Harry Potter HBO Trailer: Does It Really Show James, Lily AND Voldemort?

0:00Alright, so I've already broken down the new HBO Harry Potter trailer and even spotted 25 easter eggs. There are still three things from the trailer I don't fully understand. First of all, who are these two wizards celebrating and lighting up the bridge? Second of all, who is that hooded figure walking toward the cottage near the end? And lastly, what is Dumbledore referring to when he says, I can't protect them, I can only prepare them. Obviously, none of these have been confirmed yet, but thankfully this is a theory channel and trust me, I've got plenty of those. Interestingly, even the official Harry Potter website is acknowledged that there are a couple of shots in this trailer that are deliberately not explaining it. Which obviously makes me even more suspicious. So in today's video, I want to take a look at what I think are the three biggest mysteries from the trailer and present my findings. At the 147 mark in the trailer, or a little bit later, depending on which 20 watch, we get a very interesting shot of young man and woman, excitedly running across a bridge and casting magical sparks from their ones.

1:00And my own excitement, the first thought that came to my mind was that this must be James and Lily Potter. Magic, love, sparks, quite literally, and a power couple whose demise and origins are massively important to the first book. And at first glance, I can definitely understand why people have gone there. There are young man and woman we know the show has considerably more time than the original phosphous stone film to explore Harry's parents. And there are already other shots in the trailer that appear to be connected to the night Voldemort attack them. A few breakdowns online, they've even gone as far as basically identifying them as James and Lily outright. Suggesting HBO could be giving us additional flashbacks showing more of their lives before Voldemort's attack. But the more I look at this scene, the less convinced I am, with the most glaring issue of course being that a few of their physical characteristics don't match. The man notably isn't wearing glasses, and the woman doesn't have Lily's signature red hair. At least not that we can tell. It looks much closer to brown. Some people have pointed to this as definitive evidence that this isn't Lily in James.

2:03But I have to say, the lighting is dark and this doesn't completely eliminate the possibility. Lily has red hair, yeah, but it's not red in the ginger sense like the weasley's hair. It's actually supposed to be more of an all-burn or dark red. Wicing can certainly play tricks on us, and the scene is not well lit. So there does still exist the possibility that this is Lily. The other issue is James, who is notably not wearing his signature glasses. That initially seemed like a much stronger strike against the theory, but apparently some eagle-eyed fans online have actually pointed out what appears to be a pair of glasses tucked into the inside pocket of the man's coat. I'm still not sure if I can see it. We're of course dealing with a very quick, dark shot, but if that interpretation is correct, then suddenly the absence of glasses on his face doesn't really tell us much at all. You could have easily just taken them off and tucked them away. This basically leaves us at square one again. Yeah, her hair doesn't look red, but it could be the lighting. And yeah, he isn't wearing glasses, but they might be tucked away.

3:03I guess we'll just have to wait and see what HBO says before we can settle the debate. However, I do want to know what everyone thinks about this in the comments. Next I want to take a closer look at their behaviour, their happy, celebrating. And what do witches and wizards celebrate in the first Harry Potter book? Why? The full of Voldemort of course. If you go right back to the opening of Fosfer Stone, the Wizarding World is already in the middle of celebrating by the time we meet the Durses. People are openly wearing robes, hugging strangers in the street, and generally behaving in ways that completely confuse Vernon. Because after years of being terrified of Voldemort, they suddenly believe the nightmare is over. And to be honest, that interpretation does fit this footage surprisingly well. Rather than just hearing about those celebrations, after the fact, HBO could actually show us what the Wizarding World looked like on the night Voldemort disappeared. Witches and wizards pouring to the streets, lighting up the sky and celebrating because they finally think they're safe. The Finding Harry documentary, which is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series, supports this as there is concept art for what looks to be the same man and woman celebrating.

4:07In a decent concept art, there are images of fireworks and other celebrations. So this is a pretty strong argument. However, it does seem a little bit weird to me to have two seemingly unknown wizards have prominent screen time in such a short teaser trailer. Surely there must be some significance beyond their celebration. Some fans have suggested Frank and Alice Longbottom, but I'm not completely sold on that either. The Longbottoms were of course enormous important members of the Order of the Phoenix, and like James and Lily, they had a child who could have fulfilled the prophecy. So I can understand why people are looking in that direction. But there's nothing in the shot itself that really screams Frank and Alice to me. And if HBO were going to introduce them this early, I'd imagine there would be some slightly clearer clue pointing us towards that interpretation. Notably the official Harry Potter website has deliberately refused to identify them, instead listing the pair and mysteries yet to be uncovered, and asking why they're running across a bridge lighting up the trees with their ones. So clearly for now at least, HBO wants us wondering who these two actually are.

5:11I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts. This brings me to the next shot that I want to analyse from the trailer. The hooded figure that appears around 2008. In this moment we see a lone hooded figure slowly approaching a small house with a thatched roof. Of course this one has already set the internet a light with all sorts of theories, and I've got to say, my first impression was that this must be a flashback of Voldemort walking toward the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow. In fact there's actually some pretty compelling visual precedent for this interpretation in the original films. When Hagrid first explains who Voldemort is to Harry and Eliki Codron, we're shown a flashback of that night, and one of the shots is very similar, showing a hooded Voldemort slowly approaching the Potter's home before going inside it. So HBO may actually be deliberately echoing one of the earliest visual depictions we ever got of Voldemort. If that little house really is the Potter cottage, then there is only one person this figure can realistically be. And if that's what we're looking at, then this shot could actually be giving us our

6:12first proper indication that HBO intends to dramatize the night, Voktober 31st, in far more detail than the original Philosopher's Stone film ever did. The films obviously showed us fragments of that night over the course of the series, we saw Lily trying to protect Harry, we saw flashes of Voldemort, and later on we gradually got a clearer picture of what actually happened inside the house. But we never really got one long uninterrupted sequence of Voldemort arriving in Godric's hollow, killing James, confronting Lily, and then finally attempting to murder Harry. With the TV format, HBO suddenly has the time to actually let that entire sequence breathe. And visually this shot does fit that interpretation incredibly well. But with all that said, I don't think we can call this completely confirmed just yet, because there are a couple of other theories floating around that are at least worth considering. One of the more interesting ones is that this could actually be Quirrell, already carrying Voldemort, approaching somewhere connected to Hagrid. If you remember, Hagrid accidentally reveals the secret to getting past Fluffy, after speaking to a mysterious hooded stranger in a pump.

7:15The stranger buys him drinks, gets him talking about magical creatures, and eventually Hagrid lets slip, that the easiest way to get past a 300 dog is simply to play its music. We later learnt that the stranger was Quirrell, so theoretically this could be connected to that sequence instead. Personally though, I still lean pretty heavily towards Godric's hollow. The framing of the shot just feels too deliberate to me. It doesn't look like someone casually walking to a pub or heading off to meet Hagrid. It looks like someone approaching a family home with very bad intentions. And just like the two mysterious wizards from the previous mystery, the official Harry Potter website has once again refused to identify what we're looking at. Instead leaving the hooded figure under its mysteries yet to be uncovered section. So for now, I think Voldemort is still the strongest theory, but clearly HBO wants us wondering. Lastly, it's my favourite mystery of the three. Toward the end of the trailer, we had Dumbledore speaking privately with McGonagall, and he says something along the lines of, I can't protect them, I can only prepare them, to which McGonagall responds, for what?

8:17And this is interesting, because as far as we know, this is a completely new scene. It isn't left to directly from Floss of the Stone, and unlike some of the other little additions we've seen, this feels quite significant. Not just harmless, extra dialogue. The obvious question is who exactly he's talking about. When Dumbledore says he can't protect them, does he simply mean the students at Hogwarts generally? Because admittedly, Hogwarts is not exactly the safest school in the world. Maybe Dumbledore is simply acknowledging that no matter how many protections he puts in place, he can't shield every student from every possible danger forever. And at some point, they actually need to learn how to deal with what's out there. But I think more likely, this line is really about Harry, specifically Harry and Co. Dumbledore knows Voldemort attacked the potters. He knows Harry somehow survived a killing curse that nobody else had ever survived, and most importantly, Dumbledore is one of the few people in the Wizarding World who never seems entirely convinced that Voldemort is truly gone. So when he says I can't protect them, I can only prepare them, I think HBO is beginning to introduce that much more complicated side of Dumbledore.

9:19The idea that he genuinely does care about Harry and wants to protect him, but also understands that there are some things Harry will eventually have to face himself. In the books and films, Dumbledore repeatedly allows Harry to experience danger that, from the outside, looks completely insane. And obviously, I don't want to go too far and pretend Philosopher's Stone Dumbledore already knows exactly how Harry's entire life is going to play out, because he doesn't. There are enormous pieces of the Voldemort puzzle that even Dumbledore won't fully understand until he is later. The absolutely knows Voldemort is probably still out there somewhere, and once strange things begin happening around the Philosopher's Stone, I think it's perfectly reasonable that you would start wondering where the Harry story with Voldemort is far from over. Once again, I'd be curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this one. Anyway, those are the three biggest mysteries that stood out to me from the new trailer. If there are any other big mysteries you'd like me to break down, let me know down in the comment section below. And as always, if you enjoy the content, please like the video and subscribe to the channel. Until next time, remember, it does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live.