4 Overlooked Harry Potter Stories That Can Save The Upcoming TV Show

While I am only a casual fan of the franchise, I have found myself weirdly excited at the prospect of a Harry Potter TV show. In addition to some fun casting choices (Nick Frost as Hagrid and John Lithgow as Dumbledore are both inspired picks), the show has a chance to adapt forgotten plotlines from the books that never made it into the original movies.

These are the best overlooked Harry Potter stories that must be featured in the new television show.

Hermione Advocating For Elf Rights

Hermione obviously has an extensive role in the Harry Potter movies, but those films omitted one of her key plots from the books. She eventually becomes very concerned about the plight of house-elves like Dobby and creates the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare. She does this in the Goblet of Fire book, and by The Order of the Phoenix, she had taken to knitting clothes and hiding them, hoping the elves would find the clothes and be freed of their servitude.

It’s a great character-building plot for Hermione, emphasizing that her big brain is matched by an equally big heart. Of course, the TV show might shy away from this plot like the movies did because it underscores that almost everybody in the magical community, but Hermione, is perfectly cool relying on slave labor.

The Origin Of The Marauder’s Map

In the Harry Potter movies, the titular main character is eventually given the Marauder’s Map. It’s a gift from Ron Weasley’s prank-loving brothers, and it helps Harry see where everyone is in Hogwarts at all times. Mechanically, this helps Harry sneak around whenever he needs to, and he can hide the map’s magical abilities with two simple words: “mischief managed.”

Weirdly enough, the movies never detail who created the map in the first place. The Marauders in question (identified in the films only as Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs) were actually Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and James Potter. Lupin was a werewolf, and the others transformed themselves into animals to keep him company when he was transformed. The adorable names on the map were actually loving references to their animal forms.

Neville Longbottom, Chosen One?

In the movies, Neville Longbottom is mostly treated as a walking punchline. While he’s still a very comical figure in the books, those texts eventually revealed a startling secret. It turns out that Neville came insanely close to being the Chosen One who was destined to defeat Voldemort once and for all!

Professor Trelawney’s prophecy about the Chosen One doesn’t specifically name Harry: instead, she foretells that this person of destiny will be born near the end of July to parents who had defied Voldemort three times. Harry fit the bill, but so did Neville, and young Potter ironically only became the Chosen One after Voldemort tried to kill him; this left Harry with his iconic scar, and another aspect of the prophecy is that the boy will be marked as the bad guy’s equal.

In this way, Voldemort effectively chose who would ultimately destroy him. But if he had chosen differently, Neville Longbottom might have become the boy who saved the world.

Rita Skeeter’s Big Secret

Rita Skeeter is an annoying snoop of a journalist, and the Harry Potter movies effectively portray just how weird and annoying she really is. One thing the films left out, though, is exactly how she got the scoop on every dirty little detail around Hogwarts. As it turns out, she could (as her name implies) transform herself into a mosquito because of her powers as an animagus.

While it would be neat to see this transformation in the TV show, what I’d really like to see is how she gets her comeuppance. In the books, Hermione actually captures Rita in mosquito form, trapping her in an unbreakable jar and promising only to release her if she keeps her awful opinions to herself for one whole year. It’s always fun to see the bad guys get what’s coming to them (ask the legion of Dolores Umbridge haters), but it’s even more fun when it’s Harry’s friends helping to take out the trash.