The 13 Cleverest Harry Potter Twists That Confirm JK Rowling is Actually Magic

Merlin's BEARD

21 March, 2018

The 13 Cleverest Harry Potter Twists That Confirm JK Rowling is Actually Magic

Almost seven years after the last book was published, the Harry Potter books still continue to blow fans' minds like a full on Reducto spell, and that's quite clearly all down to JK Rowling being a genuinely magical human.

Even when you think you know everything there is to know about the wizarding world, you can go back to the books and still notice tiny but incredible details that you hadn't noticed before, which is probably why we're SO excited to see what The Cursed Child is all about.

We can only assume that there was some kind of time turner involved when Rowling wrote all of this stuff, but here's the 12vmost magical twists through the Harry Potter that link the beginning to the end, the end to the beginning and everything else in between. Merlin's BEARD.

1. The first time Snape speaks to Harry, he asks, "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" According to the Victorian language of flowers, asphodel is a type of lily meaning "my regrets follow you to the grave" and wormwood means "absence" and symbolises bitter sorrow. So we could interpret the meaning of Snape's question as "I bitterly regret Lily's death."

2. Saint Hedwig was actually the patron saint of dead children, so while Harry's owl Hedwig was alive, she was protecting him through the numerous times he escaped dying. As she's sadly killed in the final book, she may have been a clue to Harry's eventual fate in The Deathly Hallows from the very beginning.

3. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Trelawney refuses to sit at a table with Dumbledore, as twelve people are already sitting. "I dare not, Headmaster! If I join the table, we shall be thirteen! Nothing could be more unlucky! Never forget that when 13 dine together, the first to rise will be the first to die!"

In Order of the Phoenix, Sirius is the first to stand at a table of thirteen. After the Battle of the Seven Potters in The Deathly Hallows, only thirteen made it to the Burrow. Lupin was the first to rise to offer to look for Alastor Moody's body. Later, he is the first of the group to die in the Battle of Hogwarts.

4. Way back in the Philosopher's Stone, when Hogwarts is covered in mid-winter snow, the book describes how Fred and George were "punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrel around, bouncing off the back of his turban.Who's slightly terrifying, half life of a face was underneath the turban though? Yup, technically the Weasley twins were firing snowballs straight at Voldy's face. Lols.

5. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Professor Trelawney predicts to Harry: "I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?" Harry tells her he was born in July, making her intuition seem way off. But Voldemort's birthday was December 31st, and as in Deathly Hallows we discover Harry is a Horcrux, containing part of Voldemort's soul, it seems that Trelawney was sensing his presence four years before Harry and the rest of us found out.

6. If you're all clued up on your Harry Potter fan theories, you'll be familiar with the incredible idea of Dumbledore as death, which even JK Rowling herself is known to absolutely love the idea of. He was in possession of all three Deathly Hallows before passing them onto Harry, and even greets Harry "as an old friend" at King's Cross Station, recalling The Tale Of The Three Brothers.

As if that wasn't magical enough, Voldemort then acts as the first brother, the most powerful wizard alive, Snape as the second brother, the wizard who loses the woman he loves, and Harry the third brother who hides from death with the invisibility cloak.

7. During her 2007 American book tour, JK Rowling shared Ron's personal "finest hour", revealing that he, Harry and Hermione all grew up to see their own faces on chocolate frog cards, one of the items that he and Harry first bonded over on the Hogwarts Express.Harry is described as "the first and only known wizard to survive the Killing Curse, most famous for the defeat of the most dangerous dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort" while Ron gets a nod for "destroying the Horcruxes and subsequent defeat of Voldemort and revolutionising the Ministry of Magic." Hermione is described as the "brightest witch of her age", who "eradicated pro-pureblood laws" and campaigned for "the rights of non-human beings such as house-elves."

8. The entrance to Dumbledore's office, shown in the films as having a huge, towering bird protecting the hidden staircase has way more meaning to it than you could have guessed. Look at it a little closer and you'll see the bird is a griffin. It's literally a GRIFFIN DOOR. Whut.

9. When Harry first uses floo powder from the Weasley's fire place in Chamber of Secrets, he stumbles into Knockturn Alley and finds himself in dark objects shop, Borgin and Burkes. If you're a particularly diehard Potterhead, you might remember that he s "looked around quickly and spotted a large black cabinet to his left…"

This is the same large black cabinet that Draco Malfoy later users to transport Death Eaters into Hogwarts in Half Blood Prince.

10. Ron and Hermione were destined to be together whether they liked it or not - even their Patronus animals said so. Jack Russell terriers were bred as hunting dogs to chase vermin, such as rats, badgers, foxes, and otters.

The name "terrier" means "earth dog", as these dogs would chase badgers and foxes into their burrows, and otters across water. Ron's was a terrier, Hermione's was an otter, so technically he was always chasing after her.

11. In the end, the Marauders died in reverse order from the order in which they are named on the map: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. The order they died in was James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus.

12. You might have just assumed that the Death Eaters' Dark Mark was chosen purely for the fact it reminds you of the Slytherin snake, and maybe even the idea of Parseltongue. But did you ever notice that it's also the almost exact same image of the tunnel that the Basilisk emerges from in Chamber of Secrets?