This whole chain reaction had been set into action by the president of the United States of America. He had been reelected and in his victory speech, he had suddenly decided while looking at the public in front of him, that he no longer could keep it a secret. The man cleared his throat, took a sip of the water standing on the podium desk and told the truth. ''Magic exists!'' The crowd started cheering, thinking that it was some kind of metaphor for the miraculous victory on his opponent.
But the president didn't stop there. ''It's a lie! All of it!'' The noise quieted down, the people didn't understand this metaphor. What was the president trying to say? They started whispering with their neighbors. Two bodyguards of the president walked up on the stage, the president surely was exhausted by the campaigns and he needed to rest before he would declare more nonsense en public. But the man jerked his arm free of their grip, grabbed the microphone and continued talking. ''There are no real elections! It's all a trick! The Ministry of Magic chooses the new president. It doesn't matter if you vote or not, it's set-up!'' the whispers in the crowd got louder and a few people started to yell that the president has gone mad, mostly the supporters of his opponent.
His bodyguards practically dragged him off stage, but the president kept telling, or more like yelling, the truth. ''Wizards and witches exist! They can do magic and fly on broomsticks! There are no real governments! It's all a l…'' at that moment, someone jerked the microphone out of the presidents hand to stop him and he got led off stage.
The public on the other hand was convinced that the wrong man had been elected, such a madman couldn't lead the country! Whispering changed into rumors and into shouting. The opponent came on stage and asked the people to remain calm but the effort was futile. Supporters of either candidate started fighting. Some of them sure that the country was going to be destroyed by this madman, other convinced that the man just needed some rest. The fighting crowd was so busy with each other that they didn't noticed the dark night sky being filled with owls, flying into every possible direction.
In less than a half hour, the whole news was about the incident. Time on time, they showed the clip of the president rattling about magic and wizards and the clip with the fighting crowd. The police had great difficulties to regain order, even the mounted police didn't make much progress. Why did no one ever noticed this before? The president already had served for four years and never he had done anything like this. But in an interview with a former president, he too declared that the magical world was true. The chaos was complete.
Not even a few hours later, Europe was fully awake and one by one presidents, premiers, kings, queens and ministers declared that they all knew about this.
It wasn't just the muggle world where panic had stricken, also the magical world was in uproar. It has never been this busy and crowded at the Ministry of Magic. People race in and out of rooms, appear and disappear in the chimneys and flying letters, flying letters everywhere. You needed to keep your head down or they will get tangled in long hair or fly straight into your mouth or eye. But that wasn't the worst and neither was the crowded hallways. The Howlers were the worst. Every few feet you could hear another letter going on a complete rampage to the poor person who opened it. Everyone demanded answers and at the moment no one could give any. The magical society had been kept a secret since the Middle Ages and everyone knew what happened to someone who even had the slightest suspicion about being involved in magic.
Arthur Weasley paced through the crowded hallways, he needed to get to the conference room. He kept a file full of muggle newspapers and other documents under his left arm while he used his right to push people out of the way. He was a scientist, a researcher on muggles to be exact, promoted on his research about the function of a rubber duck. Arthur knew exactly what to do about this recent chaos.
In just a matter of seconds after he had entered the conference room, the meeting began. First with Fudge, who tried to get everyone quiet. In the end, he only succeeded by putting the tip of his wand to his throat and again asking for silence, his voice boomed through the room. ''The muggles have found out about our existence. What are we going to do about that?''
Before Arthur could even open his mouth to speak, a small and skinny witch started with her solution. ''We send Aurors to erase their memory!'' she screeched with a high pitched voice that could give you a headache. ''Impossible! There a millions and millions on people who know about this and even if we managed to erase everyone's memories it will still be written on paper. It's impossible to do something like this!'' a quite plump wizard replied.
''Order! Order!'' Fudge demanded from the people in the room but and Auror ignored that and got up from his chair. ''We have been hidden from the muggle world for hundreds of years and then that president destroys our cover. I say we must take hard measures to show that they better not mess with us. We must kill that president!''
That certainly caused more noise, wizards and witches either approving of the plan or not. ''We can't do that! They will only have a reason to hate and fear us!'' the fat wizard replied with his loud voice. ''So what? Let them fear us! Look what they have done to us before we went into hiding, they never liked us and they never will! We must strike back hard!'' another witch yelled back.
This was going the wrong way, completely the wrong way Arthur thought. With three long steps he was in the middle of the conference room, also pointed his wand to his throat the same way Fudge had done and started speaking. ''That's completely unnecessary! Muggles are no more harmful than an imp or a flobber worm. I have got documents that can proof that wizards and mug…'' at that moment Arthur was cut off by a woman.
''Harmless?! Harmless! You surely never opened a history book! They want to burn us, drown us, torture us! While a muggle is no match to an adult wizard or witch, they surely are dangerous to our children, pets and homes. What are you suggesting? That we must just trust on their harmlessness?'' she laughed a high and sarcastic laugh before the other members of the council agreed with her by nodding.
Arthur tried to continue. ''The moment muggles realize that we aren't a threat to them they won't attack us. We are much like muggles, we almo…'' the group of people was outrageous at the fact that Arthur dared compare them to muggles. ''How dare you! We are nothing like those muggles! We've got reason unlike their panicked actions'' the first witch screeched, her voice breaking in midsentence.
The rest of the meeting continued the same way, Arthur barely had the chance to show that muggles weren't dangerous and the other members of the council just continued to scare each other with horror stories and coming up with even more horrific solutions. The only luck was that Fudge didn't want to decide what to do right now. He interrupted the meeting to continue in a few days.
But there would have been a better solution if the decision had done that day. In the next few days, both the magical world and the muggle world, accusing the other world from all kinds of things. The muggle papers reported about the costs of the Ministry of Magic and that they paid taxes for that ministry, total nonsense of course the wizards and witches paid taxes themselves to pay for their own ministry but that wasn't something that the muggles wanted to hear. Their childhoods had been full of fairytales in which witches were the bad guys and tried to kill you. They were compared to wolves, always hungry for blood and power.
Daily there were reports about attacks on muggles by wizards, brutal murders and robberies. That too wasn't true, wizards didn't need anything of the muggle world that they couldn't get in their own. People boiled in kettles to mix potions, tough no one had direct proof of it. But it scared the muggle community and they started to fight back.
In the beginning, every cat that walked on the street was killed. Everyone knew because of the stories that cats were the pets of witches. Next were dogs that looked like wolves, husky's, malamutes, Saarlooswolfdogs. If wizards and witches existed, why not werewolves?
Next were people, no one was safe and everyone suspected. An old widow that lived on herself? A witch! A man who had a bit too much luck in his life? A wizard! A child that wanted to show a trick? A witch! People began accusing each other of witchcraft on the most absurd reasons, a neighbor saw another fly on the broomstick in the middle of the night or someone who survived getting hit by a car. All of them had to be wizards and witches!
The massive burnings from the Middle Ages were back, no trials only public lynching's. In the beginning, it had only been muggles who had been killed, the magical part of society had been smart enough to stay in the background. But one child accidently used magic in public, he fell from a tree and his fall was too slow and calm to be real.
The village had killed the boy on the spot. This had of course enraged his parents who went on a full rampage, destroying the whole village and burning it down to the last house. A few villagers had managed to escape and alarm the outside world.
The president had his military powers returned after a few days in a mental hospital because they had thought he had gone mad. The president declared war on everyone who had anything to do with magic. This would proof to be an even bloodier war than the war on terrorism.
That day Fudge demanded everyone of the council to come back. Arthur knew that he could only try to get Fudge to reason if he could proof that muggles weren't a treat. But the Daily Prophet had made that job near to impossible, reporting everything and over-coloring every incident, even the ones that were worse enough on their own.
Fudge's face had turned an angry red color. ''It's enough! No more! They have declared war on us and we will not let anymore of our people die!'' this statement was greeted by a cheering of the council. ''Every wizard and witch has the right and duty to fight back against those muggles!'' he spat out the last word like it was some kind of illness. ''Children from the age of 5 are from this moment allowed to use magic with a wand and their parents are allowed to teach them the basic of defense against those murderers. Children from school age are now to follow mandatory special muggle defense classes to teach them how to defend themselves. The laws about using magic in front of a muggle are from now on abolished until further notice.''
Arthur protested, it was just outright dangerous to let such young children use wands and magic, they didn't know their powers and could hurt everyone, including themselves, on accident. But his protest disappeared in the tumult around him.
''The use of the three Unforgivable Curses at muggles is permitted! We must stop them as soon as possible! All Aurors are to drive the muggles back by any means and methods'' Fudge declared, his chest pumped up, feeling obviously proud about himself.
''No!'' Arthur shouted. This was completely the wrong solution, it would end in a bloody war with only losers and no victors. It would become a complete massacre! The muggles would fight back with every weapons they could find until the bitter end.