5 things we learned from Harry Potter: A History of Magic

The Deathly Hallows symbol is based on The Man Who Would Be King

A picture of Professor Sprout, drawn by J.K. Rowling, features in the exhibition and Rowling describes her as the “most parental” of all the heads of houses at Hogwarts (not very hard when you consider that Snape is among the competition).

But you might be surprised to know that J.K. Rowling can date the drawing exactly to Dec. 30, 1990. There is a deeply upsetting reason for this: it is the day her mother died.

She also remembers that she was watching a film that night — The Man Who Would Be King.  In it, Sean Connery and Michael Caine play army officers who pose as gods. On his robes, Connery wears a triangular Masonic symbol.

She says that, upon rewatching the film some 20 years later, she realised that the symbol felt utterly familiar and must have been an unintentional inspiration for symbol of the Deathly Hallows.

“When I saw the movie again and saw the Masonic symbol, I went cold all over and I thought, ‘Is that why the Hallows symbol is what it is?’” Rowling says in the documentary. “And I’ve got a feeling that, on some deep, subconscious level, they are connected. So I feel as though I worked my way back over 20 years to that night, because the Potter series is hugely about loss, and – I’ve said this before – if my mother hadn’t died I think the stories would be utterly different and not what they are.”

It is clear that a big part of what the books are is due to the depth behind them. Harry Potter: A History of Magic has delved into every aspect of the series, unearthing facts that have been thus far unknown to fans across the world.

Related Story: 10 objects on which J.K. Rowling maybe wrote Harry Potter

And for the millions of Potterheads who know their Blast-ended Skrewts from their Billywigs, this is no mean feat.