Chapter 4 visits places that stood in for Hogwarts and its world in the films. Alnwick Castle in Northumberland played the school, inside and out, in the first two films. Durham Cathedral provided shots of the whole school, with a digital spire added, and also served as an interior set. The Glenfinnan Viaduct in the Scottish Highlands, built between 1897 and 1901 and Scotland’s longest concrete railway bridge, appears in four of the films, and in summer the Jacobite steam train still crosses it. The chapter also tells how Richard Harris reportedly turned down the part of Dumbledore three times, until his 11-year-old granddaughter threatened to stop speaking to him if he refused. The photos on these slides are open-licence pictures of the real places, taken by visitors and credited on each slide; none of them is a film still. Each slide says what its picture shows and when it was taken, so you can tell the castle in 2011 from the castle you saw on screen in 2001.
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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