How Harry Potter TV Show Will Include Other Perspectives

Aside from including characters and plot lines cut from the movies, the Harry Potter TV series coming to HBO in 2027 will further justify its existence by broadening the narrative scope beyond the titular character’s limited point-of-view.

“I think with this adaptation, you get to see so much more than the books,” Lox Pratt, set to play Draco Malfoy, confirmed during a recent interview with 1883 Magazine. “[The books] are very much over Harry’s shoulder, which is great, and that’s how they played the film as well. And I think Francesca [Gardiner] and Mark [Mylod] have been audible about this in their interviews, there’s just so much more that you get to see. You get to see all the teachers in their little rooms. You get to see Draco at home. I won’t spoil too much about that, but there are some brilliant scenes at home where you start to get an insight into how he is.”

HBO’s Harry Potter TV show will widen narrative scope

In 2025, a number of leaked stills of John Lithgow’s Professor Dumbledore on a beach and a man brandishing a wand from a rooftop sparked immediate discussion among longtime fans, who could not link the images with scenes from the source material.

Some theorized that the seaside filming with Lithgow might be preemptive horcrux-hunting footage for the season based on Half-Blood Prince before the actor becomes too old for action-heavy sequences.

As for the mysterious man casting spells from a rooftop?

There is a strong argument to be made that he is none other than Dedalus Diggle, who may or may not have aroused Muggle suspicion in Kent by sending shooting stars into the sky the day after Lord Voldemort vanished.

With that said, the actor in the leaked photos is shown wearing a flat cap—not the top hat Dedalus famously dons in the books. Of course, one could simply chalk that up to a deliberate wardrobe choice made by the show’s costume design, but nothing is really confirmed—except for the fact that fans will indeed get peek at the wider Wizarding World.

The precedent was set from the very first chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone, which is mainly told through the eyes of Vernon Dursley before shifting to a conversation between Professors Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. Later in the book, when Harry’s broom goes haywire during his first-ever Quidditch match, the vantage point briefly focuses on Ron and Hermione in the stands.

And then there’s Half-Blood Prince, whose first two chapters are devoted to the British Prime Minister and Narcissa Malfoy, respectively. “The Riddle House” in Goblet of Fire and “The Dark Lord Ascending” in Deathly Hallows are also worth mentioning.

It’s an interesting idea that allows the new adaptation to plumb corners of the Potter mythos that readers have wanted to see for years—be it a look at the Marauders during their time at Hogwarts or the mysterious voyages of Tom Riddle after he stole Slytherin’s locket and Hufflepuff’s cup from Hepzibah Smith.

“The scope of the production, the detail, meticulousness of what they’re going through and what they’ve built takes theatrical to just a whole different level,” president of global streaming and games at Warner Bros. DiscoveryJB Perrette told Variety. “And so when you think of the love of that franchise and what you can do in a series—can go deeper, an tell more of the story, can tell more of the pieces that you didn’t get to capture in a two hour movie—Casey [Bloys, HBO Max boss] doesn’t like it when I say this, but I’m gonna say it anyway. I really think this is the streaming event of the decade.”