Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The great North American school of magic was founded in the seventeenth century. It stands at the highest peak of Mount Greylock, where it is concealed from non-magic gaze by a variety of powerful enchantments, which sometimes manifest in a wreath of misty cloud.

### Irish Beginnings

Isolt Sayre was born around 1603 and spent her earliest childhood in the valley of Coomloughra, County Kerry, in Ireland. She was the offspring of two pure-blood wizarding families.

Her father, William Sayre, was a direct descendant of the famous Irish witch Morrigan, an Animagus whose creature form was a crow. William nicknamed his daughter 'Morrigan' for her affinity for all natural things when she was young. Her early childhood was idyllic, with parents who loved her and were quietly helpful to their Muggle neighbours, producing magical cures for humans and livestock alike.

However, at five years old, an attack upon the family home resulted in the death of both of her parents. Isolt was 'rescued' from the fire by her mother's estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt, who took her to the neighbouring valley of Coomcallee or 'Hag's Glen', and raised her there.

As Isolt grew older she came to realise that her saviour was in reality her kidnapper and the murderer of her parents. Unstable and cruel, Gormlaith was a fanatical pure-blood who believed that her sister's helpfulness to her Muggle neighbours was setting Isolt upon a dangerous path to intermarriage with a non-magical man. Only by stealing the child, Gormlaith believed, could their daughter be brought back to the 'right way': raised in the belief that as a descendant of both Morrigan and Salazar Slytherin she ought to associate only with pure-bloods.

Gormlaith set herself to be the model she thought Isolt needed by forcing the child to watch, as she cursed and jinxed any Muggle or animal that strayed too near their cottage. The community soon learned to avoid the place where Gormlaith lived, and from then on the only contact Isolt had with the villagers she had once been friends with, was when local boys threw stones at her as she played in the garden.

Gormlaith refused to allow Isolt to take up her place at Hogwarts when the letter arrived, on the basis that Isolt would learn more at home than at a dangerously egalitarian establishment full of Mudbloods. However, Gormlaith herself had attended Hogwarts, and told Isolt a great deal about the school. In the main, she did this to denigrate the place, lamenting that Salazar Slytherin's plans for the purity of wizardkind had not been fulfilled. To her niece, isolated and mistreated by an aunt she believed to be at least half insane, Hogwarts sounded like a kind of paradise and she spent much of her teens fantasising about it.

For twelve years, Gormlaith enforced Isolt's cooperation and isolation through powerful Dark magic. At last the young woman developed sufficient skill and courage to escape by stealing her aunt's wand, for she had never been permitted her own. The only other object that Isolt took with her was a gold brooch in the shape of a Gordian Knot that had once belonged to her mother. Isolt then fled the country.

Scared of Gormlaith's retribution and her prodigious tracking powers, Isolt moved first to England, but before long Gormlaith was on her tail. Determined to hide in such a way that her adoptive mother would never find her, Isolt cut off her hair. Masquerading as a Muggle boy called Elias Story, she set sail for the New World on the Mayflower in 1620.

Isolt arrived in America among the earliest Muggle settlers (Muggles are known as 'No-Majs' in the American wizarding community, from 'No Magic'). On arrival she vanished into the surrounding mountains, leaving her erstwhile shipmates to suppose that 'Elias Story' had died of the harsh winter, like so many others. Isolt left the new colony partly because she remained afraid that Gormlaith would track her, even to a new continent, but also because her journey aboard the Mayflower led her to deduce that a witch was unlikely to find many friends among the Puritans.

Isolt was now quite alone in a harsh foreign country and, as far as she knew, the only witch for hundreds if not thousands of miles - her partial education by Gormlaith had not included information about Native American wizards. However, after several weeks alone in the mountains, she met two magical creatures of whose existence she had hitherto been ignorant.

The Hidebehind is a nocturnal, forest-dwelling spectre that preys on humanoid creatures. As the name suggests, it can contort itself to hide behind almost any object, concealing itself perfectly from hunters and victims alike. Its existence has been suspected by No-Majs, but they are no match for its powers. Only a witch or wizard is likely to survive an attack by a Hidebehind.

The Pukwudgie is also native to America: a short, grey-faced, large-eared creature distantly related to the European goblin. Fiercely independent, tricky and not over-fond of humankind (whether magical or mundane), it possesses its own powerful magic. Pukwudgies hunt with deadly, poisonous arrows and enjoy playing tricks on humans.

The two creatures had met in the forest and the Hidebehind, which was of unusual size and strength, had not only succeeded in capturing the Pukwudgie, which was young and inexperienced, but had also been on the point of disembowelling him when Isolt cast the curse that made it flee. Unaware that the Pukwudgie, too, was exceptionally dangerous to humans, Isolt picked him up, carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health.

The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie's grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.

In spite of the Pukwudgie's ingratitude, Isolt found him amusing and was glad of his company. Over time, a friendship developed between them that was almost unique in the history of their respective species. Faithful to the taboos of his people, the Pukwudgie refused to tell her his individual name, so she dubbed him 'William' after her father.

### The Horned Serpent

William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.

Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.

Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent's message never varied: 'Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed'.

Isolt had no family, unless you counted Gormlaith back in Ireland. She could not understand the Horned Serpent's cryptic words, or even decide whether she was imagining the voice in which he seemed to speak to her.

*From Pottermore (www.pottermore.com)*