Written for the Quidditch League Competition: Keeper - write about the Department of Magical Transportation
Written for the Disney Character Competition: Alice - write about Luna Lovegood
The Spies In Our Midst
Ministry's Spies: Are We Really Safe?
Written by Luna Lovegood
After decades of fear, the wizarding world was finally able to feel safe after the defeat of the tyrant Voldemort by Harry Potter. But little more than two years later a terrible scandal has been uncovered that may give us cause for unease once again.
It is a well-known fact that the Ministry includes offices to monitor the Floo Network, the use of brooms and portkeys and Apparition. In fact the Floo Network Authority has been found guilty of monitoring the Hogwarts fireplaces to an illegal level more than once over the war. It is the opinion of this writer that those in charge must have had a large number of wrackspurts must have been infesting the office at the time, and hence have caused the obvious lapse of reasoning in those working there. Unfortunately, it appears that this time wrackspurts may not be solely to blame.
You see, this writer has uncovered a rather alarming truth about this Department. The Department for Magical Transportation is not, as we have all been led to believe, to keep us safe during our travels, but to spy on us for the Ministry. As yet it is unknown just who the spies are working for, as Minister Shacklebot played an important role in Voldemort's downfall and is therefore well-respected by much of the wizarding community, this writer included. It seems more likely that there are other members of the Ministry, hidden amongst various Departments, that have come together to form a group that may be just as dangerous to our society as Voldemort's Death Eaters.
Just what are these spies doing, you may ask? Well, spying! Employees in the Department for Magical Transportation have the ability to trace and monitor each and every form of magical transportation. Your Floo calls are listened to, your portkeys tracked, your apparition trails followed and your brooms fitted with locating spells. The Ministry knows where you are and what you are doing at any time of any day.
Nothing and no one is safe. Every Floo call you make – yes even that one to Great-Auntie Mabel asking for a spell to remove ink stains from your best dress-robes – are listened in to and recorded in official files. The employees of the Floo Network Authority could tell you exactly how many Floo calls you made in the past year, who you call the most and who calls you the most. And if that had been a request for doxy spray and not an ink-removal spell, you can be as sure as the Crumple-horned Snorkack likes tulips that there would be Ministry officials on your doorstep in the next minute demanding why your house is infested with such seemingly-shady creatures.
Another well-known law is the one demanding that portkeys be bought and registered, despite being easy to make for those with enough magical aptitude. But despite the Ministry's claims that it is to monitor a potentially dangerous and revealing form of transportation, this law is in fact just another way for the Ministry to keep tabs on our whereabouts. This is especially true of both portkeys and the Flood Network, as they are the forms of transportation most commonly used by children. What with the Armed Children Plan (see page 12 for the full story), the Ministry cannot afford to lose track of a single child, and therefore see it as a top priority to know the exact location of every magical child in Britain.
Now, I am not a mother myself, but I find this hugely disturbing, a sentiment shared by many parents. Only two years ago the now-war-hero Molly Weasley stated "I don't want my children fighting, not at all. A war is no place for children, it should be left to the adults." Whilst this statement may seem dated, surely it also applies to any form of attack planned by the Ministry, as is obvious by the Armed Children Plan.
Apparition trails may be the least of our worries, but only as long as we know how to erase them after ourselves, a spell that is rarely taught to Hogwarts students. For years the Ministry has claimed that this was merely due to the fact that it was deemed to be unimportant relative to other parts of the senior curriculum, however it is clear that this was merely a lie to cover up that fact that they rely on people's inability to cast the spell to follow our apparition. If the Ministry is truly tracking us all, they wouldn't want us to be able to travel across the country in mere seconds without them knowing, would they? For those who are concerned about this, see the next edition of the Quibbler for details of the spell and classes on how to cast it.
Unfortunately though, the terror is spreading. Even if we all learn to erase our apparition trails and avoid the Floo and portkeys, we cannot escape the Ministry's clutches. Recently, each and every broom manufactured has been examined by the Ministry before it is allowed to be sold. As with other forms of transportation, this has been done under the guise of "ensuring the safety of the user and those surrounding them," however several brooms have been uncovered that possess locating spells. A rare form of spells, these were believed to be developed by Slytherin himself in order to locate students – and not always for savoury purposes (see next issue for the full story).
What with recent events, the public should be alarmed that the Ministry is using these same spells to monitor our location. The only way to truly ensure your location is a secret from the Ministry is to use entirely Muggle transportation, and yet such a measure is almost impossible. Certain places such as Hogsmead and Diagon Alley – which happens to house Gringotts, a crucial destination for our survival – are accessible only through Magical methods. So the big question now is, what can we, as the general public, do about such a hideous invasion of privacy?
When questioned, an employee of the Department of Magical Transportation (who unsurprisingly wishes to remain anonymous) stressed that any monitoring of transportation is to ensure personal safety and to avoid terrorist groups from rising to the level that Voldemort and the Death Eaters achieved only two years ago. But after so many scandals, both known and better hidden (for the full list of Ministry plots and scandals, see page 22), can we really trust the Ministry again? Are we willing to sacrifice the safety which so many of us fought for?
This discovery is a truly shocking one, and yet this writer fears it may only be the tip of the iceberg. If the Ministry has spies tracking us all, there is no knowing what else they are up to. Why, they may even be breeding Acromantulas to use against trouble makers for all we know.