Twisting the knife on the fact that you’ll never be a wizard, and that all your dreams of casting spells or knowing the tender pet-love of a magical owl are just delusions designed to keep the crushing soullessness of reality at bay for one more god damned day, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has revealed the names and locations of four more Hogwarts-esque wizarding schools that us filthy muggles will never be able to attend.
The reveal of the heartbreakingly fictitious magical academies was actually done by Harry Potter actress Evanna Lynch—a.k.a. Luna Lovegood—at the recent Celebration Of Harry Potter event at Universal Orlando Resort. But Rowling was quick to hop on Pottermore—your one-stop portal for finding out what a flobberworm is, or whether a grown-up Neville Longbottom pays his wizard taxes—to provide details on the four new fakey-fake, totally not-real schools: Ilvermorny, Uagadou, Mahoutokoro, and Castelobruxo.
So far, we know the least about Ilvermorny, beyond the fact that it’s the North American school, and thus might have some bearing on the U.S.-set Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. As for the others: Uagadou is in Africa’s mythical Mountains Of The Moon, and its users don’t employ wands. Mahoutokoro is in Japan, and is known for its Quidditch. The Brazilian Castelobruxo, meanwhile, is literally Portuguese for “wizard castle,” because sometimes authors get tired, and Babelfish becomes extremely tempting. Also, none of them are real. Magic is not real. Your life is a lie.
According to Rowling, there are actually only 11 wizarding schools in the entire world, counting these new four, plus the three—Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons—from the original books, and four others yet to be revealed. In other words, when you were a kid, and you spent every night praying for an owl letter—or Dream Messenger, in the case of Uagadou attendees—to tell you that you were special, and that it was time to become a wizard, it was actually eleven schools, not just one, that didn’t think you were worth their time.
So that’s nice.