New Magic Schools?

[Peeves]

For those of you who feel inventive, we would love to see what you can come up with for different countries. Since all the HP magic schools are supposed to be different, post your own creations here or other versions you have seen on other sites. Maybe we'll spark someone else's imagination

I'll start off with two I made up for the Americas on my own site.

[Peeves]

The Location of the Coastal Entrance

The American Academy of Thaumaturgy first opened in the early 1700s, nestled in the farthest south area available and away from the Salem area where witches had gotten so much publicity. Always a more progressive school, it went through many changes and buildings, finding new campuses while also trying to establish itself as a solid school. Like many early businesses it had a rough time at it. It continued to do well in numbers of students and focused more on the natural world and it's influences on magic theory, mostly due to often being a school in the great outdoors.

However, it finally found it's future in a man named Johnathan Weatherwraith who was heavily influenced by John Dee's book Mathematicall Praeface to Euclid's Elements (1570), a book many had trouble following for it's heavy studies of mathematics. The Weatherwraith's were descended from a long line of weather workers and was still in touch with the elemental forces in his magic. When he became the Master of the school in 1998 he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Taking a group of wizarding engineers, he went to the Middle East for an architectural excursion and when he returned it was obvious to everyone that they were seeing images in their eyes no one else could.

The Coastal Entrance, Museum, and Visitor Receiving Area

In his absence and under orders, an older wizard had secured a building in the Florida Keys for him, a building in Marathon. Taking his team there they set up camp and began one of the most marvelous building projects in modern wizardry, the final resting place of the AAT. Working ten miles off the coast in the deep ocean provided many challenges as well as complications in muggle avoidance and repelling of cruise ships, but the work persevered. When finished three years later, he invited several school leaders and Magic Ministries for a tour of the new facility right after school started for that year. Few could believe their eyes and the Wizarding newspapers around the world covered it as a great step forward after the turbulent times of the past.

Now firmly settled and well attended (in fact, up to 1200 students from just 150 just thirty years ago) the AAT is known for it's heavy outdoors influence and weather specialties. Classes are unique and very modern, often challenging students with the latest theories and time-tested old practices. The building itself, half above water on a large muggle-repelling beach off the Florida coast and half underwater, accepts students from anywhere in the world, but it is only free for native students of the North American continent.

The Main School Building

With underwater and above ground classrooms, the school teaches in many different elements, studying the creatures and natural magic found in each element and understanding the influences on regular spells used in all the world Magic Governments. Each January, a one month class in a new subject is tested by teachers to see the validity of new possibilities, a favorite time around students and often make-it-up-as-we-go style. Magic Off the Cuff is how it is titled in the curriculum and students learn to push the boundaries of magic in safe and theoretical testing ways, meaning the school turns out quite a few experimental and research wizards and giving North America a strangle hold on new magic forms and products.

Despite all these forces at play, the school does have some issues, particularly in regards to relations with other schools and governments. Many see them as the new upstart with little practical background (despite 300 years plus of basics studies and research) and frequently describe the school as "flashy and uppity." The phrase "Americans always do it bigger" is a common curse in other parts of the world and the school struggles against these automatic assumptions that visitors drop quickly after seeing the school itself.

The Grand Entrance Foyer

The school is divided into four Houses, each based on the elements according to Buddhist teachings the school has developed a fondness for over the years. The houses are Anahata (Heart, Air), Manipura (Navel, Fire), Svadhisthana (Sacral, Water) and Muladhara (Root, Earth) and the students also learn about the Seven Chakras which include the Sahasrara (Crown, Thought/Space, Headmaster), Ajña (Third Eye, Light/Dark, Staff), and the Vishuddhi (Throat, Ether/Sound, Professors). This teaching leaves students with an interest in their personal effect from magic and leaves for a lot of internal exploration which means most students are firmly settled both in their studies and who they are when they leave the school.

The Headmaster and the Professors are scattered throughout the floors (with the Headmaster in the Earth section in the heart of the building). Staff live in the Coastal House and work in multiple areas, never in one particular spot. Parents and family are allowed visits during the school year and rooms have been set aside for them in the areas between fire and air for the views themselves.

Anahata Room & Manipura Room

The Anahata live nearest the roof line with views of the surrounding area better then any others with lots of open, vlowing rooms and much sea breezes flowing through. Classes are frequently on the roof in open air shaded pavilions. The Manipura are nearer to the ground, but still in the air with sun warmed rooms and lots of cleverly worked skylights. All of their classrooms are located deep in the building, frequently in areas encircling a fire place area with permanent fires and salamanders inhabiting them.

Meanwhile the Muladhara are on a sub-floor level just under the sandy beach. Their rooms have stone floors and frequently their classrooms are on the surface or in underground rooms kept cool and moist as the surrounding ground. Svadhisthana are the only ones entirely underwater, with more modern rooms, frequently changing with the years into the latest styles. These classrooms are in deep windowed rooms looking out into the depths and sometimes on special occasions on one of the many sunken ships nearby using a special water tunnel and air bubble spells.

Muladhara Room & Svadhisthana Room

The combination of classrooms in exotic sites, solid courses in an ever changing environment, and strictly no uniforms policy has provided a relaxed and good learning adventure for students who rarely hesitate to take full advantage to the teachers available nearly twenty-four hours a day. The classes are kept small and frequent, averaging 45 minutes and on alternating days to fit in the large variety of classes.

Meals are in scattered areas, just as if relaxation, encouraging students to circulate through the different houses and parts of the building where only the specific rooms themselves of the opposite gender are off limits. Students of all houses have classes throughout the building (fortunately connected together with a set of constantly moving up and down disks in shafts scattered around) and are encouraged to mix freely to increase the awareness of different backgrounds which is considered to be one of the biggest strengths of the institution.

Dining Room - Classroom - Hallway Viewport

All in all, the American Academy of Thaumaturgy is a unique experience turning out many extremely able young wizards and witches from all parts of the globe who are well prepared for the world. A graduate course is available, but requires a year of work in different parts of the globe in poorer, wizarding-few areas learning how to use their skills to the benefit of all, both muggle and magic alike.

While a wizarding world school, AAT does provide a superior education in both worlds, touching on how muggles react to the environment because of the great amount of damage done to the Earth in their ignorance of the natural order. Wizarding graduates are encouraged to work at repairing the damage done wherever possible for the benefit of future generations.

One of the Many Large Classrooms

Graduates of AAT are truly fond of their Alma Mater and come back every year for Alumni Events.

[Peeves]

Far above the Ecuador rain forest is one of the hardest to describe wizarding schools of all time. Truly a magical place, only children can see or find it due to it's extremely elvish nature. Back in history, one of the King's of the Mayans made a deal with one of the elvish lords for a place of protection for his people during a war with a group of tribes in exchange for freedom of the other clans lands. The story, whether fact or fiction has been lost to time and only a few rumors come down throughout the ages. Apparently the King was gifted with a home in the clouds around the time that the Incas began disappearing from their cities and vanished to time.

The place apparently exists, reachable only from a certain mountain valley in Ecuador and only on the four solstices, for some reason unknown. Children who stand on the rock (surrounded with muggle repelling charms over the ages) can see 'stairs' and step off into nothing vanishing from sight. Each year before the spring solstice the same children return to the same spot and take a 'summer break' returning only in the fall half a year away. The school is described by many over the years from wonder-struck eyes and soft voices of respect, but none can explain it's location or how to get to it except by the normal method known. The reason for this is some type of charm (although many suspect the unbreakable vow is involved somehow). These children however have a stronger affinity for nature magic, charms, and glamors then any other school in the world. In reality, no one who has been to the school may speak of it except in vague terms, mostly because the place itself is truly hard to describe, especially by children.

""Turn," she said suddenly whispering. "Remember, Seoman, you are the first of your kind to see Jao e-Tinukai'i - the Boat on the Ocean of Trees."

It was nothing like a boat, of course, but Simon understood the name in an instant. Stretched between treetop and ground, and from trunk to silvery trunk and bough to bough, the billowing sheets of cloth in a thousand diverse colors resembled at first sight nothing so much as exquisite sails - indeed, for that first moment the entire valley floor seemed in truth a vast and incredible ship.

Some of the expanses of brilliantly gleaming cloth had been stretched and tented to make roofs. Others twined about the trunks of silver-blue trees, or spanned from bough to ground to form translucent walls. Some simply heaved and snapped in the wind, bound to the highest branches with shiny cords and allowed to wave. The whole of the city undulated with every shift of the wind, like a seaweed forest on the ocean floor bowing gracefully with the tide.

The cloth and binding cords mirrored with subtle differences the hues of the forest all around, so that in places the additions were barely discernible from that which had grown naturally. In fact, as Simon peered closer, overwhelmed with Jao e-Tinukai'i's subtle and fragile beauty, he saw that in many places the forest and city appeared to have truly been shaped as one, so that they blended together with unearthly harmony. The river which meandered along the center of the valley floor was more subdued here, but still full of relentless, ringing music; the rippling light it reflected onto the city's shiftless facades added to the illusion of watery depth. Simon thought he could also see the silvery tracks of other streams weaving in and out through the trees.

The forest floor between the houses - if such they were - was covered with thick greenery, mostly springy clover. This grew like a carpet everywhere but on the paths of dark earth that had been lined with shimmering white stone. A few of the gracefully haphazard bridges that spanned the waterway were also constructed of this same stone. Beside these paths, strange birds with fanlike, iridescent tails of green and blue and yellow strutted or flapped unsteadily back and forth between earth and the lowest branches of the surrounding trees, all the while uttering harsh and somewhat foolish-sounding cries. There were other flashes of incandescent color amongst the upper branches, birds as brilliantly-feathered as the fantails, but considerably more mellifluous of voice.

Warm gentle winds lifted an essence of spices and foreign tree sap and summer grass to Simon's nose; the avian choir fluted a thousand different songs that somehow fit together like a terrifying beautiful puzzle. The marvelous city stretched away before him into the sunlit forest, a heaven more welcoming then any he had ever envisioned."

(Credit to the amazing and master writer Tad Williams. Quoted from the Stone of Farewell)

Graduates from the school have an extra sensitivity to the supernatural and in particular tend to look suddenly at spaces likes walls and doors as if realizing they are being observed. This sensitivity is to the Faerie and their presence when watching the mortal rhelm and can be quite distracting. They have, however, a better understanding of the world then many and learn to listen to their instincts very carefully. As such they are quick to reach conclusions which take others twice as long, mostly because they have learned to listen to their inner self and the human instincts which adults learn to ignore as they grow up.

The best way to describe the world of the school and it's ignorance of the world of human physics is that it's not exactly in this dimension. The elves have the ability to move through planes of existence to some limited degree and this particular space is a long ago crafted entrance which they can not access anymore. However, the Mayans have lived here for more then a few centuries, discovering early on that time passed very differently. Time passes four as slow here as the mortal rhelm, meaning the Mayans have been here only a few hundred years and their craft is still fresh and vivid, extremely strengthened by the raw magic of this plane of existence. Think of the location of the school is space folded in on itself and then made into a box with no entrance.

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In addition, several of the early wizards found this place with the help of the elves and now reside here permanently, teaching all who come. None leave, as the very nature of this place prevents adults from leaving just as adults can not enter, their minds unable to make the crossing. Thus this school is both haven and prison and the children who learn here only stop returning when they can no longer make the trip itself. There are no formal classes or schedules as children live here for a full two years at a time (aging slower here as well to something closer to the mortal rhelm's real time) giving the advantage of long learning time and a chance to let concepts sink in. Children are free to go to a teacher or go play as they see fit, learning each at their own pace and developing better because of it. Mayans and Wizards alike teach the ways of magic energies, both nature's and the wizarding world's version.

The school has no contact with the mortal rhelm anymore then anyone except a child can find the school itself. Rarely do outsiders from off-continent bring their children here, but a few rare ones do. There are also a few elf-touched families around the world who bring their children here specifically, now that transportation around the world is so much easier. And with no head, no organization, and no imports or exports, it truly is an isolated and very magical place.