Harry Potter Missed Every Single Opportunity With Its Coolest Magical Power
In the Wizarding World, there are many wondrous things, but one Harry Potter character had the most unique power that somehow never received any purpose.
Spells, potions, artifacts, magical beasts, and many other things are prevalent in the mysterious and charming world of Harry Potter. Apart from more common cases, some characters and objects had unique powers, and most of the time, there was a reason why they were introduced. Most of the time, but — somehow — not always.
When it comes to unique abilities, there are quite a few in the franchise. For instance, Parseltongue was an extremely rare ability, and it was relevant to the plot on more than one occasion; Voldemort’s Unsupported Flight lacked purpose for a long time until Snape used it to escape his hopeless duel with McGonagall; and so on.
There was, however, one unique ability that was introduced and even discussed for quite some time in the books, but it never received any practical purpose. Remember how Tonks was a Metamorphmagus? Yeah, that didn’t really go anywhere, did it?
While Tonks was entertaining Harry’s friends by shaping her nose to look like different animals and changing her hair color to fit the mood, her Metamorphic abilities were of no use plot-wise. The only practical use of her transformations that we know of came from her own story about how she passed the Concealment and Disguise test to become an Auror without studying.
This is pretty weird, too: Tonks’s ability was discussed on more than one occasion, and it was a recurring issue when she and Lupin were not together. Such a unique and powerful ability was bound to play its part in the plot, but it just never did.
It was entirely logical for Harry and his friends to employ Tonks’s help during their Horcrux hunt; or for the Order to use Tonks as an extremely versatile and proficient spy; or for Dumbledore to ask Tonks to keep an eye on Harry in disguise… A Metamorphmagus is a huge asset for any team, but not this one, apparently.
We can’t help but feel that JKR had some purpose in mind when she introduced Tonks and her special ability into the series but later scratched it. Then, it became nothing but another detail she had to keep in mind while writing the following books… But we’re immensely curious about what her initial plan was, to be honest.