Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Ilvermorny is one of the eleven main schools of magic in the wizarding world. It deals with the magical education of young North American wizards.
Location and access
The Ilvermorny School is located on the summit of Mount Greylock in Massachusetts, a northeastern U.S. state bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The school is hidden from the sight of the Non-Maj by powerful spells that sometimes cause a thick mist to appear around it.
Description
The students of Ilvermorny study in a granite castle that was originally a modest stone house. Two marble statues representing Isolt Sayre and James Steward are present on either side of the large gate of the castle. The school is surrounded by a stone wall decorated with small towers. The access to the domain is through a portal on which is engraved the coat of arms of the school as well as a Gordian knot representing Isolt’s brooch.
Behind the large gates is a circular hall with a glass dome as a ceiling. On the first floor of this room is a wooden balcony that runs along the walls. Downstairs, the entrance hall is decorated with only four statues representing a Thunderbird, a Wampus, a Horned Serpent, and a Pukwudgie that allow newcomers to be distributed among the different houses of the school.
Outside the walls of the school, in the place where Slytherin Salazar’s wand was buried, is an unknown variety of snakewood whose leaves have powerful healing properties.
History
Foundation
Isolt laying the first stones according to James’ plans.
At the top of Mount Greylock, towards the end of 1620, a small stone house was designed by James Steward and built by Isolt Sayre in one afternoon so that he could live there with Chadwick and Webster Boot, their adopted children. In memory of his parents’ house, Isolt gave name this new home: Ilvermorny.
Fascinated by Isolt’s stories about Hogwarts, the Scottish school, the Boot children dream of going there one day and ask him why they can’t go back to Ireland and wait for their admission letter. Still worried about her aunt Gormlaith, Isolt comforts them by promising that he will find a magic wand for each of them when they are eleven years old and that they will start their own school in their own home.
The Boot brothers were particularly motivated by the idea and insisted that the new school adopts a house system like Hogwarts, but soon abandoned the idea of naming them after themselves, with Webster explaining that he didn’t think a house named “Webster Boot” would be very successful.
Parent and children decided to choose their favorite magical creature to name each house: Chadwick, smart but carried away, chooses the Thunderbird. Webster, loyal but argumentative, chose the Wampus as his mascot. Isolt, for her part, chooses the Horned Serpent to symbolize her because of the bond she feels with the creature she met near their home. James being a Non-Maj, had more difficulty finding a creature, but eventually adopted the idea of being represented by the Pukwudgie, having been particularly amused by his wife’s stories about William, a Pukwudgie she had lived with for some time.
Beginnings
Ilvermorny’s first students are, apart from Chadwick and Webster Boot, two boys from the Wampanoag tribe, accompanied by a mother from the Narragansetts tribe and her two daughters. All of them are eager to study the making of magic wands, a tool undoubtedly useful to any sorcerer, in exchange for their magical knowledge. Each of them receives a wand from Isolt and James.
Over the years, the house has grown to accommodate the ever-increasing number of students. By 1634, the school was already exceeding all the expectations of its founders by welcoming enough students to set up a competition between the houses. Gradually, the school’s reputation grew along with the houses and the news that a school of magic had opened in Massachusetts reached the Old World.
Attack by Gormlaith Gaunt
When Gormlaith Gaunt, Isolt’s aunt, and former kidnapper, learns of a school called Ilvermorny in the United States, she immediately makes the connection with her niece and decides to travel to America to kill Isolt and his relatives.
Upon arriving at the edge of the imposing granite building that had become the small stone house, Gormlaith cast a powerful spell into Isolt and James to plunge them into a deep sleep and then emitted a Parsletongue whistle to put to sleep his old wand stolen by his niece.
However, the whistle wakes the wands of Webster and Chadwick, who then emits a soft musical note similar to the warning cry of a Horned Snake. The two boys are in turn awakened and notice through the window the menacing silhouette of Gormlaith approaching between the trees surrounding the building.
Chadwick immediately ordered his brother to go and wake their parents while he went downstairs to confront Gormlaith and prevent him from entering the house. Chadwick then engages in a duel with Gormlaith for several minutes and manages to stand up to him despite the magical power of Gormlaith trying to bewitch his mind to take control of it.
Inside, Webster’s attempts to wake up his parents are unsuccessful, as Gormlaith’s spell is far too powerful. Webster gives up and goes downstairs to join his brother and help him keep the dark wizard outside the walls of the school. However, Gormlaith manages to push them back inside.
The walls cracked and the windows shattered over their heads, waking up the babies Isolt and James had had earlier. Their children’s screams of terror immediately break Gormlaith’s spell and the parents wake up, Isolt shouts to James to join their granddaughters as she grabs the Slytherin’s wand – unaware that it is no more effective than a piece of wood – and runs to join her sons in fighting Gormlaith, who easily repels the trio in front of her.
Gormlaith climbs the stairs of the house, breaks down the door of the baby’s room, and finds herself facing James, who stands ready to die to protect his children. In despair, Isolt screams out his father’s name, William. The cry is heard by a Pukwudgie that Isolt had briefly befriended during her early days in America and whom she had affectionately nicknamed “William” in memory of her father. The Puckwoodgenie immediately appears in the broken window opening and shoots a poisoned arrow into Gormlaith’s heart before she has time to realize anything.
The next day, William moves in with the family, offering to look after the safety and maintenance of the school in exchange for a sum in gold coins.
School Expansion
Over the following years, the granite house continued to grow and eventually became a real castle in which new teachers were hired to meet the growing demand, so much so that all the families of sorcerers wanted to send their descendants to this new and prestigious school. Isolt and Steward run the school together for many years, loved as true parents by entire generations of students.
In 2010, Agilbert Fontaine, a descendant of one of the first Aurors in North America, runs the school.
Reputation
Ilvermorny is one of the eleven main schools of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. The school is reputed to be one of the most egalitarian and least elitist schools of magic in the world due to the fact that one of its founders was a Non-Maj.
Sorting
The sorting ceremony takes place in the entrance hall of the school, in front of the statues representing the four creatures that symbolize the houses. The new students enter the hall under the gaze of the whole school, which watches them from the upstairs balcony, and wait for the invitation to stand in turn on the symbol of the Gordian knot in the middle of the square.
The students are then waiting for the verdict: if a statue wishes to see the student come to its house, it comes to life – the Horned Snake by making the crystal on his forehead light up, the Wampus by roaring, the Thunderbird by flapping its wings and the Pukwudgie by raising its arrow in the air.
In the case where several statues invite a student to join them, it is up to the student to choose which house he wishes to join. Approximately once every ten years or so, the four statues may come alive for a student, as was the case for Seraphine Picquery.
Uniform
The students’ uniforms are blue and red, in memory of Isolt and James. Blue was chosen for Isolt because of his childhood dream of entering Ravenclaw if he went to Hogwarts, and red for James who was fond of cranberry pie. Each dress is embellished with a gold Gordian knot in remembrance of the brooch Isolt held from his mother.
