By Nick Romano
January 05, 2019 at 11:22 AM EST
©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Poop magic isn’t something one usually hears in civilized conversation, but something we find ourselves talking about in the year 2019.

On Friday, J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore, the official online companion compendium for all things Harry Potter, revealed another surprising tidbit that threw fans for a Qudditch loop. “Hogwarts didn’t always have bathrooms,” the tweet in question reads. “Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence.”

What about a magical wizard chamber pot that acted like Hermione’s Marry Poppins bag and just sent all excrements into the void? What about charming oneself to just not have to poop? What about “Defodio,” a.k.a. the Gouging Charm, that literally digs through earth and stone? Couldn’t wizards have used that to dig a hole and do their business?

Nope, none of that is mentioned. Instead, witches and wizards, some highly sophisticated beings who created complex magical governments and tamed the fiercest beasts, at one point just pooped themselves.

To be fair, this fact has been public knowledge for sometime; the folks at CinemaBlend found the factoid in a 2015 Pottermore essay pertaining to the Chamber of Secrets and how the implementation of Muggle plumbing at Hogwarts nearly revealed the location of the chamber. That doesn’t mean it still didn’t blow fans’ minds — and not in the best way.

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