WWII and Wizards

[bluesqueak <pipdowns@etchells0.demon.co.uk>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51350

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) 
<catlady at w...>" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> JOdel wrote:
> 
> << The WW may not even have *been* at war during Riddle's school 
> days. >>

> Catlady:
> This is something I have wondered a lot about lately. Even if the 
> wizarding folk don't go to Muggle wars, that War came to them: 
> Does the magic that hides Diagon Alley and Platform 9 3/4 from 
> Muggles also protect them from bombs dropped from airplanes? Could 
> wizards who lived in London Charm their houses to make all bombs 
> and shrapnel go somewhere else? Suppose they lived in flats? (DO 
> wizards ever live in flats?) I am so ignorant of history: were 
> other places (besides London) Blitzed?

Yes.

Liverpool was hit very badly; so was Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow 
(I think). Other smaller places got hit if German intelligence 
thought there was important industry there. Most of the countryside 
was bomb-free unless a German bomber got lost (they had to drop 
their bombs *somewhere* to have the fuel to get back home).

I think it's extremely difficult for non-Brits to appreciate just 
how *total* WW2 was in these islands. The outlying Channel Islands 
*were* invaded; major cities had huge swathes of destruction (the 
last bit of bomb damage in the City of London was finally built on 
in ... 1998. I played on bomb sites as a child in the 60's and 
70's). Families were separated, food shortages (due to attacks on 
cargo ships) were only kept at bay by a system which rationed all 
meat, most fish, all sugars, all eggs, all sweets, butter, 
margarine, petrol...

> Catlady:
> They wouldn't have wanted to call attention to themselves by 
> violating the black-out. How were they affected by food shortages 
> and rationing?  

 
Wizards would have been hauled off to a muggle court if they 
constantly violated the black-out. There is a case of someone in WW2 
who was fined for 'wasting food'. This turned out to be somebody who 
had been seen throwing stale bread crumbs to the birds...

Having too much food would have been attention calling, as would 
having new clothes too often (clothes were rationed). Wizarding 
clothes in public would have been deeply suspicious. There were 
several panics about 'German spies parachuting in dressed as nuns' 
(nobody knows why 'nuns'). 

Unnecessary travel would have been a bit of a puzzle as well; 
priority was given to troops and cargo, so travelling by public 
transport was apparently a nightmare. Travelling by car was rare due 
to petrol rationing (unless you were in the RAF, and could sneak 
aircraft fuel).

They may have had to relax the 'Platform 9 3/4 requirement', and 
allow kids to travel to Hogswarts by other means. King's Cross was 
right in the middle of the bomb zone. 

> If the wizarding economy goes all the way down to 
> having its own wizarding farms to supply its own food, they might 
> have really cleaned up in the food black market.

In the countryside ancient pasturelands had to be ploughed up in the 
desperate effort to grow enough food (Britain hasn't been self-
sufficient in food since the Industrial Revolution). Inspectors 
turned up regularly at farms to check exactly how many pigs, hens, 
cattle each farm had. Farmers suddenly found their labourers were 
called up (drafted) and had to replaced by female volunteers (the 
Land Army). Village schools were suddenly overcrowded by 'evacuees' 
(children taken away from the bombed cities to live with foster 
parents in safer places).

It is inconceivable to me that the WW could have been *so* separate 
as to be unaffected by all this. At the least they would have had to 
add extra muggle repelling charms to wizarding farms to keep the 
Inspectors off. They would have had to be extra careful to wear 
muggle clothes in public. They would have had to hide the fact that 
they didn't need to ration food, and could travel freely and quickly.
They would have had to explain why they didn't want to take muggle 
evacuees.

Or maybe they didn't. WW2 may have been the start of 'the rise of 
the half blood' as wizarding families developed friendly 
relationships with their muggle foster kids and *their* relatives.

Ironically, Hogwarts would have been fine, and may have been part of 
the reason Tom Riddle's orphanage was happy to let him go. Tom's 
letter *could* have arrived in 1939, the very year when the whole of 
London was frantically planning to evacuate children to safer areas. 

The thought that *one* boy, at least, already had a scholarship to 
some school in a safe, remote area of Scotland would have been a 
weight off the minds of the staff in charge.


>I think they 
> would have wanted to defend their island from invasion, from self-
> interest if not from patriotism: it seems to me that being ruled 
> by an Army of Occupation and a Gestapo would mean, at least, a LOT 
> more eyes to conceal magic from.

There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that the British pagans in 
WW2 contributed to the war effort by planning and casting a white 
magic protective spell against invasion over Britain. This (legend 
says) was a massive, intensively planned effort involving every 
available coven working on the spell on the same night.

Whether true or not, the story has appeared in fiction more than 
once. There's a book using it by Dennis Wheatley (can't remember the 
title) and strangely enough, it appears in the Disney film 'Bedknobs 
and Broomsticks'.

So if JKR was thinking that the Wizarding World was *actively* 
involved in WW2, using their magical skills in the fight, there is 
already a legendary basis for that.

Pip!Squeak