Here's a few of the top things that people suggested, quite a few times over, in some cases. And we must say – your Seer skills were slightly off, but as we know from Professor Trelawney, the art of Divination can be a bit… hit and miss.
And one last thing – you can definitely expect spoilers if you continue to read on!
That Harry and Hermione would get together (and other hypothetical Hogwarts romances)
By far, one of the top predictions fans had about how the Harry Potter series would end was thinking it would be Harry, not Ron, who ended up with Hermione, romantically speaking. In fact, a lot of fans still disagree about this – and still think Hermione and Harry would’ve been a great match. As for us, we couldn’t possibly comment – but we did compile a list of times where we noticed the sparks between Harry’s two best friends.
And, it’s comforting to see that in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Ron and Hermione are still very much in love – and still bickering.
When it came to matters of the heart, this wasn’t the only couple people wrongly predicted. A lot of you thought Luna and Neville may get together – but we know that Neville actually settled down with Hufflepuff student Hannah Abbott, while Luna went on to have a family with Rolf Scamander, Newt Scamander’s grandson. Although, in the film, things are a little different, with Neville going to search for Luna after the Battle of Hogwarts, saying he is ‘crazy’ about her. So, to those that predicted this one – you weren’t that far off!
That Dumbledore might not have actually died
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We all remember that horrific moment when we flipped the pages of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and realised the terrible fate that would befall the Hogwarts headmaster, whom we had grown to love so much across the series. It even became the top spoiler of its time, with people desperately trying to avoid it! And some of you were so bereft, you thought that Dumbledore might not have actually died, and that Severus Snape may have faked the situation. Alas, alas, the pair had always planned for this to really happen.
Although Dumbledore truly had left us, we still got to meet him again in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, during an otherworldly experience with Harry at a ghostly King’s Cross Station, somewhere between living and dying – or at least, that’s our interpretation. And, at the very end, we see his headmaster’s portrait looking on proudly after Harry has finally vanquished Lord Voldemort. In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Dumbledore’s portrait continues to provide sage advice to Harry all those years later. And after all, as Dumbledore himself once said, “you think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us?”
That Harry would’ve ended up Defence Against the Dark Arts professor
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The post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts has long-been thought to be cursed, due to the short tenure that teachers tended to have when occupying the post. Nonetheless, a lot of you assumed that this would be Harry’s future job – who better to break the curse than The Boy Who Lived? And of all the subjects of Hogwarts, this was the topic where Harry really thrived - and certainly knew a thing or two about defeating Dark Arts on an extra-curricular level too!
But Harry would actually go on to become an Auror at the Ministry of Magic, and then later, working as the Head of Magical Law Enforcement – which was a bit more paperwork-heavy. We have no doubt Harry would’ve made a fantastic teacher (look at his work during Dumbledore’s Army!) but it makes sense that his talents would take him all the way to the top level when it came to defending the wizarding world.
That Neville would be the one to kill Bellatrix Lestrange
We can understand why a lot of you went for this one. It makes thematic sense that Neville might be the wizard to put an end to the truly evil ways of Bellatrix, due to the fact she was partly responsible for torturing his parents into insanity. But Bellatrix was not short of enemies, and with good reason. Perhaps Lord Voldemort’s most loyal Death Eater, Bellatrix was responsible for the deaths of Dobby, Sirius and Tonks by the end of the Harry Potter series, meaning that any number of characters could have had a good case for wanting to exact their revenge on her. In the end, after narrowly missing Ginny Weasley with a Killing Curse, Molly Weasley was the one to finish things – with her iconic line – “Not my daughter, you…!” Yeah, you know it ends. And we’re glad Molly got her moment to shine during the Battle of Hogwarts, protecting her family at all costs.
Of course, Neville got his moment too – this once-shy Gryffindor got a true hero’s ending when he destroyed one of Voldemort’s most beloved Horcruxes, Nagini. And if there was ever any doubt which Hogwarts house Neville should have been in – he did the deed with the Sword of Gryffindor.
That Regulus Black may not actually be dead
This is an interesting theory that came up a number of times from fans – the idea that Sirius’s murdered brother Regulus, who tried to defect from the Death Eaters, wasn’t actually dead at all, and may come back in a surprising and dramatic way at the end. Perhaps he could’ve faked his death somehow, or miraculously escaped his tragic fate? Alas, it was not meant to be, but Regulus didn’t die entirely in vain – by swapping the Slytherin locket with a fake one, Harry was ultimately able to procure one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes before it fell into the wrong hands. (Although the Black family house-elf Kreacher was hardly a help.) Nonetheless, this is a great prediction! The character of Regulus continues to be absolutely fascinating.
That it was aaaaall a dream
Oh come on, guys, we know you were pulling our leg when you suggested this one. Yes, quite a few of you thought that the entire wizarding world was just in Harry’s head, and he would wake up back in his little cupboard at Privet Drive at the very end. Thankfully, this did not happen. And anyway, as a great wizard once said: just because it’s happening inside your head, that doesn’t mean it’s not real.