Whatever happened to Madam Hooch? Ron Weasley's brother Charlie? Here's a look at some of the
many "Harry Potter" storylines that just completely disappeared from the films.
Madam Hooch appears in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," in a small but significant
moment for the Boy Who Lived. Played by Zoe Wanamaker, Hogwarts' resident Quidditch coach
teaches flying lessons to the first-year students. Professor McGonagall observes Harry's natural
prowess in the air, and gives him a position as Seeker for Gryffindor's Quidditch team.
Madam Hooch can be seen refereeing Harry's first match against Slytherin,
where he almost swallows the Golden Snitch. And then… that's the last we ever see of her,
even though the character continues throughout the books.
Why? Well, actor Zoe Wanamaker only signed on for one film,
which is likely why Madam Hooch disappears from the story after "Sorcerer's Stone."
Another character to only feature in one film in the "Harry Potter" series is Gilderoy Lockhart.
Harry's second Defense Against The Dark Arts professor is, arguably, his most inept.
Appearing in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," Lockhart is a
charismatic, charming celebrity, renowned for successfully banishing various dark creatures.
But he's all style and no substance. His lessons at Hogwarts expose him as a fraud, and he admits
at the end of the film that he's taken credit for other people's work throughout his career.
"Chamber of Secrets" culminates with a Memory Charm backfiring on Lockhart,
thanks to Ron's broken wand. Lockhart gets a taste of his own medicine, losing all memory
of who he is. And then, you guessed it, he disappears for the rest of the movie series.
"Hello. Who are you?”
"Ron Weasley."
"Really? And, uh, who am I?"
In the books, Harry, Ron and Hermione run into an amnesiac Lockhart in St. Mungo's
Hospital For Magical Maladies and Injuries during "Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix," but actor Kenneth Branagh likely wasn't available to film this cameo for the movies.
"Sorcerer's Stone" and "Chamber of Secrets" includes several scenes
showing Harry's school lessons. From "Prisoner of Azkaban" onwards, however,
Harry's classes take more of a backseat in favor of the growing drama at Hogwarts and beyond.
The boy wizard's lessons tend to appear only when something significant happens:
Harry's flight on Buckbeak in "Prisoner of Azkaban," Moody explaining the Unforgivable
Curses in "Goblet of Fire," etc. The books have more space to explore Harry's journey, but in the
films Harry uses several spells seemingly out of the blue with no prior classroom practice.
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is a turning point in the story for
everyone's favorite teenage trio. Lord Voldemort makes his comeback at last,
emerging from a cauldron with no nose and a thirst for blood, while Harry,
Ron, and Hermione come of age as the series takes a more dramatic, adult tone.
But it's not all bad for the Golden Trio, especially Hermione,
who has a whirlwind romance with Quidditch sensation and Durmstrang student Viktor Krum,
which ends with Krum asking Hermione to write him after he leaves. In the books,
this happens, but in the movies, Krum is almost entirely absent for the rest of the series.
Like Hermione, Harry has a love interest in "Goblet of Fire":
Cho Chang, who initially rebuffs Harry for Cedric Diggory. After Cedric dies,
however, Harry grows close to Cho during "Order of the Phoenix."
Harry shares his first kiss with Cho, before their budding relationship quickly goes awry
when she spills the beans to Dolores Umbridge about Harry's secret group, Dumbledore's Army.
Post-"Order of the Phoenix," Cho graduates from Hogwarts and Harry pursues a relationship
with Ginny Weasley. The two are briefly reunited in "Deathly Hallows" during the
prelude to the Battle of Hogwarts. The film follows a similar path to the books here,
reducing Cho to a cameo character after her abrupt break-up with Harry.
The "Harry Potter" films were mostly faithful adaptations of the book series,
though many characters had to be cut during the jump from the page to the big screen.
Multiple members of Hogwarts' faculty never - or barely - appeared in the films:
Professor Binns, Professor Grubbly-Plank, plus most of the stuff with the centaur to name a few.
One teacher who did have a cameo appearance - before disappearing from the film series - is
Professor Sinistra. Sinistra teaches Astronomy lessons throughout Harry's time at Hogwarts. In
the film, she is played by an unidentified actress in an uncredited role, which was later retconned
as Professor Sinistra when the actress' likeness was used in the "LEGO Harry Potter” video games.
Omitting Professor Sinistra from the other "Harry Potter" movies was a missed opportunity for the
series in regards to representation. The Astronomy teacher's physical appearance isn't given in the
books, though the character was portrayed by a Black woman during "Sorcerer's Stone."
In hindsight, the films could have further developed Sinistra as a prominent POC character.
Ah, Colin Creevey. Equal parts endearing and annoying. The star-struck student appears in
"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," as the Boy Who Lived's number one fan. Colin
is one of the students to fall victim to the Basilisk. Thankfully, Harry saves the
day by venturing into the Chamber of Secrets to rescue Ginny Weasley and kill the giant snake.
"Chamber of Secrets" is the only installment in the "Harry Potter" series to star Colin Creevey.
In later films, he is replaced by an original character called Nigel Wolpert. Nigel can be
seen as an amalgam of Colin's character, as well as his brother, Dennis, who appears in the books.
Nigel has a happier ending in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two" than his on-page
counterpart: in the books, Colin is killed by Death Eaters during the Battle of Hogwarts.
It seems that Colin's death was instead given to Lavender Brown, who in the films
is killed by Fenrir Greyback, despite surviving the battle in the books.
"Prisoner of Azkaban" features some big changes for Harry, Ron and Hermione, as they
face their third year at Hogwarts. New lessons are introduced, such as Professor Trelawney's study of
Divination, and Care of Magical Creatures classes led by Hagrid. Both classes prove difficult in
different ways: Harry rides a hippogriff in his first lesson with Hagrid, while Trelawney
frequently predicts Harry's imminent death after seeing the Grim during a Divination class.
Buckbeak, the hippogriff Harry flies on, plays a small but significant role in the
third installment. Draco Malfoy purposely provokes the beast into attacking him,
and Buckbeak is sentenced to death thanks to Draco's father, Lucius. Thanks to the Time-Turner,
Harry and Hermione manage to rescue Buckbeak before his extermination.
Harry saves Sirius Black from the Dementors, before his godfather departs with the hippogriff,
both of them fugitives from the Ministry of Magic.
In the films, Buckbeak's story ends there, but in the books there's a whole storyline with
Buckbeak that ends with a moving reunion with Hagrid. Too bad we never saw it.
The final installment in the "Harry Potter" book gives fans their first
look at Albus Dumbledore's childhood and subsequent, previously unknown,
history. Evil journalist Rita Skeeter swoops in shortly after Dumbledore's death to drag
the Headmaster's name through the dirt in her revealing biography, "The Life And Lies Of Albus
Dumbledore." When Harry reads an excerpt in the Daily Prophet, it triggers a crisis of faith,
as he is forced to confront the possibility that he never knew his mentor's true nature after all.
Skeeter's biography casts a shadow on Dumbledore's legacy ... but it isn't necessarily untrue.
We learn in the book that Dumbledore was involved with the Dark wizard Grindelwald, as Harry learns
from Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth. Aberforth explains that their sister Ariana was attacked by
three Muggle boys in her youth, causing her magic to spiral out of control. Her father,
Percival, went after the Muggles in retribution, earning him a life sentence in Azkaban and a
sour reputation for his family. Ariana was later left in Albus' care after their mother's death,
but she was killed accidentally during a confrontation between Albus and Grindelwald.
However, almost none of this is explained in the films. Instead, there's just a brief scene
that hints at these events - events that Harry explicitly isn't interested in at all in the film.
"I'm not interested in what happened between you and your brother."
Ron's older brother, Charlie, has the biggest blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo appearance
in the film series, popping up briefly in a photograph of the Weasley family on their trip
to Egypt in "Prisoner of Azkaban." Besides that? Charlie is an absent member of the Weasley clan,
never appearing properly on-screen, though Ron mentions Charlie in "Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone" while explaining that his brother works with dragons in Romania.
"That's a Norwegian Ridgeback! My brother Charlie works with these in Romania!"
Charlie shows up a few times in the books, though.
The wayward Weasley takes Hagrid's baby dragon, Norbert, off their hands in "Sorcerer's Stone,"
before returning to Hogwarts in "Goblet of Fire" as a handler for the dragons used in
the Triwizard Tournament's first task. Like the rest of his family, Charlie is present
at the final battle against Voldemort in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."
His exclusion from the later movies suggests that his character could
have been retconned out of existence to allow the film to focus on portraying
other Weasley siblings like Ginny, Bill, and Fred and George.
In "Goblet of Fire," future "Doctor Who" star David Tennant became one of the long
list of acclaimed British actors to feature in the "Harry Potter" series. Playing the
villainous Barty Crouch Jr., Tennant's role in the film was altered from the source material:
In the books, when Professor Moody is revealed to actually be Barty Crouch's son, disguised via
the power of Polyjuice Potion, Barty Crouch Jr. regales Harry with an in-depth explanation of how
he was broken out of Azkaban by his parents, only to reunite with Voldemort and help him enact his
plan to capture Harry. Barty's tale concludes with him receiving the Dementor's Kiss for his crimes.
The revelation that Mad-Eye Moody is really Barty Crouch Jr. is glossed over pretty quickly
in the film, though. Crouch never explains his motivations, or receives the Dementor's Kiss.
Dumbledore remarks that the Dementors "will find Azkaban's missing prisoner,"
and Crouch promises that he will "be welcomed back like a hero." Did Crouch return to Azkaban
after that? Or did the Dementors perform their soul-stealing Kiss off-screen? It isn't clear.
Crouch's storyline, like other characters in the films, disappears without closure or explanation.
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