The first book is mainly safe-for-reading by innocent souls, but there is a horrifying vision at the end, with Voldemort physically inhabiting Quirrell as a parasite - his face protrudes from the back of Quirrell's skull..
Harry is in the library late at night and opens a book. It SCREAMS!
Quirrell feeding off the dead unicorn in the forest. When he notices Harry and Draco, he growls.
The three-headed Cerberus acting as the first line of defense for the Philosopher's/Sorceror's Stone is pretty terrifying, even though it is a good-aligned character.
Hagrid, an 8.5 feet (2.6 m) tall half-giant who considers vicious and violent three-headed dogs that look like they were cast out of Hades "cute", is absolutely horrified at the mention of Azkaban. It is not made clear by this book what is so frightening about Azkaban.
Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving... something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths... Harry could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth... He heard Riddle's hissing voice: "Kill him."...
An eleven-year old girl is possessed and writes in blood on the walls. The walls which mysteriously hiss at the protagonist. Hisses and moans about it being time to kill and eat. What's not freaky about that?
Even before the revelations of its true function in later books, Tom Riddle's diary is still deeply disturbing. Something about the fact that all the things the diary did were never really dissected and logically analyzed in-series made it all the more sickly dark, the same way that the simplistic, matter-of-fact way that dark things in children's stories and fairy tales are introduced are much more disturbing than deeply analyzed dark aspects of and occurrences in adult literature. The vagueness and mystery of the off-screen horrors combined with things that are perfectly logical but not all neatly tied up with an explanation — like the way the diary writes back, the ink gushing out of it, the effects it had on Harry, and the things Ginny wrote in it, and, most of all, the diary's total nondescript innocence and lack of physical threats, all have a creeping Grimm's Fairy Tales type of muted horror about it.
There is a giant snake. In a school. Filled with children. When you look at the snake, you either become a statue or die.
Acromantulas. As if the fact that they're giant, man-eating spiders isn't enough, they also hunt in packs. And one of them nearly kills Ron.
Terrible and lethal though the basilisk is, there's something about it having both eyes pecked out that's disquieting.
Pretty mild compared to the other stuff on this page but Ron's warning to Harry when he first picks up Riddle's diary that picking up and opening a strange book in the Potterverse can curse you for life is pretty scary.
Ron: "Anyone who read Sonnets of a Sorceror had to speak in limericks for the rest of their life!"
Boggarts. Creatures that can exist without anyone knowing their true form is pretty unnerving, but the fact that they can take the shape of the thing a person fears most, which can change on the person's mindset, and inhabit any given corner of the globe is pretty damn terrifying. The Giant Spider form of the Boggart in the movie is even worse. Seriously, the dementors◊ have NOTHING on this◊.
"Dementors... are among the foulest things that walk this earth. They glory in decay and despair. They drain peace, hope, and happiness from the air around them." Rowling tried to dream up a demon that could scare anyone. Her solution was a monster that literally eats joy. And souls. According to her, she actually based the monsters on the feeling of depression. So basically, these things are depression made into physical, living, breathing creatures.
Remus Lupin "You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no...anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just — exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever...lost."
Wormtail betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, even though they were his best friends. When his remaining friend, Sirius, chased him down after James and Lily's deaths, Wormtail caused an explosion that killed dozens of innocent people. Pinning his mass murder on Sirius and ensuring Sirius's twelve-year psychological torture in prison, Wormtail escaped. Worse, he escaped by turning into a rat and got himself adopted as the Weasleys' pet. For twelve years, the Weasley family was unwittingly sharing their home with a murderer.
And a traitor.
And the man who would bring about the resurrection of Voldemort.
Remus's transformation, in both the book and the movie. It's both the way it's clear that becoming a werewolf is painful, and that he's trying to not become a monster, as his sanity goes and his pained whimpers slowly change to growls as the wolf takes over and... yeah.
While you find out at the end of the movie he's a good guy, seeing the Grim before you know it is pretty scary. Especially when he turns up in the beginning, when Harry is alone and he looks ready to attack.
Before The Reveal, the idea of Sirius Black himself was pretty terrifying. Voldemort's most faithful servant unhinged by his death, escaping from prison solely for revenge on Harry? All the fear of a mass murderer who's out to get you, with added magical powers that the wizards themselves couldn't figure out. Not only was he seemingly unaffected by the dementors, not only did he escape from Wizard Alcatraz, but he broke into Hogwarts in a way Voldemort had not (at the time) managed to. Twice. Brrr.
It's treated as a throwaway gag, but in order for the Quidditch World Cup to be held, it was necessary to inflict amnesia and varying amounts of mind control on dozens of people who weren't doing anything nastier than visiting/living in an out-of-the-way bit of the moors.
The fact that it's treated as a throwaway gag makes it even creepier. Is this kind of thing "normal" in the wizarding universe?
The second task of the Triwizard Tournament in the Black Lake in the film adaptation... the merpeople's design and their shockingly aggressive attitude when the Berserk Button is pressed.. Viktor Krum's transfigured shark head, the Grindylows, which, despite the fact that they were only seen from a distance or below, were extremely territorial...
"It looked as though Wormtail had flipped over a rock and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind. Only worse, a hundred times worse. [...] A crouched human child, only Harry had never seen anything that looked less like a child. It was hairless and scaly looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble and its face — no child alive had ever had a face like that — flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes."
The entire graveyard scene, really, which was complete with mutilation, dead bodies, torture, and giant snakes. And naked Voldemort in the cauldron.
"Robe me."
Out of all the Nightmare Fuelish scenes in the Harry Potter series, one of the most unnerving has/had to be in "The Madness of Mr. Crouch". You have a possessed man, dragging himself through the forest — foaming at the mouth — talking to a tree one moment, then desperately clutching at Harry's robes the next, issuing a warning and saying his son's death was all his fault. All the while, Harry can do virtually nothing to help the situation, Viktor is useless, and Crouch Sr. still gets killed.
And then his corpse is transformed into a bone, and buried so it can never be found. And all this was done by his own son.
"I'M YOUR SON! I'M YOUR SON!" Crouch Jr. screaming and begging his father incite pure feelings of terror in that moment.
Moody reverting into Crouch Jr. and clawing at his own eye... because another eye is trying to grow in the place of the glass eye. Ouch.
And after he pulls it out, it keeps swiveling around of its own accord!
Moody was locked, bound and gagged, in his own trunk for ten months. Anyone who fears And I Must Scream will shudder at that thought.
Montague's experience after Fred and George stuff him into a vanishing cabinet. He spent weeks in pitch black limbo, hearing snatches of conversation from either end, taunting him. Eventually, he managed to apparate himself out, an experience which almost caused his death - keep in mind, this was just because Montague tried to dock points from Gryffindor. Would it have killed you to just stun him guys?
Harry being forced to carve his own hand open with Umbridge's quill. Where's a child abuse hotline when you need one?
The scene where Umbridge attempts to use the Cruciatus Curse on Harry. This is the wizarding version of Cold-Blooded Torture at its worst, only previously described as having been used by Death Eaters and Barty Crouch Sr.'s team of interrogators, and she's about to use it on a fifteen-year-old boy. The Cruciatus Curse is capable of causing insanity, and is considered so horrible, its use is punishable by a life sentence in Azkaban.
Stephen King, famed writer of such horror stories as The Shining, and creator of such memorable and terrifying villains as Annie Wilkes, called Dolores Umbridge “the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter.”
The Department of Mysteries has a few moments:
The vat full of brains, and the time research room. Made even worse by the fact that the heroes saw it in the middle of the night, when it was unoccupied.
Out of all the things in the Department of Mysteries, which ranged from the bizarre to the beautiful, when Harry met with Ron again and Ron is gibbering and blabbing like a baby or an idiot — what kind of spell did that?
The room with the dais. An enormous, rectangular room with a sunken pit twenty feet below in the center, with stone steps leading down to it and an old, crumbling archway in the middle. The fact that the veil of this dais is fluttering with no one being there to move it is frightening enough; when you learn that it is actually the gateway to death and that the veil's fluttering is caused by souls of the dead who are waiting on the other side... EURGH.
Especially creepy considering it's an amphitheatre-like room. Could this be how wizards carried out executions?
The love room in the Department of Mysteries. Out of all the many horrors in that place, the contents of this room is the one that they feel they need to keep behind a permanently locked door.
Boggarts, generally all bark and no bite except for Harry and whoever's afraid of THAT MUTANT JACK-IN-THE-BOX, are given a Wham Moment when Mrs. Weasley, trying to get rid of one, is forced to see the dead bodies of her family (and Harry, in a darkly heartwarming moment).Adult Fears cannot be helped with the Ridikkulus spell.
The possession scene at the end of the film. Daniel Radcliffe completely sells the idea that poor Harry is being ruthlessly mind raped by Voldemort. Not to mention Harry's snake-like writhing just screams out that something thoroughly inhuman is trying to possess his mind and body.
The photograph of the Original Order of the Phoenix. As Harry lampshades, so many in that photo are doomed and are unaware, many bet grisly fates others faced a Fate Worse Than Death
Inferi (which are more or less zombies), especially when they come out of the water; Harry slashes at them, but they have no blood to shed, and they try to drag Harry down into his grave. Especially considering the fact that Voldemort's inferi are the bodies of his victims... hundreds of innocent people with families, floating in a mass grave, forced to do their murderer's bidding... The movie only made them creepier, just by making them succeed in pulling Harry under the water.
The potion in the cave. It's freaking Dumbledore sobbing and pleading for Harry to KILL him. And Harry can't do a single thing but force more and more of the potion down his throat. It's a Tear Jerker where your tears are mixed with fear.
Creepy Child Tom Riddle. He made a rabbit HANG ITSELF.
Katie Bell touching the cursed necklace, floating up with her arms outstretched, then DROPPING TO THE GROUND SCREAMING! The worst part in the movie is when we get a closeup of her face while she's being held rigid in the air. Her eyes are bulging and the angle makes her mouth look like it's open much wider than humanly possible.
That's not the only part terrifying about that scene. Even before then, when it looks like her body's getting thrown and dragged across the ground like some sort of human rag doll, it's so inhuman that it could probably give The Exorcist a run for its money.
The fact that Muggles can feel Dementors' presence, but can't actually see them. These creatures are wandering the streets at night, preying upon victims that can't even see what their captor is.
Apparation, when you think about it. In the books, it's merely the extremely-uncomfortable sensation of being squeezed through a narrow tube, unable to breathe, which is terrifying to those with a fear of enclosed spaces... in the films: A person's own body twisting, stretching, swirling... it's all very disturbing, especially for any unlucky freeze-frames.
Snape's brutal murder. Oh, how beautiful it must be tosee his neck chewed on by Nagini, and then see him writhing on the floor in pain as blood and memories leak out from him... The movie has this as a Nothing Is Scarier moment — we see it only partially through a dirty window, and only hear the sound of the snake striking at Snape again and again.
Little scarred and blistered, soulless mewling creature Voldemort, so repugnant-looking that Harry didn't want to touch it. In the movie, it's covered in blood.
The Ministry rounding up Half-Bloods and Muggle-borns, even the children. And it's implied that a lot of them (yes, even kids) are given to the Dementors...
Fenrir Greyback's remarks about Hermione, and all of the torture scene, despite not being graphic, are very creepy too. It's even worse in the movie. We get to see Bellatrix pinning Hermione to the ground, interrogating her while Hermione screams. Doesn't sound much more creepy than the book, right? Except then Bellatrix carves the word "Mudblood" into Hermione's arm.
Umbridge keeps her government post when Voldemort takes over the country and turns it into a thinly-disguised fascist dystopia, to many readers' lack of surprise.
The magical eye mounted on Umbridge's door, which used to belong to Mad-Eye Moody.
Umbridge during the interrogation of the Muggle-borns. Just remember that her Patronus-fueling happy thought is sending people to their deaths. She wore a freaking horcrux in her neck, a part of Voldemort's soul and she had no trouble making a Patronus, in the presence of Dementors. Even scarier is that Umbridge was never a follower of Voldemort. She's always been loyal to the Minister of Magic, whomever that may be — unfortunately, the current Minister of Magic is under the effect of an Imperius Curse from Voldemort. Umbridge takes advantage of the situation. She already was an incorrigible sadist before Voldemort took over, after all...
The "Dumbledore corpse" that appears to anyone who enters the Black family home.
Then there's Dumbledore's sister: a six-year-old is playing happily in her garden, exploring her magic powers. Then a group of older boys appear. They do... something... to her, which causes her to suppress her magical powers and drives her insane.
Voldemort kills the wandmaker Gregorovitch, described as having a similar appearance to Father Christmas. Voldemort murdered Father Christmas.
Voldemort arrives at a Muggle house looking for Gregorovitch. The way it's described with the happy mother opening the door, her laughing children in the background, then seeing him and begging for her life and trying to protect her children... he kills an entire family just because he went to the wrong damn house!
Voldemort pursuing the heroes in mid air without a broom, flying like a bat out of hell.
The scene where the trio are visiting Luna's house and go into her room... and realize that she hasn't been there for quite some time. It's worse when Harry begins to calmly punch holes through her dad's excuses. Something is terribly wrong here. Later, it's revealed that Luna's a-okay.
The prologue, when Voldemort murders the Muggle Studies teacher. The whole reason he targeted her to begin with: For daring to suggest that Muggles should be tolerated and peacefully coexisted with. Knowing all the poor woman wanted was peace makes watching her die, while tearfully begging for Snape's help all the more heartrending for the viewer/reader and Snape. What he says afterwards:
Voldemort: Dinner, Nagini.
As for the statue... were the people being crushed underfoot a depiction or real Muggles Taken for Granite? Or worse, put into an And I Must Scream situation?
It doesn't have to be anything subtly horrifying at all - just the statue's presence is dreadful. Especially for Muggleborns like Hermione, who can only stare and is unable to do much (at that moment) in protest of it.
The scene with the locket Horcrux trying to turn Ron against Harry in a last ditch effort to defend itself. Ghastly spectres of Ron's friends and family tell him that he's worthless compared to Harry. That Eldritch Abominationswirling cloud of darkness that EXPLODED out of the locket was freaky as hell. Swirling, talking, with things that looked like heads and bones thrusting out of it before disappearing... That scene wasn't scary in the book, but in the movie...
A throwaway line in the book says the Power Trio visited Albania briefly to search for Horcruxes. Since the Balkan War is still raging in 1997-98, it's possible to infer that Death Eaters took part in conflicts along the Montenegro border.
What happens to Lavender: She's mauled by Greyback and he starts to feed upon her from her throat. In the books, she lives, but she dies in the film.
Voldemort's death is... very graphic. He starts dissolving into paper like shreds, with a truly horrifying, despair-filled look on his face.
Not long before this, when Harry pulls a Taking You with Me on Voldemort, the violent and frightening way the two of them fly/fall through Hogwarts while Apparating is only made more disturbing when the two of them briefly fuseintooneimage.
And the fact they were groaning, grunting andscreaming throughout that whole fight. You could only start breathing again after they seperated.
In the film, Voldemort's ultimatum to the school is accompanied by a chorus of inhuman shrieks, which is revealed to actually be coming from students. Apparently, whatever spell he was using had a side effect of mind raping random people.
The scene where Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow can be very disturbing.
The ghost in the tower pulling a Jump Scare when she suddenly screams at Harry during his search for one of the Horcruxes.
The dragon in the Gringotts underground was taught by the goblins to associate the sound of clanking metal with the pain of being stabbed with a red-hot sword. It flinches when it hears the sound. Poor thing...
"The Warlock's Hairy Heart". A wizard decides he's above the weakness of love, and performs some sort of magic to prevent him from ever loving anyone. He tries to woo a woman to be his trophy wife, but she refuses to marry him unless he shows her that he has a heart. During a feast at his castle, he takes her down to the dungeon to show here where he keeps his ACTUAL, STILL BEATING HEART encased in a crystal casket - a heart which, thanks to lack of love is now twisted and hairy beyond recognition. The witch understandably freaks out and begs him to put the heart back in, so he cuts open his chest and puts it back in. The witch then embraces him. Time for a Happy Ending with the wizard saved by The Power of Love, right? Wrong. The warlock's heart is so completely unused to feeling love that it has deteriorated to an animalistic state, driving the wizard to find a true heart. He does this by cutting out the witch's heart and trying to magic out his own. The dinner guest then find him downstairs both hearts in his hands with him licking the witch's heart.In the liner notes, Dumbledore even points out that many wizard parents won't tell it to their children "until they're in an age where they won't have nightmares".
alternative title(s): Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows; Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban; Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone; Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets; Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire; Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix; Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince
