Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.
Note: The following is a near drabble pulled together after I came across a reference to something I considered pertinent to the Harry Potter universe whilst checking some things online. This piece is a one-shot set at some point in the 1940's, whilst Tom Marvolo Riddle is on summer holidays from Hogwarts. It implies a point of divergence from canon as a result of a discovery in a muggle library.
Tom Marvolo Riddle was bored. Seriously bored. The summer holidays were dragging on seemingly interminably, he'd read all the available material for his 'secret' project through half a dozen times already, done his homework, and was itching for something to do.
Rather than go out and find some random worthless muggles to bother, he took himself off to the nearest big public library still standing amidst the bombed-out ruins, and spent several afternoons researching muggle legislation for examples of unreasonable prejudice by muggles that he could use to whip up ill-feeling amongst future potential followers.
When he came across the Witchcraft Act of 1735, passed into British law some four decades or so after the 'wizarding world' had gone into hiding, he was expecting the usual (boring) piece of legislation, which would nonetheless prove useful grist to the mill of whipping up anti-muggle feeling. Several paragraphs in, he had to stop and pinch himself. He read on in growing disbelief, and by the end of it was almost laughing hysterically at the absurdity of the situation.
He in fact attracted the attention of a ubiquitous librarian, who came across with a rather severe expression on her face, enquiring 'if there was anything wrong, sir?'
"Is this book real?" Tom asked, holding it up. "I mean not a work of fiction or anything like that?"
"It should be, sir. It's a crown publication. Is there a page missing or some other error?"
"No." Tom shook his head. "Nothing like that. I have some doubts over a piece of legislation detailed herein, however, and was wondering if you could recommend some other sources I might cross-reference with and double-check to make absolutely certain."
A day (and a trip to consult with three different recommended solicitors' offices) later, and Tom Marvolo Riddle had his answers.
This was absolutely ridiculous. This changed absolutely everything. Four decades after witches and wizards had gone into hiding around the world, the British parliament had passed a law specifically prohibiting prosecutions of individuals for actually using magic, instead making it illegal to pretend to use magic. For more than two hundred years British witches and wizards had been in hiding to partially avoid legal persecution by the state, when in fact producing a wand and performing the simplest charms in any court of law would have had them proved indisputably the genuine article, and out in no time at all. True, back in the eighteenth century hiding might have been necessary to avoid fear and prejudice from neighbours anyway, but in this current age where muggle science seemed to be throwing up new wonders and horrors every few months…
Tom had always assumed that the muggle world had legislation against witchcraft and wizardry and those who practised it which corresponded with the ongoing need for the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. Apparently not in Britain…
Tom rapidly started revising his plans and mapping out a new campaign; a political one, bent on vilifying and overthrowing by political revolution the magical government of Great Britain, and leading a bold thrust to overthrow the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in the British Isles. If things were carefully enough done, witches and wizards could openly assume their rightful positions at the very top of British society, and right now that meant positions at the top of one of the most extensive empires ever to be seen in the world…
Author Notes:
And that's it for this one. It's a one-shot (though the potential implications of the 1735 act seem interesting enough to me to be worth looking at again in one of my other stories), but I wanted to put the idea and possibilities offered by the 1735 act out there in case anyone else wants to make use of it. A writer of the current (5th February, 2013) Wikipedia article on the act of 1735 takes the view that that act was trying to move away from a position of hysteria and superstition of previous centuries, to a more reasonable, logical, position:
'...The Witchcraft Act of 1735 (9 Geo. 2 c. 5) marked a complete reversal in attitudes. Penalties for the practice of witchcraft as traditionally constituted, which by that time was considered by many influential figures to be an impossible crime, were replaced by penalties for the pretence of witchcraft. A person who claimed to have the power to call up spirits, or foretell the future, or cast spells, or discover the whereabouts of stolen goods, was to be punished as a vagrant and a con artist, subject to fines and imprisonment. The Act applied to the whole of Great Britain, repealing both the 1563 Scottish Act and the 1604 English one.[5]...'
In the context of a Harry Potter universe, the 1735 act could however perhaps be considered a (belated) response to the sudden disappearances of the witches and wizards following the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy of the 1680's/1690's.
It seems to me that there might be several reasons why wizarding Britain of a Harry Potter universe might not have noticed the 1735 Witchcraft Act, ranging from nobody noticing simply due to a lack of interest in muggle legislation at that time, to vested interests in the Ministry of Magic (or its equivalent of that period) quite liking their control over the witch and wizard population - and ensuring any news of it was firmly suppressed so that British witches and wizards would continue to believe that they had to remain apart from muggles and under Ministry of Magic control. (And as Tom reasons in this story, even if it was suddenly legal to be an authentic witch or wizard in 1735, it may not have been immediately safe in terms of social attitudes of the time in terms of potential persecution by neighbours).
As regards Tom's changes in plans, he's suddeny asking himself why settle for being a tyrant in the relatively small pond of the wizarding world, when there's a whole British Empire out there waiting for firm leadership? It's not as if Grindelwald isn't already currently making a bid for power over muggles, whilst remaining within the limitations of the statute, and Tom's thinking of a British wizards declaring themselves to muggles (as there's no muggle legislation in Britain against being a genuine witch/wizard) and 'we can fix many of your problems if you let us lead us' political approach.
As a final note, the witchcraft act of 1735 was eventually replaced in British law with the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951 (which in turn has apparently been superceded by European legislation on consumer protection).