We’ve pored through the books to find the blink-and-you’ll-miss-them jokes from the Harry Potter books that, honestly, we’d completely forgotten about or in some cases, never noticed in the first place. Did you?

Dr Filibuster’s Fabulous, Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks

We all remember these magical fireworks due to Fred and George’s love of them: fireworks that never seem to stop exploding – or at least on one occasion for ‘at least half an hour’.

It wasn’t until a long while later that we realised that a ‘filibuster’ is a political tactic, where a speaker delivers a time-wasting speech that doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to end. These ceaseless fireworks were made by one ‘Dr Filibuster’ – coincidence?

Roonil Wazlib

We’ve all had our names misspelt before, right? Forms, coffee cups, birthday cards... but maybe not quite as dramatic as the great Roonil Wazlib.

Thanks to one of Fred and George’s useful joke shop products, a Spell-Checking quill with its charm wearing off, Ron inadvertently created the best nickname ever. Although it positively ruined one of Ron’s essays, it did later come in handy for Harry, pretending he was the great Roonil Wazlib to avoid a textbook faux pas with Snape.

Happily, Roonil Wazlib had a shelf life outside of the Harry Potter books – with the iconic monicker becoming a meme amongst the fans forever more. Long live Roonil!

Professor Binns never getting anyone’s name right

The novelty of having a ghost teach a Hogwarts subject quickly wore off for Harry and his school-friends, after discovering Professor Binns’ History of Magic classes were not exactly stimulating, Perhaps the only interesting thing about them is that Binns never got anyone’s names right at all – you can find multiple examples of this across the books.

In Binns’ defence, he is still working despite being dead, so you can maybe forgive him for not being entirely on his A-game.

Merlin’s many... things

For reasons only wizards and witches may know, it has become common parlance in the wizarding world to use “Merlin’s..." as an exclamation. Perhaps a nod to some of our idiosyncratic British phrases, such as Flaming Nora and Gordon Bennett. (Look them up, seriously.)

Usually, when shocked or surprised by something, a witch or wizard may opt for a nice, innocent, “Merlin’s beard”. But we have seen more upscaled versions. Never forget Hermione’s controversial, “Merlin’s pants!” - could it ever get more scandalous than that?

Well, yes.

Weatherby!

It feels only apt that the Weasley family have infiltrated many of the moments on this list. But now, here’s one from an unlikely source: poor Percy.

Determined to impress his boss at the Ministry, Percy was instead left to reconcile with the fact Mr Crouch barely knew his name, earning him the new one of Weatherby. And it wasn’t just one time. For the entire of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Percy is called Weatherby at every opportune moment – and of course, Fred and George are only happy to join in.

Commemorative toilet seats

Okay, one more Weasley submission for the road. The Weasley twins, of course, were no strangers to a good laugh – but we particularly enjoyed this more subtle endeavour of theirs – a strange dedication to toilet seats.

In the first instance we meet them, Fred and George console their weeping sister Ginny by saying they’ll send her a Hogwarts toilet seat as they part ways. But this isn’t the only time the Weasley twins employ toilet seats as an off-piste replacement for a greeting card. When Harry wakes up in the hospital wing at the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone...