. While believed to be nothing more than a fairy tale in the Wizarding World, there is an ancient order of people that believe them to be real. After wizarding terrorist Gellert Grindelwald adopted the symbol (being a believer in their existence), the symbol has since been associated with him and his atrocities, making it the wizarding equivalent of a Nazi swastika or the Iron Cross.

F

• Family Portrait of Characterization:
  • Family tree variation with the House of Black. 12 Grimmauld Place hosts a lovely, intricate tapestry where the names Black family members are magically cataloged...but if you're considered a blood traitor (ie. someone who associates with Muggles) or otherwise disowned, your name is blasted off the tree. Definitely fitting for a clan of pureblood supremacists.
  • The Dursleys don't keep any photos of Harry in their home. One of the books mentions this detail when building up to their abuse and neglect of him.
• Family Theme Naming: Most families have a theme:
  • Blacks: Stars and constellations and galaxies, except most females who remarry
  • Carrows: Names of Greek mythological characters
  • Bagmans: Names of Holy Roman Emperors
  • Belbys: Names of Roman (and Byzantine) Emperors
  • Campbells: Names of Shakespearean characters
  • Evanses (Harry's mother and aunt): Names of flowers
  • Weasleys: Names connected to medieval royalty, specifically from the Arthurian legend.
  • The revelation of the Potter Family history makes them an aversion, they tend to alter between Aerith and Bob, with names like Linchfred, Ralston, Hardwin, Henry, Fleamont, James and Harry among many others, having no particular theme.
• Family-Values Villain: The elitist Malfoys' only mildly redeeming quality is their care for each other as a family.
• Famous for Being First: Part of what makes Harry so famous in the Wizarding World is that he is the first and only survivor of the Killing Curse. Harry is not proud of this, however — not only does he not remember this happening since he was only an infant, but his mother had more to do with his survival than Harry himself, since it was her love that saved him.
• Fantastic Angst:
  • The title character is an orphan because his parents were killed by an evil wizard with a magical curse. To make matters worse, he gets sent to live with unloving relatives because they're his closest living family and it's the only way to maintain the protective spell created by his mother's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Both Dumbledore and Snape had flirtations with extremism as teenagers which, in turn, got someone they loved (sister and best friend/unrequited crush) killed. The extremism they got involved with just happened to be magical in nature, not the kind you'd see in real life, such as being a Nazi or terrorist (although the groups they were in had very similar beliefs and methods to real far-rightists).
  • Ginny's plot in the second book is that of an impressionable young girl who's recently been through a huge life change and having a hard time adjusting (moving from a home where she has her family to keep her company to a boarding school where her brothers all have other things to do) falling prey to an older, manipulative boy. Said older boy just happens to have gone to school fifty years previously and is doing all this preying from a magical diary that contains a piece of his soul.
• Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product:
  • Phoenix tears can cure any wound they are applied to.
  • Unicorn blood is able to heal people even halfway from death, but due to the atrocity of shedding the blood of something so innocent anyone who drinks from it is cursed with a half-life from then on.
• Fantastic Racism: Has its own page.
• Fantastic Science: Magic is treated this way. If you don't do it right, you screw it up.
• Fantastic Slurs:
  • "Mudblood", a derogatory term for a witch or wizard who was born into a Muggle family. It's treated as a racial slur; when Draco Malfoy first calls Hermione this in Chamber of Secrets, there is a tremendous uproar and Ron even tries to curse him.
  • In Books 5 and 7, Snape's friendship and romantic hopes for something bigger are ruined when in reaction to Lily pulling an embarrassing rescue he says, "I don't need help from a filthy little mudbloods like her." This ruined his life... to say the least.
• Fantastic Underclass: Werewolves are perpetually marginalized; though essentially ordinary witches and wizards for most of the month, prejudice against them has continued despite the development of potions that allow them to retain their minds while transformed, to the point that laws have been passed to effectively legalize anti-werewolf discrimination. Because of this, most werewolves have great difficulty finding work, and those who do usually end up forced to take jobs far below the level of their ability; poverty is common as a result.
• Fantasy Counterpart Appliance: Mostly averted, because wizards either appropriate Muggle technology or invent something completely strange of their own, but there are a few cases; e.g., the Floo Network, which is regulated and functions not unlike a mass transit or communication system.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Guns exist in the Muggle world, but apparently not even Squibs seem to have them in the wizarding community; in an article about Sirius Black, it's mentioned that the Muggles have been warned he's carrying a gun, which is then defined as "a type of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other." This could relate more to the series's British setting, where citizens are not permitted to wield firearms, than anything else.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Nearly everything about wizardry from Fantasy novels is revealed to exist — and every mythological creature as well, especially in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • Neville's parents were tortured into insanity.
  • The Dementor's Kiss sucks out a person's soul while leaving the body alive, leaving a shell of a person behind.
  • The side-effect of drinking unicorn blood is "a cursed half-life."
  • The state one finds oneself in after a horcrux successfully prevents death. Unlike the above, however, this state can be ended, either by true resurrection, or just "letting go."
  • In the first book, Dumbledore mentions people who, transfixed by the Mirror of Erised, have literally wasted away in front of it.
  • The trope itself is lampshaded in that Voldemort's greatest weakness (according to Dumbledore) is his ardent belief that there is no such thing; that death is the ultimate humiliation for any otherwise-obscenely powerful wizard. This consuming fear of death and its erasure of all Voldemort's accomplishments is the driving force behind his horcruxes: In short, he seeks immortality because of his ignorance of fates worse than death. Many of which, ironically, he saw inflicted on innocent people throughout the series.
• Fictional Age of Majority: In the magical community, 17 is the age of majority. Among other things, this means finally being free of the Trace, a spell that tracks all use of magic near those under 17, to enforce the laws against underage use of magic outside of school.
• Fictional Sport: Quidditch is a sport played on flying broomstick, where two teams of seven players play to gain points by throwing a ball called a Quaffle into three hoops on either side of the field. The game ends when a player called a "Seeker" catches a small, golden ball with wings called a Snitch, at which point the game ends and the Seeker gets 150 points for their team. Despite fantastic requirements, people in real life have tried to replicate it.
• Fiction Isn't Fair:
  • Harry is left to gross abuse and neglect by the Dursleys, without neighbors or anyone else apparently noticing or alerting the authorities. While putting him there makes sense (Petunia's his next of kin, plus the blood protection his mother left as her sister) Dumbledore never checking afterward doesn't, especially since he knows full well how some Muggles view magical people (his own sister was assaulted by Muggle boys, leaving her forever scarred), even if he wasn't aware they held the same attitudes. At the very least, letting them know ahead of time Harry would probably have magic and insuring they didn't mistreat him for it/could keep it secret is definitely something he should have done. Naturally, this is major Fan Fic fodder, sometimes even to the point of showing Harry as realistically very traumatized by his experiences (in some stories it stops him becoming a hero at all).
  • Snape shows obvious favoritism for his house, giving Slytherin students a high number of points for anything and using any excuse to deduct a lot of points from the other houses, especially Gryffindor. Despite this, he never gets called out or punished for it.
  • There also seems to virtually no oversight or punishment for school bullying at Hogwarts. It's partly something we can chalk up to Snape letting students from his House do this, but not always. The very fact students never report bullying even to more benevolent teachers such as Dumbledore is also telling. Of course, the whole school is quite unsafe and likely wouldn't keep existing with it's conditions even in the books reality, since what parent will accept that their child can die from going to it?
  • There don't seem to be any laws in the universe concerning libel and defamation of character, judging from the fact that journalist Rita Skeeter is able to get away with outright fabricating any number of slanderous articles, down to publishing direct "quotes" which she made up wholesale. In the final book, she openly admits to drugging an elderly woman with a truth potion so she could force out potentially damaging information on Dumbledore. "Openly admits" means she outright includes it in the article she published for all to see. This one especially makes no sense, as use of truth potion is said to be "subject to strict Ministry guidelines"-presumably gutter journalism isn't a legitimate use. Of course the Ministry is also highly corrupt and incompetent at the best of times, and has been taken over by the bad guys by this time.
• Fiery Redhead: The Weasleys. All of them (except maybe Percy), but especially Ginny. Also, Lily Evans in book five.
• First Girl Wins: Ginny Weasley is the first young witch Harry hears/meets at Platform 9 3/4, and Hermione is the first female friend Ron Weasley makes. Years later, Harry marries Ginny, and Ron marries Hermione. In The Film of the Book, Ginny Weasley is the first girl Harry's age we meet in both the first film and the second. She's also almost the first girl we see in the third film — soon after Hermione's entrance, we see Ginny's face in a newspaper clipping.
• Flanderization: The Hogwarts Houses. Gryffindors are brave and righteous, Ravenclaws are clever and scholarly, Hufflepuffs are fair and sympathetic, and Slytherins are "ambitious and cunning", except Slytherin comes across much more as "the house of bad guys."
• Fluffy Tamer: Rubeus Hagrid. He has raised giant spiders, baby dragons, and a three-headed dog. Their names were Aragog, Norbert, and Fluffy, respectively. He's half-giant, so such creatures are less likely to hurt him, but he tends to not realize that most people aren't as indestructible as he is. This has landed him in trouble numerous times. Tom Riddle was able to use Aragog to frame him for opening the Chamber of Secrets and yet he never seems to learn. He's also a Fluffy breeder, credited with the creation of the Blast-Ended Skrewts, an incredibly dangerous and aggressive hybrid possessed of absolutely no useful qualities.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Quite a few monsters, but the most famous is actually named Fluffy.
• Flying Broomstick: Quite a few, often of plot significance, including the Nimbus and the Firebolt.
• Foreshadowing: The most important one is in the first book. Very subtly done, but right there for everyone to see. It forms the foundation for the build-up to the final confrontation with Voldemort, and gives Harry an advantage that he didn't know he had until literally the last minute. "The wand chooses the wizard, Harry." Rowling says she had the entire outline for the series and how everything was going to play out clearly pictured in her head before she first put pen to paper. She wasn't kidding.
• Formally-Named Pet: Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris.
• For the Evulz: This seems to be the motivation behind at least half the things done by members of Slytherin House — especially Malfoy. It seems rather bizarre when you remember that they're supposedly the House for the cunning and ambitious.
• The Four Loves: most of the good side characters show, in one or the other way, this trope. Harry is an example of the four types of love.
  • Storge: Towards most of the Weasleys and Hermione.
  • Phileo: Towards Ron and Hermione.
  • Eros: Towards Ginny.
  • Agape: Towards everyone.
• Frames of Reference: Several characters are bespectacled, and their glasses are mentioned frequently in the narrative.
  • Want to quickly dress up as Harry Potter? Put on round glasses, probably the most noted feature of Harry's appearance, along the with scar and the Messy Hair. J.K. Rowling says one reason for Harry wearing glasses is because she herself wore glasses from a young age, and she wanted to write about a hero wearing glasses, instead of them normally being used to label someone as "intelligent".
    Hermione's hand narrowly missed Harry's glasses as it shot up again.
    Voldemort: Put on his glasses: he must be recogniseable.
  • Dumbledore's half-moon spectactles.
  • Professor Mcgonagall wears square spectacles, perhaps to enhance her image as a strict teacher.
    "For heaven's sake, Potter!" she snapped, straightening her glasses angrily (she had winced horribly when he had used Voldemort's name).
  • Rita Skeeter wears jewelled spectacles.
    Unemployment did not suit Rita: her hair hung lank and unkempt, and there were a couple of jewels missing from her glasses.
• Friendlessness Insult: Draco loves to bully Neville by telling him no one wants to be friends with him.
• Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Being Friend to All Living Things, Hagrid has a Giant Spider called Aragog, which was adopted by and is loyal to Hagrid, being defended by him from the accusations of Aragog being Slytherin's Monster, which was the basilisk instead. Unfortunately, Harry and Ron discovers Aragog isn't nice at all, especially because his species has a taste for human flesh.
• Friendship-Hating Antagonist: Voldemort is stated to be as such by Dumbledore, saying while a few of his followers believe themselves to be his closest friends, Voldemort sees them as nothing but expendable Cannon Fodder, due to his belief that things such as friendship, love and compassion are weaknesses to be exploited. As it turns out, this is justified due to him being born from a loveless union due to his mother using a Love Potion to keep his father Tom Riddle Sr trapped in their marriage. Unfortunately for him, while he may be the strongest Dark Magic user in the world, Harry has friends who are willing to put their lives on the line for him, while Voldemort's minions only side with him for their own self-centred reasons.
• From Zero to Hero: Harry Potter, a short boy living with an abusive family, receives a letter from a half-giant who informs him that he is a wizard, enrols in the magic school Hogwarts and finds that he is incredibly famous in the wizarding world. From there on, he runs into several adventures and becomes a talented wizard, all leading up to his final confrontation with the dark wizard Voldemort.
• Full-Name Basis: Harry Potter, to a few characters, notably Dobby and Voldemort.
• Full-Potential Upgrade: Wands are this for wizards. They have to either be precisely matched when purchased or legitimately won from a prior owner for best effect. Wizards who are shown to use hand-me-down wands (Ron and Neville) show a level of improvement when using one purchased just for them.
• Functional Magic: JKR says in interviews that she spent time working out the limits of wizard magic, but the novels only touch on these a few times.
• Funetik Aksent: Hagrid, and the foreign visitors in Goblet of Fire.
• Funny Background Event: A common aspect of Rowling's writing in this series, one of her favourite kinds of scenes seems to be one where the characters are having a private conversation while in the background something amusing is going on at the same time. Most commonly, in the school scenes these often involve Peeves. There are also several whispered conversations in the library, while the grim Madam Pince is prowling in the background. It also happens that a whispered conversation is suddenly revealed to be during a lesson, which is then interrupted by a teacher.

G

• Gang of Bullies:
  • Dudley's gang as well as Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle.
  • The Marauders were also this in regards to Snape. Snape was also a member of a gang of future Death Eaters, as was Tom Riddle.
• Generational Magic Decline: A desire to prevent this is a major motivation for blood purity fanatics, who insist on marrying only other pureblooded wizards with no muggles in their family trees out of a belief that intermarrying with them will weaken their family lines. Yet the only case of this actually happening that we know of occurred within the Gaunt family, a family of purebloods who were so inbred that they were prone to insanity, mental instability, and reduced magical ability to the point that Merope Gaunt was believed by her father to be a Squib^note something Word of God has clarified wasn't actually true, though it's suggested she did have reduced magical ability because of a combination of genetics and her father's abuse, and she notably got better at it once he was dead. And just to prove how false the whole fear about intermarrying with muggles was, the strongest member in generations, Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka Lord Voldemort, had a muggle father.
• Generational Trauma: The Witch Hunts of the Middle Ages and the Salem Trials have left the wizarding community very wary of associating with muggles —hence, the Statue Of Secrecy. This gets mixed up with the superiority prejudice already existing. Not only muggles are seen as lower beings but also as brutish and narrow-minded. As a consequence, muggle-borns (muggle parents) and half-bloods (one magical parent) are systematically discriminated against. Although the latter to a lesser extent. The blood superiority rhetoric gets perpetuated mostly by the pureblood families, causing quite an inequality gap. Two of the nastiest dark wizards (aka terrorists) share this belief too and are intent on enslaving or genociding muggles, which proves to be the main conflict of the saga and explains several of the character's actions and the consequences they suffer. On the purebloods side, both Regulus Black and Draco Malfoy proudly spout the narrative but are in for a rude awakening when they start serving the most radical branch. The former dies and the latter is sent on an impossible mission to punish his father. Meanwhile, Neville is believed to be a squib as a kid, so his relatives force him into dangerous situations in the hopes of triggering accidental magic. Muggleborns like Lily Evans and Hermione Granger are called mudbloods and treated with disdain —both (the former only implied) endeavor to shut them all by being brilliant witches on their own. Half-bloods are generally in better standing unless they are sorted into Slytherin. If one of their parents is a muggle, then it's possible they were not told about the wizarding world by their spouse or they disdain magic. Examples of this are Dean Thomas and Severus Snape.
• Generation Xerox: Subverted. Though differently mixed to form each character, there are several tendencies that carry on from the previous Hogwarts generation to this one:
  • A tightly-knit group of Gryffindors consisting of a heroic, adventurous natural leader with disregard for the rules (Harry/James), a more impulsive sidekick (Ron/Sirius), a studious member reluctant to break the rules (Hermione/Remus), a talented Muggle-born girl (Hermione/Lily) and a more loosely associated follower who is (at first glance) inept at magic (Peter/Neville)
  • A Pureblood Gryffindor strongly opposed to Pureblood supremacy (Ron/James). Said Gryffindor's family warmly accepts that Gryffindor's best friend (Harry/Sirius);
  • A Slytherin Pureblood supremacist who has a lasting enmity with The Hero (Draco/Severus);
  • A poor and unpopular boy who is friends with and in love with a Muggleborn witch (Ron/ Severus) who he hurts for no good reason (in Ron's case it gets better). He is often bullied by his wealthy Pureblood rival (Draco/ James);
  • A no-nonsense and ambitious Gryffindor witch with red hair who ends up together with The Hero (Ginny/Lily);
  • A pair of Gryffindor pranksters (Fred and George/James and Sirius);
  • An insecure and overshadowed member of the True Companions (Ron/Peter). He betrays and endangers the group out of weakness, but unlike Peter, Ron's betrayal is a Moment of Weakness he overcomes.
  • A poor but brilliant wizard from an abusive home-life (Harry/Severus) who longs to be associated a Pureblood organization (the Weasleys/the Death Eaters), is best friends with a Muggle-born witch but is not on close terms with her family (Hermione/Lily), and is constantly bullied by a Pureblood wizard of privilege and his two cronies (Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle/James, Sirius, and Peter, since Lupin did not join in on the bullying), one of whom eventually betrays the other two (Crabbe/Peter).
• Genericist Government: The Ministry of Magic.
• Genius Loci: At Hogwarts, staircases sometimes change direction and are said to be fond of doing it.
• Genius Serum: The Diadem of Ravenclaw is supposed to enhance its wearer's creativity and intelligence, as per its creator's favoured traits. Would have been a big help to the heroes had Voldemort not stolen it first and turned it into a Horcrux, necessitating its destruction. This is why we can't have nice things people.
• Ghastly Ghost:
  • The Bloody Baron fits this trope aesthetically, being a howling, chain-rattling, sword-swinging ghost. Most ghosts in the series, however, fall into the Friendly Ghost category, with Peeves being the most malicious, and he's more of a peeve than an actual threat.
  • This trope is downplayed for Nearly-Headless Nick, who is friendly and doesn't usually look gruesome, but he is partially-decapitated (which was how he died) and can almost remove his own head, which grosses out some students.
• Ghostly Animals: Among the ghosts that reside in Hogwarts, various ones ride ghost horses.
• Giant Squid: There's one in the Hogwarts lake. It's mainly there to add colour and is very much a Gentle Giant—when Dennis Creevey falls in the lake, it helps him back into his boat. Lee and the twins are even seen tickling it at one point.
• Gigantic Adults, Tiny Babies: Dragons start out football-sized at hatching, but most species grow to bus-size or larger.
• Good Behavior Points: Hogwarts has the house points system for the school's four houses. Students can earn points for their respective houses by performing positive actions (such as good deeds or doing well in class), but can also have them deducted for things such as rule-breaking. The points themselves are gems matching each houses' respective color that are stored within large hourglasses.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Dumbledore has shown that he can understand quite a bit about Voldemort. However, it turns out that Dumbledore was unable to figure out that Voldemort hid one of his Horcruxes in the Room of Requirement. Why? Because Dumbledore was a model student who never cheated and hence had no need to use the room. Harry, however, was certainly not a model student, he cheated a couple of times, and he used that room, so he could figure it out.
• Good Luck Charm: Felix Felicis potion acts as this when drunk.
• Grade System Snark: The N.E.W.T. scores. Among the grades are "T for Troll."
• Grail in the Garbage: In Half-Blood Prince Harry uses an old tiara in the Room of Requirement to mark the location of his book when he hides it. In Order of the Phoenix Harry helps Sirius clean out a lot of junk in the Grimmauld Place house, including an old locket. Both of these turn out to be not only priceless artefacts—Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem and Salazar Slytherin's locket, respectively—but they're also Horcruxes, each containing a piece of Voldemort's soul. They become crucial plot points in the last book.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Lord Voldemort, the official Big Bad of Harry Potter, fills this role instead sometimes:
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. If you consider the Tom Riddle in the diary as a separate person, Voldemort (the disembodied spectre in Albania) is a Bigger Bad in this book. Tom Riddle is more a manifestation of Voldemort's will, and at any rate acts independently from him (although in his interests).
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He isn't directly involved in the book's events but it's believed that Sirius Black, the Death Eater who helped Voldemort to kill Harry's parents and later killed Peter Pettigrew and several muggle bystanders, was trying to kill Harry in hopes it'd somehow restore Voldemort. Then in The Reveal we find out Peter Pettigrew faked his death and framed Black, but it still counts for the trope as Voldemort killing Harry's parents led to Sirius being imprisoned and Peter faking his death.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince doesn't feature Voldemort at all, and all his actions take place outside the main events of the plot. The Big Bad of the book eventually turns out to be Severus Snape, who kills Dumbledore and sets most of the events in motion to further himself in Voldemort's eyes.
• Grouped for Your Convenience: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is divided into four houses, each bearing the last name of its founder: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin. Houses at Hogwarts are the living and learning communities for its students. Each year a group of a certain house shares the same dormitory and classes. The houses compete throughout the school year, by earning and losing points for various activities. The house with the most points wins the House Cup. Each house also has its own Quidditch team that competes for the Quidditch Cup. These two competitions breed rivalries between the houses, the greatest of which is that between Gryffindor and Slytherin. At the beginning of each school year, the magical Sorting Hat is placed on each new student's head during the Sorting ceremony. The Sorting Hat announces the house the student is to join.
• Group-Identifying Feature: The Death Eaters have a logo called the "Dark Mark" tattooed on their inner left forearms.
• Growing with the Audience: J. K. Rowling has stated that she intentionally wrote the series to encompass more mature and scarier themes as the young readers got a little older for each book. This took something of a hit during the "Three-Year Summer" after the fourth book; the audience grew quite a bit older than Harry, and so the reception began to decline.
• Guilt Complex: Harry suffers a massive one, usually born from his Chronic Hero Syndrome.

H

• Half-Breed Discrimination:
  • Hagrid, a half-giant, introduces us to the Ministry's inclinations towards Fantastic Racism. Professor Umbridge takes this even further, biasing her review against him to make him seem extremely stupid and incapable of teaching a class. She even refers to centaurs as "filthy half-breeds" despite the fact that all of them are born of centaurs, not horses and humans.
  • Being a "half-blood" wizard, i.e. having one parent be a Muggle (or Muggleborn) and the other a pureblood or half-blood wizard, doesn't have quite as much the stigma around it as being purely Muggleborn, but it's still kept quiet within the prejudiced Slytherin house. Notably, both Voldemort and Snape are half-bloods and yet they've expressed disdain for their own kind (though, admittedly, Snape grew out of it and only adhered to it as his cover). That's not even counting for the fact that almost all of the most powerful wizards in the series have been half-blood, including the aforementioned two, Albus Dumbledore (hands down the most powerful wizard in the series), Minerva McGonagall, and Harry himself.
  • Werewolves are counted as half-breeds under wizarding law, and it's mentioned several times that they have difficulty finding jobs or being accepted in society. Lupin mentions that he was only able to attend Hogwarts because Dumbledore was headmaster and was kind enough to come up with ways to work around the condition. While it's somewhat understandable for wizards to be nervous about hanging around someone who turns into a monster every so often, the fact that they only transform during the full moon and the fact that the Wolfsbane Potion allows transformed werewolves to essentially be harmless makes the extent of discrimination against them pretty excessive.
• Hammerspace: What Hermione's bag is after using an Undetectable Extension Charm. It's limited Hammerspace, housing only the things Hermione stashes in there, including a portrait of Phinneas Nigellius Black. It is considered a Bag of Holding, and it's pretty deep. The book even describes Hermione sticking her arm in all the way to her armpit to get something in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Handing Over the Crap Sack: At least twice, Harry receives an almost worthless Christmas gift from the Dursleys: a single tissue, and a fifty-pence piece.
• Happily Married: Almost every married couple in the series is. Molly and Arthur Weasley, Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy, Petunia and Vernon Dursley, and (while they were alive) Lily and James Potter were all happily married. This seems to be common among wizards in the Potterverse where the only character known to be divorced is Sybill Trelawney, and that wasn't mentioned until the release of her Pottermore profile.
  • By the end of the series, Bill and Fleur, Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione, and Draco and Astoria all end up happily married too.
  • The exceptions are Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange. Bellatrix doesn't seem to care about Rodolphus except as a fellow Death Eater and even cheats on him with Voldemort; Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle, who never would have married if she hadn't drugged him with a love potion; and Eileen and Tobias Snape, who abused her.
• Happiness in Mind Control: Subverted by Tom Riddle Sr., who was forced by Merope Gaunt to fall in love with her via a Love Potion. It's argued that she later released Tom from the effects of the potion because she thought this trope would have kicked in by the time she got pregnant. She was horribly wrong, and Tom fled the moment he was given control of his faculties again.
• Happiness in Slavery: Most house-elves love being servants. There's also the issue (which Hermione never seems to grasp in canon) that with one exception, "freeing them" — especially from a master who isn't openly abusive — is equivalent to sacking them in disgrace. There are several instances of house-elves working around orders or finding loopholes to disobey masters that they don't like, rebelling without being freed. Even the exception to the rule, Dobby, essentially considers freedom the right to decide whose orders he will obey.
• Hate Sink: Plenty of characters exist solely to inspire hatred in the reader, starting with the Dursleys and later including Rita Skeeter, Zacharias Smith, Cormac McLaggen, and Cornelius Fudge. But the main one is Dolores Umbridge, a secondary villain whose every quality, including her name, is carefully designed to make the reader despise her as much as possible.
• Headless Horseman: The Headless Hunt is an event held by a group of decapitated ghosts.
• Healing Serpent:
  • Severus Snape and Horace Slughorn are at different times the Head of the House of Slytherin and carry out potion making which cures petrified students, relieves the symptoms of lycanthropy and cures a student of the effects of a love potion.
  • Once frozen, the eggs of the magical snake called a Ashwinders can be eaten to cure ague.
  • Snake fangs are an ingredient for numerous potions, most notably the Boil Cure potion.
  • Gilderoy Lockhart invented a special kind of hair shampoo, with Occamy^note A very serpentine creature. egg yolks.
• Height Insult: In one book, Ron (a teenager) says to a bunch of first-year students (all preteens), "Hey, you lot! Midgets!". However, Hermione scolds him for this.
• Helpless with Laughter: The spell Rictusempra is often used in duelling for this reason- it tickles the opponent to the point that their laughter becomes out of control, rendering them unable to effectively continue fighting.
• Hero Secret Service: The Order of the Phoenix.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Harry himself, along with Sirius Black and Severus Snape.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • James Potter and Sirius Black.
  • Harry and Ron, most definitely. They even have two break-up episodes: once in Goblet of Fire and another in Deathly Hallows.
• Hidden Depths: A large amount of characters become gradually more rounded, most notably Snape and Neville.
• Hidden Elf Village: Hidden Wizard World. Wizards routinely travel between sanctuaries such as their homes and Diagon Alley, but on average, the entire Wizarding World is Invisible to Normals.
• High Turnover Rate: For last thirty or so years, Hogwarts has never managed to retain a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher for longer than a single school year. Each and every one of Harry's D.A.D.A. teachers had some fate befall them that ensured they wouldn't make it to next year. This is because Voldemort jinxed the position, and it was only after he died did anyone manage to last long enough in that position for tenure.
• Hillbilly Horrors: The Gaunt family represent this.
• His Own Worst Enemy: Although Harry is Voldemort's literal mortal enemy, Voldemort does have a huge responsibility in his own downfall right from the very beginning. When he was presented the Schrodinger's Prophecy he could've chosen to ignore it, but he didn't, and in doing so created his own downfall with Harry's scar.
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Parseltongue, the ability to communicate with snakes, is widely regarded by witches and wizards as a Dark Art, simply because most of the well-known Parselmouths have been Dark wizards (including Salazar Slytherin, the originator of the Fantastic Racism against Muggle-borns, and his descendant Voldemort). This isn't a hard-and-fast rule by any means — Dumbledore expressly states in book 6 that there have been plenty of good Parselmouths — but many still believe the reverse. In book 2, after Harry himself is revealed to be a Parselmouth (Voldemort gave him the ability by accident), half the school promptly becomes convinced that he must be evil; this is brought up again in book 4 as part of a smear campaign against him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Voldemort had no idea that the Elder Wand technically belonged to Harry. (Even though Harry actually told him about it.) So, naturally, when he tried to cast the Killing Curse on Harry with it, it reflected back on him (again) and killed him permanently.
• Hollywood Board Games: In real life, being a genius is not a requirement for excelling at chess. Cue Ron Weasley. In the books, Ron may not be as clever as Hermione but is definitely not Book Dumb. Ron's forte is strategy, which he displays by sweeping the floor with Teen Genius Hermione in chess. Furthermore, he also wins against a life-sized chess set that was programmed, so to speak, by Professor McGonagall, who is very Book Smart.
• Homeschooled Kids: According to JKR, this is the easiest way for wizarding families to get their kids through Primary School without exposing the wizarding world to Muggles. In Deathly Hallows it's also stated that wizarding parents have the option of homeschooling their children rather than sending them to Hogwarts or a foreign school, but at that point Voldemort's regime makes it mandatory for parents to send their children to Hogwarts so he can keep an eye on them — and weed out the latest Muggle-born wizards...
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Nicely averts this trope until the later books, and then subverts it by making the main characters' teenage relationship tangles A) realistic and B) quite secondary to the actual plot. Done especially well with Hermione. After her brief liaison with Viktor Krum in Goblet of Fire, she decides dating isn't all it's cracked up to be and realizes she's still not old enough for serious romantic entanglements. She's also largely uninterested in clothes and doesn't care that she has frizzy hair, concerning herself with academics rather than vanity (she does get her teeth reduced to eliminate a very slight case of buck teeth, but this is justified in that she was already having them shrunk to counteract a spell that made them gigantic, and just let them keep shrinking a little smaller than they were).
• Horrible Judge of Character: Subverted with Dumbledore, it seems as if he has this in his trust for Snape, but then he turns out to be right
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: It emerges that Hagrid's half-giant, with a wizarding father and a giant mother. Giants in this world are on average twenty feet tall. Best not to think too much about the mechanics...
  • Subverted with hippogriffs. In traditional mythology, they are the offspring of a horse and a griffin - Rowling's hippogriffs seem to be produced by breeding hippogriff with hippogriff.
• Hufflepuff House: In addition to having the Trope Namer, the Ravenclaw House serves as something of a less triumphant example of the trope, at least until Cho Chang and later Luna Lovegood begin taking more active roles in the plot.
• Human Head on the Wall: One of the many ghastly customs of the Black family of dark wizards was to have their house elves beheaded and their heads mounted like trophies once they'd become too old and sick to work. Kreacher's mother was among the victims of this practice.
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place:
  • A less extreme example with Portkeys, which accompany rather intense and blurry visuals. According to Pottermore, "Portkey-sickness" (hysterics and nausea) was a common start-of-school ailment during Hogwarts's brief flirtation with a Portkey network as subsidized transport to campus.
  • Apparition certainly counts, as Harry describes it as an extremely unpleasant sensation of being squeezed through a very tight tunnel.
  • Travelling by Floo powder could also count as a less-extreme example, considering that it involves spinning very fast and you could see any manner of things in one of the fireplaces, or fall out at the wrong grate, as Harry does in Chamber of Secrets.
• Hypocrite:
  • Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters are prejudiced against wizards with less than pure wizarding blood and non-human magical creatures in general despite he, himself, having a muggle parent. Though he's counting on the anti-Muggle feelings of his followers, he genuinely despises Muggles and anything he considers Mud-blood — and he apparently has a one drop rule for everyone except himself and personal Death Eaters like Snape. Although they also recruited giants and werewolves, they probably rationalized them as second- and third-tier "citizens" in Voldemort's new England. It is suggested a few times that he is exploiting the prejudices of his own followers more than enforcing his own, and that he really doesn't care about anything but his own power anymore. Voldemort's own half-blood status is one of the reasons he started going after power. He considered his father to be lowly and weak and cowardly for turning away his mother and was determined to ignore his own history and go with wanting power.
  • And then we have Umbridge. Although fans have a lot of reasons to hate her with relish, her hypocrisy is certainly one of the main ones. In Order of the Phoenix she is seen as an agent of the Ministry, sycophantic to its causes and forcing tyrannical laws onto the school in order to get her own way, yet at the same time gleefully (although secretly) engaging in activities that are highly illegal and certainly unforgivable, even by the Ministry. Worse, she punishes Harry most severely for asserting that Voldemort is at large, insisting that he "not tell lies", while aping the official Ministry line on Voldemort, which is patently and obviously false. In Deathly Hallows she persecutes Muggle-borns for "stealing magic", which she should certainly know is a nonsensical charge, while claiming that the locket she took as a bribe is an old family heirloom supporting her own bloodline. The injustice and cruelty of this enrages Harry so much that he attacks her immediately without resorting to a more subtle plan.
  • Sirius Black. Despite his axiom that the measure of a man is how he treats his inferiors, he behaves detestably towards Kreacher. Indeed, this is one of his least admirable qualities. It also bites him in the arse. Hard. But as Dumbledore clarifies, Sirius was kind to house-elves in general but Kreacher was special as a reminder of his home and the bad childhood that he hoped to escape. Also, his belief that "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" goes out the window during the argument with Snape, though the latter is himself not blameless in that regard. JKR admits that this is a serious flaw for Sirius, but she also admits that it's difficult to be morally consistent in life.
  • Lupin in the third book tells Harry that he's appalled that Harry never brought the Marauder's Map to a teacher's attention given how useful it would be to catch Sirius or how useful it'd be to Sirius if he found it. Yet, Lupin never bothers telling Dumbledore (or anyone except Harry, Ron, and Hermione) that Sirius is an animagus and knows about the tunnel from the Shrieking Shack onto Hogwarts grounds.

I

• I Am Big Boned: Madame Maxine uses this excuse not at the prospect of being called fat, but when Hagrid speculates that she is half-giant. This trope also applies to the Dursleys blaming Dudley's weight on baby fat. In the Prisoner of Askaban PS2 game, an unnamed girl says this about the Fat Lady.
• Idiot Hero: Played With. Harry is not stupid per se, but he is lacking in common sense on more than one occasion and often operates on instinct rather than thinking things through. He's often trying to take on wizards far older and far more experienced than him, he pins all of the wrongdoing in the school on Draco Malfoy (or Slytherin in general), and if ever he senses a corrupt and possibly harmful teacher, it's always Snape. It gets to the point where, in Half-Blood Prince, Ron and Hermione start rolling their eyes at Harry whenever he brings up his "Malfoy is a Death Eater" theory. This is subverted when he turns out to be correct about both Malfoy (who is a Death Eater) and Snape (sort of). This gets him into trouble in Order of the Phoenix, and Hermione even lampshades this by telling Harry he's got "a saving-people thing" that Voldemort not only can exploit, but has exploited in the past. Namely, kidnapping a mind-raped Ginny and taking her into the Chamber of Secrets because he wanted to meet Harry.
• Impoverished Patrician: The Gaunt Family. Descended straight from Salazar Slytherin, in possession of one of his lockets. Also dirt poor and living in a gross old shack.
• Inevitably Broken Rule:
  • If a Hogwarts rule ever gets brought up in any book, expect it to be broken by the last page. Notable examples include wandering the halls late at night, trespassing into the corridor being guarded by Fluffy, horseplay on broomsticks while Madame Hooch is bringing an injured student to the hospital wing, etc.
  • Taken even further when the Dolores Umbridge seizes power over Hogwarts in Order of the Phoenix, and Harry and his friends end up having to violate quite a few of her mandates just to oust her, such as openly speaking out against her ineffective teaching methods and curriculum in Defence Againt the Dark Arts class, and printing/distributing The Quibbler.
• Inhumanly Beautiful Race: Veelas are beautiful women with long silver-blonde hair, blue eyes, shining skin and perfect teeth. However, they have supernatural powers to seduce men and hypnotize them, so it is possible that Harry's description of them is a little exaggerated. They have one downside though: piss them off and they turn into crazy bird monsters that throw fire at you.
• Ineffectual Death Threats: The staff of Hogwarts seem to love to toss around the threat of expulsion as if it's done weekly — especially directed at younger students. We only ever meet one person expelled from Hogwarts — Hagrid (who had to be accused — albeit falsely — of causing the death of another student), who is now a professor.
• Informed Ability: The most glaring are:
  • Few if any Slytherins ever exhibit much ambition and cunning, in school or adulthood.
  • Hermione is supposed to be logical, but most of her reasoning sounds like guesswork.
  • Ginny is said to be a powerful witch, but we never see her do anything that impressive with her magic.
  • Lily is said to be very kind, but when we see her in flashbacks where she hangs out with Severus in Spinner's End she is not exactly nice to him.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Hermione Granger gets rather snippy when people refer to her "Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare" by its acronym.
    • The name is even better in Dutch: "Stichting Huiself voor Inburgering en Tolerantie" (society house-elf for naturalizing and tolerance).
  • Also, whenever Harry calls Snape "Snape", the nearest adult (or Hermione) often corrects him: "Professor Snape."
• Interclass Friendship:
  • Harry is implied to be somewhere between very and obscenely rich, particularly after Sirius dies and leaves him everything. Ron, his best friend, comes from one of the poorest families in the novels. The class issues are Downplayed because Harry was raised by muggles and is more or less a Spear Counterpart to Cinderella in that he lived as a poor servant to a rich step-family but then gets pushed forth into celebrity-superhero-dom, but in book four, Harry has to awkwardly admit that he forgot about the Leprechaun gold Ron gave him after it disappeared. Harry continues to wear Dudley's hand-me-downs in the muggle world, but in the wizarding world, he's the heir to a cosmetics fortune which allows him to buy almost anything he wants and Ron is the sixth son of a struggling family who only ever has hand-me-downs. Ron mutters that if he got a sum of that much leprechaun gold he would certainly notice it missing.
  • In the backstory, James and Sirius were from very wealthy families. They befriended the much poorer Remus Lupin as well as Peter Pettigrew, whose family's financial status is unknown.
  • Lily Evans, who had a middle-class upbringing, befriended the very poor Severus Snape. At their first meeting, when they were preteens, Lily's sister Petunia even remarks on Severus's address in Spinner's End, apparently the bad part of town. Severus Snape likewise befriended the very wealthy Lucius Malfoy in Slytherin.
• Internalized Categorism:
  • Argus Filch is one of the cruellest people in the books, openly wishing that the headmaster would allow him to torture children, but he is so embarrassed that he's a Squib that he might be taking out his self-hatred out on the young wizards of whom he's jealous.
  • Tom Riddle was embarrassed that he was a half-blood, not just because of Fantastic Racism but because that meant his muggle father was too weak to be a wizard and his witch mother was too weak to stay alive. He invented a new name to hide this fact and began preaching against unions like the one that created him.
  • Auntie Muriel suggests that Mrs Dumbledore was too proud to admit she’d given birth to a squib so she locked Ariana in the house until her own death, even though she grew up in a Muggle family.
• Intra-Scholastic Rivalry: Very prominent indeed, with the four houses Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. In particular, the Gryffindor and Slytherin pupils loathe each other on principle.
• Irony:
  • The series often displays many examples but the Half-Blood Prince is probably the one with the most and/or largest ones. In this book Snape stops teaching Potions class and teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, and is replaced in Potions by Professor Slughorn. Potions was previously Harry's worst subject because he hated Snape and because Snape actively sabotaged his work in class. In his first class with Slughorn he finds a second-hand book labelled as "the property of the Half-Blood Prince". Inside the book are vast amounts of hints that help Harry in his Potions classes, making it his best subject. Then the big reveal is that Snape is the Half Blood Prince. At one point in the book Harry even makes a throwaway remark that The Prince is a much better teacher than Snape. Dramatic irony at its finest. (It also indicates that Snape could probably have been a really good Potions teacher if he hadn't been such an asshole.)
  • Although everyone agrees that Professor Trelawney doesn't have a whit of divinatory talent (most of the time), it happens that every single prediction she makes eventually comes true. Largely this is because they are extremely vague or already probable (for example, telling Harry, who's been marked as the nemesis of the Dark Lord, that he is in danger), but even so, her ultimate record is astoundingly perfect. Some fans speculate that trying too hard is what screws her up, and if she lets it come naturally, she does alright.
• Is That What He Told You?: Lots of well-meaning deception from Dumbledore.
• It Amused Me: The only reason Peeves the poltergeist does anything, although his pranks are (generally) more irritating than harmful. Dumbledore and the Bloody Baron (and sometimes Fred and George) are the only ones who can control him.
• It Can Think: The castle of Hogwarts is possibly sentient. A great deal of what the school does assists the Power Trio and hampers their antagonists, such as the stairs moving in the first film to take Harry, Ron, and Hermione to where Fluffy is guarding the trapdoor, the Room of Requirement being unusually helpful, etc.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: For Harry, who doesn't like how the Daily Prophet and the Ministry of Magic insist on calling him and treating him as the Chosen One in Half-Blood Prince.