Harry Potter Predictions

The Dead Pool - Everything is Connected - Off the Wall - The Glossolalia of the Phoenix - The Big Picture

Initial version: December 8, 2001
Last update: July 18, 2007
Score so far: 4 right, 13 wrong, 2 that were obvious but I forgot to put here

• (Reverted July 17, 2007) Harry gets as close as possible to being dead, but returns to life.
• (Added December 3, 2002) Hermione survives a suicide attempt.
• Ron lives and comes through the whole experience relatively undamaged.
• Neville lives although I predict some close moments when his powers really start to show themselves.
• Cho Chang lives! Having lost interest in Harry, she is now perfectly safe.
• Ginny Weasley lives because she's already had her encounter with almost certain death.
• Draco lives to antagonize Harry well into the future.
• However, Crabbe or Goyle (or possibly both) will die.
• Dudley lives and maybe even grows up.
• Dumbledore appears to die, but, in the grand tradition of all-powerful paternal wizards, turns up again in time for the denoument.

  July 17, 2007: Okay, Rowling says he's dead, but what was that thing rising from the pyre? If any part of him somehow remains to guide Harry, I'm going to claim this is at least half right.

• (Modified July 17, 2007) Snape dies. Either it's a moderately painful death at the hands of Harry or Neville, or a spectacularly horrible death at the hands of Voldemort, but the evil-turned-good character never ever gets to live to the end of this kind of story. I know Rowling has been going against a few clichés, but I don't think she's going to tackle this one. <sniffle> Snape will then appear as a ghost.
• (Modified July 17, 2007) Professor Sinistra will take over Slytherin House.
• (Added November 26, 2002) We can't have too many of my favorite characters live (a lesson I have learned from Babylon 5), so let's say that Hagrid dies too.
• Lucius Malfoy dies due to dissension in the ranks of evil.
• (Added June 1, 2002) One of each of the following pairs of people dies: Vernon and Petunia Dursley, Fred and George Weasley, Hermione's parents.
• Sirius Black and Remus Lupin both live, but Peter Pettigrew dies doing something good.

  July 13, 2003: 1 wrong so far...

• At least one more Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher dies.
• (Added July 17, 2007) Either Seamus Finnigan or Dean Thomas will die and the reduction of Harry's dorm to four beds will provide an opportunity for dark, brooding, thoughts to be expressed.

• (Added June 4, 2003) The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in book 5 with the "personality like poisoned honey" (according to the Scholastic catalog) will be Fleur Delacour.

  July 13, 2003: Very wrong.

• Crookshanks was the cat Mrs. Figg broke her leg tripping over.
• (Added November 26, 2002) "Florence" is now Mrs. Longbottom.

  July 13, 2003: Wrong!

• (Added December 3, 2002) Lucius Malfoy is making his donations to St. Mungo's in part because someone there is making sure the Longbottoms don't recover their memories. Because if they do, I bet it turns out he was one of the Death Eaters who tortured them.
• The Bloody Baron is bloody because he was present at Nearly Headless Nick's death-- he may even have been the one holding the axe.
• The Grey Lady is Rowena Ravenclaw.
• (Added November 26, 2002) Hermione will meet Norbert again while she is visiting Viktor Krum.
• (Added November 26, 2002) Aragog, the centaurs, and the flying car will figure into a battle in the Forbidden Forest.

  July 17, 2007: Well, being that he's dead now, no Aragog, I suppose.

• (Modified November 14, 2003) Harry's experiences in his Divination and Astronomy classes will lead him to debunk the centaurs' prophecy if it is not the one Trelawney gave to Dumbledore.
• (Added December 3, 2002) Dumbledore's summer home is guarded by a Porlock (from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.)
• (Added July 13, 2003) Aberforth Dumbledore is the bartender of the Hog's Head. Didn't figure this one out myself, just saw it on Usenet, but I think it's right.
• (Added July 17, 2007) Another one from Usenet: The Half-Blood Prince's potions textbook was previously owned by Tom Riddle, and some of the notations are his.

• When Hagrid said "Everyone says Hufflepuff are duffers, but--", his next words were going to be along the lines of, "Dumbledore was a Hufflepuff, and he's the most powerful wizard there is."

  June 1, 2002: I'm wrong already! Re-reading the books for the creation of the Akashic Record, I saw that early in the first one, Dumbledore is said to be an ex-Gryffindor.

• Whatever Dumbledore asked Snape to do at the end of book 4, it wasn't to appear to rejoin the Death Eaters. Voldemort is not stupid. By now, he'll have heard that Snape had turned spy for the other side. Snape has a slow, painful death waiting for him if he ever gets near Voldemort again.

  Update: Well, I guess Voldemort is that stupid. Silly me.

• (Modified June 1, 2002) Snape is a vampire or part-vampire (if such a thing is possible). I didn't go for this theory at all when I first heard it on Usenet, but I've become completely converted.

  Update: Wrong, per a Rowling interview.

• (Expanded November 14, 2003) And speaking of popular theories from Usenet, I believe that Snape was not ever attracted to Lily Potter, Snape was not married to her, and Snape is definitely not Harry's real father! But here's what I do think:
  1. Snape is Neville Longbottom's father. I won't speculate on the details, but a Death Eater and an Auror (or Auror-in-training) does not seem like a relationship designed to last.
  2. Snape was the eavesdropper in the Hog's Head who heard the beginning of the prophecy but was discovered. Hey, hearing that your kid could be the one to off the Dark Lord could rattle anyone's concentration. This would be what let to him turning against Voldemort.
  3. Snape joined Hogwarts and is after the Defense Against the Dark Arts job because he wants to be the one to train Neville to defeat Voldemort. Getting custody of Neville was probably not an option once he was revealed to have been a Death Eater (though maybe he set the other Death Eaters on Frank Longbottom with an eye to persuading Alice to take him back once Mr. Longbottom was removed from the picture).
  4. Dumbledore has never told Snape the full prophecy. You'd think a person who can defeat one of the most powerful dark wizards ever and live to 170 would be able to learn from his own mistakes, but Dumbledore seems to have a lot of trouble telling anyone the whole truth. Speaking of which...
  5. The fact that Snape is Neville's father was protected by a Fidelius Charm with Dumbledore as its Secret-Keeper. Neville's parentage is probably well-known among characters of his parents' generation. I think Lupin was trying to hint at it when he had Neville imagine the boggart dressed like his grandmother.

  July 17, 2007: Got the eavesdropper part right, at least.

• Hermione will become a Prefect, Head Girl, and a properly registered Animagus.

  July 13, 2003: 1 right!

• (Added July 13, 2003) Ron is a True Seer.
• The word "scar" at the very end of book 7 (Rowling says it'll be the last word at the moment) will refer to a scar on someone other than Harry.

  July 17, 2007: Well, Rowling says it isn't the last word anymore, but it's still near the end.

• (Revised November 14, 2003) Further romantic predictions: Ginny and Neville; Fleur Delacour and Sirius Black; Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris; Harry and Luna though I don't know if it will last; Lupin and an as-yet-unintroduced Muggle.

  July 13, 2003: Well, Fleur not being into necrophilia, I think that part is wrong, and things are not looking good for Ginny and Neville either.

  July 17, 2007: You know, in hindsight, the Harry/Ginny thing is obvious. And I got Lupin wrong. But Harry did, technically, go on a date with Luna.

• (Added July 13, 2003) Millicent Bulstrode will betray Draco's gang to Dumbledore's side. They may not be the Inquisitorial Squad anymore, but there's some kind of organized group crystallizing around Draco, and every organized group in these books comes equipped with one traitor.
• (Added November 26, 2002) Snape finds (a new) true love, takes over as Heir of Slytherin when Voldemort is finally erased from the mortal plane, is awarded the Order of Merlin, and gets to live a long, happy life. I realize this conflicts with predictions elsewhere on this page, and I think all of it is highly unlikely, but I'd feel terrible if any of this were to happen and I hadn't predicted it.
• (Added July 13, 2003) Harry's classmate who stays behind at Hogwarts to teach will be Neville. Rowling said one of them will stay and "it's not who you think". Okay, that makes this too easy a guess, so let's also say that he's the one who beats the jinx on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. And how about he'll become Headmaster, too!
• (Added November 14, 2003) Cat-Kneazle hybrids (not sure about straight cats or Kneazles) are used as helper animals for Squibs.
• (Added November 14, 2003) Harry, Ron, and Hermione will all get good enough test scores to become Aurors, but only Ron will decide to become one.
• (Added July 17, 2007) The House system will be abolished at Hogwarts. Thus, in the Gryffindor/Slytherin quarrel, it will finally be shown that Helga Hufflepuff was right all along.
• (Added July 17, 2007) Fred and George's unusual bet on the Quidditch World Cup will turn out to be due to someone with a Time-Turner tipping them off.
• (Added July 17, 2007) Vernon Dursley will say "abracadabra" at a really bad moment. I'm convinced, from the sources I've read, that "avada kedavra" as the source for "abracadabra" is folk etymology, but if Rowling believes it is, then it can be in her world.
• (Added July 17, 2007) The character who displays magical powers very late in life is Filch. I'm not at all sure, but he's my sympathetic favorite.
• (Added July 17, 2007) Everything, or nearly everything, that Ron saw in the Mirror of Erised will come true and this will be a point of some soreness between Harry and Ron.
• (Added July 17, 2007) Dumbledore, in preparing for his death, has left behind a treasure trove of secrets he was keeping for Harry and/or the Order to discover.
• (Added July 17, 2007) The mysterious veiled archway in the Department of Mysteries is a direct portal to death. And, it will be closed off by the end of the last book. Leaving holes in reality lying around is never a good idea...
• (Added July 18, 2007) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be dedicated to Rowling's mother.

When the mysterious card with the abbreviated plot for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was auctioned off, I decided to try and put predictions to the dozen words that were released publicly. Given that they were made on almost no basis, I expected all of them to be wrong. Well, I was almost right there...

• Thirty-eight chapters... might change... longest volume: This we already knew.
• Ron: Does something stupid out of frustration at having no real recognition for himself.

  July 13, 2003: Wrong, as things turned around for him before his ego hit the crisis point.

• broom: Hermione gets her own broom.

  July 13, 2003: Wrong, but so close! Aargh!

• sacked: Dumbledore has already been nearly removed once-- Lucius Malfoy may get it to stick this time.

  July 13, 2003: Well, we don't know whether Malfoy was directly involved with it this time, and without the context on the card the word could have applied to Trelawney or Dumbledore or both, but I think there's room to claim a hit.

• house-elf: Well, we know Dobby has to do something really useful one of these times. No specific prediction, though.

  July 13, 2003: Nonspecifically wrong.

• new teacher: Rowling has already said there is a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and my prediction is listed above.
• dies: For once I agree with the general feeling out there-- that the big death in this book will be Hagrid.

  July 13, 2003: Shows what following the crowd will do. Still, Sirius didn't even occur to me as a strong possibility.

• sorry: Well, let's take an hour or two and count the number of things we know of that someone might conceivably need to apologize to someone about... My guess at this point is Sirius expresses remorse about nearly getting Snape killed when they were in school. Not necessarily to Snape-- I think it's more likely Sirius feels bad about getting Lupin involved in it.

  July 13, 2003: Well, he may have but we never saw it. Wrong!

• The Killing Curse is designated "Unforgivable" when there are a bazillion other ways to kill someone with magic because it destroys the soul of the target. This is why the echoes of Voldemort's victims produced by the Priori Incantatem effect have their personalities and awareness-- these are properties of the soul in the Potterverse.
• The prophecy's placement in row 97 means it will be concluded in 1997. This means late in book 6 or early in book 7, leaving a good long chunk of book to address the cleanup after the war.
• The spell that Lily Potter cast can be characterized as a wish for peace and reconciliation. The twinned wands and Voldemort's use of Harry's blood have only served to strengthen the bond.
• Harry's scar holds the piece of Voldemort's soul which was supposed to be put into a Horcrux with Harry's death.
• Voldemort inherited something from Grindelwald which made him the successful Dark Lord that he was. A spell, a crucial piece of knowledge (maybe how to construct a Horcrux), an artifact, or something.
• Okay, one more off-the-wall one to close: Dumbledore was Grindelwald, but gave it up for some reason.

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