Argus Filch could not quite say what was going on, only that he did not like it.
He had thought it would be simple enough, moving to a different part of the country after Hogwarts fell, and for about a year, it had been. Fortunately, he had not been in the castle at the time, but he doubted the new claimants over it would have any interest in keeping him on the payroll. Cleaning the new school with magic, they are- no respect for the proper way of doing things.
Working at the new school had been something of an interesting prospect for him, since he had heard they were not going to have any of the old silliness of students not getting punished for breaking rules, but not only did they reject his application, since they would be using magic to clean the place, and students had volunteered to enforce the rules, the whole damn building apparently popped out of existence not long after that. The only people who survived were apparently the ones who had managed to get into another impossible space when it happened, and when the Ministry took down the anti-apparation jinx, apparated out of their temporary shelter.
He had tried to work as a barman in Hogsmeade after old Aberforth disappeared out of the Hog's Head, but apparently the Ministry decided that the place had once been associated with the Order of the Phoenix, so they burned it down. Being honest with himself, he was of two minds about the decision. He knew the Order had violated the law, which was even more important than any rule, but Albus Dumbledore, at the very least, had always been fair to him. I'll never leave 's long as there're people loyal to me, was that it? Well, I'd rather have you than anyone else. What does that mean?
Presently, he found himself in a cell, so he supposed most of his life had definitely been better than his current situation.
"He's one of the ones who can't do magic," a man's voice said. He did not bother to look. "We picked him up in Glasgow. Said all he wanted was a job, and basically we told him there was an opening for a man of his expertise."
"What is his expertise?" another man's voice said, in a bit of an odd accent.
"He's some kind of disciplinarian in one of their schools. We took him here, basically just put him in a cell. Couldn't very well arrest him, as he hasn't done anything."
"You were wearing robes like we said?"
"Right."
"Good. The pictures coming out of Iceland are worth their weight in gold."
"These pikeys don't get that we can put pictures on the Internet?"
"Not really that nomadic, I don't think. No, most of them have never heard of it; they don't need it. We shut down the website, went to the service providers and told them they'll treat the whole area as a dead zone if they know what's good for them. Fortunately there aren't a ton of different providers in Iceland."
The two voices came out where he could see them. It was not a terrible surprise they both belonged to muggles. One wore the kind of suit their lot liked to wear, the other a police uniform of sorts. He had seen them a few times, but never from all that close.
"Sorry about all this," one of them said without a hint of actual regret, just the contrast between what he had to do as a departmental responsibility and what he might want to do, given all the choices in the world. What am I meant to say here? Oh, I don't mind being locked up?
"Well, it won't be long," he muttered. If he could be sure of anything, it was that.
"Right. What is it that wizards normally do when people like us find out about them?"
"Well, I'll tell you this for free, since it won't matter. First, they get the evidence out of the way, which means getting me out of this cell. Then, they read your mind, probably mine too, and they get an idea of how many people know. Then, they go around changing memories until everyone stops talking about it. Prob'ly a few loose ends. They know that. The thing about a loose end is it never leads anywhere."
"What if my mate here were to get on a plane and go back home?" the Scot in the uniform asked.
"Those are your flying things?" Filch asked. "We've got some ways of getting around a good bit faster than that. Wherever you're going, the magical authorities would already know before you arrived. We know about everyone who goes through those terminal wotsits."
"Suppose he got on the motorway."
"Wouldn't be long. We lose sight of you, we start to use simple forms of divination to try to find you."
"Crystal balls?" the man with the strange accent asked. "Those are real?"
"Aye, but not for this. Pretty sure they're for getting a broad idea of the future. More specific things, you'd need a dowsing rod. Regulated stuff, it is."
The muggle blinked as if he had just been told he won a drawing.
"I see. Would they be using such magic to track us right now?"
"Reckon they are, 'least they are if they know I'm missing."
"That's interesting," the man in the suit continued. "Why might they not know you're missing?"
"Well, I don't have a wand. Don't really need one. They used to have a department for making sure people who knew didn't do a runner, but the current government figured that was already covered by the Edict." They don't know what that is. "All the wands sold in the last two years are tracked."
"I see. It would have been more difficult to find even someone like you up until recently, then."
"I reckon it would. Don't know why you wanted a squib."
"Well, someone who could do magic might be more interesting, but he or she might be able to get out of the cell, and then, as we are made aware, our memories would be altered."
"Not many of the little wankers at the school could get out of this thing. Maybe after third year they'd know enough, if they had their wands." Argus tried to think of what kind of spells they might use if they were trapped in a cell, but he had never really paid attention to that sort of thing. If they knew where the keys were they could potentially get them pretty easily.
"Interesting," one of the muggles said. "I suppose it's not surprising that they don't immediately know how to perform magic. Would the children be able to alter our memories?"
"No. That's high-level stuff. They don't even teach it in schools. Either you'd be doing your own reading, or you learn it on the job. Death Eaters probably know."
"Death Eaters? Are those quite like dementors? I remember you mentioning them."
That was true enough. Shortly after they walked him into the building, he said he had nothing to do with anyone feeling like their soul had been sucked out; that was all the fault of the dementors. It was not really a workable excuse, but he had been panicking a little. Never liked being on the wrong side of the authorities.
"No, they're dark wizards. Prob'ly doesn't make much of a difference to you, but they're a real bad lot. They've killed loads of people; don't give a damn about the law until they kill enough that they get to write it themselves."
"How do they kill people? There are magic spells that cause people to snuff it?" the Scot asked.
"Yeah. Might send the werewolves after you."
"Werewolves? How the hell are they cuttin' about without anyone noticin'?"
"Statute of Secrecy; highest law there is in our world. Can't be transforming anywhere near muggles. That's you lot." He paused to think for a moment. Perhaps it was the case he was telling the authorities what they wanted to know, but in the process, he was breaking the rule of another authority. I think it's all right to tell a muggle if they already know about it. "Seems you know about us, though."
"Some of us have had a pet theory about it for a while now. Not far from my home, I found a wooden baton of some sort. I removed the handle and found a long white hair in it. It wasn't the first clue. Every since the computer came out, we've been noticing little gaps here and there. We didn't want to cause a panic, so we always contained things whenever we found something. The computers businesses were using were a bit harder, but we got people to write most things off as glitches." He looked like he was thinking for a moment. "Don't ask me to attempt to explain what a glitch is in a way you'd understand it."
"You said something about Iceland?" Might be I should have moved to the muggle world. At least I'd have a reason to understand how they do things.
"There seems to be a few wizards trying to lock down a little area in Iceland. They cut off all travel, but they must have confiscated the telephones rather than cutting the phone lines, because someone managed to connect to the internet. Sent a bunch of pictures of men wearing robes and all that, calling themselves wizards. If anyone saw that, they probably wouldn't take it seriously."
"Loads of mince on the internet, there is," the uniformed muggle muttered. "Doesn't make our job any easier most of the time, but every so often..."
"What do you want with me?" Argus asked. "I've answered your questions."
"We've got a few more, but after that we can't just let you go. I can't tell you how many governments would like to have a word with you," the man in the suit said, producing a stack of papers. "These are orders from the top. Top priority right now is keeping your world from realizing we know. I don't like it, but I'll have to start listening to the old cooks in the department who've believed in a kind of invisible parallel society for the past decade or so."
"Why not just tell everyone?" It seemed doubtful the magical world could do anything if every muggle learned about it at the same time. "You could put it on one of those 'tellies' of yours."
"We'd rather keep a lid on it. When this interrogation is over, we mean to send a recording to some of our friends in intelligence. Couldn't tell you how many of them are going to peruse it or where they're going to send it after that. We figure you've been forthcoming out of confidence that our memories would be changed, but we can be quite certain that will not take place."
Argus looked back and forth between them. Was it remotely possible that the muggles would get away with it this time? He had never considered the chance of such a thing happening, but men said there was only so long you could keep a dragon on a chain. Eventually, as long as the incentives were there, and the muggles had all the tries they wanted, one of the attempts would work. As little as he liked it, there was no punishment that could deter anyone from finding out about something, because for a punishment to be effective, the potential perpetrator had to know about it. Even a surprise punishment tells you if you do it again, you'll get the same treatment next time.
There was no indication that he was about to be rescued as he sat there and thought about it. He knew, with a relative degree of certainty, this was something of a worst case scenario for the Statute, but he was in a jurisdiction that was basically not keeping track of squibs for violations. It had been in the news here and there that technically it was a pan-European jurisdiction, but that did not mean Czech law-wizards were going to show up for every little thing; they were still busy with their own countries.
"Why is it that you do not tell the world about your existence?" one of the muggles asked.
"There's a few official explanations. None of 'em make any bleedin' sense. Really, most of us are worried the blood purists are right about all of you at once being a threat, even if some hope you're not."
"A threat? You can do magic."
"I can't. Don't know what they think you're going to do. Never really paid attention to all the rhetoric."
"Not one for politics?"
"No. It's all petty backstabbing and pointless discussions. Nobody wants to do any real work, like going out and punishing the dark wizards that need punishing."
"Mibbe you could be persuaded to tell us about your work."
"Not much to tell, really. I'm a custodian. Sometimes they leave me in charge of discipline, though."
"You discipline the children at the school?"
"Not really. It's mostly writing lines and pointless rubbish like that. I can tell they're not learning anything from it. Sometimes they make the little shits clean things; saves me some work at least."
"Interesting. Why do they get you to do it and not someone who can do magic?"
"Don't know all the theory about it. Some things aren't meant to have magic in them, like cauldrons, because it mucks up the product."
"The children use cauldrons for making potions, then?" The muggle paused to think about something. "What would happen if you or I were to try to use one of them?"
"It'd probably work. I don't know if there are any that would only work on one of them, but I've had potions before." In the early seventies a nasty little bludger nearly had his arm off out of sheer meanness. Told me my sort don't belong among his sort. Think they had his wand snapped for that one. Prob'ly joined the war and died after that.
"What kind of potions?"
"Healing potions. They only use the charms when you need immediate attention; after that you're on a potion regiment until you're better." He had never asked, but had a thought that it was probably to complete the healing process while allowing the Healer to focus on more serious cases, if there were any.
"You mentioned something about Divination. Do wizards know the future?"
"Not really. Best of 'em can't figure out what they're saying themselves. Used to think it was a lark, myself, but apparently Dumbledore believed in it sometimes."
"Dumbledore?"
"Couldn't do 'im justice." At the same time, he was worried about speaking ill of the dead. "Do you really just trust everything I'm telling you?"
"Most people would probably think you were haverin'. I don't."
"Neither do I. You're confident someone's going to come and straighten all this out, aren't you?"
"Can't say I'm not glad for the vote of confidence."
There was a pause.
"What are blood purists, exactly?" the man in the suit asked.
"They're just annoying sots who think pure bloods are better than everyone else, most of the time. I think you're only a pure blood if both your parents were at least half, and you're half if you're anywhere between that and having no magical parents at all. If it's like that, they'll call you a mudblood, but it's a bit of a dirty word, so I'm meant to report it if I hear it out of student."
"Interesting. How do people get to be born with magic, even if they have no magical parents?"
"Magic, I think," he said. "I really don't think anyone knows. Wouldn't be surprised if the blood purists say they were just adopted."
"I see. Other people aren't blood purists, then?"
"Most adults I've met seem to have non-committal, halfway sort of opinions. Can't stop hearin' things like 'oh, I don't want 'em all dead, just dangerous for the Statute is all'. Never seem to have any idea of what to do about it."
"I imagine it would be dangerous for the Statute," the one of the muggles said. "How do you keep their parents from talking?"
"It's complicated. Basically, the kids have to go to school to learn to do magic. I'd think most parents want that; don't know. Very least, it'll get the kids to stop using magic accidentally and making a mess of the house. Anyway, if the school watches their kids for the better part of the year, there's not much they can do but go along with what the school says."
He decided to omit that the school had been destroyed, but a new school had been erected with the same policy on the statute, destroyed, and was already replaced.
"You've never had any problems with the parents talking?"
"Wouldn't say never. If they do, it's the same as if one of you lot sees something, the proper authorities show up and change some memories."
"They could lose their memories of their children if they talk, then."
"Might have to be that way. Never been on the receiving end of it myself."
"You've implied you don't have children. If you did, would they be magical?"
"I don't know. Probably? I've heard of squibs having little witches and wizards. Guess they might also be squibs." He sighed. "Sometimes, what happens to my lot is they just get cast out to your lot, without their memories. If they get it done early enough, it might work."
"Would you rather stay in the world where you were raised?"
"Wouldn't you? I don't like not being able to do magic, but it's all I know."
"You're not bitter?"
"What's there to be bitter- Let me try and put it into terms you might understand. We don't have blind people. Far as I know, unless your eyes were cursed out with dark magic or something, they can restore your sight. Do you know anyone who's blind?"
"I may have met one blind person."
"It's kind of like that. They know it's not anyone's fault they have a disadvantage. Really they're so used to it they don't even think about it unless prompted." He thought about it for a moment. "If there were a country with all blind people, would they pick up and move there straight away?"
"Some would, some wouldn't."
"Right. If there were a ton of squibs spilling over into your world, though, we wouldn't really know about it, because they'd have their memories erased."
"You've said it happens that magical children can be born to nonmagical parents."
"That's the theory, anyway."
"Could you tell us who any of these parents are?"
"I'd rather not." He almost surprised himself by turning them down. Bunch of little wankers is what they are. I'm not standing up for them, this is the law. It's the Statute.
"I'm afraid that is not really an option. Do you believe that if they had one child who was magical, and another child who was not, would the second be counted as a muggle or a squib?"
"Kind of splitting hairs at that point. What do you mean it's not an option? Maybe the government's gone to the dogs, but they'll come back and get you for this, you know- We haven't had a breach to Secrecy in four hundred years and we're not going to start having them now!" The men were ignoring him for the moment, still treating the interrogation as some kind of academic affair. They got out two packages they had seen before, taking out robes that seemed real enough at the distance and stripping down to their skivvies to put them on. Without saying anything more to him, they started to walk off once they were dressed. "Where are you going?!" he demanded. "You'd better not leave me here!"
Nothing answered Argus Filch as he called out down the dark hallway. Eventually, he gave up on his shouting. He did not know exactly what was going on, but he knew he did not like it.