The Harry Potter series is being adapted again, and this time there are a lot of things different. Spreading out about one movie per book and perhaps more than one season per book should give you enough time to cover all the storylines in the series, but that’s probably too much to expect. Seven is the most magically powerful number in the wizarding world, so let’s take a look at the top seven stories in the new series that you can’t skip.
Video by ComicBook.com
Harry Potter has become a global sensation over the past two decades, but as far as faithful adaptations go, there’s actually a lot missing. The film chose some strange locations to make cuts and simplifications, cutting out some fan-favorite characters and world-building in the process. To be fair, this was before Game of Thrones showed studios just how huge an animated feature-length fantasy adaptation could be, and now they’re giving the series a fuller look. It seems like they want to take advantage of it. Read about the plot points that should definitely be covered this time in the second Harry Potter movie.
midnight duel
No one would mistake Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy for being friends in the movies, but in the original, their rivalry escalated much more quickly. The two compete in class for Quidditch pitches and house points, but by Chapter 9 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, they find themselves squarely in a duel of wizards. Their midnight botched fight is the culmination of the tween drama in this book and changes the tone of key moments in the story. I hope it stays around this time of year.
(Related: Harry Potter HBO TV Show Confirms Fan-Favorite Character Doesn’t Appear in Movie)
plunderer
The new adaptation of the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, features a split timeline that includes flashbacks to when Harry’s father was at Hogwarts with Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. It should definitely be included. The film version glosses over the characteristics of this group of friends, robbing fans of the Marauders’ appeal, and also leaving important parts of the story unexplained.
This book gives us a big lore dump near the end. Lupine’s brilliant but rebellious friends discover that he is a werewolf and are looking for a way to help him. They go through the process of becoming Animagi (magicians who can transform into animals), but do so in secret without registering their powers. This allows them to sneak out at night, stay with Lupine during his transformation, and control him if he gets out of hand.
The movie shows us all the pieces of this puzzle, but never explains why James, Sirius, and Peter became Animagi or what risks they took by becoming Animagi. Not yet. It is also not explained how this helped Sirius escape from Azkaban.
spit out
It’s hard to blame the movie for ignoring Hermione’s defense of the house elf, and it wouldn’t be too surprising if this streaming series did the same. However, I would like to say that this is a mistake. A good film adaptation has to face up to its source material’s flaws and all, and JK Rowling’s portrayal of these magical servants is anything but pretty.
For those who don’t remember, house elves are little creatures that are magically assigned to serve witches and wizards, and only Muggleborn Hermione is horrified by this information. She forms the Society for the Promotion of Elf Welfare (SPEW) in the fourth volume, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Throughout the series, everyone opposes her efforts, including other Muggle-born witches and wizards, and most of the house elves themselves. By the end of the book, nothing has changed for the house elves, Hermione’s serious interest in them is treated as a joke time and time again, and many readers believe that Rowling’s worldview is situationally akin to slavery. I came to the conclusion that I agree with this.
New adaptations may include this plotline without coming to the same conclusion. A few tweaks to the way other characters react to Hermione would go a long way, and could ultimately give Dobby, Kreacher, etc. a little more screen time to complete their arcs. The next item on the list is also relevant here.
winky
In addition to skipping SPEW, the movie also completely skipped Winky the House Elf. Winky was a servant of the Crouch family who helped hide Barty Crouch Jr. after he escaped from Azkaban, and was an integral part of the plot of Goblet of Fire. Again, this was never explained onscreen in the movie, but in the book we learn that Crouch’s traumatized mother replaced him in prison, and that He ventures into the outside world, eventually impersonating Mad-Eye Moody and helping Voldemort resurrect himself.
Winky then begins working in the Hogwarts kitchen with Dobby. There they appear occasionally in the story, later serving as a familiar point of view. All of this makes her important to the upcoming series.
Rita Skeeter
Another plot that the film skips is in the fourth volume, which begins with the introduction of Rita Skeeter, an unscrupulous reporter for the Daily Prophet. Throughout the volume, she gets some strange scoops that surprise Hermione, and at the very end, Hermione reveals that Rita is also an unregistered Animagus. Hermione realizes that she has been cowering in order to listen to other people’s conversations without being noticed, and traps her in a jar in her insect form.
Granted, this isn’t an important part of the story, but it’s fun. Hermione blackmails Rita with the legal ramifications of Rita’s illegal transformation and forces a reporter to help them in a later book. Eventually, when Rita once again started bashing Harry and his friends in the press, it became a major sign of a change in power relations in the wizarding world, as Hermione’s threats were no longer enough to scare reporters. This is one of the signs. All in all, this is interesting enough that I’ll definitely be adding it again.
weasley twin finance
Ludo Bagman’s character was completely cut out in the movie, which isn’t necessarily a big deal, but the Weasley twins’ desperate thirst for money was taken away from us. In the book, the twins need money to start a magical prank business on earth, and bet all the cash they’ve earned so far on the Quidditch World Cup. They then spend the book trying to collect the bounty from Bugman, much to Bugman’s dismay.
At the end of the book, Harry wants nothing to do with the prize money he won in the Triwizard tournament. He gave the money to the twins to invest in their own business, and they never forgot it. Harry gets a lifetime of free goods from the Weasley’s Wizard Weeds, and develops an even closer relationship with Fred and George in the process. This is yet another epidemic that entangles Harry and the Weasley family and tugs at all our heartstrings. The twins’ financial ambitions should be reflected on screen, as their story is about class and humility.
phineas nigellus black
Finally, the character of Phineas Nigellus Black was cut from the movie. This was perhaps the most powerful information broker in the seventh film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Phineas is Sirius Black’s ancestor and former headmaster of Hogwarts, meaning that he is somewhat immortalized in his portrait that hangs in the headmaster’s office. The book also includes a portrait of Phineas that hangs in the Black family’s home at 12 Grimmauld Place. Hermione carries this portrait in her magical handbag, from which the protagonists are sometimes able to glean information about what is happening inside Hogwarts.
Phineas is an interesting character for his position in wizarding world politics, beyond his functional importance to the plot. He’s a racist and an elitist, but he doesn’t seem entirely convinced that Voldemort’s rule is right for the world. Rowling ultimately has a hard time creating a lot of characters with gray moral values, so Phineas should definitely be included for at least that reason alone.
All eight Harry Potter movies and all three Fantastic Beasts movies are currently streaming on Max. The new Harry Potter series is currently in pre-production and is scheduled to premiere on Max and HBO sometime in 2026. The Harry Potter novels are currently available in print, digital, and audiobook formats and can be accessed for free through your local library.
