Small Details You Missed In The Harry Potter HBO TV Series Trailer

The first teaser trailer for the forthcoming "Harry Potter" TV series on HBO — titled "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," according to said trailer — is officially here, and we're getting our first look at our return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

With Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout, and Arabella Stanton taking over the reins from Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger — alongside an adult cast that includes Nick Frost, Janet McTeer, John Lithgow, Bel Powley, and Paapa Essiedu, just to name a few — the "Harry Potter" TV show is finally taking shape.

Still, it's being released just over a decade after the original film franchise wrapped up in 2011 — the TV series now officially has a release date of Christmas 2026 — and fans are curious to see how this show will reinvent such a familiar story. So what small details did you miss in the trailer? Keep reading to find out.

Early in the teaser, we see something that never appears in the original film franchise at all: Harry's time at a non-magical Muggle school alongside his bully of a cousin Dudley Dursley (played in the new series by Amos Kitson). The original book describes an incident where, as Dudley and his gang of other bullies approach Harry, Harry mysteriously finds himself transported to the roof of the school; after he gets in trouble for "climbing" the roof, Harry tries to tell his aunt and uncle that he just meant to jump and the wind must have carried him onto the roof. (Harry is book-smart, but he's not always smart, you know?)

It's hard to say whether or not they'll put this exact scene in the show or change things up a little, but considering that the entire first season will be devoted to that first book, it feels like a relatively safe bet. It would, on some level, be exciting to see Harry's first accidental brush with magic.

As all "Harry Potter" fans know, Harry and his parents James and Lily are attacked by the Dark Lord Voldemort just a few months after Harry's first birthday; James is murdered by Voldemort and Lily sacrifices her life to save her infant child. As Voldemort tries to kill Harry, his Killing Curse mysteriously rebounds and seemingly defeats him instead, leaving Harry with a lightning bolt-shaped cut on his forehead that ultimately becomes his signature scar.

This scar drives a truly surprising amount of the narrative throughout the "Harry Potter" storyline, particularly because it acts as a sort of strange communication system between Harry and Voldemort (wherein Harry gets a twinge or severe pain in his scar whenever Voldemort feels a strong emotion). It's notable, then, that the scar is quite a bit more subtle in this "Harry Potter" trailer, whereas the scar they put on Daniel Radcliffe's forehead in the original movies was incredibly visible and obvious.

Severus Snape is one of the most fascinating and layered characters in the entire "Harry Potter" universe, but we barely got to see him in this teaser trailer. To be fair, we only got brief glimpses of Janet McTeer's Professor Minerva McGonagall and John Lithgow's headmaster Albus Dumbledore as well, but still — the only moment we see Severus Snape, played in this project by Paapa Essiedu, is a scene where he's casting a spell in a Hogwarts hallway in near darkness.

Essiedu, an actor known for "Black Mirror" and "I May Destroy You," has the unenviable task of taking over the role from Alan Rickman, a beloved and legendary British actor of the stage and screen who passed away in 2016. Despite some genuinely horrendous backlash over Essiedu's casting from specific trolls who don't think a Black man should play Snape, he'll probably do a phenomenal job ... even though there are some aspects of Snape's character that might feel accidentally awkward with this dynamic. (An example: Harry immediately distrusts Snape when they meet but can't figure out exactly why, a situation that will now have some unsettling implications.)

All of this is to say that we only got the smallest look at Snape, but hopefully we'll see more from Essiedu as the series approaches.

Early in his tenure at Hogwarts, Harry gets drafted onto the Gryffindor House Quidditch Team after Professor McGonagall sees him make a daring catch during a schoolyard argument — and we did get a small look at one of his earliest Quidditch matches in the story, if not his first-ever game. The important thing to note here, though, is the number on the back of Harry's cloak: the number seven.

There are seven players on every Quidditch team, and because Harry is the most specialized member of the team as the Seeker — the one who must navigate the chaos and catch the game-winning Golden Snitch while others beat off missile-like Bludgers and score goals with the basketball-style Quaffle — it makes sense that he'd get the last number. (He's also the last one recruited for the team in the narrative.) Still, the number seven is massively important in "Harry Potter" and is a sneaky reference to Voldemort's seven Horcruxes, which Harry must find and destroy to take down his nemesis in the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

We spend a decent amount of time with Harry Potter himself in the teaser trailer, which is to be expected — the series is named after him! — but we also get some solid glimpses of his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Oddly, though, while Ron gets a couple of bigger moments in this admittedly short trailer, Hermione doesn't have any lines at all.

Sure, we see Hermione sitting on the Hogwarts Express with her future best friends and going to classes with them, but part of Hermione's whole deal, honestly, is that she rarely shuts up, so it's a little strange to not see her speak at all. Ron, however, gets the trailer's standout moment. After asking Harry if he's really the Harry Potter on the train, Harry shows off his scar and confirms it, at which Stout's Ron gestures at his forehead and makes a little "pew!" sound. It's genuinely very cute, and it's a great glimpse at how Stout will play this beloved character.

The "Harry Potter" TV series premieres this Christmas.