History HarryPotter / TropesJToR

* OldMoney: The Malfoys, being the series's most visible {{Blue Blood}}s, have also been fabulously rich for generations and [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections have connections]] in the highest echelons of government, business, and high society. It's also implied that James Potter was Old Money, having descended from wizarding blue blood like the Peverells and having left his son a huge pile of gold in Gringott's.

* PaddingThePaper: The trio talk about writing an essay and Ron suggests they write in huge letters so they can fulfil the length requirement. Hermione is not amused.

* PinballProtagonist: Somewhat in the earlier books. This has been parodied to no end, with one work replacing Harry with a literal inanimate object.
** Some fans actually joke that Hermione should have been the protagonist, as for the first few novels she's the one who does the most stuff.

** Rowling's use of FantasticRacism to make a point about prejudice is nothing truly "new", but she's unique among fantasy authors in that she actually fleshes out a fictional universe with a long, sordid history of societal prejudice that goes beyond one villain, making a point about how people like Lord Voldemort ''don't'' arise in a cultural or historical vacuum. Salazar Slytherin committed atrocities in the name of blood purity ''centuries'' before the start of the series, and Gellert Grindelwald was advocating the murder of Muggles before the world had ever heard of Voldemort. As in RealLife, bigots are dangerous because they feed on the prejudices of the masses, and it takes ''years'' for those prejudices to become ingrained in the minds of the people.

* ProtagonistCentredMorality: The so-called "Unforgivable Curses" are introduced in Book Four, wherein it's said casting one of them even once is a life-sentence in Azkaban. By Book Seven even the heroes are casting them with abandon, including the Cruciatus Curse, where you need to ''enjoy inflicting pain'' in order for it to work.

* RandomlyGifted: Being a wizard can run in families but also sometimes manifests in {{muggles}}, and magicless squibs can be born to wizards.
** Subverted in a 2007 interview where Rowling reveals that all muggleborns have a squib- and thus witches and wizards- somewhere in their ancestry.
* RapidHairGrowth: At one point during his childhood, Harry's aunt cut off his bangs, almost shaving him except for the part that hides his scar. It looked ridiculous, but magically grew back before Harry's next school day.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Wizards live longer than Muggles. (Although members of the Black family seem to die relatively young.) It's implied that there are so few pure-blood wizards left that keeping the pure-blood line alive might have required some inbreeding somewhere along the line. That might have shortened the lifespan a bit.

** Umbridge and Fudge in Book 5, believe it or not. The fact is that Hogwarts’s standards are incredibly lax. To an outsider, the past 4 Defence Against The Dark Arts teachers have been: A death eater, a werewolf, a fraud, and a terrified man who was hosting the dark lord. There’s also the fact that Trelawney’s class is bogus--Book 6 later reveals that Dumbledore has his own reasons for keeping Trelawney on staff, but Umbridge is correct that Trelawney is a fraud who doesn't deserve a job.

** In-universe, Dumbledore’s Army, which contains pretty much every non-Slytherin student Harry knows.

* MuggleBornOfMages: A person who was born to magical parents but has no magical abilities themselves is known as a Squib. They’re usually cast off into Muggle society as soon as they start school and have no contact with the Wizarding World. Notable examples include Filch (whose animosity towards the Hogwarts students is probably due to being this) and Mrs. Figg. An unseen cousin of Mrs. Weasley’s is one. Neville isn't one, but it took so long for his magical abilities to manifest that his family almost thought he'd be one. The greater Wizarding World also believes that the long dead Ariana Dumbledore was one but that wasn’t actually the case.

* NamedAfterTheInjury:
** Mad-Eye Moody got his name after losing his eye while fighting death-eaters.
** The Gryffindor ghost is commonly called Nearly Headless Nick, since his head was never fully [[OffWithHisHead cut off]] during his execution and is hanging by a thread of skin. He doesn't like the name, preferring his real one, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington (however, it's rarely ever used).
** The Slytherin ghost is called the Bloody Baron due to being covered in blood, though nobody knows how he became like this. [[spoiler:It turns out he stabbed Helena Ravenclaw, with whom he was in love, in a fit of rage, and then, shocked at what he had done, killed himself]].

** A random kid named Mark Evans is an example of why this trope exists. In the fifth book, Harry mentions to Dudley that he’d heard that Dudley’s gang had beaten him up. Later in the book, we learn that that was their mothers’ maiden name. Much speculation was had that he was a long lost relative due to the liberal use of ChekhovsGunman throughout the rest of the series. Rowling later admitted that she’d just used the same common name without thinking twice and he was just a random kid.

* OutOfFocus: Given that all the major characters are either Gryffindors or Slytherins, there’s not much attention to paid to Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. Cedric is the most prominent Hufflepuff but he’s only physically in two of the books. Luna is the most important Ravenclaw but she’s not introduced until the fifth book.

** Aunt Marge uses the term “bitch” literally in reference to a female dog in the third book but Mrs. Weasley uses it in the not literal way in the seventh book [[spoiler:when she kills Bellatrix]].
** There’s an implied use of the word “bastard” in the third book as well but it’s used twice in the seventh. Aberforth calls the Muggle boys who attacked Ariana such and Ron calls Malfoy a “two-faced bastard”.
** Morfin Gaunt calls his sister a “slut” in the sixth book. Ron had previously used the less crude “scarlet woman”.
** The seventh book also uses mild profanity more in general than the others. Words like “arse”, “damn”, and “hell” are used quit often.

** It’s unclear if some of the limits on magic throughout the series are truly limits or if the solution just hasn’t been found yet. Some of these include: charming someone to fly, true resurrection of the dead, and truly creating food out of nothing. Another one is a lack of a reliable form of magical transportation as it's noted that only the most extreme of wizards won’t admit that this is a place where muggles truly have wizards beat. Portkeys and Floo Powder have limited ranges. ''Quidditch Through the Ages'' says apparition across continents is limited to only extremely powerful wizards and even then they have to know exactly where they’re going to be able to do it. (''Deathly Hallows'' also alludes to this in the chapter where Bellatrix calls Voldemort to Malfoy Manor from Nurmengard. There is a time delay as Voldemort moves and Harry thinks "soon he would be close enough to Apparate to them".) Brooms and magical carpets just aren’t feasible for long distances. There are also the logistics of having to bring your stuff with you which is hard with these means of transportation. In theory, could you make some sort of, say, a magical plane or is it simply something magic can’t do?

-->'''Hermione:''' But Hogwarts ''is'' hidden. Everyone knows that... well, everyone who’s read ''Hogwarts, A History'', anyway.\\

** The Death Eaters believe in the superiority of [[WitchSpecies "pure blood"]], and will kill anyone they feel is inferior to them. Their leader, Voldemort, hates anyone not of pure wizard blood, yet he himself is not a pureblood; UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler viewed "Aryans," commonly portrayed as blonds with blue eyes, as the master race, yet he himself was brown-haired with brown eyes, and may have had a bit of Jewish ancestry. J.K. Rowling [[WordOfGod acknowledged]] the Death Eaters are supposed to represent the Nazis. In [[Film/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire the fourth movie]], they're also symbolized as Klansmen--check out the KKK-inspired headgear, torches and "burning signal".

* MoralDissonance:
** Harry and others are seen using the so-called Unforgivable Curses in the last book. This could be chalked up to [[WarIsHell being in a war]], and using Unforgivable curses against Death Eaters was perfectly legal during the previous war. But then Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow for ''spitting'' at [=McGonagall=] (and presumably for torturing his classmates all year, though Harry doesn't outright say so), causing him excruciating pain when simply stunning him would have solved their immediate problems.
** Most wizards, even nice ones, regard muggles as intrinsically inferior. This ranges from outright racism and violence on the Death Eaters' end, to a sort of paternalistic condescension on Arthur Weasley's end. And it is disturbing how willing wizards are to use [[LaserGuidedAmnesia Memory Charms]] on Muggles to uphold TheMasquerade after the reader sees what a really strong one does to Lockhart. This is all before a war broke out (for a second time) in which Muggles were ''targets'' and even the prime minister was kept almost entirely in the dark. Even worse possibly is the case for squibs (witches and wizards giving birth to a muggle). While muggle-born wizards and witches may face occasional prejudice in wizard society. Pretty much the best a squib can hope for is pity rather than outright disdain, and it is considered a source of shame if there is a squib in a magical family.

* MoreThanJustATeacher: Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard alive, and could have been Minister of Magic if he wanted to, but opted to be headmaster of Hogwarts instead.

* ThePowerOfLove: Alluded to throughout the series. It can protect a loved one from deadly curses and block mental magic.

* OurWitchesAreDiffeent: Witches are the name used for female human magic users in general, while ''wizard'' is for the males.

** A subtle one, but whenever Dawlish is mentioned, he's been jinxed, defeated or humiliated in some way. Neville's grandmother even puts him in St. Mungo's.

* RealityEnsues: [[RealityEnsues/HarryPotter Happens so often that it has its own page]].

* NoCommunitiesWereHarmed: Though few of the places mentioned in the books are real, many are based on real places in the British Isles (for example, Harry's home town of Little Whinging is a generic London commuter-belt suburb). However, [[http://members.madasafish.com/~cj_whitehound/Fanfic/Location_Location.htm one fan]] attempted to figure out the precise locations of some of the locations in the series:

* ProjectileSpell: Most spells seem to follow this trope. Even Avada Kedavra, which ignores any overtly magical shield, can be dodged or hindered by a suitably solid object.

* TheRival: Harry vs. Draco; James vs. Snape. Sirius later takes up James's position after his death.

* [[PsychicBlockDefense Psychic Block Defence]]: Occlumency is a whole discipline dedicated to this.

* [[MonstersFavoritePettingSpot Monster's Favourite Petting Spot]]: ''The Monster Book of Monsters'' is a Care of Magical Creatures textbook that is actually a furry, sharp-toothed monster itself, and will try to bite the reader if s/he doesn't stroke its spine first.

* MortalityGreyArea: Amortal beings are a distinct category from immortal beings, despite functionally being the same. Their immortality comes from the virtue of never being alive in the first place, and thus technically can't die. "Non-beings" like [[{{Poltergeist}} poltergeists]], [[YouWorstNightmare boggarts]], and [[TheDreaded the Dementors]] fall under this category of not being recognized as living or dead.