During the run-up to “Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them,” J.K. Rowling released a series of Pottermore articles explaining the history of magic in North America.
When Rowling wasn’t taking heat for appropriating Native American culture and the real life tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials into her world of wizardry, she was raising the eyebrows of many Harry Potter fans with this little bit of information: There’s a Hogwarts-like school of magic in the United States called Ilvermorny.
Now, a deleted scene from “Fantastic Beasts” that has been posted on Facebook sheds a little bit more light on this institution for Yankee witches and wizards. The scene takes place inside Newt Scamander’s transdimensional briefcase, when Queenie asks Newt about Leta. Newt dodges the subject, and when Tina comes in and asks what they were talking about, Queenie just says, “School.”
In the theatrical version, the scene ends there, but in the video above, you can see Tina and Queenie boast about their alma mater — which they claim blows Hogwarts out of the water — and sing the school’s official song.
Like Hogwarts, Ilvermorny’s song is very silly, with a ukulele accompaniment and lyrics like “Ilvermorny, Massachusetts, we choo-choose it, we choo-choose it.”
According to the Harry Potter Wiki, Ilvermorny is an academy veiled by clouds on the peak of Mount Greylock in Massachusetts, originally founded by an Irish couple with the aim of homeschooling their children who wanted to go back to Europe so they could attend Hogwarts.
Soon, the academy hosted both European settlers and Native Americans, and just like Hogwarts, they were sorted into one of four different houses. There’s Horned Serpent (for scholars), Wampus (for warriors), Thunderbird (for adventures), and Pukwudgie (for healers).
Beyond that, there’s not much more we know about Ilvermorny, but hopefully we will learn more in the four (!) sequels J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. have planned for “Fantastic Beasts.” The first of those sequels will is due in theaters in 2018.