WMG / Harry Potter Creatures Spells And Artifacts

Hedwig is a Hufflepuff.

Her defining attribute is loyalty (to the point that, at least in the movies, she'd sacrifice herself to protect Harry over following orders that caused him danger- i.e., loyalty over obedience). Additionally, she's a particularly good finder; she can find Sirius even when he's in hiding and she doesn't know where to start looking.

Crookshanks is the Potters old cat.

• Since we do not get a description of the cat that the Potter's had it could have some how survived the house exploding which made it's face squashed and unrecognizable to anyone that was friends with the Potters EG Lupin, Sirius. It knew that Peter was a rat and tried to tell Sirius, not Lupin because he was a werewolf. Crookshanks was looking out for Harry in the following years, even jumping on his lap in a latter book despite being very anti social with everyone but Hermione and Sirius.
  • Crookshanks didn't tell Remus because he was a werewolf?! That's one racist cat!
    • Maybe Crookshanks was AFRAID of Remus because he could very easily be eaten.
  • Are we forgetting that, whilst Remus was a wolf, Sirius was a dog? Why would Crookshanks prefer to tell either over the other, since Crookshanks could easily become the prey of either?
    • Have you ever even owned a dog? Dogs do not eat cats, and cats are not their "prey." But anyway, in the books, it says that Crookshanks could tell that Sirius was not actually a dog, which is why it was willing to work with him and help him find Scabbers.
  • Moreover, if Crookshanks was once the Potters' cat, why didn't he present himself to Harry and beg like mad to be adopted by his former owners' child, rather than Hermione? If he'd been watching over Harry since their death, why didn't he accost Harry and Hagrid in Diagon Alley on their first visit and try to charm Harry into choosing him over Hedwig?
    • They didn't go into that shop.
• It's possible, but he'd have been pretty old by then. (Assuming that the cat was, say, a year old or a little less when the house was destroyed, he'd be thirteen-ish by the time Hermione takes him in. Which isn't to say it couldn't happen, since cats can live to be 20 or older.)
  • Of course, he could be a human that transforms into a cat!
• He is half kneazle, which might explain its long lifespan.
• And the lady at the store said that he had been there for ages.
• So are we agreed that Crookshanks is an Animagus? Maybe even Prof. McGonagall? Crookshanks could look different from the McGonagall cat in the first movie either from McGonagall changing the Animagus spell on herself, or just from inconsistencies. It's more likely McGonagall changed the spell, because they would have recognized her from the first year by the time Hermione buys Crookshanks in the third year.
  • He's not and Animagus. Word of God put an end to that rumor YEARS ago on 2/18/04 in the "Rumors" section of her website. Plus, an animagus doesn't get to choose which animal they turn into. It's a reflection of the witch or wizard, so McGonagall is a cat because of her intelligence and independence and she's described as having markings around her eyes that resemble her glasses. (To further prove this point, look at Sirius. He's a dog with long, matted fur, because he's extremely loyal and unkempt.) And if you actually read the books, you'd know that McGonagall never transformed into a cat in front of the class in Harry's first year. She did so in their third year, after Hermione bought Crookshanks.
• (same troper as above) It could also be Lily, Harry's mom. Considering that Sirius, Peter, and James were all Animagi, they might have shown her how to cast the spell. Then, when Voldemort "killed" her, she transformed into her cat form. She became trapped in that form, and waited 13 years before she eventually gained contact with Harry again. THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING!
  • No, it doesn't. For the most part, it seems that someone's animagus form is the same as that of their patronus, unless there's a significant amount of emotional upheaval changes it, so Lily would've been a doe. Secondly, if Lily hadn't died, Harry wouldn't have gained the blood protection, and it kind of cheapens most of the emotional part of the series. And he wouldn't have been able to bring her back with the resurrection stone. Plus, Crookshanks is male.

The Sorting Hat contains the ghost of Hogwarts' 'Fifth Founder.'

It's obviously been there since the beginning of the school (and there's no way a hat made of anything stays together for a millennium except by some sort of magic). TT's theory is that there were originally five powerful wizards that set off into present-day Scotland to build the school, but one died on the way with his/her dream unfulfilled. So the other four founders, once they decided that they would accept students into their houses based on certain criteria, left it up to this wizard/witch (now a ghost) because (s)he would be the only one that would be completely impartial.

The Sorting Hat takes into account family relation when sorting

• Thus explaining why a cowardly traitor like Pettigrew and a moronic lackey like Goyle got into Gryffindor (bravery/loyalty based) and Slytherin (cunning/ambition based) respectively. It's similar to Harry choosing to be in Gryffindor, in this case more like, because your family is so ingrained in the house that that ties of family will be a factor rather than one's personality.
  • Pettigrew could conceivably fit under loyalty - his loyalty was to the strongest and was of the slavish kind. Goyle could easily still qualify for ambition - you don't have to have brains to be ambitious. But as is mentioned elsewhere, student's wishes can influence or change the hat's decisions.
• Hasn't Rowling said the Sorting Hat's consideration of Slytherin for Harry was due to the bit of Voldemort inside him?
  • Really? Well, so much for the similarities between them. Harry's always been perfectly perfect and pure then, and one of the most interesting aspects of the series (that it's our choices that make us who we are) was never true at all.
    • I can't find a single piece of evidence that Rowling ever said that. Besides, Dumbledore very capably sums up why Harry would've done well in Slytherin in Chamber of Secrets, and certainly doesn't say anything about the soul(which at no point in the series did Rowling show to effect Harry's actual personality) being a factor in all that.
• Well, think about the two Slytherins in the story who were shown to have had no business being in that House whatsoever: Regulus Black and Severus Snape. If the Hat really did Sort on personality alone, Regulus would have been put in Gryffindor and Snape would have ended up in Ravenclaw. ^note  Courageous though he was, I just can't imagine Snape as a Gryffindor. But think about just how deeply ingrained both the Black and Prince families were in Slytherin House. Same thing with the Weasleys: Ron really didn't have enough courage to be in Gryffindor (running away and boo-hooing because he was hungry? Yeah, I want him on my team if I have to defeat a genocidal maniac!), but the Hat put him there anyway because the Weasleys are a Gryffindor family. If someone from a pure-blood family with a long history in one particular House doesn't want to be there, they have to specifically ask not to be Sorted into it (see: Sirius Black). So really, the only students who are Sorted by personality alone are Muggle-borns. It makes perfect sense.
  • Snape, no business being in Slytherin? I don't know what you're thinking, but Snape seems pretty much the archetypal Slytherin - he's cunning enough to deceive Voldemort, ambitious enough to excel in Potions as he did, etc..
  • Adding to this, Fred & George are Ravenclaws, Percy's totally a slytherin, and Ron would probably be Hufflepuff.
  • Sorry, but anyone who says Ron wasn't brave clearly hasn't read the books properly at all. Plus, there's the difference between Padma and Parvati, and the placement of Sirius, and the presence of all the Muggle-borns. The high correlation between families and houses is more likely due to the fact that the Sorting Hat honors choices — students from old wizarding families would be placed into their preferred houses as long as they were reasonably suited and the reason for their preference was not petty. Perhaps Peter's placement could have been something like this: Peter sees the three friends who he met on the train get (alphabetically) sorted into Gryffindor. The Sorting Hat decides that since he wants to go there so much, there was a genuine chance that Peter could grow into a brave wizard if he had such good friends to guide him. A major theme Rowling writes into the books is that choices win out over abilities, and so the house system is more guiding students into whichever house would help them reach their potential and make these choices clearer, rather than sorting solely on the basis of ability.
    • Except Potter is AFTER Pettigrew alphabetically. Which raises the observation - Sirius was *that* sure James would be a Gryffindor, that he asked to be placed there before James was Sorted. Sirius must've really liked his new friend...
    • In Sirius' specific case, simply wanting to be in Gryffindor proved he had enough courage to qualify, since it involved going against the clear wishes and values of his family.
  • We don't know that the Prince family was ingrained in Slytherin house, as we know next to nothing about them. In fact, the clues in the books imply that Eileen was not a pureblood witch (in particular something Bellatrix Lestrange said when visiting Spinner's End, saying they were probably the first pureblood witches to ever set foot in that place) and that perhaps the 'half-blood prince' nickname Snape chose for himself was an ironic one, because most members of his family were half-blooded. This doesn't mean the Prince family didn't have a history of being Slytherins, but it is less likely than it would be for a pureblood family like the Blacks, whom we're explicitly told have all been in Slytherin for generations until Sirius. We're not even told what house Eileen was in, it just seems likely it was Slytherin because Snape already wants to be placed there.
    • Eileen was a pure-blood and a Slytherin. Also, Bellatrix is an Ax-Crazy pure-blood supremacist, and was speaking like an Ax-Crazy pure-blood supremacist when she said "we must be the first [pure-bloods] to set foot here." (She didn't like or trust Snape, remember?) Then consider that many cities in Britain [including Yorkshire and Manchester, the two most likely locations for Spinner's End] are almost a thousand years old; there is no possible way that Bellatrix or Narcissa could set foot anywhere in the country and be the first pure-bloods in that area. And lastly, it was stated in the books that Snape nicknamed himself "the Half-Blood Prince" because he, himself, is a half-blood.
  • I always figured that Regulus went under the hat thinking 'Not Gryffindor, not Gryffindor' the way Harry thought 'Not Slytherin' simply because of how he saw his parents treat Sirius when he became a Gryffindor.

House-Elves have hammerspace powers.

In the second film, it was supposed to look like Dobby had pulled the letters from his pillowcase; but the hole in the side for his arm was too high for when he removed the letters, and the edge of the hole for his sleeve was in the middle of where he disappeared the letters to.

• according to parodies, he pulled them out of his ass....

• Remember Hermione's Bag of Holding, showing that Hammerspace is a common occurrence in the Potterverse. Now given that House-Elves imitate human magic with their own, wand-less variety, this is practically canon.

One thing the Arithmancy class teaches is how to divide by zero.

A Wizard Can Do It. There has to be some reason it's called Arithmancy instead of Arithmetic. (Alternately, it's controlling reality via numbers instead of Canis Latinicus, but while interesting, it leaves zero indivisible.)

• Uh...Arithmancy is a real word. It's fortune-telling by numbers. Also called numerology. Since we never get a look inside Hermione's Arithmancy classes in the books, we don't know if it's the same thing, but if it is, it's obvious that someone like Hermione (who likes structure, which is kind of mandatory when it

comes to maths) would prefer it to something as woolly as Trelawney's Divination classes.

• That would be Divination.
• Arithmancy is a specific form of divination.

The Basilisk was actually a secret keeper

In his old age, Salazar Slytherin became more and more paranoid, Mad-Eye style. He had an understandable distrust of muggle-born wizards (there were witch-hangings in his lifetime), and so he built the chamber of secrets as a repository of knowledge and hid it under a proto-Fidelius with the basilisk as secret-keeper (and secret weapon in case Hogwarts would be overrun by hostile forces).Sadly, the proto-Fidelius charm works differently from the modern version - when the basilisk died, the entirety of Slytherin's secret library was lost forever.

• Or, more likely, Tom Riddle took everything that was in Slytherin's library when he discovered the Chamber of Secrets during his time in school.
  • Nevermind the bit about the basilisk dying locking them out, as they go back in during Deathly Hallows. Anyway, this is FRIDGE BRILLIANCE as far as this troper is concerned, finally laying to rest the years of contention over how the Chamber could've gone undiscovered all those years and how its entrance was in a 20th century bathroom despite being built around 1000 A.D.. This troper assumed the castle morphing took care of it, but this clinches the method of how.
  • The only real problem with that theory is that neither Ron nor Harry should know the secret, because the basilisk didn't tell him where it was. (Ron can't even hear the basilisk!) However, the solution to that is if we assume that the message on the wall was a way of revealing the secret, just like Dumbledore's note in Order of the Phoenix. The entire point of that is to get Harry to the Chamber, after all. But Ginny painted that, not the basilisk...except, recall, there's no more chicken blood to write with, like the first message. So what did she write it with? Basilisk blood. Either the Fidelius charm in general, or just this version of it, allows revelation with voluntarily given blood of the secret keeper. So Ron and Harry, and everyone else who saw the message, became privy to the secret location of the chamber (While still not actually knowing where it was.), and then became Secret-Keepers when the basilisk died.
    • And this explains why Myrtle doesn't follow them, and seems to think if they died they'd share her toilet. Why would she think that, when they clearly went down a long tunnel somewhere else? Because, from her POV, they just vanished, and then reappeared, because she hadn't read the message and thus couldn't see the entrance. (Or maybe Fidelius charms just don't allow ghosts in at all.)
    • This even explains why Ron and Hermione ran out of the Room of Requirement without explaining where they were going...it's reasonable for Ron to not think of it and just say 'bathroom', but Hermione would probably give enough info that Harry could find them. However, she discovered she couldn't explain further, because she's not a Secret-Keeper, and there was someone there who didn't know the secret. (We don't know who, just some random student who didn't see the message.)

The house-elves' "clothes" are cursed.

House elves being powerful magic users themselves — perhaps even more powerful than wizards — it's easy to see wizards wanting to do everything possible to keep elves from challenging their dominance. We know they denied them rights, treating them as animals despite having human-level intelligence; we know they didn't allow them to use wands, which would amplify their magical powers as it does for wizards. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine that they went as far as orchestrating the elves' magical enslavement, via forcing them to wear clothing which had a passive form of the Imperius Curse on it (the house-elves' enslavement resembles the Imperius Curse quite strongly — compelled to obey one master, an inappropriate sense of happiness, some can fight it with effort). The cursed clothing is so unlike actual clothes so that wizards could tell the crucial difference between enslaved elves and ones who were still free agents.

Animagus are chosen by wizards as avatars of their personality.

• Prongs was too good a pun for the womanising James to pass up so he became a deer.
• Grindlewand was a pheonix (see above)
  • Hang on why would Peter choose to be a rat, hmm? If I were only hanging out with Marauders (and later Death Eaters) because it was convinient for me I wouldn't blow my cover with a massive anvil like that.
    • My subtheory: Potter screwed him over, by convincing Sirius to help him keep Remus from stopping their prank to carefully guide Wormtail's transformation-activating sequence into him becoming a rat animagus. It's more likely, though, that they needed something wolflike (moddhey dhoog), something that can hold back a wolf without dying of blood loss (anything with large, branching antlers that stick up instead of out like an elk or forward like a caribou), and something that can deactivate the whomping willow in case it grows too big for them to use a stick (cat or [if sapient species count as the animal form, see phoenixes above] kneazel would have been better, but that's just my opinion, they may have wanted something that could crawl amongst the roots in exchange for a decrease in speed).
    • Word of God says that wizards have no control over their Animagus form (or what shape their Patronus will take); it reflects their deepest personality. Which still doesn't explain why the rest of the Mauraders never suspected that Peter might betray them.
    • Maybe because they weren't following the idea that rats=teh evil!!!!1!!!!, but rather other things about rats? i.e. intelligence for example?
    • Agreed, domesticated rats are known for intelligence, cleanliness, and the strong bond they form with their owners.
    • Fridge Brilliance. Wormtail did 'rat' on the good guys.
    • Also consider the things on the Maurader's map - this includes not just classrooms, teachers offices, dorms, and other rooms that the boys might have been able to access in human form, but also presumably teachers private quarters which they would not have had access to and would have been in very very serious trouble if they were discovered in. Add that to the secret passageways - well, they had to find out about those somehow, right? And you can bet they didn't just happen to guess that the humpback witch was a secret tunnel, Peter probably discovered it in rat form. It's a crumbling tunnel underneath a statue, there are probably cracks or small holes that a rat could hide in but it's pretty damn hard to come up with a reason they'd have just happened across it.
    • In China, rats are known for shrewdness, cunning, and foresight- traits that could be positive or negative, depending on the person, so that sounds about right.
    • And it also seems that the animagus form is really a reflection of the core of the person - their biggest, best self - a potential that hasn't necessarily been realized yet. Sirius' animagus form is a dog because of his loyalty and capacity for love, but as a human being he has a lot of traits that don't reflect this - grudges, bitterness, and a willingness to hurt others (even those he loves, like Harry). Likewise, what we see of James does not reflect traits commonly associated with the symbolism of the stag. But they both have the potential to embody all of the good things about these animals, and the same is true for Peter - he COULD potentially have embodied the intelligence, craftiness, and loyalty that domestic rats display. But he didn't. The closest thing we see to a person really fully embodying their animagus form is in McGonagall, which may have a lot to do with her maturity.

Salazar Slytherin put the basilisk it Hogwarts to protect wizards not hurt Muggle-borns.

He anticipated that Muggle weapons were becoming more dangerous a very fast rate and you feel a matter of time before they start attacking the wizards that were oppressing them.

• Mac Phisto actually read a very good Fan Fic that used this theory (see the Fan Fic Recs page for Harry Potter). When we first learned of the basilisk, it is mentioned that "...spiders flee before it." Yet we never see anything more than a few house spiders leaving the castle. When Harry along with Marietta Edgecombe & Bellatrix Lestrange Black has to return to the Chamber to retrieve a Horcrux (LongStory), it has become overrun with Aracumentula (what Aragog was). Harry deduces that Slytherin placed the basilisk there to protect the castle from being overrun with giant spiders.

The creatures that Luna believes in are all Eldritch Abominations that only she can see

Her mother's experiments were attempts at seeing into the other dimensions and planes of the universe. When the experiment went awry, Luna was present and her mind was altered so that she is constantly seeing both our world and the various other layers and dimensions of the universe. Unfortunately, this has taken a toll on her mind and she has some difficulty differentiating between the reality of the creatures and such she sees and the fantasy of the various conspiracy theories her father comes up with.

• Alternatively, her father can see them too, its just that nobody other than the two of them can. Everything in the Quibbler is true... somewhere. The Lovegoods simply can't distinguish there from here, since they see it all.
  • Lovegood. Lovecraft. Allusion win? Then again, if poor Luna is seeing Shoggoths in the third floor bathroom...

Fang was adopted when he was more than a puppy.

Fluffy: Got him when he was a small pup (emphasis on "small", considering Fluffy is a Cerberoid). Cutesy Glurge name. Norbert: Got him when he was an egg. Moderately cutesy name. Aragog: Got him when he was an egg, but 'e named 'imself, didn't 'e? Fang: Acquisition undocumented. Most specific reference leads only to "not full grown". Chompy name. Conclusion: Fang was already named when Hagrid got him.

• That or Hagrid has a bit of self-awareness with his ironic nicknames, and gives the most intimidating name to his least intimidating pet.

Love potions are like any other drug when taken during pregnancy.

Only in the case of love potions, either because of the magical personality changer or some side effect involving it messing with the genes or developmental hormones, they turn the baby into a psychopath with strong risk of really wanting to be a snake demon (There's a WMG for you...).

• J.K did confirm that being concieved under the effect of a love potion did affect his ability to love.
  • The pregnant person in question wasn't the one taking the love potion, her husband was.
  • Actually, intake of alcohol and other drugs can deteriorate sperm quality on the part of the sperm donor.

The Flame-Freezing Charm was a huge humanitarian achievement.

Fire is generally accepted as being powerful in a magical way, therefore, it would stand to reason that it was not always controllable by magic. Witch-burnings persisted because they used to work — fire being one of the few things that witches and wizards could not defeat. The Flame-Freezing charm was invented sometime around the 1300's (hence the title of Harry's essay "Witch Burnings in the 14th century were completely pointless", not just "Witch-Burnings were completely pointless") and was hailed as a massive step towards ending persecution of wizards by Muggles.

House elves and goblins are of the same species.

House elves are simply a seperate, more timid/friendly variety of goblin; or, alternatively, goblins are simply house elves born outside of slavery. Physical and mental differences between them (speech, thickness of frame, etc.) are a result of nutritional deficiencies on the part of the house elves. All of those goblin rebellions were house-elf rebellions, though most of them failed. From these extremely bloody failures, house elf culture has been built around their continued enslavement despite hardship and misery. While born free, goblins possess an extreme hate towards humans due to their continued mistreatment of their fellow whatever-their-collective-species-is. The goblin's notion of ownership reeks of this counter-culture: that the "maker" of something, not the "purchaser", can really possess an item.

Ghost are a type of pensive or patronus.

Ghost are silverish in color, like removed memories, and patronuses which are made of happy memories. When a wizard dies unhappy they can leave all their memories behind so that the soul can move on unburdened, or be reincarnated. The coldness a ghost produce is from the feelings of depression left behind the same way dementors suck out all the warmth.

Wands

A list of wands that were not mentioned in canon. Feel free to come up with your own choices.

• Molly Weasley: Oak with bugbear claw
  • Fig with bugbear claw
• Arthur Weasley: Apple
• Bill Weasley: Wild Plum
• Charlie Weasley: Hickory with dragon heartstring
  • Ash, since Ron's first wand was inherited from him and it was ash.
    • This is his second wand.
• Crabbe: Redwood with your mom.
• Percy Weasley: Mountain Laurel
• Fred Weasley: Cherry wood with jarvey fur or pixie wing core. Reason: Cherry wood is a focus of will, of getting things done, while the jarvey or pixie core is symbolic of Fred's prankish humor. Also, cherry trees are symbolic of early death in some countries.
• George Weasley: Cherry wood with pixie wing or jarvey fur core. Reason: Cherry wood is a focus of will, of getting things done, while the pixie or jarvey core is symbolic of George's prankish humor. Also, I just added this spoiler tag to make things a bit less uneven.
• Ginny Weasley: Pine
  • Larch with dragon heartstring
• Sirius Black: Birch with crup muscle
  • Or rather, hamstring/tendon.
• Remus Lupin: Fig with mooncalf tendon
  • Aspen with mooncalf tendon
• Severus Snape: Ebony with unicorn tail hair
• Horace Slughorn: Beech
• Minerva McGonagall: Elm with braided kneazle wiskers
• Pomona Sprout: Eucalypt
• Filius Flitwick: Walnut
• Luna Lovegood: Hazel with thestral tail hair
  • Hazel, I think fits. Rowan (from its connection to the moon and power-working capabilities) would be a close second, though, or even primary considering how strongly Rowling pushed the lunar themes. The core, though... Mooncalf tendon (for obvious reasons) or demiguise hair (because... it fits the seeing things that other people don't theme, and...matches her hair... I don't know) might work better.
    • Thestral tail hair because she has an affinity for them.
    • As far as I can tell, she doesn't have an affinity for them so much as that she's one of five or so named people who can see them, and is one of the few students to not assume they're evil just because they look ominous and vaguely skeletal. Point taken, though.
• Gellert Grindelwald: Rosewood with dragon heartstring. Reasoning: Rosewood (especially true rosewoods) are strong, beautiful, and resilient, and their mystical properties are considered dark and sometimes mysterious. Dragon heartstring just sounds right.
• Albus Dumbledore: Phoenix feather core. Reasoning: What else. Alder (mostly known for its protection against death, and conveniently being red on the inside which kind of goes with the phoenix and Gryffindor themes) might work for the wood. The Alder tree also tends to have a bit of a metaphorical anchor or solid foundation symbolism to it, mystically.
• Kingsley Shacklebolt: Teak with Pegasus feather. Reasoning: Teak represents his steadfastness. The pegasus feather represents his destiny to take down a metaphorical chimera- the Ministry (a lion) in its combined form with a snake (Voldemort).
• Godric Gryffindor: Oak with griffin feather
• Helga Hufflepuff: Cedar
• Rowena Ravenclaw: Rowan with spinx hair
• Salazar Slytherin: Acacia with basilisk venom
  • Acacia with runespoor skin or ashwinder... stuff. The ash-corpse-thing a first-generation ashwinder leaves when it dies. This is mostly because there are only three magical types of snake mentioned in canon, not counting mystically enhanced or unidentified snakes, and the basilisk is very rare (unlike ashwinders) and has no specific regional territory from which to (carefully!) gather shed skins (unlike runespoors). I think runespoor skin is most likely between them, since the runespoor's heads are planning (ambition and cunning), dreaming (ambition), and criticism (being a Jerkass), and I'm not sure what the minimum solidity is for wand cores (ashwinder corpse may or may not be too powdery).
    • He owns a basilisk remember.
• Merlin: Hawthorn with incubus hair
• Hagrid: Oak with acromantula silk
  • I like the wood choices, but wouldn't most of these people have bought their wands from Ollivander? I'm pretty sure it's plainly stated that Ollivander only works with phoenix feathers, unicorn hairs and dragon heartstrings as cores.

Patronuses

Most characters' Patronus forms aren't revealed, and not just any witch or wizard can cast one. But suppose for argument's sake that any character can do a corporeal Patronus. What forms might some of them take?

• Voldemort: A snake, for obvious reasons.
• The Founders of Hogwarts: The same animals they used for their House symbols.
• Neville Longbottom:
  • A lion. Someone in Gryffindor has to get one, and it should be Neville. True courage is facing danger when you're afraid. He does that a lot and gradually grows into the quintessential Gryffindor.
  • A mongoose. He's the one who kills Nagini and makes Voldemort's permanent death possible.
  • A toad because of Trevor.
  • A bee, or some other kind of pollinating animal, for his affinity to plants.
• Draco Malfoy:
  • A dragon. His name literally means dragon, and being a Slytherin through and through, some kind of dangerous reptile seems appropriate.
  • A peacock. He's extremely vain, and the Malfoys have a thing for peacocks and keep them at the manor. He might even share this Patronus with his father.
  • A ferret. He'd be embarrassed about it, of course.
• Hagrid:
  • Some kind of dog, for his loyalty to Dumbledore and Harry and the fact that he has one as a pet. Probably the same breed as Fang.
  • One of his big, dangerous magical creatures. Either a Norwegian Ridgeback, an Acromantula, or a Cerberus.
• Bellatrix Lestrange: Whatever shape Voldemort's Patronus would have, for the same reason as Snape's doe.
• Mrs. Weasley: A bear. She's a real Mama Bear.
• Professor Flitwick: A mouse. The same as Illyius, because, like Illyius' mouse Patronus (which saved his village from an entire army of Dementors), Flitwick is a lot more powerful than his stature might make you think.
• Dean Thomas: A bloodhound. It reflects his good morals and loyalty to his friends, the Forest of Dean's history as a hunting ground, and his "secret self" literally being his blood. It also complements his best friend's fox.
• Parvati Patil: A tiger. While she may act like a giggling girly girl a lot, she can be quite bold and fiery when she wants to be. A tiger symbolizes her Indian heritage and is the mount of the goddess she's named for.
• Susan Bones: A badger. She is implied to come from a long line of Hufflepuffs, and her family is important to her. Her personality also seems like what a Hufflepuff is meant to be.

Students use a magical telescope during the Astronomy section of the O.W.L. exams.

The book has Harry looking for Orion in June at midnight (It's behind the sun in June, so you can't see it even if you wanted to), and also looking for Venus (which being the next planet near the sun is always close to the sun in the sky and therefore never visible at midnight). The students use a magical telescope which when pointed at the ground can see through anything blocking to the stars (the sun excluded) that would be there.

• Well, Harry did get 'Acceptable' on the OWL, so he might have gotten those ones wrong...

Fiendfyre was introduced prior to Deathly Hallows.... just not in the books.

It was, however, introduced in the films. Half-Blood Prince specifically. Whenever the Death Eaters attack and put the Burrow on fire, this is what Bellatrix (nonverbally) casts. Think about it. The screenwriters did say that Deathly Hallows influenced how they wrote the script for the sixth film; maybe this was their own way of somewhat rectifying the rather Deus ex Machina nature of it in the books, as well as keeping with Rowling's grand tradition of Chekhov's Guns. As a matter of fact, Fiendfyre may have even been introduced in the Order of the Phoenix film (not sure about the book; I haven't reached it yet): Wikipedia says Fiendfyre is a "Dangerous, uncontrollable and extremely powerful fire which can take the form of beasts such as serpents, Chimaeras and dragons". In Voldemort's battle with Dumbledore at the Ministry of Magic, he nonverbally summons an enormous flame which then takes the form of a snake. Granted, it says Fiendfyre is uncontrollable and Voldemort was controlling it (somewhat), but still. I mean, he is one of the most powerful wizards of all time. Who's to say he couldn't control a Fiendfyre spell?

• Voldemort would be the kind of a-moral a-hole who would release an uncontrollable destructive force in a fight. Being that he knows he is immortal, f-it, in a pinch, just burn the whole place down knowing you'll live through it.

The snake that was released in the zoo was Nagini

Not sure how to totally work it out.... but it seems.... plausible?

• But Nagini is venomous, and the snake at the zoo was a boa constrictor.
• Ahhh, but, in both the book and the movie, Nagini is large enough to consume a human, which no nonmagical poisonous snake is capable of, but anacondas are. So ... snake escaped, Voldie got his hands on it, magicked it up and slapped a horcrux in it. Or maybe putting the horcrux in it lent it poison and the relevant fangs?
  • Nagini was venomous in Book 4, before she was made into a Horcrux. And the voice of the boa was male in the film version.

House elves used to be the dominant species in the wizarding world

They have been enslaved by human wizards for centuries, but when freed appear to be almost as powerful naturally as an expertly trained wizard. All civilizations must start somewhere, so at one point humans must not have had very strong magical powers, while elves did - one's magic requiring spells and learning, the other's nothing at all. Elves probably acted like The Fair Folk, and were the supernatural entities of most myths which predate written language. However, as writing started to become more well-spread, functional magic could be passed on between generations more efficiently. Human wizards started to become more powerful, and overthrew the house elves and bound them in servitude, since they were too useful to kill, but too threatening to keep at full strength. Since the elves no longer caused people to believe the old myths, gods changed from beings which were not impossible to be found bathing in your local pond[1] into gods as we know them today - acting more like a magical council of elders (which might well be the magical organization at the time).

House elves are descended from forest elves, or something of that nature.

This is mostly based upon their name; calling them House Elves instead of just Elves implies that there are or were elves which were not House Elves.

The Cruciatus Curse was originally designed as a tool for righteous retribution.

The curse was designed to be cast by only people who felt that they were really, truly justified in casting a torture spell, because it would be giving back what their tormentor cast upon them, or them by proxy of their family and/or friends. However, since magic isn't a perfect test system that can be written and rewritten before the final product is released, dark wizards noticed that the spell is actually looking for whether or not you really, really want it to work (presumably, nobody good would really want to torture someone unless it was in the name of truly righteous "justice" [or at the very least, retribution]). This is shown in the name of the curse: It (translating roughly to "the tormented" or "tormented one") refers to the people who were originally meant to use it, not the people at whom it would be aimed.

The Sorting used to be a magical selection system, but centuries of tradition have turned it into self-fulfilling prophecy.

Simply put, since the Sorting Hat associates, say, Gryffindor, with courage and chivalry, the desire every child has to fit in with his/her peers will eventually bring out those qualities.

Some species of animals (not counting Magical Creatures such as hippogriffs and the like) have their own 'wizarding' gene.

• Only a select several species of animals are allowed at Hogwarts. Yes, this is partially for practicality purposes (the mess would be unbelievable if, say, dogs were allowed), but it seems strange that, out of so many small animals that could be practical to keep as pets in Hogwarts, only a handful are actually allowed, and all of them (except perhaps the toad) are animals that would not be or are not allowed to be kept as pets in the Muggle World. This suggests that the three selected animals, as well as the domesticated housecat (which seems to be a favored animal by witches) may have deeper connections to magic, despite not falling into the category of 'magical creatures.'

Wolfsbane Potion

For a while I thought the Wolfsbane Potion acted as a suppressant. But after some more consideration, it seems more likely to act as a tranquilizer. When Lupin is on the potion in werewolf form, he does little more then fall asleep. In the shrieking shack, the potion does nothing to suppress the werewolf mind, even though he HAD taken it many nights previous. Is the dosage taken on the night of the full moon the only important one? If so, why bother taking it on previous nights? It would probably take a very high dosage for a tranquilizer to knockout a werewolf, which further supports this theory.

• Lupin wasn't teaching class for periods of a week at a time. In many werewolf stories, werewolves will turn when the moon is "full enough". I've seen periods of a week, as well as periods of three nights. I also don't recall any indication that the night of the shrieking shack was anything other than the first night of the week of the full moon. And presumably, it has to be taken daily.

No magical creature in the wizarding world existed before the myth or myths attributed toward it.

• Herpo the Foul was inspired by Pliny the Elder's description of the King of Serpents, and "invented" the Basilisk via a spell-laced ritual.
• Some Saxon wizard, wanting to safeguard his riches, created a fire-breathing reptile in line with local tales, and others capitalized on it.
• Several ancient Greek wizards, in jest at first, recreated various monsters from tales told to them at a young age.
• Several sentient beings were made in model with several old tales, but they ended up rebelling, and became races in their own right.
• A few witches and wizards, feeling malicious, recreated mythic diseases from Muggle ghost stories, which rebounded horrifically.
• Of course, many magical creatures were made that had no connection to myths; in fact, a lot were made to satisfy a particular wizard's need, or on a whim.
• Naturally, each and pretty much every one of these creatures, magical as they were, went mostly wild.

"Avada Kedavra" was one of the first spells.

While many spells have roots in Latin or English, the Killing Curse (according to J.K. Rowling) stems from an old Aramaic charm, used to cure illnesses. Given etymology, the Killing Curse could very well have been discovered by accident. "Alohomora", hailing from the Sidiki of West Africa, might also be quite older than most spells.

A Duckbilled Platypus is a magical creature

But the magical government of Australia managed to screw things up so badly the ICW has given up on ever getting their existence back under the Statute of Secrecy. It helps that they are rather hostile and don't do anything that is obviously magical from a distance.

The Fat Friar is the ghost of the Real Life "Grey Friar"

• The term eminence grise, essentially meaning The Man Behind the Man, comes from an influential advisor to Cardinal Richelieu who was known as the "Grey Friar" — basically a figure who organised The Terror from the back room. Hufflepuff House, as the trope they gave their name to implies, are never in the spotlight and nobody knows what they're supposed to be good at, and the mascot of their house is similarly obscure. So, what are Hufflepuffs good at? Getting stuff done without drawing attention to themselves. Keeping a low profile, and encouraging people to think of them as Living Props, if they think of them at all. Getting their powerful friends to do their dirty work. Kind of a change of image from the "bumbling badger of mediocrity", no? Suddenly, I find myself wondering what shadowy intrigues they managed to orchestrate while Harry and Voldemort were causing all that noisy commotion... -John Nye
  • So they're something that looks cute and harmless while secretly being totally badass? Makes even more damn sense if you know anything of the true nature of the honey badger.
  • Looks cute and harmless while secretly being totally badass? Sounds like Nymphadora Tonks to me! (Who incidentally, is a Hufflepuff)

The basilisk in the Chamber of Secret is not there to kill Muggle-borns.

Why? Because it somehow manages to kill only one of them in dozen times it is let loose. Either that's some really crazy coincidences, or it's deliberately petrifying people instead of killing them. And the one time it does kill a witch that witch appears to have accidentally opened a door and looked straight at it, so that might have been an accident, or perhaps Riddle deliberately had it to kill that one time, as he was making a Horcrux.

Now, yes, it is apparently roaming around talking about killing people...but then fails essentially to kill any wizards, which raises an interesting question: Maybe this is all a horrible misunderstanding, or deliberately distorted history, and Salazar Slytherin put there to kill Muggles, not Muggle-born wizards, in case they invaded? And, for safety, it reversibly petrifies any Muggle-born wizards until which side they are on can be determined.

• This fits in with a theory above, that the Basilisk is Salazar's nasty surprise for any invading Muggle army. It also seemed suspiciously convenient to me that the Basilisk, which is essentially designed to kill anything it looks at, would somehow manage to not kill so many students. At the time, I thought it was just Rowling not wanting her book to get too dark (what happened to that sentiment?), but I like the idea that the Basilisk was deliberately holding off on the use of lethal force on muggle-borns. The only confirmed kill by the Basilisk is Myrtle, when it was coming out of the entrance to the chamber, and may not have known she was there. That may have been an accident, or Riddle may have gotten tired of the Basilisk being so much of a softie, and deliberately brought it out into the bathroom specifically to kill Myrtle. We do know that Slytherin enchanted the Basilisk to obey the orders of any descendant of himself, presumably so they could defend Hogwarts if he had died. Presumably, he also left enough clues to his descendants that they would be able to find the Chamber in the event of an emergency, and Hogwarts needed to be defended.

The Resurrection Stone works

But not in a very useful way. It pierces the veil, allowing someone to pull someone they love back from death...but sends the user towards death, because there is Equivalent Exchange. You can't 'create' life using magic, but you can 'swap' life. (Which is demonstrated in the similar example of Ginny and the diary. And note the Resurrection Stone returnees in Deathly Hallows are explicitly compared to the Riddle from the Diary.)

So if both people love each other equally, they're each pulling each other to life, so they both end up in a sort of half-life. Which, as we were told back in the first book, is not a state that normal people can stand. Hence the suicide in the Beedle the Bard tale, although it's been a bit simplified and didn't say the user of the Stone was also 'sad and cold'.

Harry brought four people across, which resulted in five people sharing one 'life', so we're probably pretty lucky he only did it for a few minutes, or he would have become fairly sad and cold and suicidal...hey, wait a second. 'He felt a chilly breeze...his body and mind felt oddly disconnected...'

Meanwhile, there is one circumstance where the resurrection stone does work. If someone tried to bring back someone they loved, but who didn't love them back, the stone would work perfectly. They'd succeed in pulling that person to the side of life, while trapping themselves in death.

The Philosopher's Stone was purposefully easy to get

The teachers didn't want everybody to die (which tends to happen to people who don't have access to the stone) but realized to pointlessness of trying to talk Flamel or Dumbledore into releasing it, so they made the obstacles purposefully easy to pass. Also, I notice that potion room only looks stupid because we all know that the potion pointed to is the one that works. Dumbledore presumably didn't check, and either assumed or was told that it was there on the off chance that it could get someone to drink one of the potions.

Nagini was half basilisk.

There are no venomous snakes large enough to swallow a human being, as only pythons grow that large. Voldemort wanted a big poisonous snake to be his Right-Hand Attack Dog, so he had Quirrell smuggle a blinded python of the opposite sex into the Chamber of Secrets during Harry's first year, then sneak the resulting hybrid eggs out after they'd mated. Voldemort possessed one of the hatchling python/basilisk hybrids after he abandoned Quirrell, using her to sneak away from Hogwarts, and made sure she survived to grow into a healthy adult by the time we see them in Book 4. That's why Nagini's venom had magical properties useful to facilitate Voldemort's resurrection, why Arthur's bite wounds took so terribly-long to heal, and why she was both smarter and hefter than any normal venomous snake. It's also why Voldemort was willing to risk making her a Horcrux, despite non-magical pythons' living less than 30 years: she'd inherited her basilisk parent's centuries-long lifespan.

• HOLY CRAP BALLS THIS IS BRILLIANT.
• This would also clear up the discrepancy between the 20-foot snake skin and the size of the basilisk's head when it's fighting Harry: the basilisk didn't shed that skin, its python mate did.

Snitch don't all have the same speed

If the Snitch wasn't fast enough, it wouldn't be an interesting match, since it would be both easy to see and catch. Too fast, and the games will go on for too long, or infinitely if neither of the seekers can actually catch up to it. So Hogwarts snitch is a LOT slower than those of the professional games, since students don't have nearly as good of brooms or skill. This could apply to bludgers as well.

• Jossed. The same Quidditch rules apply to the school as they do everywhere else. The game will go on for months if it has to, until the snitch is caught. And same thing with the bludgers, same hardness, same speed as everywhere else.
• Well, given that it's students who play Quidditch at Hogwarts, the refs probably do have the option to impose a time limit if the game runs so long they'd be missing a bunch of classes. It's not like they're part of a professional sports league, after all: they're there for an education.
  • Time limit sure but the snitch, bludger, and other equipment are all the same as the pros use. Did you know that when the games go for months they switch out players. And being a reff takes great skill and mutiple qualifications. Snape is an amazing flyer because everyone, school or not, has to take the reff exam. Also did you know that once a reff was transported to the saraha desert? the players really hate the ref so it's a dangerous job. Not to mention you have to keep an eye on all the players at once. Lol just some quidditch facts for you.
  • Quidditch Through The Ages establishes that a Quidditch match can also end by mutual agreement of the opposing Captains. Presumably if a Hogwarts game ran so long that the players were about to miss their O.W.L.s or the train home or something, the captains would have to agree to end it then.

The Elder Wand itself had a Heel–Face Turn

Deathly Hallows conclusively shows wands are sentient, and the Elder Wand seems to be moreso. Throughout the Elder Wand's history, it had been used as a tool for murder and people routinely murdered to get ahold of it. That came to an end once the wand came into the possession of Dumbledore, who we can reasonably assume was different from every single previous wielder of the Elder Wand. Dumbledore never used the Elder Wand for killing if he could help it. He kept his ownership of the wand hidden and used like any average wizard would use their wand with the intent that no other wizard be able to use the Elder Wand as a tool of death ever again. After its exposure to Dumbledore, the Elder Wand wanted this too. It didn't want to be a weapon any longer and was content to let Dumbledore break its power. When Dumbledore failed, it leaped at the chance to do the same thing when Harry came along and gave it the opportunity to get away from Voldemort.

• And let's not forget it was owned by Draco, during which time Draco found himself to be unable to kill DD, and refused to identify Harry. So it had an example in Draco also.

The number of werewolves Lupin speaks about living among actually numbers about 10-20.

There can't be that many werewolves out there, or they would unite against the ministry for their rights.

The spell Molly Weasley used in Deathly Hallows to kill Bellatrix was not Avada Kedavra, but rather something much more powerful and fitting.

• It's never shown that Avada Kedavra can actually be cast nonverbally. Voldemort, as powerful and as skilled a wizard as he was, at that spell in particular, is never shown doing it. Second, Bellatrix alluded to there being a certain level of inherent sadism required to cast the Cruciatus curse and the righteous anger wasn't enough. The same is likely true of the Killing Curse. Third, one of the telltale characteristics of a Killing Curse is that there are no telltale characteristic. A victim looks as they normally wood - except they're dead. Bellatrix was petrified, actually a bit like the victims of the Basilisk in Chamber of Secrets. Of course, Molly's defining characteristic throughout all seven books is her motherly love for her children, be it by blood or otherwise. So TT postulates that the spell Molly used to kill Bellatrix actually didn't have a name - that it was the same magic that (at least initially) protected Harry Potter from the touch of a Voldemort-possessed Quirrell, repurposed and focused into offensive form... which may be even more awesome than a nonverbal killing curse.

The Sorting Hat is the diabolical chess master behind it all.

• Then so was Fawkes. The Phoenix gave two tail feathers, one to make Voldemort's wand, the other to make Harry's, and Fawkes then became Dumbeldore's familiar. What the hell was their agenda?!

There are magic radios that can pick of frequencies from various points in time.

Hence why the 2004 Nick Cave song "O'Children" is heard in a scene that takes place in 1998.

The Sorting Hat is The Chessmaster, but in a good way.

Some people have a very strong ambition, or loyalty, or intelligence, or braveness. But on most cases these qualities overlap. Wordof God said in Pottermore that sometimes the hat can spend 5 minutes or more in the decision. This is called a hatstall.

My theory is that, during this time, the Hat is outweighing the outcomes of sorting a person in each house. So, sometimes, the hat doesn't sort someone according to their personality, but according to what it thinks it's best for them. This is why Percy got sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin: Percy was very ambitious, but not by any means a bad person. He had a kind heart and, at least in the earlier books, a special softness for young children. In Slytherin, he would probably have drifted appart from his family and his ambition gotten out of coontrol; in Gryffindor, he would be reminded of who he is. In addition, he has been well educated and does not show one bit of the prejudice Malfoy or the others have, but this would likely have changed had he been on Slytherin.

The hat probably did the same thing with the Marauders. Sirius, the first one to be sorted, was brave, but his braveness comes out of loyalty, since he would die rather than betray his friends. Sirius is so loyal that his animagus is a dog. However, he wanted to be on Gryffindor to annoy his mother, and this was the only thought in his mind at the moment of the sorting. This was brave enough, in the hat's opinion, to be a Gryffindor. Lupin was next. He was intelligent and studious enough to be a Ravenclaw, but he needed to accept himself which he would learn to do in Gryffindor, with a friend like Black. The Hat had already seen Sirius' mind and knew they would be good friends. Then came Peter, very ambitious, but he was the kind of guy who would become the mook of future Death Eaters. So it send him to Gryffindor to encourage him to become a better person (this went Horribly Wrong). And lastly, James, very brave, he would die to protect his family. So he was a Gryffindor.

The last case is Neville Longbottom. Neville is as loyal and hardworking as he is brave and noble. Wordof God said he was almost a hatstall: the hat was hesitating between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Neville asked to be put in Hufflepuff because we didn't think he was brave enough for Gryffindor, but the hat eventually put him in Gryffindor. Neville was one of the bravest characters in the book and was destined to do great things, as we know. He just needed to believe in himself.

There are more Marauders' Maps

Why? Well, first, because there were four Marauders, so it seems obvious there could be four maps.

Assuming that whoever lost their map to Finch didn't recreate it, let's ask where those three other maps might be, and whose map Harry might have.

• James: If he 'still has' his map, it's sitting the Potter's destroyed house.
• Sirius: All of his personal belongings were lost when he was arrested, and Aurors presumably cleaned out his apartment or wherever he was living. (Which we know wasn't Grimmauld Place.)
• Peter: He may still has his map as of PoA. (Remember, Animagus shapeshift with all their possession.) He seems very sure that Sirius is after him.
  • However, this would introduce odd story complications between Barty Crouch Jr. and Peter, and Barty surely would have mentioned Peter's map under interrogation.
  • Or Peter might just have chosen to not take his map with him when he 'died'. He had no idea that he was going to end up back at Hogwarts, and it's not like he can use the map while in rat form.
• Remus: He's the person who had the least 'life complications' (First time anyone's ever said that about him.) and thus seems most likely to have held on to his map. And he certainly would have brought it to Hogwarts with him, is Remus. Yet we know for a fact didn't he have it. Ergo, it seems mostly likely that the map Harry is carrying around is actually's Remus's map, which was taken away from him before school ended.
  • On the other hand, he has been forced to move a lot, so could have lost it that way.

Of course, it's entirely possible that whoever lost Harry's map recreated it, so there might actually be four other maps floating around out there, none of which (except possibly Peter's) are in the hands of the original owners. (And we have no way of figuring out who originally owned Harry's.)

The Marauders Map Killed Fred And George

...Sort of. James/Sirius and Fred/George are so similar because the bits of consciousness in the map seeped into Fred and George, turning them into a reincarnation of the dead (or dying) marauders. This was probably unintentional on the part of the marauders, or done without considering the moral implications, but whoever Fred or George might have been was lost forever, tainted by a magical echo—an old joke.

• They shouldn't have trusted something with a mind when they couldn't see where it kept it's brain.
• ... Except they were pranksters already before they found the map.

The Marauders' Map has a back-door feature to prevent the Marauders from showing up on it

Facts: The Marauders made the Map and used it until it was somehow confiscated by Filch. It is known that the Map has security features in case it falls into the wrong hands (the activation and deactivation passwords). The map remained in Filch's office until the twins discovered it in their first year (which was Percy's third year and two years before Harry and Ron started). Percy kept Scabbers as a pet from before he started Hogwarts until the end of his fourth year, after which he got his owl, Hermes, and Scabbers became Ron's pet. This means that the twins had the map for nearly two years while Scabbers belonged to Percy and for more than two years while he belonged to Ron.

During this time, it is unlikely that the inquisitive and mischievous twins would not have spied on Ron (or especially Percy), in the course of planning pranks or gathering blackmail material. Yet, at no time did they apparently observe that either of their brothers shared close quarters, including a bed, with a supposedly dead war hero (or, at least, a stranger).

Conclusion: The map had additional security features that the books did not explicitly discuss. Specifically, to prevent the Map from being used against them, the Marauders included a feature that, when activated, would prevent them from showing up. This feature had been left activated when Filch confiscated the Map, and the twins, once they found it and thought they uncovered all its secrets, didn't think to look further. However, once Lupin confiscated the Map, he instantly recognized it for what it was and realized it would be a good way to look for Sirius (whom he then believed to be guilty). Being one of the Marauders, he was well aware of the Map's Marauder-concealing feature and was able to override it for that purpose. (Of course, at this time, Scabbers had gone missing, and the truth did not become apparent until the incident in the Shrieking Shack.)

• Alternately, the map just might only show Marauders when being operated by a Marauder. Harry does later see Sirius and Remus on it, but possibly the map counts him as a Marauder.

The Mirror of Erised does tell the future, but in exactly the way that makes it look like a Mirror of Desire.

Harry does bring his parents back to stand behind him both literally and metaphorically, even if they aren't actually alive, and Ron overshadows his brothers both as a Keeper and a hero and gives much help in winning the House Cup in his first year. If someone wanted the Elixer of Life, they would likely see an image of them trying to find another way to make it and assume the potion they were drinking was a working Elixer, and people who don't have a future (through starvation or otherwise) would see, respectively, them seeing pretty images in the Mirror or heaven/and Ironic Hell (all that gold and nothing on which to spend it). If a perfectly content man looked in the mirror, he would see himself exactly as he was either because he was perfectly happy keeping his mind in the present (and thus not activate the mirror), or beecause the creator of the mirror thought that people with no aspirations have either no imagination, no future, or both. Harry sees himself with the Stone because he's about to have the stone, and Quirrel sees himself about to present the Stone to the Dark Lord because he's about to present the stone to him (even if it is still in Harry's posession at the time), or because he's seeing a future production of A Very Potter Musical and is presenting a different kind of stone.

• Jossed by Rowling stating that Voldemort would see himself all-powerful and eternal and Dumbledore would see his family alive and well.

London's Millennium Bridge is a rebuild.

Destroyed in Half Blood Prince - though that's supposed to have occured in 1997 and the bridge itself wasn't started until 1998? Anachronism Stew, eh? Well you just don't remember the obliviators modifying the memories of us muggles to make us think that bridge was built for the millenium and not simply "Repairoed", either.

Drinking blood from a unicorn won't save you if you didn't kill it yourself.

In order to be effective, the magical "chemical reaction" (for lack of a better term) that happens when you drink unicorn blood requires feelings of malice and selfishness as a necessary component, felt by you at the moment you kill an innocent creature to save yourself. So it would not work to, for example, collect blood from a wounded unicorn you happen to notice wandering in the Forbidden Forest, or force a vial of unicorn blood down the throat of a dying person.

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