People are just realizing what Aunt Petunia is doing in a scene in the first Harry Potter movie, showing that we all probably need another rewatch.
Harry Potter is one of the biggest franchises in the world, and even all these years after the books and movies concluded, we are still diving back into the wizarding world.
Considering that the first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, came out in 2001, it’s a bit of a surprise that it still holds moments that we hadn’t noticed.
Harry is forced to live under the stairs and do menial tasks for the family… like collecting mail.
When Harry walks into the room to hand Uncle Vernon the mail, he is shocked to see that there’s a mysterious letter addressed to him.
But we’re not here to talk about his invitation to study at Hogwarts – we want to know what Aunt Petunia is up to in the background.
She’s stood over the stove boiling something in a pot, and one eagle-eyed Redditor has clocked what it was.
They wrote: “In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone, Aunt Petunia is visible in the background of this scene dyeing Dudley’s old clothes grey for Harry’s uniform. This is only ever mentioned in the book.”
The film franchise made instant stars of its cast. Credit: Jim Spellman / Getty Images
This subtle detail throws back to J.K. Rowling’s original narrative, where the Dursleys had initially intended to enroll Harry at Stonewall High School, rather than his cousin Dudley’s prestigious Smeltings Academy.
To fashion his school uniform, Aunt Petunia ingeniously repurposed some of Dudley’s old clothes, meticulously dying them gray for Harry to wear.
Fortunately for the young wizard, his Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived just in time, sparing him from donning a less-than-fashionable uniform resembling “elephant skin.”
This clearly came as a surprise to some viewers, as one person commented: “The amount of times I have seen this movie is crazy, and I’ve read the book once, absolutely loved it, and yet I didn’t even notice this.”
A second person added: “They also don’t mention anything about Harry or Dudley’s Schools in the movie. But Dudley is wearing his Uniform as described in the book.”
A third said: “I always wondered what she was doing, I’d clearly forgotten that detail between [reading] the book and watching the film.”
Harry Potter is a phenomenon all over the world. Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty
Does this make anybody else want to start the entire series again?
In case the movies don’t do it for you anymore, HBO announced that a new Harry Potter series is on the way as the reboot of the original saga.
You can never have too much Potter, right?