Chapter 14:
Now that I had a fairly secure base of operations in both Britain and Albania it was time to start using the influence I had to change the wizarding world.
I bought a quarter page advertisement each week in the Daily Prophet to write "The Malfoy Corner".
Muggle cameras and the Statute of Secrecy
In recent years there have been rapid improvements in muggle technology in networked cameras. A networked camera can be viewed far away from the location of the camera. Often still photographs and long moving picture sequences are stored, often far from the camera.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been building a network of cameras mostly in cities. They are observed for indications of law breaking, but visible magic would be noticed and the moving pictures would be shown to a number of people. The cameras, using electricity, are probably far enough away to not be effected by magic. If they were, that in of itself would be investigated by muggles.
What does this mean? That there is a chance, each year that evidence of magic will become widely known.
Another article was:
Why are the strongest wizards and witches often half-bloods?
What do Albus Dumbledore, Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, Nymphadora Tonks-Black, have in common? Each have been extremely powerful and each a half-blood.
The Black family has waited for generations to have the metamorphmagus ability to return. It hadn't done so until new magical blood was mixed with that of the Black family.
The mixing of magic sometimes results in much more powerful magic. The combining of too closely related magic more often results in squibs
I arranged to give a speech at the International Confederation of Wizards.
"In 1991, the non-magicals of Britain started a world-wide moving picture broadcast service called BBC World Service Television. Other non-magical nations have similar services, and more are being added. If anything were to be broadcast indicating evidence of magic, millions would have seen it within seconds.
I have already discussed networks of moving picture cameras monitoring cities for law enforcement purposes. There is a new trend of hobbyists broadcasting cameras globally. The growth of a world-wide network for sharing writing, picture, and moving pictures is breathtaking. Within a few years it will not be large organizations that can perhaps be kept under control that will have the ability to send pictures around the world, but thousands, then millions, then perhaps billions of non-magicals with affordable networked computers.
What this means is that the Statute of Secrecy could come crashing down at any time, with a greater chance each year."
I led a committee that wrote a booklet presented to all muggle raised magicals and another for their immediate families.
"1. You are a witch or wizard. Magic itself has determined that this is true.
You are joining an ancient society. 300 years ago the society of wizardry and the non-magical society went their separate ways. We keep ourselves secret due to long experience of threats to our lives when magic becomes known. While today's non-magical society differs from that of year 1693, in many ways the threats against us have become more significant.
Our society will protect you from threats to kill witches, dissect them in laboratories, enslave them, or a multitude of other horrors that the non-magical societies of the twentieth century has shown that they are capable of.
2. With 300 years of separation, and different ways of seeing to everyday needs, and different abilities, you are immigrating to a very different society.
Your experience will be improved by understanding our ways, and not assuming that the non-magical ways are better.
While it is true that there are both good and bad people among witches and wizards, and crime and conflict exists, we can at least say that we haven't killed millions and destroyed cities. Even today where some of the differences between non-magical nations have eased, at least for now, they still stockpile thousands of nuclear weapons ready to destroy each other across the world in minutes.
3. As new immigrants to the the wizarding world, you will be regarded with suspicion. Experience has shown new witches and wizards sometimes do not adapt to our society. You will do better and show a better example, learn the pluses and minuses of our society, adapt to it and become contributing members of our society.
4. As families of a witch or wizard, you will have a secret to keep by law. You also likely have ancestors who themselves were witches or wizards."
I convinced a majority of Hogwarts Board of Governors for some changes and presented the changes to Headmaster Dumbledore.
"1. Expanded elective course choices. Any magic taught at Hogwarts is available again.
2. Mandatory Wizarding Culture until an OWL is passed. Each student can take the OWL for that class at any time. The exact same for Muggle Studies. The focus of Wizarding Culture is how to comport oneself in the wizarding world. Muggle Studies has a focus of learning how to avoid revealing magic, how to fit in, to learn about the advances of technology, and to learn the horrors of recent decades.
3. Magical History is now going to be taught by a living person. Students will learn about the how witches and wizards lived over their history. Parts of history such as Goblin rebellions will still be taught, but will be a smaller part of the curriculum. Students will be expected to understand the different perspectives of sides of wars and rebellions, not just one point of view.
4. Dueling will be taught as an elective.
5. Students will be able to test out of any year of any class.
6. Muggle raised living in hostile conditions will be given an option to remain at Hogwarts during the summer. Those remaining will have access to a tutor or instructors as needed.
7. The library will have more books donated which will be kept and made available to students"
With the loosening of laws in Britain about adding magic to muggle objects and devices, more technomage companies started. I did not have any unique ability to invent these and while I tried to compete in that market, many muggleborn had good ideas. Other magical nations started allowing these devices, after seeing their popularity.
My business strategy for technomage products were to find the most promising products and then try to invest in them or to copy them and use mass production to lower their costs. I was not trying to be the first to invent them.
To prepare for a possible collapse of the Statute of Secrecy, I convinced the ICW to organize and paid for squibs to join Wiccan rights organizations. These would be organizations saying that they engaged in magic. Some of those organizations had small amounts of magic.
The idea of these public events is to make those persecuted for perceived use of magic sympathetic to the general non-magical pubic. If later real magic became known, the non-magical public would remember the unfair persecution of the Wiccans and other purported magicals and think of that context.
I made another presentation to the ICW. I used a communications mirror to show the screen of my computer.
"What you are seeing is a magical mirror displaying a muggle device called a computer. That computer is connected to the telephone network, but used to display an image instead of transmitting voices.
This image can be seen by muggles around the world. It shows a continuous view of a coffee pot. It is intended as an example. It is predicted that there will be thousands or even millions of these cameras available to any muggle with a networked computer, a device affordable for many.
We need to think of plans before the day inevitably happens when thousands or millions witness magic over one of these cameras.
How can we prepare for this possibility. One we can start to influence muggle society to respond more favorably were that to happen. Our project to push for rights of muggles and squibs who try to do magic. There are many muggles in this category, and generally considered harmless by muggle society. This can be a pathway to get muggle society to think in terms of should real magic by witches and witches become widely known.
Another possibility is more in depth relations with muggle governments.
Another possibility is to require every magical household and location to have wards. I must caution that anti-muggle wards would not be sufficient. Our wizarding society has made mistakes in the past pushing muggleborn and squibs out of wizarding society. They can become a bridge to attack wizarding society.
We are endeavoring in Britain to undo this damage and better integrate new magicals. We encourage the ICW to encourage this world wide.
If all of these should fail, then the wizarding world will need the ability to seek out and prevent threats to wizarding society. It should not come to that, but we must be ready nevertheless.