The second Fantastic Beasts film brings together the story of Newt Scamander and his old professor
Albus Dumbledore.
Throughout, fans can find a ton of Easter eggs hidden throughout the picture that only
the truest Harry Potter aficionados are bound to catch.
Pull out your wand, and get your anti-spoiler spell ready: here are the small details you
missed in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.
In The Crimes of Grindelwald, there's a lot to unpack about the relationship between the
titular villain and his opposite-equal, Albus Dumbledore.
Dumbledore's visit to the Mirror of Erised does help reveal some of the major points:
In it, he sees his younger self making a blood pact with the boy he says he was "closer than
brothers" with.
Not only does that call back a similar scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
when the Boy Wizard summons up a happier image of his parents, it also earns a more subtle
bit of nostalgia from the original series thanks to who we see in it.
Actors Toby Regbo and Jamie Campbell Bower reprise their roles as Dumbledore and Grindelwald
in Fantastic Beasts 2, after having portrayed the characters ever so briefly in Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
Considering how small their screen time was in the original series, they could've easily
been replaced, but seeing them return to these roles nicely bridges the gap between the film
sets.
The sweeping new shots of an unfettered Hogwarts probably made for a very welcome sight for
Harry Potter fans who cringed with every artifact's destruction in the Second Wizarding War in
Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
The bridge is shown intact, the Great Hall is perfectly lit by floating candles, and,
of course, Dumbledore's office is still filled with so many of his intriguing tools of the
trade.
The scenes involving young Dumbledore also featured a few namedrops that will ring familiar
to fans.
First, there's the instruction for the students to go with Professor McGonagall, who we all
know and love so well from the Harry Potter series.
Then, one student's name is called out as Mclaggen, who must be the ancestor of this
Gryffindor student from the original series, Cormac McLaggen.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald also turned what we knew about an old Harry
Potter character on its head when it revealed that Nagini was not always the snake sidekick
of the Dark Lord.
Instead, she was formerly a person with the Maledictus curse, which meant that she shape-shifted
into snake form and one day would not be able to change back.
There's a running theory that she might turn out to be Tom Riddle's actual mother before
it's all said and done.
It would certainly help explain the allegiance she develops for the character later on — not
to mention his eventual snakey features and his gift with parseltongue — especially
if she were to, say, conceive Voldemort with Credence.
On the other hand, the books and films have already established Riddle's parentage, so
if the Fantastic Beasts films decide to go a different direction, they'll have a whole
lot of explaining to do.
Harry Potter fans may have previously only known of Nicholas Flamel thanks to Harry,
Hermione, and Ron discovering how he created the Philosopher's Stone and achieved immortality
— or at least really, really long life — in the first installment.
However, Fantastic Beasts 2 gives us a fuller glimpse of the character in his crone-like
decrepit form — as well as a quick glimpse of that elusive Philospher's Stone in Flamel's
house.
But unlike most of Rowling's characters, Flamel was actually a real person, and was rumored
to have used alchemy to become immortal.
"Nickola Flamel.”
“Jacob Kowalski.”
“Oh!”
"You don’t look a day over 375.”
The end of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald features a big twist, where we
finally learn about Credence's family history.
After narrowly escaping capture in the first film, he spends this movie trying to track
down the identity of his real parents and figure out why they decided to leave him in
the care of a horrible woman like Mary Lou Barebone.
In the end, he discovers that he isn't the long-lost sibling of Leta LeStrange, as he'd
expected, but that he was actually named Aurelius Dumbledore — and that Albus Dumbledore is
trying to destroy him, according to Grindelwald.
If there's one thing these Wizarding World stories love, it's family drama, and the revelation
that Credence could actually be related to Dumbledore is the good stuff.
Fans of the franchise are probably poring over their books to see if they can figure
out where this new information fits into the ever-expanding Harry Potter universe.
If only hearing the actors say the name "Dumbledore" with such gravitas didn't sound quite so,
well…
"Ridikkulus."