As a film series, Harry Potter has seen many different releases, from VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray and even 3D Blue-Ray and 4K. However, despite all of these releases, the various movies' deleted scenes have remained contained in the bonus materials and extra discs.
Even with vocal fan demand, Warner Bros. has shown no interest in releasing the equivalent of a Harry Potter: Extended Edition, so one of the only ways that fans can see these deleted scenes as part of the entire movie is to go binge the show when it frequently broadcasts on the Freeform network.
This is a shame, as many of these scenes should never have been taken out of the movies. Collectively, they help flesh out the characters, advance the plot, and let us see the world of Harry and his friends like we've never seen it before.
Many fans, though, have never seen all the deleted scenes, and for every awesome short scene that was taken out, it seems there is a much longer scene that is terrible (wizard band scene, we are looking directly at you). How are you supposed to find the good scenes online and avoid the bad?
Fortunately, you won't have to ask Professor Trelawney to divine some answers... just check out our guide to Harry Potter: 15 Deleted Scenes That Never Should Have Been Cut!
When Harry Met Snape
Way back in Sorcerer’s Stone, we get a pretty intense deleted scene featuring Harry’s first day in the Potions class of Severus Snape. And Snape brings the intensity in this scene, telling the students that he can teach them how to “bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.” He eventually singles Harry out and asks him a series of difficult questions that leave our young hero flustered.
Why keep this scene in? First of all, you can never have enough Snape, and this scene establishes his power and menace early on. Also, giving us an onscreen version of Snape’s first meeting with Harry means giving us a great
Easter egg: Tumblr user Tomhiddles went viral by discovering that in the Victorian language of flowers, Snape’s questions, like “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood,” is a coded way of telling Harry how much he regrets the death of Harry’s mother, Lily.
Given the later revelations of Snape’s quiet heroism, this scene is emotionally wrenching (and, of course, immaculately acted).
Luna the Wise
Of all of the heart-wrenching moments in Harry Potter, the death of Dobby is one of the saddest. In one of the deleted scenes from Deathly Hallows: Part II, we see that Harry (like the viewers) is having trouble with Dobby's death and is meditating by his grave. He is then visited by Luna, who offers an old family phrase regarding the death of Dobby: “the sky has lost a star.” Harry then tries to warn her about her plan to return to Hogwarts, telling her “it’s not the place you left, you know.” To this, Luna simply replies: “Neither am I.”
The scene is important for many reasons. It gives viewers additional decompression time to process Dobby’s death. It also gives us extra insight into fan-favorite character Luna. And Luna speaks to a major part of the Harry Potter narrative: that change is a necessary part of growth.
Luna has become the kind of person who is now ready for true challenges in life, and she helps Harry see that he must also view the changes in his life as opportunities to become strong enough to overcome his own greatest challenges.
Dolores Umbrage at her Hottest
It’s genuinely difficult to find a Harry Potter character fans hate more than Dolores Umbrage. She is everyone’s worst teacher and abusive aunt rolled into one, and she finds creative ways to hurt and even torture some of the characters we care about the most. Which is why a deleted scene from Order of the Phoenix should never have been removed!
The scene occurs after Fred and George do their dramatic, fireworks-fueled resignation from Hogwarts in the middle of an exam. Umbrage is staring with a soulless, angry glare at the offscreen fireworks and joyful students. Filch comes up and notices that the smoldering anger of Umbrage is very literal, as her head is smoking! He quietly tries to blow it out until she holds up a hand to stop him. It’s a genuinely funny scene in a relatively dark movie, and fans are always happy to see Umbrage get even more comeuppance for her terrible deeds.
Romancing the Stones
Ron and Hermione are a very divisive couple in the Harry Potter universe. Some fans think they are perfectly adorable, while others (including J.K. Rowling herself, at times) think the two should never have gotten together in the first place. However, one of the deleted scenes in Deathly Hallows, Part I, helps to showcase just how cute they can be as a couple.
The scene starts out with Ron skipping stones to take his mind off how terrible everything is. Hermione shows up and gives it a try, and this turns out to be one of the few things she’s downright bad at. Ron plays the role of teacher, showing her his throwing techniques and wrapping his arms around her to help Hermione perfect her throw.
It’s very intimate and very joyful, and if this scene had been left in, we’d have a few more fans shipping Ron and Hermione!
Ron is basically the best
As a series, Harry Potter is based most firmly on its relationships. Beyond the silly magic and the sometimes sillier plots, there is a core friendship between characters like Harry, Ron, and Hermione that makes audiences relate to and root for these people. In this deleted scene from Sorcerer’s Stone, we can actually see how strong this bond was from the very beginning.
It’s a quiet scene in which Ron and the rest of his House are eating. Ron is just settling in with his friends when he sees Harry sitting well away from the group, all by himself. Ron gets up, goes to Harry, and asks Potter if he’d like to play chess or visit Hagrid. A quiet Harry tells him no, at which point Ron warns him about the dangers of messing with the Mirror of Erised.
While the scene is simple, it establishes the essential friendship dynamic between Ron and Harry, with Ron instinctively reaching out when he knows that his friend is in pain.
Lupin and Tonks: Fatal Reunion
One of the shortest deleted scenes on this list is also one of the most emotional. In The Deathly Hallows: Part II, as Hogwarts prepares to defend itself from Voldemort’s final assault, there was a deleted scene in which Tonks visits former Professor Lupin, who is now her husband and the father of their son. Lupin initially objects and says she should be at home with her son, but Tonks insists that “it’s you that needs me tonight.”
Why should this scene have been kept in? First of all, it helps to further develop two beloved characters that do not get enough screen time. And it helps to twist the emotional knife that much more when we later see that both Tonks and Lupin have died in the fight.
Their dead bodies make it look as if they died holding hands, and this crushing deleted scene makes it clear that their intense love for each other doomed them to die together.
Harry is secretly the villain?
Generally speaking, Harry Potter is not a series known for traditional mysteries. However, the Chamber of Secrets had a plot in which multiple mysteries intersected. Chief among them was who, exactly, was the heir of Slytherin. Because of Harry’s unexpected ability to speak to snakes, many students fear that he may be the heir, and in a deleted scenes, he confesses those fears to his friends.
The scene shows the isolation of Harry, with him feeling alienated by rumors about himself from other students. He also worries that he might somehow be doing terrible things without knowing or remembering them, and only calms down when the pragmatic Hermione reminds him they will soon have a chance to investigate Draco Malfoy.
The scene helps ratchet up both tension and mystery, builds up suspense about the villain, and provides yet another great moment of Hermione being the glue who keeps everything and everyone together.
Fireplace conspiracies
The early Harry Potter movies featured characters who often felt like they were careening around. That is, they went bouncing from one adventure to another, often without any outward introspection about what all of this might mean. That changed around Goblet of Fire, and in an awesome deleted scene, we see Hermione, Harry, and Ron starting to put the pieces together.
It begins with Ron opining that Fudge and the Ministry of Magic will cover up everything that went down. Ron points out how bad the death of Barty Crouch, Sr., looks for Hogwarts, and Hermione starts talking about how all of the strange events (from Harry's mysterious dreams to his being selected by the Goblet of Fire) are not a coincidence and point to everything being “bigger” than they imagined.
It's a cool scene that raises the stakes of the story, even as our primary heroes start realizing just how important the events around them truly are.
Harry and Ron Play a Dangerous Game
If there was one thing that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I lacked, it was humor. This was understandable, as some very serious things had come to a head in for all of our major characters. For instance, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are effectively on the run as they try to figure out how to find and destroy the remaining horcruxes. In a great deleted scene, however, we get an interesting mixture of fun and despair.
It begins with Harry and Ron doing a terrible job of trying to catch a rabbit using their magic wands. After the rabbit gets away, the two engage in some old-fashioned horseplay, chasing each other and trying to hit one another with spells from their wands. It looks like a return to their old hijinks, but things are cut short when Ron almost seriously hurts Harry.
It's a reminder of the darkness infecting their world, and good, specific foreshadowing of the horcrux that is beginning to infect Ron's mind.
The Other Brother
For lovers of the Harry Potter books, the worst part of the movies is that some of the roles for their favorite characters get cut short, and some characters are cut entirely. One character that has barely any screen time at all is Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth, despite the fact that he plays a crucial role in getting Harry back into Hogwarts. In a short deleted scene from Deathly Hallows, Part II, we get to know him a bit better.
When he's asked by Hermione if he hears from members of The Order of The Phoenix anymore, Aberforth gruffly replies that the Order is finished and that Voldemort has one. When Harry mentions his mission from Dumbledore, Aberforth opines about how Dumbledore is just going to get Harry killed, which is exactly what happens to those the old wizard was closest to.
The scene provides a nice sense of foreboding, and it helps make our concern for the lives of Harry and his friends greater than ever.
The Redemption of Dudley
By the time the Harry Potter series is complete, we have been introduced to a wide array of frightening villains. Characters like Bellatrix Lestrange, Umbrage, and Voldemort make our skin positively crawl. However, Harry's first real foe was Dudley, the fat and pampered son of the aunt and uncle who raised him.
Dudley was consistently an antagonist, but in a surprising deleted scene from Deathly Hallows: Part I, we see Dudley unexpectedly redeem himself!
Harry is forcing his aunt, uncle, and Dudley to move to a safe location so that Voldemort and his agents do not find and kill them. Dudley (who doesn't really understand the situation) is shocked that Harry isn't coming with them to safety, and Vernon blubbers that Harry doesn't want to go. Harry agrees and then says “Besides, I'm just a waste of space, isn't that right, Vernon?” Dudley then unexpectedly comes over, shakes Harry's hand, and tells him he is not a waste of space.
Harry is clearly moved, and as Dudley walks away, a smiling Harry simply says “see you, Big D.” It's a quiet scene that shows actual character growth while reminding Harry of the people he is fighting to save.
Pajama Murder Party
While Sirius Black would come to be a beloved character, his introduction in Prisoner of Azkaban is designed to make him seem fearful and intimidating. As far as Harry knows, the man is an escaped lunatic killer, and he is responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents. In an awesome deleted scene from the movie, we see just how far to the edge this has taken Harry Potter.
It starts with Professor McGonagall asking Ron and the rest of Gryffindor how Sirius Black could sneak into their dormitory. She interviews the comically weird Sir Cadogan, a knight who lives in a portrait, and he admits to letting Black in because he had the password.
The scene is great for introducing added tension and suspense, as it highlights that these characters are not even safe in the school. The scariest part is Harry himself, though, who is practically vibrating with frustrated rage as he describes how close his parent's "killer" was to them and how “I could have killed him.“ It's a great bit of acting from Radcliffe and a further reminder of just how dark and weird this story has gotten.
Harry the Spy
A particularly awesome deleted scene from Chamber of Secrets is practically begging to be put back in. It is an extended scene of what happens when Harry's poor use of Floo powder lands him in the shadier sections of Diagon Alley. We see him hide within a magic shop (Borgin and Burkes) as Draco and Lucius Malfoy enter.
Lucius is focused on selling some apparently incriminating items of his, and the clerk focuses on an unseen item that Lucius refuses to sell. When Harry tries to escape after the Malfoys leave, he is confronted by the sneering Mr. Borgin before being allowed to leave.
Why keep this scene? It gives us great background info on Lucius, letting us know very early on that he is not only shady, but someone likely on the wrong side of the law. We see his abusive attitude towards Draco, too, as he scolds his son for touching anything, which helps us to understand how Draco turned out the way he did.
It also adds texture to the wizarding world, reminding us that our hero is never more than a wrong step (or wrong spell) away from being wildly out of his depth.
Snape's Trek Into Darkness
Most of the scenes on this list were chosen because of their dialogue. Specifically, dialogue that builds the world of these characters and helps us to understand their motivations and inner life. It's a testament to the creative team of these movies, then, that one of the greatest deleted scenes in The Half-Blood Prince has virtually no dialogue at all, with our primary sound coming from the mournful singing of Flitwick's choir.
As Flitwick conducts and the choir sings, we see an assortment of scenes, such as students outside who are transfixed by the darkening skies as a clearly spooked McGonagall tries to get them to their respective houses. We see a sinister smile on Snape's face which turns to a concerned scowl, while Ron and Hermione huddle closer for support.
Overall, the scene is spooky, evocative, and hauntingly beautiful, embodying the best parts of the Harry Potter movies even as it helps to build our dread and anticipation of what's about to happen.
The Bonds of Grief
An understandable criticism that some fans had of Order of the Phoenix is that we did not have enough time to process the death of Sirius Black. His entire relationship with Harry is tragically compressed to begin with, and his death in the movie's climax means we have little time to breathe or reflect. However, a quiet deleted scene from the movie sought to change that.
In the scene, a shaken Harry is packing his clothes. Eventually, Ron approaches and invites Harry to the feast, but Harry is not in the mood to eat. Ron says he's not hungry, either, but Harry shoos him away and insists he'll be okay. When Ron leaves, though, Harry sit on top of his suitcase with a look of despair. Downstairs, Ron sees Hermione, and wordlessly shakes his head to indicate how Harry's doing.
The scene is great because we see the raw emotions of the characters, from Harry's genuine grief to Ron's need to bring his best friend back to the world. In a world of wizards and magical creatures, nothing feels more real than Harry's insistence that he is doing okay, even when everyone can see that his world is falling apart.
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Know of some deleted Harry Potter scenes we missed? Hate the ones we picked? Go make some magic in the comments!