25 things you might not know about Harry Potter
How hardcore is your fandom?
Every now and the, it’s important to have a good, old nerding session. Since Rowling spent years compiling characters, world rules, and magic rules for Harry Potter, it’s one of the easiest, and most entertaining series to find little secrets about.
25. There are 199 chapters in all the Harry Potter books. That’s 3, 363 pages in the entire series, and 1, 090, 739 words total. How many times have you read them?
24. Percy only got to spend a couple minutes with Fred before his death. Percy hadn’t seen his brother for roughly three years up to that point.
23. Rowling rushed through The Goblet of Fire. Part-way through writing it, she realised she had made a huge plot hole, and the book is lengthy because of this.
22. Ron once tried a spell on Scabbers. When it didn’t work, he assumed he did the spell wrong, but it’s actually rather likely that it didn’t work because Scabbers isn’t actually a rat, but a man in disguise.
(A reminder of how smitten we all are for Ron and Hermione)
21. The Hogwarts school motto is Latin for “Never tickle a sleeping dragon”.
20. So many people visit King’s Cross station to take a look at the spot between platforms 9 and 10, the staff have placed a sign that says “Platform 9 ¾”.
19. This is most likely an obvious one, but the guys who play Fred and George Weasley aren’t actually redheads. But they are twins.
18. Moaning Myrtle’s actress was almost forty. She was the oldest person to play a Hogwarts student.
17. Apparently, dragon blood is good for cleaning ovens.
16. J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter share the same birthday – July 31st.
15. Rowling has stated that “Voldemort” is actually supposed to be pronounced without the “T”. It seems she didn’t follow through with this idea for the film adaptations.
14. If it wasn’t for Snape’s love of the Dark Arts, it is very likely that Lily Evans would have grown to love him.
(Dobby break!)
13. When Harry Potter was left on Vernon and the Petunia’s front door, he was delivered there on Hagrid’s motorcycle. When he left the Dursley’s for the last time, he rode off on Hargid’s motorcycle.
12. Voldemort’s Boggart would be his corpse, according to J.K Rowling, because death was his greatest fear.
11. According to Greek mythology, a woman named Cassandra was cursed so that no one would ever believe her prophecies until it was too late. Cassandra was the name of Professor Trelawney’s great-grandmother.
10. The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone, was published in 1998, the same year the Battle of Hogwarts took place.
9. To muggle eyes, Hogwarts looks like an old, rundown building, complete with a sign stating “Keep out: dangerous building” out front.
8. Ron Weasley considers being put on a chocolate frog card one of his biggest, most important achievements in life. Dumbledore feels similarly, despite being the headmaster of Hogwarts.
7. Ginny Weasley was a professional Quidditch player – playing Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies — for many years, although she retired and eventually wrote about the sport for The Daily Prophet instead.
(Oh, hello, Snape)
6. Luna Lovegood had twin boys.
5. Snape has a strong loathing for Neville Longbottom. Why, though? Surely not just because he’s Harry’s friend, or a Gryffindor? Well, Neville was very close to being The Chosen One, a role that went to Harry Potter. Had Neville ended up being the Chosen One instead, Snape’s beloved Lily would still be alive.
4. Voldemort does not have the ability to love. This is because he was conceived under the effects of a love potion.
3. Professor Minerva McGonagall played for Gryffindor’s Quidditch team while she was a student at Hogwarts.
2. There is a scene in The Goblet of Fire where Hermione teaches Victor Krum how to pronounce her name. This was put in solely because Rowling was asked how to pronounce Hermione’s name more than anything else about Harry Potter during the first several years of the series’ publication.
1. Initially Arthur Weasley was going to be killed, and Sirius would live. Arthur’s life was spared, however.
Oh, and just so you know:
