A World of Witches

Since time immemorial, only women have been capable of using magic. It is an innate potential, and throughout history this ability earned them nothing but the scorn and resentment of the heavily male-dominated society. In response, they closed their magical societies off from the rest of the world, only interacting with it enough to bring new witches into society and help educate them about their magical power.

As time went on, the difference between the magical and non-magical worlds only grew greater. With runes, enchantments, and permanent wards, magical schools and colleges began forming far earlier than non-magical ones. They quickly reached much higher standards of living due to the meetings of minds - rituals to increase crop yields, potions to supplement childhood nutrition, and sterilization wards to kill germs all leading to a much healthier populace that could reach even further than their ancestors had.

With the average witch having a better life than nearly anyone outside of magical society, their geniuses were able to shine far brighter than their contemporary non-magical counterparts. Pernelle Flamel's revolution in the field of alchemy nearly ended scarcity as a whole, allowing any base material to be transmuted into any other base material with minimal amounts of loss. Rowena Ravenclaw's invention of the Genesis Potion allowed for two witches to have children with no men involved, further protecting magical society from potential discovery and increasing the average magical power that witches had.

Their society was not without conflict, however. Longstanding magical families pushed for their ideals in magical governments, giving way to factions and Ladies of every persuasion. Expansionist, Secular, Light, Dark, and everywhere in between. The most recent of them was the Dark Lady Voldemort, arguably the strongest witch in all of history. Even among past Dark Ladies and Expansionists, she was an extremist. Her vision was that the non-magical world deserved to be subjugated by the magical one, claiming that they could do better than the constant wars that killed millions of non-magical men and women every decade.

Her cause was strengthened by a well-known prophecy that she would never be defeated by any hand or weapon raised against her, though just as her movement was about to gain mainstream traction she was delivered another prophecy. A child, born at the end of July to a mother who had thrice defied her, was fated to become her equal in power and would inevitably bring about her downfall. It went so far as to claim that neither of them could thrive while the other survived.

Lily Potter, a woman who had just given birth to a baby boy, heard of the second prophecy and realized that she fit the criteria just as Dark Lady Voldemort turned violent in an attempt to forestall any hopes of the prophecy succeeding. Unfortunately for her and her non-magical husband, James, their preparations were too late to protect them from Voldemort's attack. For their son, however, their backup contingency was ready just in time.

Upon the Dark Lady breaking into their home, Lily sacrificed all of her magic in order to create a web of fate connecting herself, James, and Voldemort to her son while they remained in the bounds of their home. Voldemort quickly killed James as he attempted to rush her with a pool cue, followed by Lily as she tried to shield her son. When the Dark Lady attempted to kill the last of the Potters, however, the web of fate activated. Karma became active, pulling upon the loving sacrifice of two parents to fuel Lily's magnum opus.

Mimicking the sacrifice of Lily's magic, Voldemort's unknowing attempt to sever the last thread of fate between her and the Potter family led to her own magic being taken away. Mimicking the sacrifice of Lily and James' lives, Voldemort's own life was forfeit.

Then, when Karma was resolved, Dharma took over. So much magic had been put into a web of fate that was rapidly collapsing into one baby boy. The question became "what should happen", and of the four people originally bound by the web, there were only three answers.

One woman desired for her enemies to die so that she could live. Two parents desired to die so that their son could live happily. The only living voter possessed an innate, subconscious desire to live and thrive.

And so it was, that Harry Lily Potter became the first boy to survive the Killing Curse. He became the first male heir of a major magical family. And finally, as the web of fate condensed all of the magic within into his body, he became the first male human to ever bear the potential to use magic.

Upon discovering the first two of these three outcomes, thousands of magical researchers across the globe became very interested in Harry. Despite their curiosity, he was sent to live with his father's family in the non-magical world as his mother's last will requested. The final outcome would not be discovered until seventeen and a half years later, when his name appeared on the registry of incoming students at Hogwarts School of Magic.