13. Hermione and the unfortunate incident with her teeth…

Harry and Malfoy were not the best of friends. Quite frankly, they loathed each other. In Goblet of Fire their animosity turned into a duel in the corridors of Hogwarts – and a rather sloppy one at that. Neither wizard hit their mark and Hermione was one of the unlucky people who ended up in the crossfire. Hit by Malfoy’s hex, her teeth started growing at an alarming rate – they reached her collar in the space of a few seconds. However, we have put this particular incident right at the bottom of the list because of what Hermione did next. When life gave her lemons (or some very large teeth) she soon managed to make lemonade…

12. The time Ron failed his Apparition test by a hair… or two

Poor Ron, he nearly passed his Apparition test. In fact, he was a hair’s breadth away… literally. During his test he managed to leave half an eyebrow behind – that’s such a tiny part of himself, it barely counts as Splinching! Anyway, unluckily for Ron, his eagle-eyed examiner spotted the missing hairs and failed him. That can’t have felt good, and we bet his now wonky eyebrows didn’t help the situation either.

11. Harry’s poor timing…

In twelfth place, we have this painfully awkward encounter between Harry and Cho. It wasn’t Harry’s smoothest moment when he asked her to go to the Yule Ball with him. And in an unfortunate turn of events, he was too late…

The worst thing? It was Harry’s rival in the Triwizard Tournament, Cedric Diggory, who was Cho’s date – unlucky Harry.

10. Bubotuber pus…

Our next unfortunate event was this painful moment for Hermione. Rita Skeeter really seemed to be out to get her with her Quick-Quotes Quill and rumours about her and Harry’s relationship. Unluckily for Hermione, many of Rita’s readers (even Mrs Weasley) bought into the lies and some of them even sent her hate mail. One such vicious letter contained undiluted Bubotuber pus, causing Hermione’s hands to break out in thick painful sores that looked like she was wearing ‘a pair of thick, knobbly gloves’ – ouch!

9. Ron, a curse and some slugs…

Ok, Ron should have known better than to try and curse someone with a broken wand. But he was trying to defend Hermione after Malfoy called her a Mudblood and we can’t fault Ron’s instinct to want to protect his friend. It was just bad luck that his wand decided to backfire spectacularly at that very moment and, well, see for yourself…

8. Harry, Ron, a flying car and the Whomping Willow

And in tenth place, we have the moment that caused Ron’s wand to break in the first place. Out of all the trees in the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts, Harry and Ron were unlucky enough to fly Arthur Weasley’s Ford Anglia into the only one that would fight back – the famous Whomping Willow. Again, the pair of them should not have made the foolhardy decision to fly to Hogwarts when they missed the Hogwarts Express in Chamber of Secrets… but they did. Unfortunately, they were spotted by Muggles (the car’s invisibility booster was on the blink) and ended up bumped, bruised, Ron had a broken wand, and they were both given a detention for their trouble. That’s some bad luck and bad decision-making working in perfect harmony there.

7. When Harry and Hermione were caught after smuggling a dragon

The most frustrating thing about this incident is that Harry and Hermione were only trying to help Hagrid. After hatching Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback, it soon became clear that he was rather a… handful. If Hagrid and his hut were going to remain unscathed, Norbert needed to be moved to somewhere where he could spread his wings. Unfortunately, that meant Harry and Hermione smuggling the baby dragon to the top of the tallest tower, when they should have been in bed, so that he could be picked up and taken to a dragon sanctuary in Romania. As this is a list of unluckiest moments you can guess what happened next. They were caught. They had left the Invisibility Cloak at the top of the tower and at the bottom they had met Filch. Not only did they earn a detention, but they lost fifty house points each (along with Neville and Malfoy who had also been caught sneaking around the castle). They then had to face the wrath of their fellow students when they realised that the three of them had apparently scuppered Gryffindor’s chances of winning the House Cup.

6. That time McLaggen was let loose on the Quidditch pitch

Cormac McLaggen wasn’t great at listening or taking instructions. He was good at thinking he knew best… as Harry rather unfortunately discovered when McLaggen filled in as Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

Oh, and this little stunt didn’t just end with Harry’s cracked skull but also with the Gryffindor Quidditch team losing to Hufflepuff. The final score was three hundred and twenty to sixty – oh dear.

5. Hermione and her whiskers

Hermione Granger was a genius who successfully brewed a batch of Polyjuice Potion as a second-year. Unfortunately, this genius didn’t procure a human hair from Millicent Bulstrode, the Slytherin that she was going to impersonate, and instead ended up with a cat hair – not to mention a rather fetching set of whiskers! That’s right, she turned into a cat and had to spend quite a bit of time in the hospital wing as a result… unfortunate indeed.

4. Dementors swarming the Quidditch pitch

Why is another Quidditch loss against Hufflepuff so high up on the list? Well, this was the first Quidditch match that Harry lost and it took him until his third year for that to be the case. Also, how unlucky can you be that your Quidditch pitch was invaded by Dementors, the creatures that effect you more than any of your fellow students, causing you to fall from your broom and end up in the hospital wing (yet again)? The answer to that is very unlucky.

3. Peter Pettigrew escaping… again

Sirius Black was so close to being able to clear his name. Peter Pettigrew was so close to being brought to justice for betraying James and Lily Potter. Harry thought he was so close to being able to leave the Dursleys and live with his godfather. Yet, some serious bad luck meant that none of this came to pass. That night was a full moon and Lupin had forgotten to take his Wolfsbane Potion. You know what that means – he transformed fully and became a werewolf. In the ensuing chaos, Pettigrew was able to return to his rat form and scuttle off into the night, escaping the consequences of his actions again. If only luck had been a little more on their side.

2. Ron’s rather nasty birthday surprise…

This was probably a birthday that Ron would like to forget. It wasn’t just that he accidentally ingested a Love Potion and thought he was enamoured with Romilda Vane, but there was also the fact he was unlucky enough to be poisoned with a bottle of mead intended for Albus Dumbledore. After Professor Slughorn nullified the (rather amusing) effects of the Love Potion at Harry’s request, he offered Ron the pick-me-up with almost deadly consequences. The only reason this isn’t right at the top of the list is because of Harry’s quick thinking with a bezoar which saved Ron’s life.

1. The time Hermione was Petrified

In first place we have this rather horrible incident. As a Muggle-born attending Hogwarts we know that Hermione was at risk of being attacked by the Basilisk – but the timing of her attack was seriously unlucky. Literally just before it occurred Hermione had not only figured out what was in the Chamber of Secrets, but how it was moving around Hogwarts. However, she couldn’t tell Ron or Harry any of this as she met the foul creature when leaving the library. The two of them then had to continue on to try and solve the mystery – which included facing Aragog and Ginny being taken down to the Chamber. If Hermione hadn’t been in that exact spot at that exact time, they might have been able to stop things before they got quite so far...