Filch Puns

You'd think Voldemort would've killed him immediately, and given that they were rounding up Muggle-borns on the train ride, it doesnt make sense.

The guy just kills it everytime he’s on screen. Idk he’s just really good

Honestly, it blows my mind that Filch isn’t fired after how he worked with Umbridge to severely repress the students, and he’s willing to get whips to use on Fred and George right before they leave the school. I just don’t understand why Dumbledore doesn’t fire Filch after he gets back. I guess the only explanation is he has more important things to do?

Like, it's the map that shows everyone in Hogwarts. Very little possibility they got caught by Filch.

Or did they just put it there for some other students to take it?

I dunno why, I just relate with Mr. Filch a bit, now that I own a cat. Whether in the books or the films, the guy was just a broken man when his best friend was in peril. I’m a relatively new cat owner myself, and I can honestly say that if my Mulder was dead or hurt at the hands of someone else, I’d be feeling a tinge violent and heartbroken.

Mrs. Rowling makes Mr. Filch out to be a simple minded Squib security dude with a general distaste towards young wizard folk. He obviously doesn’t have a lot of pals, even within the management of Hogwarts. His companionship with a non-judgemental cat in Missus Norris keeps him grounded as a person (kinda). So when he sees his best pal just hanging upside down, dead at first glance; I get it now. The poor man’s world is shattered.

Glad he and Missus Norris had a happy conclusion by the end of the book.

So Filch takes away your notebook 'cause anything related to cursed vaults is to be confiscated. Next chapter I get a fanged frisbee to scare Filch out of his office. So I go in and get ready to search for the notebook, but Filch is at the door! So your character puts down the fanged frisbee in a gift box and hides. Filch comes in muttering something along the lines of, "Taking care of this castle is hard enough, now I need to run down to Hogsmeade doing errands for Snape! Get the book and come right back, well maybe I want a butterbeer every once and a while," he sees your gift, "What's this? Maybe Dumbledore realized all the hard work I've been putting in recently!" he opens it and the fanged frisbee flies out of the box, "A fanged frisbee! Run Ms. Norris it's coming right for us!"

and I'm just like, I feel so bad! In a recent Christmas event we threw a party to make the teachers feel appreciated, can we throw a party to make Filch feel appreciated? Get him a butterbeer and a better mop or something?

I know Dumbledore has a soft spot for people, but isn't it kind of messed up that he employs someone that is a Squib to clean the castle? Like ANYONE else could magic the messes away, or instantly clean the halls. Filch has to do it all by hand, why not employ someone else?

I also find it strange that in a MAGIC castle the walk between class rooms and through the halls is cold. Can't they magic the windows and halls to not leak heat? Or make is so that even if the window has no glass that the cold doesn't penetrate? It seems like they purposefully make the children have to bundle up between classes instead of just keeping the castle at a comfortable temperature.

Filch is very clearly an evil squib. He lamented the days where students would be beaten, something that Dumbledore himself stopped at Hogwarts. He keeps threatening students and he assisted Umbridge, a death eater, in her quest to control Hogwarts and take it from Dumbledore. So why did he keep Filch on staff? It’s proven that all the staff Dumbledore hired were people he trusted with the exception of teachers for DADA.

They probably let him confiscate it, because they knew, that their time at Hogwarts was comeing to an end, and wanted to give it to future misschieve makers. So they left it there, so that a future troublemaker, who would get in Detention with Filch, and find the map, so that the map would still be used. I believe it happened that way, because I simply don't believe, that they wouldn't bother to get it back, if they didn't leave it there on purpose.

While he was only a side character and a Squib, Filtch was as great at playing his role as Hagrid. The character served the story well, the casting was great and the acting was amazing.

I also hope he gets good benefits

There were a couple of fics I read years ago where Harry/friends invented stuff to allow Filch to do magic and he stopped being abusive to the students after. Does anyone have more fics like that or know which ones I'm talking about because I forgot what they were

Fil: A pity they let the old punishments die. Was a time detention found you hanging by your thumbs in the dungeons. God, I miss the screaming. You'll be serving detention with Hagrid tonight. He's got a little job to do inside the Dark Forest. A sorry lot, this, Hagrid. Oh good God you're not still on about that bloody dragon now are you?

Hag: Norbert's gone. Dumbledore sent him off to Romania to live in a colony.

HG: Well, that's good isn't it? He'll be with his own kind.

Hag: Yeah, but what if he don't like Romania? What if the other dragons are mean to him? He's only a baby after all.

Fil: Oh, for God's sake pull yourself together man. You're going into the Forest after all. Got to have your wits about you.

M: The Forest? I thought that was a joke. We can't go in there. Students aren't allowed. And there are… werewolves!

Fil: Ah, there's more than werewolves in those trees, lad. You can be sure of that. Nighty- night

Rewatched it again, and we so enjoyed this part!

The eye-roll, the sing-song "wits about you", the "nighty-night". Wonderful!

I love the trope of the old and wise master who pretends to be crazy or useless. Then he suddenly becomes a badass!

Just bought the third book, opened it on random page and read the scene where Fred and George give Harry the map. Now I wonder how Filch got the map. Why didn't he show it to Dumbledore (or did he)?

And how come F&G never found about...no, not Pettigrew.

How come they never found out who were the Marauders?

I wouldn't be surprised if he did given how much he hates them and repeatedly says that he wants to whip them.

Either way it's going to go VERY differently.

I don't understand why Filch would even be at Hogwarts as a caretaker when he's a Squib and he's unable to do magic. This is likely why he hates the students so much.

Why let him be in a huge place where he has to perform manual labour in a lot of rooms and places in a castle? It would be better if he was instead in the Muggle community like Mrs. Figg. Why not have a caretaker who can do magic?

How often do you think Filch goes into an empty hallway or corridor and goes like “Who’s there!? I know you’re in here! SHOW YOURSELF!” Followed by him jumping around corners shouting “GOTCHA!”

I haven't read it yet, but I am told there is Filch mentors Harry in Benefits of old laws by ulktante. I'm a little worried about starting it because it is not marked as completed, has 878k words, and has not been updated since 2019.

I'm probably still going to read it, but in the mean time any updating or completed filch mentors Harry fics put there?

He speaks for the theives

I'm thinking about Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker. He uses no magic, supposedly a squib (magic-aware human who cannot perform magic) and friend of Mrs Norris (his cat with peculiar-but-subtle abilities).

I'm guessing he's there because recent headmasters have a sense of 'heart,' in the same way that Dumbledore allows Trelawny to continue living in the castle despite being sacked by Umbridge and also employed Dobby. Didn't have to, didn't need to, but did it anyway.

Side theories: letting the speaker of the Voldy Prophecy go walkabout isn't a good idea and keeping an ex-Malfoy-house-elf around might be handy for intelligence against we-know-'oo.

Back to Filch. I'm not sure when he was hired but I'm thinking it was roughly when Aragog was given home in the Forest. Before then, Moony and Co were still making records in Filch's office before he was there. I'm wanting to know who was there before Filch and it was significant enough to mention thumbscrews and dungeons still being used at the time.

My theory is that Mrs. Norris is a stuck Animagus, a witch that was married to Filch, and that she was a teacher at the time of Hagrid's expulsion. It would explain the cat's eerie knowledge of the castle and abilities to understand exactly what's happening with unfortunate timing. We'd usually pass off Filch's infatuation with the cat as just another nutty cat person, but I'm thinking there's some different chemistry going on there. If your significant other was a stuck Animagus, how would you behave?

It might also explain Filch's hatred and mistrust of the students. Magic ill-performed has significant consequences, as we know concerning Luna's mother and Voldy's extra horcrux. A student might've caused Mrs. Norris to get stuck. Why couldn't Professor McGonagall help out? Well, they'd only just discovered how to make werewolves docile and splinching accidents are still grisly. There's only so much magical repair and reversal can do (I still worry about the whistling teapot in Mungo's Hospital). Human transfiguration, I assume, requires memory and dedication (hence the ferret scenario) so transfiguring an Animagus back to human form after years of non-reversal might be too difficult.

I'm reminded of Wormtail being forced back to human form by Sirius and Lupin, but that was on an Animagus that isn't stuck involuntarily.

Another component of the theory is that maybe Filch used to be a wizard but accidentally lost his powers when something happened to Mrs. Norris

All I have to say

Hiring a single man who cannot do magic to police an entire castle/school full of wizards is such a rough gig. They even make the poor guy do cleaning despite having hundreds of enslaved creatures to do that.