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* ContrivedCoincidence: ''A lot'':
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'':
*** Subverted. While it might seem like it is a coincidence that Lucius Malfoy gave Tom Riddle's Diary to Ginny Weasley, who is the sister of Harry's best friend, but the animosity between the Malfoys and the Weasleys was mentioned the first time Harry met Ron (and the second time he met Lucius's son Draco). Slipping her the Diary was retaliation for Arthur's pro-muggle laws.
*** The victims of the Basilisk were ''stupendously'' lucky - they all just happened to look it in the eyes indirectly, so they got petrified instead of killed. Said indirect ways include: in a puddle of spilled water, through a camera (in the dark of the night, mind you), and ''through a ghost''. The last victim specifically used a mirror to look around the corner, but the timing was still impeccable - if she was attacked half an hour earlier, she'd been dead, but if the Basilisk lingered a few more minutes, she would've reached a member of faculty with her newfound knowledge of the attacker's identity, and the whole plot would've been screwed.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'':
*** The plot kicks off because 1) The Weasleys win the wizard lottery, 2) this nets them a photo in the newspaper, 3) Ron's pet rat is in said picture, and 4) Cornelius Fudge just happens to be carrying this exact issue when he goes to visit Sirius Black.
*** Ron, who became Harry's best friend two years ago, [[spoiler:is the owner of a pet rat that's really an animagus responsible for the murder of Harry's parents.]]
*** Fred and George happen to give Harry the Marauder's Map, which was created by Harry's father and his friends, in the same year that one of those friends is a teacher at the school and another broke out of Azkaban to kill the fourth. A sequence of events leads Lupin to regaining the Marauder's Map.
*** Harry also uses the Marauder's Map to get to Hogsmeade, and at a public pub just happens to overhear Hagrid, [=McGonagall=], Fudge, and others discussing the truth about Harry's parents and godfather.
*** The one year that the plot relies on [[spoiler:TimeTravel]] just so happens to be the one year that Hermione owns a device capable of it.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', a servant of Voldemort looking for his master runs into the only person in the wizarding world who can give the location of another, much more capable servant.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', Voldermort is caught in a duel with Dumbledore long enough for the Minister of Magic and other Ministry employees to arrive to the scene and see him, proving Harry's and Dumbledore's claim that he had returned.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', it is one hell of a coincidence that Harry was the one to receive [[spoiler:Snape's]] old potion book full of nifty hints that won him a plot-essential luck potion and directed to the solution that saved [[spoiler: Ron's]] life. Both assassination attempts by [[spoiler: Draco Malfoy]] only failed to claim lives due to contrived coincidences.
*** Felix Felicis, lucky potion, works by ''exploiting'' contrived coincidences-Harry "accidentally" bumps into Ginny, leading to her having an argument with Dean and breaking up with him; Filch conveniently forgets to lock the doors, Slughorn just happens to be coming out of the greenhouses when Harry is there, etc.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'':
*** Right at the beginning, when dozens of Death Eaters chase Harry and his six impersonators the Order used as a diversion, naturally it's the real Harry who is engaged by Stan Shunpike, who Harry knows is under MindControl. Harry therefore holds back, using his signature Disarming Spell, and exposes himself.
*** Later the Trio are looking for a very important locket. Not only did they happen to pay special attention to that specific locket out of all the assorted junk in a mansion a couple years ago, but then it turns out, that out of hundreds or thousands of wizards who could have bought the locket from a petty thief who stole it, it was not only a person that the kids knew, but the one with a peculiar enough appearance that the thief would remember her and they would recognize her from his sketchy description.
*** The Trio infiltrates the Ministry of Magic to track down that one particular person, disguising themselves as random Ministry officials. Almost immediately one of those disguises is invited by their mark to assist her at a hearing in a conveniently secluded location where they can safely steal the locket. Plus, in the film all the folks they impersonate with Polyjuice Potion (being just the first three people they could steal hair from) just happen to have the same hair colors as the actual Trio, so viewers can still easily tell who is who.
*** In all of Britain, Harry, Ron, and Hermione happen to be camping right near some goblins when they reveal plot information about the sword.
*** When Voldemort needs to check if Harry is dead, he chooses out of the dozens of his followers the only one who would have a reason to lie to him.
*** Harry only receives critical information because Voldemort murders Snape at a very particular time and in a very particular way and doesn't check if he's immediately dead.
*** Xenophilius Lovegood happens to wear an amulet with the Deathly Hallows symbol to Bill and Fleur's wedding in the same book in which Harry becomes the master of all three Hallows, all of them as a result of this trope: The Cloak of Invisibility is a family heirloom; Harry wins the Elder Wand because he disarmed Draco, who didn't know he was the master of the Elder Wand at the time; and he receives the Resurrection Stone from Dumbledore, who got it by accident when he was tracking down the Horcruxes, as Voldermort had turned it into one. And Voldemort had it because it was a family heirloom; he wasn't even aware that it was one of the Deathly Hallows.
*** Everything that relays to the Malfoy Manor incident and the Cup of Hufflepuff is one ''massive'' ball of coincidences. The heroes are captured because Harry randomly [[SpeakOfTheDevil blurts out Voldemort's name]]. Their captors decide against taking them to the Ministry as they were supposed to do, and they cannot summon Voldemort directly, so they take them to the Malfoy Manor instead. While there, the Malfoys drag their feet with calling Voldemort long enough for Bellatrix Lestrange, who just happens to also be there at the time, to come in, see that the kids have the Sword of Gryffindor, which they have only recently acquired, and freak out, because the sword was supposed to be in her bank vault, and she's also the one Death Eater that Voldemort entrusted his SoulJar, which she also placed inside the vault. This causes her to delay summoning Voldemort and put the kids in a dungeon cell (and she's also a psychotic sadist, so she opts for prolonged torture to find out about the sword instead of a quick mind probe). They escape because the guard duty was given to the only Death Eater who was in Harry's debt and would hesitate to kill him. While they're at it, they save a group of people kidnapped by the villains, which includes two of their friends, a goblin (the same goblin Harry met on his first day at Gringotts, no less), who can help them sneak into the bank vault, and someone who can serve as MrExposition to tell them about the Elder Wand. Also, Hermione just happens to have a hair of Bellatrix on her sweater, so she can use Polyjuice Potion to disguise herself as Bellatrix.
*** Tracking down and the destruction of Ravenclaw's Diadem is also only possible because of a string of coincidences. It just happens to be the random thing Harry picked up and put on a bust's head to mark it a year earlier, which unlike the other horcruxes is conveniently not hidden or protected by any means due to Voldermort's villain stupidity. Helena Ravenclaw just happens to be the house ghost of Ravenclaw and also the only person who knows what's happened to her mother's diadem. Then one of the dumbest students happens to conjure up a powerful magical fire that can destroy horcruxes, which accidentally touches it, but is not engulfed in it, allowing the heroes to know for certain that it's destroyed.
*** Voldemort decides to stop a battle to bring forth the Sorting Hat, the only thing that can conjure Gryffindor's Sword, which can destroy horcruxes and is convenient for killing snakes, when Nagini, which is both of those things, happens to be nearby.
*** Dumbledore's plan and many of his predictions relied on this trope happening to ridiculous extents. Given [[TheChessmaster what we learn of Dumbledore]] late in the series, it's entirely possible any or all of the above were deliberately engineered by him.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'':
*** Subverted. While it might seem like it is a coincidence that Lucius Malfoy gave Tom Riddle's Diary to Ginny Weasley, who is the sister of Harry's best friend, but the animosity between the Malfoys and the Weasleys was mentioned the first time Harry met Ron (and the second time he met Lucius's son Draco). Slipping her the Diary was retaliation for Arthur's pro-muggle laws.
*** The victims of the Basilisk were ''stupendously'' lucky - they all just happened to look it in the eyes indirectly, so they got petrified instead of killed. Said indirect ways include: in a puddle of spilled water, through a camera (in the dark of the night, mind you), and ''through a ghost''. The last victim specifically used a mirror to look around the corner, but the timing was still impeccable - if she was attacked half an hour earlier, she'd been dead, but if the Basilisk lingered a few more minutes, she would've reached a member of faculty with her newfound knowledge of the attacker's identity, and the whole plot would've been screwed.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'':
*** The plot kicks off because 1) The Weasleys win the wizard lottery, 2) this nets them a photo in the newspaper, 3) Ron's pet rat is in said picture, and 4) Cornelius Fudge just happens to be carrying this exact issue when he goes to visit Sirius Black.
*** Ron, who became Harry's best friend two years ago, [[spoiler:is the owner of a pet rat that's really an animagus responsible for the murder of Harry's parents.]]
*** Fred and George happen to give Harry the Marauder's Map, which was created by Harry's father and his friends, in the same year that one of those friends is a teacher at the school and another broke out of Azkaban to kill the fourth. A sequence of events leads Lupin to regaining the Marauder's Map.
*** Harry also uses the Marauder's Map to get to Hogsmeade, and at a public pub just happens to overhear Hagrid, [=McGonagall=], Fudge, and others discussing the truth about Harry's parents and godfather.
*** The one year that the plot relies on [[spoiler:TimeTravel]] just so happens to be the one year that Hermione owns a device capable of it.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', a servant of Voldemort looking for his master runs into the only person in the wizarding world who can give the location of another, much more capable servant.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'', Voldermort is caught in a duel with Dumbledore long enough for the Minister of Magic and other Ministry employees to arrive to the scene and see him, proving Harry's and Dumbledore's claim that he had returned.
** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'', it is one hell of a coincidence that Harry was the one to receive [[spoiler:Snape's]] old potion book full of nifty hints that won him a plot-essential luck potion and directed to the solution that saved [[spoiler: Ron's]] life. Both assassination attempts by [[spoiler: Draco Malfoy]] only failed to claim lives due to contrived coincidences.
*** Felix Felicis, lucky potion, works by ''exploiting'' contrived coincidences-Harry "accidentally" bumps into Ginny, leading to her having an argument with Dean and breaking up with him; Filch conveniently forgets to lock the doors, Slughorn just happens to be coming out of the greenhouses when Harry is there, etc.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'':
*** Right at the beginning, when dozens of Death Eaters chase Harry and his six impersonators the Order used as a diversion, naturally it's the real Harry who is engaged by Stan Shunpike, who Harry knows is under MindControl. Harry therefore holds back, using his signature Disarming Spell, and exposes himself.
*** Later the Trio are looking for a very important locket. Not only did they happen to pay special attention to that specific locket out of all the assorted junk in a mansion a couple years ago, but then it turns out, that out of hundreds or thousands of wizards who could have bought the locket from a petty thief who stole it, it was not only a person that the kids knew, but the one with a peculiar enough appearance that the thief would remember her and they would recognize her from his sketchy description.
*** The Trio infiltrates the Ministry of Magic to track down that one particular person, disguising themselves as random Ministry officials. Almost immediately one of those disguises is invited by their mark to assist her at a hearing in a conveniently secluded location where they can safely steal the locket. Plus, in the film all the folks they impersonate with Polyjuice Potion (being just the first three people they could steal hair from) just happen to have the same hair colors as the actual Trio, so viewers can still easily tell who is who.
*** In all of Britain, Harry, Ron, and Hermione happen to be camping right near some goblins when they reveal plot information about the sword.
*** When Voldemort needs to check if Harry is dead, he chooses out of the dozens of his followers the only one who would have a reason to lie to him.
*** Harry only receives critical information because Voldemort murders Snape at a very particular time and in a very particular way and doesn't check if he's immediately dead.
*** Xenophilius Lovegood happens to wear an amulet with the Deathly Hallows symbol to Bill and Fleur's wedding in the same book in which Harry becomes the master of all three Hallows, all of them as a result of this trope: The Cloak of Invisibility is a family heirloom; Harry wins the Elder Wand because he disarmed Draco, who didn't know he was the master of the Elder Wand at the time; and he receives the Resurrection Stone from Dumbledore, who got it by accident when he was tracking down the Horcruxes, as Voldermort had turned it into one. And Voldemort had it because it was a family heirloom; he wasn't even aware that it was one of the Deathly Hallows.
*** Everything that relays to the Malfoy Manor incident and the Cup of Hufflepuff is one ''massive'' ball of coincidences. The heroes are captured because Harry randomly [[SpeakOfTheDevil blurts out Voldemort's name]]. Their captors decide against taking them to the Ministry as they were supposed to do, and they cannot summon Voldemort directly, so they take them to the Malfoy Manor instead. While there, the Malfoys drag their feet with calling Voldemort long enough for Bellatrix Lestrange, who just happens to also be there at the time, to come in, see that the kids have the Sword of Gryffindor, which they have only recently acquired, and freak out, because the sword was supposed to be in her bank vault, and she's also the one Death Eater that Voldemort entrusted his SoulJar, which she also placed inside the vault. This causes her to delay summoning Voldemort and put the kids in a dungeon cell (and she's also a psychotic sadist, so she opts for prolonged torture to find out about the sword instead of a quick mind probe). They escape because the guard duty was given to the only Death Eater who was in Harry's debt and would hesitate to kill him. While they're at it, they save a group of people kidnapped by the villains, which includes two of their friends, a goblin (the same goblin Harry met on his first day at Gringotts, no less), who can help them sneak into the bank vault, and someone who can serve as MrExposition to tell them about the Elder Wand. Also, Hermione just happens to have a hair of Bellatrix on her sweater, so she can use Polyjuice Potion to disguise herself as Bellatrix.
*** Tracking down and the destruction of Ravenclaw's Diadem is also only possible because of a string of coincidences. It just happens to be the random thing Harry picked up and put on a bust's head to mark it a year earlier, which unlike the other horcruxes is conveniently not hidden or protected by any means due to Voldermort's villain stupidity. Helena Ravenclaw just happens to be the house ghost of Ravenclaw and also the only person who knows what's happened to her mother's diadem. Then one of the dumbest students happens to conjure up a powerful magical fire that can destroy horcruxes, which accidentally touches it, but is not engulfed in it, allowing the heroes to know for certain that it's destroyed.
*** Voldemort decides to stop a battle to bring forth the Sorting Hat, the only thing that can conjure Gryffindor's Sword, which can destroy horcruxes and is convenient for killing snakes, when Nagini, which is both of those things, happens to be nearby.
*** Dumbledore's plan and many of his predictions relied on this trope happening to ridiculous extents. Given [[TheChessmaster what we learn of Dumbledore]] late in the series, it's entirely possible any or all of the above were deliberately engineered by him.
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* CoincidentalDisguiseComplementingTrait: This happens a few times when characters are disguised as somebody else, using Polyjuice Potion, and accidentally do something that puts them even more in character.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': When Harry and Ron disguise themselves as Malfoy's less intelligent cronies Crabbe and Goyle, they struggle with the act at first. When Ron is surprised by something Malfoy says, his jaw drops so that Crabbe looks even more gormless than usual. Soon after this, they completely fail to laugh at Malfoy mocking Colin Creevey, and Malfoy demands "What's the ''matter'' with you two?". The narrative notes that perhaps Crabbe and Goyle are always slow on the uptake.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'': When [[spoiler: Hermione]] is disguised as Bellatrix, she meets another Death Eater, who is surprised to see her out and about. In reply, she sneers that the Dark Lord forgives those who have been faithful to him in the past, and adds that perhaps his credit with him is not as good as hers.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': When Harry and Ron disguise themselves as Malfoy's less intelligent cronies Crabbe and Goyle, they struggle with the act at first. When Ron is surprised by something Malfoy says, his jaw drops so that Crabbe looks even more gormless than usual. Soon after this, they completely fail to laugh at Malfoy mocking Colin Creevey, and Malfoy demands "What's the ''matter'' with you two?". The narrative notes that perhaps Crabbe and Goyle are always slow on the uptake.
** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'': When [[spoiler: Hermione]] is disguised as Bellatrix, she meets another Death Eater, who is surprised to see her out and about. In reply, she sneers that the Dark Lord forgives those who have been faithful to him in the past, and adds that perhaps his credit with him is not as good as hers.
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* HollywoodBoardGames: In real life, being a genius is not a requirement for excelling at TabletopGame/{{chess}}. Cue [[Characters/HarryPotterRonBiliusWeasley Ron Weasley]]. In the books, Ron may not be as clever as Hermione but is definitely not BookDumb. Ron's forte is strategy, which he displays by sweeping the floor with TeenGenius Hermione in chess. Furthermore, he also wins against a [[HumanChess life-sized chess set]] that was programmed, so to speak, by Professor [=McGonagall=], who is very BookSmart.
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* HollywoodBoardGames: In real life, being a genius is not a requirement for excelling at TabletopGame/{{chess}}. Cue [[Characters/HarryPotterRonBiliusWeasley Ron Weasley]].Weasley. In the books, Ron may not be as clever as Hermione but is definitely not BookDumb. Ron's forte is strategy, which he displays by sweeping the floor with TeenGenius Hermione in chess. Furthermore, he also wins against a [[HumanChess life-sized chess set]] that was programmed, so to speak, by Professor [=McGonagall=], who is very BookSmart.
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* FunnyBackgroundEvent: A common aspect of Rowling's writing in this series, one of her favourite kinds of scenes seems to be one where the characters are having a private conversation while in the background something amusing is going on at the same time. Most commonly, in the school scenes these often involve [[TheTrickster Peeves.]] There are also several whispered conversations in the library, while the grim [[ScaryLibrarian Madam Pince]] is prowling in the background.
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* FunnyBackgroundEvent: A common aspect of Rowling's writing in this series, one of her favourite kinds of scenes seems to be one where the characters are having a private conversation while in the background something amusing is going on at the same time. Most commonly, in the school scenes these often involve [[TheTrickster Peeves.]] There are also several whispered conversations in the library, while the grim [[ScaryLibrarian Madam Pince]] is prowling in the background. It also happens that a whispered conversation is suddenly revealed to be during a lesson, which is then interrupted by a teacher.
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** Harry occasionally slips towards this in battle; when crossed or when his friends are threatened, Harry can become quite pitiless, instinctively resorting to the nastiest/most powerful curses he can think of (save ''[[InstantDeathBullet Avada Kedavra]]''). He even casts [[spoiler:''[[AgonyBeam the Cruciatus Curse]]'']] at a few points (though he never uses it very effectively; as Bellatrix explains [[spoiler:after he tries it on her]], in order to cast an Unforgivable Curse successfully, you have to ''really'' want to [[KickTheDog go through with it]] — the one time Harry does the spell properly, [[KickTheSonOfABitch he really does mean it]]).
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** Harry occasionally slips towards this in battle; when crossed or when his friends are threatened, Harry can become quite pitiless, instinctively resorting to the nastiest/most powerful curses he can think of (save ''[[InstantDeathBullet Avada Kedavra]]''). He even casts [[spoiler:''[[AgonyBeam the Cruciatus Curse]]'']] at a few points (though he never uses it very effectively; as Bellatrix explains [[spoiler:after he tries it on her]], in order to cast an Unforgivable Curse successfully, you have to ''really'' want to [[KickTheDog go through with it]] — the one time Harry does the spell properly, [[KickTheSonOfABitch he really does mean it]]).it).
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%%** Draco Malfoy, Gilderoy Lockhart, Argus Filch, and Dolores Umbridge also fall under this category at times, [[KickTheSonOfABitch although they more than deserve it.]] Quirrell, too, until [[spoiler:he is revealed to be TheDragon at the end of Book 1]].
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%%** Draco Malfoy, Gilderoy Lockhart, Argus Filch, and Dolores Umbridge also fall under this category at times, [[KickTheSonOfABitch although they more than deserve it.]] it. Quirrell, too, until [[spoiler:he is revealed to be TheDragon at the end of Book 1]].
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* AccidentalCelebrity: When Voldermort attempted to use the Killing Curse on Harry and it backfired, Harry became famous all across Britain (and perhaps even ''world'' famous) for surviving a curse that was thought to be impossible to survive, and vanquishing the Dark Lord. Thing is, Harry was an infant at the time, so he most certainly never intended to do anything, much less become famous. It's constantly shown through all the books that Harry is rather uncomfortable with all his fame, especially after the media starts targetting him.
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* HeroesWantRedHeads: Ginny and Lily (and also Ron and Bill, if you argue that Heroines, or known beauties at least, want them as well). JKR confirmed that she really likes red hair, so she stuck an entire extended family of them into her series and made one her hero's best friend and the other [[spoiler:his (eventual) love interest]].
