JK Rowling Once Revealed Hagrid From 'Harry Potter' Doesn't Have a Patronus and Here's Why
By Natalie Zamora
Admit it: As a fan of the Harry Potter series, you’ve probably taken some sort of personality quiz to find out what your Patronus is. For those of you not familiar, a Patronus is a type of advanced magic, which gives you protection from certain dangers you might be facing. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Lupin tells Harry that a Patronus is “a kind of Anti-Dementor – a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the Dementor,” as the terrifying creatures are what Harry needs protection from.
When casting the spell "Expecto Patronum," a gifted wizard can conjure up something- either some type of spirit or an animal- which will protect them. For example, Harry’s Patronus is a stag, which we see for the first time at the Great Lake towards the end of Prisoner of Azkaban when dementors come for him.
Author JK Rowling has revealed the Patronus of many characters throughout her series, and even declared her own on social media. As fun as it is to find out which Patronus characters have, one reveal from Rowling a couple of years back is actually extremely upsetting: Hagrid does not have one.
In a Twitter Q&A in 2015, Rowling revealed that Hagrid could not produce a Patronus, as we mentioned before, it is very advanced magic.
Hagrid couldn't produce a Patronus. It's a very difficult spell. https://t.co/TRDVNvSEdR
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) August 21, 2015
According to Rowling, "The Patronus is the most famous (and famously difficult) defensive charm"—so much so that "The majority of witches and wizards are unable to produce Patronuses and to do so is generally considered a mark of superior magical ability."
As Lupin teaches Harry, the spell calls for you to think about your happiest memory. Given Hagrid has admitted he doesn’t have many memories of his mother, who left the family when he was young, and that his father passed away while he was in school, fans have speculated that perhaps he doesn’t have too many happy memories to look back on. Plus, he was eventually expelled from Hogwarts, so it seems if anything, he just was never taught the spell.
#Hagrid wasn’t the most intelligent man. Nor did he have the most happy of pasts. Sadly, I think his #Patronus problem has to do with both deficiencies.
— Noah A Waters III ™ (@NoahAWatersIII) June 24, 2018
Too bad Hagrid couldn’t just take a Patronus quiz for fun.
This article also appears on Mental Floss.