Harry Potter fans have spent countless hours mulling over the books and film franchise
and have devised some pretty spellbinding theories about the world of witchcraft and
wizardry, some of which have even impressed the author herself.
Let's take a look at some of the most game-changing of them all.
Muggles vs. wizards
Why do wizards have to hide their powers from Muggles, and if they are so powerful, why
aren't they in charge of the world?
If history has taught us anything, it's that usually those with superior firepower and
knowledge win in any matchup.
However, one Redditor had a different idea, and it gives an interesting alternate explanation
— Wizards and Muggles fought a war sometime in the Middle Ages, and the Muggles won.
In Goblet of Fire, it is revealed that the Ministry of Magic has to talk to the British
Prime Minister about bringing a dragon into the country.
This implies that the Minister of Magic reports to the British Prime Minister and may require
his approval for matters of this nature.
Additionally, wizards of today appear to be much less powerful when compared to ancient
wizards like Merlin, the Peverells, and the founders of Hogwarts.
Perhaps the Muggles were more successful with their trials and inquisitions than we were
originally led to believe.
The real Rita Skeeter
There were a lot of colorful characters to come and go in the Harry Potter series, but
none felt quite as familiar as Rita Skeeter, the intrepid journalist who would stop at
nothing to get her scoop for the Daily Prophet.
While her ethics were often questionable, there was something about her prose that made
many fans wonder whether J.K.
Rowling may have designed the character to be reminiscent of herself.
After all, Rowling is also a writer who also made a detailed accounting of the non-muggle
world that feels very, very real to some readers.
At least one theorist has taken it a step further and suggested that Rowling actually
is Rita Skeeter in real life, spilling all of these well-documented details about the
wizarding world to us no-maj types as a means of getting revenge against those who shunned
her from the other side.
"Scratch that last."
The secret of Horcruxes
One process that never gets fully explained in the Harry Potter series is how horcruxes
are made.
Lord Voldemort was able to make himself a bounty of these little life preservers at
some point in his younger years, but he seemed to be the only one who ever had any backup
souls to spare and seemed to be unable or unwilling to create any more once our heroes
started destroying them, so it must've been difficult.
"This is very dark stuff, very dark indeed."
J.K.
Rowling herself has been vague about how they're made, though she did once say that attempts
would probably be deadly for most wizards because it's as complicated as splitting an
atom.
According to Harry Potter World UK on Twitter, Rowling revealed the process to her editor
who allegedly felt like vomiting after.
This led one Redditor to surmise that cannibalism may be involved.
Both cannibalism and the creation of horcruxes involve stealing a life force for the absorption
of another.
The theory seems to have gained some serious traction in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of
Grindelwald, as it was revealed that prior to becoming Voldemort's pet and tag-along
horcrux, Nagini was actually a shape-shifting maledictus who had a female human form before
we met her in the original series.
Voldemort may have killed off the piece of Nagini that was human and swapped in a piece
of his own soul instead.
In defense of the Dursleys
When Voldemort tried to kill infant Harry, a small piece of Tom Riddle's soul latched
onto Harry's brain and cozied up in there for the next 17 years.
Even though Harry was not a "traditional" Horcrux, we know that Voldemort's presence
affected Harry, giving him some of Voldemort's powers and causing occasional angry and violent
outbursts.
What if Harry wasn't the only one affected by Voldemort's presence?
Voldemort's Horcruxes were capable of dramatically changing the personality of someone exposed
to one for extended periods.
Harry and Hermione were frequently snappish and angry while carrying the locket, and normally
happy-go-lucky Ron turned into a raging, jealous mess who abandoned his friends.
If a Horcrux can do that to a genial and good-natured person, what might it have done to the Dursleys,
who were around Harry every day for ten years?
From flashbacks, we know that Petunia wasn't exactly a very nice person as a child, and
Vernon was probably no better.
But it is interesting to consider that maybe their already sour natures were further exacerbated
by Voldemort's evil influence.
Since Dudley was born the same year as Harry, he's literally lived almost his entire life
around this Horcrux.
It almost makes you feel a little sorry for them.
Almost.
"Wake up, Potter!
We're going to the zoo!"
Neville's clumsiness
During Neville Longbottom's first flying lesson at Hogwarts, he earned a reputation as clumsy
and perhaps not the brightest student in the new class of first-years.
There are plenty of other examples of Neville being clumsy with magic and spells during
his early years at the school, but that first flying lesson may not have been Neville's
fault at all.
After Voldemort's death, the Longbottoms were targeted by Death Eaters and tortured to insanity,
which speaks to a definite animus against the Longbottoms by Voldemort's crew.
When Professor Quirrell first tries to kill Harry in Sorcerer's Stone, he does so by bewitching
Harry's broom as he rides it during a Quidditch match.
The unnatural movements of Harry's broom are very similar to what happened to Neville during
his flying lesson.
What if that arm-breaking incident was because Quirrell was using the same charm to exact
a little torture on the Longbottom boy?
It should also be pointed out that, until it was broken during the events in Order of
the Phoenix, Neville was using his father's wand — the father who was driven insane
when Neville was an infant.
As we all know, "the wand chooses the wizard," and so some of Neville's early difficulties
with spells may have been due to him using this hand-me-down.
After Neville gets a new wand, he seems to grow in leaps and bounds in his confidence
and spell abilities.
Self-sorting wizards
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the Sorting Hat struggles with where to put
Potter, after the Boy Wizard kept thinking over and over again:
"Not Slytherin, not Slytherin."
The Sorting Hat assured him that it'd be a good fit for him but sent him over to Gryffindor
instead, per his wishes.
As a result of that scene, some fans suspect that Harry may not have been the only one
who moved himself to another house.
One fan theory suggests that both Ron and Hermione were also sent to Gryffindor rather
than houses they were suited for — Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, respectively — because of
their own preferences.
For Ron, the reasoning behind the choice seems simple enough; all of his family was already
in Gryffindor, so he wanted to fit in.
For Hermione, it may have been a reflection of her own newfound valor in venturing into
this whole new world alone.
Centaurs know all
There were two big scenes in the Harry Potter series that pitted the titular wizard against
his arch-nemesis Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, and the first may have foreshadowed
the last.
As one fan theorist points out, after his brush with death as a baby, Harry's first
encounter with the Dark Lord took place in the forest, where he was sent to detention
alongside Hermione, Ron and Draco Malfoy with instructions to find out what was killing
off the unicorns.
There he found a cloaked figure, which he'd later discover to be Voldemort, drinking a
unicorn's blood.
Firenze the centaur scared the figure away and in the book was then scolded by his fellow
centaur Bane, who warned him:
"We are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens.
Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?"
The centaurs didn't go on to spell it out, so what we didn't know at the time was that
Harry's fate was to die at the hands of Voldemort in that very place.
The centaurs pretty much foretold the final battle before Harry knew the identity of the
cloaked figure that threatened his life so early on.
"Just something to think about."
Protecting Snape
The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was a revolving door for professors at Hogwarts
during Harry's time as a student.
First, there was a Professor Quirrell, who carried Voldemort on the back of his head;
then came Gilderoy Lockhart, who was a fraud and lost all his memories due to a misfired
memory charm.
Remus Lupin also walked away after he was exposed as a werewolf, then Mad-Eye Moody
turned out to be Barty Crouch Jr. in disguise, and Dolores Umbridge got herself dismissed
for insubordination and general wickedness before Severus Snape was finally transferred
from his position as Potions professor to take over.
"You know, I really hate children."
All the while, Snape seemed like the most obvious choice for the role, and some fans
were left to wonder why he didn't get it until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
One theory has it that Dumbledore never gave him the post to protect him.
The idea is that because he wouldn't let Tom Riddle have the job years before, Riddle cursed
the position and assured that everyone who occupied it would suffer some kind of cruel
fate and serve just one year.
Dumbledore refused Snape the job until he made the Unbreakable Vow to kill Dumbledore
and thus resigned himself to a horrible year already.
The theory might also explain why Snape, as Headmaster, installed a death eater in the
role next, as he was clearly willing to sabotage the guy on the sly whenever possible.
"Are you incapable of restraining yourself or do you take pride in being an insufferable
know-it-all?"
Professor Trelawney was the real deal
She might have caught a lot of flak for her histrionics, but Professor Trelawney was actually
on the mark with her prophecies a lot more often than people thought.
For example, a re-read of what she predicted in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
has some theorists believing she predicted Dumbledore's death long before it happened
because she refused a seat at Christmas dinner by saying:
"If I join the table, we shall be thirteen!
Nothing could be more unlucky!
Never forget that when thirteen dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!"
With Peter Pettigrew hiding out in the form of Ron's rat Scabbers, there were 13 people
at the table, and Dumbledore was the first to stand.
Meanwhile, she might not have been so wrong in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when
she sensed that Harry was born in "mid-winter."
Harry was a July baby, but what we didn't know at the time was that a piece of Voldemort
was still embedded in him, and Tom Riddle's birthday just so happened to be December 31st.
Some speculate her misinterpretation may have only been due to the fact that her sense was
so strong that she was picking up on the Dark Lord's date of birth instead.
It looks like Sybill Trelawney shouldn't have been such a laughingstock after all.