With the new Fantastic Beasts film — the second in the franchise, J.K. Rowling takes audiences deeper into the world that pre-dated Harry Potter and his friends. Newt Scamander’s 1920s New York and Europe is alive with wizardry, magic and…alchemy. Rowling has often drawn from mythology and folklore to create the Potter universe, with key elements like the philosopher’s stone and the real life alchemist who discovered it having a place in true history…. strengthening the connection between the alchemists of the past, whose work informed our modern understanding of science, and the wizards of the Potter-verse.