Video Game / LEGO Harry Potter

A LEGO Adaptation Game duology based on Harry Potter.

The first half, Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 covers the first four books and films in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The game is available on the Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Microsoft Windows, OS X and iOS. The OS X version of the game was released on February 22, 2011 by Feral Interactive. A PlayStation 2 version of the game was planned, but later cancelled for unknown reasons and was scrapped along with LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues.

The second half, Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7, covers the final three books and final four films: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. The game was released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Microsoft Windows, and iOS. The game was released on Steam on January 5, 2012. The OS X version of the game was released by Feral Interactive on March 7, 2012.

Both games were remastered as part of a Compilation Re-release renamed The Lego Harry Potter Collection, released for the PlayStation 4 on October 21, 2016, as well as the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on October 30, 2018.

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Tropes

• Adaptational Badass: Happens to multiple characters throughout the games.
  • 11 year old Ginny actively helps Harry defeat the Basilisk in the climax of Chamber of Secrets. In the book and film, she more or less took on the Damsel in Distress role, due to having her life-force drained by Tom Riddle's diary.
  • The Weasley children and Hermione easily fend off hordes of Death Eaters during the Quidditch World Cup riots.
  • Smug Snake Dolores Umbridge gets this trope of all people in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7. In the original books, she is portrayed as mean, but very incompetent when it comes to actual magical knowledge and ability, while her combat skills are next to nothing. However, when a herd of angry centaurs fire arrows at her in the game, she employs some impressive martial arts moves, such as casually avoiding an arrow, followed a backflip and even kicking one arrow away. She is also a boss fight in Deathly Hallows Part 1, in contrast to the books and film, where she was knocked out by a single spell.
• Adaptation Explanation Extrication: This comes with the territory of being based primarily on the movies and not the books but also has to do with not having dialogue. Especially towards the end of the series, it’s hard to explain the intricacies of the story without anyone talking. For example, why Dumbledore’s hand got cursed (he touched the resurrection stone knowing the ring was cursed to try to apologize to his sister, who does briefly appear in a portrait without an explanation as to who she is, for causing her death) is never explained. It’s just cursed. The fact that he was dying anyway and had Snape Mercy Kill him to spare Malfoy from having to do it doesn’t come across either. The Deathly Hallows themselves aren’t really explained either.
• Adaptational Intelligence: A minor case for Lockhart, who actually manages to teach the Immobulus charm for dealing with pixies instead of his idiotic "Peskipiksi Pesternomi" spell.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Harry himself is a bit of a cartoonish jerk in these games. For example, during the Dueling Club scene in Chamber of Secrets, he deliberately commands the snake to go after Malfoy, looking smugly when Malfoy flees from it. In the original he merely ordered the snake to stand down. He's also highly amused when he sees Snape being humiliated by his father during the flashback he saw in his Occlumency lessons, while in the novel he was actually disturbed seeing his father act like this.
  • When Grawp gives Hermione a bicycle handle (complete with a bell) as a gift, Harry and Ron are snickering at her, much to her annoyance. In the movie, this scene plays out similarly, expect all three of them are in complete shock at the fact they are staring at a giant.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • Harry and Ron being mean to Hermione before the troll incident in Philosopher's Stone is omitted, with the trio becoming friends straight away. Hermione's reason for being in the bathroom crying when the troll attacks is also changed from overhearing Ron saying she has no friends to having a pie thrown in her face by Malfoy.
  • In one scene in Chamber of Secrets, Crabbe begins to clap for Hagrid and Harry until Malfoy stops him. Here, both Crabbe and Goyle attempt to clap before getting stopped.
  • Cedric Diggory wasn't a villain by any stretch, but his relationship with Harry was a lot more complicated and they didn't fully become partners until the end of the Maze Task, here Cedric is always friendly to Harry, he's never involved with Cho (since the Yule Ball never happens), Harry never receives hate from Cedric fans, and they become partners from the Lake Task onwards.
  • In Half-Blood Prince, Crabbe is shown applauding Harry when he successfully brewed Draught of Living Death, much to Malfoy's annoyance.
• Adaptational Wimp: Harry before learning the truth about Sirius Black is scared of Sirius instead of wanting to kill him for his supposed role in the death of Lily and James Potter. Therefore, in the Shrieking Shack, Harry is scared upon being confronted with Sirius.
• Adapted Out:
  • Subverted with some of the side characters who are cut out completely from the story portions of the games, but are unlockable as playable characters, as well as vice versa.
  • Various scenes from each year are cut out. It even has its own page.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Most of the LEGO Adaptation games can be played without having experienced the source material, though the games are clearly targeting fans of the originals. The exception is Harry Potter Years 5-7. While you can muddle your way through Years 1-4, you will be completely lost in the sequel. For an example of how these games look to someone unfamiliar with the source material: LEGO Harry Potter as Explained by Someone Who Has Never Read Harry Potter.
  • Wizard characters have an unnamed spell that acts as their basic destructive/offensive spell. It goes unnamed in the game itself, but it's identified in the game files of Years 1-4 as Fracto Strata.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: There are many "characters" in the games that aren't really anything but alternate outfits for the characters. Some, however, do have slightly different properties.
• Anti-Frustration Features: In Years 1-4, you can only levitate/interact with objects with the purple spell slot selected. In Years 5-7, you can do it regardless of what spell is selected.
• Art Evolution:
  • For Years 1-4, most characters (and some models) use the designs of the original LEGO Harry Potter toys released from 2001 to 2007, with some tweaks here and there, such as using tan skin tone instead of the original figures' classic LEGO yellow, Hogwarts uniforms being dark grey instead of light grey, and characters like Draco and Ginny using their 2010-2011 era hairpieces. Some exceptions exist however, with Professor Snape and Voldemort using their 2010-2011 minifigs designs in lieu of their original 2001-2007 looks.
  • For Years 5-7, the game adopts updated minifigure designs from the LEGO Harry Potter sets released in 2010-2011 concurrently with the Deathly Hallows films. With these, Hogwarts students lost their capes and had black legs instead of dark grey, Ron and Hermione get new hairpieces that better match their looks in the later films, and Dumbledore adopts movie-accurate blue robes instead of the original purple, among other tweaks.
• Aside Glance: When Ron rejoins Harry and Hermione in Deathly Hallows Part 1, Hermione slaps him before giving him a hug. Harry reacts by looking at the camera and nodding his head towards them with an expression that screams "Are you guys seeing this?"
• Bag of Holding: Just like in the book and films, Hermione gets one in Deathly Hallows Part 1. She can use it on pink pads to pull out whatever will help with the obstacle in front of her. She has a Rummage Fail every time she uses it, throwing out various objects before she finds what she needs.
• Bag of Spilling:
  • Used in Harry Potter Years 5-7, as Umbridge bans most of the spells learned in the previous game (despite not being able to use those spells to begin with anyway). You can relearn/buy the spells you lost (save for Riddikulus, Accio, and Multicorfors), along with new ones.
  • Snape can use Dark items in Years 1-4, but can't use them in Years 5-7. Apparently now that you know he was on your side he's not a dark wizard anymore, despite being canonically adept at dark magic.
  • Within Harry Potter Years 1-4 Ron has access to Scabbers from Year 1 through to Year 3, but cannot use him in Year 4, a case of Gameplay and Story Integration, as Pettigrew has returned to Voldemort by now, and thus would not be in Ron's possession.
• Beam-O-War: A staple of wizard duels; unlike in the books where it was a specific quirk of Harry's and Voldemort's wands.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Cho Chang gives one to Harry in the middle of Order of the Phoenix; and it's ridiculously exaggerated with visual props like curtains, flowers, and a giant pair of lips coming out of nowhere. Granted you're in the Room of Requirement when it happens, but still.
• Big Eater:
  • Dudley Dursley is seen eating in every scene he is in during Years 1-4.
  • Ron Weasley is often seen stuffing himself, whether it's at the beginning of the year feast, while his house burns, whenever.
  • Professor Slughorn is usually seen with a drink.
• Big Head Mode: What does Engorgio Skullus mean?
• Bonus Stage:
  • Years 1-4 has several bonus levels located in the Gringotts vaults. These are unrelated to the story, but required to get all the gold bricks. Finding all the gold bricks unlocks a bonus stage in which you get to play Voldemort, who's objective it is to rampage through 1981 London to accumulate a certain amount of studs.
  • Years 5-7 has one bonus level that's unlocked after completing all the story levels. The level takes place in a small Lego town (consisting of various Lego Harry Potter sets released between 2010-2011). Your objective is to wreak havoc in said town which gives you studs. Reaching 1000000 studs completes the level.
• Bowdlerization:
  • Goblet of Fire has Voldemort take Harry's glasses instead of having Pettigrew cut Harry's arm with a knife for his blood as happens in the books and when Voldemort is in full form, Harry gets his glasses back anyway. This is a justified case of Fridge Brilliance, however, since the characters are plastic Lego figures, who obviously don't bleed.
  • Ron's splinching in Deathly Hallows Part 1 is changed from full-on mutilation to his arm temporarily going limp.
  • The torture scene at Malfoy Manor is toned way down. There is no offscreen screaming like in the book and film, and the most we actually see is Bellatrix angrily shaking Griphook.
  • Dobby's death is changed from being stabbed to being crushed by a pile of junk.
  • Snape's death is changed to Nagini slamming him around instead of tearing out his throat.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • Finding all golden bricks in Harry Potter: Years 1-4 ultimately allows you to unlock Voldemort as a playable character. But he is not any different from any other dark wizard in the game, and seeing as you already require a dark wizard to unlock Voldemort, he is not the most useful character...except to show everyone that you finished the game at 100% completion.
  • The ultimate reward in Years 5-7 is even more useless. Finding all the golden bricks there allows you to build a golden miniature version of Hogwarts in one of the rooms of the Leaky Cauldron that continually spawns studs. Think of it as a large trophy.
• Butt-Monkey: Ron tends fall victim to most of the comic injuries and pratfalls.
• Christmas Special: In both games, there's a feature called Christmas, which allows everyone to wear Santa Hats (and in Years 1-4, play Christmas music). Next playthrough, see if you can guess when to turn on and off the feature during each year. Year 1 is done for you.
• Clockworks Area: You can enter the clock chamber in Hogwarts. It is necessary to stop the mechanism to be able to climb it.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Actually inverted during Wizard duels in the second game. Both you and your opponent are able to summon a magical shield to block spells. However, the shield only works for you, not the AI controlled opponent.
• Continuity Nod: When Ron looks in the Mirror of Erised, he sees himself kissing Hermione.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The spell wheel changes between games, so players have to relearn where is what when using the quick-select bumpers.
• Darker and Edgier: LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 makes this trope clear right from the title screen. Given the source material, it was inevitable.
• Dartboard of Hate: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 shows that Draco has one of Harry near his bed. Years 5-7 shows that the bulletin board in the Gryffindor common room has one of Draco.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You just lose LEGO studs. These aren't meant to be Nintendo Hard games unless you're trying to get 100% Completion, which sometimes demands a No Death Run. Lampshaded in a cutscene: after Cedric Diggory falls apart when Voldemort uses Avada Kedavra on him, Dumbledore gives Amos Diggory a do-it-yourself minifig repair manual.
• Dem Bones: Dancing skeletons are a Running Gag.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • During the level "Mischief Managed", Ron won't be able to summon Scabbers, which foreshadows his identity as Peter Pettigrew.
  • The aging line puzzles present themselves as needing the Aging Potion to pass through them, but they can also be passed through by polyjuicing into an already super-old character, like Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Voldemort, with the benefit of normal walking speed and no time-limit.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Voldemort kills Snape in the books because he thinks he's the master of the Elder Wand (which he wasn't), here he kills him because he ate the last cookie. There just isn't any way to convey the former in a game without spoken dialogue.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Completing ‘‘The Dark Lord Returns’’ at the end of year 4.
• Disconnected Side Area: The lake in both games isn't accessible until the final year, requiring Reducto or Hermione's bag respectively. While it houses a single level in 1-4, 5-7 has it as an entirely optional area for a gold brick.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • After the second level in the whole game (the first one at Hogwarts) you have the ability to get to the "Collect Ghost Studs" Red Brick powerup, before the plot takes you there. It only costs 50,000 studs, which can easily be obtained by this point, but it allows you to collect the "Ghost Studs" dropped by Nearly Headless Nick as he leads you to the next level/lesson/cutscene. You can easily get the 4 million needed to get Accio (which makes a lot of the puzzles moot by just giving you potion items) as well as other spells in just an hour or so of grinding. Makes 100% Completion extremely easy. Add to this a glitch that sometimes allows you to collect ghost studs after you finish year 4 (when you shouldn't be able to) and this really edges into the territory of Game-Breaker. You can also get the same Red Brick pretty early in Years 5-7.
  • Once you have completed Transfiguration in the first game it is possible to use a glitch involving Quirrell in Diagon Alley to get into Knockturn Alley, containing several adult characters who have spells you shouldn't have learnt yet.
• Distressed Damsel: Both games are filled with "Students in Peril" that the player can help out of trouble for gold bricks.
• Downloadable Content: Starting with LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7, the games have had extra characters and spells available as DLC. New copies of the games sometimes include codes to download these characters and spells for free.
• Empathic Environment: Each year, the weather is the same all throughout, matching the tone of the book/movie it's portraying.
  • Sorcerer's Stone has clear skies, since it’s the first year in the game and represents a clean, more innocent slate.
  • Chamber of Secrets is cloudy, being somewhat darker and more seasoned than its predecessor.
  • Prisoner of Azkaban takes place at night, adding a slight eeriness, thanks to the school being on lockdown and guarded by dementors. It’s also foggy in certain locations.
  • Goblet of Fire has rain, giving off a more neutral feel.
  • Order of the Phoenix is similar to Sorcerer's Stone, expect the game’s lighting makes it look like it’s earlier in the day.
  • Half Blood Prince is similar to Chamber of Secrets, expect the game’s lighting makes it look like it’s later in the day.
  • Deathly Hallows Part 1 is dark and stormy, matching Voldemort's rise to power.
  • Deathly Hallows Part 2 is either dusk or dawn (depending on where you are in the story), representing the calm before the battle or peace after Voldemort's death.
• End of an Age:
  • Years 1-4 was the last game to use the version of the engine used since LEGO Batman.
  • Years 5-7 was the last game where the characters have no dialogue.
• Extremely Short Timespan: While each "year" takes place in the span of, well... a year, the game makes it seem like only a few days.
• Fly-at-the-Camera Ending: The ending of the Prisoner of Azkaban part of LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 brilliantly parodies the movie's ending by having Harry fly out into orbit on his Firebolt.
• Follow the Money: The game gives you a trail of ghostly or holographic studs to guide you to your destination. Of course, since they're not real, they're not actually worth any money — unless you activate a cheat. The normal version with real studs is also used.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • There is one notorious bug in Harry Potter Years 1-4, in which you drop into a room and the mechanism that is supposed to throw you back up fails to do so. Unfortunately there are several items in the room that, upon collection, cause the game to autosave. This means that even if you reload or exit to the hub, you're still in the room when you return.
  • Exiting a level without completing it could sometimes cause the level entrance to fail to reappear in Hogwarts, making it impossible to continue on, or causing the entrance to the next level to appear, leaving the previous level lost forever.
  • Likewise, moving between screens or collecting other items while the game was autosaving could make a mess of things. Future games would immobilize the character during a save to prevent this from happening.
  • Several areas in Hogwarts become inaccessible due to glitches upon completing certain levels.
  • In Years 1-4, the "Dark Tower" level for Prisoner of Azkaban has an infuriating bug that makes it where activating the starting area's exit causes the game to freeze, and it has the potential to freeze again each time you restart it, even several times in a row. One workaround for this is shooting the statues and then running as quickly as possible until the exit is offscreen, which avoids triggering the visual glitch that freezes the game.
  • In Years 5-7, certain levels freeze randomly.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Polyjuice Potion is much more powerful than it is in the books and movies. Not only does it last indefinitely (or at least until you reach the next cutscene or certain areas where it won't let you be Polyjuiced), but you can use it to turn into non-human characters such as Dobby or even ghosts. This is despite the fact that when the game shows the canonical usages of the potion, it works how it should. The Polyjuice Potion also gives you the abilities of the character you are turned into (IE transforming into an evil character allows you to cast dark magic), while the original merely copied the appearance.
  • Subverted in LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 with Lupin, who spends the entire first level refusing to step into the moonlight, because he knows he'll go werewolf and lose control. Played straight in freeplay, where he can shift between werewolf and human whenever the player wishes, without losing control of himself, and he doesn't need the light of the full moon either.
    • Also played straight in the second part of the Tom Riddle’s Diary level, taking place during the memory sequence within the diary. Despite the fact that Harry shouldn’t be able to interact with anything in the memory, as established by even the game’s cutscenes, he can use destroy and use magic on objects just fine. This is, of course, needed due to the co-op gameplay, as one player is Harry while the other is Memory!Tom Riddle. It is possible to complete the level using Tom Riddle alone, however.
  • Played straight again in LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 in the "A Not So Merry Christmas". In the cutscenes, Lupin is shown as frightened of becoming a werewolf under the full moon and going wild, but once he's playable, he can switch between human and werewolf voluntarily, and whether there's a full moon or not.
• Girls with Moustaches: In LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4, characters who take the Aging Potion grow a beard and walk at an unbearably slow pace. This includes female characters. Characters also grow a split-second beard if they're rebuffed by an Aging Line.
• Glass-Shattering Sound: A special ability used by mandrakes.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • In Years 1-4, in the southeast corner of the classroom lobby, there are two green painting hooks. While there are suppose to be two paintings there, the only way to get them is to go to that area specifically during Christmastime in year 1 and solve the puzzle. There is nothing in the game that indicates to do this, but it doesn’t prevent one from getting 100% if missed. Even if you solve this puzzle, the paintings disappear anyway by year 2.
  • In year 4, before the 1st Task, in the entrance courtyard, Moody is turning Draco into a ferret, a moment which could easily be missed. Unlike the example above, you don’t have to go out of your way to find it, since it’s closer to the path you’re suppose to take.
  • Some story levels contain seemingly invincible snapping red books that drain your health completely (even with the Invincibility cheat on) and are almost impossible to dodge when not invisible. They're destroyed while approaching when invisible and (for some reason) pressing the Ride Vehicle button. The only hint to this is a white chevron appearing over the player character, while the standard in Lego games is a white chevron over the vehicle.
  • Due to how hard it is for the game to explain the plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows without spoken words, it is very easy for a player to miss the single vague clue that Ron can speak Parseltongue late in the game.
  • In Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, it's possible to completely miss two otherwise easy achievements... since the game doesn't tell you at all the fact the Occupied Hogwarts of Year 7 completely disappears after Year 7, and the game outright refuses to let you do any of the camping segments of Year 7 after you've completed them..
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The final boss of Half-Blood Prince in the portable versions: Snape. His duel is scripted to be impossible to win meaning losing is the only option you have.
• Hub Level: Diagon Alley plays this role in both games, allowing the player access to several stores, Hogwarts (and surroundings), a wilderness area during the Deathly Hallows parts of the second game and the ability to replay story missions.
• Hub Under Attack: During Deathly Hallows Part 2, the Hogwarts hub level is no longer just home to friendly NPC students, but also to hostile Death Eaters intent on killing you and those NPCs with dark magic. Once you finish the story mode, Hogwarts becomes safe once again.
• Idle Animation: Everyone has them, and there's actually quite a bit of variation. Characters will scratch their head, point their weapon, or twirl around. Hermione will put her hands on her hips and tap her foot. While facing you.
• Interface Spoiler: The Compilation Re-release for PS4 displays character's special abilities under their names, meaning players will now see "Werewolf" written in big bold letters directly under Professor Lupin's name well before he's revealed as one.
• Joke Item: All of the "red" spells in the top part of the spell wheel have no utility or practical purpose whatsoever other than providing ways to torment NPCs. Subverted with Accio, which actually ''is" useful and functions as an upgrade to Wingardium Leviosa.
• Knight of Cerebus: Umbridge is just as bad in LEGO form as she was in the books and films. On the plus side, you get to fight her as a boss and take her down a few pegs.
• Lag Cancel: In both games it normally takes about two seconds to cast a Patronus charm, which given all other spells cast instantly is quite slow. However, this casting time can be reduced to instant like all others if you're walking or jumping before using it.
• Last Disc Magic: Reducto in the first game is needed for a very large number of collectibles, including unlocking Dark Magic and the Goblin Key respectively. However, the spell itself isn't unlocked until about halfway into Goblet of Fire, so there's only around 3 or 4 levels left by the time you learn it.
• Medium Blending: In LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7, the art style changes for the Tale of the Three Brothers, as per the film. Here, it's reminiscent of LittleBigPlanet.
• Mundane Utility: Wingardiam Leviosa is used to build Lego objects in the game.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • In-universe example, the "riddikulus" spell is obviously used for defeating any chests with boggarts in them. So, if the LEGO games play things for laughs, what happens? Well, the characters which had their fears described in the book/movie happen as usual (Spider with rollerskates, the moon flying as a deflating balloon, receiving failing grades, etc.). And then you have ones which didn't appear in the book: Most minor wizarding characters have Voldemort; casting riddikulus on him makes him fly onto his back and start sucking a pacifier. Voldemort has Harry Potter; he just shoots him.
  • Getting terrified of the Dementors? No worries, just turn on the appropriate cheat command and pop a huge pair of glasses, giant nose, and handlebar moustache on them! And the book says it's impossible to make a dementor seem funny.
• No Name Given. The Peverell brothers are simply “Brother 1”, “Brother 2”, and “Brother 3” whereas in the books their names are Antioch, Cadmus, and Ignotus.
• Only Six Faces: As with the other older games in the franchise, there isn't much variation in the character designs and most of the background characters are recycled major characters. For example, James Potter in the flashback in Order of the Phoenix is Harry with lighter hair and Dumbledore and his brother have the same design even though they're not twins.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • When Harry and Ron use Polyjuice Potion in Chamber of Secrets, they still have their same forms except with black heads of hair floating over their heads (even though when the player does it, it's a perfect transformation). However, this could just be how the player sees them, so you can tell that they're Harry and Ron in cutscenes.
  • There's also a scene in Sorcerer's Stone where Harry and Ron must enter the girls' room to rescue Hermione, and it won't admit them because they're boys. Fortunately, an animated painting will briefly give them a disguise. Said disguise is just a wig.
  • Subverted in Deathly Hallows: Part 1 when Harry, Ron and Hermione use Polyjuice Potion to take on the forms of Ministry employees. They look noticeably different, but like older versions of themselves.
• Pixel Hunt: Two of the house crests in the Lake Challenge area require you to blast some green clams and making squiggly (also green) worms attract balloon creatures. This in a literal sea of mostly green/blue items with lighting that changes constantly; and some of the clams are far off in the background of the level. Good luck finding them all without a guide.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • Gilderoy Lockhart is presented as largely incapable of any real magic aside from memory charms, however in the LEGO video games he is shown to be perfectly capable of casting all his known spells, likely to help ensure he can be used in progressing the game, especially during story levels that make use of him.
  • Parts are sometimes changed from the original material to allow two players in what were originally one-man scenes. Examples include:
    • Ginny Weasley and Cedric Diggory helping out in the final battles of years 2 and 4, respectively.
    • The flying car bringing along a motorcycle for the escape from Aragog.
    • Hermione coming along with Harry to help in Harry's battle against Quirrel/Voldemort in Sorcerer's Stone and later on in Goblet of Fire to help in the First Task.
  • With all the characters Speaking Simlish, some scenes that require dialogue are changed.
    • In Year 1, Ron making Hermione run off crying by saying she doesn't have any friends is changed to Malfoy throwing a chocolate bar at her in the Great Hall.
    • it's basically impossible to explain in Harry Potter 5-7 that Voldemort killed Snape due to assuming he was the inheritor of the Elder Wand, so he instead executes him for eating the last cookie.
• Product Placement:
  • Harry Potter Years 1-4 was released to tie in with Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Years 5-7 with the Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD.
  • Years 1-4 comes with a DVD of Sorcerer’s Stone.
• Reality Warping: Courtesy of certain spells — e.g., Transfiguration and Time Turner. Your main spell, Wingardium Leviosa also seems to border on reality warping levels sometimes. This spell allows you to build loose blocks into whatever you need to advance the level.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Red and black objects can't be manipulated by most characters and are reserved only for those with evil powers.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • After you've gotten all of the gold bricks in Harry Potter Years 1-4, you unlock a level that takes place in 1981 where you play as Voldemort and a Death Eater as they go around London killing everyone. After that's done, Voldemort kills Harry's parents comedically.
  • In the section where you play as the Peverell brothers, the middle one’s designated task is to resurrect his dead fiancée so she can get to places the three of them can’t.
• Rule of Three:
  • Lots of the puzzles require three objects to be put in place.
  • When Hermione uses her bag of holding, she pulls out what she needs on the third try.
• Rummage Fail:
  • Hagrid has been known to do this.
  • Every time Hermione uses the Bag of Holding she pulls out two wrong items first.
• Saw a Woman in Half: In the "Out of Retirement" level in year 6, the top floor of Fred and George's joke shop has the "Student in Peril" with head and legs sticking out of a red box, and you have to saw through this box with the "Diffindo" spell, which reveals the student's body in two halves.
• Shout-Out: If you become Mobile Shrubbery while playing as Snape, you'll receive an achievement called "Solid Snape."
• Shown Their Work / Truer to the Text: The games feature a few scenes and characters from the books that did not make it into the films, such as Peeves, Professor Binns, the security trolls, Charlie Weasley, Marietta Edgecombe, and Hestia Jones and moments like Harry using the red sparks to attract his friends in Year 1 during his Forbidden Forest detention and the Weasleys disguising the ghoul as Ron in Deathly Hallows. Also, Rita Skeeter can transform into a beetle, despite her being an Animagus never being revealed in the movies.
• "Simon Says" Mini-Game:
  • The bookcases which Hermione can use show four symbols in a certain order, which have to be selected in the same order. This also happens in part 2, with the Parseltongue cabinets.
  • In the "Dragons" level from Goblet of Fire, a dragon breathes out coloured notes, which the player has to repeat by levitating a mallet on to coloured bars.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Originally, Professor Quirrell died at the end of Sorcerer's Stone when Voldemort left his body. Here, he's last seen heavily bandaged in the Hospital Wing.
  • Implied with Cedric Diggory, as Dumbledore hands his father an assembly manual for LEGO minifigures, allowing him to be rebuilt.
  • In the film and book version of Deathly Hallows, Hedwig is killed by a Death Eater. In LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7, though, her death doesn't happen because she's needed to deliver the red bricks.
  • In the film version of Deathly Hallows, Part 2, Lavender Brown is slaughtered by Fenrir Greyback. In the LEGO version, Hermione saves her in the nick of time by blasting Fenrir out of a window.
• Stab the Sky: LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 has Neville, Hermione, Ron, and Pigwidgeon form this pose once Neville draws the Sword of Gryffindor. This can either be in reference to the poster art for A New Hope, or a nod to the first LEGO games in the franchise.
• Stylistic Suck: When Harry, Ron, and Hermione try to get past Fluffy in LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4, Ron pulls out a trumpet and plays the Harry Potter theme — quite badly.
• Unnecessary Combat Roll: The Muggles in LEGO Harry Potter do this. For damage.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Nobody seems to bat an eye at Bellatrix Lestrange or Voldemort himself walking around Hogwarts if you use Polyjuice Potion to play as them. Even if you start murdering people with Avada Kedavra, NPC characters still don't react whatsoever .
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Levitating random NPCs into bottomless pits.
  • Unlocking a Dark Wizard character, then Avada Kedvraing and Crucioing NPCs. And they don't respawn. At least, unless you restart the game.
  • Pick up an NPC with Wingardium Leviosa, then rotate the left analog stick while they're in the air. 8 times out of 10, they start spinning ridiculously fast, and by releasing the spell button, they go flying.
  • Zap the teachers after you've finished a lesson! For the most part, they actually fight back.
  • You can use the Cruciatus Curse on Umbridge.
• Visual Pun:
  • A closet contains two skeletons.
  • In the Hufflepuff common room, there are two pillows you can start a pillow fight with. No, you don't fight anyone else with the pillows. The pillows fight each other.
  • When Snape dies, he literally kicks a bucket.
• Wall Crawl: In the second half, the characters can wear Weasley Sticky Trainers to walk up striped walls.
• We Can Rebuild Him: After Cedric dies at the end of the final level of the first game, he literally falls to pieces. When his father Amos sees this, he starts crying, until Dumbledore shows him an assembly manual for Lego Minifigures, after which Amos cheers up.
• Who Forgot The Lights?:
  • In Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 you have to get away from Aragog while driving towards the camera with nothing but your vehicle's headlights to guide you.
  • In Prisoner of Azkaban while chasing after Peter Pettigrew through the halls of Hogwarts at night you'll constantly need to use Lumos or you'll easily get lost in the pitch black darkness. Even the lamps you can turn on don't help that much.
  • One of the classrooms you can revisit to unlock a red brick box (a DADA room) will be pitch black, even the lamps you turn on don't seem to generate any light at all since they make no difference in the overall light of the room, thankfully the only challenge centers around defeating some Cornish pixies (which are light blue and easily spotted) and trying not to fall to your death too many times.
  • The Department of Mysteries at the end of Order of the Phoenix is very dark as well.
  • Surprisingly averted with the cave at the end of Half-Blood Prince. While in the book and movie it was pitch-black without the use of magic, here it's quite well-lit.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: LEGO Harry Potter was one of the first games to venture into this, as story mode lets you explore Hogwarts between levels. Years 5-7 adds a wilderness Hub for the parts in Deathly Hallows when the protagonists are in hiding.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: Spells. You can press the buttons, but they won't have any effect until you learn them and then directly select them.
  • In Goblet of Fire, you have to do the maze as part of the Triwizard Tournament. The first part is a series of single rooms that spit you back out on the other side if you try to leave unless you assemble golden armor to point at which exits to take. Even if you know the sequence, the game won't let you go to the next room until you put the armor together.

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