Magic. A mysterious force that for millenia has been thought of as myth by those who do not have the ability to use magic. But for those who can, they hide their usage of magic as a safety precaution.
First recorded uses of magic date all the way back to the mesoptamians though the records are almost useless as their was no good recorded histories from that time. Then came the Egyptains, chinese, and japanese. Whose magical records are so well kept that wizards and witches now adays learn the ancient languages and glyphs.
Then came the Romans. They were the real powerhouse of magic in ancient times. They were the ones who in the later days of the Roman empire gave magic a language, Latin, so that spells could be better controlled and easily learned and passed on.
From the Romans came the magical world, Briton became a world of magic from King Arthur and Merlin. Who helped form the ICW with the other magical folk from the other countries around the world.
Throughout magical history there were many great families, all descending from the first magical peoples, who held great power and guarded what would become known as their families magic reverently. Whole wars were fought over magic families kept. But one of the most powerful, were the Peverells. They were an ancient family from before the Romans, no one really knowns where they originated from as the family was extremely secretive.
The Peverells had a almost unheard of ability to produce magical powerhouses, almost all of the Peverells were what was considered mages. The family also seemed to have an un-natural affinity for death and destruction. They were some of the Romans finest Battle and War-Mages. They were necromancers, potions experts, transfiguration prodigies, and masters of the mind-arts, among other things. The Peverells family held riches that was on the mythical level.
However like all great and good things, they eventually after helping conquer Briton they declined, being some of the founders of the ICW and magical Briton they came to hold great sway in the way the magical world functioned. But over time as the centuries passed the family eventually dwindled down to only one, one young man who held just enough magical Peverell blood in his veins to be considered a Peverell, young Harry Potter, a descendant of Lothane Peverell who being the last of any of the Peverell lines, married Hardwin Potter and merged to two great houses into Potter.