Harry Potter: 10 Most Shocking Reveals From Pottermore
4. Azkaban Was A Private Island For A Dark Wizard
The history of the wizard prison was never going to be a cheery one, but JK Rowling did the island fortress justice with her Azkaban passage on Pottermore. It turns out that the North Sea island on which the prison was built in the 18th century had previously been a private island lived on by the evil dark-wizard Ekrizdis. The island, which was created and enlarged through magic, had never appeared on maps pre-Azkaban, and its secret inhabitant would use an array of charms to lure and capture Muggles, torturing them and eventually murdering them. By the time the Ministry acknowledged the islands existence, the place was already swarming with Dementors, something that the wizard government would use to their advantage after the International Stature of Secrecy was signed. Once wizards the world-over decided to keep their existence secret, small, inland wizard prisons were no longer an option, as potential for break-outs and subsequent Muggle collateral damage was too high. Instead, when Minister Damocles Rowle was elected in 1718, he decided an island-prison guarded by an already present Dementor population would be just the trick. Even in its early days Azkaban was the awful place we came to know it as, and the following Minister Eldritch Diggory attempted to find alternatives to the prison after seeing the despair on the island first hand, though unfortunately for its inhabitants he died of dragon pox in 1747 and nobody else wanted to touch it, until the present Minister took office...
