Act 0

Act 0’s accomplishments

The conflict's (Grindelwald vs. the wizarding world) origin gets setup, often over many years. Revealed only in flashbacks or brief explainers because this part is boring.

• How did the hero come to occupy their spot in the world when the plot begins? A lot has already happened in the setting.

This is the first five minutes of a TV show, always briefly summarized

1898

Grindelwald expelled from Durmstrang at age 16

1899

Dumbledore and Grindelwald fall in love, duel at age 17 at Dumbledore’s hometown, Godric’s Hollow

Dumbledore’s sister Ariana killed

Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth, almost killed

Grindelwald steals Elder Wand from European wand maker Gregorovitch

Grindelwald builds Nurmengard fortress and prison (Voldemort only person ever known to have broken in)

Grindelwald has been at Nurmengard, somewhere in Europe or North America, laboring long into the night to reclaim the Deathly Hallows.

Has Elder Wand, suspects Dumbledore of Invisibility Cloak, unsure of the resurrection Stone

1917

Ellen Takagawa arrives from Canada to matriculate at Ilvermorny as a Thunderbird

Prelude: 1917: Snakewood Wandwood

, Ilvermorny Inner Courtyard, Spring, Introductory Tour

Eulalie Hicks says: “…It was there that President Elizabeth McGilliguddy presided over the infamous ‘Country or Kind?’ debate of 1777. Thousands of witches and wizards from all over America descended upon MACUSA to attend this extraordinary meeting, for which the Great Meeting Chamber had to be magically enlarged. The issue for discussion was: did the magical community owe their highest allegiance to the country in which they had made their homes, or to the global underground wizarding community? Were they morally obliged to join American No-Majs in their fight for liberation from the British Muggles? Or was this, simply put, not their fight?”

“The arguments for and against intervention were protracted and the fight became vicious. Pro-interventionists argued that they might be able to save lives; anti-interventionists that wizards risked their own security by revealing themselves in battle. Messengers were sent to the Ministry of Magic in London to ask whether they intended to fight. A four-word message returned: ‘Sitting this one out.’ McGilliguddy’s famous response was even shorter: ‘Mind you do.’

“While officially the American witches and wizards did not engage in battle…

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Prelude: 1917: Sorting Ceremony and Uniforms

There are four houses at Ilvermorny: Horned Serpent, Wampus, Thunderbird and Pukwudgie. When a student starts their education at Ilvermorny, they step onto a Gordian Knot on the floor in the centre of the entrance hallwith large wooden statues of the mascots for the four houses facing them. The carved statues react if they want the student in their house. The older students watch in silence from a circular balcony on a floor above them as the new students are sorted. The carvings react in different ways: the crystal in the Horned Serpent carving's forehead glows, the Wampus carving roars, the Thunderbird carving beats its wings, and the Pukwudgie carving raises its arrow.

However, sometimes more than one carving will try to select the same student and so the student is then able to choose the house they prefer. This happens very rarely. Sometimes— as rare as once a decade or even a generation as in the case of one student — a student will be selected by every house.

——-

The robes of Ilvermorny are blue and cranberry. The colours honour Isolt and James: blue because it was Isolt's favourite colour and because she had wished to be in Ravenclaw house as a child; cranberry in honour of James's love of cranberry pie. All Ilvermony students' robes are fastened by a gold Gordian Knot, in memory of the brooch Isolt found in the ruins of the original Ilvermorny cottage.

——-

Prelude: 1918: Pukwudgie and Wampus

A number of Pukwudgies continue to work at the school into present day, all grumbling, all of them insisting that they have no wish to remain there and yet all of them mysteriously present year after year. A single, enormous Wampus pads around campus silently from time to time as well, mostly sleeps by the fire and looks irritable at the cold.

There is one particularly aged creature who answers to the name of ‘William’. He laughs at the idea that he is the original William who saved Isolt and James’s lives, rightly pointing out that the first William would be over 300 years old had he survived. However, nobody has ever found out exactly how long Pukwudgies live.

William refuses to let anybody else polish the marble statue of Isolt at the entrance of the school, and on the anniversary of her death every year he may be seen laying mayflowers on her tomb, something that puts him in a particularly bad temper when Ellen mentions it.

——-

1922

Grindelwald begins horrific string of Muggle murders across Europe

   * Becomes Wizarding world’s most wanted man

   * Ministry of Magic and MaCUSA create Auror task force to hunt Grindelwald, including Theseus Scamander (eventual World War II hero) and Percival Graves

1924

Ellen Takagawa graduates from Ilvermorny

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1925

Grindelwald steals Percival Graves’s identity and fingertips to use MaCUSA to search for Obscurials and useful magical beasts

1926

[Fantastic Beasts movie]