The J.K. Rowling Index

List of all J.K. Rowling's writings.

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Peeves the Poltergeist

Index ID: PPPEEV — Publication date: September 6th, 2016

Note: This article was part of the e-book "Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists", which is part of the Pottermore Presents collection. It's similar to the original version published on Pottermore, with minor additions.
Only the beginning of this text can be displayed here for research purposes. I apologize!

The name ‘poltergeist’ is German in origin, and roughly translates as ‘noisy ghost’, although it is not, strictly speaking, a ghost at all. The poltergeist is an invisible entity that moves objects, slams doors and creates other audible, kinetic disturbances. It has been reported in many cultures and there is a strong association with the places where young people, especially adolescents, are living.


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Horace Slughorn

Index ID: PPSLUG — Publication date: September 6th, 2016

Note: This article was part of the e-book "Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists", which is part of the Pottermore Presents collection.
Only the beginning of this text can be displayed here for research purposes. I apologize!

Horace Eugene Flaccus Slughorn was born into an ancient wizarding family, the only son of doting and wealthy parents. Although a fundamentally good-tempered boy, he was educated to believe in the value of the old boys’ network (his father was a high-ranking Ministry official in the Department of International Magical Co-operation), and encouraged to make friends ‘of the right sort’ once he arrived at Hogwarts. The Slughorn family is one of the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’, (a select list of the only families designated ‘pure-blooded’ by an anonymous author in the 1930s) and while Slughorn’s parents were never militant in their pure-blood beliefs, they encouraged a quiet belief in the family’s innate superiority.


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Violent Femmes album for RAM

Index ID: VFRAM — Publication date: September 1st, 2016

I’m not quite sure how the Violent Femmes passed me by. I turned 18 the year this album came out, but I was obsessed with The Beatles at the time. Of contemporary bands I really loved, the standouts were the Smiths and the Psychedelic Furs. I loved any band with a great guitarist. I played guitar myself, mostly alone in my bedroom.

It’s possible that I heard the Violent Femmes but I’ve forgotten. They could easily have been part of the informal seminars on alternative music I received from the muso I dated in my late teens. His parents were Dutch and we hung out mostly at his house, because we were allowed to smoke in his attic bedroom. I’ve got happy memories of sunlit wooden rafters and smoke rings and walls covered in black and white pictures he’d clipped out of NME, while the Dead Kennedys, Jah Wobble or the Birthday Party blasted out of the speakers. Setting aside the fact that I had a pair of very long-lived goldfish named after Guggi and Gavin of the Virgin Prunes, I never became a whole-hearted convert of his favourite bands. Much as I adored him, I didn’t share Muso Boyfriend’s attitude to music: his scorn for the accessible and tuneful, the baffling mixture of irony and obsession with which he regarded his favourites, and his conviction that if the herd hates something, it’s almost certainly brilliant.

The NME was Muso Boyfriend’s bible and it took a hard line on nearly anything commercial or popular, talking about bands in the top ten with the kind of contempt most people reserve for child abusers. A few real Gods could be forgiven commercial success, obviously: people like Bowie or the Stones, but the likes of Nik Kershaw might as well have been Thatcher herself as far as NME were concerned

When the Stranglers released ‘Feline’ and it went to number 4 in the album charts, an NME journo went into meltdown, ranting about the fact that people who’d never heard ‘Rattus Norvegicus’ were now calling themselves Stranglers fans. You could almost see the flecks of spittle on the page. (I’d bought ‘Feline.’ I didn’t own ‘Rattus Norvegicus.’) And I still vividly remember an NME interview with Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet, a band I never liked, though I admired Gary’s chutzpah in agreeing to talk to them. The interviewer’s disapproval of Gary and everything he stood for reached a glorious peak with the phrase ‘this whorehouse called success.’ I never made much headway arguing about this sort of thing with Muso Boyfriend, though, so after a bit of snogging I’d cycle home and listen to ‘Rubber Soul.’

My first live gig and my first music festival were both with Muso Boyfriend: Big Country at Dingwalls in Bristol, supporting act: John Cooper Clarke, the punk poet. We spent my 18th birthday at the Elephant Fayre in Cornwall, hitching there from South Wales. I’d told my parents some whopping lie about how we were getting there, probably that Muso Boyfriend’s older brother was driving us. Half an hour of unsuccessful hitching later, it suddenly occurred to me that my parents had said they were going shopping later. This meant they might soon be driving past us, so I kept diving for cover every time a Honda Civic came into view.

We finally got a lift, thank God, so I survived to enjoy my birthday at the Elephant Fayre. We pitched the two-person tent by a marquee full of Rastas selling tea and hot knives and saw the Cure, whom Muso Boyfriend was weirdly keen to hear, in spite of the fact that they’d actually been on Top of the Pops. The only other act I remember well from the Elephant Fayre is Benjamin Zephaniah. He did a poem about having the shit kicked out of him by a policeman. Twenty odd years later, I was on a team with him at a kids’ book quiz at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

You’ve now listened to it, at least 3 times, what do you think?

I didn’t Google the band or the album before listening, because that felt like cheating, so I knew virtually nothing about them except that this came out in 1983. When I told my friend Euan which album I was going to review he assured me I’d like it, but his favourite album’s by The Cramps, so that wasn’t entirely reassuring.

Wanting to concentrate, I go outside to my writing room in the garden, which has a wooden ceiling. This, unlikely as it may seem, is relevant information.

So I put on the Violent Femmes and hear a catchy acoustic guitar riff and I think, this is great! I’m going to love them! I’ll get a Violent Femmes T-shirt, buy the entire back catalogue and bore everyone rigid with my new obsession!

But then the vocalist kicks in and I have an immediate, visceral response of ‘no, scratch everything, I hate this.’ The change of mood is so abrupt my mind goes blank. I try to analyse why I moved from appreciation to intense dislike in a matter of seconds, but the best I can do is ‘I’ve heard voices like that before.’

By the time I reach track seven, all I can think about is the Toy Dolls’ cover of Nelly the Elephant. I’m not proud. I know this says more about me than the Violent Femmes.

After I’ve listened to the whole album once, I look down at the place where I was supposed to be making notes and all I’ve written is: ‘his upper register sounds like a bee in a plastic cup,’ which the professional writer in me recognizes as ‘not 500 words’. Feeling glum, I postpone a second listen to the following day.

It’s raining next morning and I can’t be bothered to go and find shoes, so I don’t take the album into the writing room, but stay in the kitchen. With minimal enthusiasm, I put on the album again.

This is weird. The vocalist is actually, um… good. Where did the bloke I heard yesterday go? Now I’m not busy hating him, I notice all the great hooks and how they sometimes sound like a manic skiffle band. There’s a nice bit of bluesy slide guitar and an actual xylophone on ‘Gone Daddy Gone’. Plus, when he half talks, half sings, Gordon Gano (I checked the album credits) sounds a bit Lou Reed, and I love Lou Reed. Apart from being the vocalist, Gano also happens to be the guitarist I fell for yesterday.

I can’t understand why he grated on me so much first time round. Beneath my wooden ceiling, he was the Ur-voice of all those NME-approved punky bands I never liked: nasal, whiny and brash. Today, sitting beside my kettle, he’s raw, catchy and soulful.

Only then, staring into a mug of tea, do I have the little epiphany that you, clever reader, saw coming a mile off. Listening to an album that reeks of 1983, in a room that bears a passing resemblance to that attic of long ago, was a mistake. It wasn’t Gordon Gano who was the problem: it was me. I was listening with a ghostly eighteen year old ex-boyfriend at my shoulder, and behind him, a chorus of snarling early eighties NME journalists, all ready to jeer, because even if I like the Violent Femmes, I’ll like them in the wrong way.

So the sun came out and I took the Violent Femmes back across the wet lawn into the writing room, telling myself that it’s not 1983 any more, and this is between me and the Violent Femmes, nobody else. On the third listen, I realized that I loved the album. Before I knew it, I was listening to it over and over again. Only then did I let myself look at their Wikipedia page.

The Violent Femmes, I read, were ‘one of the most successful alternative rock bands of the 1980s, selling over 9 million albums by 2005.’ Yes, the Violent Femmes ended up in that whorehouse called success, and you know what? It only makes me love them more.


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Lumos Charm Bracelet

Index ID: LCBR — Publication date: June 30th, 2016

Note: Warner Bros. and movie prop and merchandise specialist The Noble Collection have created the Lumos Harry Potter Charm Bracelet Collection, available to purchase through The Noble Collection shop. At least 15% of the suggested retail price of the charm bracelet will go to Lumos Foundation. They included a presentation card with a message by J.K. Rowling.

A charm bracelet seems a very innocent trinket. What other piece of jewellery is so imbued with memory and sentiment? Why do we call those little masterpieces “charms” if not in allusion to their talismanic properties? They have meaning beyond the mercenary. They are personal amulets.

Lumos is a spell I created in HARRY POTTER that brings light to a desperately dark and frightening place.

At Lumos this is just what we do: we reveal the hidden children locked away behind closed doors and forgotten by the world, so that everyone first of all understands the problem and then works together to fix it.


The following images are related to this writing


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On Monsters, Villains and the EU Referendum

Index ID: EUREF — Publication date: June 30th, 2016

I’m not an expert on much, but I do know how to create a monster.

All enduring fictional bad guys encapsulate primal terrors and share certain traits. Invincible to the point of immortality, they commit atrocities without conscience and cannot be defeated by the ordinary man or by conventional means. Hannibal Lecter, Big Brother, and Lord Voldemort: all are simultaneously inhuman and superhuman and that is what frightens us most.

As this country has entered what will come to be seen as one of the most divisive and bitter political campaigns ever waged within its borders, I’ve thought a lot about the rules for creating villains. We are being asked whether we wish to remain part of the European Union and both sides of this campaign have been telling us stories. I don’t mean that in the sense of lying (although lies have certainly been told). I mean that they are appealing to us through our universal need to make sense of the world by storytelling and that they have not been afraid to conjure monsters calculated to stir up our deepest fears.

This is nothing new, of course. All political campaigns tell stories. They cast themselves as our champions, flatter us with tales of who we are or could be, sell us rose-tinted memories of the past and draw frightening pictures of the perils that lie ahead if we pick the wrong heroes. Nevertheless, the tales we have been told during this referendum have been uglier than any I can remember in my lifetime. If anyone has enjoyed this referendum, it can only be those hoping for greater personal power at the end of it.

The Leave campaign’s narrative has descended to this: we are being exploited or cheated by the EU. If we can’t see that Britain will only regain superpower status if we leave the union, we must be unpatriotic, cowardly or part of a corrupt elite.

Remainers have mostly countered, not with an optimistic vision of the union, but with bleak facts: money is pouring out of the country at the prospect of the Brexit and experts in every field think that leaving the EU will be a catastrophic mistake. Be afraid, says Remain, turn back while there’s still time: you are hurtling towards a precipice.

However, Remain are finding many ears closed to their grim prognostications. The economic crash of 2008 left a pervasive feeling in its wake that financial institutions are not to be trusted. ‘The establishment’ has become a term of blanket abuse. We live in a cynical and insecure age. Trust in disinterested sources has been shaken, while popular culture glorifies the hunch and the gut feeling. In America, they call this ‘post-truth politics’. Forget the facts, feel the fury.
The ‘Leave’ campaign is benefiting from our widespread cynicism and, unsurprisingly, fanning it. ‘People in this country have had enough of experts,’ Michael Gove declared recently on television. So what if the Financial Times, the markets and the heads of the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund agree that Brexit will do severe damage to the economy? They’re just scaremongering, says Gove. Leaders of both campaigns want us frightened only by monsters of their choosing.

For some on the Leave side, the EU is not merely imperfect, or in need of improvement: it is villainous. The union that was born out of a collective desire never to see another war in Europe is depicted as an Orwellian monolith, Big Brotheresque in its desire for control.

Widespread confusion about what the EU does and does not do has been helpful to Leave. The results of a recent IPSOS/Mori poll reveal the depth of our ignorance. We dramatically underestimate the amount of international investment we receive from the EU, while grossly overestimating how many laws it makes, how much it spends on administration and the number of EU immigrants in this country. In some cases our guesses were out by factors of ten.
Immigrants, of course, have been at the centre of some of the nastiest arguments of this campaign. Reasoned discussion has proven nigh on impossible. Remainers insist that we retain border control and that we need immigration, not least because so many of our medical staff running the NHS come from abroad. They insist that our defensive capability and our anti-terrorist strategies are enhanced by membership of the EU. Their arguments have proven only partially successful, because Leave has been busy threatening us with another montster: a tsunami of faceless foreigners heading for our shores, among them rapists and terrorists.

It is dishonourable to suggest, as many have, that Leavers are all racists and bigots: they aren’t and it is shameful to suggest that they are. Nevertheless, it is equally nonsensical to pretend that racists and bigots aren’t flocking to the ‘Leave’ cause, or that they aren’t, in some instances, directing it. For some of us, that fact alone is enough to give us pause. The picture of Nigel Farage standing in front of a poster showing a winding line of Syrian refugees captioned ‘Breaking Point’ is, as countless people have already pointed out, an almost exact duplicate of propaganda used by the Nazis.

Nationalism is on the march across the Western world, feeding upon the terrors it seeks to inflame. Every nationalist will tell you that their nationalism is different, a natural, benign response to their country’s own particular needs and challenges, nothing to do with that nationalism of yore that ended up killing people, yet every academic study of nationalism has revealed the same key features. Your country is the greatest in the world, the nationalist cries, and anyone who isn’t chanting that is a traitor! Drape yourself in the flag: doesn’t that make you feel bigger and more powerful? Finding the present scary? We’ve got a golden past to sell you, a mythical age that will dawn again once we’ve got rid of the Mexicans/left the EU/annexed Ukraine! Now place your trust in our simplistic slogans and enjoy your rage aginst the Other!

Look towards the Republican Party in America and shudder. ‘Make America Great Again!’ cries a man who is fascist in all but name. His stubby fingers are currently within horrifyingly close reach of America’s nuclear codes. He achieved this pre-eminence by proposing crude, unworkable solutions to complex threats. Terrorism? ‘Ban all Muslims!’ Immigration? ‘Build a wall!’ He has the temperament of an unstable nightclub bouncer, jeers at violence when it breaks out at his rallies and wears his disdain for women and minorities with pride. God help America. God help us all.

Donald Trump supports the break up of the EU. The inheritor of a family fortune, he has never needed to cooperate or collaborate and he appears incapable of understanding complexity or nuance. Of foreign leaders or would-be leaders, Trump is joined only by Vladimir Putin and Marine le Pen in urging Brexit upon the UK. Other than those three, there is no major political leader who isn’t begging Britain to stay put, for the political and economic stability of Europe and the wider world.

I’m the mongrel product of this European continent and I’m an internationalist. I was raised by a Francophile mother whose family was proud of their part-French heritage. My French ancestors lived in the troubled province of Alsace, which spent hundreds of years being

alternately annexed by Germany and France. I’ve lived in France and Portugal and I’ve studied French and German. I love having these mulitple allegiances and cultural associations. They make me stronger, not weaker. I glory in association with the cultures of my fellow Europeans. My values are not contained or proscribed by borders. The absence of a visa when I cross the channel has symbolic value to me. I might not be in my house, but I’m still in my hometown.

The ‘Leave’ campaign is selling itself as the courageous option. Take a leap of faith, they say. Step off the cliff and let the flag catch you! With the arrogance of a bunch of mini- Trumps they swear that everything will be glorious as long as we disregard the experts and listen to them. Embrace the rage and trust your guts, which Nigel Farage undoubtedly hopes contain a suspicion of brown people, an unthinking jingoism and an indifference to the warnings of history.

For many of our countrymen, I suspect a ‘Leave’ vote will be a simple howl of frustration, a giant two fingers to the spectres that haunt our imaginations, against terrorism that seems almost supernatural in its ability to hit us in our most vulnerable places, against huge corporations who refuse to meet their basic moral obligations, against bureaucracy we are afraid will strangle us, against shadowy elites we are told are working to do us down. How easy to project all of this onto the EU, how satisfying to turn this referendum into a protest against everything about modern life that scares us, whether rationally or not.

Yet how can a retreat into selfish and insecure individualism be the right response when Europe faces genuine threats, when the bonds that tie us are so powerful, when we have come so far together? How can we hope to conquer the enormous challenges of terrorism and climate change without cooperation and collaboration?

No, I don’t think the EU’s perfect. Which human union couldn’t use improvement? From friendships, marriages, families and workplaces, all the way up to political parties, governments and cultural economic unions, there will be flaws and disagreements. Because we’re human. Because we’re imperfect. So why bother building these ambitious alliances and communities? Because they protect and empower us, because they enable bigger and better achievements than we can manage alone. We should be proud of our enduring desire to join together, seeking better, safer, fairer lives, for ourselves and for millions of others.

The research demonstrates that we don’t know what we’ve got. Ignorant of what it gives us, we take the benefits of EU membership for granted. In a few days’ time, we’ll have to decide which monsters we believe are real and which illusory. Everything is going to come down to whose story we like best, but at the moment we vote, we stop being readers and become authors. The ending of this story, whether happy or not, will be written by us.


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Ilvermorny

Index ID: PMILV — Publication date: June 29th, 2016

The great North American school of magic was founded in the seventeenth century. It stands at the highest peak of Mount Greylock, where it is concealed from non-magic gaze by a variety of powerful enchantments, which sometimes manifest in a wreath of misty cloud.

Irish Beginnings Isolt Sayre was born around 1603 and spent her earliest childhood in the valley of Coomloughra, County Kerry, in Ireland. She was the offspring of two pure-blood wizarding families.

Her father, William Sayre, was a direct descendant of the famous Irish witch Morrigan, an Animagus whose creature form was a crow. William nicknamed his daughter ‘Morrigan’ for her affinity for all natural things when she was young. Her early childhood was idyllic, with parents who loved her and were quietly helpful to their Muggle neighbours, producing magical cures for humans and livestock alike.

However, at five years old, an attack upon the family home resulted in the death of both of her parents. Isolt was ‘rescued’ from the fire by her mother’s estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt, who took her to the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee, or ‘Hag’s Glen,’ and raised her there.

As Isolt grew older she came to realise that her saviour was in reality her kidnapper and the murderer of her parents. Unstable and cruel, Gormlaith was a fanatical pure-blood who believed that her sister’s helpfulness to her Muggle neighbours, was setting Isolt upon a dangerous path to intermarriage with a non-magical man. Only by stealing the child, Gormlaith believed, could their daughter be brought back to the ‘right way’: raised in the belief that as a descendant of both Morrigan and Salazar Slytherin she ought to associate only with pure-bloods.

Gormlaith set herself to be the model she thought Isolt needed by forcing the child to watch, as she cursed and jinxed any Muggle or animal that strayed too near their cottage. The community soon learned to avoid the place where Gormlaith lived, and from then on the only contact Isolt had with the villagers she had once been friends with, was when local boys threw stones at her as she played in the garden.

Gormlaith refused to allow Isolt to take up her place at Hogwarts when the letter arrived, on the basis that Isolt would learn more at home than at a dangerously egalitarian establishment full of Mudbloods. However, Gormlaith herself had attended Hogwarts, and told Isolt a great deal about the school. In the main, she did this to denigrate the place, lamenting that Salazar Slytherin’s plans for the purity of wizardkind had not been fulfilled. To her niece, isolated and mistreated by an aunt she believed to be at least half insane, Hogwarts sounded like a kind of paradise and she spent much of her teens fantasising about it.

For twelve years, Gormlaith enforced Isolt’s cooperation and isolation through powerful Dark magic. At last the young woman developed sufficient skill and courage to escape by stealing her aunt’s wand, for she had never been permitted her own. The only other object that Isolt took with her was a gold brooch in the shape of a Gordian Knot that had once belonged to her mother. Isolt then fled the country.

Scared of Gormlaith’s retribution and her prodigious tracking powers, Isolt moved first to England, but before long Gormlaith was on her tail. Determined to hide in such a way that her adoptive mother would never find her, Isolt cut off her hair. Masquerading as a Muggle boy called Elias Story, she set sail for the New World on the Mayflower in 1620.

Isolt arrived in America among the earliest Muggle settlers (Muggles are known as ‘No-Majs’ in the American wizarding community, from ‘No Magic’). On arrival she vanished into the surrounding mountains, leaving her erstwhile shipmates to suppose that ‘Elias Story’ had died of the harsh winter, like so many others. Isolt left the new colony partly because she remained afraid that Gormlaith would track her, even to a new continent, but also because her journey aboard the Mayflower had led her to deduce that a witch was unlikely to find many friends among the Puritans.

Isolt was now quite alone in a harsh, foreign country and, as far as she knew, the only witch for hundreds if not thousands of miles – her partial education by Gormlaith had not included information about Native American wizards. However, after several weeks alone in the mountains, she met two magical creatures of whose existence she had hitherto been ignorant.

The Hidebehind is a nocturnal, forest-dwelling spectre that preys on humanoid creatures. As the name suggests, it can contort itself to hide behind almost any object, concealing itself perfectly from hunters and victims alike. Its existence has been suspected by No-Majs, but they are no match for its powers. Only a witch or wizard is likely to survive an attack by a Hidebehind.

The Pukwudgie is also native to America: a short, grey-faced, large-eared creature distantly related to the European goblin. Fiercely independent, tricky and not over-fond of humankind (whether magical or mundane), it possesses its own powerful magic. Pukwudgies hunt with deadly, poisonous arrows and enjoy playing tricks on humans.

The two creatures had met in the forest and the Hidebehind, which was of unusual size and strength, had not only succeeded in capturing the Pukwudgie, which was young and inexperienced, but had also been on the point of disembowelling him when Isolt cast the curse that made it flee. Unaware that the Pukwudgie, too, was exceptionally dangerous to humans, Isolt picked him up, carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health.

The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.

In spite of the Pukwudgie’s ingratitude, Isolt found him amusing and was glad of his company. Over time, a friendship developed between them that was almost unique in the history of their respective species. Faithful to the taboos of his people, the Pukwudgie refused to tell her his individual name, so she dubbed him ‘William’ after her father.

The Horned Serpent William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.

Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.

Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’

Isolt had no family, unless you counted Gormlaith back in Ireland. She could not understand the Horned Serpent’s cryptic words, or even decide whether she was imagining the voice in which he seemed to speak to her.

Webster and Chadwick Boot Isolt was finally reunited with people of her own kind under tragic circumstances. As she and William foraged in the woods one day, a grisly noise not far away caused William to shout at Isolt to remain where she was, as he charged away through the trees, poisoned arrow at the ready.

Naturally, Isolt did not follow his instructions, and when she arrived shortly afterwards at a small clearing she found a horrific sight. The very Hidebehind that had previously tried to kill William had had more success with a pair of naïve humans who now lay dead upon the ground. Worse, two small boys lay seriously injured nearby, waiting their turn as the Hidebehind prepared to disembowel their parents.

The Pukwudgie and Isolt together made short work of the Hidebehind, which this time was destroyed. Delighted with their afternoon’s work, the Pukwudgie then continued blackberrying, ignoring the faint groans of the children on the ground. When the furious Isolt instructed him to help her carry the two small boys home, William threw a tantrum. The young boys, he said, were already as good as dead. It was against the beliefs of his kind to assist humankind, Isolt being the unfortunate exception because she had saved his life.

Outraged by the Pukwudgie’s callousness, Isolt told him that she would accept the saving of one of the boy’s lives as repayment. The two boys were so ill she was afraid to Apparate with them, but insisted on carrying them home. Grudgingly, the Pukwudgie consented to carry the older boy, whose name was Chadwick, while Isolt carried young Webster back to her shelter.

Once there, the furious Isolt told William that she had no further need of him. The Pukwudgie glared at her, then vanished.

The Boot Boys and James Steward Isolt had sacrificed her only friend for the two small boys who might not survive. Fortunately, however, they did so, and to her astonishment and delight, she realised that they were magical.

Chadwick and Webster’s wizarding parents had brought them to America in search of a fascinating adventure. This had ended in tragedy when the family had wandered into the woods and encountered the Hidebehind. Unfamiliar with the creature and taking it for a common or garden Boggart, Mr Boot had attempted to ridicule it, with the awful consequences that Isolt and William had witnessed.

The boys were so seriously ill for the first couple of weeks that Isolt did not dare leave them. It troubled her that in her haste to save the children she had not been able to give their parents’ bodies a decent burial, and when at last Chadwick and Webster seemed well enough to leave alone for a few hours, she returned to the forest with the intention of creating graves that the boys might one day visit.

To her surprise, when she arrived in the clearing she found a young man by the name of James Steward. He, too, was from the Plymouth settlement. Having missed the family he had befriended on his journey to America, he had gone into the forest to search for them.

As Isolt watched, James finished marking the graves he had dug by hand, then picked up the two broken wands that had lain beside the Boot parents. Frowning he examined the sparking core of dragon heartstring that protruded from Mr Boot’s, then gave it a casual wave. As invariably happens when a No-Maj waves a wand, it rebelled. James was sent flying backwards across the clearing, hit a tree and was knocked out cold.

He woke in a small shelter of branches and animal skins to find himself being nursed by Isolt. She could not hide her magic from him in such a confined space, particularly when she was brewing potions to aid the Boot boys’ recovery and using her wand to hunt. Isolt intended to Obliviate James once he was over his concussion and to send him back to the colony at Plymouth.

In the meantime, it was wonderful to have another adult to talk to, especially an adult who was already fond of the Boot boys and helped entertain them while they recovered from their magical injuries. James even helped Isolt construct a stone house on the top of Greylock, providing a workable design, having been a stonemason in England, which Isolt made a reality in the space of an afternoon. Isolt christened her new home ‘Ilvermorny’ after the cottage in which she had been born, and which Gormlaith had destroyed.

Every day, Isolt vowed to Obliviate James, and every day, his fear of magic wore off a little more, until finally it seemed simplest to admit that they were in love, marry and have done with it.

Four Houses Isolt and James considered the Boot boys their adopted sons. Isolt told them the second-hand stories of Hogwarts she had learned from Gormlaith. Both boys yearned to attend the school, frequently asking why they could not all return to Ireland where they could wait for their letters. Isolt did not want to frighten the boys with the story of Gormlaith. Instead, she promised them that when they reached eleven years old, she would somehow find them wands (their parents’ wands being broken beyond repair) and they would start a school of magic right there in the cottage.

This idea caught Chadwick’s and Webster’s imaginations. The boys’ ideas of what a magical school ought to be like were based almost entirely on Hogwarts, so they insisted that it ought to have four houses. The idea of naming the houses after themselves, as the founders, was swiftly abandoned, because Webster felt a house called ‘Webster Boot’ had no chance of ever winning anything, and instead, each chose their favourite magical beast. For Chadwick, an intelligent but often temperamental boy, it was the Thunderbird that can create storms as it flies. For argumentative but fiercely loyal Webster, it was the Wampus, a magical panther-like creature that was fast, strong and almost impossible to kill. For Isolt, it was, of course, the Horned Serpent that she still visited and with which she felt a strange sense of kinship.

When asked what his favourite creature was, James was at a loss. The only No-Maj in the family was unable to consort with the magical creatures the others had begun to know well. Finally, he named the Pukwudgie, because the stories his wife told of curmudgeonly William always made him laugh.

Thus were the four houses of Ilvermorny created, and while the four originators did not yet know it, much of their own characters leaked into the houses they had so light-heartedly named.

The Dream Chadwick’s eleventh birthday was fast approaching and Isolt was at a loss to know how to provide the wand she had promised him. As far as she knew, the wand she had stolen from Gormlaith was the only one in America. She did not dare dissect it to find out how it was made, and her investigations into the wands of the boys’ parents showed her only that the dragon heartstring and unicorn hair they had both contained, had long since shrivelled and died.

On the eve of his birthday, she had a dream that she went down to the creek to find the Horned Serpent, which rose up out of the water and bowed its head to her while she shaved a long shard from its horn. Waking in the darkness, she proceeded down to the creek.

The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.

When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.

The Founding of Ilvermorny School By the time Webster turned eleven, the reputation of the family’s little home school had spread. Two more magical boys from the Wampanoag tribe had been joined by a mother and two daughters from the Narragansett, all interested in learning the techniques of wandwork in exchange for sharing their own magical learning. All were provided with wands of Isolt’s and James’s making. Some protective instinct told Isolt to save the Horned Serpent cores only for her two adoptive sons and she and James learned to use a variety of other cores, including Wampus hair, Snallygaster heartstring and Jackalope antlers.

By 1634, the home school had grown beyond Isolt’s family’s wildest dreams. The house expanded with every passing year. More students had arrived and while the school was still small, there were enough children to fulfil Webster’s dream of inter-house competitions. However, as the school’s reputation had not yet expanded beyond the local Native American tribes and European settlers, there were no boarders. The only people to stay at Ilvermorny overnight were Isolt, James, Chadwick, Webster and the twin girls to whom Isolt had now given birth: Martha, named for James’s late mother, and Rionach, named for Isolt’s.

Gormlaith’s Revenge The happy, busy family had no idea that grave danger was approaching them from afar. News had reached the old country that a new magical school had been set up in Massachusetts. The rumour was that the headmistress had been nicknamed ‘Morrigan’ after the famous Irish witch. However, it was only when she heard that the name of the school was ‘Ilvermorny’, that Gormlaith could believe that Isolt had managed to travel all the way to America undetected, to marry, not just a Muggle-born, but an actual Muggle, and to open a school that educated anybody with a shred of magic.

Gormlaith had purchased a wand at the despised Ollivanders to replace the precious family wand that had been handed down through generations before Isolt stole it. Determined that her niece would not know of her coming until it was too late, she unknowingly imitated Isolt by disguising herself as a man to make the crossing to America on the ship Bonaventure. Wickedly, she travelled under the name of William Sayre, which was that of Isolt’s murdered father. Gormlaith landed in Virginia and made her way stealthily towards Massachusetts and Mount Greylock, reaching the mountain on a winter’s night. She intended to lay waste to the second Ilvermorny, slaughter the parents who had thwarted her ambition of a great pure-blood family, steal her great nieces who were the last to carry the sacred bloodline, and return with them to Hag’s Glen.

At her first sight of the large granite building rising in the darkness from the peak of Mount Greylock, Gormlaith sent a powerful curse containing Isolt and James’s names towards the house, which forced them into an enchanted slumber.

Next, she uttered a single sibilant word in Parseltongue, the language of snakes. The wand that had served Isolt so faithfully for many years quivered once on the bedstand beside her as she slept, and became inactive. In all the years that she had lived with it, Isolt had never known that she held in her hand the wand of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, and that it contained a fragment of a magical snake’s horn: in this case, a Basilisk. The wand had been taught by its creator to ‘sleep’ when so instructed, and this secret had been handed down through the centuries to each member of Slytherin’s family who possessed it.

What Gormlaith did not know, was that there were two other occupants of the house whom she had not put to sleep, for she had never heard of sixteen-year-old Chadwick and fourteen-year-old Webster. The other thing she did not know, was what lay at the hearts of their wands: the horn of the river serpent. These wands did not become inactive when Gormlaith spoke her word of Parseltongue. On the contrary, their magical cores vibrated to the sound of the ancient language and, sensing danger to their masters, began to emit a low musical note, exactly as the Horned Serpent sounds danger.

Both Boot boys woke and leapt out of bed. Chadwick looked instinctively through the window. Creeping through the trees towards the house was the silhouette of Gormlaith Gaunt.

Like all children, Chadwick had heard and understood more than his adoptive parents had ever imagined. They might have thought that they had shielded him from any knowledge of the murderous Gormlaith, but they were wrong. As a small boy, Chadwick had overheard Isolt discussing her reasons for escaping Ireland and, little though she and James realised it, Chadwick’s dreams had been haunted by the figure of an old witch creeping through the trees towards Ilvermorny. Now he saw his nightmare made true.

Telling Webster to warn their parents, Chadwick sprinted downstairs and did the only thing that seemed to make sense to him: he ran out of the house to meet Gormlaith and prevent her entering the place where his family slept.

Gormlaith was not expecting to meet a teenage wizard and she underestimated him at first. Chadwick parried her curse expertly and they began to duel. Within a few minutes Gormlaith, though far more powerful than Chadwick, was forced to concede that the talented boy had been well taught. Even as she sent curses at his head in an attempt to subdue him, and drove him back towards the house, she questioned him about his parentage for, she said, she would be loathe to kill a pure-blood of his talent.

Meanwhile Webster was trying to shake his parents awake, but the enchantment lay so deeply upon them that not even the sound of Gormlaith’s shouts and of curses hitting the house roused them. Webster therefore hurtled downstairs and joined the duel now raging just outside the house.

Two onto one made her job more difficult: moreover, the twin cores of the Boot boys’ wands, when used together against a common enemy, increased their power tenfold. Even so, Gormlaith’s magic was strong and Dark enough to match them. Now the duel reached extraordinary proportions, Gormlaith still laughing and promising them mercy if they could prove their pure-blood credentials, Chadwick and Webster determined to stop her reaching their family. The brothers were driven back inside Ilvermorny: walls cracked and windows shattered, but still Isolt and James slept, until the baby girls lying upstairs woke and screamed in fear.

It was this that pierced the enchantment lying over Isolt and James. Rage and magic could not wake them, but the terrified screams of their daughters broke the curse Gormlaith had laid upon them, which, like Gormlaith herself, took no account of the power of love. Isolt screamed at James to go to the girls: she ran to assist her adoptive sons, Slytherin’s wand in her hand.

Only when she raised it to attack her hated aunt did she realise that for all the good it would do her, the sleeping wand might as well have been a stick she had found on the ground. Gloating, Gormlaith drove Isolt, Chadwick and Webster backwards up the stairs, towards the place where she could hear her great-nieces crying. Finally she managed to blast open the doors to their bedroom, where James stood ready to die in front of the cribs of his daughters. Sure that all was lost, Isolt cried out, hardly knowing what she said, for her murdered father.

A great clatter sounded and the moonlight was blocked from the room as William the Pukwudgie appeared on the windowsill. Before Gormlaith knew what had happened, a poisoned arrow tip had pierced her through the heart. She let out an unearthly scream that was heard for miles around. The old witch had indulged in all manner of Dark magic in an attempt to make herself invincible, and these curses now reacted with the Pukwudgie’s venom, causing her to become as solid and as brittle as coal before shattering into a thousand pieces. The Ollivander wand fell to the ground and burst: all that was left of Gormlaith Gaunt was a pile of smoking dust, a broken stick and a charred dragon heartstring.

William had saved the family’s lives. In exchange for their gratitude he merely barked that he noticed Isolt had not bothered to say his name for a decade, and that he was offended that she only called him when in fear of her imminent death. Isolt was too tactful to point out that she had been calling on a different William. James was delighted to meet the Pukwudgie of whom he had heard so much and, forgetting that Pukwudgies hate most humans, he wrung the perplexed William’s hand and said how glad he was he had named one of the houses of Ilvermorny after him.

It is widely believed that it was this piece of flattery that softened William’s heart, because he moved his family of Pukwudgies into the house the next day and, complaining constantly as usual, helped them to repair the damage that Gormlaith had wreaked. He then announced that the wizards were too dim to protect themselves and negotiated a hefty retainer in gold for acting as the school’s private security/maintenance service.

Slytherin’s Legacy Slytherin’s wand remained inactive following Gormlaith’s command in Parseltongue. Isolt could not speak the language, but, in any case, she no longer wanted to touch the wand that was the last relic of her unhappy childhood. She and James buried it outside the grounds.

Within a year an unknown species of snakewood tree had grown out of the earth on the spot where the wand was buried. It resisted all attempts to prune or kill it, but after several years the leaves were found to contain powerful medicinal properties. This tree seemed testament to the fact that Slytherin’s wand, like his scattered descendants, encompassed both noble and ignoble. The very best of him seemed to have migrated to America.

Growth of the School Ilvermorny’s reputation grew steadily throughout the following years. The granite house expanded to a castle. More teachers were recruited to meet the growing demand. Now witch and wizard children from all over North America were being sent to learn there and it became a boarding school. By the nineteenth century, Ilvermorny had gained the international reputation it enjoys today.

For many years, Isolt and James remained joint Headmaster and Headmistress, as beloved to many generations of students as members of their own families.

Chadwick became an accomplished and well-travelled wizard who authored Chadwick’s Charms Vols I – VII, which are standard texts at Ilvermorny. He married a Mexican Healer called Josefina Calderon and the Calderon-Boot family remains one of wizarding America’s most prominent today.

Prior to the creation of MACUSA (the Magical Congress of the United States of America), the New World was short of wizarding law enforcement. Webster Boot became what would now be known as an Auror for hire. While repatriating a particularly nasty Dark wizard to London, Webster met and fell in love with a young Scottish witch who was working at the Ministry of Magic. Thus did the Boot family return to its home country. Webster’s descendants would be educated at Hogwarts.

Martha, the elder of James and Isolt’s twins, was a Squib. Deeply loved though Martha was by her parents and adoptive brothers, it was painful for her to grow up at Ilvermorny when she was unable to perform magic. She eventually married the non-magical brother of a friend from the Pocomtuc tribe and lived henceforth as a No-Maj.

Rionach, the youngest of James and Isolt’s daughters, taught Defence Against the Dark Arts at Ilvermorny for many years. Rionach never married. There was a rumour, never confirmed by her family, that, unlike her sister Martha, Rionach was born with the ability to speak Parseltongue and that she was determined not to pass on Slytherin ancestry into the next generation (the American branch of the family was unaware that Gormlaith was not the last of the Gaunts, and that the line continued in England).

Isolt and James both lived to be over 100. They had seen the cottage of Ilvermorny become a granite castle, and they died in the knowledge that their school was now so famous that magical families all over North America were clamouring to educate their children there. They had hired staff, they had built dormitories, they had concealed their school from No-Maj eyes by clever enchantments: in short, the girl who had dreamed of attending Hogwarts had helped found the North American equivalent.

Ilvermorny Today As might be expected of a school part-founded by a No-Maj, Ilvermorny has the reputation of being one of the most democratic, least elitist of all the great wizarding schools.

Marble statues of Isolt and James flank the front doors of Ilvermorny Castle. The doors open onto a circular room topped by a glass cupola. A wooden balcony runs around the room one floor above. Otherwise the space is empty except for four enormous wooden carvings representing the houses: the Horned Serpent, the panther Wampus, the Thunderbird and the Pukwudgie.

While the rest of the school watches from the circular balcony overhead, new students file into the round entrance hall. They stand around the walls and, one by one, are called to stand on the symbol of the Gordian Knot set into the middle of the stone floor. In silence the school then waits for the enchanted carvings to react. If the Horned Serpent wants the student, the crystal set into its forehead will light up. If the Wampus wants the student, it roars. The Thunderbird signifies its approval by beating its wings, and the Pukwudgie will raise its arrow into the air.

Should more than one carving signify its wish to include the student in its house, the choice rests with the student. Very rarely – perhaps once a decade – a student is offered a place in all four houses. Seraphina Picquery, President of MACUSA 1920 – 1928, was the only witch of her generation so honoured, and she chose Horned Serpent.

It is sometimes said of the Ilvermorny houses that they represent the whole witch or wizard: the mind is represented by Horned Serpent; the body, Wampus; the heart, Pukwudgie and the soul, Thunderbird. Others say that Horned Serpent favours scholars, Wampus, warriors, Pukwudgie, healers and Thunderbird, adventurers.

The Sorting Ceremony is not the only major difference between Hogwarts and Ilvermorny (though in so many ways the schools resemble each other). Once students have been allocated a house they are led into a large hall where they select (or are selected by) a wand. Until the 1965 repeal of Rappaport’s Law, which enforced very strict conformity with the Statute of Secrecy, no child was allowed a wand until they arrived at Ilvermorny. Moreover, wands had to be left at Ilvermorny during vacations and only upon attaining seventeen years of age was the witch or wizard legally allowed to carry a wand outside school.

The robes of Ilvermorny are blue and cranberry. The colours honour Isolt and James: blue because it was Isolt’s favourite colour and because she had wished to be in Ravenclaw house as a child; cranberry in honour of James’s love of cranberry pie. All Ilvermorny students’ robes are fastened by a gold Gordian Knot, in memory of the brooch Isolt found in the ruins of the original Ilvermorny cottage.

A number of Pukwudgies continue to work at the school into present day, all grumbling, all of them insisting that they have no wish to remain there and yet all of them mysteriously present year after year. There is one particularly aged creature who answers to the name of ‘William’. He laughs at the idea that he is the original William who saved Isolt and James’s lives, rightly pointing out that the first William would be over 300 years old had he survived. However, nobody has ever found out exactly how long Pukwudgies live. William refuses to let anybody else polish the marble statue of Isolt at the entrance of the school, and on the anniversary of her death every year he may be seen laying mayflowers on her tomb, something that puts him in a particularly bad temper if anyone is tactless enough to mention it.


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History of Magic in North America

Index ID: PMHMNA — Publication date: March 8th, 2016, to March 11th, 2016

Fourteenth Century – Seventeenth Century

Though European explorers called it ‘the New World’ when they first reached the continent, wizards had known about America long before Muggles (Note: while every nationality has its own term for ‘Muggle,’ the American community uses the slang term No-Maj, short for ‘No Magic’). Various modes of magical travel – brooms and Apparition among them – not to mention visions and premonitions, meant that even far-flung wizarding communities were in contact with each other from the Middle Ages onwards.

The Native American magical community and those of Europe and Africa had known about each other long before the immigration of European No-Majs in the seventeenth century. They were already aware of the many similarities between their communities. Certain families were clearly ‘magical’, and magic also appeared unexpectedly in families where hitherto there had been no known witch or wizard. The overall ratio of wizards to non-wizards seemed consistent across populations, as did the attitudes of No-Majs, wherever they were born. In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatised for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits.

The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.

The Native American wizarding community was particularly gifted in animal and plant magic, its potions in particular being of a sophistication beyond much that was known in Europe. The most glaring difference between magic practised by Native Americans and the wizards of Europe was the absence of a wand.

The magic wand originated in Europe. Wands channel magic so as to make its effects both more precise and more powerful, although it is generally held to be a mark of the very greatest witches and wizards that they have also been able to produce wandless magic of a very high quality. As the Native American Animagi and potion-makers demonstrated, wandless magic can attain great complexity, but Charms and Transfiguration are very difficult without one.

Seventeenth Century and Beyond

As No-Maj Europeans began to emigrate to the New World, more witches and wizards of European origin also came to settle in America. Like their No-Maj counterparts, they had a variety of reasons for leaving their countries of origin. Some were driven by a sense of adventure, but most were running away: sometimes from persecution by No-Majs, sometimes from a fellow witch or wizard, but also from the wizarding authorities. The latter sought to blend in among the increasing tide of No-Majs, or hide among the Native American wizarding population, who were generally welcoming and protective of their European brethren.

From the first, however, it was clear that the New World was to be a harsher environment for witches and wizards than the Old World. There were three main reasons for this.

Firstly, like their No-Maj counterparts, they had come to a country with few amenities, except those they made themselves. Back home, they had only to visit the local Apothecary to find the necessities for potions: here, they had to forage among unfamiliar magical plants. There were no established wandmakers, and Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which would one day rank among the greatest magical establishments in the world, was at that time no more than a rough shack containing two teachers and two students.

Secondly, the actions of their fellow No-Majs made the non-magical population of most wizards’ homelands look lovable. Not only had conflict developed between the immigrants and the Native American population, which struck a blow at the unity of the magical community, their religious beliefs made them deeply intolerant of any trace of magic. The Puritans were happy to accuse each other of occult activity on the slenderest evidence, and New World witches and wizards were right to be extremely wary of them.

The last, and probably the most dangerous problem encountered by wizards newly arrived in North America were the Scourers. As the wizarding community in America was small, scattered and secretive, it had as yet no law enforcement mechanism of its own. This left a vacuum that was filled by an unscrupulous band of wizarding mercenaries of many foreign nationalities, who formed a much-feared and brutal taskforce committed to hunting down not only known criminals, but anyone who might be worth some gold. As time went on, the Scourers became increasingly corrupt. Far away from the jurisdiction of their native magical governments, many indulged a love of authority and cruelty unjustified by their mission. Such Scourers enjoyed bloodshed and torture, and even went so far as trafficking their fellow wizards. The numbers of Scourers multiplied across America in the late seventeenth century and there is evidence that they were not above passing off innocent No-Majs as wizards, to collect rewards from gullible non-magic members of the community.

The famous Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93 were a tragedy for the wizarding community. Wizarding historians agree that among the so-called Puritan judges were at least two known Scourers, who were paying off feuds that had developed while in America. A number of the dead were indeed witches, though utterly innocent of the crimes for which they had been arrested. Others were merely No-Majs who had the misfortune to be caught up in the general hysteria and bloodlust.

Salem was significant within the magical community for reasons far beyond the tragic loss of life. Its immediate effect was to cause many witches and wizards to flee America, and many more to decide against locating there. This led to interesting variations in the magical population of North America, compared to the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa. Up until the early decades of the twentieth century, there were fewer witches and wizards in the general American population than on the other four continents. Pure-blood families, who were well-informed through wizarding newspapers about the activities of both Puritans and Scourers, rarely left for America. This meant a far higher percentage of No-Maj-born witches and wizards in the New World than elsewhere. While these witches and wizards often went on to marry and found their own all-magical families, the pure-blood ideology that has dogged much of Europe’s magical history has gained far less traction in America.

Perhaps the most significant effect of Salem was the creation of the Magical Congress of the United States of America in 1693, pre-dating the No-Maj version by around a century. Known to all American witches and wizards by the abbreviation MACUSA (commonly pronounced as: Mah – cooz – ah), it was the first time that the North American wizarding community came together to create laws for themselves, effectively establishing a magical-world-within-a-No-Maj-world such as existed in most other countries. MACUSA’s first task was to put on trial the Scourers who had betrayed their own kind. Those convicted of murder, of wizard-trafficking, torture and all other manners of cruelty were executed for their crimes.

Several of the most notorious Scourers eluded justice. With international warrants out for their arrest, they vanished permanently into the No-Maj community. Some of them married No-Majs and founded families where magical children appear to have been winnowed out in favour of non-magical offspring, to maintain the Scourer’s cover. The vengeful Scourers, cast out from their people, passed on to their descendants an absolute conviction that magic was real, and the belief that witches and wizards ought to be exterminated wherever they were found.

American magical historian Theophilus Abbot has identified several such families, each with a deep belief in magic and a great hatred of it. It may be partly due to the anti-magic beliefs and activities of the descendants of Scourer families that North American No-Majs often seem harder to fool and hoodwink on the subject of magic than many other populations. This has had far-reaching repercussions on the way the American wizarding community is governed.

Rappaport’s Law

In 1790, the fifteenth President of MACUSA, Emily Rappaport, instituted a law designed to create total segregation of the wizarding and No-Maj communities. This followed one of the most serious breaches of the International Statute of Secrecy, leading to a humiliating censure of MACUSA by the International Confederation of Wizards. The matter was that much more serious because the breach came from within MACUSA itself.

In brief, the catastrophe involved the daughter of President Rappaport’s trusted Keeper of Treasure and Dragots (the Dragot is the American wizarding currency and the Keeper of Dragots, as the title implies, is roughly equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury). Aristotle Twelvetrees was a competent man, but his daughter, Dorcus, was as dim as she was pretty. She had been a poor student at Ilvermorny and at the time of her father’s ascension to high office was living at home, hardly ever performing magic, but concentrating mainly on her clothes, the arrangement of her hair and parties.

One day, at a local picnic, Dorcus Twelvetrees became greatly enamoured of a handsome No-Maj called Bartholomew Barebone. Unbeknownst to Dorcus, Bartholomew was a Scourer descendant. Nobody in his family was magic, but his belief in magic was profound and unshakeable, as was his conviction that all witches and wizards were evil.

Totally oblivious to the danger, Dorcus took Bartholomew’s polite interest in her ‘little tricks’ at face value. Led on by her beau’s artless questions, she confided the secret addresses of both MACUSA and Ilvermorny, along with information about the International Confederation of Wizards and all the ways in which these bodies sought to protect and conceal the wizarding community.

Having gathered as much information as he could from Dorcus, Bartholomew stole the wand she had obligingly demonstrated for him, showed it to as many pressmen as he could find, then gathered together armed friends and set out to persecute and, ideally, kill all the witches and wizards in the vicinity. Bartholomew further printed leaflets giving the addresses where witches and wizards congregated and sent letters to prominent No-Majs, some of whom felt it necessary to investigate whether there were indeed ‘evil occult parties’ happening at the places described.

Giddy with his mission to expose witchcraft in America, Bartholomew Barebone overstepped himself by shooting at what he believed were a group of MACUSA wizards, but which turned out to be No-Majs who had the bad fortune to leave a suspected building while he was watching it. Fortunately nobody was killed, and Bartholomew was arrested and imprisoned for the crime without any need for MACUSA involvement. This was an enormous relief to MACUSA who were struggling to cope with the massive fallout of Dorcus’s indiscretions.

Bartholomew had disseminated his leaflets widely, and a few newspapers had taken him seriously enough to print pictures of Dorcus’s wand and note that it ‘had a kick like a mule’ if waved. The attention focused on the MACUSA building was so intense that it was forced to move premises. As President Rappaport was forced to tell the International Confederation of Wizards at a public inquiry, she could not be sure that every last person privy to Dorcus’s information had been Obliviated. The leak had been so serious that the after-effects would be felt for many years.

Although many in the magical community campaigned to have her imprisoned for life or even executed, Dorcus spent only a year in jail. Thoroughly disgraced, utterly shellshocked, she emerged into a very different wizarding community and ended her days in seclusion, a mirror and her parrot her dearest companions.

Dorcus’s indiscretions led to the introduction of Rappaport’s Law. Rappaport’s Law enforced strict segregation between the No-Maj and wizarding communities. Wizards were no longer allowed to befriend or marry No-Majs. Penalties for fraternising with No-Majs were harsh. Communication with No-Majs was limited to that necessary to perform daily activities.

Rappaport’s Law further entrenched the major cultural difference between the American wizarding community and that of Europe. In the Old World, there had always been a degree of covert cooperation and communication between No-Maj governments and their magical counterparts. In America, MACUSA acted totally independently of the No-Maj government. In Europe, witches and wizards married and were friends with No-Majs; in America, No-Majs were increasingly regarded as the enemy. In short, Rappaport’s Law drove the American wizarding community, already dealing with an unusually suspicious No-Maj population, still deeper underground.

1920s Wizarding America

The wizards of America had played their part in the Great War of 1914-1918, even if the overwhelming majority of their No-Maj compatriots were ignorant of their contribution. As there were magical factions on both sides, their efforts were not decisive, but they won many victories in preventing additional loss of life, and in defeating their magical enemies.

This common endeavour led to no softening on MACUSA’s stance on No-Maj/wizard fraternisation, and Rappaport’s Law remained firmly in place. By the 1920s the US wizarding community had become used to existing under a greater degree of secrecy than their European counterparts and to selecting their mates strictly from within their own ranks.

The memory of Dorcus Twelvetrees’ catastrophic breach of the Statute of Secrecy had entered magical language, so that being ‘a Dorcus’ was slang for an idiot or inept person. MACUSA continued to impose severe penalties on those who flouted the International Statute of Secrecy. MACUSA was also more intolerant of such magical phenomena as ghosts, poltergeists and fantastic creatures than its European equivalents, because of the risk such beasts and spirits posed of alerting No-Majs to the existence of magic.

After the Great Sasquatch Rebellion of 1892 (for full details, see Ortiz O’Flaherty’s highly-acclaimed book Big Foot’s Last Stand), MACUSA headquarters was relocated for the fifth time in its history, moving from Washington to New York, where it remained throughout the 1920s. President of MACUSA throughout the decade was Madam Seraphina Picquery, a famously gifted witch from Savannah.

By the 1920s Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been flourishing for more than two centuries and was widely considered to be one of the greatest magical education establishments in the world. In consequence of their common education, all witches and wizards are proficient in the use of a wand.

Legislation introduced at the end of the nineteenth century meant that every member of the magical community in America was required to carry a ‘wand permit’, a measure that was intended to keep tabs on all magical activity and identify the perpetrators by their wands. Unlike Britain, where Ollivanders was considered unbeatable, the continent of North America was served by four great wandmakers.

Shikoba Wolfe, who was of Choctaw descent, was primarily famous for intricately carved wands containing Thunderbird tail feathers (the Thunderbird is a magical American bird closely related to the phoenix). Wolfe wands were generally held to be extremely powerful, though difficult to master. They were particularly prized by Transfigurers.

Johannes Jonker, a Muggle-born wizard whose No-Maj father was an accomplished cabinet maker, turned himself into an accomplished wandmaker. His wands were highly sought after and instantly recognisable, as they were usually inlaid with mother-of-pearl. After experimenting with many cores, Jonker’s preferred magical material was hair of the Wampus cat.

Thiago Quintana caused ripples through the magical world when his sleek and usually lengthy wands began entering the market, each encasing a single translucent spine from the back of the White River Monsters of Arkansas and producing spells of force and elegance. Fears about over-fishing of the monsters were assuaged when it was proven that Quintana alone knew the secret of luring them, a secret he guarded jealously until his death, at which point wands containing White River Monster spines ceased production.

Violetta Beauvais, the famous wandmaker of New Orleans, refused for many years to divulge the secret core of her wands, which were always made of swamp mayhaw wood. Eventually it was discovered that they contained hair of the rougarou, the dangerous dog-headed monster that prowled Louisiana swamps. It was often said of Beauvais wands that they took to Dark magic like vampires to blood, yet many an American wizarding hero of the 1920s went into battle armed only with a Beauvais wand, and President Picquery herself was known to possess one.

Unlike the No-Maj community of the 1920s, MACUSA allowed witches and wizards to drink alcohol. Many critics of this policy pointed out that it made witches and wizards rather conspicuous in cities full of sober No-Majs. However, in one of her rare light-hearted moments, President Picquery was heard to say that being a wizard in America was already hard enough. ‘The Gigglewater,’ as she famously told her Chief of Staff, ‘is non-negotiable.’


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Castelobruxo

Index ID: PMCBRUXO — Publication date: January 31st, 2016

[Cass – tell – o – broo – shoo]

The Brazilian school for magic, which takes students from all over South America, may be found hidden deep within the rainforest. The fabulous castle appears to be a ruin to the few Muggle eyes that have ever fallen upon it (a trick shared by Hogwarts; opinion is divided on who got the idea from whom). Castelobruxo is an imposing square edifice of golden rock, often compared to a temple. Both building and grounds are protected by the Caipora, small and furry spirit-beings who are extraordinarily mischievous and tricky, and who emerge under cover of night to watch over the students and the creatures who live in the forest. Former Castelobruxo Headmistress Benedita Dourado was once heard to laugh heartily, on an exchange visit to Hogwarts, when Headmaster Armando Dippet complained of Peeves the poltergeist. Her offer to send him some Caipora for the Forbidden Forest ‘to show you what trouble really is’ was not accepted.

Castelobruxo students wear bright green robes and are especially advanced in both Herbology and Magizoology; the school offers very popular exchange programmes for European students* who wish to study the magical flora and fauna of South America. Castelobruxo has produced a number of famous ex-students, including one of the world’s most famous potioneers, Libatius Borage (author of, among other works, Advanced Potion-Making, Asiatic Anti-Venoms and Have Yourself a Fiesta in a Bottle!), and João Coelho, Captain of the world-renowned Quidditch team the Tarapoto Tree- Skimmers.

* It was one of these trips that Bill Weasley’s parents could not afford, causing his disappointed penfriend at Castelobruxo to send him something nasty in the post.


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Uagadou

Index ID: PMUAG — Publication date: January 31st, 2016

[Wag-a-doo]

Although Africa has a number of smaller wizarding schools (for advice on locating these, see introductory paragraph), there is only one that has stood the test of time (at least a thousand years) and achieved an enviable international reputation: Uagadou. The largest of all wizarding schools, it welcomes students from all over the enormous continent. The only address ever given is ‘Mountains of the Moon’; visitors speak of a stunning edifice carved out of the mountainside and shrouded in mist, so that it sometimes appears simply to float in mid-air. Much (some would say all) magic originated in Africa, and Uagadou graduates are especially well versed in Astronomy, Alchemy and Self-Transfiguration.

The wand is a European invention, and while African witches and wizards have adopted it as a useful tool in the last century, many spells are cast simply by pointing the finger or through hand gestures. This gives Uagadou students a sturdy line of defence when accused of breaking the International Statute of Secrecy (‘I was only waving, I never meant his chin to fall off’). At a recent International Symposium of Animagi, the Uagadou School Team attracted a lot of press when their exhibition of synchronised transforming caused a near riot. Many older and more experienced witches and wizards felt threatened by fourteen-year-olds who could turn at will into elephants and cheetahs, and a formal complaint was lodged with the International Confederation of Wizards by Adrian Tutley (Animagus: gerbil). The long list of celebrated ex-students produced by Uagadou includes Babajide Akingbade, who succeeded Albus Dumbledore as the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards.

Students receive notice that they have gained entrance at Uagadou from Dream Messengers, sent by the headmaster or headmistress of the day. The Dream Messenger will appear to the children as they sleep and will leave a token, usually an inscribed stone, which is found in the child’s hand on waking. No other school employs this method of pupil selection.


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Mahoutokoro

Index ID: PMMAH — Publication date: January 31st, 2016

[Mah – hoot – o – koh – ro]

This ancient Japanese school has the smallest student body of the eleven great wizarding schools and takes students from the age of seven (although they do not board until they are eleven). While day students, wizarding children are flown back and forth to their homes every day on the backs of a flock of giant storm petrels. The ornate and exquisite palace of Mahoutokoro is made of mutton-fat jade, and stands on the topmost point of the ‘uninhabited’ (or so Muggles think) Volcanic island of Minami Iwo Jima.

Students are presented with enchanted robes when they arrive, which grow in size as they do, and which gradually change colour as the learning of their wearer increases, beginning a faint pink colour and becoming (if top grades are achieved in every magical subject) gold. If the robes turn white, this is an indication that the student has betrayed the Japanese wizard’s code and adopted illegal practices (which in Europe we call ‘Dark’ magic) or broken the International Statute of Secrecy. To ‘turn white’ is a terrible disgrace, which results in instant expulsion from the school and trial at the Japanese Ministry for Magic. Mahoutokoro’s reputation rests not only on its impressive academic prowess, but also on its outstanding reputation for Quidditch, which, legend has it, was introduced to Japan centuries ago by a band of foolhardy Hogwarts students who were blown off course during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe on wholly inadequate broomsticks. Rescued by a party of wizarding staff from Mahoutokoro, who had been observing the movements of the planets, they remained as guests long enough to teach their Japanese counterparts the rudiments of the game, a move they lived to regret. Every member of the Japanese Quidditch team and the current Champion’s League winners (the Toyohashi Tengu) attributes their prowess to the gruelling training they were given at Mahoutokoro, where they practise over a sometimes turbulent sea in stormy conditions, forced to keep an eye out not only for the Bludgers but also for planes from the Muggle airbase on a neighbouring island.


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