“Harry Potter” Easter Eggs

“Harry Potter” has been a childhood favorite for many families for years. As a result, artist Jim Kay decided to illustrate the Harry Potter series making them more popular than ever. He also included cool little hidden details into a few of the illustrated pages he has done, so readers can go on an Easter egg hunt.

The first Easter egg is in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” On the chapter name for chapter 2 “The Vanishing Glass,” there is a chameleon.  I believe that the chameleon is a reference to the “vanishing” glass, since chameleons look like they vanish when they change color. It may also be a reference to the characters’ trip to the zoo, which happens in this chapter. That was a relatively simple detail that I found, though some of them are more complex  

The second Easter egg is also in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” but it occurs several chapters later when Harry and Ron are in the train eating their snacks. Harry gets a chocolate frog with Albus Dumbledore on the card. The image shows Dumbledore holding a candy that looks to be a sherbet lemon, as he says to Professor Mcgonagall at the start of the book, “Would you care for a sherbet lemon?…. A sherbet lemon. They’re a kind of Muggle sweet I’m rather fond of.” If the readers look closely they will see that they are in fact yellow, just like real sherbet lemons.

Those were the two “Sorcerer’s Stone” hidden details that I found in the book and for “The Chamber Of Secrets” I managed to find two as well. The first appears on the back of the dust cover for the book. There is a giant black humanoid creature with sticks on the top of its head that may be a bowtruckle. However, when I searched to see other books Jim Kay has created artwork for, I found a book called “A Monster Calls.” This piece of art is actually a reference to The Green Man, a creature in the book “A Monster Calls.”

The second one is much more obvious and does not have a lot of connection to the book, but I found it. In the top right corner of the illustration on page 131 I found the snitch in a little area with no clouds or rain, but both Harry and Draco are going the wrong direction, which makes me think it was sometime in the middle of the game.

My next three details I found are all in “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” the third book in the series. The first one is at the beginning of chapter fifteen “The Quidditch Final.” In this illustration I found a set of cards, one of which has a lightning struck tower on it. This is a reference to the book “The Half Blood Prince.”Professor Trelwalny says, “the lightning-struck tower. Calamity. Disaster. Coming nearer all the time.” I think this is a pretty cool Easter egg, because most people would look for some context in that book only, but for dedicated fans who have time to think about the reference, it is pretty cool.

The second detail in “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” is on the header for chapter five,”The Dementor.” On the header, there is a chocolate bar, which Lupin gave Harry and friends after the dementor affected them. On the wrapper there are rabbits circling a triangle. When I looked closely, I saw a black dog, which might be a reference to Sirius Black, or a grim.

The third and final detail I found in “The Prisoner of Azkaban” appears in the last chapter of the book. On the window, I saw that it is in the shape of the moon built into the glass. Lupin also has a moon on a poster in his office. If this was shown earlier in the book people would have been confused.

The first detail I found in “The Goblet of Fire,” JK Rowling’s 4th book, is on the back of the cover. It shows a vendor, who is selling little trinkets and toys at the Quidditch world cup. Some of the toys are little house elves that look somewhat like Dobby. Next the vendor has a gumball machine with a B on it. Most people would think that this would be a jelly bean dispenser, but I believe it to be a Bertie Botts Every Flavor beans dispenser.

The second detail appears in the 1st chapter when a muggle, Frank Bryce, is listening to Voldemort and Wormtail. Then Voldemort’s snake comes in. When I looked at the picture I saw Nagini, his snake slithering up the stairs.

The third, and my personal favorite detail in Jim Kay’s illustrated series, is two different pictures portraying the inside and outside of the Weasley family kitchen. In the “Goblet Of Fire,” two pages apart there are two pictures of the Weasley family’s kitchen with Mrs. Weasley cooking food. It is my belief that these two pictures are the same, with an illustration showing the inside and the outside. Some details in these pictures are, in the window there is a robin, when I looked at one of the drawings in the house I saw the exact same bird in the same pose just crayon drawn. Next when I look at the top right corner of the bottom picture, I see Errol sleeping in a box. The label on the box is Gambol and Japes, a known wizard joke shop in Diagon Alley. So that could have held many things for the twins of chaos to use, filibuster fireworks, biting teacups, or, as Filch puts it so well in “The Order Of The Phoenix, ”a huge order of dungbombs.” Third, I saw Mrs. Weasley in the exact same pose in both pictures with her head down, and both arms in front of her. She is ust facing different directions for each picture. Finally I saw a wooden lion juicing some oranges into orange juice, showing that wizards can do all things with a flick of a wand, they need help sometimes too.

Another detail I found interesting in “The Goblet of Fire,” is an illustration of Ron’s room. In the room, he has a ton of stuff, including a plethora of Chudley Cannons banners going back to 1892, a spinning toy depicting quidditch players in a match going for the quaffle, plenty of trading cards with Chudley Cannons on them, some books which  might be a gift from Hermione, a rook from muggle chess, a snow globe with Hogwarts on it, a box of quality quidditch supplies, and a cannon representing the Chudley Cannons. There is also the famous rabbit that Fred turned into a spider. “It’s not funny,’ said Ron, fiercely. ‘If you must know, when I was three, Fred turned my rabbit into a dirty great spider because I broke his toy broomstick. You wouldn’t like them either if you’d been holding your bear and suddenly it had too many legs and he broke off, shuddering.’”  It also has a collection of the popular wizarding comic “Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle.” Finally it has some books that have been popular in the wizarding community, “A Snitch in Time,” “Fantastic Beasts, and Where to Find Them,” and lastly, ”Quidditch Through the Ages.” 

Finally in the “Goblet of Fire,” there is an illustration of Uncle Vernon and Dudley eating. When I  looked closely at the title of the newspaper I saw the words “The Chosen One?” This could be a reference to Harry, but it could also just be some election candidate or popular person doing something cool. But of course, if Aunt Petunia is still in contact with wizards why not have Uncle Vernon read “The Daily Prophet” that features Harry.

Jim Kay’s work on the Harry Potter series has been filled with wonderful little Easter eggs and hidden details that I have found.