The Harry Potter movies had the daunting task of fitting many storylines, subplots, and side-characters into feature-length features while still developing the main characters and the ever-growing stakes, so some stuff was left out. Naturally, it’s expected that any movie adaptation of a literary work will omit details to translate books into films, but Harry Potter does a particularly disappointing job. The tone in the latter half of the series is off, many important characters never get their due, and quite a few glaring questions remain unanswered, despite the franchise comprising eight entire films.

Not only did Harry Potter cut most of Remus Lupin’s storyline, but the movies also ruined Mad-Eye Moody, both of whom are significant characters in the books, especially Lupin. While some of the omitted details from the books directly hamper the flow of logic and plot development, there are some that would have enriched the viewing experience. From the existence of Peeves the Poltergeist to the important cut scene of Gilderoy Lockhart at St. Mungo’s Hospital, the number of details left out from the movies will always be a point of contention for readers of the books.

10

How The Death Eaters Found The Trio In The Coffee Shop

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 1

Early on in the first part of the two-part epic conclusion to the Harry Potter film franchise, Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to quickly escape from Bill and Fleur’s wedding after Death Eaters crash the party. They get away and make a stop at a café on Tottenham Court Road to take stock of their circumstances. However, while there, the Death Eaters eventually find them and attack them mid-conversation, and they have a confrontation inside the café.

While this scene highlights the Death Eaters’ reach and helps establish how high the stakes are for the trio, it doesn’t make sense that they were discovered in a random café. The books provide the perfect explanation – Voldemort’s name has a strong taboo spell on it, so the Death Eaters immediately know the location of anyone who utters the name. This is why they’re never tracked down until the end of the movie – a glaring plot hole in the film that looks like plot armor without this detail.

9

How Fred And George Funded Their Shop

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

One of the less burning questions that viewers might have after watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince concerns Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. The wonderful joke shop opened by the Weasley twins, Fred and George, is the location for one of the best scenes in the movies. It is a brief visit to the shop, but that is all it takes to leave a lasting impression. An omitted detail from the books explains how they opened the shop, and further establishes the deep bond of love and friendship the twins share with Harry throughout the series.

In honor of Fred, George kept running Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, which continued to be a very successful store.

Fred and George famously didn’t finish their schooling, leaving Hogwarts after an elaborate prank (the one in the books differs from the one in the movies), and the Weasleys are shown to be financially struggling since their first appearance. It’s clear they’d never get a loan because of their reputation, so how do they fund such a large shop? The answer, as revealed in the books, is that Harry, after winning the Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, won a cash prize (a detail the film omitted), and gave all his winnings to the twins.

8

Why Dementors Attacked Harry At Little Whinging

Harry Potter And The Order of the Phoenix

Among other memorable characters, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix introduced viewers to the despicable character of Dolores Umbridge. A strict teacher sent by the Ministry to control the school’s education, who eventually takes on the role of Headmistress in Dumbledore’s absence, has hurt more students than any teacher should. However, while she ruins their school lives with her archaic principles and practically endangers students with her lack of practical thinking, the movies leave out the worst thing she did.

One of the most memorable Harry Potter movie openings is the scene where dementors attack Dudley Dursley and Harry Potter at Little Whinging. Dementors aren’t supposed to lurk in places where there may be many muggles living, but they seemed out Harry at his home, forcing him to do magic outside school to fend them off. The books eventually explain that it was Umbridge who had sent dementors after him, revealing just how irrational and hateful she was, of someone she hadn’t even met yet!

7

How Rita Skeeter Found Out Everyone’s Secrets

Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire

While he had always been famous for being the only known survivor of an attack by the Dark Lord, Harry Potter had lived a life shielded from the usual consequences of fame until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Since no one knew he lived with the Dursleys outside a very exclusive circle of people, and Hogwarts didn’t allow strangers into their grounds, he was able to escape the limelight until the Triwizard Tournament. As the youngest compeтιтor whose name shouldn’t have been chosen, he was even more in the spotlight.

She is an animagus and can turn into a beetle.

This is when one of the best minor Harry Potter characters, Rita Skeeter, entered his life and started publishing personal stories and pictures, twisting his words and spreading rumors like any paparazzi. However, she was incredibly effective at her job, better than one can be simply with research and connections. Her confusing level of competence is immediately explained when one takes into account that she is an animagus and can turn into a beetle. She makes her way into rooms and listens to private conversations, violating every boundary, but the films leave out this important detail about her.

6

Why Snape Is The Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

One of the coolest devices in the whole Harry Potter Wizarding World is the Pensieve. It allows someone to watch another person’s memories like a fly on the wall. Its most compelling use comes in the final movie of the franchise, where it reveals Snape’s truly tragic backstory as an eternal protector of Harry despite his behavior. However, that’s also because Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is missing Pensieve memory scenes. That’s not all the movie leaves out, though, as the most iconic twist in the film is also underdeveloped.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has one of the strongest movie endings with its subtle revelation about Snape. When he is hit with a spell from the Half-Blood Prince’s book, he retorts by saying Harry shouldn’t use his spells against him. While this jaw-dropping moment successfully surprises viewers, including details from the book would have added more of a whodunnit tone to the mystery of the writer’s idenтιтy. The books revealed that Snape’s father was a Muggle, explaining his adopted idenтιтy.

5

How Barty Crouch Jr. Escaped From Azkaban

Harry Potter And The Goblet of Fire

One of the most shocking revelations in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the moment the audience learns Mad-Eye Moody’s true idenтιтy. Not only has Barty Crouch Jr. been impersonating the famous auror with polyjuice potion for a whole year, but he is also one of Voldemort’s most trusted Death Eaters. However, the previous film showed us how strict the Wizarding World is about prisoners, especially those from Azkaban, so the fact that there were no posters and nobody knew he had escaped is a confusing plot hole in the movie.

The books completely explain the events, though. Barty Crouch Jr. was replaced by his dying mother at Azkaban, without anyone noticing, and as a result, his father had him kept under house arrest. He was guarded by the Crouch family’s house elf, Winky (whose existence is omitted from the films), made to live covered by an Invisibility Cloak, and constantly under the influence of an Imperius Curse. His father took him to the Quidditch World Cup after 12 years of house arrest, but he used the games as a distraction to escape and put Voldemort’s plan into action.

4

Where Voldemort Found His Horcruxes

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

The primary quest for the golden trio in Harry Potter is destroying the horcruxes or soul remnants of Voldemort before they confront him head on, so he dies this time. Unknowingly, Harry has destroyed one in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but it’s not until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that he discovers what a horcrux is and how one makes it. Killing a person will allow someone to tear their soul into two and store a remnant in an object of significance so they can become immortal until that object is destroyed.

While it is revealed in the film that Voldemort made seven horcruxes, it isn’t explained where he found the objects and how he made the horcruxes. The books give us detailed background on each of the six horcruxes he intentionally made, and leave the seventh a mystery. Through watching memories in the Pensieve and conversing with Dumbledore, Harry learns about Voldemort’s various horcruxes, and this detail would have added to the lore of one of the most underdeveloped and underwhelming movie villains of all time, and helped him feel a little more compelling.

3

Where The Two-Way Mirror Comes From

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 1

One of the most harrowing scenes in the entire Harry Potter film franchise is Hermione’s torture at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange at the Malfoy Manor in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1. It culminates in the death of Dobby the House Elf, an important franchise character who wasn’t there in the first movie. However, before he dies, Dobby rescues the trio from Malfoy Manor, thanks to a shard of glᴀss Harry carries that he is sure somehow links to Dumbledore. It is revealed that Aberforth, Albus’s brother, is the one who helped them out.

To those who haven’t read the books, both this two-way mirror and the character of Aberforth Dumbledore must come as confusing inclusions. In the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix book, Sirius gifts Harry a two-way mirror, saying he and his father used to use a similar device to keep in touch once. However, Harry forgets about it until after Sirius’ death, and breaks the mirror in a moment of frustration and keeps one of the shards. Aberforth bought the rest of the mirror from Mundungus Fletcher, and that’s how he can communicate with Harry using it.

2

How Harry Survives The Killing Curse

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2

Some of the details that the Harry Potter movies leave out from the books not only make the source material seem lazily written, but they also give Harry much more plot armor than he originally had. Among the most confusing moments of him just surviving situations he shouldn’t, is, of course, the iconic scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, when Voldemort hits him with a Killing Curse. Harry’s supposed death had a near-perfect buildup, leading to an epic, emotionally charged moment, but he bizarrely just comes back to life afterward.

The Elder Wand technically belonged to Harry, and Voldemort’s attempt to kill him using it saved him.

The books offer a well-developed reasoning behind Harry’s survival, incorporating multiple explanations for the inexplicable phenomenon. Firstly, it is revealed that Harry had become a horcrux of Voldemort when he killed Lily Potter and her protective shield made the Killing Curse rebound off Harry. The killing curse only killed the part of Harry that was Voldemort’s horcrux, leaving Potter alive. Secondly, the Elder Wand technically belonged to Harry, and Voldemort’s attempt to kill him using it saved him. Thirdly, Lily’s protective charm helped because Voldemort has carried Harry’s blood inside him since Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire.

1

Who The Real Marauders Are

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban

Alfonso Cuarón’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the most beloved film in the entire franchise for many, and among other factors, one of its most noteworthy introductions to fans of the Wizarding World is the Marauders’ Map. Fred and George give Harry a map of Hogwarts that tracks the locations of everyone in the school and on the grounds. It is known as the Marauders’ Map, created by Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, who refer to themselves as the Marauders on the map.

It is revealed in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that Lupin is a werewolf, and both Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black are animagi who can transform into a rat and a dog, respectively. We also learn that Harry’s patronus is a stag, just like his father. However, the book actually revealed that James Potter was also an animagus who could turn into a stag, and Remus, Peter, Sirius, and James are Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, respectively, making the four of them the Marauders!