History HarryPotter / TropesAToI

* ForWantOfANail: If Voldemort's mother hadn't had the absolutely miserable life that she had -- abused by her father and brother, abandoned by her brainwashed Muggle Lover, swindled out of her sole possession, forgotten and uncared for by Wizard society -- perhaps Voldemort would not have been the sociopathic mass-murderer that he eventually came to be.

*** Fortunately, later in the series, something has been done about the Dursleys, even if Harry never should've returned to them in the first place. In books 3 and 4, the Dursleys are threatened not to mistreat Harry when they learn that he had a criminal Godfather (he was innocent, but Harry keeps that fact from them). And at the end of book five, after the death of Harry's godfather, the Order of the Phoenix made up of adults who care about Harry, talk to the Dursleys, making it clear that they are not allowed to mistreat Harry, and there will be dire consequences if they find out they mistreated him—causing the Dursleys to be too afraid to abused Harry for the rest of the series.

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Many of the characters of non-British origin have names that do not fit their background. For example, "Cho Chang" consists of two Chinese surnames, so the Chinese translation renamed her "Zhāng Qiū" though alternately the name can be interpreted as rendered in the more archaic Wade-Giles romanization system (more commonly used by the "old-stock" Chinese diaspora) where Cho Chang would convert to "Zhuo Zhang" in modern Pinyin system. Bulgarian surnames almost always end in -ov/-ev (male) or -ova/-eva (female), but Viktor Krum and his Bulgarian Quidditch team-mates have surnames that do not fit this pattern.

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Many of the characters of non-British origin have names that do not fit their background. For example, "Cho Chang" consists of two Chinese surnames, so the Chinese translation renamed her "Zhāng Qiū". Bulgarian surnames almost always end in -ov/-ev (male) or -ova/-eva (female), but Viktor Krum and his Bulgarian Quidditch team-mates have surnames that do not fit this pattern.

* CueOClock: The Weasleys have a clock with nine hands representing the Weasleys, and dials labelled with place names, like "Home", "School", and "Prison". The clock doesn't tell time; rather, it tells where the Weasleys are.

** In addition to being the Butt-Monkey of Houses, every named Hufflepuff character has their moments:
*** Cedric Diggory gets upstaged in the Triwizard Tournament by Harry and later dies;

%%** Also, Hufflepuff House in general.

** They aren't his biological parents, but the treatment Harry receives from his guardians [[EvilUncle Petunia and Vernon Dursley]] is certainly abusive. They lock him in the cupboard for weeks, interfere with his mail, deny him food as a form of punishment of something he for the longest time couldn’t even control, lie to him about his deceased parents, and lie to neighbors that he is a delinquent. Petunia nearly hits him over the head with a frying pan (he dodges just in time), Vernon strangles him, and so on.

* AdvancedTech2000: There's a whole series of Nimbus Exty-Thousand broomsticks. Harry himself owns a Nimbus Two Thousand... [[spoiler:well, until it gets crushed by an animate tree]]. Magic is fun.
** Just a year after the ''2000'' was invented, the makers discovered a way to make the broom slightly faster and created a prototype new model called the ''Nimbus 2001''.

* AesopAmnesia: Harry and his friends repeatedly form a conspiracy theory involving a character or characters being involved in something shady or nefarious, despite being proven wrong every single time this happens.
** Though, Harry is actually right in book 6 as Draco ''is'' a Death Eater with a mission, responsible for the near-deaths of Katie Bell on Ron, but Ron and Hermione continually state the aforementioned aesops about Draco Malfoy.

* AllMythsAreTrue: Generally anything considered a silly myth in the series will turn out to exist like the PhilosophersStone, [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets Chamber Of Secrets]] and [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]], the latter of which being the subject of a wizard fairytale.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: In book 1, Harry is hated near the end for helping his house lose 150 points. In book 2, Harry is hated because his fellow students think he's attacking them. In book 4, Harry is hated because his fellow students think he sneaked his way into the Triwizard Tournament. In book 5, Harry is hated because almost all the students think he's a crazy, attention-seeking brat. In book 7, Harry is labelled "Undesirable No. 1" by the government — [[JustifiedTrope though in that case, it's because the government has been taken over by Death Eaters.]]

* AllThereInTheManual: [[http://www.pottermore.com/ Pottermore]] is a hotbed of information barely even alluded to in the actual books.
** [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] ''continually'' [[InUniverse in-universe]] by [[TheCassandra Hermione]] via ''Hogwarts: A History''.

* AnimalMotifs: An Animagus's animal form generally fits their personality (and a wizard can't pick their Animagus form).

* ArchEnemy: Believing Harry Potter was the subject of a prophecy regarding his death, Voldemort set out to kill him as a child, only for Voldemort's own curse to rebound off the child and destroy the Dark Lord's power. From that day, Voldemort spent every waking moment trying to find a way to restore his power and prove to the world that Harry Potter was no match for his Dark Magic; meanwhile, Harry Potter came to loathe Voldemort for killing his parents and waging war against the world he loved. As the Prophecy dictates, the two must face each other, as neither can live while the other survives.
** In the beginning of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', Harry mentally labels Draco Malfoy as his archenemy, which is sort of hilarious when you take the above paragraph into consideration.

* AsYouKnow: An in-universe example. In the ''Daily Prophet'', Muggle terms are occasionally defined to the readers: a gun is a "kind of metal wand which Muggles use to kill each other", and a policeman is "a Muggle law-keeper".

* DeadEndJob: The Defence Against the Dark Arts teaching position. Throughout the entire series, no one holds the post for an entire book. By ''Goblet of Fire'', "Mad-Eye" Moody coming out of retirement to teach is seen as a desperation move, as Ron notes just since they've been there they've had one teacher die, another get his mind wiped, and a third sacked. ''Half-Blood Prince'' reveals this has gone on even longer than that, as [[spoiler:the position has been literally jinxed ever since Voldemort tried and failed to convince Dumbledore to give him the post]].
* DeadGuyJunior: Lots of examples from the epilogue, including [[spoiler:James Sirius Potter, Lily Luna Potter (even though Luna Lovegood doesn't die), Albus Severus Potter, and Fred Weasley II.]]

** It was stated more than a few times Mr. Weasley could have easily been promoted within the Ministry years ago, but enjoyed where he was in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office too much. [[spoiler:The truth was that Arthur was being held back because of his fondness for Muggles and refusal to subscribe to the myths about blood purity.]] He does finally take a promotion AND get rank in the Order of Phoenix as the series goes on, however.

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The Death Eaters are [[ANaziByAnyOtherName a group who believe in "purity" who overtake the government in an effort to eradicate "nonpure" people and are led by an extremely creepy-looking dude.]]

** A few events in the ExpandedUniverse seem to happen right around the same time as similar events in the Muggle world -- for instance, Gellert Grindlewald's rise to power corresponded directly with UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's ({{Fanon}} speculates they may have even worked together) while the [[http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Squib_Rights_marches Squib Rights marches]] happened in 1968-69, right as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954%E2%80%9368) the American Civil Rights movement]] was wrapping up.

** In ''Philosopher's Stone'', when Harry sets off with Hagrid for the first time, Hagrid casually mentions that ''he flew'' to the island on the rock, and they had to take the Dursley's boat back to shore. But by the time of ''Deathly Hallows'', every wizard is astonished that Voldemort knows how to fly unaided.
** Similarly in ''Philosopher's Stone'', Hagrid is described as vanishing from view in a blink of an eye, despite it being explained in ''Half-Blood Prince'' that such a thing is nearly impossible for an untrained (and, particularly, unlicensed) wizard to do. Furthermore, Hagrid never uses this ability again throughout the rest of the series.
*** On the other hand, Dumbledore took most of the day to travel to and from London at the end of ''Philosopher's Stone'', enough time for Harry and the gang to learn he was gone, wait several hours for nightfall, then fight their way to the titular stone. Later in ''Order of the Phoenix'', Dumbledore makes the journey from the Ministry to Hogwarts in an instant via Floo Powder.

** Grindelwald, mentioned in the ''Philosopher's Stone'' and barely ever brought up again until ''Deathly Hallows''. Same goes for Aberforth Dumbledore, who was first mentioned in ''Goblet of Fire'' and first appeared in ''Order of the Phoenix''.
*** Even better? ''We didn't know who Aberforth was until Deathly Hallows.'' In both ''Order of the Phoenix'' and ''Half Blood Prince,'' he is only referred to as "the barman of the Hog's Head", though there are hints to his identity regarding his inappropriate charms on goats...

* AnimateDead: Inferi, first mentioned in ''Order of the Phoenix'', are corpses that are animated and turned into what amounts to attack dogs using Dark Magic. Lord Voldemort makes use of them to terrify the people of Britain, especially throughout ''The Half-Blood Prince''.

* AnimalEspionage: Animagi can turn themselves into animals so as to go around without attracting suspicion as a human, though there's always an element to the disguise that identifies his/her human form. In Rita Skeeter's case, she turns into a literal surveillance bug (a beetle). This causes Bellatrix Lestrange to kill a fox at one point, as she believed it to be an auror... except in this case it [[WrongGenreSavvy genuinely was a fox]].

* ElementalMotifs: The four Hogwarts Houses are a loose FourElementEnsemble. Gryffindor, with its courageous members and red and gold scheme, corresponds to fire. Slytherin, with its flexible and ambitious members, corresponds to water. Hufflepuff, known for hard workers, is closest to earth (its yellow and black colour scheme represents wheat and soil). And Ravenclaw, the house of thinkers, is associated with blue and birds, therefore, the sky and air.

** Ron: "Bloody hell!"

** "Expecto patronum" is authentic Latin for "I await (my/the) protector" (inflecting "patronus" into the accusative form). However, other spells like "Expelliarmus" and "Levicorpus" (apparently intended as imperatives: "lift the body!" etc.) leave the object in the nominative.

** The nature of the person who stole Voldemort's Horcrux at the end of book six relied on identifying who initialed the letter to Voldemort "RAB". Barring the introduction of a new character, there were a few characters who could have those initials running around, but then the fans got online and compared the line in various translated works across multiple languages and found that each separate translation had one character who was consistently on the list: [[spoiler:Regulus Arcturus Black]]. Not only that, but it spoiled where the Horcrux was taken, resulting in a massive IKnewIt in the next book.

** More accurately, Chekhov's Wand. We learn that Harry and Voldemort's wands share a common source for their magical cores; it takes on plot significance from book 4 onward. Also, the Vanishing Cabinet, and Godric Gryffindor's Sword. Along with a fair laundry list of other objects. [[spoiler:Of the six Horcruxes, we actually see four of them before they are recognized for what they are: Tom Riddle's diary, Slytherin's locket, Nagini the snake, and Harry himself.]]

* GenerationalMagicDecline: A desire to prevent this is a major motivation for [[FantasticRacism blood purity fanatics]], who insist on marrying only other pureblooded wizards with no muggles in their family trees out of a belief that intermarrying with them will weaken their family lines. Yet the only case of this actually happening that we know of occurred within the Gaunt family, a family of purebloods who were so inbred that they were prone to insanity, mental instability and reduced magical ability to the point that Merope Gaunt was believed by her father to be a [[MuggleBornOfMages Squib]][[note]]something WordOfGod has clarified wasn't actually true, though it's suggested she did have reduced magical ability because of a combination of genetics and [[AbusiveParents her father's abuse]], and she notably got better at it once he was dead[[/note]]. And just to prove how false the whole fear about intermarrying with muggles was, the strongest member in generations, Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka [[BigBad Lord Voldemort]], had a muggle father.