Harry Potter plotholes/ goofs that really annoy you

[Aproductofmyera80s]

I absolutely love Harry Potter, I watch it twice a year, would watch it more if I had the time. One plothole that gets me every time, so Fred and George had the marauders map all that time and didn’t notice that Ron’s rat was Peter pettigrew?
every time I watch it, it grinds my gears.
any one else notice anything?

In fairness, Peter Pettigrew probably didn’t mean anything to them. They probably wouldn’t have been watching Ron much, and if they did maybe they just thought Peter was a lad from Ron’s year.

Why didn’t Barty Crouch Jnr just make the port key a pen? Job done on day one.

It annoys me too when they say ‘there wasn’t a wizard gone bad who wasn’t a Slytherin’. What about Sirius? That might’ve been a realistic thing people would say though rather than a plot hole.

How did the Dursley never get reported for neglect?
Also... how did obviously neglecting the child not flag them as strange to their friends? Let's face it... parents gossip!

That time turner could have solved so many issues. However it is a kids series..

The size of the school. Hogwarts isn't nearly big enough to educate all the wizards for the whole UK.

Sirius was innocent, he was framed! But to be fair Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor so that's still a good point.

I think the point the poster was making was that at the time Hagrid said that to Harry, Sirius was in azkaban and presumed guilty by the entire wizarding world.

Indeed! Sirius was very much thought guilty when it was said.

The time turner thing - stupid thing to introduce, could solve any problems

The whole plot of Goblet of fire - entirely about getting Harry to pick up a portkey, there has to have been an easier way to do that!

Ahhh right I'm with you, yeah that's a good point!

How were the weasleys poor. Surely as a wizard money is pointless because you can just magic stuff up. Like instead of living in a ramshackle old house why didn't they just magically fix/spruce up the house, likewise with the hand me down wizards robes.

Right they use the time turner to stop a hippogriff dying but they can’t use it to stop Sirius dying?!

@user09876543 Agree- and we are not alone!

depending on it’s supposed Time frame you can skip, they could have gone back and saved Harry’s parents also, I guess it could have been introduced for a better reason, but the hippogriff saved Sirius on that night too so…

But they can only be used to go back five hours even in the wizarding world…

I guess he needed to make the port key something that only Harry would pick up and anyone could pick up a pen? Although we know how well that went (RIP Cedric)

He could’ve just said ‘right Harry, I saw you laughing with Ron while I was talking. Detention for you! Here, use this pen to write your lines…’

Convoluted plan for no good reason.

Sirius was a Gryffindor not Slytherin. The rest of his family was Slytherin.

The timeturners are a closed loop and they don't actually change anything (and terrible things happen when you do try to change things), they just create more time. Buckbeak never died, the timeturner doesn't save him, it creates the time for Harry and Hermione to free him before he is killed. Macnair always swings his axe in frustration at being robbed of an execution, it's just the first time around Harry and Hermione couldn't see Buckbeak wasn't there... because they had already taken him, they just didn't know that yet. They thought he had been executed but they had already saved him.

They couldn't use the timeturner to stop Sirius or Harry's parents from dying because they actually die in the current timeline. Harry can't go back and change that.

As for the elaborate plot to kidnap Harry in GOF, remember Voldemort does not want anyone to know he has returned. If Harry just randomly disappears one day then the whole wizarding world will be up in arms searching for him, there have already been signs Voldeort is getting stronger - the jig will be up. Harry's death is supposed to look like a tragic accident in the maze - that's why the portkey can return to Hogwarts, Voldemort was always going to kill him and send the body back so no one was the wiser that anything but an accident had happened.

Ah if you mean in terms of students, an explanation could be that the wizarding war only ended when Harry lived after 11 years. So there may have been low birth rates in the war and perhaps a few years after. So perhaps in the 1950s there were (I dunno) 400 kids per year, but for maybe a decade if declining births meant fewer kids were entering, with Harry's year being the smallest on record.

They do mention unused classrooms etc.

Another thing , why did Harry only start seeing the thestrals after witnessing Cedric dying, when he literally witnessed his parents dying…..

also voldemorts timing, how is it, everything always happens at the end of the school year…

The thestraks have been explained... Harry was too young to understand when his parents died.

He was only a baby so didn't understand he was seeing death.

Pretty sure in the books all the time turners get destroyed in the battle.

The answer on the thestrals is that you have to understand death when you see it - and baby Harry did not. You also have to have had time to process and come to terms with it, which is why he can't see them at the end of GOF - even though Cedric is already dead.

The real question is how did Harry see Cedric die when his eyes were closed at the time?

"And then, without warning, Harry’s scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as he had never felt in all his life; his wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all; his head was about to split open.

From far away, above his head, he heard a high, cold voice say, “Kill the spare.”

A swishing noise and a second voice, which screeched the words to the night: “Avada Kedavra’ A blast of green light blazed through Harry’s eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him; the pain in his scar reached such a pitch that he retched, and then it diminished; terrified of what he was about to see, he opened his stinging eyes."