< Harry Potter (novel)

Harry Potter (novel)/Funny


Philosopher's Stone

  • "Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on."
  • Dumbledore's pre-banquet speech:

"Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"

  • It's a small one, but nonetheless the scene where Hagrid is in Gringotts and reaches into his pocket to find Harry's key, only to come up with a bunch of dog biscuits counts.
  • The Weasley Twins at the beginning.

"Don't cry, Ginny. We'll send you loads of owls-"
"We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat!"
"GEORGE!"
"Only joking, Mum."

  • Also:

"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy? You should have said something, we had no idea."
"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it. Once-"
"Or twice-"
"A minute-"
"All summer-"

  • After Hagrid tells Harry and Hermione that he's given Norbert a teddy bear:

From inside the crate came ripping noises that sounded to Harry as though the teddy was having his head torn off.

  • Realizing that in the first book, Fred and George jinxed snowballs to hit Quirrell's turban, and that they were unknowingly smacking Voldemort in the face!
  • Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card "Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and ten pin bowling."
  • This Brick Joke:

Dumbledore: "I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a lavatory seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, thought it might not be very hygenic, and confiscated it."

  • Jim Dale singing "Hoggy Warty Hogwarts" for the audiobook of Philosopher's Stone.

Chamber Of Secrets

  • Professor Lockhart's Valentine's Day celebration:

Lockhart: Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a love potion!
Snape was looking as if the first person to ask him for a love potion would be force-fed poison.

  • "Make way for the heir of Slytherin, seriously evil wizard coming through!"
  • "Soon the air was thick with flying gnomes."
    • "...the gnome, sensing weakness, sank its razor-sharp teeth into Harry's hand. He had a hard job shaking it off until- 'Wow, Harry! That must've been fifty feet!'"
  • "*referring to getting Moste Potente Potions via telling a teacher they're "just interested in the theory" of Polyjuice Potion* "Come on, no teacher's gonna fall for that. They'd have to be really thick..." *Gilligan Cut to Lockhart's class*
  • Not in the book, but on the Headscratchers page:

I can't remember if it was stated in the book, but where did the basilisk come from?
Salazar Slytherin hatched it a thousand years ago. It's been waiting all this time for the Heir of Slytherin to come and say "Wanna play fetch? Go get the mudblood! Go get it! Good giant snake thing! 'Atta boy!"

Prisoner Of Azkaban

  • The Marauder's Map insulting Snape:

Map: "Mister Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business. Mister Prongs agrees with Mister Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mister Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor. Mister Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball."

    • Especially since Lupin gets to read it.
    • Until we happen upon a certain memory of Snape's in Book 5...
    • Remember the really annoying Running Gag from earlier in that scene? The elderly man in the portrait who was constantly aroused, and subsequently annoyed by Harry's shining Lumos on the walls and would constantly tell him to "Put out that light"? Well, here's where a Running Gag gets turned into a Crowning Moment of Funny when Snape, after just being humiliated by the Marauder's Map, his confidence dashed, and being utterly degraded by being proven wrong by a longtime rival, gets his head chewed off by the same portrait of an elderly man in pajamas for shining the Lumos spell right in its face. Snape obeys, but with a look of what could be only Tranquil Fury on his face.

Portrait of Old Man: Are you deaf, man? Put out that blasted light!

  • There were a few funny little moments in chapter 1, "Owl Post". Among them was the flashback to Ron's attempt to contact Harry via fellytone:

Ron: "HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I- WANT- TO- TALK- TO- HARRY- POTTER!"
Ron was yelling so loudly that Uncle Vernon jumped and held the receiver a foot away from his ear, staring at it with an expression of mingled fury and alarm.
Uncle Vernon: WHO IS THIS? WHO ARE YOU?
Ron: "RON- WEASLEY!" Ron bellowed back, as though he and Uncle Vernon were speaking from opposite ends of a football field. "I'M- A- FRIEND- OF- HARRY'S- FROM- SCHOOL-"
Ron (in a later letter to Harry): "Happy Birthday, Harry! Look, I'm really sorry about that telephone call... I asked Dad, and he reckons I shouldn't have shouted."

  • Boggart Professor Snape, in a green dress, with a red handbag, and a stuffed-vulture hat.
    • Lupin's response: "Snape. *nodding* Frightens all."
  • If there are some readers who think the Quidditch scene's a bit dull, the commentaries of them at least were generally very entertaining. Remember Lee Jordan's opinionated commentary on the particularly brutal Quidditch final?

Lee: THIRTY-ZERO! TAKE THAT, YOU DIRTY, CHEATING-
McGonagall: Jordan, if you can't commentate in an unbiased way-!
Lee: I'm telling it like it is, professor!
...
Lee:" *after Malfoy grabs the end of Harry's broomstick to prevent him from catching the Snitch* YOU CHEATING SCUM! YOU FILTHY, CHEATING B-

McGonagall: *not even bothering to tell him off, as she was pointing her finger in Malfoy's direction, her hat had fallen off, and she too was shouting furiously*

    • And the mention of Lee swearing so badly into the microphone that McGonagall tries to take it off of him. Also, his hitting on Angelina Johnson when she gets the Quaffle.
  • Floating aunt, anyone?
  • After Harry and Hermione help Sirius escape, Snape bursts in, screaming about how he doesn't know how this happened, only that "THIS! HAS! SOMETHING! TO DO! WITH! POTTER!
  • Earlier, when Harry gets caught in Hogsmeade by Draco Malfoy, who then tells Snape: "What is your head doing in Hogsmeade? Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body is allowed in Hogsmeade."
  • After the disastrous Quidditch match, Harry asks where Oliver Wood is, and Fred replies: "Still in the showers. We think he's trying to drown himself."
  • The "Monster Book of Monsters," especially the comment by the manager of Flourish and Blotts, the Wizard book shop:

"I thought we'd seen the worst when we ordered two-hundred copies of "The Invisible Book of Invisibility." Cost a fortune and we never found them!"

  • This exchange:

Percy held out his hand solemnly as though he and Harry had never met and said "Harry. How nice to see you."
"Hello Percy," said Harry, trying not to laugh.
"I hope you're well," said Percy pompously, shaking hands. It was rather like being introduced to the mayor.
"Very well thanks-"
"Harry!" said Fred, elbowing Percy out of the way and bowing deeply. "Simply splendid to see you old boy-"
"Marvellous," said George, pushing Fred aside and seizing Harry's hand in turn. "Absolutely spiffing."
Percy scowled.
"That's enough now," said Mrs. Weasely.
"Mum!" said Fred, as though he'd only just spotted her, and seized her hand too. "How really corking to see you!"

    • A couple of pages later... Mr. Weasely says that the Ministry are providing cars to take them to King's Cross and Percy asks why.

"It's because of you, Perce," said George seriously. "And there'll be little flags on the bonnets with HB on them-"
"For Humongous Bighead," said Fred.

      • It gets even better when you realized the following description "Everyone except Percy and Mrs. Weasley snorted" includes Mr. Weasley.
    • Also, Percy going mental at Ron and tearing their rooms apart when Fred and George nick his Head Boy Badge and change it to say "Bighead Boy."
  • It's all too satisfying to see Malfoy and his crew owned by Harry's Patronus spell when they dress up as dementors and go out into the field trying to scare Harry. It's even more satisfying to see them get owned again by Professor McGonagall after the match.
  • Another McGonagall moment: "Tripe, Sibyll?" And the whole "mad axe men" snark.

Goblet Of Fire

  • Draco Malfoy the Amazing Bouncing Ferret.
  • Harry Potter's secret heartache? What's ailing you now?
  • Re: Arthur Weasley's eccentricities:

Molly Weasley: Your father thinks very highly of Mad-Eye Moody.
Fred Weasley: Yeah, well, Dad collects plugs, doesn't he?

  • Divination homework, doing a month's worth of self-predictions filled with every human misery possible. "You seem to be drowning twice." "Oh am I? ... I'd better change one of them to getting trampled by a rampaging hippogriff." Made even better by the fact that Professor Trewlaney loved it.
    • Made even better, when you realize that all of his made-up predictions come true (in a matter of speaking) during the course of the book.
      • Harry never got trampled by a rampaging hippogriff, though.
      • However, he did almost drown twice. Guess you don't get any points for redos.
  • Just after Harry opens the egg and it emits a horrible screeching noise: George: "I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing. Maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower."
    • Hilariously so, he would be more or less right a year ago.
  • Dumbledore meets Rita Skeeter:

Skeeter: How are you? I hope you saw my piece over the summer about the International Confederation of Wizards' Conference?
Dumbledore: Enchantingly nasty. I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat.

  • Another case, where Harry and Dumbledore are trying to cheer up Hagrid after Skeeter writes about his being half-giant:

Harry: Really, you shouldn't worry about what that Skeeter cow- er, sorry Professor.
Dumbledore: I have gone temporarily deaf and have no idea what you just said, Harry.
Harry: Erm...right.

  • The old wizard Archie, who, attempting to pass as a Muggle, wears Muggle clothing... which, unfortunately, happens to be a nightgown.

Ministry wizard: Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these.
Archie: I'm not putting them on. I like a healthy breeze 'round my privates, thanks.

  • When Harry meets Percy at the Yule Ball and Percy mentions how he's been promoted "As if he were announcing his election as supreme ruler of the universe."
  • Surprised no one has mentioned how the Bulgarian Minister of Magic played like he couldn’t understand English just to play a joke at the British Minister of Magic’s expense. Who knows how long he did that before he finally let it slip he did know english.

Order Of The Phoenix

  • The teachers' reactions to Harry's interview in The Quibbler. Especially Professor Trelawney's reaction.

"Professor Trelawney broke into hysterical sobs during Divination and announced to the startled class, and a very disapproving Umbridge, that Harry was not going to suffer an early death, but live to a ripe old age, become Minister for Magic and have twelve children."

HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF--

  • Anything Peeves does: "The bell rang just as Peeves swooped down on Katie and emptied an entire bottle of ink over her head."
  • And the entirety of the "prank war": "It unscrews the other way." Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the twins.
    • The twins? What about McGonagall?
    • The conclusion, when Peeves chased Umbridge off by hitting her with a walking stick and a sock filled with chalk. Professor McGonagall's reaction? "I would chase after her myself, but Peeves borrowed my stick." Made funnier when listening to the book on tape, where the reader's McGonagall voice seems to be hinting that Peeves didn't "steal" the stick so much as "asked politely for it and detailed the exact reason why he needed it."
      • Pretty much any time McGonagall and Umbridge interacted in Order of the Phoenix was this, often with an added Crowning Moment of Awesome for McGonagall.

Molly: "I don't believe it! Oh, Ron, how wonderful! A prefect! That's everyone in the family!"
George: "What are Fred and I, next-door neighbors?"

    • And Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody has his own perspective about Ron's said promotion: "Authority figures always attract trouble, but I suppose Dumbledore thinks you can withstand most major jinxes or he wouldn't have appointed you..."
      • Molly's reaction to Arthur's stitches: "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT'S THE GENERAL IDEA?!"
  • After Dudley is attacked by a dementor at the beginning:

Vernon: Fought 'em off, did you, son? Gave 'em the old one-two, did you?
Harry: You can't give a dementor the old one-two!

  • Umbridge's evaluations of the teachers could be both funny and painful. Snape's was particularly memorable:

Umbridge: You applied first for the Defense against the Dark Arts post, I believe.
Snape: Yes.
Umbridge: But you were unsuccesful?
Snape: (classic deadpan) Obviously.

    • This, too:

Mad-Eye: Don' put your wand there, boy! What if it ignited? Better wizards then you have lost buttocks, you know!
Tonks: Who do you know who's lost a buttock?

  • When they sneak in to the Ministry of Magic to save Sirius, They all get nametags saying "Rescue Mission".
    • It gets even better as it's ambiguous whether or not they put them on, so if you want you can picture them wearing nametags throughout the ensuing battle.
  • Pretty much everything that involves Phineas Nigellus Black is either this or a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Two particularly hilarious dreams: Before Harry has his out-of-body experience in Nagini attacking Arthur, he dreams Cho is angry at him for luring her to the DA under false pretenses by promising her 150 Chocolate Frog Cards: "Cedric gave me loads of Chocolate Frog Cards, look!" Then she becomes Hermione who says he did promise Cho and suggests he should give her his Firebolt, but Umbridge has it and he just came to the DA to put up Christmas ornaments shaped like Dobby's head... The second dream involves him watching Neville and Professor Sprout waltzing in the Room of Requirement while McGonagall plays the bagpipes.
  • A metaphor where Luna is described as staring at Ron "as if he were a mildly interesting television program.
  • When Ron is freaking out before his first Quidditch match: "Ron was now staring into the dregs of milk at the bottom of his empty cereal bowl as though seriously considering attempting to drown himself in them." and "Harry and Ron pulled on their robes (Ron attempted to do his up back-to-front for several minutes before Alicia took pity on him and went to help."
  • The entire Stubby Boardman Quibbler article. Actually, just the Quibbler in general.
  • After Fred and George's escape, Ron, Hermione, and Harry are all talking about it, and Ron is sure his mother is going to blame him for allowing it. Then Harry reveals that he was the one who gave them the money to start their joke shop, and we get this:

Ron: "But this is excellent! It's all your fault! Can I tell mum?"

  • Ron's comment upon dropping Divination (after on his exams, he had told the examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in his crystal ball, only to look up and realise he had been describing his examiner's reflection):

Ron: "And from now on I don't care if my tea-leaves spell 'Die, Ron, Die!' I'm chucking them in the bin where they belong."

Half-Blood Prince

  • The entire first chapter. The Muggle Prime Minister's reaction to Fudge and his antics is absolutely hilarious, and had me nearly in tears the first time I read it.
  • The previous Prime Minister who threw Fudge out of the window is heavily hinted at being Maggie Thatcher who became slowly insane during her last years. This means that the current (at this point of the story) Prime Minister, John Major, only had one more year left before Blair. Let's see how HE takes Scrimegour's arrival via Floo!!
    • That's a funny thought, but Scrimegour died one year into office, so Blair might've met Thicknesse instead, assuming Voldemort sent him to meet the Muggle Prime Minister at all.
  • Snape's retort about Ron's Apparition failures isn't bad either.
    • Gryffindor's second Quidditch match. In layman's terms: Gryffindor's goalkeeper tries to take the defender position, Harry, as the team Captain, goes complaining. He wakes up hours later in the Hospital Wing, with a cracked skull.

Madam Pomfrey: I'm keeping you in overnight. You shouldn't over exert yourself for a few hours.
Harry: I don't want to stay here overnight, I want to find McLaggen and kill him.
Madam Pomfrey: I'm afraid that would come under the heading of 'over-exertion'.

    • This always gets me. Talking about the above Quidditch match:

Ron: "Final score: Three-hundred-and-twenty to... sixty."

      • Then shortly afterward Ron casually mentions that Ginny had stopped by while Harry was unconscious. "Harry's imagination immediately went into overdrive, swiftly constructing a scene in which a tearful Ginny confessed her feelings of deep attraction while Ron gave them his blessing..." Only to have it implode when Ron mentions she was just wondering why he was so late for the match.
  • "But the more I hint I want to finish it, the tighter she holds on. It's like going out with the giant squid."
  • Speaking of Half-Blood Prince, try not to laugh when Hagrid and Slughorn get hammered and start singing a sad song. You will fail.´

Slughorn: And Odo the hero, they bore him back home, to the place that he knew as a lad, they laid him to rest with his hat inside out, and his wand snapped in two, which was sad.
Hagrid: (about how good people die young) ...terrible.
Slughorn: Sorry. Can't carry a tune to save my life.

    • "We're not going to be asking, 'Excuse me, are you the imprint of a departed soul?'"
    • What about the "Roonil Wazlib" scene?

Snape: This is your book?
Harry: Yeah.
Snape: Then why does it has 'Roonil Wazlib' in it?
Harry: (beat) That's my nickname.

Snape: Your nickname.

Harry: That's what my friends call me.

Snape: I understand what a nickname is.

  • Luna, perhaps out of desperation, being chosen to comment on the Quidditch match.
  • Peeves blocking a hallway and claiming he won't allow anyone to go through unless they set their pants on fire. Harry and Ron just take a different route. Five minutes later, Neville comes in, smoking and looking for a pair of pants to change into.
    • Less funny once you realize that 'pants' in British is short for 'underpants'.
  • This exchange:

Harry: Yes.
Snape: Yes sir.
Harry: There is no need to call me sir, professor.

  • Ron diving behind Hermione everytime he thinks Lavender is passing by: "Hide me!"
  • The students first seeing the love potion and how they just, sort of, float toward it.
  • "Yes, Harry Potter! And if Dobby does it [1] wrong, Dobby will throw himself off the topmost tower, Harry Potter!"

Deathly Hallows

  • The early scene where several characters are turned into Harry Potter decoys, including twins Fred and George. Their reaction? "Wow, we're identical!"
    • From the same scene, Harry's reaction to seeing all his doubles changing their clothes: 'He felt like asking them to show a little more respect for his privacy as they all began stripping off with impunity, clearly much more at ease with displaying his body than they would have been with their own.' Ron exclaiming (in a Shout-Out to a joke made in Half-Blood Prince about Harry's chest), "I knew Ginny was lying about that tattoo," can only be topped by this moment after Bill offers to take Fleur on a thestral: 'Fleur walked over to stand beside him, giving him a sappy, slavish look Harry hoped with all his heart would never appear on his face again.'
      • The Face That Launched A Thousand Slashfics?
      • Forget that scene with Bill and Fleur, it's the above reaction that really killed me.
    • And later still, after George has lost his ear and makes his horrible pun 'I feel saintlike... holey', Fred's reaction: "Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?"
    • Most of the wedding:

Molly: Your brother is getting married in a few days!
Ron: And is he getting married in my room? No! So why in the name of Merlin's saggy left--
Arthur: Don't argue with your mother.

      • The drunk relative trying to figure out if the disguised Harry was his son.
      • Charlie, Hagrid, and another wizard getting drunk and singing about Odo the Wizard.
      • Aunt Muriel (and how she looks like a "badly-tempered flamingo") and Ron's response to her.

Ron: Nightmare, Muriel is. She used to come 'round every Christmas until, thank God, Fred and George put a Dungbomb under her chair and she took offense. Dad always said she'd write them out of her will.

      • Hermione trying to kick Ron under the table and hitting Harry instead.
      • Ron saying about Muriel, "She's rude to everyone" and George comes up saying "Talking about Muriel?"
      • The descriptions of Ron's uncle and how he celebrated at parties.

Fred: He used to down an entire bottle of firewhisky, then run on to the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his--
Hermione: Yes, he sounds a real charmer.
(Harry roars with laughter)
Ron: Never married for some reason.
Hermione: You amaze me.

    • How did we miss this one? "Really gives a feel for the scope and tragedy of the thing doesn't it?" Ron's Crowning Moment of Snark.
  • "Erecto!"
  • Hermione reading the tale of the three brothers while Harry and Ron play the Riff Trax.
  • Students out of bed! Students in the corridors!
    • They're supposed to be, you blithering idiot!
  • After Dumbledore tells Snape that he wants Snape to kill him, Snape responds, in full Sarcasm Mode, "Would you like me to do it now? Or would you like a few minutes to compose an epitaph?"
  • YOU! COMPLETE! ARSE! RONALD! WEASLEY!.
    • Actually, Hermione throughout that scene! DON'T YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN! GIVE ME MY WAND!
    • And afterwards, Ron's sycophantic attempts to make up with her, especially the reference to "getting back in her good books."

Hermione: "Maybe it's something you need to figure out for yourself..."
Ron "Yeah, that makes sense!"
Hermione: "No it doesn't!"

Scrimegour: Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?
Hermione: No, I'm not. I'm hoping to do some good in the world!

    • Even more Hilarious in Hindsight when you find out where Hermione ends up working in the epilogue - As the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
  • In Deathly Hallows, when Ron is complaining that Hermione packed his old jeans and that they're too tight to fit his wand in, she suggests somewhere else he could stick it...

Unsorted

  • "Erectus!"
  • Fred and George Weasley. Seriously, the pair of them are a walking Crowning Moment of Funny.
    • Ginny and Ron, being Weasleys, also get their share, but not nearly as many.
  • Any of Dumbledore's extremely eccentric but awesome ramblings always sends this troper into a fit of giggles, e.g.

Harry [to Hagrid]: You don't think anything that Skeeter cow -— sorry, Professor-
Dumbledore: I have gone temporarily deaf and haven't any idea what you said.
Harry: Errr... right.

Fred: YOU'RE JOKING!
Dumbledore: I am not joking, Mr. Weasley. Though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar- (McGonagall clears her throat loudly)

Dumbledore: It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs.

  • At one point, McGonagall slipped on wet floor (Peeves' work) and caught the nearest thing for balance, which happens to be Hermione's neck.
  1. ↑ (stalking Malfoy)
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