The Harry Potter novels and films that followed them have become global treasures, staples of pop culture that rival Star Wars, The Simpsons, and others that have lasted over time because of their depth of story and the way they resonated with their audience.
The thing about iconic pop culture stories is that they often spawn fan theories about the stories themselves. Some of them are absolutely insane and hold no water, but there is definitely a fair share that sound not only intriguing but entirely possible.
With Harry Potter, these are just a few of the fan theories that have stood out from the rest and, like the Harry Potter font itself, made for interesting talking points among those fans of the wizarding world.
The size of Harry’s class
The author of the stories, JK Rowling, has talked about how there are thousands of students at Hogwarts. Since then, fans of the stories have tried to do the math: if there are 1000 students at the great and historical school, then there should be around 35 students in each house during each yet. Yet there are only 10 Gryffindors during Harry’s year.
There have been discussions about whether this is simply an oversight by Rowling or if there is perhaps more to it. One fan seems to think that this is because the Class of 1998 would have been conceived during Voldemort’s peak reign of power.
Essentially, this means that there was something of a baby wizard drought for a few years that would have led to smaller class sizes. It’s certainly intriguing and definitely possible, but it is not probable and likely an oversight by Rowling in her stories.
The one about Ron Weasley
The one that really seems a bit far-fetched is that Harry’s freckled friend is the one and only Albus Dumbledore, who has gone back in time. The idea stems from the chess scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In that scene, Ron plays both a knight and a king — these are the symbolic roles that Dumbledore and Ron play in the war that is to come.
The initial theory is somewhat plausible, but there is circumstantial and superficial “evidence” — like the long nose, fondness for sweets, etc. — that the author tries to piece together to make the comparison. This is one of those theories that certainly sounds interesting but is a bit too far-fetched to hold water.
Neville wasn’t actually bad at magic.
Neville Longbottom, the bumbling, hapless youth that spent his time at Hogwarts screwing up spells at every opportunity, has been the subject of much debate. Because of his ineptitude with spells, it seemed that he was a bit of a clod, but he managed to hold his own by mastering the Shield Charm behind only Hermione and even held up during several duels with Death Eaters.
Because of one constant tenet between the books and the movie — the wizard chooses the wand — many believe that Neville wasn’t so bad at magic, he simply chose the wrong wand. Neville inherited his father’s wand as his father had no use for it any longer.
There are many that believe that the Death Eater who broke Neville’s wand actually did him huge favour as that wand was holding him back. It is supported by the fact that Neville began to increase his magical prowess over the years and even to lead Dumbledore’s Army when Harry was absent.
This is one of those theories that certainly has all of the supporting arguments but ultimately falls into the “we will never know” category.
Dumbledore is Death
This one gets a little complicated, so strap in. There are the three objects that represent the Deathly Hallows: these are real magical objects that were held in possession of the Peverell brothers and were sought after in the centuries that followed their deaths.
Since Dumbledore is the only wizard to have possessed all three of the objects: he gives Harry the cloak, then the stone, and is then stripped of the Elder Wand. He is directly or indirectly responsible in the deaths of Snape and Voldemort and even meets Harry when he “dies”.
There are a lot of backstories worth looking into for this one, and it certainly is interesting, but there are a lot of conclusions that need to be jumped to and a lot of assumptions that need to be made. Still, it’s an interesting one.
