Harry Potter theory suggests that Mrs Norris is more than just Argus Filch’s cat

The Marauder’s Map seems to give the game away

There’s a Harry Potter theory doing the rounds that is exciting the fan community.

Twenty four years after the first book was published, readers are still trawling through the series’ pages in an attempt to find new meaning to familiar situations and characters

The theory, posted to YouTube by SuperCarlinBrothers, suggests that Mrs Norris is more than just a cat belonging to Hogwarts caretaker Argus Filch and is instead a Maledictus.

In the Potter universe, a Maledictus is a woman who is eventually turned into a beast due to a blood curse carried from birth.

This particular theory gets its basis from the fact that Mrs Norris routinely shows up on the Marauder’s Map – and that she’s the only animal to ever do so.

In the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, JK Rowling writes: “A labeled dot in the top left corner showed that Professor Dumbledore was pacing his study; the caretaker’s cat, Mrs Norris, was prowling the second floor; and Peeves the Poltergeist was currently bouncing around the trophy room.”

The video wonders why the author wouldn’t mention Fawkes, Dumbledore’s Phoenix, in the same sentence, with the YouTuber stating: “it mentions specifically Mrs Norris and Dumbledore, but not that Fawkes was also in Dumbledore’s office? Conclusion: Mrs Norris not an animal.”

After discounting the theory that she is an Animagus (a human, like Professor McGonagall, that can shift into an animal by choice), the YouTube video says she must be a Maledictus, who was a witch before being permanently turned into a cat.

He suggests that her name must have been written into the Hogwarts Book of Admittance, which is now why she can still appear on the map.

Argus Filch (David Bradley) and his cat Mrs Norris in the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise (Warner Bros Pictures)

While some have complained that this theory was previously debunked on Pottermore, others are saying this won’t stop them reading the books back with the Mrs Norris theory in mind.

Regardless of how you look at it, it will no doubt enhance the experience of reading – or indeed watching the films – back with this theory in mind.