HBO’s Harry Potter Must Keep the One Storyline That Doomed Fred Weasley From the Start

HBO's Harry Potter reboot has one job beyond staying faithful to the books: fix the big holes the movies left. Right at the top is the Prewett family, specifically Molly Weasley's twin brothers, Fabian and Gideon. The films barely nodded at them, and that omission cost the story one of its most quietly devastating threads.

The Weasley history the movies skipped

If you remember a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in Order of the Phoenix, Mad-Eye Moody shows Harry a photo of the original Order of the Phoenix and points out Fabian and Gideon Prewett. That's basically the franchise's shorthand way of saying: these two fought Voldemort in the First Wizarding War and were killed by Death Eaters. The books drop that info and move on, but the fallout lives with Molly.

We get a small, brutal reminder of that in Deathly Hallows when Molly gives Harry a battered old watch for his 17th birthday. It used to belong to Fabian. It's an ordinary gift with a huge emotional payload: Molly's not just sentimental, she's someone who has already buried brothers because of this war and is now sending another child into the line of fire.

The eerie echo with Fred and George

Here's the part that stings if you connect the dots. Molly named her own twins with the same first initials as her brothers: Fabian and Gideon, Fred and George. It's not a random coincidence; the Prewetts are a shadow version of the Weasley twins hiding in the backstory. And when the Second Wizarding War hits its peak, history tilts the same way again. Fred dies in Deathly Hallows fighting Voldemort's forces. George lives. The Prewetts' story foreshadows that heartbreak, and the difference between the two wars becomes the point: the first ended in nothing but grief, the second leaves at least a sliver of hope because Harry wins and someone makes it out.

Why the HBO series needs the First Wizarding War

The books only let us see what Harry sees, which means the first war is mostly scattered memories and a few photographs. A TV series has time to actually go there. Show the original Order. Show the Prewetts before they are names on a list. Let us understand what the war did to families so Molly's protectiveness in the later years stops being a quirk and becomes a wound.

It also locks in the larger stakes. The first war shapes everything that follows: Dumbledore's choices, Snape's shifting loyalties, Sirius Black's imprisonment, the Weasley family's constant brush with danger. You feel Voldemort's power differently when you see it hollow people out the first time.

Showing the First Wizarding War isn't just extra lore; it's the emotional groundwork that makes Harry's story hit the way it should.

And honestly, it is also about respect. The Prewetts, the Potters, the Bones, and a lot of unnamed witches and wizards died to buy the next generation a chance. If this reboot wants to deepen the story, start there.

Where the franchise stands, for context

This is J.K. Rowling's seven-book saga, turned by Warner Bros. Pictures into eight main Potter films (not counting the three Fantastic Beasts spin-offs). Across all 11 Wizarding World movies, the box office sits around $9.5 billion. The original films were led by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, and Ralph Fiennes.

If HBO really wants to do this right, give us the Prewetts, give us the first war, and let those choices reframe everything we already know about the Weasleys and the Order. You in?

The Harry Potter films are streaming in the US on HBO Max.