I love Harry Potter, much like the rest of the world. Unfortunately, though, I only read it for the first time a few years ago. I missed the opportunity to read them with the blind accepting eyes of a child! As I result I am less forgiving about some of its plot holes. It’s a shame, really, because it’s an amazing story with some amazing and relatable characters. I guess I just like sucking the joy out of things that people love.

It also seems rather pointless picking holes in a world of magic. Surely if something seems wrong, a wizard did it! If you feel that something is missing, or something doesn’t make sense, then it’s because as muggles we don’t understand the magical world. We also don’t have the proper grasp of the magical things discussed in Harry Potter. There is no point in us asking why they didn’t do something with one magical object. If they could do it, they would have. We just don’t understand how they work.

Nevertheless, there are some Harry Potter moments that I just can’t let slip by! Call me a mudblood if you must, but the things discussed in these memes need to be talked about. So far, I still haven’t heard a lot of reasonable explanations. After all, if they’re so magic, then they can just use their magic to hide this from you!

(Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

30 The Lowly Janitor

We know that wizards can use magic to clean up after themselves. That’s why they don’t need things like electricity (aka vacuum cleaners and dishwashers). They don’t need them because they can magic mess away.

But if that’s true, then why does Hogwarts need a caretaker?

Or a groundskeeper, for that matter! Most fans say that it’s because Dumbledore was kind and hired people who needed jobs, which is sweet of him. But if that is the case, then why doesn’t he get electricity in the castle to help them, since Filch and Hagrid can’t use magic? Surely a hoover and a chainsaw would make their jobs a lot easier. And if Hogwarts is employing staff, then why do they still use the house elves?

29 Gryffindor FTW!

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This is something that really annoys me a lot of the time. Okay, so Draco and his chums are jerks, but what about the rest of Slytherin that get on with their work and try really hard for those points? I think it’s really unfair that all of Slytherin are bullied because Voldemort was in their house! Sure, there were other bad wizards, but given the number of kids who go to Hogwarts, they must be a small minority.

It’s why I always understood Snape having the Slytherin’s backs. They’re picked on by the whole school, including the headmaster. You can’t just give Harry Potter a bunch of points for going on an adventure and throw away a years’ worth of work for all the good Slytherins who got Slytherin to the position they were in.

28 How To Be Invisible

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Okay, so I don’t want to jump onto the bandwagon of “why doesn’t Harry sneak into the girls' changing rooms” because I firstly think Harry is a better person than that, and secondly, that’s not funny.

But why did he go to the library first?

It’s not the One Ring, the dark forces aren’t going to be drawn to you if you use the cloak. But it feels like Harry doesn’t dare to do anything daring with it until the third book when he sneaks into Hogsmeade (using it to sneak off without a permission slip? Potter, you crazy thing). Why doesn’t he use it to mess with Snape more? Or hide all of Draco Malfoy's textbooks or something? I just feel like this is a very charitable portrayal of a teenager.

27 What’s With The Glasses?

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Even us muggles have mastered the art of laser eye surgery! Or at least contact lenses. We know that Harry’s glasses aren’t for show from the seventh book, when the decoy Potters all have to put on his prescription. But why after so many years in the magical world does Harry still need to wear glasses? He can fix his glasses at will, the nurse can fix broken bones, regrow bones, and even shrink Hermione’s teeth! So why can’t he just pop down there and ask the nurse if she can help out his eyesight?

And it’s not just Harry. Dumbledore wears glasses, Molly Weasley wears glasses, and Professor McGonagall wears them. Great wizards and witches who can defeat the dark arts, but not their astigmatism!

26 How’s Peter?

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This is one I realized fairly recently. I put it to some Potter-loving friends and it doesn’t seem like anyone has an explanation for this one. Fred and George are curious, so there is no way they didn’t check in on their brother while he slept, at least once just for the heck of it. We know that the map shows “Scabbers” as Peter Pettigrew, from after Harry gets the map and we know that Scabbers slept on Ron’s pillow.

So why did Fred and George never ask him why he slept so closely with another boy named Peter every night?

Sure, it’s cute that they accept their brother having a Pegg/Frost buddy! But since they never met Peter or saw him hanging around with Ron, surely they would have brought him up at least once?

25 Listen To Strangers

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To be fair, Harry has an immense trust in strangers during the first book. Given the rough childhood he’s had, surely he’d be a little warier of adults. But it doesn’t take that much convincing for him to go with Hagrid. Certainly, there is an element of fear there, or at least the thought that they can’t be any worse than Vernon and Petunia. But he is still quick to trust him. This shows again when Molly, a woman he’s just met, tells him to run straight through the barrier to platform 9 ¾.

What this also makes me wonder is whether the muggle parents were given instructions. No parent is going to let some stranger tell their kids to run into a brick wall, even if they had just seen someone do it! And what would he have done if Molly hadn’t been there?

24 An Eye For An Eye

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Hogwarts teachers, especially Professor McGonagall, are very strict about kids being out past their bedtime, particularly in their first year. This is understandable. With a school as dangerous as Hogwarts, where the staircases can take you to strange and unfamiliar areas, it's very easy to get lost. While we all had teachers, who were unfair or unjust, McGonagall’s disappointment in her students is understandable, as she is responsible for keeping them safe.

But then why does she then send them into an area that had been specified as out of bounds?

There are lots of dangerous creatures, including one that’s hurting unicorns! Sure, they’re with Hagrid. Except, they're not, because he then lets Draco and Harry go off alone! This is not a good life lesson!

23 Hogwarts P.E.

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It’s very unfair that the students at Hogwarts don’t seem to do all the stuff that are considered basic life skills to us, such as math, geography, or science. But perhaps the most unfair aspect of it all is that they all seem to get a pass at P.E. (or gym if you’re American).

I’m pretty sure that flying around on broomsticks isn’t great exercise. It requires skill, that’s for sure, but the broom is still doing a lot of the work. So how are these Hogwarts students keeping up with the British standard for physical exercise in school? Is this why the staircases changed? To encourage students to do more walking or take longer and more reliable routes around the school? Well, certainly beats the beep test!

22 Catch The Letters

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You know, for a seeker, Harry really isn’t that great at catching things. This is shown in the first film where he opts to grab a letter out of the air rather than pick a handful up off the floor.

This moment feels less silly in the books, but that’s probably because I didn’t have to watch it.

He could have run into the hallway, picked up a letter and ran into his cupboard or the bathroom, getting away before large Uncle Vernon even got out of his chair! I don’t imagine a lot of rational thinking was going on in this situation. But were it Hermione in this position, there is no way she would have jumped up, trying to catch the ones that were currently falling.

21 Use The Time Turner!

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I don’t care if all the time turners were soon destroyed. Hermione had one in the third book. I don’t care if once you go back you can’t go forward. If Voldemort really was as horrible as he was, then someone would have volunteered to go back and kick his face in as a child.

With all the lives that Voldemort takes... Harry’s parents, Cedric Diggory, Charity Burbage, many others... and all the people the people that were ended by his Death Eaters, surely one person would have been noble enough to go and stop him before all this happened. If you can use the turner to go back and save a Hippogriff from execution and that works out fine, all problems should be solved using time travel!

20 No Underage Magic

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During Chamber of Secrets Harry is punished for using magic outside of school. Underage wizards are told over and over again that it is illegal to use magic outside of school. Harry is nearly expelled for it multiple times. The ministry seems to keep one eye of students during their summer holidays at all times (especially Harry) so they can get them if they so much as use a summoning charm to drop a cake on their Aunt’s head.

So why does Hermione completely get away with fixing Harry’s glasses in Diagon Alley?

Did she even get a warning? Even if it’s a “two strikes and you’re out” system, someone would have said something to her. Maybe someone did, we just didn’t see it because it wasn’t interesting. That’s what I’m going with.

19 Harry’s Adventures

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I did touch on this earlier, but I really wanted to hit home to how awful this system is for all the other Hogwarts classes! Every time it looks like someone else is going to win, a teacher comes in and gives Harry Potter a bunch of points for being the chosen one!

But it’s not just the Slytherins; the Ravenclaws must work really hard on all their exams and tests to get the best scores and Hufflepuffs are super helpful and do their best to please. But they still get shafted every year because Dumbledore’s favorites went on an adventure! If that’s what the teachers are looking for, then let Susan Bones go off and be the protagonist next year and give other houses a fighting chance.

18 See You In The Dorm

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Just so you know, I’m not just picking the hole in Harry Potter. I’m picking this hole in every school drama ever made. Every book, film or TV show set in a school... especially boarding schools! Teenagers fall out. It’s sad but it’s true. As good as your friends from school are, you make friends with people because they’re there and you don’t know until you leave which ones are the true friends.

So, during Harry Potter, it makes sense that once or twice some of the friends fall out.

But things like this don’t make any sense! You can’t tell someone you go to school with or someone you share a room with to leave you alone or stay away from you. They literally can’t. Sorry.

17 No Slip Signed, No Logic

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Yeah, the permission slip thing was just nonsense. Surely Vernon and Petunia signed a permission slip as Harry’s legal guardians when he attended Hogwarts, so Dumbledore could have secretly slipped in the Hogsmeade one then! If they didn’t have to sign one then, then why do they now?

But more importantly, why do parents have to give their permission to allow students to visit the shops every now and then but don’t have to give their permission to send kids into the forest? But more importantly, why was Harry, in the next book, allowed to take part in a dangerous competition without parental permission? Especially if the shops were out of bounds. Nothing about the Hogsmeade permission slips sits right with me. It’s certainly not the best way to run a school.

16 Just Do It

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Out of all the supervillains in all the comics, literally nobody monologues as much as Voldemort. Firstly, I don’t understand this obsession villains have with being the one to end their nemesis.

If Voldemort had let someone else end Harry, then he would have perished.

It'd probably be during the first book and definitely before the end of Goblet of Fire. And surely by the time we get to Goblet of Fire, Voldemort would just want Harry finished with after being stopped so many times, so would just let them go ahead a do him in. Secondly, if he would just shut up and let stop trying to explain everything to Harry, then he could just end him. Why does Harry need to know all you’ve done? He won’t care when he’s finished!

15 Young Marriage

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This is probably my biggest non-magical problem with Harry Potter. How come everyone, literally (almost) everyone, meets their spouse at school? Think of all the couples in the fandom who didn’t... I bet you’d struggle to get past two! I’m sure some people find this really romantic, but personally, I just find it creepy. Really? Everyone ended up with the person they went out with when they were seventeen?

Sure, I know a few high-school sweethearts, but they are few and far between. It sorts of makes me question the self-esteem of everyone who goes to Hogwarts. Is it the only way they're told they’ll meet anyone? Do wizards not have OkCupid? This just isn’t something that can be solved by just saying “magic” to me.

14 The Quidditch Conundrum

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I’ll be honest: I’m not one of those people who claims to understand sports in the slightest. I don’t understand how points work or why anyone is doing anything. But I like to think that at least all muggle sports are fair and make some sense.

Quidditch as a sport makes no sense.

Let’s pretend we’re playing basketball. It’s been however long a basketball match is and your team has managed, through blood, sweat, and tears to claw together one hundred points from putting the ball in the net. You’re exhausted, but you feel confident that you’ve worked as a team and done your best. Only for the ref to blow their whistle and declare my team the winner even though they hadn’t made a single point, but because I found the secret golden basketball worth one hundred and fifty points.

13 Who Needs Exams?

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Okay, so nobody likes exams, right? It has been looked into whether they are the most effective way of proving what you know since very few people go on in their careers to memorize everything by heart. The stress often causes scores to be affected so much that the results can be meaningless. I personally was bad at taking exams, so was sure to take courses that didn’t have any- but was assessed in other ways such as essays.

But canceling the exams as much as Dumbledore likes to proves nothing, except that all the time students have spent studying looks meaningless! It’s not ideal, but students need those results to go forward in their careers. What happened to everyone taking their O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s the year of The Chamber of Secrets? Did they just all pass?

12 Beware The Dungeons

As we’re already established, Dumbledore doesn’t give one darn about the Slytherins and wants to crush their dreams. This is also proved by this moment in Philosopher’s Stone. One could argue that the troll was nowhere near the Slytherin dormitory, being instead near Hermione’s bathroom of choice (why she chooses the one in the dungeon I’ll never know). But Dumbledore has no way of knowing this! All he’s heard is “in the dungeon.” The Slytherin students are clearly as terrified as everyone else about the troll, so why isn’t Dumbledore doing anything about it? Why not: “Prefects take everyone back to their dormitories, except the Slytherin ones who will gather their students somewhere safe and keep an eye on them.” But nope, sorry Malfoy, haters gotta hate!

11 Poor Parenting

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Okay, so your kid gets a letter in the post telling you that they’re gifted, and they've been accepted into a special school you’ve never heard of with a bunch of people you’ve never met. In the first year, one of their teachers perishes.

In the second year, a giant snake wanders around the school and your kid spends most of the school year in a coma.

By their third year, the school is surrounded by soul-sucking demons, a known fugitive is seen in the school, and one of your child’s friends has a hairy encounter with a dog. Next, students are literally pitted against each other in a fight to the end and someone perishes during this. At what point do you stop sending your gifted little darling to their special school?