The Ministry's Bombs/Spilling the beans to the Beaters.

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 72544

Danger Mouse:
>Rowling has showed us the nuclear bombs of the wizarding world, and 
those capable of using them. Is it ethical for the Ministry to create 
big vats of Love and Time, and a sheet of Death? I don't think so; I 
think it's going too far, and who knows what other things the 
Department of Mysteries contains... I think that they're tampering 
with forces that are too intimate to ourselves and intrinsic to the 
Universe, and that it's going to disastrous in the end.> 
 
Real Thing.:
> Wow.  Death, Time, and Love were manufactured by the Ministry as 
Weapons of Mass Destruction?  NOTHING suggests that these are 
anything other than *exactly" what one would expect to find in the 
Department of Mysteries:  they are legitimate, bona-fide 
mysteries.<snip> I say:  Hats off to the folk in the Dept. o' 
Mysteries for having the guts to take on them> 

Me (Kirstini):
I've been thinking about the Department of Mysteries as something 
akin to the philospohy department of a university, except with more 
practical purpose <eg>. Education at Hogwarts is overwhelmingly 
practical, and (I think that) JKR has confirmed that there are no 
wizarding universities. Instead, we see students who wish to continue 
their studies within certain fields becoming Aurors or Healers. In my 
vague conception of wizarding further education, the real 
intellectuals (probably most of the Ravenclaws) end up at the 
Department of Mysteries. Think about all those desks that the DA 
knock over or hide under( as they smash up several million Galleons 
of research, tch!) - the Unspeakables sit round there and study the 
contents of their various rooms, and try to find  - what? Answers? 
Something? Yes, the Department is co-opted into the Ministry 
building, but then the WW is ruled by a very paranoid administration, 
who would naturally want the biggest, most potentailly life-changing 
studies under their jurisdiction. Probably controling the funding 
too, the tight-fisted...
However, here's a quick question vaguely related to said Department. 
What on earth would Ludo Bagman, rather dim Quidditch player, know 
about the progress of the Ministry/Order/war that Augustus Rookwood, 
be-thonged Unspeakable wouldn't? Who told him what he told Rookwood?
Answer me that, ye canonists.
Kirstini