[HPforGrownups] Muggle Protection Act

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 73128

Mhershey:
> I am new here, so maybe this has been discussed,

Don't worry about that, there is always a _slightly_ different perspective
that people bring in!

> but doesn't the
> whole Wizard plan to keep their world from the Muggles just fall
> apart when you realize that there are very few pureblood families
> left, so there must be at least dozens, if not more, Muggle families
> who are related to Wizards and thus know all about the Wizarding
> world?  After all, at the beginning of PoA (I think), Hermione's
> parents actually come to Diagon Alley with her and kids at Hogwarts
> are always talking about their Muggle parents (Creevy, Dean Thomas,

We don't actually know the number of wizards altogether, leave alone the
number who come from muggle or part muggle backgrounds. My own rule of thumb
(which doesn't have any direct support from canon, though I could rabbit on
for ages about why I think it's so...) is that there is roughly one wizard
to 100 muggles. JKR has also said that around a quarter of the Hogwarts
students are muggle born (but it's far from certain that all WW children go
to Hogwarts).

I think what the WW has decided is that there should be measures (and the
books give lots of examples) which hide the _activities_ of the WW from
Muggledom. But, as you say, there are many Muggle families with wizard
children, so my thought is that some sort of magic is used by the Ministry
to "normalise" how the parents present their children to the more distant
members of the family or to family friends.

Maybe that's why Vernon is so desperate to maintain the pretence that Harry
is at an institution when Aunt Marge comes to call. Possibly it's why none
of the parents of the children transfixed by the basilisk in CoS make a fuss
about it.

In the same way that WW homes and institutions are in plain sight but
magically concealed so that they just aren't noticed by Muggles, possibly
Muggle families are enspelled so that the fact that they have children at
Hogwarts just isn't mentioned, leave alone anything that happens to them
there.

Though you might (as others on this list have) wonder at the ethics of a
Ministry which on the one hand claims to be committed to Muggle protection,
but on the other is totally blase about using magic to blunt their
perceptions or alter their memories...

> etc.).  Further, part of the charges against Harry for using magic
> against the Dementors was that he performed the Patronus Charm in
> front of a Muggle - yet, Dudley obviously already knew Harry was a
> Wizard.  So why all the attempts at secrecy, and how does the wizard
> world stay a secret?

Bureaucracies can be rigid.

Though I still suspect that someone at the MoM is gunning for Harry in
particular

Cheers

Ffred

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