All the ways 'Fantastic Beasts' fits into the sprawling Potter-verse

NEW YORK -- For fans who have been poring over Pottermore for years, the tale of Newt Scamander -- not to mention American magic in general -- is highly familiar.

For those whose knowledge begins and ends with a few books and movies, you're going to need a little boning up before Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the latest addition to the Harry Potter universe that comes to movie theaters this weekend.

Even if you've never read a word about the Boy Who Lived or seen any of the movies, this primer is all you'll need.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Who is Newt Scamander? Newt Scamander (played by Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne) is a magizoologist who was kicked out of Hogwarts and is now on a worldwide adventure tracking down various magical creatures.

Hold up. A magizoologist is ... ? A person who a studies magical creatures, duh.

Ok. So how does his story relate to Harry's? The events in Fantastic Beasts take place in 1926 in New York City. Harry Potter's tale takes place in the 1990s in Great Britain.

So there's no overlap to the Potter books? Wrong. Newt writes this book about his magical adventures, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. That book becomes a textbook at Hogwarts, so that by the 1990s, Harry Potter and Co. read and learn from it. Also, you don't need to know this to enjoy the movie, but Newt's grandson Rolf goes on to marry Luna Lovegood. Everything ties together!

Does this book ... actually exist ... or? It does! J.K. Rowling (who wrote the Fantastic Beasts screenplay) is nothing if not a completionist. So: In 2001, Rowling (under the pen name Newt Scamander) wrote a Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them textbook. It was released in the three-year waiting period between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. The thin volume contains encyclopedia-esque entries about all kinds of magical beasts, some of which appear in the Potter books and some of which do not.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

So the movie is based on a textbook? There's no way that is going to work, right? Well, the textbook lets everyone know about the characters they're going to see in the film. But! Rowling came up with a whole new story beyond animals. The film finds Newt dealing with all the Potter standards: dark magic, sad kids, a hint of whimsy.

Where are you getting all of this? Over the years, Rowling has been updating Pottermore, her site with all of the information about the Potter world. That's where (if you so desire) you can get officially sorted into a Hogwarts house as well as brush up on backstories for a ton of characters.

Recently, she's also written a lot of articles about the history of American magic -- while not strictly necessary to know to enjoy Fantastic Beasts, it does provide a lot of follow-up information to things referenced in the film.

Anything else I should know? If you saw the Potter films, you saw (but have likely forgotten) that Voldemort wasn't the only evil wizard in the Potter-verse. In Deathly Hallows, a dark wizard named Gellert Grindelwald (portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower) is oh-so-briefly seen. He was a bad guy in the 1940s who has a complicated history with Dumbledore. Intrigue!

No Fantastic Beasts spoilers here, but he's a name to remember -- and fear.