Disclaimer: I am not a middle-aged British author. Therefore, if you recognize it, it's not mine.
Edit 11/29/18: Some minor spelling and timeline errors have been fixed. Next chapter will hopefully be up within the week!
Prologue: Our History
An excerpt from A History of the Legends of the Macondans, written in 1989 by historian Alexander Connor:
The Macondans, or Macqueñá as they are called in legends, have always been one of the most intriguing and mysterious of the ancient people groups. Little is known about their culture or their magical abilities. Histories agree that in the year 539, a group of wizards and witches from all corners of the British Isles came together and chose to leave society.
The Macondans were a diverse mixture of different British tribes, but it is reported that their main commonality was a preference for wandless magic over the use of wands. While their reasons for leaving are unknown, their eventual destinations are well-documented. Part of the group moved south and eventually arrived in Africa, where they integrated into African society and eventually assisted in founding Oagadou, an African school which teaches exclusively wandless magic. A second faction left Europe via the now-defunct planetary ley line system, and their fate was unknown until the colonization of the Americas in the 15th century.
At this time, the colonizing Spaniards and Portuguese discovered small pockets of people of British ancestry, living separate from the natives and speaking a dialect similar to English, although not quite the same. It appears that this second group discovered the pre-colonial civilizations of the New World and integrated into their magical culture, mostly in the area now known as South America. For a short time, Spanish wizards were able to interact with the group, and recorded that they appeared to have formed a separate society from the native Americans but maintained some degree of cultural exchange and trade.
However, as the interactions between the native South Americans and the colonists soured, it appears that the Macondans began to withdraw, travelling north before eventually settling in northern South America, with small settlements extending throughout the Amazon River Basin, as well as north into what is now Central America and west towards the Andes Mountains in Peru and Colombia.
The Macondan culture was uprooted again at the start of the 16th century with the rise of the Catholic Church in South America. The Church pursued the conviction and execution of suspected witches with extreme aggression, and this persecution would have threatened the Macondans with extinction. It is at this time that the Macondan people appear to vanish from recorded history. There are no formal records of their migration - they simply disappear from the history books.
The only hint as to the fate of the Macondans lies in local tribal legends from the southwestern coast of Colombia. Alejandro Trujillo, a historian from the Mexican University of Magical Anthropology (UMAM) describes the legend in his 1946 book Historias de los Ancianos as follows (text translated from Spanish to English):
"These tales claims that there was once a large, uninhabited island to the northwest, covered with dense rainforests. This island was believed to be cursed or filled with fearsome predators, as no people who traveled there to explore it had ever returned. One day, a large group of people with skin "pale as snow" came down from the mountains in Colombia and moved west towards the sea. These people claimed that they were fleeing for safety from invaders who had come across the sea and asked for a place of sanctuary to build their community. The local villagers explained that there was no land nearby to be had, as the only uninhabited area nearby was the cursed island. A small group of the pale men agreed to travel to the island to investigate, but rather than using boats, they simply vanished into thin air.
"After the villagers and remaining pale people had kept watch for two days, a great fountain of purple fire rose into the air above the island. At this signal, the pale people began to pack their belongings and move towards the sea, where they also vanished without a trace. Before leaving, the leader of the strangers swore an oath that should the people of the coastal villages ever require healing for the sick or if a magical person was ever in need of protection, the people should light three bonfires along the beach as a signal, and then leave the person in need alone on the beach during the night. Five days later, after all the strangers had gone, the villagers watched in shock as the cursed island vanished from sight, without a trace.
"Several months later, a young child in the village became severely ill and appeared to be at the point of death. The people remembered the promise of the strangers and lit the three fires at dusk before leaving the child alone on the beach. In the morning, the fires had been extinguished and the child was gone. Two weeks later, the child walked into the village in the early morning, reporting that he had woken on the beach with no memories from the time he had been missing. Over the following years, the people of the coast used this method often to request help for the sick or injured. Once the Spanish arrived, magical children they were unable to hide themselves were often sent to the island for safety, for the people knew that on the island they would be safe."
Over the course of the following centuries, this practice eventually fell away, but the legend remains. No investigators have ever been able to detect the presence of any landmass off the Colombian coastline, and no traces of active magic have been found. Searchers who sail away from the coast in search of the island report finding only empty sea. It appears as though the so-called "Isla Bruja" or "Witch Island," if it ever existed at all, cannot possibly be found by any means currently at our disposal.
A/N: This is the prologue/premise for an AU story I am currently writing which will feature the Harry Potter cast as well as several original characters. It will heavily feature a group of wandless magic-users that refuse the idea of wands and live in seclusion from the rest of magical society until they are drawn unwillingly into the war against Voldemort. The story will occur during the events of Order of the Phoenix, with eventual plans to continue through to the end of the book series. This is my first story, and I would greatly appreciate hearing what you think of the concept and whether you would like to see this continue! The title for this story was taken from the poem Phoenix Rising by Leaven.