Thinking about it in the shower, I don’t think Harry Potter would be "wildly" successful in the IST world. And, honestly, there’s no reason it should even be remotely successful.
1. With the IST Academy having opened in 1995 the market would be inundated with child/teen/young adult novels set in a “super school.” a. The subject matter would be old hat. b. Lawsuits over children trying to activate their metahuman abilities would be running rampant through the news and roughshod over publishers and authors alike. c. His story, honestly, is going to be a rehash of a dozen other stories written before it and thousands that come after it. i. Metahuman child=minimum level for entry ii. Sole-survivor orphan=drama iii. Metahuman enemy=more drama iv. Bigoted relatives=even more drama v. No idea of his heritage=top notch drama vi. Did we mention that he’s “the Chosen One?” vii. All a rehash.2. The U.N. would be defending its IPs vigorously.3. Books written by (and about) actual metahumans and metahuman kids would be significantly better received.
More interesting would be a group of non-metahuman students having to defeat the metahuman nemesis. That would be a shot in the arm for non-metahuman children and it would be an untapped market.
1. With the IST Academy having opened in 1995 the market would be inundated with child/teen/young adult novels set in a “super school.” a. The subject matter would be old hat. b. Lawsuits over children trying to activate their metahuman abilities would be running rampant through the news and roughshod over publishers and authors alike. c. His story, honestly, is going to be a rehash of a dozen other stories written before it and thousands that come after it. i. Metahuman child=minimum level for entry ii. Sole-survivor orphan=drama iii. Metahuman enemy=more drama iv. Bigoted relatives=even more drama v. No idea of his heritage=top notch drama vi. Did we mention that he’s “the Chosen One?” vii. All a rehash.2. The U.N. would be defending its IPs vigorously.3. Books written by (and about) actual metahumans and metahuman kids would be significantly better received.
More interesting would be a group of non-metahuman students having to defeat the metahuman nemesis. That would be a shot in the arm for non-metahuman children and it would be an untapped market.