JK Rowling explained strange Harry Potter detail that's still confusing fans 20 years later

Harry Potter fans are going back over their beloved story about a boy who learns he's a wizard and goes off magic school and they've noticed a detail that's bugging them.

It'll be bugging them more now that the TV series is fast approaching, with Dominic McLaughlin, Alastair Stout and Arabella Stanton playing the trio of magical initiates navigating Hogwarts.

There's been a few points of contention about the Harry Potter world, including why Quidditch is such a broken game (it was made to be confusing after JK Rowling had an argument with her boyfriend), or why Harry the horcrux wasn't destroyed when he was bitten by a basilisk (it would have had to kill him).

This one goes right back to the beginning of the story, where Mr and Mrs Dursley of Number Four Privet Drive were happy to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

More specifically, it's about why Harry gets left with them and not any other possible relatives such as grandparents, since he was just a baby and his parents were pretty young when they had him you might expect there to be some more suitable relatives to leave him with.

At the very least they might not have locked him in a cupboard under the stairs for years.

Anyhow, while it has confused many Harry Potter fans there is actually an explanation for all this.

It wasn't until 2015 that Harry Potter fans got a bit more of an answer, as JK Rowling took to the Pottermore website to explain that James Potter's parents were called Fleamont and Euphemia, and were very old when they had him.

An aged couple who were not expecting to have a son, the Potter grandparents survived long enough to see their son get married but died of 'dragon pox' within a few days of each other.

This was before Harry was born, so it explains why they weren't around to look after him.

For Harry to discover he was a wizard later in his life he had to have dead grandparents (Warner Bros)

As for his mum's parents, they experienced 'normal muggle death', as Rowling explained she found it 'more interesting, plot-wise, if Harry was completely alone' so she made sure he didn't have any family to be sent to besides the Dursleys.

"There's nothing serious or sinister about those deaths. I just needed them out of the way so I killed them," she had said when explaining why they had to die.

It makes some deal of sense, many protagonists have to get their family tree trimmed right down so they can go on adventures and not have to worry about what's happening back home.

You also wouldn't get that 'you're a wizard, Harry' moment if he's part of a family unit that knows about magic and is willing to talk about it.

If Harry was living with his Potter grandparents he'd just have been born into the wizarding world without a fuss, and his Evans grandparents were thrilled to have a witch for a daughter so it could only be Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon who hate magic.