Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Ilvermorny – WHAT IS NEXT?

In the summer of 1997 marked the magical beginning of the most fantastical book series of the 20th century – J.K. Rowling’s masterpiece, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Since then the Harry Potter series has become the most successful book series in the world with it having been translated into 62 languages, with over 107 million copies sold. Needless to say Harry’s story has touched people young and old, and continues to do so to this day. The Harry Potter Alliance , The Hogwarts Running Club, and Transfiguring Adoption are just a few non profit organizations that have formed around the concept of J.K. Rowling’s books in the last 10 years. Each organization has their cause that they commit to, and use the astronomical scaled fandom of the series to catapult their issues to the forefront. This type of crowd funding has been a great way to give back to charity, and make a difference while nerding out about your favorite thing.

2016 is becoming a huge reboot year for the Harry Potter franchise with its release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them starring Eddie Redmayne. It also includes the anticipated continuation of the Harry Potter Universe with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child stage production that is currently playing in London, England. The screenplay will be available for purchase on July 31st of this year, and once again Barnes & Nobles across the nation are back in action with creating special Harry Potter related store events such as a midnight party for the release of the manuscript. Talk about a blast from the past when the series had not yet finished yet, and people were waiting hours in line the night before to grab their copy!

Just today, J.K. Rowling released information about the history of Ilvermorny which is the wizarding School located right here in the United of America! More specifically, Massachusetts. Rowling beautifully describes the creation of Ilvermorny, and its wonderful traditions on Pottermore. Pottermore has become the Harry Potter Universe information database created by Rowling herself. It is where you can officially get sorted using a quiz created by Rowling, and where you can find enhanced editions of the series. The newly added feature has been a sorting quiz for Ilvermorny into either one of the four houses: Horned Serpent, Pukwudgie, Wampus, or Thunderbird. Each house is representative of the four most important parts of the human anatomy. The heart, the soul, the mind, and the body are all represented by one of the house mascots. Imagine billowing capes of blue and cranberry on top of Mount Greylock learning about the history of Ilvermorny, magic spells, and fantastic beasts.

While reading Rowling’s excerpt of how Ilvermorny came to be, my senses began to tingle, my mind began to focus, and once again I was sucked into this amazing world that I had been reading about since I was 7 years young. As quickly as it came the feeling was gone, because I had finished the article. I am craving for more, and more than anything, desperately wish for even one single book or story of Ilvermorny and its students. Some would say that writing about Ilvermorny would make it just another Harry Potter book, but I disagree. One thing that Hogwarts never had the pleasure of encountering are the Native Americans and their take on magic. This would provide a wonderful backdrop to a fantastical storyline, which I am sure Rowling wouldn’t be opposed to discovering not only for herself but the entire Harry Potter fandom.