Utterly Genius Foreshadowing In 'Harry Potter' That Most Fans Completely Missed

A brief interaction between Harry and Dumbledore at the end of Goblet of Fire directly set up one of the key components to Dumbledore's overall plan to stop Voldemort. At the end of Goblet of Fire, Harry spent several chapters completely exhausted, drifting in and out of lucidity.

So, when he told Dumbledore that Voldemort came back to life using Harry's own blood, Harry mentioned seeing a brief moment of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. This left many book readers confused. After all, it seemed like a strange moment for Dumbledore to be feeling triumphant about anything.

However, Dumbledore's reaction actually set up the reveal in Deathly Hallows: that Voldemort using Harry's blood was what would kill the Dark Lord once and for all. It was, in fact, something Dumbledore secretly hoped Voldemort would do. A triumphant moment indeed.

Harry and Ron mockingly, and unknowingly, predicted all three of the dangerous Triwizard Tournament tasks in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, one whole year before the games take place.

This piece of foreshadowing was thrown out in a seemingly lighthearted fashion, when Harry and Ron grew tired of their endless amounts of Divination homework in Prisoner of Azkaban. Instead of actually trying to read tea leaves and predict the future, the duo decided to start just kind of... guess. 

Harry's predictions included that he would be in danger of burns, lose a treasured possession, be stabbed in the back by a friend, and come off worse in a fight. All of these eventually came true in Goblet of Fire, when he had to fight a dragon, save Ron from dangerous underwater mermaids, and was betrayed by Barty Crouch Jr. masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody. And, of course, he barely made it out alive from his graveyard fight with Voldemort.

Barty Crouch Jr. actually saw Snape in his Foe-Glass near the end of The Goblet of Fire. This quickly, and subtly, revealed Snape's true allegiance in the conflict between Harry and Voldemort.

Book readers could be forgiven for missing this small moment of foreshadowing in the fourth book. After all, it happened amidst the chaos of Dumbledore and the other Hogwarts professors saving Harry from the machinations of the undercover Barty Crouch Jr. But it's a noteworthy moment all the same, since the first thing Snape did when he arrived in Crouch's Hogwarts office was to approach the Death Eater's Foe-Glass.

Remember, a Foe-Glass is a magical object that allows the owner to see their true enemies at all times. Snape appearing in the mirror at first seemed like a bad sign to Harry, since Crouch spends most of the book masquerading as the heroic Mad-Eye Moody. However, when it's later revealed to be Crouch's Foe-Glass and not Moody's, Snape's appearance is a smart and subtle way for Rowling to communicate to book readers that Snape was on Harry's side all along. 

One of Professor Trelawney's many superstitions actually predicted the deaths of Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin. This foreboding moment came about halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban, when Dumbledore stood up and invited Trelawney to join him and his 11 other table guests at dinner in the Great Hall. The Divination professor refused his offer, saying: "If I join the table, we shall be 13! Nothing could be more unlucky! Never forget that when 13 dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!"

This proved to be a tragic point of foreshadowing in the books. As it was later revealed in Prisoner of Azkaban, Ron had actually brought Scabbers with him to that dinner, meaning there were already 13 people at the table. Then Dumbledore stood up. This sort of foreshadowing happened two other times in the series, when both Lupin and Sirius were the first of 13 people to rise from a dinner table.

The Vanishing Cabinet Draco Malfoy used to smuggle Death Eaters into Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince actually made multiple appearances in prior installments of the series. A Vanishing Cabinet first showed up in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry ducked inside one to hide from the Malfoy family at Borgin and Burke's.

Another Vanishing Cabinet was briefly mentioned in Order of the Phoenix, when Fred and George Weasley trapped a Slytherin classmate inside a broken Cabinet in the Room of Requirement. They even mentioned that the classmate disappeared, which, at the time, was shrugged off as just another existentially terrifying magical moment at Hogwarts.

In the Half-Blood Prince, it finally became clear that the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement was a vital magical object in the series' overall story. Furthermore, the one in Borgin and Burke's was actually its twin! This is J.K. Rowling's long-form set up at its very best.

The centaurs accurately predicted that Voldemort will kill Harry in the Forbidden Forest during their introduction in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The Centaurs made two bold predictions when they ran into Harry in the Forbidden Forest for the first time. While their proclamation that "war is coming" wound up coming true as well, their other prediction may be even more eerie.

After Firenze saved Harry from Voldemort/Quirrell's attack in the forest, one of Firenze's brethren, Bane, chided Firenze for interfering with the planets' intention. That meant Bane believed Harry was destined to die in the forest at Voldemort's hands—and while it didn't turn out that way in Sorcerer's Stone, Voldemort did, in fact, wind up "killing" Harry in the Forest during Deathly Hallows. So, it turned out the centaurs were right about the event itself; they were just a little off in their timing.