Handing Over

Unlike the open, free, and vibrant atmosphere of the American Muggle society, the American wizarding world was among the most closed-off and isolated of all magical civilizations. The Witchcraft Secrecy Act was enforced even more strictly here.

Because of certain notorious historical events, such as:

the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century; the mass attacks on Muggles by Swallowtail Dogs bred by Harkaway in the eighteenth century; the eighteenth-century incident in which the witch Dorcas Twelve-Trees revealed the magical world to her Muggle lover; the Bigfoot Uprising of the nineteenth century; and the chaos caused in the 1920s by Grindelwald, Newt Scamander, and all his adorable little creatures.

For quite a long time, MACUSA had even forbidden Muggle-born wizards from revealing the existence of the wizarding world to their close relatives. That law was not repealed until the middle of this century.

It was precisely because of these incidents, which had caused widespread and serious consequences, that MACUSA enacted a law requiring every wizard appearing in the country, whether a resident or a visitor, to carry a wand license. This allowed them to track all magical activity and identify culprits through their wands.

No other magical civilization outside the United States had such a regulation.

Yet the famous Wand Licensing Office, hated by foreign visitors and local residents alike, received little attention within MACUSA itself.

Although it shared the Woolworth Building with Muggles, the space belonging to wizards was more than twice as large as the Muggles' side. Amid the abundance of space spread across over a hundred floors, the Wand Licensing Office had actually been placed in a warehouse stacked with contraband. Whenever someone came here to handle business, they had to keep their heads down while passing through uneven metal staircases and carefully navigating crammed shelves, all