Wizard Teen Pregnancy Is A Thing, According To Fantastic Beasts

Though the Harry Potter novels and related media are stuffed with detail about how practically everything at Hogwarts and the wider wizarding world works, from plumbing to zoology, there are a few subjects that have remained taboo throughout the franchise’s history. Chief among them is sex, and specifically teen sex. Although Hogwarts is full of horny teenagers, who obsess over their crushes like non-magical teenagers and even have love potions to help them out, wizard teenagers never seem to get pregnant. At least they didn’t until the latest installment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore.

The Harry Potter series began as children’s books, and it’s understandable that they would avoid the issue of teen sex and pregnancy. But the topic has nevertheless been a source of mystery for fans, who’ve debated whether wizard teen pregnancy is a thing at Hogwarts on Reddit, Quora, and the Harry Potter Wiki over the years. Meanwhile, with the Fantastic Beast films and the stage play The Cursed Child, the franchise has expanded and grown darker and more grown-up: The latest film, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, is all about Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) trying to stop the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen) from becoming a dictator. And a key plot point in the new movie revolves around a teen pregnancy — albeit one that happened in the past. Spoilers for Fantastic Beats: The Secrets of Dumbledore follow.

The Secrets of Dumbledore resolves part of the mystery of Credence Barebone’s (Ezra Miller) parentage. As introduced in the first Fantastic Beasts film, Credence is an orphan, tormented both by the abuse he sustained from his adoptive mother and the Obscurus, a parasitical dark magic that he developed as a result. The Secrets of Dumbledore reveals that Credence (or Aurelius) isn’t Dumbledore’s brother or his son: He’s his nephew. His father is Albus’ brother, Aberforth Dumbledore (Richard Coyle), who fell in love with a girl at their home in Godric’s Hollow in 1899, when he was 15 years old. That girl got pregnant and had a son — Aurelius Dumbledore, who wound up in an orphanage in New York a couple years later as a result of a series of misfortunes. At the end of The Secrets of Dumbledore, a dying Credence is finally reunited with his father, who reassures him of his love, and takes him away to care for him.

Aberforth’s teenage girlfriend, Credence’s mother, remains unidentified, although speculation is racing that she might be Merope Gaunt’s mother, i.e. Voldemort’s grandmother. Viewers won’t find out the answer to that mystery until the next film is released. In the meantime, they can be satisfied that part of the riddle of Credence’s parentage was revealed — along with the question of teen pregnancy in the wizarding world. Technically, Aberforth’s teen romance didn’t happen at Hogwarts… but it is a surprising twist in a franchise that’s avoided teen sex, and confirms that wizard teenagers can, indeed, get pregnant.