Harry Potter fans can trace his lineage back to the Middle Ages

J.K. Rowling revealed a detailed family history of Harry Potter in a new essay for Pottermore on Tuesday, going all the way back to how the family wound up being known as the Potters.

In the newly relaunched Pottermore website, JK Rowling reveals the ancestry of The Boy Who Lived.

The article also explains how the Potter family became in possession of the Invisibility Cloak, which helped Harry through all seven books of the series and became an important plot point in the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Linfred is also considered to be the founding-father of a number of remedies that evolved into potions still used to this day, including Skele-gro and Pepperup Potion. It came into the Potter family when Linfred’s eldest son, Hardwin, married a witch from Godric’s Hollow, Iolanthe Peverell, the granddaughter of Ignotus Peverell of The Tale of the Three Brothers.

Unlike the Malfoys and the Weasleys, the Potters aren’t among the “Sacred Twenty-Eight” list of pureblood wizard families. “In the absence of male heirs, she, the eldest of her generation, had inherited her grandfather’s invisibility cloak…From this time on, the cloak was handed down to the eldest in each new generation”.

But many seemed simply pleased to have more Potter, with one Facebook fan invoking the series’ mantra of looking for the light, even in the darkest of times: “Though Pottermore has changed, don’t let that force you to leave behind the magic”. JKR writes that Harry’s ancestor, Fleamont, was part of Wizengamot and invented Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion. USA Today noted that the most notable improvement of the site was that it was redesigned for mobile use.

The website has had a major face-lift and will host an array of new features, including a permanent correspondent.

Introducing the new site, Rowling wrote: “This is my magical corner of the internet, a place where you can explore my writing, both familiar and new, and where you can read features, articles and news from the Pottermore Team”.