[HPforGrownups] Wizards in wartime

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 51385

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?

We know that at least some wizards keep abreast of what's going on in
muggledom. If they knew that there was a war on, then there would have been
time for a research wizard or several to come up with a charm to divert a
bomb.

Most bombing affected the cities (as someone else said, not just London) but
I get the impression from the books that most wizards live in the country.

So possibly not too much effect - with one exception. I don't think any
wizards would have escaped Hiroshima. There wasn't any advance warning that
that was coming and the wizards would have been incinerated along with the
muggles.

Even more off the wall suggestion - I wonder if that's why Grindelwald
became a nuisance in 1945 - if he was so angry at the slaughter of wizards
by muggles that he decided to get "revenge"...

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

Would the MoM have let them? It would _really_ have given the game away. (I
have this delightful mental picture of groups of spivvy wizards in London
selling stuff on the black market!)

> 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.

Though the French, Polish, etc wizards may well have managed ok. And
hopefully the German MoM would have advised them how best to avoid being
seen.

Cheers

Ffred

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