Chapter 1 collects seven names and words in the Harry Potter books that were telling readers something all along. Voldemort comes from the French vol de mort, flight or theft of death, and J.K. Rowling has said the final t is silent; in Chamber of Secrets the letters of Tom Marvolo Riddle rearrange into I am Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore is an old dialect word for bumblebee, chosen because Rowling pictured him humming to himself as he walked. Remus Lupin’s names both point to wolves: Remus, after the twin raised by a she-wolf in Rome’s founding legend, and Lupin, from the Latin lupus. Sirius is named after the Dog Star, like other members of the Black family who carry the names of stars, and his Animagus form is a huge black dog. Erised is desire spelled backwards, and the mirror’s inscription reads backwards too. The school motto, Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus, is Latin for never tickle a sleeping dragon. On these slides you scratch the mirror’s inscription to read it the right way round and rate how many of the names you already knew.
30 Harry Potter Facts Even Potterheads Don’t Know is a set of unofficial fan stories in seven short chapters, each on its own page. Tap the right side of the screen for the next slide and the left side to go back, hold to pause, and use the button at the end of a chapter for the next one. Three parts are written live by AI and labelled: a read of your answers, the Restricted Section and a what-if scene. The AI is told not to invent facts and can still make mistakes; if it is busy, a hand-written text appears instead and says so.
Every fact was checked on 14 October 2026 against pages we opened, all listed on the first page: Wikipedia’s articles on the books, the characters, the film locations and the HBO series, the official Harry Potter website’s feature on sentences that turned out to matter, and the Harry Potter Lexicon. The pictures are open-licence photos from Wikimedia Commons and our own drawings; no film stills or official art are used. Your answers stay in this browser tab and are cleared when you close it. Spotted a mistake? Use the Contact page.
Part of Stars & Spells, an Ink Horses site. Unofficial fan commentary. Harry Potter characters, names and related indicia are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Harry Potter publishing rights © J.K. Rowling. Stars & Spells is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
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