Harry Potter became a legend unto himself when he survived Voldemort’s killing curse with a lightning bolt scar, but it’s possible that everything you thought you knew about Harry Potter‘s scar is actually wrong.
Let’s start at the beginning. As we all know by now, Harry Potter villain Voldemort had become consumed with the idea of killing the youngster because of a prophecy made by Sybil Trelawney to Dumbledore back in 1980. The prophecy stated that a boy born in July 1980 would have the power to “vanquish” Voldemort and that “neither can live while the other survives.” Harry Potter fit the bill, which led to his parents, Lily and James Potter, going into hiding.
Sadly, this didn’t last. As we know from the fantasy movies, Peter Pettigrew ended up betraying Lily and James, and Voldemort went on to kill both of them before attempting to murder Harry, who, at that point, was a months-old baby.
He tried to kill the infant with Harry Potter spell Avada Kevadra, but this ended up backfiring onto the movie villain — destroying and fragmenting his body — and inadvertently leading to Harry himself becoming one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.
Harry was definitely better off than Voldemort at this point — the only thing that remained from the spell was a scar that appeared to be shaped like a lightning bolt.
However, eagle-eyed Redditors pointed out that Potter’s scar wasn’t necessarily a lightning bolt, but was actually a visualization of the hand motion that was used to cast Avada Kevadra — the spell Voldemort used to try and kill Harry.
The hand motions for each Harry Potter spell are displayed on the Harry Potter Wiki, but because fans run such pages, there’s uncertainty over how reliable this theory is.
Yet, after a lot of digging and computer magic, it was found that the symbols used to represent hand motions on the Wiki came from Pottermore: an official Harry Potter source that includes input by the author. So, to cut a long story short, we can assume these hand movements related to Avada Kedavra to be canon.
So, is the similarity to Harry Potter’s scar just a coincidence, or part of a deeper Easter egg? It’s impossible to know, but to find out more about the world of Harry Potter, check out our guides on the best Harry Potter characters, how to watch all the Harry Potter movies in order, the most irritating Harry Potter plot-holes, all the owners of the Elder Wand, and the Harry Potter TV series release date.