Wizarding Schools From Around The World

Lena of Asheaths on Tumblr creates gorgeous (and often non-Eurocentric) headcannons of wizarding schools from around the world. Her travel guide-style imaginings of how wizards and witches in places besides the UK takes inspiration from the Harry Potter series but they also bring in local folklore and geography to fully illustrate the global magical experience. Some of her best entries are listed below. (They're a bit long but totally worth it)

India

India’s Academy of Sorcery boasts an impressive display of flashy colours, from enchanted saris that shift colours sporadically throughout the day, to the lavishly painted exterior of the academy which is situated in a nondescript location along Ganges River. Due to the frightening rate at which the school’s ancient mango tree (jokingly nicknamed “Mammoth Mango Machine”) produces mangoes, students have to endure the perpetually evolving art of mango cuisine at least five days a week. Every year, to the students’ great enjoyment, classes are halted for Diwali to make time for various competitions that take place: firework flourishes and charms for upper-year students (bonus points if it doesn’t set any part of the school on fire), and lantern designing for lower-year students (use of animals, alive or dead, is forbidden).

Russia

The Russian Academy of Magic is a colossal onion-domed structure drifting aimlessly across the surface of Lake Baikal brought to existence using centuries of levitation charms perfected by a group of Russian witches experimenting with portable floating ice rinks. Self-heating fur scarves are all the rage amongst students and professors alike, although they have been known to overheat from time to time, leading to mild cases of heat stroke. When traditional Quidditch games become dull, players would discard their brooms for skates and duke it out on the frozen surface of the lake.

Egypt

Perhaps the most ancient school still in operation, the Egyptian School for Young Sorcerers is a grand palace disguised to muggle eyes as an insurmountable sand dune that no one has ever had the audacity to climb. In the heart of the palace is a spacious courtyard with a kaleidoscope of blossoming flowers, meandering cats oblivious to their surroundings, and pools of glimmering aquamarine filled with a continual supply of water drawn through underground tunnels from the Nile for leisure use on days when the heat is unbearable. The school boasts a vast chamber of books and scrolls (a number of which were salvaged from the library of Alexandria), some dating as far back as the age of Hatshepsut. Students can often be found draped lazily over chairs and large cushions reading for hours on end. According to rumoured legend, there is a concealed room with hieroglyphics holding spells to prolonging life and communing with the gods, although its discovery remains nigh impossible as (unbeknownst to students) its location changes every day, and those who have had the luck of stumbling upon it by accident often find themselves with a sudden academic dilemma in great need of immediate resolution (although they never seem to remember what it was that sent them stumbling through their professor’s doors).

Mexico

Disguised as a Mayan ruin in the jungles of Chiapas, the Mexican School for Enriched Magical Studies is a sturdy moss-covered structure blanketed by lush greenery. The students are no strangers to muggle tourists ambling about, and will often pose as fellow tourists or locals and interact with them, making them one of the most outgoing, lively, and tolerant communities in the wizarding world. For festivals, students like to don vibrant headdresses, and the school becomes a kaleidoscope of colour as girls twirl around like tops, their skirts lifting up into the air, filling empty space with colour and painting the school with embellished splendour. The campus often reverberates with music from the school’s ghost mariachi band who plays cheerfully day and night; although it tends to get annoying at times, the constant activity makes the school feel like home.

South Africa

Clinging haphazardly to the jagged sides of the Drakensberg escarpment, the South African Institute for Witches and Wizards is an impressive conglomeration of architectural wonder and eccentric contraptions that keep the sprawling institute welded to the steep slopes of the mountains. Many say roaming the institute is an arduous test of one’s stamina as the primarily vertical layout of the institute relies on a plethora of stairs to navigate (luckily it has gotten better after the restriction on the indoor use of broomsticks was lifted). Over centuries, many pockets of shallow caves have been dug out and furnished by students who like to spend their free time observing the vast landscape before them from high up in the mountainside. The student population supplies much of the profits for Mava’s Zoomtastic Glasses, which is a popular accessory for observing the abundance of wildlife that roam the lands.

Australia

Originally located in Arnhem Land, The Australian College of Sorcery and Witchcraft was a sprawling campus of large huts that eventually coalesced into one single structure. The college detached from mainland Australia soon after British settlement in order maintain their practices and culture. Ever since, the school has been drifting haphazardly in the ocean, although it never strays far from the Australian coast for ancient magic keeps the school tethered to Australian soil. Every year, a team of witches and wizards must be employed to anchor the floating campus so students aren’t forced into a cat-and-mouse chase at the beginning of the year in order to attend school (a frustrating endeavour which often results in the postponing of classes due to a large number of absences). To students’ great enjoyment, various creatures (including the occasional mermaid) can often be found sunbathing around the perimeter of the campus which gently slopes into the water. Due to their exposure to unusually friendly oceanic creatures, the college boasts incredibly extensive courses in aquatic-life studies, and is held in high esteem by the international wizarding community for its innovations in water magic.

Nigeria

The Nigerian School of Sorcery is hidden in an unplottable clearing in the forests of Nigeria where thick mist lingers in clouds at dawn and scatters red light from the rising sun. For this, many students have nicknamed the school Field of Flickering Flames. The school is famously known for its enchanted band which is mostly comprised of talking drums, goje, and xylophones. Everyone looks forward to their performances at the beginning and end of term feasts, and various holidays. Due to the diversity of students from the different ethnic groups of Nigeria, a language enchantment was cast over school grounds and surrounding lands to facilitate linguistic unity of the students, although the enchantment has grown redundant after the the declaration of English as the official language. The surrounding forests of the Nigerian School of Sorcery is home to a colony of unusually friendly dragons, the Nigerian Pearl Snake, which is named for its pale belly that contrasts with the iridescent green scales on its back which camouflages nicely with the trees. After living amongst each other for hundreds of years, the dragons have grown accustomed to humans and have allowed for extended contact, resulting in a number of dragon riders (mostly Enchanted Creatures Studies students) who follow and examine movements of the Nigerian Pearl Snake colony on dragonback.

Japan

In a secluded area of Mount Hiei, shrouded in mist, the Japanese Institute for Magical Practices spirals gracefully into the sky. The school is a series of elegant pagodas built to impossible heights with a multitude of connecting bridges crisscrossing like a bird’s nest. On the ground is an elaborate garden with a sprinkling of ponds. A kaleidoscope of fish zigzag through the water, sometimes even taking to the air like birds due to rather peculiar abilities gained over time through overexposure to magic. Students often take immense pleasure in enchanting a cherry blossom downpour to trail people who have wronged them; the charm usually remains intact for well over a week unless a teacher takes pity upon the student and dispels the spell. While they have mastered wandless magic through the use of talismans, pockets of the Japanese wizarding community have slowly begun to adopt the use of wands following its rise in popularity all over the world, although wandless magic still takes precedence, and wands are more often tucked behind their ears or used to hold up their hair than to practice magic.

Argentina

The Patagonia Academy for Young Witches and Wizards boasts an expansive campus on the mountainside of the peaks surrounding Nahuel Huapi Lake. Argentina playing host to the 427th Quidditch World Cup was the cause of excitement for many fellow Quidditch enthusiasts at the school (many took the liberty to conduct games in the hallways; the nurse was quite exasperated at the number of accidental injuries caused by poorly-aimed bludgers). A number of foreigners toured the school during their stay in Argentina for the Quidditch World Cup, which caused quite a stir with the Nahuelito who took great joy in frightening unassuming witches and wizards who were taking boat rides out on the lake (in fact, very few boaters managed to return without their boats being upturned by the creature). The school offers classes in many disciplines, but amongst the most popular are Studies in Dreamwork (although few truly excel at it), and Magical Herbs and its Uses due to the diversity of the flora in the surrounding area. To accommodate students, the school recently built a tall spiralling greenhouse to grow plants. The topmost level unfortunately suffered extensive damages when an experiment gone wrong infuriated an enlarged fern that thrashed about and shattered several panes of glass.