The other day an esteemed colleague and I were discussing the whims and wonders of J.K. Rowling's magical universe and that little nerdy 4-eyes kid who rules it. In our discourse we hit upon an interesting piece of mystery that Rowling has left us with after the completion of the Harry Potter series. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in England, along with Beauxbatons Academy in France and Durmstrang Institute in Bulgaria, are a few of the leading magic schools in Europe--they're the ones we hear about in the books, at any rate. However, who hasn't wondered about the rest of the global magic community? What is happening to the rest of the wizarding community as Harry plays the awkard adolescent around Ginny? Aren't there noteworthy things happening elsewhere? Surely, the cosmic battle of good and evil, the ultimate conflict between Chosen One and Supreme Evil, the most cataclysmic and monumental event of all history, cannot be limited to England alone. Indeed, the books give us glimpses of global crisis due to Voldemort's hellraising return. What occurs in England is felt everywhere in the magical community. But where is everywhere?
What I mean to ask is this: is there an American wizarding academy? If so, where is it located? My instincts tell me no, or at least not anything like a Hogwarts if there is. The reason is simple. It is probably widespread knowledge that magical practice originated in Europe. The Native Americans would not have practiced 'Western magic'; they had their nature spirituality and what not. Hogwarts was probably founded at around the time Stonehenge was built, maybe it was even Hogwarts students that built it. But the thing that matters is that Hogwarts, England, and Europe have magical history and tradition; America does not. The earliest an American academy could have been built would have been in the Colonial Era, and why would the colonial magic community want to break from Hogwarts anyway? Our nation was formed by a political revolution; if the English muggles could have cared less about the split, then the magic community probably didn't even know it happened. America is the melting pot; it contains every tradition and consequently it contains no tradition. Magic America would just as soon send their progeny to their home country to study. The 21st century American magic community does not exist.
Except that's not the way it happened; quite contrary, in fact. You see, there is an American wizarding academy. And there is a vibrant magic community in America. But they are the dissident. It's like this: the National Institute for the Coordination and Cooperation of Magick and Sciences (NICCMS), the American wizarding school, was formed in the late 1800s by a certain Phineas Tillbottle, a Scottish wizard who had studied in Germany. Tillbottle, who had magical abilities as a child, found that they had slowly dwindled into nonexistence by his 6th year of study. The newly formed squib was torn by an intolerable and horrific despair. No more magic ability! His studies, his career, his life, ruined! With his mind in delusions he turned to the unthinkable--muggle science. Working alongside the many muggle contacts he made in Germany (the most significant of which was Klaus Vondervan), Tillbottle was able to perfect the art of what he dubbed 'scientific alchemy', an ingenious blend of ancient magick and progressive science. The Germans were convinced this tool would lead them to the White Lady, that hoped for and strived for elusive ideal, the subject of wars and machines, of peace, of prosperity, the very name of human history--Progress.
Tillbottle quickly moved his operations to the forefront of turn-of-the-century progress--America--and set up the NICCMS in downtown Boston. Beneath the towering skyscrapers and the filth of the streets, NICCMS exists to unite the forces of magic and science, to create and engage sanitary alchemy, and to dissolve the hopes and dreams of the world one discovery at a time. They advance in the name of Progress, which is to say they ride a train of breakneck speeds straight to Hell. NICCMS, since its institution, has attracted more than 7,000 magical traitors. The efforts of the NICCMS go against everything the wizarding community believes in for this reason: it seeks to kill the life of magic, the imagination, the spirit, the unknown, the darkness. It seeks, in the name of humanity, to end violence and suffering by inflicting violence and suffering on the soul.
What would Harry do with such a crowd? We'll never know for sure. Or will we?
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