Harry Potter Headcanons

Summary:

Just a list of headcanons I might work into a fanfic/s someday. Subject to updates. Example: Mrs Norris (Filch's cat) isn't a cat — she's an animagus.

1) Mrs Norris (Filch's cat) isn't a cat — she's an animagus. She likes her animal form better (we know Animagi can stay shifted indefinitely, even when unconscious, due to Scabbers), and is possibly related to Filch. Maybe even his wife/girlfriend. This is how she informs him about the students' wrongdoings.

2) The Hogwarts Founders were Animagi. But not necessarily the ones you think. Maybe Salazar was a snake, or maybe he was a horse. Godric could've been a lion, or he could've been a hawk. No one knows.

3) Salazar Slytherin wasn't the only one to create a secret room — all of the Founders had one. The Chamber Of Secrets and the Room Of Requirement are known, the other two have yet to be found.

4) Hogwarts is sentient. The only ones she can communicate with are some animals, the Sorting Hat, House Elves, and Luna Lovegood. She loves gossip, and is something like an excitable teenager who's sometimes WAY too wise.

5) Gryffindors are more likely to be pranksters (the Twins, the Marauders, etc). Well, Slytherins are as well, they just don't get caught.

6) Hagrid's a Hufflepuff. Or a Slytherin — I mean he managed to keep using magic right under the Ministry's nose (and has a flying motorcycle, despite such things being supposedly illegal). And he was implied to share a Common Room with Tom Riddle, so...

7) Hufflepuffs are feared (or should be) due to being wild cards — Helga Hufflepuff wanted to teach everyone, so a Hufflepuff could be anything.

8) Slytherins and Hufflepuffs often make alliances/friendships. The same is true for Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. But different combinations are not unheard of.

9) Most Muggleborns end up in Hufflepuff. In order after that: Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Slytherin (it's rare, but Muggleborn Snakes do exist).

10) Muggleborns are more likely to have inter-house friendships, and love using inside jokes/pop culture references to mess with other Wizards/Witches.

11) A large group of siblings who ended up in different Houses held a protest about the table rules; they ate anywhere but the Great Hall, even during classes, and encouraged other students to do the same. Finally, the Headmaster/Mistress at the time changed the rules so siblings could eat together.

12) Family/friends will often sneak each other into their dorms for sleepovers.

13) A Muggleborn brought a video player to school once. Now there is a hidden room where students can watch movies, play video games, and use other Muggle technologies.

14) Becoming an Animagus has a permanent effect on a person, getting stronger the more they change. Cats = purring, nocturnal animals mess with sleep schedules, rabbits/hares result in a tendency to hop around, etc. It is said that if someone feels a strong connection to their animal form, it can cause permanent physical changes, usually just things like eye color but sometimes more extreme.

15) Dudley and Harry don't speak for many years, until one day Dudley tracks down his cousin, panicking because his baby's hair keeps changing colors and she sometimes turns into a leopard cub...

16) Patronuses are alive, existing within the mind of their Wizard/Witch. The better one is at casting, the more alive a Patronus becomes. A Patronus's personality affects how well they deal with Dementors. Harry's Patronus is actually his father's (Patronuses sometimes move on to other minds when their Witch/Wizard becomes deceased), and is especially protective over him, which is why it's so very effective against swarms of Dementors.

17) The Slytherin dorm has magical lights that mimic the sun, to counteract the negative effects of living in the dungeons (I lived in a friend's basement for a while, and lack of sunlight can get really depressing).

18) Ron is dyslexic, and that's why he's so bad at schoolwork. We know it's not lack of intelligence, because he's a literal chess master and managed to learn Parseltongue!

19) A popular one I agree with — the Slytherin common room has an area where you can see under the lake and use sign language to communicate with the mermaids. Over hundreds of years, the mermaids have grown fond of their little snakes, often offering advice and/or protection. The Slytherins got the best view when Harry had to dive into the lake during Goblet Of Fire, having been told by the mermaids.

20) There are Muggle and Wizard versions of some types of animal, such as cats vs kneazles. The Wizard Animals are more intelligent than their Muggle counterparts, tending to become 'familiars'. Wizard Owls are the ones that deliver messages, Muggle Owls are typically not.

21) The Malfoys have Veela ancestry. I recently read this headcanon, and I really like it. No real reason/evidence, it just feels right.

22) Lucius Malfoy's Animagus form is/would be a white peacock. That's why they're all over Malfoy Manor, so it isn't noticable when he turns.

23) Your Animagus form grows with you, reflecting a comparable age to your human self. If you learn to change into a cat Animagus as a child, your Animagus form will be a kitten until you grow older (imagine McGonagall as a kitten!). Big changes to your human form affect your animal form (getting glasses or surgery, dying your hair, magically changing your eye color, etc).

24) Your eye color as a Animagus will stay the same. I'm not sure if this is unclarified, confirmed, or downright against canon, but I like it. Eyes are the windows to the soul, after all.

25) Your Animagus and Patronus tend to be the same or similar, but aren't always. The forms draw on two different but similar parts of your psyche, and a Patronus can change 'species' due to traumatic experiences, so they don't always match.

26) The Marauders added a failsafe to the Map, so no non-Marauder could track them on it. This was mostly a precaution against Snape. It's why Fred and George didn't see Wormtail on the Map, but Harry did — he's the son of a Marauder, he shares James' DNA.</p>

27) Life Debts aren't magical, but cultural. Wormtail was perfectly willing to kill Harry, but the mention of Harry saving his life made him hesitate for a few seconds, prompting his cursed hand to kill him for the betrayal. Wizards consider Life Debts serious business, but there (normally) isn't any magical compulsion connected to them. Of course, there could be Magical Life Debts in certain circumstances, alongside regular ones.</p>

28) Harry accidentally freed Kreacher by giving him the locket, but doesn't realize it because Kreacher swore undying loyalty to Harry for letting him keep that last memento of Regulus's, serving him just as dutifully as if he was really still his master.

29) OH MY STARS, WE ARE ALL IDIOTS — In the first book, Quirrel and Voldemort get through the obstacles before Harry and his friends do; it's not that the tests are able to be passed by first year students, it's that most of the spells and wards protecting the stone have already been torn down by the Dark Lord and a semi-capable DADA professor!

30) Peeves was once the Bloody Baron's House Elf, and became a powerful Poltergeist rather than a ghost when he died. He acts subservient to the Bloody Baron, even calling him sir, and often refers to himself in the third person (along with other unusual speech patterns). He either was mischievous in life as well, or a couple of centuries of death changed him. The reason he's referred to as not really a ghost isn't because he's a not-dead magical creature, but because of wizard prejudice against House Elves.