The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a thread for Potterheads)

Ooooh, endurance/adaptablity is a really good one for Bearglove. That's got a lot more to roll with than "uh??? bears???" so I will happily take it.

Opportunity/JUSTICE RAINS FROM ABOVE fits with 'brash/brave'. And cleverness, actually, which is nice. Petition to replace all the Ilvermorny houses with these.

 

WE WILL MAKE OUR OWN AMERICAN SCHOOL.

 

Multiple American schools, along with the one on top of a Muggle school. Because America is big and needs many schools.

 

Actually I remember a post going around on tumblr a while ago detailing what the American Old Spice-based houses would be like, lemme see if I can find it again

 

FOUND IT
I mean there's nothing stopping y'all from making up your own interpretations to it, I'd just personally go with this one cuz it's already done lol

ETA: apparently I got too excited and missed the post where this has already been linked <XD my bad

 

What about a rotating program in cooperating schools? Spend two years in one place, two years in another, so you have a small core base of classmates who move with you, and you get to meet kids in other places and learn from different techniques. Maybe to foster community, since the USA wixes live in a much bigger area in bigger numbers than England.

 

Man that would be so cool. And would be a good answer to the Triwizard Tournament-- you need to foster inter-school cooperation and goodwill? Getting moved to different boarding schools in new places for new experiences would do it!

And you could have a variety of learning styles, from different influences-- schools with different historical populations of immigrants could have different magical systems brought over. And you could do some interesting stuff with racial tensions in the wizarding world too.

 

Exactly my thinking :3

 

I could also see a House-equivalent that was something like the Five College Consortium in Massachusetts. Five little, old, prestigious New England schools within metaphorical shouting distance of each other where people often travel from one campus to another for some classes, and the joke is that the student populations are equivalent to the characters on Scooby-Doo.

 

Dying because my brother just graduated from Amherst and this is hilarious.

 

how about homeschooling? keep your kids at home out of paranoia or personal preference or whatever, then they get there and instead of being at the same level as everyone else they are ahead of or behind the curriculum and maybe gained a few family spells, ways of doing things, etc.

also, imagine the difference in wands. southwestern students swearing by ironwood or ponderosa or even palo verde, people from other regions arguing for other woods, and the cores...backbone of a poisonous snake? plant fibers? hair from a seer, or someone of advanced age or otherwise. hair from the first haircut of the seventh child of a seventh child. i always figured having the cores be only of magical creatures would be boring. but on the other hand, bigfoot fur-cores and chupacabra sinew- cores, etc. and isn't turquoise very important to some cultures? how could a stone be brought in, hm..

someone with an heirloom wand with a core of hair from an ancient sacrifice from central america (i forgot which group did them), either inherited from spanish roots where it was originally looted, or their family is part of that group.

i mean you could have some interesting stuff for wands, potions, all that stuff. even astrology, maybe? i don't know a lot about how the sky looks different in different parts of the world

 

i wish i knew more about mythological creatures in america, especially the southwest. I'm trying to make an au for another fandom and I'm no good at that kind of specific googling XD

 

Mothman needs to be a mascot or house creature or something for some school in America. I demand it. The Flatswood monster too.

 

Re: wood: I bet the wandmaking industry on the east half of the country took a huge hit when the chestnut blight hit. Much swearing at the Muggles for introducing it.

Re: stones: mosaic inlays, or at the tip like a shrunk-down Traditional Wizard Staff. I know Aztecs better than I know most other groups, but they produced stuff like this and Aztec swords were made by edging a wooden base with obsidian blades.

Most groups to some degree, but especially the Aztecs. There'd probably be a lot of blood magic in Central America, and probably a conflict of philosphies between the Mayan and Aztec schools about whether it's better to use someone else's blood or your own. They'd probably also have really advanced healing magic (there have been Mayan remains found with evidence of advanced dental work and successful brain surgery). They would extremely not get along with Navajo wizards.

*waves blue-and-gold flag with flying WV framed by Mothmen* I DECLARE THAT THERE IS A WIZARD SCHOOL IN THE NATIONAL RADIO QUIET ZONE.

 

Actually, wait. The flying WV is copyrighted by WVU, isn't it. *furious spellcasting noises* *waves blue-and-gold flag with the WV state seal with Mothman and the Flatwoods monster in place of the two dudes*

 

...actually that makes me wonder if the lost seal of Connecticut is somewhere in a New England school. Not Ilvermorny though, considering the circumstances a school hanging onto the seal would NOT like the British.

 

...Area 51 isn't a weapons testing ground, it's a wizard school. Specifically a post-secondary, for auror training, and sometimes highly experimental and dangerous spellwork.

Alternatively, also a national reserve for whatever our dragon equivalent it.

 

You could also put absolutely goddamn anything in the desert in Nevada and nobody would know. Since rural Nevada is the worst place in the world and I don't believe anyone who could Apparate would willingly be there instead of anywhere else, I'm going to assume that's where the US equivalent of Azkaban is.

Other helpful things to point out: Roanoke and Cahokia.

 

For the record, the Maya (not Mayan, it is incorrect to write it as Mayan anything) rarely did human sacrifices, like very rarely.

 

We do still have Alcatraz too. Which is about as #AzkabanAesthetic as it gets while being a real place that isn't currently having a horrific impact on irl people.