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I'm working on a story in Hindi.

The protagonist is a fairy princess who was left in her maternal uncle's house because in her world (which is above clouds) she is loved by her maternal family, but when she turns 13 she had to attend a magical school for mages, fairies, and mermaids, and for some reason she has to hide her identity as well.

The protagonists in this book are three girls and two deuteragonist boys.

The school is sort of like junior college with lots of buildings and a small village placed in-between.

The protagonists find out about a ghost who haunts the palace (it's a palace turned university) and whoever sees the ghost, either kids or professors, goes mad. The ghost basically haunts the royals.

For the school, I'm trying to take ideas from my own school - there were houses but they are only for cultural events or sports competitions.

The protagonist is sort of hated by half of the population as they think if she dies then the villainess will not be alive, but there are a few supporters who'll help her and love her.

Is this too similar to Harry Potter or any other fantasy works?

F1Krazy
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Ranchod
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Stop worrying about that. Similarity is fine. "The Magicians" TV series is based on books by Lev Grossman, first published in 2009. It is very similar to Harry Potter (pub. 1997) , but still original content.

In The Magicians, we have a magic school, but more like a college for young adults. There is a lot of sexual content, homosexuality, sexual references, parties, drug use, and all sorts of stuff. One of the female magicians becomes super powerful when she (voluntarily) drinks down about a gallon of sperm from a goat god.

Copyright refers specifically to the writing in the book (some of which, like the names of the characters and other original names,are also trademarked.)

Don't use "Hogwarts", don't use "muggles", etc. Harry Potter was far, far from being the first school for magic. Don't use the terms or names invented by JK Rowling.

But feel free to write your own school however you like, and you can even imitate the plots of Harry Potter or any other novel. Copyright and trademarks cannot protect the plot of a story. They can protect specific original words, some names of people, etc.

Similar is fine. Don't copy anything that can only be found in Harry Potter.

Amadeus
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It does sound similar.

But that's okay. So many (YA) novels being released now aren't original at all - in fact, I'm surprised some of those authors aren't being sued yet.

As long as your story isn't an exact copy and features elements that clearly aren't traced back to Harry Potter, I'd say you're "all good."

Snail Fishy
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