Well, fellow No-Majs, for a long time we have wondered when J.K. Rowling was going to divulge more details on Ilvermorny, and now that she has posted a story on Pottermore explaining the origins of the American Hogwarts we have finally gotten our wish. And plot twist, everyone: it involves a descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself. (Can the British just let America have one thing?)
First of all, it's worth noting that the new Pottermore material confirms the leak from a few weeks ago that there are, in fact, four houses in Ilvermorny, all based off of icons from Native American mythology. They are as follows:
- Horned Serpent; a ‘great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead’
- Pukwudgie; ‘a short, grey-faced, large-eared creature’
- Thunderbird; a creature that ‘can create storms as it flies’
- Wampus; ‘a magical, panther-like creature that is fast, strong and almost impossible to kill’
(Bustle looked into all of these a few weeks ago — here are our best guesses as to what each of the American Houses mean.)
We also know that that is founder was a young girl named Isolt Sayre, a descendant of Slytherin who fled from her evil aunt aboard the Mayflower and eventually came to find that she was not the only magical person in the New World. Rowling's new work of fiction, titled Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, carefully details Isolt's journey to America and the trials and tribulations that led to the creation of the school — which seems to have seen its fair share of drama, just as Hogwarts did across the sea.
According to the new work, Ilvermorny is nestled on the top of Mount Greylock in Massachusetts. It started humble beginnings as a cottage, and through a series of events eventually became a castle to rival Hogwarts itself. For more on Ilvermorny and its founder, check out Rowling's new work on Pottermore.
Images: Warner Bros Pictures
