44 Obscure Facts About Harry Potter Only A True Fan Would Know

I’m a true blue (rather, maroon and yellow) fan of Harry Potter. My tryst with the series began when I was 1o, and it went on to dominate my life for the next 10 years and the craze is not over yet. I’ve read the 5th part at least 8 times, mind you, when it came out I was in 10th grade. That should tell you how crazy my love for the series is. When the series got over I sustained myself on online fan fictions.

But trust me, there are things that I never knew about the books and the movies even after such extensive fandom. See if you’re a bigger fan than me!

1. Harry and JK share their birth date that is July 31.

 

2. The first Harry Potter book was published in 1998, the same year the final Battle of Hogwarts was fought. Says Rowling, “I open at the close.”

 

3. Ron’s Patronus is a Jack Russell terrier, known for chasing otters. Hermione’s is, coincidentally, an otter.

 

4. After Fred’s death, George could never perform the Patronus again.

 

5. When he died, Dumbledore was 150 years old.

 

6. Voldemort is incapable of love because he was conceived under the effects of a love potion.

 

7. Voldemort was 71 years old when he died.

 

8. Fred and George were born on April Fool’s Day. Explains their shenanigans!

 

9. Lupin was posthumously awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, the first werewolf to ever receive this honor.

 

10. Dementors are based off J.K. Rowling’s time of depression in her twenties after her mother died.

 

11. Dumbledore had fallen in love with Gellert Grindelwald. That’s the reason Dumbledore didn’t kill him in their epic duel. The battle took place around the time of  World War II.

 

12. Arthur Weasley was supposed to die in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but was replaced with Sirius. :/

 

13. Ginny went on to become a professional Quidditch player for the Holyhead Harpies, but eventually retired to take care of her children.

 

14. There are possibly around 700 fouls in Quidditch. Phew!

 

15. Cho Chang married a Muggle. Good for her!

 

16. Minerva McGonagall is listed on one of the Quidditch trophies in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone indicating that she was an excellent Quidditch player. Are you now rethinking the scene when Harry saved Neville and his crystal in the same and she chose him as the seeker immediately? I did too! 😀

 

17. In order to become acquainted with the films’ three main stars, director Alfonso Cuaron had each of them write an essay about their characters. True to their characters, Emma Watson wrote a 16-page essay, Daniel Radcliffe wrote a simple, one-page paper, and Rupert Grint never even turned his in.

 

18. The wizarding world’s plants come from a real book written in the 17th century by English botanist and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, called Culpeper’s Complete Herbal.

 

19. Harry’s parents James and Lily were literal soulmates. James’ was a stag and Lily’s was a doe so they fit perfectly together. Because Professor Snape was so in love with Lily, his patronus transformed into a doe when she died.

 

20. When Fred and George Weasley bewitched snowballs to hit Professor Quirrel’s turban, they were unwittingly hitting Voldemort in the face.

 

21. Sirius Black and Fred Weasley, two tricksters from different generations, both of them died laughing.

 

22. Petunia wanted to be a witch and felt guilty about distancing Lily from herself.

 

23. Even wizards dueled with swords back in the day. In the “Sword of Gryffindor” essay, Rowling notes that Godric Gryffindor was an accomplished duellist in the conventional sense.

 

24. Neville had asked to be sorted into Hufflepuff. But we’re glad the Sorting Hat put him in Gryffindor, aren’t we people? 😀 !

 

25. Professor McGonagall was once married to her former boss at the Ministry of Magic.

 

26. When Dumbledore encounters a boggart, he sees the corpse of his sister Ariana.

 

27. Hermione continued to care for House Elves in her post-Hogwarts career in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

 

28. Ron became an Auror along with Harry but eventually went on to assist George at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, which became a very booming business.

 

29. Herpo The Fowl, a wizard from Ancient Greece, was the first person to ever create a Horcrux.He was also the first person to ever breed a Basilisk.

 

30. Tonks’ Patronus was originally a jack rabbit, but after falling in love with Lupin, it changed to a wolf.

 

31. Harry and Ginny’s oldest son, James Sirius Potter, eventually stole the Marauder’s Map from his dad’s desk.

 

32. Platform 9 3/4 isn’t the only platform in use by witches and wizards.Platform 7 ½ leads to the Orient Express.

 

33. Back in the day, the Malfoys hung out with rich muggles. Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles.

 

34. Harry and Voldemort are related to each other through The Peverell family. o.O

 

35. The elder wand contained a hair from a beast named Thestral which can be only seen by those who have witnessed death.

 

36. Hermione’s last name was going to be Puckle.

 

37. Draco Malfoy’s funniest line was improvised by Tom Felton. Tom made up the line, “I didn’t know you could read” (which he said to Harry when he looked like Goyle because of the polyjuice potion) on the spot because he’d forgotten his line.

 

38. Rupert Grint has an actual severe case of Arachnophobia. So he didn’t have to act much in the scene where he and Harry met Aragog, the spider king.

 

39. The Black family tree portrait was super authentic. J.K. Rowling actually provided over 70 names for the Black family tree tapestry, along with details of relations between every member.

 

40. Apparently, Prefects actually can take points away from any of the four houses, as a disciplinary action towards students who break rules.

 

41. Snape is only thirty-five years old, despite looking much older.

 

42. Students who take more than five minutes to be sorted by the Sorting Hat are called Hatstalls“.

 

43. A Hermione-Harry romance was once on the table! (Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! ) But then it was decided that Ron and Hermione are a better fit.

 

44. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Trewlaney vehemently declines (at least initially) an invitation to dine at the Christmas table because at a table set for 13, the first to rise is the first to die. Years later, when the 13 members of the Order of the Phoenix gather around the table, Sirius is the first to stand perhaps foreseeing, the tragedy to come.

My mind is completely blown! Is yours too?

Let us know in the comment section!

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