History Fridge / HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone

* When the Trio and Neville encounter Fluffy for the first time, the dog doesn't immediately attack them not because it was caught off-guard, but because Peeves was talking to Filch in a ''singsong'' (i.e. musical) voice!

* When the Trio and Neville encounter Fluffy for the first time, the dog doesn't immediately attack them not because it was caught off-guard, but because Peeves was talking to Filch in a ''singsong'' (i.e. musical) voice!

** Quirrell tries to say his turban was a reward for ridding an African prince of a troublesome zombie. However, as Pottermore explains, zombies are mostly reported in The United States — so people have a reason to ask him how he did it. But! [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#African_and_related_legends Zombies actually have been in African-related legends]], so perhaps he ''did'' do his research?

* Ron's attempt to turn Scabbers yellow didn't just fail because it wasn't a very good spell, but because it specified a ''rat'' as its target, and Scabbers isn't really a rat.

* Hagrid first appears riding on Sirius's motorbike. Why did Sirius give him the motorbike? Probably because, as revealed in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'', Sirius was planning on confronting Peter, and expected to end up either dead or in prison.

* On his first night at Hogwarts, Harry has a nightmare of Professor Quirrell's turban wrapping around his head in place of the Sorting Hat and trying to force him to join Slytherin. The more he resisted, the tighter and heavier it got. While this highlights Harry's subconscious fear and doubt about his Sorting, it also gains significance after we learn that [[spoiler:Voldemort was inside Quirrell's turban all along, forcing ''him'' to do terrible things]]. What's more, that [[spoiler:Voldemort had left "a piece of himself" in Harry when he got his scar, the Sorting Hat mainly considered Harry for Slytherin on account of said piece (as revealed in the second book), and that said piece was actually a Horcrux (a piece of Voldemort's soul)]]. It's possible that something deep in Harry's subconscious sensed this, [[spoiler:particularly the Horcrux part of his mind]], and manifested itself in a symbolic and vaguely prophetic dream. Harry's development regarding his relationship to Voldemort and House Slytherin was foreshadowed on his ''first night''.

-->'''Dumbledore:''' Five years ago, then, you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.

* Hermione's line "We could have been killed, [[AFateWorseThanDeath or worse]], expelled" seems [[FunnyAneurysmMoment funny at first]], but given how anxious Hermione is about her marks in "The Half-Blood Prince", Hogwarts probably meant everything to the girl.
* The fact that three 11-year-olds and a 12-year-old (Hermione's birthday is mid-September) were sent into the ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Forbidden Forest]]'' to find a unicorn that had been badly hurt for ''being out after curfew''. Hagrid even says that a werewolf wouldn't be able to do it. And as we learn in the next book, there's an entire colony of giant spiders in the forest! Oh, and Hagrid even tells them that "Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it.'" when Harry and Hermione (and Ron in the movie) are in trouble for helping him! WhatTheHellHero doesn't even begin to cover it!
** A bit of FridgeBrilliance plays in however, when you realise that Aragog holds Hagrid in high esteem, so, as long as they are with Hagrid, Aragogs nest probably wouldn't attack them, as well as the fact that the Acromantula nest is said to be very, '''very''', deep in the forest, and they are searching for unicorns, which in myth are very smart, so doubtful a wounded one would flee directly to their nest.

* The inscription on the Mirror of Erised ("Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi") is spelled backwards. In other words, it's ''mirrored.''

* Everyone assumes that Quirrell's stuttering and turban come from a bad encounter with a Vampire in Albania. He did indeed have a bad encounter, but with [[spoiler:Voldemort. So it appears this rumour was false, but Voldemort makes Quirrell drink (unicorn) blood on his behalf.]]
** Quirrell tries to say his turban was a reward for ridding an African prince of a troublesome zombie. However, as Pottermore explains, zombies are mostly reported in The United States - so people have a reason to ask him how he did it. But! [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#African_and_related_legends Zombies actually have been in African-related legends]], so perhaps he ''did'' do his research?

* Ronan also says "Always the innocent are the first victims." The first person to die in the second war was [[spoiler:Cedric Diggory,]] [[NiceGuy a friendly, easygoing kid who'd never hurt anyone]]. It is also revealed by WordOfGod that [[spoiler:Quirrell did not intend to serve Voldemort. He wanted to determine if Voldemort was alive (and if need be, defeat him). Unfortunately, he failed and was forcibly taken over against his will, essentially dying from the encounter. He would from then on be controlled by our BigBad, becoming the first innocent victim of Voldemort's return to power.]]

* Neville wins Gryffindor the House Cup for trying to stop the Trio, with Dumbledore commenting that while it takes courage to stand up to one's enemies, it takes a great deal more to stand up to one's friends. Later on in the last book, we find out that Dumbledore's [[MyGreatestFailure greatest regret]] was not standing up to his friend Grindelwald, which caused the death of his younger sister and his eventual rise to power. He's not just trying to justify awarding the House Cup to Gryffindor - he's rewarding Neville for succeeding where he himself had failed.
* In the film Oliver Wood shows Harry a Golden Snitch. When it flies out of his hand, Harry's eyes follow the Snitch but Wood starts looking around. A Quidditch captain with such poor vision? Wood had just said it was 'damn near-impossible to see' and he is a Keeper, in charge of following the much larger Quaffle.
** This also [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadows]] (if unintentionally), Harry's tendency for surviving some of the more harrowing situations he does in the series, typically due to a detail his enemies [[DidntSeeThatComing weren't able to account for.]]
* When Hagrid arrives to accept Harry into Hogwarts, Harry asks him what happened to Voldemort. Hagrid's response: "Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die." That's exactly what happens: Voldemort didn't die [[spoiler:because only a bare fraction of his soul was in his body at the time.]]
* Harry convinces Hermione and Ron to break school rules and save the Stone by telling them what would happen otherwise: "Haven't you heard what it was like when he was taking over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll either flatten it or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts!" [[spoiler: The latter being what Voldemort tried to do in Deathly Hallows.]]
* During the Christmas holidays, Fred and George charm snowballs to bounce off the back of Quirrell's turban. At the end of the book, it is revealed that [[spoiler:Voldemort's face is on the back of Quirrell's head, under his turban. So the snowballs were hitting Voldemort.]]
* The first time Harry feels pain in his scar is when he glances at Snape during the opening-day feast. What's Snape doing when Harry sees him? Talking face-to-face with Quirrell, which means that [[spoiler:the back of Quirrell's head must've been turned towards Harry at the time.]]
* Dumbledore explains to Harry at the end of the book that Harry's father and Snape "detested each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy." At the time, we, along with Harry, envision James as Harry's own righteous counterpart to Snape's Malfoy-like supremacist bullying. Book 5 reveals that [[spoiler:James was the prejudiced, over-privileged brat picking on Snape, who was a neglected, ostracized loner.]]
* Malfoy's comment about Hufflepuff wasn't just a shot at the House's unspectacular reputation; you'd think that Gryffindor, given its longtime rivalry with Slytherin, would be the House that Malfoy mentioned. But consider that Helga Hufflepuff was implied to be the founder that cared least about blood status and was accepting of everyone - which is the opposite of Malfoy's elitist line of thinking.

* At first, the protections guarding the Stone seem to be proven iffy if they were able to be beaten by three first-years. However, note the word ''three'' first years. Each challenge was difficult, but was also set for a specific skill set. The flying keys was designed for someone with athletic skills, the potions needed someone good at riddles, the troll needed someone who was good at defensive spells, and chess required someone who has a different perspective rather than just studying a lot. Even Deadly Snare required knowledge or skills in Herbology. The individual tasks were not hard, but the chances of one person being extremely athletic, logical, good at strategy, well read, and good at defensive spells all at once is highly improbable. Even for three very different wizards, they got lucky with two of the tasks having already being taken care of them for them (the troll and Fluffy). No wonder it took [[spoiler:Quirrell]] all year to figure out how to get past all of them on his own. Because of this multilayered protection, it almost dictated that (barring a wizard equal to the power of Voldemort himself) it would have required a team of people to reach the Mirror of Erised - and more than likely, a team of people willing to sacrifice their chance at the Stone so one person could reach it. Even ''then'', the stone produces instant riches and immortality. And on top of that still, Dumbledore's final protection was that only someone who wanted to ''find'' the stone (yes, find it and not use it) would be able to get it. This pretty much disqualifies almost ''everyone'' looking for the Stone. One could argue that Harry nearly screwed up the plan, because if Dumbledore's words held true, [[spoiler:Quirrell]] would have likely just stood there in front of the Mirror if Harry hadn't shown up.

* The protections also provide a sort of retroactive foreshadowing on the villain. [[spoiler:Quirrell]] tells Harry that "there is no good and evil- there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." This clearly points to a personal philosophy of 'power and nothing else.' All but one of the traps ''do not'' test sheer magical strength- The Devil's Snare required knowledge of Herbology and the ability to keep one's head in a crisis, the keys required skill at flying and teamwork, the chess set required strategical knowledge and willingness to [[HeroicSacrifice make sacrifices]], and the potion room is explicitly stated to be a test of logic instead of magic. Meanwhile, the ''troll'' is the exception, as it is the only test that appears to be a contest of sheer strength (so much so that Harry and company were lucky they didn't have to fight it).
* When Harry confronts Quirrell in the Mirror's chamber, Quirrell has [[spoiler:the remaining fragment of Voldemort physically bonded to the back of his head.]] In book 7, we find out that [[spoiler:Harry ''also'' has a torn-off fragment of Voldemort attached to him, mystically bonded to his soul as demonstrated by the scar on the ''front'' of his head]]. A Mirror chamber, indeed!
* On his first night at Hogwarts, Harry has a nightmare of Professor Quirrell's turban wrapping around his head in place of the Sorting Hat and trying to force him to join Slytherin. The more he resisted, the tighter and heavier it got. While this highlights Harry's subconscious fear and doubt about his Sorting, it also gains significance after we learn that [[spoiler:Voldemort was inside Quirrell's turban all along, forcing ''him'' to do terrible things.]] What's more, that [[spoiler:Voldemort had left "a piece of himself" in Harry when he got his scar, the Sorting Hat mainly considered Harry for Slytherin on account of said piece (as revealed in the second book), and that said piece was actually a Horcrux (a piece of Voldemort's soul).]] It's possible that something deep in Harry's subconscious sensed this, [[spoiler:particularly the Horcrux part of his mind]], and manifested itself in a symbolic and vaguely prophetic dream. Harry's development regarding his relationship to Voldemort and House Slytherin was foreshadowed on his ''first night''.

-->'''Dumbledore''': Five years ago, then, you arrived at Hogwarts, neither as happy nor as well nourished as I would have liked, perhaps, yet alive and healthy. You were not a pampered little prince, but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well.

* Hermione's panic when trapped in Devil's Snare ("ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?") is PlayedForLaughs... but as revealed in the next book, she's Muggleborn and probably didn't know she was a witch until she got her Hogwarts acceptance letter. It's one thing to acquire magical knowledge as quickly as she has, but it's another to have it immediately come to mind in a life-or-death crisis when you've spent most of your life not knowing about magic. Consider that Harry is seldom, if ever, seen actually casting spells outside of the classroom.

* When Harry visits the zoo with Dudley and frees the boa constrictor, the snake informs Harry, "Brazil, here I come...Thanksss, amigo." However, according to herpetologist Mark O'Shea in his book, "Boas and Pythons of the World" (2007), boas are being over hunted and targeted as prey by many Brazilians. On the mainland, large-scale harvesting of skins, meat, and body parts, combined with active persecution and habitat loss, has had a disastrous effect on the once-common species. O'Shea writes, "I have seen boa constrictor heads in jars, racks of dried boa tails, and live neonates in sacks for sale in Amerindian markets of Belém, Brazil." Had the boa constrictor made it to its species' natural habitat in Brazil, chances are good that it could have gotten killed there. Harry freeing the boa constrictor, though it initially seems like an (unintentional) act of kindness, likely sent the snake to its death.

* Hagrid gives Dudley a pig's tail. Later in the series we see how seriously the Ministry takes magic cast on Muggles - and this is a muggle ''child'', no matter what a jerk he and his parents are. Also note that when Hagrid was angered by Vernon, his immediate response was to turn and attack Mr Dursley's ''son''.
** Hagrid mentions that he'd actually meant to turn Dudley into a pig rather than give him a pig's tail. WordOfGod states that any human transformed into an animal would [[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody lose their memories, intelligence and personality essentially becoming an animal in spirit as well as body]] unless they were an Animagus and Hagrid intended to do this to an ''eleven year child'' for something his father said. Though considering Hagrid was expelled in his third year and never got to learn more about magic he may had been unaware about the full effects of animal transfiguration.
* In the film, we see flashbacks to Lily Potters murder by Voldemort, using the killing curse. We know from the later instalments that the killing curse inflicts no pain on its victim, instead killing them without leaving any signs of a cause for the death. So why is Lily screaming when struck by the curse? She's screaming in anguish at the reality that her only [[WouldHurtAChild son is about to be murdered]], and there is [[AdultFear nothing she can do to save him]].
* Hermione's line "We could have been killed, [[AFateWorseThanDeath or worse]], expelled" seems [[FunnyAneurysmMoment funny at first]], but given how much is Hermione anxious about her marks in "The Half-Blood Prince", Hogwarts probably meant everything to the girl.
* The fact that three 11 year olds and a 12 year old (Hermione's birthday is mid-September) were sent into the ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Forbidden Forest]]'' to find a unicorn that had been badly hurt for ''being out after curfew''. Hagrid even says that a werewolf wouldn't be able to do it. And as we learn in the next book, there's an entire colony of giant spiders in the forest! Oh, and Hagrid even tells them that "Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it.'" when Harry and Hermione (and Ron in the movie) are in trouble for helping him! WhatTheHellHero doesn't even begin to cover it!

** "Bottle Fame, Brew Glory, even stopper Death" - [[spoiler:The Elixir of Life, which can only be made with the help of the Philosopher's[=/=]Sorcerer's Stone, can do all three of these things. It can turn any metal into pure gold, thus making the owner rich. Whoever is able to produce the elixir will be unique among wizards because of its rarity, and become functionally immortal from drinking it. Of course the Stone is the main focus of the book, but the Stone as a tool creates the exliir, which Voldemort intended to use to return to full power. Also, it's implied that the spellwork Snape used in Book 6 to buy Dumbledore more time after the curse of Marvolo Gaunt's ring started to kill him involved the use of a potion, thus slowing down Dumbledore's death and leaving him alive long enough for the chain of events that resulted in Harry obtaining the allegiance of the Elder Wand.]]

** Thankfully mitigated by the fact that the snake's chances of actually getting to Brazil from the UK are slim to none and it most likely was recaptured.

* When Harry visits the zoo with Dudley and frees the boa constrictor, the snake informs Harry, "Brazil, here I come...Thanksss, amigo." However, according to herpetologist Mark O'Shea in his book, "Boas and Pythons of the World" (2007), boas are being over hunted and targeted as prey by many Brazilians. On the mainland, large-scale harvesting of skins, meat, and body parts, combined with active persecution and habitat loss, has had a disastrous effect on the once-common species. O'Shea writes, "I have seen boa constrictor heads in jars, racks of dried boa tails, and live neonates in sacks for sale in Amerindian markets of Belém, Brazil." Had the boa constrictor made it to its species' natural habitat in Brazil, chances are good that it could have gotten killed there. Harry freeing the boa constrictor, though it initially seems like an act of kindness, likely sent the snake to its death.

* Hagrid first appears riding on Sirius's motorbike. Why did Sirius give him the motorbike? Probably because, as revealed in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'', Sirius was planning on confronting Peter, and expected to end up either dead or in prison. Doubles as Fridge Horror.

* Hagrid first appears riding on Sirius's motorbike. Why did Sirius give him the motorbike? Probably because, as revealed in ''Prisoner of Azkaban'', Sirius was planning on confronting Peter, and expected to end up either dead or in prison.

* What happens if there's a [[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2009/06/11/things_i_wont_work_with_thioacetone thioacetone]]-flavored Every-Flavor Bean?

* It seems questionable that Dumbledore would leave recently orphaned Harry at the Dursleys since they hate magic. However, if Harry was instead raised in the wizard world and knew that he was famous, he would most likely turn out just like Draco. Having him raised by the Dursleys and being mistreated by them makes him humble.

* The Sorting Hat's song in this book says "perhaps in Slytherin/You'll find your real friends". This may seem like just a rhyme for "Those cunning folk use any means/To achieve their ends", given the constant emphasis on Slytherin House's negative aspects. But when you think about it, Slytherin alumni's loyalties to those they care about (as opposed to allies of convenience) are incredibly strong. Snape of course betrays Voldemort and devotes his life to bringing him down when he learns Lily is in danger; Bellatrix is so devoted to Voldemort she has no fear of being sentenced to Azkaban for his sake; Regulus Black sacrificed himself in an attempt to render Voldemort mortal when Voldemort almost killed his beloved slave Kreacher; Narcissa betrays Voldemort twice to ensure Draco's safety - both in the Forbidden Forest during Deathly Hallows and in Half-Blood Prince when she defies Voldemort's orders in asking Snape to protect Draco from the effects of his punishment mission (and Bellatrix, too, doesn't report her sister for this disloyalty); and on a lesser scale, Slughorn's networking is designed to generate strong ties between those with talent and those with social prominence. Real friends indeed.

** Adding onto the above, by releasing the boa constrictor, Harry also did not account for the snake's welfare in the climate of the United Kingdom. In June or early July, when Harry released the snake, the UK fairly temperate around this time of year, but absolutely freezing in the winter. Snakes released in places like that are likely to die due to this. Snakes, being cold-blooded, cannot generate their own body heat. Boa constrictors, coming from warm, humid, tropical climates around the equator, would not be able to survive long in a UK environment. They simply aren't built to survive in that climate.
** Likewise, the boa constrictor is stated to have been bred, hatched, and raised in captivity in the zoo. A 2013 study by the University of Illinois found that the longer that wild-caught rat snakes been held in captivity, the less successful and slower they were to react to prey. Ratsnakes held in captivity for as little as 10 months were less successful, and took longer to locate prey, than snakes just brought into captivity. In captive-bred snakes, poor performance in foraging or hunting may be attributed to them never having developed normal foraging abilities in the wild. The study's results do suggest that when translocated or reintroduced animals starve, the amount of time spent in captivity could be a contributing factor. This means that the boa constrictor's slower reaction time in hunting, paired with the colder climate of the United Kingdom, would have prevented the snake from surviving long in its new environment.
* Hagrid gives Dudley a pig's tail. Ha! How funny! Later in the series we see how seriously the Ministry takes magic cast on muggles - and this is a muggle ''child'', no matter what a jerk he and his parents are. Also note that when Hagrid was angered by Vernon, his immediate response was to turn and attack Mr Dursley's ''son''.

** Somewhat mitigated by the fact that even [[spoiler: Malfoy]] was turned into a ferret, and was no worse for the wear, even though he was traumatised by the experience. Perhaps Dudley would have simply have bad memories about his transformation, was it complete, but that's it.
** Given Rowling's habit of nods to mythology, Hagrid quipping that "I guess he was so much of a pig already only the tail was missing" rings eerily like some versions on how the first werewolves came to be: after a king he visited served Zeus, king of the gods, a stew made of a human boy/infant, Zeus literally flipped the table and turned said king, Lycaon (hence lycanthropy) and his sons into the first werewolves, in some versions adding that the only change was that their appearance now matched their monstrous nature, given they had no qualms about killing, cooking and serving a boy (some versions even say Lycaon was a cannibal even before).
** Also, Hagrid's wand got snapped in his third year when he was expelled from Hogwarts. That means his education stopped at age 13, 14 at the latest. And as we see in Chamber of Secrets, spells from a broken wand usually rebound on the caster and cause harm- but Hagrid doesn't seem to get any rebound from the spell. ''Just how powerful a wizard is Hagrid?''
*** It is possible that Dumbledore fixed Hagrid's wand. Harry did the same to his own wand in the last non epilogue scene of the final book using the Elder Wand, the wand Dumbledore had.

** The quoted line was mostly directed to Malfoy, who, and Hagrid did probably know this, tried to give away the fact that he had Norbert. Malfoy should really consider himself lucky that Hagrid is a very peaceful person who does not hold grudges easily, because it would have been easy for Hagrid to let it look like an accident. Especially while being friends with Aragog...
*** Such a ''solution'' would be quite improbable due to what kind of a person Lucius Malfoy is. As we learn in the following book, [[spoiler: he already held a grudge with Hagrid and was not really content that Rubeus was still at school]].
* At the end, after Dumbledore is finished being MrExposition, he chomps down on what he thinks is a toffee-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean, only to discover that it's really ear wax-flavored. The question is -- ''how does Dumbledore know what ear wax tastes like?!''
** Probably tried it as a very young child, like a lot of curious young boys... which makes this more funny than anything. Also, it's not impossible that some Potion Dumbledore learned about in his near-century of studying and teaching magic, involved ear wax. The very next book you get a potion that requires bodily bits & pieces from another person in order to work.
** He also could have assumed what it tasted like based on the smell. Smell is a large help to the sense of taste.
** As Dumbledore had just commented on his bad luck with Bertie Bott's Every-Flavored Beans, and at one point during the series Ron mentions vomit-flavor and the like. What if, as a little kid, Dumbledore found out the hard (but chewy candy) way what a lot of disgusting things such as ear wax, vomit, and even more disturbing-to-have-in-your-mouth flavors were like?
* ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'' introduces a huge bit of FridgeHorror regarding the abuse that Harry suffers for being magical. He could've wound up like Credence Barebone -- y'know, the '''[[PersonOfMassDestruction Obscurial]]'''.
[[/folder]]

* Vernon encounters a number of wizards and witches wearing robes in broad daylight during the celebrations of Voldemort's defeat. One of them is wearing emerald-green robes, the colours of Slytherin. It's a tiny but subtle hint that not all Slytherins are bad.
* Harry has dreams about being in the flying motorcycle, despite being an infant at the time and too young to have memories of the occasion. It's more likely that the memory belongs to [[spoiler:Voldemort's Horcrux]].

* Everyone assumes that Quirrell's stuttering and turban come from a bad encounter with a Vampire in Albania. He did indeed have a bad encounter, but with [[spoiler:Voldemort. So it appears this rumor was false, but Voldemort makes Quirrell drink (unicorn) blood on his behalf.]]
** Quirrell tries to say his turban was a reward for ridding an African prince of a troublesome zombie. However, as Pottermore explains, zombies are mostly reported in the states - so people have a reason to ask him how he did it. But! [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#African_and_related_legends Zombies actually have been in African-related legends]], so perhaps he ''did'' do his research?
* When asked what's going on, all the centaurs say is that Mars is particularly bright. Four books later, Firenze explains in a Divination Class that Mars signals war. The Centaurs were telling the wizards that a War was coming!
* Ronan also says "Always the innocent are the first victims." The first person to die in the second war was [[spoiler:Cedric Diggory,]] [[NiceGuy a friendly, easygoing kid who'd never hurt anyone]]. It is also revealed by WordOfGod that [[spoiler:Quirrell did not intend to serve Voldemort. He wanted to determine if Voldemort was alive (and if need be, defeat him). Unfortunately, he failed and was forcibly taken over against his will, essentially dying from the encounter. He would from then on be controlled by our BigBad, becoming the first innocent victim of Voldy's return to power.]]
* The Sorting Hat tells Harry that he could be great in Slytherin. In other words, it was trying to appeal to Harry's ambition and cleverly see if he ''wanted'' to be in Slytherin. And Harry showed courage by asking the Hat not to put him there.
** Harry had a [[spoiler:soul fragment of Voldemort inside him]], which may have affected Harry's mind and what the Sorting Hat saw in it, and make Harry appear a better candidate for Slytherin than he might have been otherwise. Harry's mind won out over the [[spoiler:soul fragment]] and Harry willed his way into Gryffindor. It's another example of what Dumbledore said about how our choices show more about who we are than our abilities.
* When Scabbers (who is actually Pettigrew) bites Goyle on the train--Harry and Ron are on the verge of fighting them because, in part, Malfoy ''insulted Harry's parents''.
* Ron's attempt to turn Scabbers yellow didn't just fail because it wasn't a very good spell, but because it specified a ''rat'' as its target, and Scabbers isn't really a rat. Or stupid, for that matter.

** Not only that, but the fact that Neville wins them the House Cup is excellent {{Foreshadowing}} for what happens in ''Deathly Hallows''. After all, as that book and ''Cursed Child'' show, [[spoiler:Neville killing Nagini is what allows Harry to defeat Voldemort once and for all. Just like he won them the House Cup, Neville won them the war]].

* Harry convinces Hermione and Ron to break school rules and save the Stone by telling them what would happen otherwise: "Haven't you heard what it was like when he was taking over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll either flatten it or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts!" [[spoiler:Not at all like what Voldemort tried to do in Deathly Hallows...]]
* During the holidays, Fred and George charm snowballs to bounce off the back of Quirrell's turban. At the end of the book, it is revealed that [[spoiler:Voldemort's face is on the back of Quirrell's head, under his turban. So the snowballs were hitting Voldemort!]]
* The first time Harry feels pain in his scar is when he glances at Snape during the opening-day feast. What's Snape doing when Harry sees him? Talking face-to-face with Quirrell, which means that [[spoiler:the back of Quirrell's head must've been turned towards Harry at the time. Voldemort was glaring at Harry from under the turban!]]
* Dumbledore explains to Harry at the end of the book that Harry's father and Snape "detested each other. Not unlike yourself and Mr. Malfoy." At the time, we, along with Harry, envision James as Harry's own righteous counterpart to Snape's Malfoy-like supremacist bullying. Book 5 reveals that [[spoiler:James was the prejudiced, over-privileged brat picking on Snape, who was a neglected, ostracized loner. Book 7 cements the parallel when James says to Sirius much the same thing Draco did upon meeting Harry: "Imagine being in Slytherin[=/=]Hufflepuff! I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?". This is not to say that Snape wasn't a power-hungry git who made the wrong choices or that James didn't eventually mature and become a good man. It simply underlines how ideology isn't the only thing that makes you good or bad; it's also about personal ethics and compassion.]]
* Malfoy's comment about Hufflepuff wasn't just a shot at the House's unspectacular reputation; you'd think that Gryffindor, given its longtime rivalry with Slytherin, would be the House that Malfoy mentioned. But consider that Helga Hufflepuff was implied to be the founder that cared least about blood status and was accepting of everyone - which is the diametric opposite of Malfoy's pro-pureblood, elitist line of thinking.

* At first, the protections guarding the stone seem to be proven iffy, if they were able to be beaten by three first years. However, note the word ''three'' first years. Each challenge was difficult, but was also set for a specific skill set. The flying keys was designed for someone with athletic skills, the potions needed someone good at riddles, the troll needed someone who was good at defensive spells, and chess required someone who has a different perspective rather than just studying a lot. Even Deadly Snare required knowledge or skills in Herbology. The individual tasks were not hard, but the chances of one person being extremely athletic, logical, good at strategy, well read, and good at defensive spells all at once is highly improbable. Even for three very different wizards, they got lucky with two of the tasks having already being taken care of them for them (the troll and Fluffy). No wonder it took [[spoiler:Quirrell]] all year to figure out how to get past all of them on his own. Because of this multilayered protection, it almost dictated that (barring a wizard equal to the power of Voldemort himself) it would have required a team of people to reach the Mirror of Erised - and more than likely, a team of people willing to sacrifice their chance at the Stone so one person could reach it. Even ''then'', the stone produces instant riches and immortality. And on top of that still, Dumbledore's final protection was that only someone who wanted to ''find'' the stone (yes, find it and not use it) would be able to get it. This pretty much disqualifies almost ''everyone'' looking for the Stone. One could argue that Harry nearly screwed up the plan, because if Dumbledore's words held true, [[spoiler:Quirrell]] would have likely just stood there in front of the Mirror if Harry hadn't shown up and willed the Stone to drop right into his pocket.

* How hard were the challenges ''supposed'' to be? As has been noted, the trio were able to pass because they had a combined vast skillset, while the last challenge could grant passage to no more than two people. Avoiding that issue, it'd have made more sense if it was right after Fluffy instead of right before the mirror, which could imply that the protections were not set to maximum efficiency. However, the mirror really was all the protection the stone needed, as it is the only one testing hearts instead of skills. The other traps weren't set up to stop the intruder, but to instead test them before the mirror pulled the rug out from under the intruder.

* The 'it unscrews the other way' scene in ''Order of the Phoenix'' isn't an isolated incident of [=McGonagall=] bending the rules. It may be a long-buried desire, foreshadowed here by her saving the reputation of her house's Quidditch team and recruiting a ''first-year'' who showed off his skill by ''recklessly breaking the rules''. It wasn't even clear what she was doing at the time, and by the time Harry fully realized what had happened, he probably never made the connection (and most likely neither did most readers). She may have even taken deliberate advantage of Harry's lack of knowledge to keep the connection from being properly made.
* A little analysis shows how incredibly badass Ron's chess game was. He's playing with a knight, bishop and rook that he's trying not to lose or even exchange. That's a ''massive'' handicap to his strategy, especially after the opening and the game starts getting unpredictable. He lasts until the endgame before sacrificing [[spoiler:himself]]. So Ron didn't just win with a handicap, he beat greater odds than [[spoiler:Quirrell]], who had only one fragile piece to worry about.

** Wrapped around him, getting tighter and tighter, like a python? Foreshadowing Nagini?
* It's no wonder that it would have taken magic for the snake in the zoo to be able to react to Harry talking to it, and that it was taken as one of the signs that Harry is a wizard. In addition to snakes being unable to understand human speech under ordinary circumstances, just like any other animal, snakes do not have ears and therefore cannot hear.
* The four words Dumbledore says at the opening feast ("Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!") sound nonsensical but actually represent what each house despises: "Nitwit" stands for foolishness, which the intellectual Ravenclaws shy away from. "Blubber" refers to inaction, the trait frowned upon by the volatile Gryffindors. "Oddment" could be interpreted as anything odd or not traditional to the wizarding world, which the purist Slytherins would resent. Finally, "tweak" could mean anyone stepping out of line, disliked by the rule-abiding Hufflepuffs. Dumbledore is trying to warn the students about having prejudices, though how he expects them to understand is unclear.

** Confirmed by Dumbledore himself, though he still would rather Harry ''not'' be mistreated. Also, there's a marked difference between being raised by some other wizard than being raised by Lucius Malfoy, who was basically the biggest jerkass in the series aside from Voldemort himself and possibly Umbridge. If Harry had been adopted by a good and loving family like the Weasleys (which sort-of semi-ended up happening), he would have been fine and perhaps even better off (besides the whole magical protection thing.) What effects the Dursleys' treatment of Harry as a young boy had on him in his adolescent years can only be picked up by inference. It's complicated somewhat by [[spoiler:Voldemort's soul fragment being inside of him]] but quite a bit of Harry's behavior makes more sense if you take into account the reality of his emotional and mental abuse.
*** It does seem a bit odd, given the extent of that abuse, that Harry wasn't more psychologically scarred. He went from having no one who loved him to casually forming lifelong friendships during his first days in the wizarding world. [[spoiler:This could actually be thanks to the ''horcrux''. Even though Harry's fundamentally decent nature kept him from being turned into a psychopath, he grew up with a piece of his mind having had a lifetime's experience as an isolated orphan with no desire for human relationships.]] He accepted and valued his relationships once he developed them, but he was okay without them too.
*** And given the Sorting Hat asking why he didn't want to join Slytherin, he already has proven to have the POSITIVE traits of a Slytherin in his first year, namely his resourcefulness and ambition to succeed and break Slytherin's winning streak in the House Cup.
* The hotel Harry and the Dursleys stay in to escape the barrage of Hogwarts letters is revealed in Pottermore as being close to Cokeworth. Also in Cokeworth were the childhood homes of the Evans sisters - Petunia and Lily. Petunia probably mentioned that hotel at one point when talking about her hometown - probably years ago to the point where Vernon only remembered it subconsciously (like when Hermione apparated herself and Harry to the Forest of Dean).

* In the movie, Voldemort tries to sway Harry to his side by telling him that they could bring back Harry's parents. Harry calls him a liar... but pause for a second. They ''could'' have brought them back with the ''Resurrection Stone''. Voldemort knew of the Deathly Hallows. His entire thing was trying to become the Master of Death. Was he maybe telling the truth and Harry simply didn't trust him enough to consider it?

* How hard were the challenges ''supposed'' to be? As has been noted, the trio were able to pass because they had a combined vast skillset, while the last challenge could grant passage to no more than two people. Avoiding that issue, it'd have made more sense if it was right after Fluffy instead of right before the mirror, which could imply that it the protections were not set to maximum efficiency. However, the mirror really was all the protection the stone needed, as it is the only one testing hearts instead of skills. The other traps weren't set up to stop the intruder, but to instead test them before the mirror pulled the rug out from under the intruder.

* At first, the protections guarding the stone seem to be proven iffy, if they were able to be beaten by three first years. However, note the word ''three'' first years. Each challenge was difficult, but was also set for a specific skill set. The flying keys was designed for someone with athletic skills, the potions needed someone good at riddles, the troll needed someone who was good at defensive spells, and chess required someone who has a different perspective rather than just studying a lot. Even Deadly Snare required knowledge or skills in Herbology. The individual tasks were not hard, but the chances of one person being extremely athletic, logical, good at strategy, well read, and good at defensive spells all at once is highly improbable. Even for three very different wizards, they got lucky with two of the tasks having already being taken care of them for them (the troll and Fluffy). No wonder it took Quirrell all year to figure out how to get past all of them on his own. Because of this multilayered protection, it almost dictated that (barring a wizard equal to the power of Voldemort himself) it would have required a team of people to reach the Mirror of Erised - and more than likely, a team of people willing to sacrifice their chance at the Stone so one person could reach it. Even ''then'', the stone produces instant riches and immortality. And on top of that still, Dumbledore's final protection was that only someone who wanted to ''find'' the stone (yes, find it and not use it) would be able to get it. This pretty much disqualifies almost ''everyone'' looking for the Stone. One could argue that Harry nearly screwed up the plan, because if Dumbledore's words held true, Quirrell would have likely just stood there in front of the Mirror if Harry hadn't shown up and willed the Stone to drop right into his pocket.