Harry Potter Headcanons

By: S. McManus and M. E. Ferreira 

HEADCANON: An idea, belief, or aspect of a story that is not mentioned in the media itself, but is accepted by either the media consumer themselves or the fandom in general. If it is confirmed by the creator of the story, it becomes canon (urbandictionary.com).

Here are our 12 favourite Harry Potter Headcanons:

Many of them involve the future of our beloved Oliver Wood, captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team:

1. “Could you imagine one of the quidditch team members saying "knock on wood" and they all just hit Oliver before a big match” (but then again, we’re almost sure the Weasley twins did that at some point).​

2. “Oliver Wood was probably more excited than anyone else when the news came out that Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter were expecting a baby because DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH QUIDDITCH TALENT THAT CHILD HAS IN ITS GENES.” (Extra: Oliver: so like you’ve got three now, why stop there? I mean just four more and you’ve got yourself a team! Ginny: How did you get into my house?).

3. “Three words that will bring joy to your heart: ‘little league quidditch’.”

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Some involve Hogwarts’ mysterious past, which we know very little about:

4. "Just imagine Tonks during her year at Hogwarts making herself look like Dumbledore for no real reason other than to confuse other students by plopping down next to them and asking them weird questions like if they've ironed their socks in the last week and then walking away. And then imagine Dumbledore realising what she's doing and joining in so that sometimes there are two Dumbledores talking to the same student."
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Lots of them revolve around muggleborns:

5. “Muggleborns accidentally calling Dumbledore ‘Gandalf’.”

6. “Muggleborns who seem to drop off the face of the Earth whenever they go home for breaks or vacations but in reality they are just catching up on every single TV show they missed and try to cram an entire season or more over 10 TV shows into one single summer vacation.”

7. “1977: younger muggleborns laughingly answering ‘Abracadabra’ when asked by teachers if they know how a spell works; purebloods screaming and ducking under tables because they misheard and this 12 year old is trying to use the killing curse on me.”



Another famous topic of interest for Harry Potter fans is the fate of Harry and Ginny’s children (or those around them):

8. “When McGonagall finds out that Ginny is pregnant and that the Weasley and Potter bloodlines will converge, she marks in her calendar the day the child will turn 11 and that, she decides, is the day she will retire.”

9. “McGonagall knew about James’ Animagus form because she didn’t take long to see a connection between the stag that sometimes just appeared on school grounds (I mean come on, you can’t hide a stag from Minerva McGonagall) and the fact that every time she gave James detention, Sirius would dramatically exclaim ‘OH DEER, looks like you’re in trouble again…’.”


Other fans like to debate on the future of Harry’s cousin Dudley:

10. "We know its J.K. Rowling's headcanon that Dudley has a magical child, right? Imagine this kid starting to show signs of magic and Dudley remembering all the odd things that used to happen around harry. Imagine his kid coming home from Hogwarts and being all, ‘WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME UNCLE HARRY WAS FAMOUS?’ Imagine Dudley reading up on harry and finding out about everything he did and all the things that happened to him, struggling to grasp how his scrawny, innocent cousin saved the wizarding world. Imagine Dudley, white-faced with terror at his first big family get-together with Harry, Hermione and all the remaining Weasleys. Imagine Mrs Weasley being decidedly cool towards him until he eats fifth helpings of everything she cooks and telling her that she’s the best cook he’s ever met. Imagine Dudley and Harry going down the pub together for beers. Imagine Harry still calling him Big D. Imagine Dudley cheerfully never dieting ever again and being fat and happy forever; THE END.”

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One of the most agreed-upon topics of discussion involves Harry himself, and how his future predicts nothing but success:

11. “Harry officially becoming an Auror and joining the Ministry of Magic made The Daily Prophet headlines. Professor McGonagall couldn’t help herself and sent a copy to Umbridge.”


But the best ones are headcanons about headcanons:

12. “You know why Harry Potter is amazing? 99% of fan theories, headcanons and meta could be canon because Harry is about as observant as a brick wall: he didn’t notice Hermione time travelling around him for a whole year or his teacher’s handwriting, didn’t notice that he was a wizard for 11 years, the glass is just gone I don’t know maybe that just happens with snakes sometimes. Did Slytherins come back to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts? Did Draco Malfoy enjoy crossdressing? Was Hermione transgender? Who knows, certainly not Harry, ”