Hello, this is just some info on the setting of my story. This story takes place in America in the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling, but will not feature any of her characters besides a brief mention. I do not own any of Rowling's characters, ideas, worlds, etc. The land feature's of the U.S. were not created by wizards dueling and I sincerely hope that no one will get on my case for saying so in my FICTIONAL story. Yeah, that's right, it's not REAL. Big shock there, eh? I do own the original plot and characters. Anyway tell me what you think of it so far. My first attempt at fanfiction, enjoy.
The Author
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The U.S. is home to two schools for witchcraft and wizardry, which later became a necessity because of the large population. One school was built in the Florida Everglades and the other in the Rocky Mountain Range in Wyoming. The schools were founded separately but simultaneously by the brothers John and Robert Smith. The twins were distinguished by their intense and often destructive rivalry, whose spirit was; unfortunately, taken up by the student body of their separate schools. Which brother came up with the idea to start a school first is unclear, or even if that was the case; rare occurrences of shared telepathy are known to happen in wizardly twins, either way both claim to have come up with the idea first and the matter was never investigated lest the investigator get caught in the crossfire. Most of the distinct land features in America, such as Crater Lake in Oregon and the Salt Lake of Utah along with the various deserts were created in the more –colorful– duels they fought; also, a number of the curses and counter-curses that exist today can be credited to the brothers. They were never penalized by authorities because their policy regarding the brothers was to sit back and hope they would kill each other off, and it was to their great consternation and disappointment that they ended every duel in a stalemate.
The brothers, oddly enough, opened officially on the same day with correlating names. The one founded by John Smith in the Rocky Mountains was dubbed the Borealis Institute for Magical Training and the one founded by Robert Smith in the Florida Everglades was dubbed the Australis Institute for Magical Training. Needless to say, that when they found out about the other's school they accused each other of spying, stealing, etc. and a duel was fought out, again ending in a stalemate. Probably the only good thing that came of this was the good education, good pay, and other benefits that resulted from their need to out do the other. The competitive spirit they infused in their students and staff inspired them to strive for the top; unlike their Muggle counterparts, and this tradition continues on today.
The brothers; it can be noted, moved in together as they got into their 60's, bickered constantly, and lived to the old age of 102, they died of natural causes apparently at the same time. While the brothers caused a considerable amount of trouble, headaches and disasters during their lifetime; a number of people were recorded later on to have said to miss them because of the excitement and entertainment that they unerringly created.
The schools themselves were set up in the exact same way, very large complexes; with more than four times the room than was need for the times and designed so that more rooms could be added on. The original student body structure was separated into two houses, an idea they borrowed from the renowned Hogwarts in Great Britain, but as the population grew it was separated into more houses until it reached the six different houses currently existing in both schools. The patron animals for the different houses of Borealis Institute are as follows: the Owl, the Wolf, the Fox, the Coyote, the Raccoon, and the Elk. The patron animals for the Australis Institute are as follows: the Turtle, the Panther, the Crocodile, the Opossum, the Dolphin, and the Manatee.
While both schools have wonderful defensive and anti-Muggle spells, some quite, unique, they were never as good as those at Hogwarts, indeed it was never considered to be that terribly important, issues of who should be taught and those who shouldn't were never much of a problem because the various cultures and social classes that had immigrated adopted much of the same views of their Muggle counterparts. So with the rise of the Dark Lord, panic struck the leaders of the schools. Conferring with each other and their respective staffs they enchanted further their schools to protect their students from attacks by Death Eaters. Fortunately, for families in the States, Death Eater attacks were never as common as they were in Europe. Though, when Voldemort did fall the U.S. celebrated just as much as the other countries around the world. Following Voldemort's fall the world relaxed and prospered until fourteen years later where whispers of his return unsettled the populace…
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Yep, this story starts during what would be book four of Rowling's series. The story takes place in/around the Borealis Institute. The main character will be a year older than Harry and his friends. There will be no interaction between them, and there will be no changing of the original story, no matter how much I want Sirius to still be alive. I'm going to try to accurately convey feelings, thoughts, opinions of people who only know The Boy Who Lived and the events surrounding him through the paper. Sorry to disappoint most of you who expected normal fanfiction, but I just don't feel comfortable with changing another's creation, I don't think I could do it well enough to make it believable. Anyway onward to chapter one!