Harry Potter: how JK Rowling drew Hogwarts before the movies

JK Rowling, creator of Harry Potter, the Ministry of Magic, Gringotts or Hogwarts, is also a talented designer. In the documentary Harry Potter: The Magic Begins, we briefly glimpse a map of Hogwarts and its surroundings that she herself drew for the needs of the film crew.

Thanks to the Harry Potter World Twitter account, here it is in good definition. We can see the famous school and its emblematic places which, with a few skilful pencil strokes, are immediately recognizable as Hagrid’s hut, the lake, the Whomping Willow or even Hogsmeade.

You can also see a giant squid that inhabits the lake. In the novels, we understand that he is either semi-domesticated or absolutely not hostile to the students, since he is careful not to attack them or their boats when they arrive from the Hogwarts Express.

This map proved to be decisive for the film team and in particular the production designer Stuart Craig, who worked on the saga from the first opus until the end and got back to work for the Fantastic Beasts trilogy. What he imagined for Hogwarts from the first film was immediately validated by the fans, and from film to film, other parts of the famous school could be shown on the screen.

Let’s play around: which character in the saga do these pets belong to?

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