7 Plotlines Harry Potter Can't Mess Up This Time

Published Jul 31, 2026, 8:30 PM EDT Angel Shaw is a Lead Writer and Critic on ScreenRant's TV team, covering new-release and classic TV shows across all major streaming platforms. She has been a writer with ScreenRant since 2022 and specializes in Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and fantasy. Angel holds a bachelor's degree in language interpreting and is passionate about all things culture and communication—especially in how it relates to popular media throughout history (from Shakespeare to Friends to Game of Thrones). If there is going to be a new Harry Potter screen adaptation, it absolutely has to be done right. It's only been a couple of decades since the Warner Bros' film franchise was in its heyday, so the announcement that HBO had a TV show in the works was rather shocking. The hook here is that the Harry Potter remake will be a book-faithful adaptation—something the Harry Potter films didn't have enough time to pull off. Now that this promise has been made, however, this new series has very minimal space for error. The Harry Potter movies will remain beloved for generations, but it's hard to deny that these films only brushed the surface. Several key plotlines had to be left out entirely or condensed, and it means that movie fans walked away with a significantly different impression of Harry's overarching adventure. Additionally, book fans have gone all these years lamenting what never made it to the screen. For this reason, the Harry Potter TV show has a lot of potential, despite the strangeness of a new adaptation arriving so soon. It's just important that HBO justify the project's existence. Some stories will likely have to be altered in the process of bringing things to the screen, but at the absolute least, HBO's Harry Potter has to get some key stories right. Lord Voldemort’s Past & Horcrux Plan Image via Warner Bros. In the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince book, Harry spent a great deal of his year in Voldemort lessons with Professor Dumbledore. This was true, to a point, for the movie, but there was, by no means, enough time to include everything that Harry learned about the Dark Lord's past. We got the most important stuff, but without the nuance of those additional Pensieve memories, the entire Horcrux plotline came across strangely. Because the Harry Potter TV show will have a full season to dedicate to Half-Blood Prince (likely about seven or eight hours), there's really no reason for this issue to be repeated. It shouldn't be hard for viewers to understand which Horcruxes are left, why Voldemort selected those items, or even why a total of seven soul fragments (six Horcruxes) was so significant. This plotline is the key to Harry Potter's ending, so it absolutely has to come across correctly on screen this time. The Marauders Map & Animagi Transformation It's easy for book fans to forget that the Harry Potter film franchise came and went without it ever being revealed that James Potter was an Animagus. In the Prisoner of Azkaban book, Harry learns all about the sorts of mischief that his father and his friends—the Marauders—got up to. James, Sirius, and Peter all went through the grueling process of becoming Animagi so they could stay with Lupin while he transformed into a werewolf. The Harry Potter movies provide no such explanation. This comes with several significant consequences. First, the fact that Prisoner of Azkaban didn't dive into this information means that the films never actually revealed that James and his friends were Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, and, therefore, the creators of the Marauders' Map. Even more importantly, not knowing that James could turn into a stag diminishes the importance of Harry's Patronus reveal. Harry Potter season 3 shouldn't leave people scratching their heads. Hermione’s House Elf Activism Image via Everett Collection Any side stories in Harry Potter that involved Hermione didn't really make it to the movies, which is a real shame. This character specifically serves many of the moral themes of the books, especially as they relate to inherent cultural bias. We see this in her outrage over house-elf enslavement and the blasse way other witches and wizards react to it, including Ron and Harry. The house-elf plotline is sticky, especially since the Harry Potter books offer no definitive solution. The idea is that those who grew up in the Wizarding community are so used to this enslavement that they don't consider how wrong it is. It's just normal. Then, those who grew up in Muggle homes accept it for the sake of integration. Hermione is one of the few who kept fighting against it, and the TV show has to demonstrate the painful reality that even good people can completely normalize something so obviously wrong. The Full Truth Behind Peter Pettigrew’s Death Peter Pettigrew had one of the most powerfully ironic deaths in the Harry Potter books, but the movies turned this character into little more than a joke. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Harry and Ron comically knock Pettigrew unconscious before escaping Malfoy Manor. He gives a silly "ow,' and slowly collapses to the ground with a dramatic thud. This is absolutely not what happened in the Deathly Hallows book, and it should not be what happens in HBO's TV show. Back in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry saved Peter Pettigrew's life, and though he regretted it shortly after, Dumbledore pointed out that the life debt this vile man now owes Harry will surely pay off. Life debts are powerful in the wizarding world, and destiny always finds a way to bring things full circle. In Deathly Hallows, Harry reminds his father's old friend that he saved his life, and this causes Pettigrew to pause in his attempt at murder for just a moment. As it is, Voldemort cursed that silver hand to turn on Pettigrew if he ever betrayed him, so the curse came full circle. When Voldemort gifted Pettigrew his silver hand, he said, "May your loyalty never waver again, Wormtail." The Dark Lord didn't trust Wormtail, so he set things up so that the silver hand would kill the servant if he wavered for even a moment. Sparing Harry for just a second was all it took. Snape & Lily’s Full, Complicated Story The Harry Potter books lean heavily on the Pensieve for "show, not tell," but that meant the movie had a lot of flashback scenes to work with and around. What is likely the longest memory sequence comes at the very end of the film franchise, and with the grand finale so close, there was no way Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 could include Snape and Lily's full, complicated story. The trouble with leaving out so many of Snape's memories is that it simplified the moral themes of his story. The films minimize the problematic elements of Snape's relationship with Lily, eliminating the overarching lesson that a bad person can serve a good purpose, and vice versa. The Harry Potter TV show really must dedicate a full episode to Snape's memories when the time comes, thus ensuring we get the whole, messy picture. Harry & Ginny’s Love Story MovieStills DB The Harry Potter books and movies are more about the love between family and friends than genuine romance, but that doesn't mean Harry and Ginny needed to be so horribly neglected. The movies made this relationship painfully awkward, and that was no fault of Daniel Radcliffe or Bonnie Wright, by any means. Because there wasn't time to dig into the whole evolution of their romance, the screenwriters just made this pair awkward teenagers who don't quite know what to do with one another. The Harry Potter TV show has no excuse if it repeats this mistake. It's not just that there is more time to gradually place these two into a more comfortable and passionate place. With several hours of content involving Ginny established ahead of season 6, viewers should have a much better sense of her fiery personality. She will be a fully fleshed-out character, so her relationship with Harry can evolve more organically. Release Date December 25, 2026 Showrunner Francisca Gardiner Directors Mark Mylod Cast Dominic McLaughlin Harry Potter Janet McTeer Minerva McGonagall