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(#1) Barty Crouch Jr.'s Foe-Glass Gave Away His True Identity
Barty Crouch Jr. actually saw Snape in his Foe-Glass near the end of The Goblet of Fire. This quickly, and subtly, revealed Snape's true allegiance in the conflict between Harry and Voldemort.
Book readers could be forgiven for missing this small moment of foreshadowing in the fourth book. After all, it happened amidst the chaos of Dumbledore and the other Hogwarts professors saving Harry from the machinations of the undercover Barty Crouch Jr. But it's a noteworthy moment all the same, since the first thing Snape did when he arrived in Crouch's Hogwarts office was to approach the Death Eater's Foe-Glass.
Remember, a Foe-Glass is a magical object that allows the owner to see their true enemies at all times. Snape appearing in the mirror at first seemed like a bad sign to Harry, since Crouch spends most of the book masquerading as the heroic Mad-Eye Moody. However, when it's later revealed to be Crouch's Foe-Glass and not Moody's, Snape's appearance is a smart and subtle way for Rowling to communicate to book readers that Snape was on Harry's side all along.
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(#2) Professor Trelawney's Superstitions Predicted Several Major Deaths
One of Professor Trelawney's many superstitions actually predicted the deaths of Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin. This foreboding moment came about halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban, when Dumbledore stood up and invited Trelawney to join him and his 11 other table guests at dinner in the Great Hall. The Divination professor refused his offer, saying: "If I join the table, we shall be 13! Nothing could be more unlucky! Never forget that when 13 dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!"
This proved to be a tragic point of foreshadowing in the books. As it was later revealed in Prisoner of Azkaban, Ron had actually brought Scabbers with him to that dinner, meaning there were already 13 people at the table. Then Dumbledore stood up. This sort of foreshadowing happened two other times in the series, when both Lupin and Sirius were the first of 13 people to rise from a dinner table.
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(#3) Dumbledore's Plan To Stop Voldemort Was Laid Out Early
A brief interaction between Harry and Dumbledore at the end of Goblet of Fire directly set up one of the key components to Dumbledore's overall plan to stop Voldemort. At the end of Goblet of Fire, Harry spent several chapters completely exhausted, drifting in and out of lucidity.
So, when he told Dumbledore that Voldemort came back to life using Harry's own blood, Harry mentioned seeing a brief moment of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. This left many book readers confused. After all, it seemed like a strange moment for Dumbledore to be feeling triumphant about anything.
However, Dumbledore's reaction actually set up the reveal in Deathly Hallows: that Voldemort using Harry's blood was what would kill the Dark Lord once and for all. It was, in fact, something Dumbledore secretly hoped Voldemort would do. A triumphant moment indeed.
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(#4) Harry And Ron Predicted The Three Tasks Of The Triwizard Tournament
Harry and Ron mockingly, and unknowingly, predicted all three of the dangerous Triwizard Tournament tasks in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, one whole year before the games take place.
This piece of foreshadowing was thrown out in a seemingly lighthearted fashion, when Harry and Ron grew tired of their endless amounts of Divination homework in Prisoner of Azkaban. Instead of actually trying to read tea leaves and predict the future, the duo decided to start just kind of... guess.
Harry's predictions included that he would be in danger of burns, lose a treasured possession, be stabbed in the back by a friend, and come off worse in a fight. All of these eventually came true in Goblet of Fire, when he had to fight a dragon, save Ron from dangerous underwater mermaids, and was betrayed by Barty Crouch Jr. masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody. And, of course, he barely made it out alive from his graveyard fight with Voldemort.
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(#5) The Vanishing Cabinet Showed Up Years Before It Was Important To The Plot
The Vanishing Cabinet Draco Malfoy used to smuggle Death Eaters into Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince actually made multiple appearances in prior installments of the series. A Vanishing Cabinet first showed up in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry ducked inside one to hide from the Malfoy family at Borgin and Burke's.
Another Vanishing Cabinet was briefly mentioned in Order of the Phoenix, when Fred and George Weasley trapped a Slytherin classmate inside a broken Cabinet in the Room of Requirement. They even mentioned that the classmate disappeared, which, at the time, was shrugged off as just another existentially terrifying magical moment at Hogwarts.
In the Half-Blood Prince, it finally became clear that the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement was a vital magical object in the series' overall story. Furthermore, the one in Borgin and Burke's was actually its twin! This is J.K. Rowling's long-form set up at its very best.
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(#6) The Centaurs Knew How Harry Would Die In the Forbidden Forest
The centaurs accurately predicted that Voldemort will kill Harry in the Forbidden Forest during their introduction in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The Centaurs made two bold predictions when they ran into Harry in the Forbidden Forest for the first time. While their proclamation that "war is coming" wound up coming true as well, their other prediction may be even more eerie.
After Firenze saved Harry from Voldemort/Quirrell's attack in the forest, one of Firenze's brethren, Bane, chided Firenze for interfering with the planets' intention. That meant Bane believed Harry was destined to die in the forest at Voldemort's hands—and while it didn't turn out that way in Sorcerer's Stone, Voldemort did, in fact, wind up "killing" Harry in the Forest during Deathly Hallows. So, it turned out the centaurs were right about the event itself; they were just a little off in their timing.
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(#7) Peter Pettigrew's Death Was Predicted By Dumbledore
Peter Pettigrew's demise in Deathly Hallows was foreshadowed and set up by Albus Dumbledore near the end of Prisoner of Azkaban. After Harry talked Lupin and Sirius out of killing Pettigrew during their confrontation in Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore told Harry not to be too upset about Pettigrew escaping in the end. According to Dumbledore, Harry should look forward to the day when Pettigrew would have to honor his life debt.
This, of course, came when Pettigrew let Harry and his friends escape from Malfoy Manor in Deathly Hallows. That action resulted in his auto-strangulation by Voldemort's metal hand. It was one of those book moments that was most noticeably missing from the film adaptations.
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(#8) The Room Of Requirement Showed Up Earlier Than You Thought
The Room of Requirement was indirectly introduced into the series for the first time by Albus Dumbledore in Goblet of Fire. Of course, the Room of Requirement wound up playing a huge role in Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows.
Dumbledore mentioned The Room in passing, describing a time he stumbled upon a miraculous, secret bathroom in Hogwarts, only to never find it again. At first, it was shrugged off as nothing more than another funny magical Hogwarts moment. However, this disappearing room came back into play in a big way in subsequent installments of the series.
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(#9) J.K. Rowling Hinted Early On At The True Identity Of Scabbers
Scabbers's true identity as the animagus Peter Pettigrew was part of the massive plot twist at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, but eagle-eyed readers could see the reveal coming.
Early in Prisoner of Azkaban, it was casually noted that garden rats typically have a life span of only three years. This made Scabbers's 12-year-long history with the Weasley family far out of the ordinary. Rowling then went on to describe that Scabbers had been losing weight throughout the book, which readers later realized was the result of Peter Pettigrew stressing at the news of Sirius Black's escape.
The final major clue Rowling wove into the story regarding Scabbers's true identity is the fact that he was missing one of his toes. This might not have seemed strange on its own, but obsessive readers recalled that only one of Pettigrew's fingers was found when he "died," following his pre-Sorcerer's Stone confrontation with Sirius. All in all, these clues made the Pettigrew reveal at the end of Prisoner seem—in hindsight—pretty obvious.
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(#10) A Bezoar Tutorial From The First Book Proved Invaluable Later In The Series
The very first lesson Severus Snape taught Harry turns out to be a vital for the Boy Who Lived later on in the series.
In Sorcerer's Stone, Harry attended Snape's Potions class for the first time. The notoriously nasty professor wasted no time in ridiculing Harry in front of all of his classmates. However, while chiding Harry for his apparent arrogance and lack of magical knowledge, Snape also mentioned to Harry that a bezoar provides a quick way to stop the spread of poison.
This knowledge became useful during Half-Blood Prince, when Ron ingested a deadly poison while sharing a drink with Harry and Professor Slughorn. Thinking quickly, Harry grabbed a bezoar from one of Slughorn's reserves and shoved it into Ron's mouth, saving his best friend's life.
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(#11) The First Horcrux Was Introduced In Order Of The Phoenix
We first learned that Voldemort's locket Horcrux resided in Grimmauld Place early on in Order of the Phoenix, a full two books before Harry and his friends saw it again. Voldemort's locket was the first real Horcrux Harry, Ron, and Hermione went out of their way to destroy in Deathly Hallows. But, they would probably be very frustrated to know that they stumbled across the locket years before, when Mrs. Weasley told them to clean up Sirius Black's family home.
As Harry and his friends cleaned out some of the cabinets in the massive house, they itemized a list of objects they found while cleaning. Amongst the various knick-knacks, they uncovered a "heavy locket that none of them could open." As book readers know, that locket turned out to be one of the seven artifacts they needed to destroy Voldemort once and for all.
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(#12) We Should Have Guessed Dumbledore's Brother Owned The Hog's Head
Aberforth Dumbledore's connection to the Hog's Head was actually hinted at multiple times throughout the book series, specifically in both Order of the Phoenix and Goblet of Fire. Dumbledore only mentioned Aberforth once in the Harry Potter series, prior to his role in Deathly Hallows.
Dumbledore mentioned that his brother was prosecuted for performing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was a strange no-context statement that seemed to come out of nowhere in the book, and it was never really mentioned again.
However, when Harry and his friends visited the Hog's Head in Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling took a moment to mention that the whole place smelled like a goat. It's about as subtle as foreshadowing can get, but the connection between those two small clues becomes apparent when looking back on the books as a whole.
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(#13) The Centaurs Predicted The War Between Harry And Voldemort
The centaurs accurately predicted the oncoming war between Harry and Voldermort during their first appearance in the second half of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In the book, we learned that centaurs read the stars to form their predictions for the future. After Firenze saved Harry from Voldermort's attack in the Forbidden Forest, the centaurs kept repeating that "Mars is bright tonight." As Mars is also the Roman God of War, the centaurs' prediction here roughly translates to "war is coming."
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