Prince William has a 'Harry Potter' scar on his forehead and there's a wild story behind it

When people from overseas think of Great Britain, the images that come to mind are usually tea and scones, big red double decker buses, and the royal family.

Oh, and Harry Potter, of course.

But, while the tale of The Boy Who Lived might be fantasy, there are elements from JK Rowling's much-beloved masterpiece that actually do exist in real life. At King's Cross, for example, there is a platform 9 and 3/4 (complete with a trolley that's halfway through the wall), and - thanks to some clever marketing from the HP team at Warner Bros - you can buy Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans in stores.

And it turns out that isn't all. Recently, a few eagle-eyed people spotted that Prince William has a rather prominent scar on his forehead, right in the same place as the boy wizard.

Not only does it look like something out of the fantasy universe, though; according to the prince, it actually has some magical qualities.

"I call it [my Harry Potter scar] because it glows sometimes and some people notice it — other times they don't notice it at all," he explained in an interview back in 2009.

But how did he get it? Did the Dark Lord sneak in on him when he was an infant? Did an overzealous student fire one too many Expelliarmus spells at him during Defence Against the Dark Arts? Or did the British prince simply fall off his pony during a jolly old game of croquet with the boys?

Well, unsurprisingly, the truth behind the blemish isn't far off the latter.

"I got hit by a golf club when I was playing golf with a friend of mine," William said. "We were on a putting green and the next thing you know there was a seven-iron and it came out of nowhere and it hit me in the head."

Oof! That might not be quite as painful as an Avada Kedavra to the skull, but it's got to come in a close second.

What's more, his wife - Duchess Kate Middleton of Cambridge - has a scar in almost the exact same place, though hers is difficult to see because it's obscured by her hairline.

People started commenting on it almost a decade ago, when Kate and Wills were first in the public eye, and Kensington Palace actually had to release an official statement about it because many individuals believed that it was the tell-tale mark of a hair extension.

You can just about see it in the picture below - it's the white line running vertically beside her ear.

Middleton has never publicly disclosed how she acquired the mark, but the palace's official comment on the matter was that "The scar is related to a childhood operation."

So, while Great Britain might not bear much resemblance to the world of Harry Potter in real life, we do have some genuine fairytale-like princes and princesses in our midst - and apparently they have some badass scars.