The Iconic Harry Potter Character Fans Hope To See In Fantastic Beasts 3

While the Harry Potter movie prequels, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, all started with a slim fictional textbook, they've grown into an action-packed exploration of the wizarding world's tumultuous history, pre-Lord Voldemort. The first film in the series featured almost all new characters, but familiar names joined the cast of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, including Hogwarts professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) and dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (previously played by Johnny Depp). Now, with the third film of the franchise in production, fans are hoping to see another familiar character join the group.

Since Fantastic Beasts has a gentle, creature-loving Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) at its center, fans are eager to see him meet with the original creature-loving wizard, Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Harry's good friend and professor of Care of Magical Creatures. Plus, they have a theory about how a potential encounter between Newt and a young Hagrid could dramatically influence Hagrid's life.

In a Reddit post on r/harrypotter, user u/evanhinton posed a question, asking who else was hoping to see Newt meet young Hagrid in the Fantastic Beasts series and potentially inspire him to love animals. Most commenters were excited at the idea, although they disagreed that Newt would inspire Hagrid's passion. 

"Hagrid's love for magical creatures comes from the fact that he's treated as an outsider by people as well, he doesn't need external inspiration," user PlatinumAltaria replied.

Indeed, as a half-giant, Hagrid himself stands out from the majority of wizards.

User SICRA14 had another idea of how Newt could make an impact on Hagird, suggesting Newt gives him a baby acromantula, the giant spider species. Hagrid raised the acromantula Aragog from an egg when he was a student at Hogwarts — it's what got him expelled from school — before letting Aragog go to live in the Forbidden Forest. 

"All we know is that [Aragog] came from 'the pocket of a traveler.' Newt gets around," SICRA14 said, outlining a perfect way for the two like-minded wizards to meet.

As part of the same Reddit thread, user Stupid_A_Hole_X commented that Newt might visit Dumbledore at Hogwarts, leading to them encountering each other. In response, the original poster evanhinton said, "What I love is in [Crimes of Grindelwald] when Dumbledore tells Newt he admires him, and Dumbledore clearly admires Hagrid for probably the same reasons." 

They believe Dumbledore would introduce Newt and Hagrid.

Some users were confused as to whether the respective timelines of Hagrid's life and the Fantastic Beasts series would line up, and it turns out that they will at some point. According to the Harry Potter Wiki, Hagrid was born in 1928, which is two years after the first film is set. The film's sequel, The Crimes of Grindelwald, is set the following year, in 1927. However, writer J.K. Rowling tweeted that the Fantastic Beasts series would end in the year 1945, the year of the duel between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. Meanwhile, Aragog was born in 1942 and Hagrid was expelled in 1943. So, considering we don't know when the third film takes place, it's possible Hagrid could appear in any of the remaining three films of the series, although it seems more likely he would be in the fourth or fifth installment.

At this point, we don't know much about Fantastic Beasts 3's plot, although it seems to be heading to Brazil. The film has faced a series of delays, partly due to the coronavirus pandemic, and partly from the recasting of Grindelwald. It's now set to come out in July 2022.