My headcanon regarding wizarding currency is that you _can_ make gold with magic, as demonstrated by Flamel. What makes Galleons/Sickles/Knuts special is not what they are made of, but who made them; the coins are all minted by the goblins, and have distinct magical qualities that make them impossible for wizards to counterfeit. The fact that all coins are in fact "goblin artifacts" is reason for more than one goblin rebellion in the past, and also the reason why you are legally obligated to stash your coin in Gringotts even if it would be more convienient to have it at home (e.g. the Weasleys).

It's also why the galleons are seemingly worthless compared to muggle bullion: Flamel was able to create a fuckton of gold before it and the stone were confiscated by an angry mob of people who didn't want their life savings of gold to become worthless. That also killed alchemy as an area of interest, when it became obvious that you can't really make yourself filthy rich by making more gold with magic.

 

I'm not big on large-scale world building, but I love adding little details to my stories. I've created Waltzing Blackcurrant Liqueur, which is purple and glittery and if you spill it the puddles begin to dance, Hogwarts coffee, which is like Irish coffee but with Firewhisky, and psycho-eugarics, which is a mushroom that gives you mild, benign hallucinations and can be used to combat period symptoms and pre-full moon werewolf aches. There is a seedy bar in a basement in Mile End called the Grumpy Bowtruckle that has a tank with a mermaid who does shows on the weekends and a much more upscale pub in York called the Five Griffins which is run by an ugly one-armed ghost and her part-Veela great-grand daughter who by the ministry is considered to not have too much veela-blood and is therefore allowed to sell drinks.

Absolutely love your idea of hags populating lost tube stations!

 

The wizarding world is a little larger than we see, and there are two large scale populace employers. The Ministry of Magic, and, to a greater degree, Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

No Willy Wonka was Botts, a dour, sober man. Britain’s premier magical export was founded on a simple philosophy: food cannot be conjured, neither then should flavour be.

The Saccharine Industrial Complex of Britain is legendary, and almost all home-schooled wizards and Hogwarts graduates with poor grades are absorbed into its shadow. It grows every type of crop. Legions of rovers travel the world, choosing one of a kind flavours from dog leavings to tsetse fly. The treacle miners work long shifts down dark mines, pillaging the deep flavours of the earth, and the multicoloured smoke of the bean smelting factory boils out over a thousand hectares of hidden land.

 

Using the term Headcanon broadly, in the sense that while it as far as I am aware doesn't contradict anything in canon, but doesn't much evidence for it.

• When Dumbledore became Headmaster he placed an enchantment on the student body at Hogwarts, altering fate so no Student dies while at school, which resulted in lots of coincidences that prevented students from dying when they should have, like nobody directly meeting the gaze of the Basilisk. In function it's basically the opposite of the jinx Voldemort placed on the Defense against the Dark Arts position. This enchantment faded after Dumbledore died.
• When objects and beings are exposed to magic they increasingly start to work by rules of stories and fairy tales rather than physics, which results in stuff like animals starting to behave more like they do in fables with intelligence similar to humans and technology starts to behave in a dramatic rather than predictable way(the Weasley car for example randomly developed sentience)
• The Greek/Roman gods were wizards, but not in the sense that there would have been one powerful wizards who was worshipped as one particular god(we know that did happen with other religions to a degree, in Canon the Irish Goddess Morrigan was actually a witch), but rather that there were multiple wizards over longer periods of time who muggles ended up interpreting as a single god. This fits nicely with how. Greeks often absorbed foreign mythologies and tried to fit the various gods into their own. And also explains why they often have multiple contradicting myths and occasionally act very out of character. This He
• The point of the Seeker position is find out which people are going to be relevant in the future. Wizards assume that fate will cause important people to end up in that position, because its the only position that actually matters in quidditch. Basically, wizards are aware that their universe is to a certain extent driven by a narrative that can notice things like goodness and actively cause ironic things to happen, and this is their way to find out who to watch out for.
• It was Ginny's decision to name a child after Snape. We know from the books how bad she is at naming(see Pigwidgeon) and she had much less reason to hate Snape. Harry agreed because he got to name their first child, and it was better than her other horrible suggestions.
• The Enchantment that enslaves House-Elves also forbids them from using magic to attack wizards, as explanation why we never see a house-elves except Dobby use magic offensively against wizards and why the House-Elves during the Battle of Hogwarts ha to resort to physical attacks. This also resolves the issue of why they aren't used as assassins, despite their ability to enter houses despite enchantments preventing apparition.
• You can't us Transfiguration to create potion ingredients because while its physically the same object, it wouldn't change the magical significance of the objects, meaning a cat hair transfigured into a dog hair would still count as cat hair for the purpose of magic, despite the molecular structure being identical.
• Similarly using charms on the ingredients to increase the amount(enlarging and duplication) would leave magical traces on the ingredients(according to Dumbledore magic always leaves traces) which would render them useless for potions that require the original ingredient.
• The Wolfsbane Potion was developed because Fenrir Greyback highly increased the number of werewolves in the UK through his deliberate attempts to infect others.
• There are several wizards who use magic to aid the muggles, the ministries dont care as long the statute of secrecy is maintained. Basically going arouns and doing things like helping lots of people in hospitals recover and donating things created through transfiguration.

 

Some of mine below. I wouldn't exactly call these headcanons, as there isn't anywhere near sufficient evidence to consider all of them implicit within canon, but this is my "standard wizarding world" for fanfic purposes.

Wizarding Demographics

- British wizarding population of approximately 21,000.

- Mean wizarding life expectancy of 170. Median life expectancy of 150.

- Wizards age at the same rate as Muggles to around age 30, whereupon their rate of ageing slows to around half that of Muggles. A wizard at 50 will look 40, a wizard at 80 will look 55, a wizard at 120 will look 75, and a wizard at 150 will look 90, a wizard at 170 will look 100.

- Higher wizarding life expectancy is therefore a combination of both a) slower natural ageing and b) superior health care resulting in an extended old age (if you discount the ageing factor, wizard life expectancy would be 90 years).

- Dumbledore was 111 in PS. His equivalent Muggle age is 70 years old, but he will be in superior health to a Muggle 70-year-old due to magical healthcare.

- Wizards typically retire around age 110.

Other Magical Beings

- British Goblin population around 15,000.

- Goblins are innately greedy, traitorous, and cruel, in the same way that humans are innately social and empathetic creatures. Which is to say: it's a biological instinct, hardwired into how they think, but it is expressed to different levels in different individuals, and certain individuals may lack it entirely (and be considered disabled by others of their species as a result). Basically if you took Tolkien's orcs, subjugated them, then forced them to integrate into human society. A generous goblin is the goblin equivalent of a human sociopath.

- British Centaur population of around 5,000, of which approximately half are in the Forbidden Forest.

- British Mermish population of around 8,000. Their largest settlement is the sunken medieval city of Dunwich, off the Suffolk coast.

- British House-Elf population of around 700. House-elves can breed biologically, but their isolation from others of their own kind generally prevents it. The house-elf population therefore tends to consist of first-generation house-elves which have spontaneously appeared (like boggarts) in highly magical, grand wizarding dwellings.

- House elves are bound to a property, not to a person. Their master is whoever owns the property they are bound to.

- House-elves are innately submissive creatures. They seek out a state of gratuitous servitude and will not be happy outside that state (but they do not need it to survive). But again, like humans, the trait expresses to varying degrees and some individuals may lack it entirely (being considered aberrations by their fellows).

Hogwarts

- 50% of British wizards go to Hogwarts, the other 50% decline their invitation and choose home schooling/informal schooling in their local community/apprenticeship.

- This comes out to around 70 new Hogwarts students a year, for a total Hogwarts population of around 500. This is divided evenly (or close to evenly) between the four houses. The magic of the Sorting Hat works in a similar way to Felix Felicis: the numbers will always just "work out".

- There are multiple teachers per subject at Hogwarts and 2 dorms per gender per house per year.

- The Defence position which is cursed is the position of Defence Master.

- Electives vary from year to year depending on demand and availability of teachers.

Ministry of Magic

- The Ministry has around 1,500 employees.

- The Ministry has no legal or institutional connection to the Muggle government. Any interactions it has with the Muggle government are a matter of courtesy or wizarding custom/law.

- The Minister for Magic is appointed by the Wizengamot.

- Wizarding Britain is divided into areas known as Reeves. Each Reeve sends a Warlock to the Wizengamot.

- Every 7 years, each Reeve holds a moot where they select their Warlock. Any adult wizard who resides in that Reeve may attend and speak at the moot. The Warlock to be sent is decided not by a majority vote but rather by consensus. It is possible for a vocal minority to overrule a quiet majority, if that vocal minority dominates the moot.

- The Warlocks then attend the Wizengamot and select a Minister for Magic.

- The newly appointed Minister for Magic then appoints a cabinet of Department Heads. This cabinet must be approved by the Wizengamot and therefore different political factions will generally haggle over who gets which position in order to secure votes.

- Heads of Department are therefore political appointees, not employees of the Ministry.

- The Department Heads have day to day autonomy. Their departments have powers to propose legislation to the Wizengamot without the Minister's approval. The Minister's ultimate control comes from the fact that the Ministry's treasury function is held by the Minister for Magic. Anything that requires spending gold will therefore need the Minister's cooperation to achieve.

Magic Generally

- Some wizards are more powerful than others. This is a quality of their magic, not a result of having a higher quantity of it.

- The factors which determine the power, dispositions, and qualities of a wizard's magic are no less than the sum of a wizard's entire character. This includes their knowledge and experience, but also includes their wider personality traits and world view. A wizard's magic is an expression of who they are as a person.

- Wizards cannot run out of magic and do not get tired from casting magic. Wizards can get tired from the strain of their magic being brought to bear against other magic e.g. Priori Incantatem.

- Magic is difficult to master, and mastery requires understanding of the magic being cast. Understanding can take a variety of forms: academic knowledge, practical familiarity, magical instinct, etc. But ultimately these are all different routes to the same thing, and the best understanding will come from a holistic approach.

- Once mastered, however, magic can be called upon easily and with little effort.

- The universe is innately magical. There are magical plants, magical substances, and magical phenomena such as alchemical reactions. These occur without the interference of wizards or other magical beings.

- Where magical forces interact with non-magical forces, the magical forces override the non-magical ones. A broom is not flying via the application of magically-created thrust; it is flying by overriding the physical laws of the universe and saying "actually, gravity now works like this".

- Magic does not require understanding of non-magical natural law to function, and knowing non-magical natural law would not provide wizards with any greater understanding of magic. Magic works on its own separate rules, which are described by magical theory and which exist on an entirely separate conceptual paradigm to mathematical-empirical science.

Magic vs. Magic

- Wizarding magical power exists on a bell curve. Dumbledore and Voldemort exist at the extreme end of that bell curve, but there are "intermediate" wizards who occupy the space between them and the average wizard. The closer to Dumbledore-level you come, the rarer those wizards are.

- Duelling ability and magical power are not the same thing. Voldemort could be taken out by a stray Killing Curse as much as anyone, which places an upper limit on the number of wizards he could take in a "fair" duel. Voldemort can cast enchantments of unparalleled power, which all the Ministry working together may be unable to break, but even so, 5-6 Aurors working together could probably defeat him in a fair duel.

- However, it's unlikely that any number of "regular" wizards could overcome Voldemort in a duel. Each Auror is worth maybe 5 average wizards in a fight, meaning you'd need 25+ average wizards to fight Voldemort in an equivalent way to 5 Aurors. But at 25 opponents, you reach the level where people are getting in each other's way and not everyone can engage Voldemort at once.

- On top of that, while Aurors will be able to defend themselves from "area of effect" attacks which Voldemort might use to strike many opponents at once, average wizards probably cannot. Meaning that Voldemort can likely wipe the floor in short order with regular Ministry employees with a single spell.

- In short: tactically, a small number of powerful wizards has an advantage over many weak wizards.

Transfiguration

- Transfiguration is a real physical change and is permanent unless untransfigured.

- A dragon is approximately the maximum size object that can be transfigured by a master of the art.

- Gamp's law states that anything can be transfigured into anything else. The 5 principal exceptions are: food, gold, silver, bronze, and gems. There are also minor exceptions to Gamp's law. The minor exceptions concerns transfigurations which are possible, but can only be performed in certain circumstances. Books and clothes are examples of minor exceptions.

- The "food" exception refers to "things that people eat". You can transfigure a desk into a pig because a pig is not food. Bacon and pork chops are food. If you transfigure a desk into a pig, you can kill, butcher, and eat the pig - if you know how.

- Very few wizards are capable of the level of transfiguration where you can transfigure animals and be completely confident that nothing of the previous object remains. Maybe one wizard every few years. And those few elite wizards have far better things to do with their time than sit around transfiguring things into livestock. Therefore the majority of wizarding food is still from livestock which has been bred and reared biologically.

- Each wizard's magic works to restore the wizard's body to its "correct" state over time. If you transfigure a wizard into an animal, eventually the wizard will turn back (unless you have used dark magic). If you transfigure yourself to be younger or more beautiful, the transfiguration will wear off because your own magic works to restore you to your proper state. However, if you use transfiguration to heal someone, their magic will not resist it, because the two forces are working towards the same goal: restoring the body to its proper state.

 

During the summer after PS, Dumbeldore was inundated with owls from pissed off Slytherin parents and fair minded Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff parents for his bullshit point awards to Gryffindor at the Leaving Feast. That's why he gave Harry and Ron their 200 points apiece before the Leaving Feast in CoS.

 

My head canon on Horcruxes: A Horcrux is a bit of your soul so, no, you can’t make a pebble a Horcrux and cast it into the bottom of the sea. The soul is significant and as such requires the vessel to be of personal and/or magically significant to the individual. The hiding place also must fit these criteria. Voldemort, having, run out of places significant to him did the next best thing magically, entrusted his soul to his followers (Bellatrix and Lucius). This would be magically significant in the same way that the Fidelius requires trusting someone to be a secretkeeper.

 

Oh wow. Never heard that before, but it's an excellent one and easy to seamlessly integrate.

 

It's a nice piece of worldbuilding for an AU, but it doesn't work well with canon, because Harry raised the exact possibility and Dumbledore doesn't say "No, horcruxes have to be important objects" - rather, he says that it was Voldemort's preferences and personality which dictated the choice of objects of significance as horcruxes.

 

Spell creation involves the development of spell theory and arithmancy for a new spell. Incantations are divined via numerology or divination. Divination is less systemized but it can be less reliable; arithmancy is more reliable but its consistency means that it may take longer to divine an incantation.

When using magic, you sacrifice power for scale. On one end of the spectrum, you have purely muggle forces, easily defended against with the most haphazard of shield charms. On the other end, you have the killing curse. The greater the scale of the spell, the spell has less magical nature. This is why combat is limited to the small-scale between wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort. Dumbledore could conjure a shower of arrows over an entire field, but those arrows would possess a greater mundane nature, and thus be more easily overridden. Dumbledore might be able to kill off a mass of low-skilled wizards with such a spell, but a hitwizard or auror could simply cast a shield charm to survive. That same shield charm would get destroyed by a stunner, which does not affect a larger area but possess correspondingly higher power, from Dumbledore. Dumbledore could cause an asteroid to hit the ministry of magic, but the almost completely mundane nature of the asteroid would mean that the ministry would be easily protected by protective enchantments.

This gets at my headcanon for large-scale magical warfare, if there were ever a real reason for it. Wizards like Dumbledore would cast spells to affect the whole field while wizards like hitwizards would fight duels. The spells that affect the whole field might not be dangerous to a fighter on its own, but it would be dangerous combined with the spells of another fighter.

Example of my warfare headcanon:

Spoiler

Dumbledore and 50 wizards are fighting against a force of 70 wizards. Dumbledore casts a spell to cause arrows to continually rain down on the other side. The opposing side does not have a wizard capable of completely countering the spell which would take another wizard of Dumbledore's caliber. The 70 wizards are not particularly threatened by Dumbledore's spell on its own. A simple protego would ensure their safety. However, the wizards fighting the 50 wizards on Dumbledore's side are now at a disadvantage. Not only do they have to defend against Dumbledore's spell, but they also have to defend the spells of other wizards. This is made even more difficult by the fact that extending the shape of a protego charm is not easy. Without Dumbledore, the 70 wizards would have won because of their numeral advantage. Duels would have been even when it came to circumstance and based on skill with magic.

The passages and secrets of Hogwarts are continually created by headmasters, teachers, and enterprising students.

Dumbledore could take on 20-30 aurors without breaking a sweat. Voldemort managed to beat three wizards of higher calibre than an auror with a mis-matched wand and fighting against sacrificial protections. Grindelwald was winning against 20 aurors.

 

- The "Refill Drinks" spell is just an assisted Aguamenti.

- The course load at Hogwarts is rather light apart from years 5 and 7.

- Hogwarts is bewitched with tracking charms that the Marauders took advantage of -- these charms identify wands and living entities.
-- Although not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Magic, any Dark Magic or Unforgivables cast inside the school can land you in prison faster than you could mount a hippogriff.
-- Students who don't use their wands very often (as tracked by Hogwarts itself) and/or prefer to do things the muggle way well into their education are given a strict talking-to and even expelled, if they don't improve. This is also why wandless magic is rare.

- Teachers at Hogwarts are required to complete a magically-assisted grading course that helps them refile, categorize and tabularize student input and stats. Hence the Headmaster has the best device of them all - a pensieve. Of course, it has been misused far too often.

- Certain areas in the Hogwarts library boost intelligence - this is a side-effect of long-term "concentration resumption" charms added by the founders. This effect is temporary, but people with "regular spots" in the library increase the potency of these charms on those locations.

- Pensieves are very rare - most people, when in need, prefer to ingest memories with diluted wit-sharpening potion.

- Successful Animagus rituals are rare because
-- The process is well-guarded.
-- One of the ingredients of the ritual is Mother''s Blood
-- It requires mastering an alternate way to transfigure objects, which can either be learnt early, during the development of magical abilities -- or very late. Not very difficult, but very deviant.
-- Animagus children are only born when at least one of the parents understand this deviant transfiguration, but aren't animagi themselves. Even then, it is only a small chance the child will be an animagus.

- All quidditch players have insane grip strength and explosive legs - Gwenog Jones could crush a melon between her thighs when she was 16.
-- One of the major reasons Ron is a nervous keeper is because he feels imbalanced on his broom - standard broom sizes weren't built for people that tall.
-- Every Goblin-only quidditch team has been declined participation in the quidditch world cup owing to their "unfair advantage". This was a major sour point in many a Goblin Revolution.

 

Quidditch isn’t the only popular broom sport played in Europe.

On the continent, there’s a thriving broom racing scene – exceptionally talented daredevils take part in organised point-to-point or circuit-based races, which can be seceral hours long and offer a great variety of terrains – riders travel through the open countryside, forests, over mountains and even above the sea.

Courses and routes are enforced via a variety of magically-enforced checkpoints, which can be closer together or more spread out, depending on the course. There are several designated viewing areas along the way where the checkpoints are quite close together, bunching up the field and enabling viewers to get a longer look at their heroes. Between the checkpoints, everything is fair game – spot a potentially advantageous, quicker but more dangerous shortcut? Go for it – just make sure you and your broom are up for it.

While there is an organised championship, that has only really been a thing since the 1970s. Traditionally, certain single-event victories carry more clout than having the most points at the end of the year, as competitors may skip events in order to prepare for others. However, the cries to move the championship standings from an afterthought to the main criterion by which to judge a rider’s ability have grown louder over recent years.

There’s a massive arms race between various broom manufacturers, fighting to produce the best brooms and to sign the biggest names in international broom racing to exclusive contracts. Every broom has its strengths and trade-offs: While some brooms might be quicker in a straight line, they would struggle to turn quite as nimbly as others.

The Germans and French have produced the best and most famous broom racers and manufacturers over the years, and their flagship locations are the Alps, through the Black Forest and Vosges, where an annual cross-border endurance race is held, and the Pyrenees. The Italians and Austrians are working hard to catch up, and even the British broom manufacturers have started to show some interest in recent years. The Nimbus Racing Broom Company and Randolph Spudmore, the developer fo the Firebolt, have expressed an interest in producing dedicated prototypes, with Spudmore thought to be the more likely of the two to make the jump thanks to the Firebolt’s already prodigious speed and cornering ability on the quidditch pitch.

 

I'm picturing the wizarding twist on standing around waiting for racers to go past you (on a course that can potentially span countries): hordes of spectators using portkeys at once to get to their next viewing spot. That would be pretty cool to see!

 

In order to break the Imperius curse, you have to cast a sufficiently powerful "finite" on the caster and not the victim. For example, if you wanted to free Madam Rosmerta from the Imperius curse cast on her, you would have to find Malfoy and cast the counter-curse on him instead, that would break all his active spells.

Merlin knew how to turn into multiple animagus forms but he took the secret to his grave which is hidden under the Fidelius Charm. He left clues of how to find it though.

You need a wand to materialize spells (Like the bangs and flashes of light).

House-Elves can't perform transfiguration, occlumency and legilimency.

Only wizards can learn Legilimency, Occlumency.

In order to perform wandless magic, you need very flexible fingers, meaning that you need the ability to hold one of your fingers completely outstretched and all others tightly closed, amongst other things.

Healing magic can heal anything, save for magical injuries and illnesses.

Your life expectancy exists in your soul and not your body so that even if you drink a Polyjuice potion containing the hair of a younger person to retain a youthful and strong body, you would eventually die when you reach the maximum age of your life expectancy. Horcruxes and the elixir of life solve this problem.

Wizards don't transfigure themselves to make them look younger due to the fact that their magic would return their bodies into their proper state after about 12 hours. This applies to human-human transfiguration in general and is based on the fact that human bodies naturally try to heal injuries.

A wizard transfigured into an animal would remain like that unless they receive outside help. Transfiguration is powerful magic and even Voldemort needed help at some point, despite his ability to possess animals, as he put it, "their bodies were ill-adapted to perform magic".

A wizard that is transformed into an object would pop back into their human forms after about 12 hours. True reasons unknown.

You can use magic to do almost anything, except resurrect the dead and create true love.

Arithmancy is the study of magical probability and it's used in spell creation.

Ancient magic is not necessarily more or less powerful, it's just ancient, such as a spell to remove the armor and helmet of your opponent or one to make your sword dance and attack for you.

Cursed Child is not canon.

Students at Hogwarts learn a different charm every lesson, the O.W.L's are more difficult than we were led to believe in the books. The theory part of the charms examination contained no less than 200 questions about 200 different charms and countercharms. The practical bit tested the students in about 50 spells.

Wizards know a lot more Latin words than muggles.

Latin is used for magic because it works better than any other language, the same way parseltongue works on snakes better than English alone.

 

Best idea ever. Please develop it!

 

So what role does the Chief Warlock fill and how is the position selected? Was Dumbledore made a Warlock via a moot from the Reeve in his "official" residence (his family home), the Reeve that Hogwarts is located in, or does Hogwarts count as its own Reeve for the purpose of filling a Warlock slot (due to how Hogwarts educates half of the UK, therefore it gets a voice in how policies that affect it are decided).

 

- Dumbledore is the Warlock for Godric's Hollow.

- Moots do not need a person's consent to appoint them as that Reeve's Warlock. Dumbledore is a reluctant Warlock, never having put himself forward for the role but nonetheless chosen by his Reeve to represent them.

- The position of Chief Warlock is similar to the Speaker of the House of Commons - a neutral chair of proceedings.

- The Chief Warlock is a member of the Wizengamot, selected by the Wizengamot and removable by them.

 

Harry Potter is the Emperor of Mankind.

 

-Wandless Spells can't employ "Bangs and Smoke" Magic or any of the jet spells either. It's essentially limited to the Telekinetic application of Magic through the manipulation of Matter and Energy. So you could make a fire/control it but you can't cast a "fiery curse" or something like that.

-Harry was probably a depressing mope to be around even before his fifth year and after the war, he was a brooding alcoholic Auror with a reputation not that far from Mad-Eye Moody on death eaters.

-Dumbledore showed Harry the Pensive so that when he died Harry would go through all his memories and learn his Magic but Harry was too dumb to realize.