Harry Potter - Glimpses of the Other Side Quiz

Answer: History of Magic

Hogwarts didn't actually hire a ghost to teach their History of Magic lessons. Professor Binns was a perfectly normal (if somewhat old) teacher when he died after falling asleep in the staffroom and simply got up as a ghost to continue with his usual routine. Sadly, being a ghost doesn't make Professor Binns or his lessons any more interesting.

Other ghosts of Hogwarts mentioned throughout the series include the four house ghosts: Nearly Headless Nick (Gryffindor), the Grey Lady (Ravenclaw), the Fat Friar (Hufflepuff) and the Bloody Baron (Slytherin); the depressed Moaning Myrtle; and the poltergeist, Peeves.

Professors McGonagall (Transfiguration), Snape (Potions) and Flitwick (Charms) are all very much alive and well during the events of this book.

Answer: The Mirror of Erised

Harry had never seen a picture of his parents before arriving at Hogwarts because his aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley, hate all things magical and therefore made no attempt to teach their nephew about his family or his wizarding heritage.

When Harry first encountered the Mirror of Erised, it showed him a vision of himself surrounded by his parents and other long lost family members. It was incapable of providing true communication with the dead, but did allow Harry to see what his parents looked like. The figures in the mirror also appeared to be capable of feeling the emotion of the moment - Harry's mother both smiled and cried, while his father comforted her.

The remembrall belongs to Neville and warns forgetful witches and wizards when they have forgotten something, while the Philosopher's Stone grants everlasting life and money to its owner. Harry receives a magic photo album containing pictures of his parents from Hagrid, but only after he first saw them in the Mirror of Erised.

Answer: The diary

Lord Voldemort's horcruxes were the reason why he wasn't killed on the night that he murdered James and Lily Potter. The Avada Kadavra killing curse that he had aimed at baby Harry backfired on him and effectively killed his body. However, the horcruxes tied his soul to life and allowed him to continue to communicate with the world and begin his journey back to power.

The term 'horcrux' wasn't introduced until 'Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince' but some of the various items Lord Voldemort used for his horcruxes made appearances earlier in the series. First up was the diary which Lucius Malfoy planted in one of Ginny's textbooks after his fight with her father in Flourish and Blotts book shop. Writing in the diary allowed Ginny (and later Harry) to communicate with a student named Tom Riddle, who turned out to be a fifty-year old memory of a young Lord Voldemort.

Nagini the snake made her first appearance in 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire', the locket was seen in Grimmauld Place in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', and the ring was first mentioned in Bob Ogden's memories of his trip to the Gaunt's shack in 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince'.

Answer: No

The time turner did not give Harry an opportunity to see his dead father. It turned out that it was Harry himself who had cast the patronus that saved him, it just happened that Harry looked "extraordinarily like James" (to quote Albus Dumbledore) and his patronus took the form of a stag - the same animal as James Potter's animagus form.

Although in this case the time turner did not help a living character to communicate with a dead one, it is quite clear that the ability to go back in time will always theoretically allow for a second chance to speak with those who later died. However, since the witch or wizard using the time turner then has to live through the reversed time again, it would only be an effective approach for speaking to someone who was very recently deceased.

Answer: Frank Bryce

When Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter forced their wands to do battle, a strange phenomenon occurred due to the fact that both wands were powered by a feather from the same phoenix. A golden beam of light bound the two wands together and Voldemort's wand was forced to regurgitate ghost-like apparitions of the spells it had most recently cast (an effect known as priori incantatem). These included the last five people to have been murdered by Lord Voldemort - Cedric Diggory (a Hogwarts student), Frank Bryce (an elderly muggle), Bertha Jorkins (a witch from the Ministry of Magic) and Lily and James Potter.

Cedric asked Harry to return his body to Hogwarts, Bryce encouraged Harry to fight, Bertha Jorkins implored Harry not to let go of his wand, Lily urged Harry to hold on and James gave him the instructions he needed to return to the school.

Answer: Dilys Derwent

If you wanted to speak to a living former head teacher of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry then you could send them an owl or pop over to their fireplace with the help of some floo powder. Conversing with a dead one is much more complicated, but still possible due to the magical nature of wizarding portraiture. A portrait of a deceased witch or wizard can be trained in the personality, knowledge and memories of its subject and is more than capable of passing on this wisdom to the living - whether requested to or otherwise!

Portraits have the ability to move between each other's pictures within the same building (e.g. when the Fat Lady was found hiding in a "map of Argyllshire" after she was attacked by Sirius Black in 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban'). They can also visit other portraits of themselves hanging elsewhere, such as when former Hogwarts headmistress Dilys Derwent headed off to her other portrait at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to check up on Arthur Weasley's condition in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'.

Bathilda Bagshot was a magical historian, Quirinus Quirrell was the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher during Harry Potter's first year at Hogwarts, and Florean Fortescue was the proprietor of an ice-cream parlour in Diagon Alley.

Answer: Luna Lovegood

The veiled archway in the Department of Mysteries might have appeared harmless at first sight but it was capable of captivating unsuspecting witches and wizards and giving them an urge to pass through it. Unfortunately, as Sirius Black proved, passing through that archway meant instantaneous death, without even a body left behind for friends or family to mourn.

When Harry and the other DA members who had accompanied him on his mission first came across the arch, only Harry and Luna Lovegood appeared to be able to hear the whispered voices emanating from it. Whether this fact was related to her and Harry being the only ones able to see threstrals (because they had both witnessed someone's death) was not clear - however, she evidently believed that the voices were those of the dead, "just lurking out of sight".

Neither Ron nor Hermione heard the voices from the other side of the archway. Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom were both entranced by the object but didn't mention the voices. Although a member of the DA, Cho Chang did not make the trip to the Ministry of Magic.

Answer: Professor Slughorn

A pensieve is a magical object that allows people to view the memories of others from a third person perspective. Harry and Dumbledore took many trips into the pensieve in 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' in order to discover as much as possible about Lord Voldemort's horcruxes. These included reviewing Dumbledore's own memories along with those of a ministry worker named Bob Ogden, a house elf named Hokey, Morfin Gaunt (Voldemort's uncle) and the new potions master, Professor Slughorn.

Dumbledore gave Harry the task of obtaining Slughorn's memory of telling Tom Riddle (aka Lord Voldemort) about horcruxes. As Slughorn was deeply ashamed of the memory he was not keen on handing it over and Harry needed a complicated plan involving a dead acromantula and a dose of the luck inducing potion, Felix Felicis, in order to obtain it.

Memories are perhaps the most important way in which the living are able to remember the dead. Wizarding memories simply have the added advantage of being able to be shared with others in a more tangible way.

Answer: By opening a golden snitch

The resurrection stone was one of three Deathly Hallows and one of the items described in the story 'The Three Brothers' from 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard'. The possessor of the stone could turn it three times and bring their loved ones back to the living world. However, it could not bring them back to life and just brought them back in shadowy form, described as "neither ghost, nor truly flesh".

When Harry kissed the golden snitch to release the hidden resurrection stone within it, he did so because he wanted some support for his long walk through the Forbidden Forest to his appointment with Lord Voldemort and death. The stone brought back his parents, Sirius Black and the very recently deceased Remus Lupin to support and guide him.

Harry's invisibility cloak (another Deathly Hallow) had been passed down through his family until Harry finally inherited it. He became master of the final hallow, the elder wand, when he disarmed Draco Malfoy, but did not gain possession of it until after the death of Lord Voldemort. It was the sword of Gryffindor that Harry pulled from the Sorting Hat much earlier in the series - although Neville Longbottom managed the same feat in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'.

Answer: King's Cross Station

Apparently, in the magical world of Harry Potter, being knocked unconscious by a failed Avada Kedavra killing curse allows for mental, dream-like conversations with the deceased - in this case Harry's beloved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. This is likely to have been a one of a kind conversation however as - unless your name is Harry Potter, someone has given their life to save yours, and the witch or wizard casting the curse happens to have re-grown their body using your blood - trying to replicate this method of conversation seems unnecessarily risky.

Harry's chat with Dumbledore taught him that he had a choice - to go "on", presumably to death; or to return to his life, with the hope that Lord Voldemort's final defeat was imminent.

Harry commented to Dumbledore that the location of their chat looked like a cleaner, emptier version of King's Cross railway station in London - the home of the Hogwarts Express. On first becoming aware of his surroundings Harry thought that he might have been in either a Room of Requirement, because some robes handily turned up when he wished for some clothes; a palace, because of the "great, domed glass roof" above him; or a hall, larger than the Great Hall at Hogwarts school.