15 Harry Potter Facts J.K. Rowling Later Made Canon (That Weren’t In The Books)

J.K. Rowling may have finished the Harry Potter books a long time ago, but this doesn’t mean she’s let go of them. The author has taken to Twitter and various other outlets (such as writing a play, developing Pottermore, etc.) to expand on the canon of her series and provide more information for a fanbase who just don’t want this to die.

Well, most of them.

Her expansion of canon has actually been a source of controversy for many fans, since not everyone loves her covering every detail of the universe and leaving nothing to the imagination. But all fans can agree on one thing — some of the revelations have been downright shocking.

Updated 27th January, 2020 by Staci Miller: With the Harry Potter content still coming as the years go by, fans are continuously being given new information about the series and the characters. As such, it was only right to include some of these key facts in a list of information about the original series that was retroactively made canon.

15 Harry Didn’t Name A Son Remus Out Of Respect For Teddy’s Future Child

When the names of Harry’s children were revealed, fans revolted at the very idea that after everything Remus Lupin had done, he didn’t even get a child named after him — and yet the likes of Snape did. But according to Rowling, the reason Remus Lupin lost out on having a child named after him was because Harry felt it prudent to leave the name for his son, Teddy.

Is this a quick throwaway tweet to calm down the fans incensed at the idea of Remus Lupin being disrespected, or was this her intention when writing the books and carefully crafting the names?

14 Muggle-Borns Come Through Recessive Genes

Apparently, Muggle-borns are not entirely random and there is an element of biology at play. Although Rowling never went into detail in the books about what exactly makes a Muggle-born randomly appear in a family (or a Squib, if we were to go the opposite way), she stated afterwards that it involves recessive genes.

There are a lot more questions fans could have about this — for example, for how long can a recessive gene lie dormant before a witch or wizard pops up again? — but she hasn’t gone into too much detail, only offering the explanation that it’s simply not just random.

13 Hagrid Could Not Produce A Patronus

Hagrid might have been capable of some small spells, but we’ll never know what his patronus was, because he’s not capable of producing one. Rowling commented that it’s a “difficult spell”, so when fans have asked her what creature his guardian might be, they’ve received a disappointing answer.

Because Harry produced a corporeal patronus at the age of thirteen, fans often forget that Prisoner of Azkaban made sure to stress that it’s very advanced magic and that it was very impressive he could do this.

12 Fluffy Lives In Greece

Nevermind Hagrid — many fans were worried about the fate of his dog, Fluffy, after the events of Sorcerer’s Stone. Fear not! Fluffy now apparently lives in the lovely hot country of Greece.

Why Greece? We can only speculate, since Rowling didn’t offer much more information than that. Perhaps Dumbledore had connections there to take care of them, or there’s a remote island Fluffy can spend their time on where they can’t harm anyone. Or perhaps it was just far away enough that it seemed unlikely Hagrid would be able to smuggle the three-headed dog back to the UK.

11 The Only Religion Not Represented At Hogwarts Is Wiccan

Rowling has often been asked about (and criticized for) the lack of diversity in Harry Potter. In response to a question about religion never being touched on, we were told that Hogwarts had people of multiple religious beliefs, but Rowling says she never pictured Wiccan to be one of them.

She gave the reasoning that it’s a different system of magic that wouldn’t mesh well with the magical world. What’s interesting about this fact is that it sounds as if Pure-blood families practice the same religions as Muggles, and it might actually be a common theme throughout both the wizarding world and the Muggle one.

10 Dumbledore Was In Love With Grindelwald

Dumbledore was never married in the series and never showed even hints at being in a relationship, but he was apparently in love with Grindelwald. J.K. Rowling came under some fire for never announcing this in the books (or the subsequent films) since it would have been GREAT representation, but she said the sexuality was never relevant to his story and didn’t matter any more than it would have if he was straight.

We see her point, but after many people pointing out that it would have been progressive to mention it, she probably should have made have a bigger deal out of this in the subsequent Fantastic Beasts movies. Alas. Maybe she still will.

9 And Also, May Have Been Death?

J.K. Rowling claimed on Twitter very recently that her favorite fan theory was that Dumbledore was death — and also called it very fitting. Hmmm.

Okay, so this one isn’t so much her announcing something as canon rather than accepting a fan theory, but it really would have been an interesting thought, considering Dumbledore always was very accepting and even supportive of death. He claimed it was the “next greatest adventure”, which is an acceptance of death most of us will probably never achieve. 

Regardless of this being a fan theory, J.K. Rowling seemed very cool with accepting it into the greater canon of her world. We’ll take it.

8 There Is An American Wizarding School… And Many Others

Probably her biggest expansion of canon after the books was the expansion of magical education all over the world (and then the governments, and the culture, etc.). The one that most of her fanbase was excited to hear about was Ilvermorny, the American wizarding school with its own houses. Of course, some aspects of this culture, people didn’t like – like the Muggle world over there being ‘No-Maj’, which seems very simplistic — but the expansion of canon was popular enough that people wanted to know their North American house, where they would have fit in, etc.

And since J.K. Rowling said it, it’s canon in the books, even if we didn’t see it then.  

7 Hatstalls Are Possible – Minerva McGonagall Was One!

The Sorting Hat was one of the biggest mysteries in the books, and remains one to this day — how it could see inside someone’s head, read minds, etc. But what we never saw in the books (mainly because the books were only from Harry’s point of view), was that hatstalls were completely possible.

‘Hatstall’ is a word which means the Sorting Hat couldn’t decide what house to place someone in and took a probably agonizingly long time to decide because they could have fit perfectly in both. One great example J.K. Rowling provided was McGonagall — she was a hatstall between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.

Interestingly, she then went on to become head of Gryffindor house, so it looks like the hat eventually chose well. 

6 The ‘T’ In Voldemort Is Silent

The logic is obvious, of course—the word comes from French origins and therefore the ‘t’ would be silent. What’s weird is that J.K. Rowling randomly said this on Twitter after never correcting fans, after letting the movies even pronounce it wrong, after pronouncing it wrong herself. She said she was the only one who pronounced it with the silent ‘t’, but she’s said it in interviews with the ‘t’ pronounced.

Seems like this was something she gave up on pretty quickly but then retroactively decided was still canon. So much she should have made clear long before now…

5 Voldemort And Harry Were Most Definitely Related

This is kind of one that could be surmised if you read the books closely enough but wasn’t confirmed until after. The pure-blood families of Harry Potter are all inter-related to the point of it being pretty weird. Harry and Voldemort are both half-bloods, but both had a pure-blood parent — Voldemort had Merope Gaunt, his mother, and Harry had James Potter, his father. Trace those lines back far enough and sure enough, they go back to the Peverells — so yes, J.K. Rowling has confirmed that Harry and Voldemort were indeed distant relatives.  

Kind of weird to think about, regardless of the distance.

4 Albus Severus Was, Indeed, Sorted Into Slytherin

Among the revelations that came out thanks to Harry Potter And The Cursed Child was the information that Albus’ worst fears were fulfilled and he was indeed sorted into Slytherin. In the epilogue of Deathly Hallows, we saw him confess this fear to Harry and Harry reassure him that he knew some brave people in Slytherin and it wasn’t the end of the world.

This one isn’t too controversial of a retcon. Rowling was really mean to the Slytherins in the books, often implying they were all evil in the early stages before she started to humanize some of them a little, so sorting the hero’s son there was pretty necessary to change people’s perceptions.

3 Bellatrix And Voldemort Were In A Relationship… Of Sorts

Bellatrix Lestrange was always pretty in love with Voldemort. That much was obvious. Despite being married to Rodolphus Lestrange, her dedication was to the Dark Lord. But since it was always said that Voldemort was incapable of love and didn’t need or want human affection, we always assumed this was unrequited. 

But no. Another revelation that came from Rowling’s play was that Bellatrix and Voldemort had definitely slept together, because they had a daughter named Delphi. Many fans would have rathered this was not canon.

2 Sybil Trelawney Drank Heavily

Trelawney had a pretty hard life. She was a seer, but rarely made accurate predictions, so she wasn’t taken seriously even when she did. She was eccentric, seemed borderline insane — and Rowling later confirmed that she was an alcoholic, saying that she always smelled of sherry because, well… because of that reason.

It’s a pretty adult thing to include an alcoholic teacher in the magical, whimsical wizarding world she created, but she did always hint at this in the books — she just completely confirmed it later. For those of us who read them as children and are now adults though, this makes a lot of sense.

1 Hogwarts Was A Safe Space For LGBTQ+ Students

Someone on Twitter once tweeted at Rowling saying they liked to imagine that Hogwarts was a safe space for LGBTQ+ witches and wizards, and she replied to say that it absolutely is, meaning the discrimination present in the Muggle world at that time (and, tragically, present to this day) wasn’t present in the wizarding world.

A really nice sentiment (and why Rowling definitely needs to include Dumbledore’s sexuality in the movies, c’mon, Rowling), especially for Potter fans who may have struggled with this in their real life. Witches and wizards may have discriminated based on blood, but at least this prejudice wasn’t a thing in that world.

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