Video Game / Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is a 2018 mobile point-and-click Adventure game created by Jam City for iOS and Android, inspired by J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World. The game is published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment through its subsidiary Portkey Games, which is solely dedicated to creating games set in this universe. The game is not considered to be a canon installment of the franchise.

Your 11-year-old self receives your owl to Hogwarts. There's just one problem - your older brother Jacob is missing and may have gone in search of the mysterious Cursed Vaults rumoured to be deep in Hogwarts. Over the next seven years, between 1984 and 1991, you will hone your magical skills, make new friends, and gather clues to find out what has happened to your brother, unraveling secrets about him, Hogwarts, and mysterious wizards that will shape your future, for better and for worse.

Though an Allegedly Free Game that infamously isn't shy about limiting your progress with timegates and ingame currency, the story the game creates is extensive, with each year at Hogwarts gaining more and more chapters as the narrative unfolds (along with a multitude of side-quests with extra narrative events). The story doesn't end at graduation either, as with the Beyond Hogwarts expansion launched in 2023, your character continues their adventures with their friends with professional careers in the Wizarding World at large. On occasion, your work even brings you back to Hogwarts, intersecting with the beginning of a certain Mr. Potter's adventures...

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Tropes

A-E

• Action Commands: Filling a star in class can give you a quicktime event relevant to the task at hand when it doesn't give you a multiple-choice quiz. When Quidditch was added in September 2019, playing it amounts to completing three QTEs in succession.
• Adaptation Amalgamation:
  • The art style is based on the films, with the Hogwarts teachers being directly based on their actors from the film, but everyone's personality is closer to the book canon.
  • Dumbledore's appearance matches more closely to Richard Harris (who played Dumbledore in the first two movies) than Michael Gambon (who took over the role after Harris's death), but Flitwick's appearance is based on his Prisoner of Azkaban-on design.
  • Also very, very present with Ravenclaw as a whole, as the Ravenclaw uniforms are from the films and thus blue and silver, but their optional scarves are the blue and bronze of the books, and both eagles (the mascot from the books) and ravens (the film mascot) are used to represent the House. On the menu screen, the movie’s raven emblem is rendered in blue and gold.
  • Voldemort's appearance is based on his actor in the films starting from his resurrection in Goblet of Fire. However, his eyes are red as they were mentioned to be in the books.
  • Hermione's dress as a reward customisation item is based on the fourth film but is blue like in the books.
  • Newt Scamander, previously portrayed on his wizarding card as an elderly man, is instead portrayed on his Hogwarts Mystery wizarding card with his Fantastic Beasts appearance.
• Advertised Extra: André in the page image despite the fairly minor role he plays. He is also in front of Penny, who plays a much bigger part.
• Aerith and Bob: Of the main characters, there's Rowan, Penny, Ben... and Merula.
• Ahem:
  • After being beaten in a (forbidden) duel, Merula starts ranting about how she's the greatest witch in school and can do what she wants when she wants... Just as Snape and Flitwick walk up right behind her. Cue Merula stammering as Snape announces his presence by clearing his throat.
  • When Hooch catches the player character talking to Penny about the werewolf attack instead of paying attention in flying class, she precedes her scolding with a displeased "Ahem!"
• Alas, Poor Villain: In the Frog Choir event, Merula confesses to the player that she's so competitive about joining the frog choir because her mother was a member, and used to sing Merula to sleep before she was arrested and taken to Azkaban. When the player is selected to join the choir, Merula even whispers "I'm sorry, Mom." She does claim that this story was a manipulative sob story if you choose to give her the spot instead, and MC accuses her of lying, but Tulip claims that this was only deflection to avoid feeling bad about being vulnerable to the player. Merula never actually said it was a lie.
• Alternative Continuity: WB’s stance is that everything developed by its Portkey Games subsidiary is only “inspired by” this universe and shouldn’t be considered canon.
• Ambiguously Bi: Besides the fact that Everyone Is Bi, Rowan, and Diego especially come across as this if the player character is male. Rowan gets very flustered over talking to Bill during the Celestial Ball event, and Diego will flirt with the player within seconds of meeting him, is president of the dance club, and dresses even better than André, the self-proclaimed fashion expert.
• Ambiguously Gay: The "Smug Gryffindor" who sits beside the player in Charms during the lessons (where you learn a new spell). His pop-up dialogue alludes to him having a crush on Bill Weasley.
• An Ass-Kicking Christmas: While the game has a hazy connection to real-life dates, Year 6, Chapter 42, where you open the Sunken Vault and finally defeat Rakepick, was released on Christmas Eve, and Hogwarts was indeed decorated for Christmas.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Each time you get a Friendship level up to the maximum of 10. Also the rewards of the special events that require you to gather all stars from a class and accumulate them to a certain number.
• Animal Motifs: A small one on Valentine's Day that borders on Easter Egg: at the end of your date in the Greenhouse, you can see an animal lurking somewhere on the side that changes depend on who you took as a date. For Talbott, there is an owl at the broken window in the ceiling. For Barnaby, there is a Bowtruckle lurking in the plants. For Penny, there is a Puffskein on the tables. For Merula, it is only visible if you scroll all the way to the left, where a Thestral can be seen poking its head in. For André, there are two additional bunches of flowers on the ground instead.
• Anti-Frustration Feature:
  • Players can partially restore lost Energy by tapping certain parts of the scenery, such as tapping a House-Elf in the Dungeons, playing fetch with Fang on the school grounds, or tapping on Peeves in the East Tower. While these energy sources have a strict cooldown period, they at least provide an option for those who have run out of Energy and need it fast.
  • An update made it so that the 'need more energy' box that pops up after you've run out of energy is grayed out and unable to be tapped for several seconds. This prevents players from accidentally purchasing energy and wasting gems if they're button-mashing their way through a task.
  • Later updates make gathering energy easier. Rewards for leveling up friendships via lunches, Gobstones, and drinking butterbeer include various amounts of energy, and when the Duelling Club was added, participating in it and winning a given number of times awards you energy as well as unique items. Playing with your pets in your dormitory also adds energy.
  • Any time you encounter a situation where, in canon, characters have no control over an outcome, you are instead allowed to influence it to your liking. It started from the very moment you pick your house instead of being properly sorted, and it also affects your Animagus and Patronus forms.^note The latter has subtler variations decided by your stats and past conversations, but since you likely want your stats to be as high as possible across the board, it takes more work to exert exact influence on your Patronus, but it's still possible.
• Artefact Title: Harry Potter himself is already born by the time the game begins, but he's still a young child living with the Dursleys at this point and so has no effect on the story. By the time Harry starts attending his first year at Hogwarts, the player has already graduated the previous year. Though players don't interact with Harry directly, he can be spotted walking past the player and Penny while in Diagon Alley.
• Artificial Atmospheric Actions: Generally pretty good about averting this, but on occasion, exiting (but not closing) and reopening the app during a lesson or mission can cause all background NPCs to start doing their normally-syncopated actions in perfect synchronization.
  • Many of the questions that Rowan or Merula will ask you during lessons make sense when you're a first year (and especially a newcomer to the franchise), but beyond that, aren't too difficult - it would be hard to believe that Merula thought she could stump you by asking who the Quidditch coach was, in Flying lessons. An especially egregious example is a bug that causes Snape to ask you who the Slytherin Head of House is.
• Artistic License – Space: In year 6, while stargazing, Badeea may comment "If you look really closely, you can see Jupiter." However, you can easily see countless stars in the scene, which is expected given they are somewhere far from cities in Scotland with the lights off. Jupiter, while variable in magnitude, is one of the brightest objects in the night sky (only Venus is always brighter - even the Moon can be dimmer if in the new moon phase), and is often unmistakable even in urban areas. Although given that they can see Altair, a much dimmer star, it may just be a joke.
• Ascended Extra: the people who volunteer to help Dumbledore with holiday decorations in a limited-time seasonal mission include the player, Rowan, Bill, Penny, and... the blonde Gryffindor who sits near you in Charms (see below).
  • On the franchise scale, some of the canon characters with limited screen time in the books or films get a bigger role here, particularly Charlie.
    • Flourish and Blotts had an unnamed male manager, and at least two unidentified employees, while the game has Madam Villanelle working there and helping the protagonists from time to time.
    • Castelobruxo, the Brazillian wizarding school was mentioned in passing, unnamed, in the fourth book. In the game, Alanza Alves, a major character in year 6, is from Castelobruxo.
    • Mahoutokoro, the Japanese wizarding school, was never mentioned in the books or films and only appeared on the Wizarding World site. In the game, a major antagonist in Year 5 and Year 6 is an expelled student from Mahoutokoro, and the story also goes over some of their customs and tradition.
  • The blond Gryffindor who sits near you in Charms eventually gets a sidequest all his own. And a name — Wilfred Levi Kidd.
  • Professor Kettleburn is only mentioned a single time in the books when he retired and was replaced by Hagrid. Since the game is an immediate prequel, Kettleburn is still the professor and thus plays a major role.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Many players made a meme out of the Gryffindor student who sits behind you in Charms who struggles at Wingardium Leviosa even in your fourth year. In a later chapter in Year 4, the player character performs a Wingardium Leviosa so powerful that it impresses Charlie, and says that they got so good at it due to a lot of practice from helping out that student. The student (commonly referred to as Struggling Gryffindor Kid or Leviosa Kid) later made appearances in History of Magic and the seasonal decorating events. Tapping on him in History of Magic will cause the player to ask, "Isn't that the kid always practicing Leviosa?" and Jae will comment that he doesn't actually know Leviosa Kid's name, he just calls him "hey" or "you".
  • After all the jokes about Professor Flitwick's awkwardly long animation of grinning rather sleazily at your character after the player gives a correct answer in Charms, Charlie mentions in Year 4 that it bothers him in class when he gives a right answer and Flitwick just stares and smiles at you.
  • Many noticed how Dumbledore had a habit of making you wait to be called into his office, only to have you wait to talk to him again once you get there via an energy activity. In a Year 4 sidequest, it happens again and the player outright asks the point of calling them into the office just to make them wait. Dumbledore admits it's a good question.
  • The prefects were mostly just known for hounding you about house points, even with the player leading the leaderboard. When you meet them again in Year 5 during a side quest, one of the first things they jokingly ask is if you've been earning house points.
  • The fandom joking about the sandwiches when leveling friendships in the Great Hall gets some love in Year 5. When you have to serve detention in the kitchen, the first order of business from the house elves is to get you slicing giant loaves of bread because lead elf Pitts only likes making giant sandwiches.
• Batman Gambit: There are, apparently, five going on in the game: The player has one in opening the vaults; Pettigrew is doing... something; Dumbledore, as usual, knows literally everything; Rakepick is screwing everyone over; and we have no clue what 'R' and The 'Cabal' are up to!
• Been There, Shaped History: Downplayed. In the second year, you help Hagrid rescue his puppy from the Devil's Snare. If your knowledge skill is high enough, you can be the one who suggests Hagrid name the puppy 'Fang'.
  • Draco Malfoy decides he wants to go to Hogwarts instead of Durmstrang after spending some time there.
• Betty and Veronica: The sweet, friendly Penny and arrogant, tsundere Merula are the only two girls available in all four romance side quests and are always the most popular. By coincidence, their names even sound vaguely like "Betty" and "Veronica".
• Big Damn Heroes: While looking for Mundungus Fletcher in Year 5, the player and their companion are accosted by a gang of dark witches and wizards in Knockturn Alley, who duel the player and make the player's companion vomit slugs. Even after losing the duel, they threaten to attack the player and companion until Rakepick arrives, stuns two, and threatens to use the killing curse on the rest if they don't back off. Her reputation precedes her, and they relent.
• Blatant Lies: At one point in the second year, Bill Weasley assures Madame Pomfrey that his younger siblings are more well-behaved than he is. While Charlie and Percy are, Fred and George certainly are not, and Ron and Ginny get in their fair share of trouble too. Bill is the most level-headed of all the Weasley kids, after all.
  • It is practically a Running Gag that whenever Filch catches MC snooping around in his office, MC would come up with a lame excuse on the spot.
• Bookends: MC's first lesson with Merula has the latter sabotage their Cure For Boils potion, setting off (potentially) a mutual rivalry and distaste for the other. In their final class, before letting them graduate, Snape has the duo brew the same potion together, symbolically burying the hatchet.
• Bowdlerise: In the books or films, a werewolf's transformation is more horrific and monstrous. Fenrir transforms on-screen but is hidden in a black cloud. Chiara's transformation is entirely avoided with a Discretion Shot.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: At one point in the Celestial Ball event, Rowan comments that pretty much all they ever talk about are trees or cats. Bill walks over and asks her what's on their mind, and they blurt out "Trees! Cats! Trees and cats!"
• Bribing Your Way to Victory:
  • One of the game's most heavily criticized features is the "energy" function, which requires you to suffer through constant waiting periods just to make progress. Players looking for uninterrupted game play will either have to pay up with real-world money or look elsewhere. It gets very egregious once you get about an hour into the game where your character is getting strangled to death by a Devil's Snare. The encounter is specifically designed so that it will sap ALL of your energy, EVEN IF YOU START WITH MAX. In order to break free, you must either wait for enough energy to replenish or cough up the dough.
  • In addition to having to wait for energy to replenish, once you complete a quest the next one is locked until several hours have passed (or you pay).
  • Jam City has been adding various currencies to the game in various levels of rarity. Coins for buying clothes and paying for friend hangouts and duels, gems as the typical mobile premium currency, creature food for feeding magical creatures, and four different kinds of notebooks used to buy the creatures themselves and skins for them.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: This trope gets namechecked when Gilderoy Lockheart brags that "Even my ordinary Tuesdays become bestsellers."
• Button Mashing: During classes, you need to tap on different people, objects, etc up to 5 times. Be careful when doing so on the right side of the screen if you've bought gems or saved up enough through gameplay, however: if the "need more energy" box pops up between your taps and you accidentally hit the "spend gems" button instead of "I'll wait", there's no confirmation message; they're just automatically deducted (though an update made it so that they’re grayed out and unclickable for a second or two, at least.)
• Call-Back: In year 6, chapter 11, when Rowan and MC get reacquainted, Rowan calls back to year 1 events like teaching them Rictusempra, and MC befriending Penny.
• Call-Forward: Professor Flitwick's reputation as a master duellist, mentioned a few times in the books, comes up in Year 1 when he teaches your character the basics of dueling to protect you against Merula.
• The Cameo: In Year 8, chapter 1, while visiting Diagon Alley with Penny and looking for an apartment, a young Harry Potter can be seen walking past the player and Penny. Hedwig, while yet unnamed, also shows up when the player and Penny come across Hagrid.
• Camera Abuse: On rare occasions, when a character is shouting during an intense scene, there would be a screen shake effect.
• Canon Foreigner: While almost all of the teachers are the same as the ones that Harry has a little over seven years after your first year (save for Kettleburn, who was The Ghost in the series and was replaced by Hagrid when Harry actually began taking Care of Magical Creatures, and Rakepick, who Harry never met on behalf of the position being cursed), the students you meet along the way are entirely original except for the five oldest Weasley boys, Nymphadora Tonks, and Cedric Diggory.
• Cap:
  • Friendship levels max at 10 each.
  • Coin maximum accumulation is 50,000.
  • A House's total points are capped at 9999. Your personal points are not capped though.
  • The attribute and player levels also cap out after a while, though they get raised periodically.
• Catchphrase:
  • Just about everything Madam Hooch says is a warning on something to watch for while flying... "or you will surely fall to your death."
  • Skye Parkin will often exclaim "Smashing!" when she gets excited.
  • And returning from the main series is Hagrid's "I shouldn't have said that."
• Chekhov's Gun: Snape gives you Garroting Gas for spying on Rakepick, which comes in handy when she turns on you in the Fourth Vault.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Everyone wears their school robes while in class, which allows you to tell which house they are in. In later years, some characters are introduced outside of school, like Chiara, who took a while to be identified as a Hufflepuff.
  • In "Valentine's Day", the trinket you receive has a different coloured heart depending on who you got it from: yellow for Penny, green for Merula, red for Barnaby, blue for Talbott, and purple for André.
• Comical Overreacting: Snape catches a cold. Anyone who dares disclose outside his classroom that he has been afflicted by something so... so Muggle will lose 500 points for their House.
• Confusion Fu: Rather than inventing rules for Gobstones and programming those rules into a mobile game, the developers have you win or lose depending on how well you confuse or distract your opponents via the dialog tree while you're playing.
• Continuity Porn: Despite that it isn't strictly canon, it makes lots of little ties to the books or the films. Some of the references are so obscure, some players thought they are originally invented by this game.
  • One of the random questions in Herbology class is Tonks asking how to check if a door has the Imperturbable Charm cast on it. In the fifth book, Ginny reveals Tonks told her how (throw stuff at it).
  • Tonks learning from Divination class that she will live with a werewolf.
  • Charlie saying that he loves his wand and it'd be a shame if anything happened to it. It's the same wand that was passed down to Ron and got snapped in the second book.
  • In the Career Advice side quest, Bill mentions Professor McGonagall used to work in the ministry, which was only revealed from the Wizarding World website.
  • Lots of nods in the teacher appreciation side quest. McGonagall's past work in the ministry again, her Muggle father and witch mother, and she also indirectly refers to herself being recently widowed (the side quest is triggered in early year 2, or late 1985, the same year as her husband's death), all which are on the Wizarding World site only. She also hinted at creating the giant chessboard in the first book. Half of Quirrell's dialogue is foreshadowing his role in the first book.
  • The All-Wizard Tournament sidequest mentions doxy eggs being an ingredient in Girding Potion, which is only from the video games for books 2, 3, and 6.
  • Dumbledore told Orion his greatest wish is a pair of socks, the same as his claim in the first book.
  • MC says Charlie smells like grass and honeysuckle, which is the same as how Harry described the scent at the Burrow in book 4.
  • In the third Christmas side quest, "The Gift of Gratitude", Hagrid says he brings out the Christmas Feast leftovers outside on Boxing Day which attracts a large crowd of Puffskeins who then sing together. This refers to the sixth film where Luna says Pgymy Puffs (miniature Puffskeins) sing on Boxing Day.
  • Many of the quizzes from characters often include obscure details of the Wizarding World, even if they don't play a big role in the game.
• Continuity Snarl: The entire Quidditch storyline. ^note Each season is supposed to correspond to each in-universe year, but it runs parallel and independently from the main storyline, e.g. it is possible to be a sixth-year student in the first season, or a second-year in the second season, varying from player to player. Main storyline plot points released prior to Quidditch sometimes contradict them, such as in year 4 chapter 2 Madam Hooch indicates MC is not on the Quidditch team yet. Charlie and Andre are often also referred to as the best Quidditch players prior to the release of the storyline, and they are nowhere to be seen on the team. One tiny thing that the Quidditch Storyline is affected by is if you dated Penny at any point, in one scene where Penny says "Suppose it's just us today!" she would do the lovestruck animation. There is also a Hand Wave added to the Year 4 storyline where you have to find a broom since Skye would have gifted you a broomstick during the Quidditch Storyline; it is said to be locked up and not available outside of Quidditch practice and matches.
  • Similarly, working with magical creatures in the reserve is separate from the main story, and in the latter, MC will generally not indicate they had extensive experience with the creatures.
    • Even if the Player does the Thestral sidequest after they, Merula, and Ben witness Rowan's murder, they still act pretty surprised that Merula had experienced death and Hagrid only references Merula seeing Thestrals even though by that point the Player and Ben had also witnessed death.
  • Halloween and Christmas events occur around real-life dates, which can lead to completing a year while the castle is decked in Christmas decorations.
  • Mistletoe was covered in Herbology in the Valentine's Day side quest, but again in year 6 chapter 40 (which was released in December).
  • Chiara is particularly plagued by this. ^note  "Howling Hallowe'en" (Year 1 sidequest) has Chiara revealing that she is a werewolf and asking for help as she ran out of Wolfsbane Potion and needed Penny to brew more, with Penny mentioning that she had a friend killed by a werewolf and hence her hesitation. "Penny For Your Thoughts" (Year 3) was released before "Howling Hallowe'en", and has Penny explaining her friend was killed by a werewolf last summer. And then we have "Ordinary Wizarding Levels" (Year 5 sidequest), where you "meet" Chiara for the first time again. Chiara plays a significant role in Year 6 (and the Head Boy/Girl side quest) and is the central character in "Packmates" (Year 2 sidequest), but it seems even if you have done either of those but not "Howling Hallowe'en", when "Howling Hallowe'en" reruns again at Halloween you act like you never met her.
  • In Year 4, the Player has to travel to the Forbidden Forest to search for the the Forest Vault. By that point, it's possible that the Player had become an Animagus in Year 3, and one of the choices was an eagle. They could have easily flown to the Forbidden Forest as a bird instead of using a broom, like Talbott (who is also an eagle) often does, but the Player doesn't even consider the option.
  • Many side quests were released when the game was already in higher years but can be triggered in lower years and often have characters act like they're in higher years. ^note Ben is one notable exception in "Lone Wolf", probably because he has a sudden personality shift between years 5 and 6. "Welcome to the Sphinx Club" can be triggered as early as Year 3, Chapter 2 - the same chapter where Ismelda and Barnaby were introduced in the main story, but they were supposed to be purely antagonistic at this point. And of course, Merula doesn't get stuck as a Flobberworm/Puffskein in other parts of the game even if you leave the side quest hanging.
  • The romance sidequests have very limited effect on the main story, even if they are acknowledged a few times. ^note Particularly controversial and jarring is "distraught Penny" and "lovey-dovey Penny" simultaneously existing in year 5's main story and the Valentine's Day sidequest. You can also confess feelings to Penny in Year 5, who would be shocked even if you took her to the Celestial Ball and went on the First Date with her (the Doylist reason is that Celestial Ball and First Date were released after that moment, even though those two side quests can be triggered in year 4).
  • During the Celestial Ball, Emily will reference that time when Bill had a crush on her even if you didn't do that side quest.
  • During the Christmas season, the snowy day background appears in side quests where it would make no sense, like in the very summery Festival Fun, or for the night scenes at the end of First Date, and at the beginning of Head Boys and Girls (the section is even called "A Visitor in the Night"). Particularly jarring is Lone Wolf, where in this case Chiara would be shown glancing at the sun before transforming.
  • In the Courtyard Date with Chiara, she would say it is a crescent moon even though right after you can see it is near-full.
  • You can befriend Dobby after the Meet the Malfoys sidequest, which would seem to contradict the books unless MC is female since Dobby in the books said no wizard has ever treated him like an equal.
  • An Enchanted Kiss, released when Year 7 is already out but triggered in Year 5, Chapter 13, has Diego play an extensive role, but in the main story Year 5, Chapter 16, you will meet him for the first time outside classes.

• Could Say It, But...: Chester, now working in the ministry, explains that the ministry is stretched thin and it would not be hard to sneak in with an invisibility cloak if the MC needs to retrieve the Plot Device... not that he would endorse it.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Year 3, Chapter 4 could be completely subverted if your character had not revealed Jacob's diary in the middle of the Three Broomsticks.
• Darker and Edgier: The story was pretty tame for the first five years. Then the Year 5 finale happened with Rakepick's betrayal and her using Crucio on Merula and then went even more darker in Year 6 with Rowan's murder. Year 7 lightens up a bit (for now) but shows much more serious undertones as 'R', who are arguably more ruthless and dangerous than Rakepick ever was, gets more and more involved in the main plot.
  • The completely metal decision to trap Rakepick in the Sunken Vault so she is psychologically tortured for the rest of her waking life in revenge for what she did is one of the more darker decisions the Player is allowed to make.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Barnaby agrees to befriend the player only after the latter has defeated him in a duel.
• Deus Exit Machina: The game really does its best to make sure Dumbledore stays out of the main story. This time, it's fully justified, as he has previously already stopped the curses unleashed by the Cursed Vaults, and the main protagonist is searching for their brother in ways that break many rules, and having him present would negate any reasons the heroes' actions would be tolerated as he can pretty much just do it again and they would have been expelled as it's the fact that Dumbledore isn't in the school that means they can break the Cursed Vaults and look for their brother while making sure they have enough credentials to not be thrown out of the school in the process.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: When Merula is racing the main character in Flying Class, even though Merula is in the lead, she slows down to bump into the main character.
• Diving Save: Your character does this during the All-Wizard Tournament event to save Merula from a lethal sting from a manticore.
  • Rowan does this to Ben, saving him from the Killing Curse and dying in the process.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: Typically, the game locks the best responses behind stat levels, encouraging you to have the means to pick them. A few of the Bravery-based responses are less "brave" and more "reckless", though, resulting in deducted house points.
  • Sometimes these hidden responses aren’t the correct ones, either.
• The Dog Bites Back: Some dialogue choices allow you to back-talk Snape, but you will of course lose house points for it or have to endure particularly cruel snark.
• Doom Magnet: A non-fatal one. By halfway through your second year, you will have landed at least three people in the hospital wing for helping you with your search for the Cursed Vault. Your prefect will call you out on it (and for making your house look bad).
  • Now upgraded to fatal as of Year 6. The whole reason Rowan was murdered was that 'R' needed one of your friends to die. Several people have gotten cursed and injured because of the Player tampering with the vaults. Most of the plot of Year 7 is happening because 'R' is still targeting you for some reason.
• Doomed by Canon: The game extensively covers the years immediately before the books, so there are lots of this.
  • Rowan won't be able to become the youngest professor in Hogwarts history. Snape is the record holder at age 21, which would translate to the third book for Rowan.
  • Due to Bill's marriage with Fleur in the seventh book, Rowan's crush on him can go nowhere (as does MC's one-time dialogue option of saying they fancy him).
  • The All-Wizard Tournament is meant to be a trial for the Triwizard Tournament and prepare Hogwarts students for it. All of the students chosen would have graduated long before the Triwizard Tournament is held again, which will end in tragedy, as seen in the fourth book.
  • Any Defence Against the Dark Arts professor will be forced to leave the post before the year ends for one reason or another.
  • Any character expressing the belief that Voldemort is gone and is not coming back (including MC) will be in for a rude awakening.
  • A very brief one in Valentine's Day, MC and their friends won't be able to expose Lockhart as a fraud before he wipes their memories.
  • Downplayed with Chiara's dream of finding a better way for werewolves to manage their condition (Wolfsbane Potion being highly expensive and difficult to make). She'd be in her 40s by 2020, so it isn't impossible.
• Dramatic Drop: In the Lone Wolf side quest, the camera follows the fluttering dropped photo Chiara was holding when she transforms.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Many other students can be seen at the Sorting Ceremony, even though Rowan is the only one you have met at this point, while it will be days to years in-universe until you properly meet the rest of them (including Ben, Penny, Merula, Tulip, Tonks, Chiara, Barnaby, Charlie, Andre, Badeea, Jae, and Liz).
• The '80s: Years 1 through the first half of Year 6 take place from 1984 to 1989.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Beginning in the Fourth Year, you start having the option of partnering with Merula Snyde on curse-breaking activities. Justified in that she has nearly as much experience searching for the Cursed Vaults as you have, and she has the endorsement of professional curse-breaker Patricia Rakepick. By Years Five and especially Six, Merula is more or less forced on the player's adventures, as she demands to be included.
    • During the Fifth Year, you can say you think you’re becoming friends with Merula, which irritates Tulip and amuses Merula until you serve her a backhanded compliment.
  • During the Fourth Year, you get to work on a spy mission for Professor Snape.
• Epic Fail: In the Christmas-decorating event, Professor Flitwick advises you to be careful of the candles. If you fail the quick-time event, your little 2-ft piece of garland somehow manages to make the entire tree spontaneously burst into flames.
• Eskimos Aren't Real: One of the text bubbles that can show up during a library study session is Barnaby saying that he "refuses to believe that paper comes from trees". It gets referenced again when making Halloween decorations.
• Everyone Is Bi: There are no gender limitations on romance. For dating events, the Player Character can ask out a boy or a girl regardless of their own gender, and the chosen NPC will always respond positively.
  • Rowan is always the same gender as MC but may still come across as bi if MC is female due to her crush on Bill.
  • The Valentine's Day event has most of the Player's friends (and Merula) crushing on them, gender be damned.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: During Lockhart's speech in the Valentine event, he says, "Voyages with Vampires is my latest book. It is about my voyages with vampires."
• Expanded Universe: This game contributes a massive chunk of plot to the Harry Potter Expanded Universe. As of the end of 2020, the game has 124 chapters of varying lengths (which may also depend on how fast you play through it). There are also 30+ side quests, many of which have the equivalent of multiple chapters, and entire seasons of Quidditch. A very, very rough estimate would be somewhere in the ballpark of 100 hours of story, dwarfing the films' total length.
• Exponential Plot Delay: There are five Cursed Vaults. The first was opened at the end of year 2. Afterwards, one is opened at the end of each year. The problem is every year is longer than the last. Year 2 has 11 chapters, and year 6 has 46 - not to mention the chapters are also longer, with three or four year 6 chapters being as long as the entirety of year 2, so year 6 is easily more than 10x longer.
• Exposed to the Elements: A mild case, but Penny's Valentine's outfits in particular cover a lot less than most others. A T-shirt and short skirt are not generally advisable in February in the Scottish Highlands. Penny is from London, for the record.
• Expy: Rowan is like an early version of Scorpius Malfoy - a brilliant but socially awkward misfit from a prestigious wizarding family who prefers to stay in the background while his/her friends go on adventures.
• Extremely Short Timespan: In-universe time is generally kept vague, but it may come as a surprise when Year 7, chapters 4 to 7 all take place on the same day.

F-J

• Face, Nod, Action: In the Quidditch minigames where the player plays Beater, the animation for the Dopplebeater Defense shows the player character and the other Beater next to each other. They exchange looks, the player nods at the other Beater, and they both prepare to whack the Bludger simultaneously with their bats.
• Failure Is the Only Option: No matter what you do, Snape will always deduct house points from you in the first few chapters of your first year — even if you're in Slytherin.
• Fantastic Drug: Unfortunately, not the fun kind. The plot of the "Penny For Your Thoughts" side quest can be summed up as "Penny, a 13-year-old girl and previously Cheerful Child, breaks into the storeroom to steal drugs in desperation to cope with crippling PTSD from seeing a friend brutally murdered". Penny, being a potions whiz, shows an almost alarming tendency to solve her personal issues with possibly ill-advised potion-taking, much like drug use. In year 5, when Beatrice goes missing, she tries to invent an entirely new and extremely complex potion to find her and drinks it without a second thought. Then, when the stress of Beatrice being trapped becomes too much, she tries to brew her own Draught of Peace to calm herself down, and, if you let her, it leads to Dissonant Serenity.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: The in-universe play in "An Enchanted Kiss" has shades of it but is more prominent in the Chinese translation, which borrows significantly from Classical Chinese.
• Foregone Conclusion: In your Third Year, Bill Weasley falls head over heels for a girl in his year. Given that she's nowhere to be seen when Harry Potter meets Bill years later (and that Bill's wedding to Fleur Delacour is a major plot point in the seventh book), one can guess how well that goes for him.
  • A sidequest in Year 5 has the player help Bill think of alternate careers to curse-breaking. He's working for Gringotts as a curse-breaker when Harry meets him years later, so one can assume going into the quest that he does not choose any of these options.
  • Any danger involving Charlie, Bill, Percy, or Tonks can really only have one possible outcome.
• Foreshadowing: In Year 5, when the Weasleys and Nearly Headless Nick help the player search for the Marauder's Map. A lot of emphasis is put on Percy and the fact that he brought his pet rat Scabbers with him. Anyone who's read the third book knows that Scabbers is an Animagus named Peter Pettigrew who spent 12 years (approximately 10 at the time) as a rat hiding with the Weasleys. Moreover, Pettigrew is one of the Marauders who made the very map that they're looking for, meaning that Percy inadvertently brought one of the few people who would know what they were looking for. What does all this mean? You eventually meet Pettigrew later that year.
  • In Year 6, when the Player is practising using an Invisibility Cloak, the first thing they eavesdrop is [McGonagall] and Flitwick discussing about an exchange student from Castelobruxo, with the former hoping her arrival will distract the students. 10 chapters later, you will meet said student, whose cheerful disposition certainly helps distract the Player from sinking further in grief due to Rowan's death.
  • At the beginning of Quidditch Season 1, Skye is worried she will be kicked off the team because she is failing Charms. At the end of Season 1, the short-haired Beater mentions she's been practicing instead of doing her Potions essay. She was suspended in Season 2 for this.
  • In the Weird Sisters side quest, which could be triggered as early as Year 2, has a cryptic message from 'R' about the Coral Key and "We can’t return to the Sunken Vault without it." You don't hear about the key or the Sunken Vault otherwise till the end of Year 5.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: Since the game is far from over, it's hard to tell if a dangling plot line is an Aborted Arc or simply forgotten, but here goes, plot lines in year 6. Buckle up, this is going to be a Long List.
  • The central plot(s) of the game, finding Jacob and solving the titular mystery of the Cursed Vaults. You find Jacob in year 5 chapter 30, but he leaves to pursue Rakepick and much of him remains unknown. There is a bit of backstory of him with 'R', Duncan, and Olivia, the latter of which we know practically nothing about, it is not all clear yet and half the information we have is from Duncan. Year 6, Chapter 1 has Moody revealing he has his own investigation into 'R' worldwide - and apparently not working with Dumbledore, as they do not agree on how to move forward (Year 6, Chapter 21). Year 6, Chapter 35 reveals that even after Rakepick's ousting, 'R' has a mole in Hogwarts. Alanza, an exchange student from Castelobruxo who arrived in year 6 chapter 22 (who has her own subplot about MC being her guide in Hogwarts), is one of the prime suspects. There is also the mystery of the quills. The white quill came from a white eagle owl seen with, but not necessarily owned by, Rakepick, but it has yet been revealed where all the black quills came from.
  • The player character and Jacob's parents, while their mother has yet to physically appear, their father would be eventually revealed to be the leader of R as of Year 7 chapter 40. The Year 4 side quest "Unleash Your Patronus" and Year 5 Chapter 18 mention their mother and her relationship with her children (she was very strict but gradually became more supportive of MC's crusade over the years, but we don't know how much she knows), yet when found, Jacob refused to let her know he is alive. We also don't know whether MC is entirely open/truthful about their parents.
  • Rowan or rather, how they died in year 6 chapter 18, which impacts everything greatly. The collective grief over their death remains ongoing, although MC got some closure with the "Head Boys and Girls" side quest. Speaking of which, that is also likely to lead into another side quest on its own, just like the Prefect side quest.
  • Chiara being a werewolf, which plays a central role in "Howling Hallowe'en" and "Packmates". This, along with her increased confidence from MC's support, appears to be folding into the main story via Arc Welding in year 6. Ben and Talbott both saw her werewolf form and raised suspicions, while Diego questioned why she is so familiar with the moon phases.
  • Talbott, speaking of whom, has a Mutual Masquerade with Chiara, who noted he is suspiciously silent when appearing in the forest. In his own side quests, he is facing pressure to register as an Animagus, yet is under threat from being hunted down by Death Eaters. The same applies more or less to the MC.
  • Penny, in regards to MC possibly confessing to fancying her in the main story in year 5 chapter 5, to which she said they would discuss after Beatrice is freed (which happened in year 5 chapter 30), but have yet to come to pass. Penny also has an epiphany on love in year 6 chapter 11 which ties into the reconciliation with Beatrice, played out in chapters 19, 20, and 28. Penny also took Rowan's death very hard, possibly the only one worse than MC, and cries a lot, which other characters have pointed out. She seems to have pulled herself together by the end of year 6, helping with finding the vaults and finally celebrating their victory over Rakepick.
  • Beatrice, who has the biggest character arc over year 6 with her struggles with identity and trauma, which seem to tend to be resolved towards the middle. Also seemingly has a crush on Jae in year 6 chapter 16.
  • Jae, and the shady dealings with Alistair. He got an invisibility cloak from Alistair, originally for a plan to sneak into a Ministry, which seems to have been dropped, and Jae was last seen wearing it in year 6, chapter 35 - what happened to it anyway (it was not used in the lake to avoid the creatures)? Jae was also frequently seen with Chiara, hinting at a possible history between them.
  • Merula, had a couple of character regression moments, what with her being proud of learning the Killing Curse at the end of year 5, and Rakepick's betrayal which led her to be consumed by desire of revenge, she remains a volatile wild card. She also indicates she may have a crush on Jacob (year 6 chapter 6), even while acknowledging MC could have dated her in the past; this is brought up again when MC questions her in year 6 chapter 40, which she evades. In chapter 45, Merula is seemingly revealed as the mole.
  • Tulip, who sought the Cursed Vaults even before meeting MC. With her hiding all the combs that MC needed in year 6 chapter 39, more players are suspecting that she is still plotting behind MC's back. She's also the only romance option dropped after First Date and it was never explained, unlike Ben, Rowan, and Ismelda, who were dropped after Celestial Ball, who did have a scene together explaining that they lost interest.
  • Ismelda, speaking of whom, had the year 5 "Crushed" side quest at the end of which she realises she wants someone In Love with Your Carnage. It is uncertain how it would go with her adopting Beatrice as her Morality Pet and Ismelda seemingly working towards Circle of Khanna's goals instead.
    • Speaking of that, Penny, Beatrice, Merula, and Ismelda in year 6, chapter 22 were revealed to be brewing Felix Felicis with stolen ingredients to gain an edge over Rakepick, which was witnessed by Alanza. Since Felix Felicis takes six months to brew, it might be finished by the end of the year.
  • Barnaby, who had said he wanted the power of the Cursed Vaults to himself from the beginning. He also has his own "Renaissance Wizard" subplot throughout year 6, although generally Played for Laughs.
  • Ben, something of a Neville counterpart, extremely cowardly from year 1 to 5, but the traumatic experience at the end of year 5 caused him to snap to being an arrogant daredevil. However, throughout year 6 he seems to be undergoing a difficult but gradual transition to a more level-headed leader. On the other hand, he is also a common suspect as the mole from 'R'. He has fought MC while seemingly under some sort of control before in prior years, and so did Rowan, but it has not been explicitly stated what happened there. He wrote a letter to MC before the Buried Vault expressing his admiration, and it is only opened in year 6 chapter 43.
  • Defence Against the Dark Arts, where no teacher can hold the post for more than one year; after Rakepick's betrayal, we have yet to meet a new teacher in year 6, and we don't know whether Bill, as de facto teacher, will be affected.
  • The piece of parchment in year 5 that turned out to be Marauder's Map. If they follow book canon, Fred and George found it in Filch's office in their first year, or year 6 in this game. It was last known to be in Rakepick's possession - is it transferred to the Ministry like the rest of the artefacts she left behind? MC also met Peter Pettigrew (but was Obliviated), and found him as Scabbers with the map, but we have yet to know what that is all about. MC spotted someone moving across the map so quickly they can't see their name; Rakepick recognised it but did not reveal it, claiming it is the person who attacked Mundungus, but the Wizard in white robes (at least, that's what Mundungus claimed) shouldn't be able to get into the castle.
    • The other artefacts that Rakepick presumably had in her possession, particularly the Gillyweed Key retrieved from Filch in Year 4, Chapter 8. There is also the Coral Key, which Ben and MC found with the help of Sickleworth and presumably still have. They look the same, but MC did not seem to recognise it and it is unknown whether it is the same.
  • The lake is hinted to be the location of the final vault in year 5 chapter 30, someone has been diving into it on a broom many times, and Trelawney and the centaurs also offered helpings of Vagueness Is Coming about it. More specifically, its creatures are of interest. Grindylows are agitated, Charlie and Liz are training Murtlaps and other creatures to help, and Firenze told MC to study the constellation Cetus (sea monster).
  • Side quests take place on a floating point on the timeline, so they can run concurrently with the main plot(s) at any time at or after their trigger chapter. "Packmates" is a year 2 side quest, but its dialogue changes significantly if done in year 6. There are 2 side quests that are definitely in year 6: "Head Boys and Girls" which ties into Rowan's death plot in the main story, and "The Dragon's Treasure" which ties into Bill being the gang's DADA tutor.
• The Freelance Shame Squad: When Hooch scolds the player character for talking to Penny about the werewolf attack instead of paying attention in flying class, the entire class turns around to stare at them. Subverted by the sympathetic cringes on their faces.
• Freemium Timer: Doing anything of importance (e.g. going to classes, searching for items) requires the player to perform actions that uses up 1 to 5 energy each, and it takes 4 minutes to recharge 1 energy.
• Funny Background Event: "Read the Cards" sections of Divination class. The students are supposed to be practicing fortune-telling with tarot cards, and they are hunkered over tables and interacting intensely with card spreads. However, if you pay close attention to the animation and read between the lines in the dialog, you realize they're really just goofing off and playing Exploding Snap.
• Gambit Pileup: the player and their friends want to open the vaults to find Jacob, Merula wants to open them and end the curses for the glory that goes along with it (and possibly to spite the player), R, Jacob, Rakepick, and the Cabal each have their own that may or may not overlap, given their history, and in the midst of all this, Peter Pettigrew just wants to get the Marauder's Map back. And Dumbledore and Snape may have their own plans for the player as well.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • invokedThough it was quickly patched, at one point it was impossible to progress the story after a certain point in Year 3 because Hogsmeade was completely inaccessible.
  • Developers released Year 5, Chapter 3 well before it was stable. It borked gameplay so badly that they reset everybody who had made it that far back one chapter, and loaded their accounts with 150 energy points to compensate.
  • The Achievement Event, Magical Creatures Everywhere, also had a bug in it leading to it getting pulled, forcing everyone to restart it.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • After the events of Year 5, Chapter 30, DADA class is locked since Rakepick has pulled a double-cross and Apparated to who knows where.
  • When you unlock Fred and George Weasley and Cedric Diggory as friends in Year 6, you can't take them to Hogsmeade for butterbeer friendship events since only third-years or later are permitted.
  • As part of the Quidditch sidequest, you become friends with Murphy McNully. But, he's never available to play Gobstones... presumably because he uses a wheelchair and can't sit on the ground to play.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • When you play Gobstones to acquire Friendship experience... you don't actually play Gobstones. It shows you sitting down to play, but your success at the game is based on how well you confuse or distract your opponent in the dialog tree. This keeps the gameplay in line with the other two dialog tree-based Friendship leveling activities (and is significantly easier to program than an entire sub-game with rules and opponent AI).
  • During the second year, at one point Rowan is hospitalized after getting injured exploring the Cursed Vault with the Player Character. But if you take normal classes during this period, s/he can still be seen participating in classes like nothing happened.
  • Similarly, the second year starts with several quests revolving around Ben missing, and even the professors looking for him. Although they do make efforts to replace him with Penny in classes, he still appears in side quests and can be seen on the house points scoreboard.
  • Done once again during the third year where you can take a break from looking for Fang to play fetch with Fang.
  • House Points are a constant source of this: if you attend classes to bulk up your stats, you can have several times the points of your nearest rival, according to the Leaderboard (although the AI will boost the other House's points accordingly so that the race is always closely run). Yet the way your Prefect carries on at key points in the story, you would think that your character was regularly throwing bricks at McGonagall since you will be blamed for any loss of points even if (a) your House is in the lead and (b) you're the student with the most points.
  • Early in the third year, you're not allowed to go to Hogsmeade until you prove yourself to your teachers that you won't cause trouble through the main quest line, but in the concurrent sidequest that has you helping Hagrid find Fang, Hagrid invites you to drink with him at the Three Broomsticks Inn in Hogsmeade after Fang is found even though you're not supposed to be there yet.
  • In the fourth year, you eventually get to the Forbidden Forest, but Charlie Weasley ends up missing when you arrive. Before you find him, you can still have a meal/play Gobstones/drink Butterbeer with him to increase your Friendship level.
  • The player officially meets Liz midway through their fourth year and apparently had no idea who she was beforehand. However, this is long after the player unlocked Care of Magical Creatures (and had multiple storyline requirements taking place in the class), where Liz is in the class and already seems well-acquainted with the player. The same can happen with Badeea in DADA, André in Flying, and Diego in sidequests.
  • Halfway or so through Year 5, Rowan accuses the player of never talking to their friends unless they want something despite the fact you might have most of them maxed out by this point.
  • In Year 6, Chapter 15 ended with the player being wounded. In real life, there was a two-week break between chapters, where you could hang out to level up friendships and do classes for events. They also released the next chapter in the Quidditch sidequest, where you could win the cup. Then, Chapter 16 finally dropped and it started with the player seeking out Chiara to get treatment for the wounds they received in the end of Chapter 15, making it seem as if they apparently had to play for the house cup and whatever else they did, while severely wounded.
  • Year 6, Chapter 45 sees Merula Apparating away with a dark witch to join with "R". You can naturally see her participating in class just fine right afterwards as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
• Gang of Hats: largely defied by the main characters, except by Penny (and Rowan, if the player is in Ravenclaw). Ben is an extremely cowardly Gryffindor, Tulip is a spacy and mischievous Ravenclaw, almost a la Luna Lovegood (although she is quite clever in her pranking and promotes a distance between emotions and the pursuit of knowledge), and neither Barnaby nor Liz exhibits the normal "evil" traits that flanderizes many Slytherins - they're not even particularly ambitious.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: If the player and by extension Rowan are female, then by Year 5 the group of friends will contain 7 males (Ben, Bill, Barnaby, Andre, Jae, Charlie, and Diego) and 7 females (The Player, Rowan, Penny, Tonks, Tulip, Badeea, and Liz).
  • In year 6, other than MC, the Circle of Khanna has 14 founding members, exactly 7 males and 7 females. Technically, if MC is male, founding members are still equal as Chiara was invited to be one but did not attend the meeting due to personal issues.
  • If the Player and Rowan are in Slytherin, then the houses within the group will come close to this. 4 from Gryffindor, (Ben, Bill, Charlie, and Jae), 3 from Hufflepuff (Penny, Tonks, and Diego), 3 from Ravenclaw (Tulip, Andre, and Badeea), and 4 from Slytherin (The Player, Rowan, Barnaby, and Liz).
• The Ghost: We hear a lot about the mishaps of a student named Billingsley without ever meeting him. We also have yet to meet any DADA teacher other than Rakepick, but it is a Running Gag that they are all terrible. Ron and Ginny are also conspicuously absent in a couple of cases: "A Very Weasley Christmas" where you visit the Burrow for Christmas, but they are among the Weasley kids ill with the flu and don't appear. They also do not appear at the end of year 5 when the Weasleys gathered at Hogsmeade to celebrate Bill's graduation, as they've ran off to Zonko's with the twins.
• Giant Spider: You hear about Acromantulas your fourth year, large spiders which can speak human tongues. One of them guards the Cursed Vault in the Forbidden Forest and has preyed on victims of the Sleepwalking Curse in the past.
  • You can adopt one once you reach Level 4 in Magizoology.
• Gigantic Moon: The absolutely colossal moon becomes even more absurd in a rare scene when you can see the sun, which is a tiny fraction of the size (and actually seems close to realistic).
• Hero of Another Story: Harry Potter is briefly alluded to by Dumbledore in the first year and by Barnaby in the third.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Barnaby is introduced as the dumb muscle of Merula's gang. Once you befriend him, you learn that he is fascinated by all things magical creatures and loves caring for them more than anything. He also defeats both Ismelda and Merula in a two-on-one duel to buy the player more time. He's still quite dumb, though.
    • He is having more and more surprisingly clever moments, though, as time goes by.
  • A year five sidequest has the player help Ismelda with her crush on Barnaby. Given her Obviously Evil personality, the player is surprised that she even can have romantic feelings towards someone else.
  • During the Frog Choir event, Merula confesses to the player that she's so obsessed with joining the Frog Choir because her mother was a member and used to sing Merula to sleep before she was arrested and sent to Azkaban, so she's trying to join as an attempt to make her mother proud. If you choose to give her the position in the choir, she retracts the whole story, although Tulip thinks that she was telling the truth the first time and only trying to save herself from the embarrassment of being vulnerable to the player.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Merula challenges you to a wandless duel in year 7, and your spells only do two base damage to her. Even if you massively outlevel her in stats and win thanks to the desparity, the resulting dialogue shows you losing, although she'll compliment you putting up a good fight in that case.
• Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: During the Teacher Appreciation Celebration side quest from year 2, Professor Quirrell is wearing a standard pointy wizard's hat, albeit in the same color scheme as the rest of his usual outfit; by the time that Beyond Hogwarts begins and Quirrell has returned from his sabbatical, he is now sporting his iconic turban, hiding Voldemort's face beneath it.
• Incredibly Obvious Tail: Exaggerated to the point of With Catlike Tread and lampshaded after the first Antidote to Common Poisons lesson. Barnaby approaches the player character and says "Merula told me to spy on you."
  Player Character: Isn't the most important part of being a spy not telling your target that you're a spy?
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Successfully averted with Murphy McNully, who's a wheelchair-user, but whose disability has thus far not even been mentioned by anyone as a significant part of his character.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • You're given a travel icon for the Prefects' Bathroom, despite it being only for prefects. So it's no wonder that a sidequest opened up the fourth year enabling you to become a prefect starting your fifth year. The Whomping Willow also has an icon that, when tapped, says that it can only be accessed in year 6, prior to year 6's release. Honeydukes similarly says it can only be accessed in year 7, even prior to its release.
  • Every single character that can be befriended (25 of them) show up in the friendship interface, even though you only meet 5 of them in year 1. Another 5 of them (Tonks, Tulip, Barnaby, André, and Charlie) have a description that tells you when you will meet them.
  • The pop-up interface of Lone Wolf/Packmates plainly states you will meet Remus Lupin even though Chiara spends the whole sidequest avoiding telling you she's been meeting him.
  • Out of the icons of the four romance side quests, First Date and Valentine's Day have non-indicative images, but Celestial Ball shows Penny in her special dress. Festival Fun's icon also shows Penny in her new outfit along with Jae, who has never been a date option prior.
  • You meet Ruby, a friendly American witch who becomes your working partner, in the Beyond chapter. She's likeable, sociable and sticks by you all during your work...so why does she not have a picture in the friendship interface? Because she's dead by the end of Chapter 10.
• I've Got an X, and I'm Not Afraid to Use It!: In the Abraxan sidequest, an agitated Abraxan flies into the Hogwarts Courtyard. Penny and the player character try to calm it down. One of the things Penny says when you tap on her is "I've got a barrel of single-malt whiskey and I'm not afraid to use it!"
• Jumping Out of a Cake: Discussed while planning Hagrid's surprise birthday party.
  • Ben, who is nervous and easily startled, pleads with the other party planners to warn him in advance if anything is going to jump out of Hagrid's birthday cake.
  • Filch is reluctant to attend Hagrid's birthday party, accusing the player character of wanting to take advantage of the opportunity to prank him. Among the pranks he guesses, he mentions a Red Cap monster trained to jump out of Hagrid's cake and bludgeon Filch.

K-O

• Knight of Cerebus: Madame Rakepick. Although rather benign in Year 4, she takes the position of DADA professor in Year 5, and things go south fast: she takes students to Knockturn Alley, the wizarding equivalent of a black market, she threatens to use the killing curse and teaches a student the Cruciatus Curse, and breaks the player's wand when they question her.
• Last-Name Basis: To a significantly lower level amongst students compared to the books. Most characters are referred to by their given names, with a few exceptions^*Nymphadora Tonks, as in keeping with the books, is referred to as Tonks, for obvious reasons, Murphy McNully refers to his close friends by their surname, and Erika Rath often just goes by "Rath". Part of it is likely because compared to the books, the houses are more integrated and MC has good friends in every house. Rivals like Merula and Ismelda still nearly exclusively refer to MC by their last name, but MC calls them by their first names.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The fact that the characters only ever eats giant sandwiches were noticed a few times.
  • When Lockhart is in the scene, he is the only interactable object to spend energy on, which is referred to by MC saying "I could literally focus on nothing else".
  • In the Teacher Appreciation side quest, Quirrell mentions looking for a "video game". He's in one.
  • In the third Christmas side quest, "The Gift of Gratitude", Bilton mentions they're selling a lot of Fanged Frisbees and they have the lowest stock left out of the items listed. It coincided with the duelling event release that unlocks the Fanged Frisbee as an attack.
• Level Grinding: As the story was not complete upon release, players started catching up to its sporadic updating in late June 2018, and the only thing to do while waiting for more story to be released is grind stats, friendships and House Cup points.
  • Absolutely inescapable for the House Pride and Crest events, which require you to go to lessons.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Gaining a level refills your energy.
• Lighter and Softer: In general, dangerous magical creatures are friendlier and less grosteque than they were previously depicted.
• Living MacGuffin: The search for your brother Jacob drives much of the plot.
• Look Behind You: In Zonko's Joke Shop, store employee Bilton Bilmes pranks the player character by saying "Look behind you! A Ukranian Ironbelly Dragon!"
• Lopsided Dichotomy: In a Quidditch match where the player character is a Chaser, when two teammates flank an opponent for your player character to smash into, Murphy McNully will comment "Either the Chasers are escorting their opponent to a dance, or [Player Character] is setting up a Parkin's Pincer!"
• Magic Feather: Maximus Confidencia, a "secret spell" that Flitwick offers to teach you during the Celestial Ball event in order to boost Ben's confidence. At the end of the lesson you cast it on Ben, and he happily assures you that it worked, and after he leaves the room Flitwick reveals that there is no such spell.
• Magic Skirt: Barely noticeable, thanks to the generally rigid and limited animations. Levicorpus hangs the target upside down, but not even a single hair would be out of place. For relatively short skirts like in Penny's First Date outfit, the whole thing is one solid space-filling mass that wraps around the direction of the legs no matter what.
• Meaningful Background Event: Observant players may notice a blue beetle hanging around during your courtyard chat with Dumbledore in year 4. It's your first hint that Rita Skeeter has been eavesdropping in her Animagus form.
• Mood Whiplash: In January 2021, a TLSQ where Merula is turned into a Puffskein and hijinks ensue is immediately followed by chapter 45 where she turns out to be the mole.
• Most Definitely Not a Villain: The player character impersonating Snape.
  "Uh, yes, I mean, I hate babies. I'm Severus Snape."
• Motor Mouth: Murphy McNully, so much. When asked, your character can either say this is charming or fess up to feeling annoyed.
• Mundane Solution: Your team is stumped trying to get a painted door to open after Alohomora doesn't work. Ben manages by knocking on it.
• Mundangerous: In year 6, while the circumstances of Rowan's death are relatively fantastical, this trope is played straight when Penny found out her little sister Beatrice has snuck out after curfew and ran into a dangerous fugitive.
• Mutual Masquerade: Between Chiara and Talbott. They do not know each other as secretly a werewolf and an Animagus. In the year 6 main story, Talbott and MC were in the forest while Chiara, in her in-control werewolf form (thanks to Wolfsbane Potion) watched over them, but when Chiara howled to warn them something is coming, Talbott immediately drew his wand at her. In the Head Boy/Girl side quest, when Chiara and MC were in the forest, Talbott landed behind Chiara in eagle form and transformed back before she turned around and questioned why she did not hear him approaching.
• Mythology Gag:
  • During Charms class, while reviewing the Levitation Spell, Rowan will correct the player's pronunciation of "LeviOsa", much like Hermione corrected Ron's in their first year.
  • When studying Bowtruckles, the player will comment that they know as much about them as Newt Scamander. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them showed that Newt was quite fond of the creatures, even keeping one in his lapel at most times. You can even name one Newt after the magizoologist himself.
  • A Running Gag mentions that the gang is horrible at Defense Against the Dark Arts because the teacher is awful every single year. Although we never meet any of the DADA teachers until Rakepick, one can assume that they're so awful because of the curse Voldemort put on the position.
  • The training dummies that the player fights on the training ground and in DADA classes are the same ones used by Dumbledore's Army in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
  • Some of the families referenced in Charlie's Weasley quiz include the House of Black, the Malfoys, the Diggorys, the Fawcetts, and the Grangers. All of these have some relevance to the plot of the books (Sirius Black, Draco/Lucius/Narcissa Malfoy, Cedric/Amos Diggory, and Hermione Granger are all major characters), but Fawcett belongs to a Ravenclaw who appears so infrequently she's never actually given a first name beyond her first initial.
  • When Merula gets annoyed with Draco, she wants to turn him into a ferret.
  • In the beginning of the first book Ron tries to turn Scabbers yellow with a silly little rhyme. In the beginning of the Quidditch storyline, Penny also says a rhyme when she changes the colour of face paint which even changes depending on your house (although she does know the actual spell).
• Nausea Fuel: Discussed in Potions classes when Rowan asks "Do you ever think about what goes into a potion and feel a bit sick?"
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: In the main series, Tonks's Metamorphmagus powers allow her to change her hair color and facial features, but we don't see much beyond that. During a History of Magic lesson, Tonks can become an identical copy of the ghostly Professor Binns, including becoming transparent and floating slightly above the ground.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the First Date side quest, Tonks and Charlie help plan the date, but make MC and their date uncomfortable by sitting in a table nearby and Tonks accidentally knocks over a huge pile of cups, causing the tea shop to be closed and the date cut short. They managed to salvage the night at the end though with stargazing.
• The '90s: The second half of Year 6 and the entire Year 7 part takes place from 1990 to 1991.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Subverted. During your test to become a prefect, you catch some students in the courtyard practicing magic; reporting them costs you house points, as expected, giving temptation for you to let them off the hook. Doing the right thing, however, has Dumbledore award your house double the points you lost.
  • Played straight in the frog choir event. Merula will confess to the player that she's joining the frog choir because her mother was a member and she wants to make her proud. The player has the option to give their position on the choir to Merula, at which point she will confess that she made up the entire story. Tulip will privately assure the player that Merula wasn't lying, but wanted to save face, but regardless, you gave up your spot on the choir to a Jerkass.
• Nominal Importance: Generic students show up as "Student" or "Sixth-Year" or the like. A weird case is in "Quest For the Quidditch Cup" where two female students in your house come up to talk to you, and they are labelled "[House] Lass" and "[House] Girl".
• Non-Nude Bathing: In Year 5, Peeves and Duncan Ashe force you to dump Frogspawn Soap into Charlie's prefect bath. He's still wearing a white tank top while he sits in the bath, presumably to avoid any unfortunate implications of a female player spying on a boy's bath.
• Nonuniform Uniform: While everyone wears the proper robes while in class, several characters (including Merula, Barnaby, and Tulip) casually wear outfits that are something like this.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Even though it shows you only take Charms, Potions, and Flying during year 1, according to some of the dialogue, you also taking all of the other required classes. Gradually, you do begin to take more classes, including Transfiguration, History of Magic, DADA, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures.
  • There's a Running Gag of you and other Hogwarts students being unprepared for matters relating to Defense Against the Dark Arts because it has a terrible professor every single year. This is a purely Informed Attribute since we never meet any of these professors or their allegedly awful lessons until Madame Rakepick takes the job in Year Five.
  • A grim variation, Merula can see Thestrals because she has witnessed death. The first time she mentions why in the Thestral side quest, all she says on the matter was that there was an incident between her parents and an Auror. Since both her parents are said to be in Azkaban, the implication is that they killed an Auror.
  • In the Frog Choir side quest, the Weird Sisters said they no longer allow others to attend their practices after an incident with an implied Loony Fan.
• Noodle Implements: Obliviators had to erase the memories of a dragon attack on a Muggle village, and replace them with false memories of an incident involving a backfiring automobile, some firecrackers, and a novelty balloon. Downplayed, as the purpose of the implements is easy to guess.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Although you do progress through the years, your character and their friends still look like 11-year-olds until unlocking makeup and facial hair options during the First Date event in Year 4, and even then only if the player opts to use them. ^note In accordance with the Everyone Is Bi fluidity built into the game, Player Characters of either gender may use makeup and facial hair as they wish.
  • It is often remarked tongue-in-cheek that all the students (except Bill) are five feet tall exactly. Characters are sometimes drawn looking older in loading screen art, although usually avoiding height comparisons (with exceptions like the Festival Fun one showing Barnaby being about half a head taller than Badeea, or the Valentine Ball one which does the same for Talbott and Penny).
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Ismelda in the Quibbler side quest, having moved from a friendless boastful edgelord to having cronies help in an attempt to kidnap and imprison Chiara until full moon to expose her as a werewolf.
• Not the Intended Use: Friendship activities and duels have a coin cost to attempt. If you succeed, there is a long cooldown before you could do it again. But if you fail, you can pay the cost again to try with no cooldown. This becomes useful for the Full Marks recurring event (specifically if you get a "spend coins" tile), as this allows you to spend limitless amounts of coins with no cooldown. This can often be harder than succeeding for both activities^note If your attributes are higher than recommended, even 1 correct answer can put you over 1 diamond, which makes you succeed. If your attributes are very high, it becomes impossible to fail as giving all wrong answers will still make you pass. It is also more difficult to fail than succeed in terms of choices for e.g. Penny's potion quiz, which has 2 correct answers but only 1 wrong one in every question. and duels^note Using Defensive and then Wiggenweld Potion deals no damage, but if your opponent's stats are too low, you may simply heal too much for them to outdamage. Otherwise, go Sneaky and use Rictusempra, which deals the lowest damage and hope you don't get a stun. Throw Vial can work, if the opponent AI is smart enough to use hard-hitting spells..
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: In "Hosting the Beauxbatons", MC figures out Aurélie, Penny's pen friend who is visiting Hogwarts under the pretence of considering transferring to Hogwarts, is up to something. Penny still trusts Aurélie and is upset when MC privately accuses Aurélie. When Aurélie came clean to MC and asked for their help, MC promises not to expose her for the time being, leading to Penny happily saying she's glad MC turned around.
• Obviously Evil: As soon as the player sees that Bill's crush is dressed head to toe in Umbridge-pink, they can guess how things will turn out.
  • There's hardly a line of dialogue that doesn't paint Ismelda as cartoonishly and insanely psychotic. Waiting for Care of Magical Creatures to start? She'll remark that she wishes that they could make the creatures fight. Discussing how to break into the Cursed Vaults? She suggests torturing the player as a viable option. She openly talks about using the unforgivable curses, especially on Gryffindors and muggle borns, and is more anxious for Voldemort's return than any Death Eater we see in the main series. Lampshaded in a Year 5 sidequest that has the player help her with her crush on Barnaby; the player (and whoever they they choose to help them) is so flabbergasted by her request because they didn't think she was capable.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: As the player breaks into the cursed vault in Year 3, Barnaby defeats both Merula and Ismelda on his own.
• Once per Episode: Each year starts and ends with student/faculty meetings in the Great Hall, and the final event before summer break has Dumbledore calling you to his office to have a private discussion.
• Only the Pure of Heart: It is generally considered that evil people cannot produce a Patronus, with the sole exception of Umbridge in the books, whose cat Patronus looked skeletal. Rakepick subverts this by being able to produce a whole, corporeal Patronus in the form of a lioness.

P-T

• Padding: Quidditch plot is full of it. Half of it you have to go through dozens of friendlies, long recaps with friends (only to have a recap of the recap with another friend after that) and amazingly long pre-game and post-game parties.
• Period Piece: The whole game does, in fact, take place from 1984 to 1991.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite Snape's strong dislike of you, there are still moments where he'll award you house points if you make dialog choices that appeal to him.
  • Similarly, if you get something right during a Potions lesson, you'll get a raised eyebrow and something that is almost a smile.
  • According to Penny, he's actually quite nice about her taking potion ingredients, and even helped her find a bezoar once.
  • In Year 5, Merula says she feels sorry for Penny's sister Beatrice getting trapped inside a painting. She also attends Hagrid's surprise birthday party in a sidequest despite not even getting invited by the player character.
  • Speaking of Hagrid's birthday party, Professor Snape and Filch attended the party as well, even if it took some effort from you to convince them first. Madame Hooch as well, although she did not seem particularly enthused when invited.
  • Madame Rakepick takes more and more drastic actions, including demonstrating and teaching unforgivable curses and breaking the player's wand. Still, when the player is attacked and oblivated by Peter Pettigrew, she does show genuine concern for their safety.
• Playing Sick:
  • One student hexed himself trying to avoid Transfiguration class, and ended up in the Hospital Wing.
  • The player character can distract Madam Pomfrey by acting sick (with a dialogue choice of picking a headache, a stomachache, or fatigue to complain about) while Chiara sneaks off to snoop through student medical records to see who got attacked by a werewolf.
• Practical Joke: Discussed when Tonks confides to the player character that she's planning to buy Frog Spawn Soap^note presumably soap that magically produces frog eggs from Zonko's Joke Shop and sneak it into the girls' showers.
• Present-Day Past: Both in and out of universe, for a game set in 1984-1991.
  • In 1984/1985, Firebolt is mentioned (released 1993).
  • In 1987/1988, Barnaby doing the floss (popularised 2010).
  • In 1988/1989, Chiara and some other students do the "jump on it" dance (from an 1995 TV episode).
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: a sidequest involving babysitting Draco Malfoy has a pop-up announcing it's time to do so, featuring Merula Snyde summoning the main character with "[MC Name]! Courtyard! NOW!"
• Random Drop:
  • Completing a segment of class has rewards in varying levels of rarity. Courage/Empathy/Knowledge points and Coins are the most common, with Gems or energy being a bit rarer. Rarest of all are the ever-elusive Notebooks.
  • Feeding a Magical Creature after you've maxed out its level will provide you a choice of rewards on a similar scale of rarity. This always eats up three Creature Feeds.
• Recitation Handclasp: In the dueling minigame, players with access to the "Cantis" spell can try to cast it on their opponent. A successful casting will show the opponent forced out of dueling stance to stand straight and square with their elbows out, hands clasped, and their wand tucked along their forearm as "Cantis" forces them to sing.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Voldemort, natch. At least it's just a Boggart.
• Relationship Values: You could already make friends with other students via sharing lunch, gobstones, and mugs of butterbeer, but a later update added romance options bolstered by dating in Hagrid's garden or the school courtyard. Nothing locks you in to having a single romantic partner, though it has been announced that later updates would feature content related to exclusive relationships.
• Resolved Noodle Incident:
  • Tonks's Patronus is mentioned to have changed from something else to a wolf in the sixth book, but it is only revealed to have been a jackrabbit from a single line of text on Pottermore. "Unleash Your Patronus" shows that Tonks had mastered it by her fourth year, using it to banish a dementor from school grounds and teaches MC to do the same.
  • Tonks's Former Teen Rebel status is mentioned in a single line in the fifth book. Here, practically every other scene she's in, she's getting into some sort of trouble, particularly in year 5.
  • Going hand in hand with Charlie being an Ascended Extra in the game from the books/films where he barely appears, Charlie's affinity with dragons is also greatly expanded upon. In particular, the "Adventures in Curse-Breaking" sidequest in year 6 largely takes place at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, where Charlie is mentioned to work in the books and is the first time this location is actually seen.
  • The entire main story of the game can be considered to be this, as it is based on the concept of Curse-Breaking, which is only briefly mentioned a few times in the books. Bill Weasley is mentioned to be a Curse-Breaker, with a couple of lines implying what the job entails, while "Adventures in Curse-Breaking" actually shows him at his workplace, receiving and completing an assignment.
  • In the 3rd anniversary livestream, it is revealed that the entire Cursed Vault storyline is based on a single line in Chamber of Secrets where Ron offhandedly said that Bill may have mentioned hidden rooms in Hogwarts before.
  • A minor one, but the cursed barrier spell - used in the sixth book to prevent anyone without a Dark Mark from going up the Astronomy Tower - appeared to only be named in this game, and Bill reverse-engineered it to create a spell that blocks anyone with a Dark Mark instead, and teaches that in a DADA class.
  • Several species of magical creatures that are only mentioned very briefly in the books each have side quests dedicated to them.
  • A cross between this and Adaptation Expansion are the classes in general, but especially Flying class, which only appeared a single time in the first book/film. Here, there are multiple Flying classes every year showing students gradually learning an array of increasingly difficult aerial manoeuvres. Astronomy classes were mostly passing mentions of homework in the books, Professor Sinistra did not have any lines, and Astronomy itself was never plot-relevant. Here, there are multiple Astronomy lessons in year 6 that goes over a variety of cosmic phenomena with surprising scientific accuracy (and occasionally obscurity), Sinistra has dialogue and a personality, and MC was asked by the centaurs to study the constellation of Cetus in one of the lessons, strongly implied it will be important later. Muggle Studies is also a fully playable subject in year 7, when it was only briefly mentioned in the books.
  • In Valentine's Day Ball, a major plot is the relationship between Pince and Filch, which has been hinted at by about two sentences in the books.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter:
  • Fang as a puppy, who you'll see if you tap on the stick that occasionally appears on the ground in the Castle Grounds area.
  • Sickleworth, Patricia Rakepick's niffler.
  • The Bowtruckle you befriend in a plot event with Kettleburn, whom you get to name.
  • As of the opening of the Creature Reserve, you get your own Niffler and can unlock the painfully shy and sweet Porlock, as well as others.
• Right Behind Me:
  • After being beaten in a (forbidden) duel, Merula starts ranting about how she's the greatest witch in school and can do what she wants when she wants... Just as Snape and Flitwick walk up right behind her. Cue Merula stammering as Snape announces his presence by clearing his throat.
  • In a sidequest about a Beauxbatons student named Aurélie Dumont visiting Hogwarts, the main character tries to warn her that Professor Snape is not one for making a good first impression of Hogwarts, only to hastily change tunes as Snape looms up behind the main character.
    PC: Professor Snape? But we're trying to leave you with a good impression of Hogwarts, and Snape is a rather...
    Snape: Choose your next words carefully.
    PC: A rather good ambassador for the Hogwarts teaching staff!
    Merula: Smooth.
  • Later in the sidequest, the player character pessimistically predicts the chances of successfully asking Professor Snape to demonstrate his knowledge of alchemy for Aurélie, right as Snape looms up behind the main character again.
    PC: Though realistically, I don't even know if it's going to be possible to convince Snape to...
    Snape: Convince me to what?
    Aurélie: Monsieur Snape!
• Romance Sidequest: Four of them.
  • The Celestial Ball (year 4), the first and the one where the player character can ask out almost any of their friends, excluding main series canon characters. They can also ask Merula or Ismelda.
  • First Date (year 4), where you could ask out Penny, Merula, Tulip, Andre, Talbott, or Barnaby. If you previously picked one of them to the Celestial Ball, and choose someone else this time, you get a breakup scene.
  • Valentine's Day (year 5), where you could ask out Penny, Merula, Andre, Talbott, or Barnaby. Notably, Tulip, who was picked by the least players in First Date, was dropped.
  • Festival Fun (year 5), where you could ask out Penny, Merula, Andre, Talbott, Barnaby, or newcomers Jae, Chiara, or Badeea.
• Rule of Symbolism: Rakepick's outfit prominently features a brooch in the shape of the Eye of Horus, a symbol of regal power and protection. In Year 6, Chapter 42, it falls off when you finally defeat her in a duel.
• Running Gag: The fact that all you have to do to break into Filch's office is cast Alohomora, with the characters noting that how ridiculously easy it is to get in.
• School Clubs Are Serious Business: In August 2020, three clubs were added to participate in — Dragon (adventurous activities), Sphinx (academics) and Hippogriff (nature and nurture), and membership in all of them is encouraged (and borderline expected, given the game mechanics). Completing classes and miscellaneous events aligned with their philosophies earns XP relevant to a club, with rewards being given as you rank them up and improve their facilities.
• Secret Test of Character: You learn afterwards that the first year asking for help and Dumbledore making you wait in his office were also part of the test to determine whether you would make a good prefect.
• Separated by a Common Language: Set in Britain, written by an American company. "Hurricanes" are discussed in year 7 chapter 6, which the UK does not have. Hurricanes are tropical cyclones - the rotating storm systems UK does get are European windstorms, which are extratropical cyclones (referred to informally as "storm" or "cyclone", never "hurricane"), although hurricanes can transition into European windstorms (at which point they may be referred to as "ex-hurricane").
• She Cleans Up Nicely: The entire cast at the Celestial Ball and First Date events - even Merula and Ismelda!
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Since most of the cast is made up of children and teenagers, the constant stress and dangers of the Vaults end up taking a heavy toll on everyone, especially after Rowan's death. The main character, Ben, Merula, Charlie, Penny and Beatrice all shown realistic signs and symptoms of developing PTSD as the story progresses, several chapters are about the characters trying to recognize and deal with their traumas, and the adult staff of Hogwarts express concern multiple times about the mental health of the students and the way everything has affected them.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: It's pretty strange seeing a group of seventh-year students who are all a full head shorter than any adult character.
• Shout-Out:
  • Using the Riddikulus-charm on the Voldemort Boggart turns it into a clown and makes it do a jig like Pennywise in It (2017).
  • During the fifth part of the final event of Quidditch's first season, Murphy will occasionally say, "Do a Sloth Grip roll!" when tapped on.
• Sins of the Father: Well, brother. Your character is constantly compared to Jacob, and your reputation in Hogwarts is directly coloured by Jacob's troubled youth.
• Status Effects: Some dueling spells are capable of causing them. There's Stun, which prevents a successful action from the affected character for a turn; and there's Damage Over Time, which includes nausea, bleeding, and burning.
• Stylistic Suck: Murphy drawing the Quidditch team as stick figures. You can tell the one that is supposed to be Skye because of the blue hair... but MC's doesn't even have a face or hair, as MC points out.
  • There are many pictures drawn by the kids at the Burrow, including multiple depicting dragons by Charlie, and one with stick figures for everyone in the family, drawn by Ron (as he labels himself as "Me"), who would be about 5 years old at this point.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: A Sixth-Year Hufflepuff in Hogsmead says "Niffler? What Niffler? I'm definitely not smuggling a Niffler into Hogwarts under my robe..."
• Superman Stays Outof Gotham: Dumbledore. He spends most of the years being away on some errand, and the story justifies this because he has previously ended the curses plaguing the castle in the series, meaning if he was around there wouldn't have been much plot.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: The Stance System for dueling works this way. Sneaky defeats Defensive, Aggressive defeats Sneaky, and Defensive defeats Aggressive.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • MC flies in the way of a Bludger Erika Rath aimed at the Seeker, allowing them to win the match.
  • At the end of Year 6, Chapter 18, Rowan jumps in front of the Killing Curse blast that Rakepick had aimed at Ben.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Rakepick's team of curse-breakers consists of the player, Bill Weasley, and Merula Snyde. Naturally, the former two only work with Merula when absolutely necessary.
• Temporary Online Content:
  • The Dueling Club is a recurring timed mission, often with exclusive clothes or even new spells useful in dueling as the final reward.
  • Commonly, there is a random timed mission running which rewards you with notebooks and special outfits for earning house points or full stars in classes.
  • Each Year has 1 or more Achievements available to earn bonus clothing/gems/spells/etc. They begin randomly during the Year, but have a set timer to finish. Keep your eyes peeled!
• Terrible Trio: Merula, Barnaby, and Ismelda.
• That's Gotta Hurt: In Quidditch, if you fail to dodge the Bludger, Murphy McNully comments "Oof, that must've hurt! Has anyone got a Wiggenweld potion?"
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Emily Tyler, Bill's crush in a Year 3 side quest, disappears as soon as the quest is over. Until she returns as Penny's rival to get elected as head of the Celestial Ball Planning Committee. She also makes fun of Ismelda for her crush on Barnaby in a Year 5 side quest.
  • Talbott, the student who helps you become an Animagus, returns in Year 5 when you talk to the Grey Lady.
• The Chew Toy: The often mentioned but never seen Billingsley, who somehow manages to injure himself whenever he attempts to do anything - sometimes out of bad luck, sometimes out of stupidity.
• This Is Gonna Suck: In the first lesson on the Banishing Charm (Depulso), Professor Flitwick warns the students that all the cushions that he would normally pass around the class were accidentally burnt by a student from his previous class.
  Professor Flitwick: My apologies for today's less comfortable, and most likely injury-riddled lesson.
• Tragic Keepsake: After Rowan's death, during "Head Boys and Girls", Dumbledore would indirectly give you Rowan's hat, scarf, or sweater, depending on what you picked back at the very beginning of the game.

U-Z

• Ugly Cute: invoked Thestrals, according to Merula in the quest where you get her accustomed to one.
• Undying Loyalty: A Hufflepuff trait, particularly with Penny and Chiara, and you in return.
  Penny: Thank you again for all of your help. I can't imagine what life would be like without you.
  You: I feel the same way, Penny. I'll always be here for you.
  • You can take it to an almost literal level with Chiara when convincing her to tell you a critical, sensitive secret.
  You: I'll make an Unbreakable Vow that I'll never betray you.
  Chiara: But if you broke that vow, you'd die!
  You: I know. That's how committed I am to helping you, Chiara.
  • And of course, tragically, Rowan.
• Ungrateful Bastard: No matter how many house points the player accumulates and the 100 house points Dumbledore gives you at the end of your first year (and the class grinding almost guarantees your player will always be first in the leaderboard), there will always be some snide upperclassman pointing out your loss of house points in the first few chapters, with your prefect asking what you've been doing to help the house.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: during the Murtlap lesson in Year 4, Professor Kettleburn describes them as "pretty normal, really". Possibly justified in that the creatures, essentially a rat with an anemone-like growth on their back, aren't particularly interesting or magical in and of themselves - the growth can be pickled into healing solutions and jinx and curse protection, but when alive, Murtlaps are basically slightly stranger rats. ^note Although, according to Pottermore, their bite can be particularly dangerous, especially to Muggles. Certain reactions include the afflicted shooting flames from their anus.
  • Also, one of the Year 5 Herbology lessons is ginger root. Just, regular ginger root. Apparently, it's an ingredient in several potions despite its non-magical properties.
• Vertigo Effect: done when Snape and the player cast Legilimency.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Plenty of opportunities to do so. Making friends usually requires you to show some care for them.
  • You have the option of inviting Filch and Mrs. Norris to Hagrid's pet gathering. If you do, once they show up you get to see a rare smile out of Filch as he admits "We don't get invited to many parties" and thanks the player character for inviting them.
  • You are also given multiple opportunities to be nice to Merula despite her bullying and mean-spirited tendencies.
  • And now, you get to take care of and adopt magical creatures. It's purely for entertainment once they're finished up.
  • Gobstones are a strange case, in which to win most easily, you often have to say mean or insensitive things to "distract" them. For example, when playing against Chiara, the player had to remind her of being a werewolf to get most points. This trope comes into play when some players refuse to pick the easy option, and instead use their high attribute points to win at gobstones anyway while picking the "wrong", nice options.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Without a high enough Empathy level, you may be forced to do or say things that make your character look bad, such as refusing to help Madame Rosmerta or telling Hagrid you don't want to visit (he flatout tells you that you hurt his feelings). This really bites you in the butt when you're supposed to be learning Penny's secrets, as you won't be able to level up and she'll say, "I'm sorry, you don't seem interested in listening."
  • Many options which increase Courage involve the player standing their ground in a brutally honest way, such as snapping at Rowan after they apologise for making a off-handed remark about the player in Year 5, or bitterly remarking their jealousy and suspicion of Cedric during their first meeting in Year 6.
  • Though Merula is an egotistic bully who discriminates against muggleborns and initiates most of the antagonism in your relationship, some of the dialogue choices to her are particularly cruel. Some examples are rubbing it in her face that she only bullies because she wants people to pay attention to her after her parents left, how everyone would be happier if she disappeared, boasting about how Tulip is now your buddy after finding out Merula's history with her, how she's worthless and weak when she asks you how you keep beating her, or sabotaging her post popularity contest interview (which you would have been the deciding vote on) with Rita Skeeter by mentioning her parents and acts around the school. Some may consider it karmic, though.
  • Naming Hagrid's puppy Voldemort.
  • Using Incendio in your duels with other students.
  • In the prefect quest, you will be put into competition against Rowan for the position. Depending on their friendship level, the player can either talk with Rowan about it (who will assure the player that there's no hard feelings) or ignore and be rude to them, which will leave Rowan hurt and confused from your behavior as their best friend. Twisting the knife is the game's repeated reminder that Rowan has always supported you and has done nothing to deserve this.
  • Wearing the werewolf onesie outfit from its Full Marks event may count as this especially if your character is a Hufflepuff girl, as she would share a dormitory with Chiara, who is secretly a werewolf dreading her condition, and Penny, who is deathly afraid of werewolves.
• Voice Grunting: Only professors (in classes) and Dumbledore (at chapter endings) have a small selection of voice lines, but they are not part of the text dialogue. Everyone else's voices amount to this trope. A lot of the sounds are shared (Orion, Charlie and Bill are quite noticeable in this regard). However, there are some exceptions and they compliment their characters. Penny has unique shrieks and laughs that sound girly, Merula frequently uses a low-pitched laugh that sounds mocking, while Chiara's vocalisations are quiet and soothing.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: During an excursion to Knockturn Alley, your companion (either Bill, Merula, or Jae) will get hit with a curse that causes them to vomit slugs until you cast Finite Incantatem.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: The Devil's Snare is a more dubiously-handled execution of this trope, as it serves as the introduction to the "energy" mechanic the game is widely criticized for. After an uninterrupted tutorial, the player is placed in a fight against the Devil's Snare, who wipes out their entire energy bar and places their avatar in a choke-hold: they can only escape if the player either pays real money for more energy, or wait an hour before the Devil's Snare lets them go. The intent of this battle is likely to scare the player into making a split-second purchase, especially if it's a child who doesn't want to see "themselves" being strangled to death. Unfortunately, this is the first of many micro-transactions the player would have to deal with if they want to continue beyond this point.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Averted and discussed when Myron congratulates the player character for singing to Snape "without freezing up, messing up your lyrics, or ripping a hole in your trousers!"
• Watch Out for That Tree!: Discussed in Flying lessons.
  • Penny says that Tonks lost control of her broom and collided with the Whomping Willow.
  • When reviewing the Weaving lesson, Madam Hooch says, "...today we'll be continuing our work on weaving maneuvers. Unless of course, you'd like to fly into a tree. Then, by all means, ignore this review."
  • Later, after the first barrel roll class, poor Tonks confesses that she crashed her broom into the Owlery, the Astronomy Tower, the Whomping Willow, and Hagrid's vegetable patch, then says "That's a few less crashes than my average, so I'd say I'm getting better."
• Water Is Air: Going underwater in year 6 chapter 37 and after gets pretty bad about this. You do need the Bubble-Head Charm and it is said to be "dark and murky", but otherwise, you can simply walk on the lake floor, no mention of cold, no flow in hair or clothes, and you can use Incendio underwater despite Merula specifically claiming you can't in chapter 41.
• Wax On, Wax Off: Sir Cadogan's bizarre tasks in the Year 5 "Knighthood" achievement.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 18 of Year 6. Rowan, your loyal best friend who has been with you from the very start of the game, takes the killing curse for Ben and dies. Almost nobody had seen this coming, and it was a shock considering how few real consequences the player had suffered at this point from never listening to Dumbledore's advice to keep out of danger.
  • Chapter 39 of Year 7. After being tricked into reaching a Portkey mirror, the Player has finally a confrontation with the Director and R’s leader, who turn out to be Merula’s abusive aunt and the Player’s father respectively.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Tonks calls you out if you choose to use Legilimency to discover Merula's happiest memory.
• With Catlike Tread:
  • Skye Parkin makes a huge racket flipping over furniture in another House's common room where she's not supposed to be.
  • An Incredibly Obvious Tail is lampshaded after the first Antidote to Common Poisons lesson. Barnaby approaches the player character and says "Merula told me to spy on you."
    Player Character: Isn't the most important part of being a spy not telling your target that you're a spy?
• Wolverine Publicity: Snape and McGonagall are on the app thumbnail despite having minimal impact on the plot unless your character is sorted into Slytherin or Gryffindor.
  • Within the original characters, Penny and Barnaby are the only ones with the more detailed models and feature in the cinematic trailers. This is likely because they are the most popular female and male love interest respectively.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Dumbledore treats the (first) defeat of Voldemort as if it only happened a few months ago, wishing young Harry Potter well. However, the game's first year is in 1984, as both Bill Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks are at Hogwarts with you; the young Harry defeated Voldemort three years earlier in 1981.
• You ALL Look Familiar: While there is a significant amount of facial variation (particularly hair; e.g. Merula and Penny have very distinctive hairstyles the player can't replicate), almost all students of the same gender have the same body model, in any year, which makes Erika Rath, who's very muscular, stand out a lot.
• You Didn't Ask: Tonks gives this explanation for why she didn't tell the player character that she can cast the Patronus Charm.
• You Do Not Want To Know: In the "Become an Animagus" side quest, Talbott warns "You don't want to know what happens if the transformation goes wrong."
• You Just Told Me: If you choose to use magic after Flitwick explicitly told you not to during the Celestial Ball TLSQ, he will know because Barnaby blurted it out like that.
• Younger Than They Look: During the player’s first year, Snape is only 24-25. Meanwhile, his character model is based on Alan Rickman, who was 54 when filming the first movie when Snape was supposed to be 31.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: After being coerced into a series of pranks by Peeves, the player character shows a bit of this after Tulip and Tonks enthusiastically praise them for the chaos (more so if you choose the dialogue option that you'd rather not let anyone know you did it).

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