A deleted scene from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has explained an important plot hole near the end of the movie.
It can be hard to believe that it's been more than 11 years since the Harry Potter movies wrapped up, but fans are still as devoted as ever to the wizarding world depicted in the books and films.
However, there are a few problems which ardent viewers have picked up on in their endless rewatches throughout the years and this one from Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is quite a biggie.
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Luckily it's all sorted and solved by a scene which ended up deleted from the final cut of the film, though for many fans that begs the question as to why it was spliced out in the first place.
The plot hole in question takes place during the climactic finale of the final Harry Potter movie, and the crucial detail which sets it up is when Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) sends all of the Slytherin students off to the dungeons so they can't turn traitor and betray Hogwarts to Voldemort's (Ralph Fiennes) Death Eaters.
This moment in the movies was actually quite jarring for some fans who thought there was no way Professor McGonagall would confine the Slytherin students to the dungeons.
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As far as deviations from the books which fans didn't like go, it's not quite up there with Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) running at Harry yelling 'DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE' while grabbing him in the movie, when in the books he calmly asks Harry the same question.
Back on the topic of Deathly Hallows, in the books the Slytherin students and all of the witches and wizards at Hogwarts younger than 16 are sent out of the castle, which sounds pretty reasonable as they're either too young to fight or would have to choose between fighting their families or their school.
In the movies one of the Slytherin students suggests turning Harry over to Lord Voldemort, and McGonagall orders all of them to be sent to the dungeons while the rest of the school cheers.
This sets the scene for the plot hole later on when Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) shows up for a fight against Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) with fellow Slytherin students Goyle (Josh Herdman) and Blaise (Louis Cordice) in tow.
In the movie audiences see Goyle and Blaise among the Slytherin students sent to the dungeons, but then they turn up playing sidekicks to Malfoy in the Room of Requirement.
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This deleted scene from the final movie explains the whole thing, as it shows us Malfoy breaking the Slytherin students out of the dungeons on his return to Hogwarts and grabbed his friends so they could go and utterly fail to beat Harry.
This scene was actually supposed to turn out differently, as it was meant to be Malfoy flanked by long time cronies Crabbe (Jamie Waylett) and Goyle, but Waylett was caught growing cannabis at his home.
As Malfoy needed a henchman, Crabbe was replaced by Blaise Zabini, and his death in the books from his own flame spell was given to poor old Goyle.
If they'd kept this deleted scene in it would have explained things a bit better, and more importantly it would have given us a few seconds more of Tom Felton in the movies, as throughout eight films he was only on screen for 31 minutes.
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.Topics: Harry Potter, TV and Film