The House Editions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone published earlier this year included a few pages of “fact files” in the back of each book. Most of this information can be traced back to various writings, interviews, and tweets of J.K. Rowling. One of these facts, however, can not.
The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw editions include this following “fact” about their head of house, (found on pages 342 and 344 respectively.)
“Did you know? Professor Sprout had a long-term relationship with fellow teacher Professor Flitwick. Sadly, it didn’t work out but they remain friends.”
Not only does this information not come from Rowling, but this actually comes from a photoshopped fake tweet made by comedy website CollegeHumor.
In 2015, Willie Muse of CollegeHumor posted an article titled “J.K. Rowling’s Twitter Is Out of Control”, which mixed a few pictures of real tweets from Rowling with several over-the-top photoshopped “fake” tweets, featuring among other things, Rowling’s comments about the bathroom habits of her characters. (Warning: Article includes crude humor)
The first of the fake tweets had Rowling responding to a question about dating habits of Hogwarts professors with
“Of course! Sprout and Flitwick had a long time relationship! They broke up but remain friends.”
We’re unsure how this mistake happened, but it seems as if some fan material made its way into a published book. Upon hearing the news, CollegeHumor writer Willie Muse remarked that it was “AMAZING”, and thanked us for letting him know. (UPDATE: Muse has posted some further thoughts on CollegeHumor.)
Bloomsbury told us that they are aware of the error, and that it’s been corrected for reprints of the relevant house editions.
Note that this isn’t the only error found in these pages. The Ravenclaw edition also lists Luna as having Ollivander’s wand.