Truth about Harry Potter’s famous ‘lightning bolt’ scar

Thought you knew everything about The Boy Who Lived? Turns out there’s a major detail about his famous lightning scar that we all missed.

Harry Potter fans are going wild after a new detail about his famous “lightning bolt” scar began circulating on the internet.

As basically everyone on the planet knows by now, at the very beginning of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, a baby Harry is attacked by the evil wizard Voldemort, who’s just murdered his parents. The young wizard miraculously survives the “Killing Curse”, but is left with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead for the rest of his life.

Voldemort tried to kill one-year-old Harry Potter in the story, which is pretty rude.

All these years, many of us just kind of figured the lightning shape was the unique stamp of a powerful murder curse gone wrong, given that there’s no comparison available — Harry was the first wizard to ever cop an Avada Kedavra curse to the face and live to tell the tale.

If Harry Potter lived in the real world, he’d score a huge cheque for a TV tell-all on his brush with death.

But we were wrong.

Thanks to the important work of the person behind Twitter account @todayyearsold, fans have now discovered that the shape is actually the exact trace of the hand gesture used to cast the “Avada Kedavra” spell.

Did you know Harry Potter’s scar isn’t a lightning bolt, but actually the hand motion to cast Avada Kedavra pic.twitter.com/B8ig9dLGFg

— Today Years Old (@todayyearsoldig) January 10, 2019

The tweet attracted hundreds of likes and retweets, with plenty of fans sharing their shock at the discovery.

This one pretty much sums it up:

pic.twitter.com/99UQtRd1Kr

— the misfit💀 (@goodorgodd) January 14, 2019

Among the overwhelmingly surprised responses, there were a few diehard Harry Potter fans who pointed out they’d always known the truth.

also how are people just finding out about harry potter's scar... that news is old lmao

— AUDRISS • FELICIA (@audrissfelicia) January 15, 2019

Actually, it’s both. And I’m obsessed with Harry Potter so I knew this

— Bailey (@Bailey51484658) January 11, 2019

Rowling herself is yet to weigh in on the revelation, but given her usual willingness to confirm or deny fan theories on Twitter — it’s probably only a matter of time.

Originally published as Truth about Harry Potter’s famous ‘lightning bolt’ scar