A Life In Review

⚠️ ** Warning: Contains Spoilers ** ⚠️

I don’t know how I’ve had this blog for 2 1/2 years and I’ve never written anything about Harry Potter. Sure, if you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably seen my love for all things HP, but somehow it has never made its way to the blog, until now. Seeing as it’s about to be Harry Potter season on TV (they usually show marathons between October and December), I figured that now was the perfect time to share this post with you.

Since the books and movies are long, I’ve decided that the best way to do this is to pick 3 things from each movie that are different from the books. I tried to find the lesser known differences so that this isn’t like every other Harry Potter post you’ve read. Let’s get started:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone:

1. Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday party: Nick celebrates the 500th anniversary of his death by throwing a massive party on Halloween. Harry, Ron and Hermione attended. It was a silly event, but it was such a cute storyline that I wish it was included in the movie to show us more of the ghosts at Hogwarts.
2. Two Sorcerers Stone Challenges were missing: When Ron, Hermione and Harry are searching for the Stone, they only had to face 5 challenges, but in the book there were actually 7. One of them was just another troll to defeat, but one of them was a really cool potions riddle put there by Professor Snape. I didn’t mind that they cut the second troll, but I think that the potion riddle would have been cool to see on screen.
3. Peeves the Poltergeist: He played a fun role in most (if not all) of the books. It was sad that his mischief wasn’t included in the movies. He was a fun ghost that reeked so much havoc. He was especially fun when they introduced Umbridge, but this is the first movie that he was excluded from. Supposedly they filmed scenes with him in the movie, but ultimately cut them in editing.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:

1. Harry’s Broken Glasses: this may seem small, but in the movies they had Hermione repair Harry’s glasses, however, that is a huge plot hole, because at this point they are second years and well aware that underage wizards cannot use magic outside of school. In the book it was Mr. Weasley who fixed them.
2. Introducing Squibs: This is the book where we were first introduced to the term “squib” which is a person who was born into a Wizarding family but posses no magic. Filch is a squib and that was addressed in this book, but totally left out of the movie. It’s not a plot issue, but it’s an interesting tidbit about the Wizarding world and wouldn’t have hurt to be added.
3. Ginny’s foreshadowing: During the duration of the book, there is a lot of foreshadowing that Ginny is the one connected to the diary. Even from the start of the book when the Weasleys run into the Malfoys while shopping in Diagon Alley (this is when the diary was given to Ginny). Ginny is weird throughout the book which led readers to wonder what was going on with her. In the movie though, she’s not mentioned much until the big reveal in the end.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:

1. Crookshanks: In this book, we were introduced to some of the students pets. It may not seem important, but throughout the book, Hermione’s cat Crookshanks was giving us leading clues as to what was going on with Scabbers (Ron’s rat) and Sirius (in his dog form). The cat also helped Sirius when Ron was hurt and Sirius was trying to drag him down into the Whomping Willow. It would have been cool to see the cat as more than just a menace like the movie portrayed it as.
2. The Marauder’s Map Creators: I think that it’s briefly mentioned in the movies that the map was created by Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, but they never share who those people were. While it’s not overly important to the plot line, it’s a pretty cool piece of info. If you didn’t know the actual creators were James Potter, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.
3. Gryffindor Wins the Cup: This was the first book in which Harry and Gryffindor house actually win the Quidditch cup. That was a huge deal in the books, but it was completely omitted in the movies, which was disappointing for those of us that really enjoyed the Quidditch scenes. In fact there was only one game even shown in the movies.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

1. House Elves: Hermione (and the others) find out that house-elves are basically running the ins and outs of Hogwarts behind the scenes. In the book this leads Hermione on a witch hunt to get better working conditions and wages for the house-elves. She even creates a group called SPEW (The Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare). It’s mentioned a ton throughout the book, but house-elves aren’t mentioned in the movie.
2. Dobby: Our old friend Dobby was back in this book, and his role wasn’t small, so It was confusing for the book lovers to not even see him mentioned in this movie. He is the one who gives Harry the gillyweed for the Tri-Wizard Tournament challenge and they just changed that whole scene in the movie.
3. Rita Skeeter’s Big Reveal: In the books, Hermione becomes obsessed with finding out how Rita is getting all of the information that she keeps printing. She goes on the hunt and by the end of the book, it’s revealed that Rita is an animagus (a beetle specifically) and Hermione actually captures her. This is important because Hermione uses this secret in a future book when she needs Rita to write an article for them.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix:

1. Percy Weasley’s Falling Out: There is a HUGE falling out between the Weasley family and Percy. Percy decided to stand with the ministry and deny that Voldemort was back. He even tried to convince his family that Harry was lying. This caused a multi-book rift between him and his family and isn’t resolved until the very last book.
2. What Happened to Quidditch? Yet again we have another movie that just drops Quidditch like it’s nothing. This was an interesting storyline in the book because Harry, Fred and George get banned from playing by Umbridge and have their brooms locked up. It’s another reason that HP bookworms hate Umbridge so much.
3. St. Mungo’s Major Scene Ignored: The magical hospital played a decent role in this book, but was totally left out of the movie. After Mr. Weasley’s attack, he is left in St. Mungo’s for a while and the kids end up visiting him. While they are there, they run into Lockhart who is a long term patient, along with Neville’s parents, who we officially meet. It gave us a better look into Neville’s life and who he was as a character. I wish they had included that part in the movie because it made the readers have a better appreciation for Neville as a character.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince:

1. Where did Fred and George get all their money? This is something that plays out in the previous book, but leads into this book when Fred and George open up their wildly popular joke shop. They come from a poor family, so it’s not surprising that movie goers were questioning where they got the money (Harry gave them his Tri-Wizard Tournament winnings).
2. Snape’s Backstory: While it is revealed that Snape is in fact the Half Blood Prince, there is no real explanation. In the book we are told how that came to be and where he got the name. I’m sure there just wasn’t time in the movies to add that, but it would have been nice to have more than they gave us.
3. Dumbledore’s Funeral: this book ended with a funeral for Dumbledore. While it may not seem like a big deal, it was the closure that a lot of us needed before ending this book. I’ve read online that they cut it because it wasn’t a very cinematic way to end a movie.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1:

1. Viktor Krum: Krum was another character that didn’t make it into the movie after being the book. Not only does he prove to be a source of jealously for Ron (which we loved), but he also is the one who introduced Harry to Grindelwald’s symbol (the Deathly Hallows) which was of course the premise for the final two movies and the last book.
2. Remus Lupin’s Abandonment: At one point in the books, Lupin comes to Harry, Ron and Hermione and tries to join them on their quest, but Harry flat out say no. Lupin was scared because Tonks was pregnant and he didn’t want his son to grow up with a werewolf as a father, but Harry saw that as true abandonment and sent him on his way. This was totally omitted from the movies.
3. Phineas Nigellus Black: In the book, Hermione takes a picture of Phineas from the Black house and keeps it with her so that they can spy on Hogwarts (since his other picture was in the headmasters office). This is how they get a lot of information about the goings on there, and that part is completely left out of the movie. It felt like an important part of the books, so I’m not sure why it was excluded from the movies.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2:

1. Wormtail’s Demise: In the movie, when Wormtail goes down to the cellar where Harry, Ron and the other prisoners were, he is eventually stunned by Dobby and left there. However, it’s a much darker scene in the book because he actually dies at his own hand. Since he had a moment of “weakness” and let Harry live, the hand that Voldemort gave him actually turns on him and chokes him to death right there in the cellar.
2. The final battle between Voldemort and Harry: For those of us who read the books, this “battle” was a HUGE let down in the movie. There was a lot more build up in the books and Harry reveals more about Voldemort that was really interesting. It was an epic battle that was done really poorly on screen.
3. The Elder Wand: There is a very different ending for the Elder Wand in the book vs. the movie. In the movie, Harry snaps it in half and throws it into a pit. In the book, he uses it to repair his Phoenix wand and then vows to keep the Elder Wand until his death so that the magic of it dies with him. Not sure why that had to be changed in the movie, but that’s why I’m not a screenwriter.

I have to say that despite the many differences, I still LOVE the Harry Potter movies. Sure they have some inaccuracies, but they were still done really well and the casting was superb. I will always love the books more than the movies, but that’s just the bookworm in me. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. Now grab a cup of pumpkin juice and have yourself an HP marathon!