'Harry Potter': J.K. Rowling Reveals Another Harry Potter in the Wizarding World
J.K. Rowling continues to expand the world of "Harry Potter," years after the last main novel series has been published. In one of her more surprising revelations, the author explained how "The Boy Who Lived" was not the first Harry Potter in the family.
The wizarding world lives on beyond the "Harry Potter" novel set, as J.K. Rowling added spinoff books like "Cursed Child" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," according to Seventeen. Not all of her updates come in the form of books, however. Some of the most interesting trivia that the author has dished out has been spotted on social media and her Pottermore website.
Rowling has added more backstory to the Potter line, in one of her posts on Pottermore. It turns out that Harry Potter's great grandfather is also named Harry Potter.
This ancestor's real birth name is actually Henry Potter, but everyone around him has taken to calling him Harry Potter instead, according to the new lore posted on the Pottermore site.
Like the titular Harry Potter, this great-grandfather of his is very much a prototype of the hero who would eventually take down Voldemort. Henry Potter himself is a man of conviction, especially when it comes to the things he believes in, such as the welfare of Muggles — people who cannot practice magic — everywhere.
"Henry caused a minor stir when he publicly condemned then Minister for Magic, Archer Evermonde, who had forbidden the magical community to help Muggles waging the First World War," Rowling wrote about Harry Potter's ancestor.
"His outspokenness on the behalf of the Muggle community was also a strong contributing factor in the family's exclusion from the 'Sacred Twenty-Eight'," Rowling added, referring to the 28 families believed to be of pure wizard ancestry.
J.K. Rowling is also hard at work writing the next material for the sequel "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," which is currently being made into a movie starring Eddie Redmayne, according to Entertainment Weekly.