Questions about an American Wizarding School have been floating around since the very beginnings of the Harry Potter phenomenon. With the upcoming Fantastic Beasts being set in America, we last learned that the school is called Ilvermorny, and that America has a complicated history* with magical people.
Now Pottermore's published an extensive history of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry — and perhaps EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY they've finally published the quiz that sorts you into the all-new houses for the American school.
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Those houses are as follows:
Wampus, which "favors warriors."
Horned Serpent, which "favors scholars."
Pukwudgie, which "favors healers."
And Thunderbird, which "favors adventurers."
We haven't gotten much more info on the personality profiles that go with each of the houses (and which are part of what make the original Hogwarts houses so fun), but we do know that each of the Ilvermorny houses are named after the favorite magical creature of the family members who founded the school.
You can read the entire history of the school here, but here are some other fun facts to hold close and dear:
* One founder, Isolt Sayre, immigrated to the Americas from Ireland because she was fleeing her abusive and wizard-racist aunt – Gormlaith Gaunt. You may recognize the Gaunt name because they're LITERALLY VOLDEMORT'S ANCESTORS.
* The man she married, James Steward, was a non-magical man whom she intended to Obliviate once he saw her magic. They fell in love instead and adopted two orphaned magical boys, Chadwick and Webster.
* Ilvermorny is named after Isolt's childhood home in Ireland.
* Isolt had a family wand already (this will become important later), but she created wands for her children out of part of the horn of the Horned Serpent. As more children started attending the school, she taught herself to make wands from more and more different cores.
* Much of Ilvermorny is based off of the functions of Hogwarts because those are the stories Isolt heard growing up and later passed on to her children. Isolt's aunt prevented her from attending Hogwarts, but she passed down its legacy nonetheless.
* In a major PLOT TWIST, turns out the wand Isolt had lived her whole adult life with had once belonged to SALAZAR SLYTHERIN HIMSELF, and contained a fragment of a basilisk's horn.
* They buried the wand and "within a year an unknown species of snakewood tree had grown out of the Earth" on that spot. Apparently it contains healing properties. "This tree seemed testament to the fact that Slytherin’s wand, like his scattered descendants, encompassed both noble and ignoble." says the writing on Pottermore. "The very best of him seemed to have migrated to America." Beautiful.
* Isolt lived with a Pukwudgie for many years after he pledged a life debt to her when she saved his life. She named him William, and there's a Pukwudgie at the school to this day who answers to the name and lays flowers at her tomb.
* The robes at Ilvermorny are blue and cranberry because Isolt loved blue and wishes she'd been able to be in Ravenclaw as a child – and because James loved cranberry pie.
These goddamn sweethearts, amirite?
