Given the number of times I've read the Harry Potter books, there are scenes etched into my memory so precisely that the detail is like its own scene from a movie. It's for that reason that I sometimes find myself questioning my memory of the movies by comparison. I've seen the Harry Potter movies plenty of times as well, and anyone who's read the books knows that changes and omissions had to be made in the book-to-screen adaptations. But somehow I forgot that one crucial event from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wasn't actually shown in the movie.
It's at this point that you'll want to apparate elsewhere if you're somehow reading this article and haven't read or seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Big spoilers ahead!
I'm talking about Fred Weasley's death, which J.K. Rowling once apologized for when acknowledging the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Oh, Fred dies in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, but we don't actually see it happen on screen, and I somehow forgot that part.
This topic came up after I was chatting with another CinemaBlend writer about the amount of screen time certain characters have in the movies. He recently wrote about the relatively low amount of time Tom Felton spent on screen as Draco Malfoy, citing a table of figures posted on Tableau Public, which lists all of the HP characters' screen-time totals in the movies. I can see why Harry Potter movie fans might be interested and even surprised by Draco's screen-time total, but I was more interested in the slight difference between Fred and George’s screen times, since the Weasley twins are often seen together.
Then it occurred to me that the discrepancy could be due, at least in part, to the sad fact that, though Fred does appear in the last movie, he doesn't survive it. James Phelps can be spotted on screen a few times in Deathly Hallows Part 2 before his character dies, including one scene where he and his brother stand together, braced for the impending Hogwarts battle.
Later, we see George by himself, being disarmed of his wand by a Death Eater. If you look closely at the screenshot below, you can see the leg and foot of a fallen body and a wand next to it, near where George is sitting, but it's hard to tell if the body belongs to Fred or someone else.
It's not long after that brief glimpse of George that we learn that Fred is dead. But it wasn't before I went back to look at Fred's scenes that I remembered that a major moment wasn't included in the film. Movie viewers don't learn that Fred has died until Harry sees the Weasleys grieving over his body in the Great Hall. At this point in the film, Snape has already died, and Harry is about to revisit his memories in the Pensieve.
For those who haven't read the book, the order of some events was different. The Battle of Hogwarts chapter of Deathly Hallows almost seems like it's going to close out on a lighter note. Amidst a battle with Thicknesse, Percy Weasley banters a bit about putting in his notice with the Ministry. Fred, who is fighting alongside him, praises his brother in astonishment for actually making a joke -- very out-of-character for the usually-serious Percy. Fred is literally mid-sentence when an explosion erupts, blowing out the side of the castle and killing him instantly. The chapter ends with:
And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.
The fact that Fred was ribbing Percy, having only recently reuniting with him (Percy had been estranged from his family since Book 5, but returned and apologized not long before this battle started), made the scene even more devastating. And I'll never be able to wrap my mind around how George went on without his (slightly older) twin brother after that. Fred's death is undoubtedly sad in the movie, but "seeing" it play out in real-time in the book, and factoring in that he was laughing when it happened, was and remains one of the most heartbreaking book moments I've ever experienced. Maybe that's why it surprised me to remember it was never shown in the movie.
In a big way, I think viewers were spared from the worst of Fred's death by not seeing it actually happen on screen. I'll be curious to see if HBO's upcoming Harry Potter TV show includes the full sequence in the new adaptation.
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