Blog EBE English Book Education
We still find ourselves unearthing new tidbits of info every time we re-read Harry Potter books.
- The very first Harry Potter book was published in 1998, the same year that the Battle of Hogwarts took place.
- Harry, Ron and Hermione unite the three different Ollivander wand core – That’s phoenix tail for Harry, unicorn hair for Hermione and dragon heartstring for Ron.
- After Harry defeated Voldemort he lost the ability to speak Parse tongue Not that he had much of a cause to use it, but still, he lost the connection because it was linked to the shared bond Harry had with Voldemort.
- We’ve actually all been saying ‘Voldemort’ wrong this whole time Yep – the’t’ at the end of Voldemort is actually apparently meant to be silent. The name comes from the French words meaning ‘flight of death’ so maybe try it out with a fancy accent next time you say ‘Voldemort’ out loud.
- Origin of the Potter Name Harry’s oldest recorded descendent is a wizard named Linfred, who Muggles viewed as an eccentric old man who was always “pottering about in his garden with all his funny plants.” In reality he was inventing potions — like Skele-gro and Pepperup Potion — but they nonetheless nicknamed him “the Potterer,” which over time became just Potter.
- The Sacred Twenty-Eight In the Harry Potter books, any wizarding family that only married others with magical blood — meaning, no Muggles — were considered “pure bloods.” Those families, like the Malfoys and the Blacks, were often elitist snobs who looked down on mixed blood families and even came up with the slur “mud bloods” to express their distaste. In Rowling’s new story, it is revealed that the Potters were excluded from the definitive list of pure blood families known as the “Sacred Twenty-Eight.” We always knew there were other pure blood families out there aside from the ones mentioned in the books, but It’s interesting to learn that the exact number is 28, although it’s worth noting that some may have been deluded over the years.
- The Tradition of the Invisibility Cloak The mysterious and powerful invisibility cloak that Harry so often used in his adventures was left to him by his late father, James Potter. Apparently it is a long-standing Potter family tradition to pass the cloak on to your children.
- Harry’s Scar – The Boy-Who-Lived was marked with a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. It’s unclear as to why it was shaped like a lightning bolt.One popular assumption is that the bolt is in-fact made of two sevens. As we know 7 is the most powerful magical number in the Potter verse. It’s considered to be a nod to that itself.
