10 Things You Didn't Know About Harry Potter's Scar

Most will agree that it would be super weird to imagine Harry without his scar, but if Rowling had stuck with her original ending to the final book, Harry's forehead may have been completely blank during his later years, after his defeat of Voldemort.

While appearing on Dateline to discuss the closure of Harry's story in The Deathly Hallows, the author was asked about the final word of the book. Originally meant to be "scar" (later changed to "well"), Rowling explained that she initially intended to leave the fate of Harry's signature lightning bolt up in the air:

"For a long time the last line was something like 'only those whom he loved could see the lightning scar', and that was a reference to the fact that as they were on the platform, people were milling around, but Harry was kind of flanked by his loved ones, so they were the only ones who were really near enough to see it, even though the other people were looking. And it also had a kind of ambiguity, so it was 'is the scar still really there?'"

She then explained why she ultimately decided to ditch this more ambiguous ending in favour of the one we can read/watch today:

"...but I changed it because I wanted a more... when I came to write it I wanted a very concrete statement that Harry won, and that the scar although it's still there... it's now just a scar. And I wanted to say it's over. It's done."

The scar is quite hard to make out in the 19 years later scene due to the aging makeup applied to Radcliffe's face, but if you squint, it's easy to spot.