Think you know your Horcruxes from your Hallows? Prove it. 10 questions, no looking it up.
This quiz is not about whether you've seen the films. It's about the details you only pick up when you actually pay attention. Patronuses, Horcruxes, minor characters and more. 10 questions. No looking it up.
Pick your level
The normal quiz sticks to what survives one read or a weekend film marathon: the houses, the Patronuses everyone remembers, the Horcrux count, Neville's long-suffering toad and the spell Harry reaches for in every duel. Most people who grew up with the series land somewhere between seven and ten.
Hard mode plays by different rules. Every question comes from the books, a few from a single throwaway line, and some cover things the films left out entirely. Getting five right is a respectable score, and anything above eight means you have reread the series more often than you would admit.
The questions use the British titles and wording, because that is what Rowling wrote first. American readers met the same story as Sorcerer's Stone, with a few words swapped along the way: a jumper became a sweater and Dumbledore's sherbet lemons became lemon drops. None of that changes an answer here, but if a title reads oddly to you, that is why.
Eight films could not hold seven books. Hermione's campaign for house-elf rights never reached the screen, Peeves was cut, and plenty of small print went with them. Hard mode leans on exactly that material, so a film-only fan will find the normal quiz a much fairer fight. Each explanation names the book it comes from if you want to check the passage yourself.
All ten easy level questions, with the answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Hogwarts
Hogwarts, in Scotland. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang are the two schools invited to the Triwizard Tournament.
Correct answer: Ron and Hermione
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, whom he meets in his first year. The trio stays together through all seven books.
Correct answer: A lightning bolt
A lightning bolt on his forehead, left by Voldemort's curse when Harry was a baby.
Correct answer: Lord Voldemort
Lord Voldemort, born Tom Riddle, killed Harry's parents. Many wizards will not even say his name.
Correct answer: Quidditch
Quidditch. The Golden Snitch and the Bludger are balls used in the game, and Harry plays Seeker.
Correct answer: Hedwig
Hedwig, a snowy owl given to him by Hagrid. Pigwidgeon and Errol belong to the Weasleys, and Crookshanks is Hermione's cat.
Correct answer: J.K. Rowling
J.K. Rowling. The first book came out in the UK in 1997.
Correct answer: 7
Seven, one for each year at Hogwarts, more or less: Harry barely sets foot in school during the last one.
Correct answer: Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore. McGonagall is his deputy and Hagrid the school's gamekeeper.
Correct answer: The Sorting Hat
The Sorting Hat. On Harry's head, it considers Slytherin before settling on Gryffindor.
Want to warm up before playing or double-check something? Open any question to reveal the correct answer and a short explanation.
Correct answer: Gryffindor
The Sorting Hat considers Slytherin but ultimately chooses Gryffindor after Harry asks not to be placed there.
Correct answer: Trevor
Trevor is Neville's toad. He goes missing on a regular basis throughout the series, much to his owner's frustration.
Correct answer: A stag
Harry's Patronus takes the form of a stag, mirroring his father James's Animagus form. His mother Lily's Patronus was a doe.
Correct answer: Hufflepuff
Cedric was a model Hufflepuff, admired by everyone at Hogwarts. His death in the graveyard at Little Hangleton marks a major turning point in the series.
Correct answer: Expelliarmus
Expelliarmus is Harry's signature spell. Some mocked him for relying on it, but it saved his life more than once.
Correct answer: Tom Riddle's diary
Tom Riddle's diary, slipped into Ginny Weasley's belongings by Lucius Malfoy, is the first Horcrux destroyed in the series.
Correct answer: Gringotts
Gringotts is run by goblins. In the first book, Harry discovers the fortune left by his parents in vault 687.
Correct answer: An otter
Hermione's Patronus is an otter. This is no coincidence: the otter is also J.K. Rowling's favourite animal.
Correct answer: 7
Voldemort created 7 Horcruxes to split his soul into 8 fragments. Harry himself was one of them, unknowingly, ever since the night his mother died.
Correct answer: Professor McGonagall
Minerva McGonagall turns into a tabby cat with markings around its eyes the shape of her square spectacles. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione checks the register: only seven Animagi were recorded that century, and McGonagall is one of them. James, Sirius and Pettigrew never signed up.
Stuck on one, or just curious how nasty it gets? Every hard mode question is here with its answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: A pair of thick woollen socks
Socks. One can never have enough, he says, and people will insist on giving him books. Harry realises later that night it may not have been a truthful answer, and Deathly Hallows gives readers every reason to think Dumbledore was looking at the family he lost.
Correct answer: Marvolo
Marvolo, after his mother's father, Marvolo Gaunt. The reveal comes in the Chamber of Secrets, when Riddle writes his name in the air and rearranges the letters. French readers got Tom Elvis Jedusor, because the translator had to rebuild the anagram as "Je suis Voldemort".
Correct answer: Hermione
Hermione, with a Basilisk fang from the Chamber of Secrets. Ron remembered enough Parseltongue to open the Chamber while Harry hunted for the diadem, and since he had already destroyed the locket, he let her have this one.
Correct answer: Never tickle a sleeping dragon
Never tickle a sleeping dragon. It sits on the Hogwarts crest under the four house animals, and it is sound advice for a school that once let Hagrid keep a Norwegian Ridgeback in a wooden hut.
Correct answer: A full moon
A silvery-white orb hanging in the air, which Lupin banishes with an almost lazy "Riddikulus!" before the class can work out what it is. It is one of the earliest clues in Prisoner of Azkaban to what Lupin really is.
Correct answer: Helena Ravenclaw
Helena Ravenclaw, Rowena's daughter, who stole her mother's diadem and hid it in a forest in Albania. The Bloody Baron followed her there and killed her, which is why the Slytherin ghost wears chains. In Deathly Hallows she tells Harry where the diadem went.
Correct answer: Shredded boomslang skin
Boomslang skin, along with lacewing flies, leeches, knotgrass, fluxweed and powdered bicorn horn. Hermione steals the boomslang from Snape's private stores in Chamber of Secrets, and two books later Snape is still accusing Harry of the theft.
Correct answer: Neville
Neville, for standing up to his friends. Harry gets sixty points, Ron and Hermione fifty each, and Neville's ten put Gryffindor on 482, ten clear of Slytherin. Dumbledore saved the best for last.
Correct answer: Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare
The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, founded in Goblet of Fire. Hermione's first idea for the name was far longer and would not fit on the badge. Membership cost two Sickles, and Ron was never going to live it down.
Correct answer: One of his socks
His own sock. He hands the diary back to Lucius Malfoy, who pulls out the sock, flings it aside and Dobby catches it. A master who hands his elf an item of clothing has set him free, and Lucius did it without noticing.