19 Curious Facts About the Harry Potter Universe Even Big Fans Had No Idea About

The Harry Potter universe is so large and popular that new facts and details about it are being discovered all the time. Even the most dedicated fans have probably mispronounced Voldemort’s name at least once. Also, it’s likely that very few people noticed that Harry didn’t cast a single spell in the first movie.

At CHEERY, we love to learn something new about familiar things. In this article, we would like to share some facts about the Harry Potter universe that really surprised us.

• The scene with the troll could have been removed from the first Harry Potter book. According to J.K. Rowling, the editor asked her to cut it because it seemed quite scary for children. But the author insisted on keeping it, “Hermione is so very annoying in the early part of Philosopher’s Stone that I really felt it needed something literally huge to bring her together with Harry and Ron.”

• 15 characters were always present in all 8 Harry Potter movies. The Golden Trio, Professor Dumbledore, and Minerva McGonagall, of course, were among them. But what really surprised us is that Peter Pettigrew (sometimes as a rat) and Harry’s mother Lily Evans also appeared in each movie.
• Harry Potter doesn’t cast a single spell throughout the entire first movie. He just waves a few different wands at Ollivanders in one of the scenes. Perhaps this is how the moviemakers wanted to emphasize that Harry had been isolated from the wizarding world earlier.

• All wrong predictions Professor Trelawney made about Harry proved to be eventually right. Only they were not about Harry, but about Voldemort. For example, she suggested that Harry’s birthday was in the middle of winter. In fact, Lord Voldemort was born on December 31. Perhaps this was because the Professor sensed the presence of the Horcrux in Harry’s head.
• When Snape asked a question to Harry in Potions class, he encrypted a secret message in it. He asked, “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” In the Victorian language of flowers, asphodel is a type of lily meaning “my regrets follow you to the grave,” and wormwood means the absence of something. So Snape’s question can be interpreted like this, “I bitterly regret Lily’s death.”

• The Weasley twins were the first to attack Voldemort. In the first book, they bewitched a few snowballs to follow Professor Quirrell and bounce off his turban. And we all remember who was hiding under this turban.
• The contents of the last Harry Potter book were kept under wraps for obvious reasons—to prevent leaks of information. The publishing house Bloomsbury even gave the book the code name The Edinburgh Potters which was used by the employees involved in the process.
• At the Leaky Cauldron, we can see a wizard reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
  This book was included in the movie to foreshadow time travel later in the story.

• The screen adaptation of the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire could have been split into 2 movies due to its volume. But movie director Mike Newell denied these rumors. However, this trick was still used when the seventh book was adapted for the screen.
• Evanna Lynch, who played Luna Lovegood, made some of the character’s jewelry herself. For example, her famous beaded, radish-shaped earrings were her own creation.
• While still a schoolboy, the future Professor Lockhart sent 800 Valentine’s cards to himself once.
  This ended up in so many owls in the Great Hall that breakfast was stopped, as there were too many feathers and droppings in the food.

• Alan Rickman, who played Professor Snape, was the only actor who knew the story’s ending ahead of time. This was so important for the development of his character that Rowling decided to reveal this information to him. Even the director of the first 2 movies, Chris Columbus, had to deal with her excuse, “I will tell you later.”
• The interior set for 12 Grimmauld Place was used by Warner Bros. again. The set became the residence of Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street, in the 2009 Guy Ritchie movie.

• Alfonso Cuarón, who directed the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, assigned Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint some homework. During the filming, he asked them to write essays about their characters. The actors did exactly the same as their characters would have done: Daniel quickly dashed off half a side of an A4, Emma gave a detailed answer on 12 pages, and Rupert didn’t write anything at all because he thought that’s what Ron would do.
• The scar on Harry Potter’s forehead is actually not a lightning bolt. It’s the reflection of the movement of Voldemort’s hand when casting the Avada Kedavra spell.

• Even the most dedicated Harry Potter fans tend to mispronounce Voldemort’s name. According to J.K. Rowling, the letter “t” at the end of the name is silent, and the name should be pronounced as Vol-de-mor. But, as the author noted, she is probably the only person who pronounces it that way.
• The same story happened to the name of Hermione. Those who only watched the movies, but didn’t read the books, never learned how to pronounce it correctly. And in the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you can find the correct answer in the part where Hermione instructs Viktor Krum on how to say it properly: Her-my-o-nee.

• Twins Fred and George Weasley were born on April 1. It’s very symbolic, given their fun-seeking nature.
• The brooms that were used in the Harry Potter movies were really intended for flying, in a way. Designer Pierre Bohanna made them using metals and titanium from airplanes. After all, they had to be durable enough to withstand the weight of both children and adults who sat on them.

What is your favorite part of the Harry Potter universe?