Hogwarts letters Re: Choosing sides

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 118927


Barmaid wrote :
"It is not really that I think most Muggleborns would spend a lot of
time in the MW... it is just that I don't agree with what I thought
you were saying... that entering the WW makes the "world" or "worlds"
 available to the individual smaller, more narrow... rather than
bigger, broader...  "

Del replies :
Well, technically you're right of course : having access to both
worlds means that their entire world is bigger.

But it's the practical aspect I'm more concerned about. A wizard
living in the WW is *in effect* cut off from the MW. He *can* go into
the MW, but he will have to take his own measures for that. He will
have to change his money, his clothes, maybe even his identity (hard
to explain being 150 and alive, for example).

Even the simple fact of keeping up to date with what is going on in
the MW depends on individual will. There are no official means of
learning about Muggle news : no newspaper, no bulletins on the radio.
DD makes it clear that he keeps an eye on what's going on in the MW,
but that most wizards don't do that. And when Harry is at Privet
Drive, he makes sure to get both wizard and Muggle news, but once he's
back at Hogwarts, he doesn't care about the Muggle news anymore.

There's of course also the Statute of Secrecy. Can you imagine not
being able to talk about the WW and magic to members of your extended
family or your Muggle friends ? Just having to keep that secret is
enough to effectively cut a Muggleborn kid off from the Muggle World.

The WW isn't concerned at all with the MW, and a wizard who doesn't
make any special effort to keep in touch with the MW will inevitably
gradually separate himself from it. The bigger, two-part world,
gradually becomes a smaller world again.

Del