Well, isn't it reassuring when the reviews stop when you were going to finally have a use for them! I eventually remembered Skull Bearer's An Explanation of the Dark Order, and suddenly realized that the resolution of this fic was going to be rather difficult. I can only try...
Weeks passed, the jails filled up and eight people now resided in each room. According to Theodore, none of the experiments seemed to be working, so one day after work, Liza decided to watch one of the muggle visits and see what new knowledge it brought her.
"... And it fascinated me, really, when my brother came home and started showing us magic," an old muggle was saying. "Then he set my nose on fire and my parents called the police. The next year, he wouldn't do any tricks for me, though. Said they'd made a new rule..." He was the epitome of harmless; however, the convicts around him still seemed eager to tear his ears off.
Liza could take no more. "What's wrong with you? Are you really afraid of this man?"
The convict who appeared to have the most status stood up. "You here to negotiate? And I mean really negotiate, as in listening, not like those half-wit speech givers?"
Apparently, the convicts had some form of communication. She thought about it. Who'd ever made a truly successful government without listening to the opposing side?
"This one? He's not our problem. But what if it hadn't been his brother that set his nose on fire? What if it were some strange wizard?"
"That's why they made the rule. They don't want any accidents."
"What if he'd been a conservative Catholic? They don't like magic, to say the least."
"What can one Catholic do? We have curses they've never dreamed of!"
"All the time, people say, 'what can one ant do? We can just step on it?' Then ten thousand of them destroy their house. Muggles kill people because their skin is a different color. What are they going to do when they find a race that's really different?"
Liza's reasoning was faltering. "They aren't going to find us!"
"Oh really? How do you know?"
"It's called a memory charm." Really, this guy thought he had all the answers.
"What happens when a muggle with a temper gets his nose burned off and tells his government?"
"Nobody's going to believe him!"
"Okay, what happens when a muggle with a temper gets his nose burned off and tells his government, bringing a carelessly discarded chocolate frog card as evidence? Said angry muggle can explain odd happenings that have puzzled his race for centuries. Then somebody puts the chocolate frog card on this television thing they have. This generation's surveillance technology is growing phenomenally. We can't plan for everything! At least now nobody has to worry about not waking up one morning because a nuclear bomb-head has destroyed his entire city." Okay, maybe he did have the answer to everything.
"Now wait just one minute!" protested the muggle. "I'm not going to tell anybody about my brother, not if they're going to hurt him over it."
Neither party was calm enough to explain to the man that it wasn't him they were arguing about. The Walpurgi continued. "We're not genocidal, if that's what you think. I know some think we're just carbon copies of Lord Voldemort, but that was the liberal side of our party. Nobody's going to get killed in future generations, after all the muggles that know now are taken care of. We're just going to stop letting muggle-borns in on our secret."
This was new information, but Liza remained firm. "No. No killing, period. Preemptive action isn't worth it. If they haven't told yet, we're going to have to assume they won't."
"You can't assume anything."
Her voice took on a higher pitch. "You're lucky we're even giving you a say! No killing, that's just descending to their level. And we can't just set an army of untrained muggle-borns on the world."
"Have you even been listening?"
Liza continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. "Instead, we're just going to train them separately. I used to have an interest in science, I can think of a muggle excuse. Genetic mutations?"
The convict chortled. "According to our leading evolutionists, that's essentially true."
Now they were making progress. "We'll set it up through the muggle schools. A special extracurricular activity, see? Hmm, we send out a muggle-born to every school in London where there's reported muggle-born students after we stop sending out the Hogwarts letter. We tell them they're accepted into an experimental program, and they're telekinetics."
"Tele what?"
"It's basically a scientific word for someone who can do wandless magic. Purely theoretical, but I do wonder if a few are genuine? Anyway, we train them and slowly introduce them to the world. Then a few years later, we gently inform them of the community of telekinetics that's been around for a pretty long time..."
"That's- that's anti-seclusionist!"
"What's the problem with it? Without the magi-political terms that I don't know."
"I don't know, but I'll think of one."
She smiled. "Then I'll be ready."
I really do apologize for that abysmal excuse for an ending. Anybody want an epologue?
