There are no horcurxes or Deathly Hallows.
Magic is closer to that of Mahou Sensei Negima, Whateley Universe, Slayers, or El Goonish Shive. There is no such thing as 'muggles', anyone could theoretically learn magic, although the average non-mage has really low potential for it and great difficulty awakening their magical potential to start learning in the first place, usually only those with high magical potential 'light the spark' on their own, and start doing accidental magic as children, and don't have to have special training to 'light the spark', and strong magic does tend to run in families, as does special inborn magical talents, like parselmouth or empathy. Spells tend to be longer and more complex than HP world, although skilled wizards can perform weaker magic more easily, shortening the incantations and/or making them silent, as their control grows. Wands are not the only kind of magical focus items, although they are the main ones taught to be used at Hogwarts, and the average wizard can't cast spells without the aid of a good focus, preferably one attuned to them, although most can cast some weaker ones wandless, and really powerful spells usually need a a high quality, powerful, efficient, personally attuned focus even when cast by above average wizards.
The magical world is hidden from the muggle world by something called the 'veil', a worldwide spell established by the sacrifices of groups of powerful wizards worldwide at highly potent magical sites around the world, due to the destruction of magical resources and slaughter of magical peoples and creatures and overly large demands on them by non-magical peoples. What the veil does is cause any areas that have a significant amount of magic in them to develop non-magical 'alternate-zones' which those without magic can only perceive and enter, and even non-magical technology only detects. Magical forests have non-magical ones in alternate dimensional space right on top of them, generated by the veil during it's initial casting, or later if the forest developed later, with similar ecosystems and such, just non-magical, magical buildings have non-magical ones in the same place, or at least an empty plot of land. The pyramids are all fake magical replicas of the magical originals, in the same places, with similar legends. Wards over the know veiled zones discourage magical creatures from leaving them, or magical plants from passing their seeds outside of them without the veiled zones growing, in order to reduce chances of mundane humans encountering magical creatures or plants and needing to be oblivated or something like that. There is something of a 'veil threshold' before a new magical place develops a veil on it's own, or old ones that missed being veiled because there wasn't that much magic there, so wizards often have to cast veil wards on their own, especially around smaller ancient magic sites, smaller magic stuff they can't move, or new magic houses, which can be difficult, as it requires a lot of power to 'veil' an area, especially a large one, so there are specially trained groups of wizards in different magical governments around the world who specialize in working with and establishing new veils, mostly around new magical houses.
Magic is kept hidden from the human populace at large because of long-proven cultural prejudices and superstition against magic use, overpopulation creating destructive level of demand on magical resources, which are rarer than even valuable non-magical resources, thus a need to keep the magic aware population limited in order to help preserve those resources from people who might turn to magic for things like weapons and miracle cures on a larger scale than just the magic aware population deals with. It might not be fair, but it has been mostly proven by magical researchers that too much destruction of magical plants and animals would cause devastating effects on the ecosystem and life in general, likely causing destruction worse than the extinction of the dinosaurs, far worse than the muggles could cause with even stuff like non-magical ecosystem destruction and global warming from pollution and stuff.
Some upper level components and liasons exist between most major non-magical governments and their magical counterparts, although the geo-political maps of the magical world are often different from the muggle versions, for instance Australia, most of the US, Canada, and South Africa and the UK still follow the Brittish Royals on the magical side, the Queen of England, or more directly, her 'Court of Mages' or 'High Wizengamot', lead by the 'Court Wizard' who is appointed directly. The High Wizengamot is a group of old, and mostly wealthy magical families found in the UK and each of the colonies, who are lesser nobles of various types, which oversee the entire commonwealth, each of the colonies has at least one, and the UK has 9, 3 from Wales, 1 from London, 2 from Scottland, and 3 from Ireland, some of them are also part of the House of Lords in the mundane world. The Court Wizard is basically a personal representative of the crown and head bodyguard of the Royal Family, and usually represents them in magical society, particularly the Wizengamot, or at least attends to them when they are present themselves, and is basically their proxy in the magical government, but is a particularly powerful and prestigious position. There is also a bunch of Lesser Wizengamot, one that covers the UK, and one for each colony or major colony group, which are formed of elected individuals from each district, the districts drawn based on population and geo-political zones by the High Wizengamot, and approved by the Court Wizard or Royal Family. The Lesser Wizengamot selects the heads of different Ministry Departments, while the High Wizengamot appoints the various Ministers of Magic in the UK or any other zone, although the Court Wizard or a majority vote of the High Wizengamot can veto choices of dept. heads, and the Court Wizard or Royal Family can veto Ministers of Magic, even when chosen by the majority of the High Wizengamot. The High Wizengamot creates laws for the entire commonwealth, and members of it can attend lesser Wizengamots in their area with two votes. The lesser wizengamot creates laws within their individual areas. When magical laws don't specifically cover something, the mundane equivalent in the area is usually the rule, although often this requires wizengamot precedent, and it is usually coded in at some point.
People with a 'lit flame' tend to be generally tougher, healthier, stronger, and longer lived than non-magicals by a noteable amount, and aren't allowed in the Olympics or mudane sporting events because of this. With special training like advanced martial arts or specific enhancement spells or some special talents this can go farther. This is a scaling effect, more powerful mages tend to be stronger, healthier, tougher, and longer lived than weaker ones. They can often heal fully with time from normally 'incurable' mudane diseases like herpes, AIDS, and most types of cancer, and are extremely resistant to most lesser mundane diseases, the common cold hardly ever is even noticed by mages, or doesn't last as long, and serious flus are more like common colds for them, if they catch it at all, which is less likely than for mundanes. The price of this is that this also makes them vulnerable to magical diseases, which usually won't catch in people who don't have enough magic suffusing their bodies, and some rare mundane diseases that react to the magic in their bodies, chicken pox being the most common one, taking the form of dragon pox in magical people, which tends to have larger, darker spots that are more painful, and last longer, and need special magical care to help cure. Some forms of magical 'disease', particularly the infection variation of Lupine Lyncanthropy, will actually light flames with successful infection of a mundane, so all werewolves are magical, although not necessarily trained, although few would consider getting themselves infected by a nearly incurable and dangerous condition just to 'light their sparks', it has happened some rare times with near 'squibs', people from traditionally magical families who don't manage to light their spark either naturally or with special training.
This pattern follows with magical creatures compared to normal creatures, and magical creatures also tend to be smarter on average, especially if they have mundane equivalents, which they'll be smarter than, and often grow in intelligence and abilities with age for many of the longer lived and more powerful ones. Most magical entities are not normal living creatures however, but spirits, which is why they usually are only found in magical areas. Spirits are basically like the class 2 entities from Whateley Universe, and there are some that are considered 'gods' or 'demons' or 'angels' and other things templated from belief systems and such, and thus getting their power from the belief in such.
The Whateley Universe laws of magic:
http://gemini.ralabs.com/userbible09xz/ ... s+of+Magic
These laws should be used for this universe, except the Law of Nemisis, Rule of Threes, and Law of Names, however there is magic involving these three which works to a degree due to the Law of Definition and belief in these sorts of things and high class spirits influencing things, as well as some spirits having 'true names' they are vulnerable to.
Unlike HP universe, magic and technology aren't incompatible, however strong magic can distort and disrupt electromagnetic fields, partly evidenced by how magical energy often 'glows', so normal electronic equipment often malfunctions or is damaged by magic, and needs to be modified or enchanted by some sort of specialist in such a way that it is protected from this, and veiled sites don't get radio or antenna television, and often need to have special enchantments in populated areas to ensure the mudane parts get the signals, and power and phone lines that go through vieled zones work. Because of this, a computer or cell phone bought in a mundane store wouldn't work in a veiled area until specially enchanted, and it is usually a better idea to get a magical cell phone or computer from a magical store, which have greater capabilities anyway, although aren't always as compatible with muggle networks. There is a separate magical internet, cell phone system, television waves, and radio waves, which operate with magical energy fields rather than electromagnetic ones, and are longer ranged than electromagnetic equivalents, although some types of wards will block them. (For instance, Hogwarts has wards that block cell phones, TV, and radio except during certain times outdoors for radio, and restricts the magi-net in classes to wire hookups that lead from the teachers' desks, although it has emergency contact phones that subvert the wards in the Headmaster's Office, the Deputy Headmaster's Office, each Head of House Office, and the Hospital Wing, and a front/administrative office outside of the Castle Grounds in Hogsmead Village.
House Elves are a type of spirit template, which can be established with a ward/enchantment on a building people live in for most of the year, which creates semi-sentient servants powered by the ambient magic released by the people living there and the area itself. These creatures have abilities mostly revolving around minor repair, cooking, and cleaning, and can perform some limited shopping and services to the owners of the building outside of the property, but can't leave it for very long and are weakened outside of it. They are nigh-immortal, living so long as they aren't killed or run out of energy, and don't need to sleep and eat, although they can eat some magical substances and some go into a dormant state similar to sleeping. They generally look like 2 foot tall naked humanoid beings, and giving them clothes 'frees' them, which is a way to kill them, and basically end the enchantment on the building, although they can sometimes be re-bonded to another building before they dissipate after being freed. Sometimes they can be bound to families, rather than buildings, as long as those families own properties, which allows them to cover multiple separate properties, and any new properties the family gets or moves to, although then their life will be in danger if the family loses all properties. House Elves are generally loyal to the true owners of a property, or at least the rightful inhabitants. They tend to have long, pointed ears, large eyes, and large hands and feet. Beyond this, their appearance varies based on their treatment, the treatment of the property, the personalities of those living there, and the qualities of the magical fields about. For instance a friendly family who treat the house elf and property respectfully and and are active and magically strong, and have healthy vegetation in the yard will probably have a house elf that is very pretty/handsome and elegant, with refined, graceful features and movement, and a kindly demeanor. A mean or nasty family will likely have a somewhat demonic looking house-elf. A family that doesn't respect their property or elf, or especially outright abuses it, will find themselves with an ugly, hairy, wrikled, leathery skinned elf, with distorted features and bulbous eyes, and various deformities. Larger properties with smaller families, or without families present often will often still need other servants besides the elves, so rich families often have butlers and maids and gardners and such. Also, while house elves can often instinctively figure out the basics, especially if the person who established the enchantment or long term inhabitants have known how to do such, house elves aren't so great at more advanced repairs or more complex cooking and cleaning tasks, and can have limited energy for their chores. House elves can go into a sleep-like stasis when not working to conserve energy, in which they'll usually awaken from when summoned or once their energy returns or if they sense disruptions in the household or that it is getting dirty or in time for making meals or specific chores and such. They are also usually invisible, usually only appearing visibly to inhabitants of the house who call for them or trusted guests, although some special powers and abilities can see them in invisible states, they still tend to be pretty stealthy. House-elves can learn new skills by being taught normally, or by having special spells cast over them by those who know those skills, although the second tends to work better, as they have limited intelligence, but they can usually only properly learn skills related to their natural talents, housekeeping, cooking, gardening, repair work, and related servant tasks of a household, and they can often learn magic of this sort, or that can be applied this way, although they can usually only apply it this way, outside of extreme situations, for instance sometimes braver house-elves have been known to attack household invaders like robbers or people assaulting the inhabitants with floating cutlery and cleaning tools, or slithering garden hoses, or capture them in rubbish bins which drag them outside to the outside trash bins and dump them in. Some house-elves will even hunt pests, like roaches and mice, for people who don't have proper or strong enough wards against such.
Races like centaurs and mermaids are races that came from humans interbreeding with certain animal spirits, and managed to breed true into new races. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Dwarves, Trolls, Giants, Oni, Cyclops, Deep Spawn(Sea Goblins), and High Elves, Forest Elves, Sea Elves, Dark Elves, and a some others found in various areas around the world are purely magical sentient humanoid races who are born with 'lit flames', or not born at all, because their biology doesn't function without magic, and elves and goblins tend to have stronger magic than the average human mage, although the strongest human mages tend to be about equivalent with the strongest elven or goblin mages. They mostly have their own cultures and separate places to live from the humans, but agreed to follow the Statue of Secrecy, keeping the lid on things from the majority of the non-magical human populace. Some are natural evolutions, and some are mystical mutations or enchanted modified versions or versions that interbred with spirits but established breeding populations of those races or humans. None of these races individually match the human magical population except base goblins, which have a slightly higher population than magical humans, but are vastly overpopulated by non-magical humans, and Deep Spawn, who have about twice the population of magical humans, although overall other magical races vastly out-populate magical humans, they tend to live in separate areas, Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Dwarves for instance usually living underground, and the others generally living in isolated areas and their own cities, or in the cases of Deep Spawn, Sea Elves, and Mermaids, underwater. There is trading and politics between these places, although some prefer to live more isolated, particularly most elves Elves and the Deep Spawn, and there are some racial hatreds and rivalries, particularly the Dwarves and Goblins, or the Humans and Goblins, although human/goblin relations often change with times and areas. Goblins tend to be dumber than humans on average, have shorter life spans than even non-magical humans, usually somewhere between 20 and 40. Hobgoblins on the other hand are usually longer lived, and about as smart as humans, but don't multiply nearly as fast, having about 2% the population of the regular goblins. Japanese 'Mountain Tengu' are actually an isolated race of Hobgoblins with reddish skin and less hair, while 'Crow Tengu' are a variant that interbred with crow-spirits, and both of which are usually larger, stronger, and smarter on average than most races of Hobgoblins in other areas, and notably isolated from regular goblin populations, and not living underground, but in veiled mountain cities and hidden forest villages, the evolutionary and cultural differences are significant, but largely related to diet, martial arts training, Buddist/Taoist/Shinto magical practices, and sun exposure. There are often small populations of races, usually human variants, mixed with spirits, or rarely other humanoid races, in isolated areas, such as 'true lyncanthropes' with animal shapeshifting, or cat-people or other animal-people, but these races generally have very small populations, usually no more than a village or two worth, and it is more common to see individual 'half-breeds'/'spirit-kin' mixed in with populations they derive from, often facing prejudice or taken advantage of for any special abilities they might have, usually not breeding true, although often leaving behind special abilities in their bloodlines. Strongly magical humans can also rarely breed with centaurs, mermaids, or strongly magical elves, either creating centaurs, mermaids, or half-elves respectively, half-elves usually can't have children except with humans, and even then it is very difficult unless the human bloodline is strongly magical, they even have trouble having children with other half-elves, because like elves they need to be born with a spark in order to survive, and can't get pregnant as easily or often as humans in the first place, like elves, and like humans they usually aren't born with a spark, so there are a _lot_ of still-births. A lot of part-human spirit-kin are similar to half-elves in having trouble breeding, which is part of why they are rare compared to dominant magical races, although there have been exceptions, whereas the other races tend to be less compatible with spirit-breeding than humans, or have more restrictive cultural mores, or their inherently magical nature overwhelms the spirit-side more and within less generations.
Rather than using Horcurxes, Voldemort is a Lich like in D&D, with a single soul-container, although he initially managed to retain a handsomer, healthier body than the typical lich, and his soul container is well protected and hidden. However the methods he used to retain a handsomer, healtheir body also prevented his auto-ressurection re-spawn that most liches get with the normal rituals, and the level of wards protecting and hiding his soul-container even kept his astral form away from it, causing him to wander the lands in a weakened state, hiding himself, after his first defeat.
The 'Unforgiveable' curses are only 'known' as such, they aren't outright illegal, as they are okay for certain uses, for instance the pain curse can be used for re-starting failed hearts in magical healing, the killing curse can be used to painlessly mercy kill animals, such as for meat, and the mind-control curse can be used on your own familiar or for animal training. They are however, normally illegal to use on humans, because the actions done with them, torture, murder, and mind-control, are generally illegal, although they are often used by less creative dark wizards or in magical wars. The specific ones listed as the 'Three Unforgiveables' were favored by Death Eaters and lots of lesser European Dark Wizards and magical criminals as they are relatively easy to teach for such dangerous spells, and the average wizard can't cast a shield spell at all, and even the typical one most commonly learned by above average wizards in the area won't block them either, making them advantageous in dealing with the average wizard. A wizard with serious combat training can block them pretty easily, more powerful wizards barriers will even block/reduce them. (Barriers are like Negima!, a personal defense field that protects a mage from physical and magical harm to some degree, reducing forces against them, the average wizard can make a weak one, but usually only for a little while before it wears them out, or briefly due to stress for self-protection, like if they fall, or notice something about to hit them, stronger mages can make stronger barriers, and particularly strong ones can keep one up all day, or even 24/7, unless magically exhausted or recovering from magical exhaustion, more skilled combat trained mages or those who are just good at it can boost them in fights to particularly strong levels temporarily or throughout fights, which means skilled and powerful combat mages tend to be practically invulnerable to lesser attacks during a fight, although they still have to dodge or shield attacks in their own power class to properly protect themselves, barriers are particularly effective against weaker prank curses and such, which means stronger combat who can keep them up all day can usually ignore most such spells)
The ministry of magic doesn't use dementors, although Dark Wizards can summon them and control them (although not all who can summon them can control them, particularly Voldemort. The wizard prison uses lots of magic suppression and sealing stuff, but it doesn't work so well on magic users in Voldemort's power class. Voldemort, if somehow captured properly, would likely need a number of strong wizards regularly maintaining the power of his wards so he couldn't burst them. Ghosts are like in Negima, lone souls, and are basically just like spirits, but usually weaker than the average spirit, and usually only come from magical persons, with a 'lit flame', or those whose deaths were traumatic enough to cause the flame to light as they died in cases of mundanes. Ghosts are usually formed from traumatic deaths or those using certain magical techniques, and like spirits usually need some way to maintain their magical power, typically by haunting magical building or area and making it their hallow. There are exorcisms and special magical attacks to get rid of malevolent or annoying ghosts, forcing them to pass on, although some people keep them around. Some ghosts even evolve into greater spirits, especially famous ones, which often become 'gods' or 'demons'. The Monkey King Sun Wukon for instance was a Hobgoblin spirit-kin mixed with a monkey, who became a massively powerful martial artist and sorcerer, and went on some adventures that gained him a lot of fame, and learned a technique that allowed him to stay on as a ghost, and then become a lesser god type spirit, who remained without a hallow due to the level of belief in him, and sometimes answers prayers by priests or summonings and such, or wanders about, mostly in China, doing mischief and heroics. Odin is another example, he was a great human mage with divination and transformation skills very high, who lead a family of powerful wizards, and eventually came to be seen as a great hero or even outright god, and when he died he remained as a powerful spirit, and gave birth to spirit-kin and other spirits in mystic adventures after that, or allied with other powerful spirits from his area, creating the Aesier. Not all gods of course are created this way, many pure belief and/or worship creates, or were lesser spirits elevated by belief and/or worship. There are many different forms of magic and magical traditions, often revolving around local cultures, philosophies, and religions, as well as local magical resources and history, or in different races.
While technology has mostly been developed by non-magical humans, and magical humans have adopted it to a degree, it is less prevalent due to their longer life-spans and magical alternatives to things that various technologies were developed for, some stuff has been adopted or ideas adapted, but not all of it, and some has been adopted only for mundane-human society blending purposes. Older witches and wizards tend to be particularly resistant to newer technologies like TV and the internet, and magical society is more likely to keep tried and true stuff, especially enchanted versions of it, like swords and such, rather than adopting guns on a wider scale (partly because regular bullets are ineffective against barriers and shields and wards, and enchanted bullets and the specially enchanted guns that can fire them are especially difficult to make, and not really worth the effort compared to enchanted crossbows (the larger crossbow bolts are easier to enchant than bullets, and less complex crossbows, and automatic weapons are infeasible since bullets or bolts need to be enchanted individually, or simple spell-flinging with combat spells). There are enchanted automatic weapons which conjure extra bullets and are tougher and stronger and more stable and accurate and stuff than mundane equivalents, but only someone with a 'lit flame' can operate them in such a way as to allow bullet conjuring effects, an it does use their magic power, or magic storage pieces of the gun, and it costs magic power to use that feature, so it isn't truly unlimited ammo, however they are rarely used in actual mage combat, usually only for mages involved in mundane millitary encounters, which is of questionable legality internationally due to secrecy issues, although mages living in areas where mundane wars are going on often use them instead of spells these days, since it is less suspicious, and the advantages of the special weapons aren't as significant in mudane hands. Other races hardly use modern technology at all, partly because they are less connected to non-magical humans, or often because they are dumber, in the case of trolls, goblins, and giants, or to egotistical, in the case of oni and dark-elves, or simply too connected to their traditional ways and much longer lived, like High Elves, although goblins and hobgoblins will occasionally buy them from humans, and there are some hobgoblins and dwarves who make enchanted guns and cannons, mostly musket level tech, and some groups of elves and hobgoblins use enchanted rockets, similar to the ancient Chinese war-rockets. Merfolk have also developed 'unsealed' enchanted variants of submarines, and Deep Spawn have something similar inspired by what the Merfolk made, although less of them, and often favoring size and firepower over function. Deep Spawn subs are actually one of the main reasons for mundane ship and airplane disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, as Deep Spawn, especially the groups that live around there, are particularly antagonistic to merfolk and their human kin.
The Death Eaters weren't motivated by 'pureblood' stuff, or at least not muggle-hate, although a number of the more notable ones were 'purebloods' people from magical families with recent ancestors who all successfully lit their sparks and became competent enough wizards, and are bred for magical power and tend to be a bit elitist because of the reputations and power of their families, but it is more of a power or traditions factor than prejudice against non-magicals or those with non-magical family members, or weaker magical family members, and more of a factor of those with darker magical family traditions. The death eaters were basically a loose collection of magical mercenaries, lesser dark wizard glory seekers, magical sociopaths, magical psychopaths, and magical criminals that Voldemort managed to get control of through a variety of means including blackmail, personal power earning their respect, threats, money, and other means. Their primary goal is the takeover of the Magical Commonwealth, although they also had some conflicting aspects they were supposedly going for, such as killing off or suppressing other races, supporting other races that are working with Voldemort, such as Goblins or Werewolves (although others within Voldemort's ranks heard the opposite, and that Voldemort's recruitments of them were based on lies, which they were, although Voldemort would have betrayed any of the groups who lost value to him). They Death Eaters are still bad for the mundanes of course, because they tend to abuse their powers and secrecy of the government to sate their dark desires on mundanes, stealing from them, enslaving them, raping women, murdering and torturing them for fun, creating disasters and spreading diseases in the mundane world to kill large amounts of them with motivations related to reducing their populations by force, and so on.
Lily's sacrifice protection was a ritual of sorts she used, if one with primal origins, rarely known, combined with her power, that used the sacrifice of her life to protect Harry and get revenge on Voldemort if he tried to kill Harry, as she knew she couldn't defeat Voldemort in a straight up fight. Harry's scar was due to the fact that even Lily's sacrifice wasn't strong enough to hold back 100% of the power of Voldemort's spell used to try and kill Harry properly, a rune Lily painted with her own blood on his forehead was so overcharged by Voldemort's spell that the rune seared itself into Harry's forehead and became a scar. Lily is credited with Voldemort's defeat, rather than Harry, and there was no prophesy, Voldemort was just targeting the Potters because they got on his list for being in the order and he had the opportunity, and they were his latest targets for personally targeting, since groups Death Eaters had been unable to defeat them, and they were strong enough that they might grow into a real threat to him pretty soon. Lily he'd vastly underestimated, and was already mostly there. The Potter lineage has had some odd ancestry and spirit gifts over the generations, partly from interbreeding with other magical families, and Lily is actually a spirit-kin, her 'father' was an elf-like fairy spirit of the dream-world, who she got her beauty from, and Lily was believed to be the product of some sleeping around at a party, as her parents were both a bit loose even after getting married, at least during their earlier years, and still partied and got drunk and stuff with her father's college friends, as her father was still in college when they conceived her, although they didn't figure out her biological father during that time, and Lily only found out about her 'biological' spirit father later in her Hogwarts years, who wound up being killed helping protect Lily and James from a powerful demon summon Voldemort sent after them. Harry winds up with the Dursleys because Lily and James didn't know about their level of anti-magic prejudices, since mostly out of fear and pressure from Petunia and Lily's parents while they were still alive, they were mostly polite to them, and they had relatively little contact, and Lily and James were hidden away shortly after the deaths of Petunia and Lily's parents, and didn't have contact with Vernon and Petunia past the funeral, which Petunia and Vernon were still respectful at out of respect of the funeral and who it is for. Vernon and Petunia drive away what few of Lily and James' friends try to visit Harry from visiting early on, Moony on excuse of him not being a respectable role-model due to being a werewolf and usually poor, Sirius, who did get a trial in this, because he isn't competent to pass for a muggle, and Harry is too young to properly understand keeping the magical world secret, and they trick him into just giving some money to help pay for Harry, which he sees as sufficient with his generally irresponsible lifestyle and not considering himself good with young kids, and Lily doesn't have any surviving friends who were close enough, and they generally managed to turn away family well wishers, or avoid them entirely, due to wards Dumbledore put up for them, due to possible grudges that there might be on the surviving family of Lily by the Death Eaters, and Voldemort if he is still out there or returns. Most of the reason they accept Harry in the first place is the money they get to care for him and the fact that taking him in is the only way they'll get the wards, as Dumbledore wouldn't be able to cast lasting or effective wards without Harry there, due to the thing with Lily's Sacrifice.
Harry is abused by the Dursleys, but not quite as badly as implied in cannon. He did stay in the cupboard, but not all the time, he has a normal bedroom, although he was stuck with mostly Dudley's hand-me-downs and cast-offs and Dudley used his room as something of rubbish storage for toys he doesn't want or broke but doesn't want to throw away, and Harry wasn't usually allowed to play, and was forced to do a lot of chores, and given less and very simplistic food when he misbehaves and is sent to the cupboard, like just a slice of bread and glass of tap-water. He isn't beaten, but is occasionally smacked, particularly when accidental magic or conflicts with Dudley or mistakes with Chores that damage stuff or something like that is involved, and Dudley and Dudley's gang have beaten him up occasionally, when they manage to catch him. He's also been a major victim of bullying due to being short, scrawny, with hand-me-down clothes and glasses, and due to pressure from Dudley's gang preventing him from making friends. His accidental magic is connected to his subconscious dream expression stuff, his body, and transformation, and wind, as there is a potter talent for wind magic, and his dream related stuff is kind of random, but usually doesn't last long, and his transformation and body stuff are similar, although the body stuff is often lasting type stuff like re-growing his hair and healing himself faster. Unlike cannon he gets better grades than Dudley and there isn't much the Dursleys can do about it, although they aren't good enough to skip grades or anything, partly because Dudley messes up a lot of his homework and the Dursleys pack him with so much chores he doesn't study as much as most kids with his brains might or often is too tired to care enough to do homework, or has messed up or lack of school supplies and they refuse to let him use Dudley's stuff, despite Dudley often being the one to mess up his supplies. Accusing Dudley gets him in big trouble if Vernon and Petunia find out, so he doesn't accuse Dudley at school, and is forced to usually pretend he forgot his homework.
Hogwarts has an aggressive curriculum, that also covers mundane subjects up through high school level, and uses magical methods to accelerate learning of such, for instance non-magical foreign languages can be taught with a thing called a language lozenge, created by someone who knows the language and learned it the normal way, which temporarily gives skill in the language, and the more that it is practiced while the lozenge is in effect, the more one learns of it when the lozenge wears of, with smarter people it being more effective for, so a person can become fluent in a fraction of the time using the lozenges. History is a shared subject of both magical and non-magical versions, which are often compared and contrasted, although there is specialized magical history classes as electives later on, and the early history classes are careful to cover magic-world stuff for mundane-borns to become familiar. Most who enter Hogwarts find out through magical family members, as roughly 40% of the attending population is pureblood, and roughly 30% is half-blood, with the final 30% being mundane-born, the mundane-born are usually those who somehow lit their sparks accidentally, or due to interference from spirits, or somehow managing to start spell-casting with the limited magic learning resources you can find in the mundane world, which normally don't work without the 'flame lit', but sometimes someone lucky or particularly talented will manage to light it in one of their attempts, especially those with great magical power potential, so there tends to be lots of powerful mundane-borns, although due to magic strength running in families, some purebloods are often pretty powerful as well, with half-bloods being the least likely to show powerful members, and mundane-borns having the highest average power, because they are less likely to have the training to 'light their spark' off weaker power. Hogwarts isn't the only magical school in the UK, but it is a rather exclusive and special one, a bit expensive, although there are scholarships, and it doesn't accept transfers, and only accepts students from 11-12 who have been confirmed to have 'lit their sparks' before age 10.
Accidental magic can happen in a variety of ways, usually as special talents, particularly elemental ones, innate granted spells, such as spirit-granted powers, and the creation of 'wild sprites', crazed temporary spirits with little direction which usually commit mischief until they run out of energy, emergency spells related to wishes and stress, usually with simplistic effects, and things of a similar nature. It usually happens to children or mages in early stages of their training soon after 'lighting their sparks', during magical growth periods, or high stress incidents when magical control goes haywire due to stress or surprise or when magical power regeneration exceeds magical reserves. Most fully trained adult wizards don't suffer accidental magic incidents, although some will if they don't cast anything for a while, or have magic related disabilities or mental disabilities or insanity of some form, or are under large amounts of stress.
Mundane-borns are detectable by skilled mages feeling their power, and the UK has wards that detect most magic cast in mundane-areas, and also most spark-lighting in mundane areas, which helps them track down those who get their sparks lit who aren't from magical families who would recognize it, and bring those people into the magical world. Occasionally there is problems with this, often due to individual or family prejudices or secrecy issues, and they have to do a 'fire sealing to spark' ritual, and erase memories of magic, although it is difficult enough to do, and such spontaneous manifestations rare enough that it is preferred to induct people into the magic world if possible, even where there are those with prejudices against those who are mundane born. The 'fire sealing to spark' ritual is harder when someone's spark has been lit for a while and stabilized, and near impossible for those who are really powerful, but it is occasionally used with weaker magical criminals, and their memory of magic erased. Most people from magical families have their sparks light on their own between ages 5 and 9. Squibs are those with either exceptionally weak magic, or never manage to light their sparks, who are born to magical families, or those with a rare magical disability that make them unable to perform incantations, which keeps them from developing magical skills normally.
After entering Hogwarts, unlike cannon, Harry's mistreatment by the Dursleys will be realized, and he'll have custody switched to Sirius. Sirius is something of a rich partying, upper-class magic playboy rebel celebrity type. He is from a prominent magical family with dark reputation and tendencies, but most of the dark members are dead or imprisoned from the war, and he's been a partying rogue, using a ritual that keeps him from being able to impregnate girls for until he is ready to settle down and get married in order to avoid the girls he's been sleeping around with forcing him into marriage with a pregnancy, and generally stringing along lots of girls and going through tons of breakups and get-togethers and partying. He is something of a 'highly eligible bachelor' due to being rich and from an old family and magically powerful, but he has his personality issues and likes his bachelor partying lifestyle, although part of it is phases of depression and avoidance related to the death of James, Peter turning traitor and being in Azkaban, and drifting apart from Remus due to Remus not liking Sirius' lifestyle and refusal to grow up, and being embarrassed by Sirius' wealth, and not wanting to mooch off him.
Ginny Weasley is Yandere for Harry Potter, since before even meeting him in person, due to an obsessive personality, a story her mother came up with about Harry Potter and Ginny herself as a romantic idea, although she didn't really mean for Ginny to take it that seriously, although she wouldn't mind Ginny marrying Harry since the Potter family is wealthy, and have a history of success and magical power, and lots of good looks too, and have some notable connections, distant relations to one of the High Wizengamot Lord families from Wales, and another from Scottland, although not direct enough to really count as properly noble, and one ancestor Court Wizard, and it would be marrying up. They are also somewhat related to the Weasleys, more distantly than Harry is to Sirius and the Blacks, but less distantly than the noble families, Harry is 3rd cousins to the Weasley siblings, and a 2nd cousin to Sirius, and also a 3rd cousin to Draco and Nymphadora, although a different branch than the Weasleys.
Wales, Scottland, and Ireland have pseudo-separate mini-ministries, due to high magical population in the UK relative to other parts of the world, which have some slightly different cultures and laws than the main UK ministry, with some relations of that to muggle history and culture in those areas, for instance Scottland and Ireland have lower ages of marriage and potential emancipation than the main UK, and Ireland has it's own separate mini-Wizengamot building for Ireland representatives mainly, although other representatives in the UK are welcome, which is primarily an extra trial court, and a bunch of extra laws and complex bureaucracy, some more socialistic elements, partly due to a generally less wealthy population, and also a large mobs and crime families element, and mob-wars occasionally happening, and it's own separate magical prison, which is lower security and shorter term than Azkaban, which mostly holds people temporarily for magical shoplifting, light assault, or drug-use, and things like that, although London and Diagon Alley's offshoots, particularly Knockturn, have just as bad crime rates, they are mostly covered by the closer main Ministry, which has a somewhat more efficient bureaucracy.
Voldemort makes various attempts to resurrect himself in Harry's early Hogwarts years, while evading capture and potential sealing, even if his soul-container would ensure it could only be temporary capture unless they got their hands on that. He'd succeed during Harry's 4th year, but people initially wouldn't believe it, partly due to ministry cover-up, or suspicions that it was 'just' death eaters, and whatever they did bring out wasn't really Voldemort, but some sort of weaker facsimile. Sirius dies at the end of Harry's 5th year. Dumbledore will die in Harry's 6th, and in Harry's 7th, he'd become determined to destroy Voldemort himself, first he spends a while hunting down the totems of the 'Taboo', artifacts spread throughout the UK that cancel most lesser wards from the inside out and alert the DEs if Voldemort's name is spoken within their range, and wind up taking advantage of his own raw power and the link to Voldemort he has through his scar and Voldemort killing his mother and nearly being destroyed by that in order to overpower the protections hiding Voldemort's soul-container with a high class divination ritual, track it down, break through the defenses, and destroy it. Rather than this killing Voldemort immediately, it causes him to simply become killable, his soul returning to his body, due to the variations on the typical lich process he followed, so Harry has to hunt Voldemort down. Due to damage to his soul, Voldemort can't create a new soul-container right away, plus making one would leave him weak for a while and he needs to destroy Harry in order to prevent Harry from just destroying it again and then catching him while he is still weak, so he winds up allowing Harry to have a confrontation with him soon enough. Harry's side wins the final battle, Harry's fight with Voldemort resembling the sort of level battle Negi has with Rakan in the tournament, with Voldemort's melee defense partner being a high class demonic snake summon, and Harry's melee defense partner being Ginny. Ron and Hermione are another pair, with Ron the blaster type, and Hermione knowing Shokotan karate, which she was a brown-belt in before entering Hogwarts, having learned it for self-defense anti-bullying purposes.
Harry's healing after the final battle reveals that Ginny got him with love potions, due to having become more desperate in her obsession, and her interrogation afterwards with truth serum in court once Harry is cured reveals that she actually either mind-controled, threatened away, or outright murdered and placed blame on Death Eaters or Voldemort some of her love rivals for Harry. She winds up being sent away to Azkaban, and Harry winds up with Hermione after she has a falling out with Ron over his lack of growing up and cheating on her and taking too much advantage of his war fame and recently developed magical combat power. Working together, Harry and Hermione use their war hero influence and Harry's money and connections to help ensure DEs are convicted properly this time, regardless of their money, partly by ensuring the wizengamot sessions they are tried in are fully attended, rather than partial sessions of mostly bribed officials, and leading a catching of those wizengamot officials who have been accepting bribes, largely by interrogating Lucius Malfoy with veritaserum this time.
Magical combat, at least at higher levels in this setting, tends towards cool and grand levels similar to Mahou Sensei Negima, rather than cannon HP, and the world is meant to be more rich and multi-cultural and make more sense than cannon HP. The themes are supposed to be more supernatural, action, horror, and occasional comedy, in that order. Ginny's obsessive and insane stalking and stuff of Harry is almost a side-story that is more horror, and looks relatively innocent from Harry's perspective parts. What makes it worse is that he still liked her for a while while off the love potion while adventuring to take out Voldemort's taboo artifacts and soul-container with Ron and Hermione, Ginny wasn't strong enough in combat magic to join him before that, but by the time he arrived at Hogwarts after that she was stronger than Hermione, mostly due to the rough environment precipitated by the Carrows and Snape running Howarts, raw stubborness, and impressive magical potential she managed to push herself into a growth phase for, as well as recovering a bit of skills she gained from a temporary possession by Voldemort's enchanted diary (which he'd created as a magical experiment, and was actually powered by the sacrificed soul of Moaning Myrtle, but had most of Voldemort's skill, knowledge, and personality from the time he'd created it, he didn't do more of it because it took too much effort to prepare and the entities created weren't loyal to him, but rather competitive towards him and sought his destruction to replace him).
There is no Quidditch, as there are too many different powers to make such a sport fair, instead Hogwarts has lots of different clubs, and Harry is on the broomstick racing club, which treats broomstick racing as a light trill sport (attempts to make it competitive have generally failed due to excessive cheating and difficulty regulating it, and vast power differences making speed differences too different between riders). The Broom Racing World Cup is more of an obstacle course show, which is performed while wearing special magical restraints, and only magic can get to the broom, and regulated broom enchantments, and is mostly an air acrobatics fair type thing, comparable to a magical Cirque de Sole with flying and abnormally 'fit' athletes whose innate magic makes them stronger, faster, and tougher than mundanes, and training makes them much better at this kind of stuff than the average wizard, plus are in tight clothing and tend to be particularly good looking.
The goblins run, and some groups of human mages in less lawful areas of the human magical geo-political map run rather open to other races gladiatorial tournaments, including a really huge one that takes place about once every 4 years, and a slightly smaller one every summer. While technically to knockout, and most non-goblin competitors prefer to keep it that way, deaths are allowed, except for one of the human run arenas in the USA. These are surprisingly popular and have a lot of betting surrounding them, more popular than the broom shows, although the broom shows are more kid/peacenik-friendly. Harry gets some of his training preparing to battle Voldemort through these during the summers and vacations after Voldemort's death, going to different ones internationally in disguise, to avoid being targeted by Voldemort. He gets training from various sources at Hogwarts for them, martial arts training from Cho Chang, general magical battle type training from Flitwick, manages to get some higher level magical battle training from Dumbledore in 6th year, or at least tips and a fight with him as a demonstration for the school, since Harry's combat abilities had surpassed any other student or teacher (Dumbledore beats him).
While nicer and more logical on the surface than cannon Harry Potter, it has some really horrific elements under the surface which rival, if not surpass elements from cannon Harry Potter. This includes the Forbidden Forest being full of dangerous and powerful fey creatures that cause time and bodies to warp according to their fickle whims, some lesser eldritch horrors, or magical beings that man was not meant to know, who are either so far beyond humanity that they don't realize it exists, or are malevolent towards it, or will steamroll humans for their mysterious goals. Rampant interpersonal manipulation at various levels of the wizarding world, the average wizard simply not being trustworthy, despite usually playing at it and not getting caught so often, along with a relatively lax and easy to avoid getting caught legal system. Also, some far more violent and amoral other races, particularly goblins, giants, trolls, and dark-elves. Dark Wizards rampantly abusing their powers in secret, particularly against mundane human society and individuals, taking advantage of their powers, especially memory manipulation and mind-control magicks that the typical mundane has no defense against, and poor wizards rampantly stealing basics like food and goods sale-able in the magical world from mundanes, widespread magical tax evasion causing bribes to be highly viable in the magical government, and massive other hidden abuses and problems.
