Chapter 12:
"Hagrid's show seems to be improving muggle relations."
"Have you not seen the London Times? They are attacking us for controlling their televisions."
"Technically they aren't wrong. We do control them."
Harry sat at the table at Grimmauld Palace, listening to the Order Members discuss their next step. Hagrid's show had been a large positive step forward. Hagrid showed new magical animals each week and his lack of fear of each creature shown through the television. Hagrid loved teaching about the magical creatures and many muggles watched regularly. Yes, partly due to the fact that all televisions were magically controlled and the Order prevented muggles from changing the channel, but more and more were not leaving the tv room. Surprisingly, the show had a large viewing of older muggles. Harry had assumed that it was because they were too old to walk away, but recent information showed that was not always the case.
Harry lifted his head to look towards the fireplace as he saw the bright green flames from the corner of his eye. Harry smiled as Hagrid squeezed through the tight fireplace.
"Good morning, sorry I'm late."
"The man of the hour!" Kingsley came walking towards Hagrid. "We were just speaking of your show." Kingsley patted Hagrid's elbow. "It's honestly been one of the most successful decisions we've made dealing with the muggles." The little bit of Hagrid's face that was visible, turned pink from his blush.
"Thank you, Minister. I truly have enjoyed doing it." Hagrid smiled before joining Harry at the table. Hagrid pulled out his designated chair; Harry had cast a strengthening charm to hold Hagrid's weight.
"I've been trying to think of the best animals to do next. There are so many wonderful choices. I was thinking that I might ask Charlie to introduce some dragons, but I don't think that would be allowed." Hagrid's voice became quieter as he spoke.
"Maybe not bringing them here, but you could ask Kingsley, if you can film in Romania." Hagrid lit up.
"Ya think he might agree." Harry smiled.
"Worth asking."
"I could film Norbert." Hagrid smiled as he leaned back in his seat. As he leaned back, the two heard the back door open. In came running Teddy and Victoire. The two laughed as they passed the table, either ignoring or not noticing Harry and Hagrid.
"No running." Fleur called from the other room. Harry heard the footsteps lighten as the two continued on.
A few minutes later, Grimmauld Palace was buzzing with arguments. Harry noticed that Kingsley was sitting at the head of the table quietly. Harry wondered if he was listening to anyone in particular. Harry was having a difficult time concentrating on the individual conversations happening.
"The army is still drafting men to fight us. We need to focus on their armies now."
"How do you propose we enter their schools? They would be all up in arms and we could lose the ones we gained to our side."
"They are still attacking families in the day."
"But the muggles have been protesting the attacks."
"Some!"
"Yes, but what about the Daily Prophet?"
"And would we just fly them to all the muggles homes? We don't have the owlery for that."
"We are also finding that the people in power are more negative towards wizards. The general public seems to be more positive or starting to lean that way."
"Enough to vote them out of power?"
Soon Kingsley stood, raising his hand. The action reminded him of their old headmaster. As the others noticed, the arguments slowly began to drop.
"We need ideas, ideas that will continue to move us towards peace. My assistant, Magda" Kingsley motioned to the young witch to his right. She had recently joined the Order, which was quite helpful as she had a political mind while the other did not. "has taken polls from around the country and found that we have changed more minds for the better. Magda." Kingsley motioned to his assistant.
"Last year, I was able to collect information on twenty locations and their opinion of wizards. I found that from these locations, 25% admitted they would trust a wizard. More specifically, 20% said if they learned a friend or family member was a wizard they would trust them, while only 5% agreed to trusting a stranger. 15% wanted all wizard to.. um…perish and another 5% were willing to kill any wizard they came across. 22% believe that they were fed lies about wizards and 13% questions wizard motives." Harry made eye contact with Ron, he was glad to see he was not the only one confused by the numbers. Hermione on the other hand was nodding in agreement with Magda.
"This year instead of 25% trusting a wizard, 36% said they would trust. An 11% positive increase." Magda pushed her glasses back as they slid down her nose, "trusting a friend of family member was a significant increase of 21%, going from 20% to 41%." After a moment, Mr. Weasley raised his hand. Magda paused holding her notebook close to her chest.
"It seems that from your poll we are in fact moving in the right direction." Magda nodded. "Did you ask what caused their opinion change?" Magda looked lost for a second, she had thought she covered everything in her polls, but the reason behind the changes had not been considered.
"I did not." She said in a high-pitched voice. "But many mentioned it was because of Hagrid." Magda pointed towards Hagrid at the far end of the table.
"Me?"
"Yes, many who said why, said that you gave a lot of information and while you loved every creature, even the dangerous ones, many said they felt better knowing about the creatures. I remember one gentleman said something like the Accamlty-"
"Occamy." Hagrid kindly corrected her.
"Yes, the Occamy was terrifying, but the way you explained everything, he knew you hadn't given just the positive information. He felt he learned everything about it." Magda sat quickly. Harry wondered how much attention she enjoyed versus tolerated.
"That sounds pretty simple then. They just want more information." Ron stated the obvious. The room was engulfed in arguments once more. It wasn't until Ron stood looking towards Kingsley that everyone silenced.
"We can't change the Daily Prophet just for them because our people wouldn't trust it, like Hesta said." Hesta nodded from across the table. "But what if we made a whole new newspaper." The bickering began once more. Many arguing that the Prophet already published six days a week and would not want to add an additional newspaper. Harry could hear Ron trying to talk over the crowd so he slammed his fist against the table. This was one of the few perks of being the 'Savior', people turned their attention to you quickly and without question.
"I want to hear what else Ron has to say." Harry heard someone mutter about Ron and Harry being friends, but he chose to ignore and faced Ron. Ron took a deep breath.
"Thank you. We don't ask them to make a whole new newspaper, but to choose a few articles through the week. We then would put them together in leaflets. Sunday the Prophet doesn't use their owls, we could use them to deliver to homes and to certain locations. That way the muggles get wizard news without destroying our resources."
Two weeks later, The Weekly Prophet, was sent out in bundles. Many owls dropped them gracefully into the newspaper stands without detection.