But now, Rowling has revealed Edinburgh is actually not where the writing of the boy who lived began.
“I was renting a room in a flat over what was then a sports shop,” Rowling said on Twitter, with an image of where she resided at the time of writing the first book. “The first bricks of Hogwarts were laid in a flat in Clapham Junction.”
The fan asked Rowling to explain “the truth about this ‘birthplace’ of Harry Potter.”
Rowling, who is known to drop various bombshells and unknown tidbits about the franchise on Twitter, explained that the real “pen to paper” birth of Harry Potter himself, happened in her flat.
However, she said, the moment where she had the idea for the series itself was while she was riding on a train.
“But I’m perennially amused by the idea that Hogwarts was directly inspired by beautiful places I saw or visited, because it’s so far from the truth.”
Rowling went on to dispel some of the other rumors around her inspirations for key icons from the Harry Potter world.
For example, a fan tweeted a picture from the bookstore Livraria Lello, in Porto, Portugal, that supposedly inspired the Hogwarts library. The only trouble is, Rowling said she has never been there.
“If it cheers up the people who’re disappointed about the bookshop in Oporto, I wrote in here sometimes,” she wrote. “This was probably the most beautiful café I ever wrote in, actually.”
Rowling also said that rumors around her inspiration for Hogwarts itself miss the mark as well.
“I sometimes hear Hogwarts was based on one or other of Edinburgh’s schools, but that’s 100% false, too,” Rowling said.
“Hogwarts was created long before I clapped eyes on any of them! I did finish Hallows in the Balmoral, though, and I can’t lie, I’d rate it a smidge higher than the Bournville.”
Out of all the “utter nonsense about Potter landmarks,” Rowling said her favorite is people going to a parking meter she supposedly used in Edinburgh while writing the “Deathly Hallows.”
“I can’t drive,” she wrote.
Unfortunately, when it comes to any spoilers about upcoming work, Dumbledore voiced disappointment best: “Alas, earwax.”