Me: Hey peoples! I'm back and this time I'm writing something else other than Shikon Shadows, this one is a one-shot though.
Harry Potter: So, why am I here?
Me: Because this is focused on your world! (grins)
Harry Potter: Arrgh! Then get on with it!
Me: Fine, but you do the disclaimer!
Harry Potter: This bloody mad bloke doesn't own my world (Harry Potter) and any others are owned by their respective authors!
Me: Now, on with the show!
The world is a wondrous place. However, as with every place, there are good and bad things about it. The world, due to a series of events, is fractured into two main societies. The dominant society is full of humans with no special abilities of their own, but advancing in their understanding of the universe around them. The other society is a hidden one, a society full of people with the special ability to manipulate the world around them with a special energy within that they termed as "magic." These people have long since lost their capability to advance, content in using the powers they had already discovered, and fearing the unknown to a exorbitant degree. This hidden society is a very small bit in each part of the world, in every country, and they tend to stick to themselves. Unfortunately, due to their disconnection from the dominant society, they do not know what is going on in the world, and consider themselves superior without any real rational reason to back it up.
To understand this, we must look into the past, present, and even the future. First, we must look into the deep past. To be precise, we will be looking 10,000 years into the past, in Atlantis...
Ten thousand years ago (around 8000BC), there was a very peaceful civilization where humans and strange beasts worked together side by side. For quite a while, this civilization remained peaceful, through the reigns of seven kings. At the end of the sixth king's reign, a strange event occurred, possibly a volcanic explosion. This even released strange green stones of power, known as Orichalcum. The upcoming seventh king found a stone and was mesmerized by the power, and controlled by the beast known as the Leviathan, which was an ancient dragon that battled against the Time Lords, the Ancients, and the Asgard. Of the three races of advanced beings in the universe, only a single Time Lord remains that is aware of their past with the Ancients, who created the Stargate after the battle and hid their legacy across many galaxies. The Asgard later became guardians that were revered as gods by the Norse on Earth. Anyway, the Leviathan convinced the ancient Atlantean king that humans were evil and it was time to destroy the earth and start anew. The former sixth king opposed him and with the strength of the magical beasts that used to live side by side with the humans, managed to seal the Leviathan away again, at the cost of the lives of many lives and the ability for the magical beasts to live on earth. The beasts and three brave knights that were turned into dragons with the Orichalcum moved into a dimension weaved within our own that is only known as the Dominion of the Beasts. Atlantis fell after this and sunk to its doom. The surviving humans went to the mainland and colonized Africa.
From that, we fast forward 5000 years and head to Egypt....
Five thousand years ago (around 3000BC), Egyptians played a game of great and terrible power. The name of these games is not known, but it rumored to be called "Shadow Games." These games were not played for fun and leisure, but in place of wars, for power and prestige. Unfortunately, the power behind these ancient games overwhelmed them and threatened to destroy the entire world. So, a brave Pharaoh and his faithful priests worked together and sealed the power away, hopefully to never resurface again. It was rumored that the power was sealed within seven ancient items belonging to the Pharaoh and his high court, referred as "Millennium Items" to refer to the era of history that is a totally unknown with the exception of the legend of the Shadow Games. It is rumored that the Pharaoh had two children, who both quickly left Egypt, one heading towards Asia, the other heading towards Europe.
Now we move to the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Era or Fuedal Era) of Japan...
Five hundred years ago, during the Sengoku Jidai, it is rumored that youkai lived during this time along with humans. Youkai and humans hated each other, but both hated hanyou even more. Hanyou are half-youkai, half-human hybrids. The most famous of these hanyou is none other than InuYasha, son of the Inu no Taisho, and half-brother of Lord Sesshomaru of the Western Lands of Japan. InuYasha's father, the Inu no Taisho, died protecting his human wife Izayoi 250 years prior. Izayoi endured a short hard life after that while trying to raise InuYasha. When InuYasha was five years old, Izayoi died of an illness and he was chased out. For two centuries, InuYasha lived on his own, doing whatever he could to survive. Then, he met a priestess who was the current guardian of the Shikon no Tama (Shikon Jewel), which was created 500 years earlier when a warrior priestess, battled a horde of youkai for seven days and nights, until finally giving up and sealing her soul and the demons within to battle for all eternity. The jewel even popped out of her heart. InuYasha and the priestess fell in love, and she made InuYasha promise to use the jewel to turn completely human for her. Before this could take place, a demon impersonated InuYasha and got them to betray each other. In the end, InuYasha was sealed to a tree and the priestess died and was burned with the Jewel. Fifty years later, a mysterious priestess in strange clothes released InuYasha and shattered the jewel. So, InuYasha and the mysterious priestess, along with a youkai-slayer with a twin-tailed nekomata for a partner, a Buddhist monk, and a kitsune youkai child traveled Japan to gather the shards. They completed their task and additionally defeated many evil youkai. InuYasha and the mysterious priestess disappeared, never to be seen again. The kitsune child was taken in by a royal youkai, and the slayer and monk got married and became the first of the Higurashi line who made a shrine to honor InuYasha.
The names of InuYasha's companions and many enemies have been lost to time, but the significance of his work across Feudal Japan helped shape the magical communities across the lands.
A few decades before the Norman invasion, druids on the British Isles saw a spirit emerge from a portal in a strange vessel, the spirit eventually building a strange castle in black with a shining silver symbol on the front of the castle. This castle later mysteriously changed to look like a regular stone castle, and the spirit departed into a green portal. By 990 AD, most druids accepted that the castle's secrets would never be unlocked. However a man met two women and a man who had been forced away from their homelands. The man was Godric Gryffindor, and the two women and the other man were the other three of the Founders Four of Hogwarts. Godric and Rowena expressed a desire to teach young witches and wizards how to do magic. Salazar and Helga went along with it. Godric chose to try to take over the strange castle left by the spirit decades earlier and with the help of his friends, he was able to force the door open. The quartet explored every inch of the castle, but never found the secrets behind it. It appeared to be an ordinary castle. The Founders Four finally reached what is now known as the Headmaster's Office and found a document on the table. It was a document detailing the rental of the castle to them! They signed it after Salazar read it over and approved it. The document disappeared and the castle was theirs to use. It was converted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Later, when the Normans invaded, they tried to take the castle, but the castle seemed to be able to analyze and defend itself from attack. The founders were unaware of how it was possible, but they decided to claim it was the "wards" on the castle. And so, Hogwarts continued to stand for the next thousand years and beyond.
Now, we head to the United States of America, which probably has one of the most colorful histories of any nation, magical or non-magical.
America as a magical nation began long before the "invasion" of the white man. The peoples already existing on the lands practiced an ancient and strong magic known as shamanism. Shamanism is the generic term to refer to the Native Americans that practiced the arts of using animal, human, and demon spirits and channeling their power and bending them to their will. This ancient magic was highly unstable and required expertly precise work. Even so, it granted them amazing abilities beyond even the British wizards' capabilities. For this reason, when the white man arrived, the wizards that came with them quickly drove them away. A lot of the points in history where it says where Native Americans died of disease was simply them dying of black magic curses imposed on them by wizards before they could retaliate. The origin of shamanic magic is unknown, but it is rumored that a spirit came in a strange vessel long ago and the people around analyzed and replicated this ability.
In the early 1600s, it was reported that the spirit of long ago returned and constructed a huge castle that the spirit used as his home for years before it suddenly vanished. Along with it, Roanoke Colony, the village founded near the vanished castle, was struck by a strange and horrible disease that caused them to literally fade away from existence. In the 1700s, the British had settled quite well into the eastern coast of America, founding the thirteen colonies. The British wizards at the time used America as a way to cast off squibs and "blood traitors" while forcing any new wizards to learn magic at Hogwarts, the British school for magic. This was actually the first that caused resentment, especially among witches, who might be raped and forced to stay with British wizards since British wizarding society provides no protection for witches. Benjamin Franklin began advocating for equal rights for wizards and witches, his rationale being that magic treats wizards and witches equally, so why not the wizards and witches themselves treating each other equally? He also pushed for more rights for "fresh-bloods" as they were called at the time. He advocated working deeply with the Muggles (non-magicals) which was the final straw for the British. The British Ministry in the 1750s lobbied for the International Confederation of Wizards to declare Benjamin Franklin a dark lord, which passed unanimously. During this time, many more wizards and witches, particularly from the Potter, Black, Smith, and Gaunt lines (the sane Guants at least) moved to America, since Australia was not colonized by the British until after America became independent of the British and even then, for quite some time it was a Muggle-only land.
In the 1770s, the Continental Congress worked to try to fix relations with the motherland Britain. As Britain kept rebuffing the Continental Congress, Benjamin Franklin, along with his wizard students Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Hancock, and James Madison decided it was time to split off from Britain. It was also decided to permanently mix the Magical and Muggle governments in the new framework. The first document done was the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson subscribed to Franklin's ideals about equality, but he also knew that mentioning it would be horrible socially. Then, the Second Continental Congress worked to produce America's first government, the Articles of Confederation, which contained a loose connection of state governments with a weak federal one. Additionally, it also declared in a clause hidden from Muggles the definition of the two societies. The non-magic portion of Congress felt that the term Muggle was demeaning, so the term "mundane" was chosen to specify the non-magical government and society. The term "magi" was chosen for the magical government and society, to differentiate from the British and the stereotypes they propagated about the magical humans. With the formal government set up, Benjamin Franklin chose to participate in the fights against the British magical armies, and he did so for several years until his sickness forced him out of the magical fights. After the war was over, Franklin and Jefferson traveled the colonies to look for a place to set up a formal school to replace the hidden in home teaching done during colonial times. Eventually, they reportedly discovered the hidden castle that the Indians referred to as the "first spirit's dwelling." It was this castle that was converted into a school, similar to Hogwarts, called the Benjamin Franklin School of Magi and Science, now known as the Franklin Institute of Science and Magi. The school was the first unified mundane and magi school anywhere in the world during this period and into the future. Benjamin Franklin noted in his personal journal that the castle seemed to be very similar in design to Hogwarts, but he dismissed the possibility because the British wizards never came to America prior to the 1600s.
In 1789, the Second Continental Congress decided to replace the Articles with a new Constitution, and the new government promoted a stronger national government tempered by the balance of powers between the Judicial, Legislative, and Executive branches. This government ensured that the Mundane and Magi governments would be truly unified by making a bicameral Congress. The House had an extra section of representatives for the magi society, and the Senate had a third representative of each state for the magi population. The Executive branch has a mandatory department directly under the President called the Department of Magic. This department had partial control of all federal agencies to ensure services for the magi society. The judicial branch had three extra judges in the Supreme Court for the magi cases. Over time, America adapted to coming changes, and always remaining unified, when Europe's magi and mundane societies continued to splinter.
Now, we expand to watch history of the whole world, seeing how America's progress affected the rest of the world...
By the 1940s, the magi of America were well known across the world for excelling in technomancy, the art of integrating technology with magic and making it work just as well or even better under a magic-laden environment. One of the more perplexing issues regarding magic and technology was that technology seemed to not work at the Franklin Institute. During World War II, America offered its technomagic expertise to the British when they at war with Gellert Grindelwald, but the British refused and further stated that they "would never think of ever asking America for anything, and if it weren't for the Muggle government, we wouldn't even be allied with you!" This prompted outrage in the greater magical world, and in 1941, the Asians and the Middle East reduced their alliance to only tenuous at best to Magical Europe and strengthened their bonds with Magical America. America secretly slipped into Germany and doused Hitler with insanity potions that amplified his unstable mental structure until it drove him to suicide.
In 1942, it was discovered that the Franklin Institute was infused with a strange energy that was termed "ectoplasm" after discovering it had similar properties to ghosts in horror stories of the mundanes. It also turned out that ectoplasm was a naturally chaotic energy that disrupted artificial ordered energy flows, such as the ones in alkaline batteries or televisions. The scientists at the Franklin Institute developed a method of cheaply manufacturing ectoplasmic shielding for electronics, and this process was integrated into all electronics by the 1950s. The first major test of this shielding was the nuclear bombs. The shielding was in place to make sure that any Japanese spirit-based wards would not affect the bombs as they landed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1944, it had passed the test. It had also proven that it properly blocked conventional magic against it. Oddly enough, Parselmagic was still able to affect it, but not very much. In 1945, Hitler committed suicide, and because it was of magical means, Grindelwald paid the price as well. The Americans recorded the "battle" between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Dumbledore and Grindelwald battled for a few minutes, and it was clear that Grindelwald was about to win, when Dumbledore tripped Grindelwald down the stairs at the exact moment that the contract between Grindelwald and Hitler enforced its terms on Grindelwald for not protecting Hitler. Grindelwald was stripped of his magic and fell down the stairs. He broke his neck on landing at the bottom of the stairs. Dumbledore then cast some charms on himself to make himself look ragged and tired. The video was sent back to America, but the ones who recorded the video didn't make it. Dumbledore killed them.
This further antagonized the Americans to the point that they made sure that the new United Nations founded after World War II also had a magical component, the United Magickal Nations and advised the Asians to not join the International Confederation of Wizards along with the Americans and the Africans. The choice to call it the "United Magickal Nations" was to signify that both ancient and modern magic would be allowed. Ancient magic was traditionally denoted with the word, "magik" since typically it involved rituals. During the English Middle Ages, the letter "k" was stricken from the word and the letter "c" replaced it much later because of the growing misuse of rituals by the British. Rituals have also been banned by the Wizards Council, and later the Ministry. Since then, in English, magic is divided into two fields, Magik, and magic. "Magickal" signifies the representation of both types of powers (In this story, the convention to use the word "magic" to refer to both types will be used for simplicity's sake). Currently, the ICW's members consist only of European countries and is under the jurisdiction of the European Union.
During the 1960s and 1970s when the British begged for help regarding Voldemort, America advised the world not to help the British, given their history with their allies. Of all the nations that the British asked for help from, only Ireland chose to help, but the British eventually turned them down. As a result, the British wizarding population downsized from a few million to a little less than 100,000 under Voldemort's reign of terror. The British began to refer to Voldemort as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" or "You-Know-Who." Dumbledore was one of few that never fell to the pressure of not calling the dark lord by his name. By the 1980s, the only major resistance to Voldemort was the Order of the Phoenix, led also by Albus Dumbledore. For some unknown reason, Albus Dumbledore accepted the services of a known Death Eater, Severus Snape. After this point, many outside monitors of British activities noted that the Ministry's and the Order's work seemed to be counterproductive against Voldemort. In fact, it seemed that the Order's work seemed to help Voldemort more than hurt him. Just when all hope seemed lost in Britain, Voldemort attacked the home of James and Lily Potter. Voldemort reportedly killed James Potter first, then went straight for the room of their one-year-old son, Harry. Lily was in the room, pleading to not kill her son, and Voldemort killed Lily. Finally, he turned his wand and fired the Avada Kedavra, the Arabic killing curse, at Harry. The attack somehow backfired and destroyed Voldemort's body, leaving a scar in the shape of a thunderbolt on Harry's forehead.
British wizards have no idea how Harry Potter survived it, and Albus Dumbledore suggested that since his mother died to save him, her love and magic protected him. The British community believed it and called him the "Boy-Who-Lived," but the Americans did not. The main reason for not believing it: There were hundreds of mothers being killed and their babies died just the same. So, one of the magi Americans researching had one of their non-magical relatives live briefly in the neighborhood of where Harry Potter grew up, and obtain a blood sample. According to the couple that lived there to get the sample, it was easy, "since those relatives of his beat him up at every possibility. He is literally their slave! He makes their food, cleans the house, does the garden work, buys the food, and gets nothing out of it except beatings and ratty old clothes. I even saw him slipping into a cupboard to sleep for the night!" The couple had a small breakdown after that. After recovering, the couple sent multiple anonymous tips about child abuse in the Dursley house (the Dursleys were the family that Harry was placed with), but it seemed to disappear. The couple hired a private detective to look into it and found that some members of the Order of the Phoenix on Dumbledore's orders were to modify the memories of social workers to believe nothing was wrong and make any reports disappear. So, instead they sent a family designated to watch over Harry as he grew older, not knowing Arabella Figg was doing the same thing for Dumbledore. The sample was obtained though.
By researching the history of the Avada Kedavra, it was determined that it was a spell that was modified from the original spell from the Middle East, designed to kill extremely sick animals and livestock painlessly. Avada Kedavra originates from an old healing spell that kills a disease. It was the Aramaic ultimate healing spell, the Avra Kedavra, which can also be pronounced as Abracadabra, which a phrase the mundanes use when they perform sleight of hand tricks, calling it "magic." It is believed that the reason this phrase was chosen is because the phrase itself has a good connotation, rather than the evil one the twisted Arabic killing curse does now. Anyway, it is believed that Lily Potter discovered this, and with the help of Harry's father, James Potter, his godfather, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin, she was able to develop a blood-based barrier against "killing intent" which is the basic ingredient for the brand of hatred required to fire the Killing Curse against a human. By using the basic instinct of a werewolf to kill its prey, the killing intent of a werewolf in blood lust, she was able to devise a way to neutralize and absorb it with the love and intent for her son to live a full and happy life. This led to a portion of all four of their souls to be sealed within Harry's own spirit and blood, connecting him to his ancestors' magic in ways not known to anyone. However, the flaw was that it required complete trust in all the friends participating.
Peter Pettigrew began weakening that trust after the ritual (assuming it was a ritual) was done. So, Pettigrew unknowingly weakened the protection effect of the magic as well. That was why Voldemort's Killing Curse left that scar. It was also determined that Albus Dumbledore siphoned the effects of this and made a ward from it, not knowing how it worked. He applied it to the home of Harry's relatives, who hated him. Because of this unfounded and undying hatred they had for Harry Potter, the energy continued to weaken. The only reason it had not disappeared was because two of the people that created it were still alive: Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Both obviously cared a great deal to still be able to provide the protection Harry still had, and to neutralize the effect his relatives had on him. It is believed that Lily Potter took to the grave a whole new branch of soul magic that could be used to protect loved ones, even from the Avada Kedavra. This research was considered top secret classified within the United States Government until 1998, when Lord Voldemort was defeated a second time after the death of Albus Dumbledore, and Harry Potter quickly escaped to the USA to relax for a year.
Also, in the late 1980s, a trio of student scientists in the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered the true form of ectoplasm, in impure and pure forms. A complete analysis of ectoplasm was done, and it was possible to synthetically generate it. Along with this was a new branch of diseases, that seemed to occur in certain individuals with high levels of exposure to ectoplasm in a short period of time with no previous exposure to any level of ectoplasm. However, this research allowed for the creation of personal computers that would work properly in the Franklin Institute. With this done, all magical research was quickly digitized and stored away in a single computer, hidden away in room surrounded by false walls and a high level biometric magical scanner that locked the walls in place.
In 1998, Harry Potter visited the Franklin Institute, where he was quietly shown the records of the research done on the protections he had. By this time, Harry had already found out that he still retained the Parseltongue gift, but chose to hide it. It was determined that it was through his mother's line he inherited the gift of Parseltongue. His mother was a direct descendent of Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff. His father was a direct descendent of Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw. Due to the magic cast on him by his parents and their friends, Harry awakened all the abilities of their family line. But they were all blocked (by guess who, Albus Dumbledore) except for less than one tenth of his power and the Parseltongue ability, which couldn't be fully blocked without destroying a person's capability to speak. Unfortunately, Harry was too old to have most of the blocks removed without the backlash of released energy killing him. He did have is ability to control Parseltongue restored, and his metamorphmagus and animagus powers restored, since they were partially unblocked because the abilities were the strong in him. Harry returned to Britain and lived as a recluse, it is unknown what he is doing, except some believe Harry took a keen interest in technomancy and planned to secretly study it in the privacy of Potter Manor. In 1999, the magical world everywhere except in America, Australia & Oceania, and Japan fell apart. There just wasn't enough people to sustain the magi populations anymore, or in the case of the Indian and Asian mainland magi populations, there wasn't enough money to keep them financially stable...
Me: Well, that's the end of Magical History! Wow, thirteen pages in OpenOffice Writer! And revised to be a bit easier to read since it was broken up into smaller chunks.
Harry: Wow, that's pretty complete... Though it doesn't mention what happened in Hogwarts?
Me: That's because those are for other stories to tell (winks). Anyway, this is the first part of two, detailing the past. The next part will deal with the present and the future.
Me: Also, if other authors wish to use this magical history to support their stories, that is totally fine; however, I would appreciate if my history story was mentioned somewhere as an author's note in your story and a link to be sent to me of the story. I'm always up for reading new stories!