Muggle Lives Matter
by Oxnate
Disclaimer: Do not own Harry Potter. By reading this, you agree not to sue the author of this work.
Summary: Political satire. Rather heavy handed this time.
A/N: Any similarity to events past or present is purely coincidental.
A/N2: Dear cowards, if you had any arguments that could contradict me, I'd let you post them, even under guest reviews. But no. All you can do is call me names. Sign in before sending me hate-mail or I'll taunt you with more truths that you obviously can't stand to see but can't refute either.
Chapter 1.
"Are those... muggles protecting the Death Eaters?" Hermione Granger asked, nonplussed, as she watched the implausible scene in front of her unfold.
In the middle of Diagon Alley, a group of about 100 muggles (you could tell by their clothes) were marching and holding signs saying things like "Muggle Lives Matter," "All Aurors Are Assholes," and "Defund the Aurors." In and among them were about two dozen masked Death Eaters. Every so often one of the Death Eaters would send off a spell at a nearby shop, breaking windows or setting things on fire. Some of the younger (college age) muggles would also dart out to spray paint rude slogans before hiding among the crowd again.
Nearby, a group of Aurors stood around doing... nothing.
"I'm afraid so, Miss Granger," the grandfatherly voice of Albus Dumbledore told her from her right. "It seems there was a fight between Death Eaters and Aurors yesterday and a muggle was killed in the crossfire. Worse, it seems that Lucius Malfoy is as silver-tongued as ever. He convinced the muggles that the Aurors were to blame. Had they simply let the Death Eaters go or not chased them when they ran, then naturally, no one would have died."
"That's stupid. Aurors can't just let criminals go," Hermione insisted. "Especially not when they catch them red-handed. And of course no one questioned that no one would have died had the Death Eaters been innocent either. But don't Death Eaters hate muggles? Why aren't they killing them?"
"Ah, this you may be even better suited than I to understand. You may have perhaps studied the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin in your muggle schooling? The phrase "useful idiots" is often attributed to one or both of them."
"Then why aren't we simply telling them to stop shielding Death Eaters? Just tell them what kind of horrible people they are!"
"We tried, of course, but it did not work. I will quote another muggle philosopher to answer that. Sadly, it is far easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled in the first place," Dumbledore replied.
Hermione sighed. "And Fudge is a useless idiot who's doing nothing."
It was Dumbledore's turn to sigh. "If only. He has done much worse than that. He ordered the Aurors to stand down, almost certainly on Malfoy's suggestion."
A great crash was heard as Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor was the next business targeted. Hooting and laughter came from the /rioters/ protesters.
"What do we do?" Hermione whined.
"For now, I'm not sure what we can do. Gringotts and Hogwarts are both safe. Gringotts has their own security and no compunctions about harming 'innocent' muggles. And six Death Eaters that tried to burn down Hogwarts are currently being held in the Hogwarts' dungeons despite the minister's objections. Relax my dear, the muggles guarding them were sent on their way, unharmed.
"And should the Ministry or Fudge's own house be attacked, I believe he'd have no choice but to act then.
"But in the meantime, the Aurors do not wish to risk their jobs so long as no one's lives are in danger, and the rioters make enough noise for innocent people to escape, so the only deaths so far have been muggles accidentally killing other muggles. And until Fudge-"
"Wait," Hermione interrupted, horrified. "Muggles killed muggles? Was there any investigation?"
The headmaster waved off her concerns. "Muggles are always killing muggles, my dear. It's in their nature. Mostly savages, I'm afraid. Besides, the deaths were probably accidental, so we'll just let the muggle authorities deal with it and never speak of them again. Good. It's why we segregated ourselves in the first place with the Statute of Secrecy."
If Hermione had thought she was horrified before, every word out of Albus's mouth seemed to drop her mouth open more.