Upon the Existence of Muggles
“Any woman can weep without tears, and most can heal with their hands. It depends on the wound.” Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
If there is anything certain about the Potterverse, it is that there is an absolute gulf between Us and Them. There are Muggles and their opposites: Witches and Wizards.
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If there is anything certain about the Potterverse, it is that there is an absolute gulf between Us and Them. There are Muggles and their opposites: Witches and Wizards.
( Read more... )
---And… the old Pureblood families have had a millennium to LEARN this. The Hogwarts Quill and Book have been training them: if your kids don’t show up on the Registry at birth, ABUSE ‘em. That’ll force ‘em to prove themselves magic (if anything can)….
I was under the impression that families aren't told anything about a child's status on the registry until it's the appropriate time for the child to receive hir Hogwarts letter. For instance, even though Neville's name was added when he was eight, his family didn't know for certain that he'd been accepted until he received his letter three years later.
I thought that maybe the information was kept classified for the first 11 years in order to prevent the murder or abandonment of infants and young children. But maybe that's not the case.
Or it could be a policy that has varied by headmaster; some have been more willing than others to disclose a kid's status ahead of time.
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You're right regarding Neville--even after his family decided that he was magical, they still feared he might not be magical ENOUGH for the Book.
We don't know, however, that Uncle Algie STOPPED trying to "force" magic out of Neville after the bouncing incident that convinced the family.
Just that "nothing happened" before then, however terrified Neville was.
If it's known that the Book may change its mind after first rejecting a child, then the family who fears their child might be borderline might go on abusing hir right up until the letters are sent out. To give the kid as good a chance as possible.
Ah, the power of love....
I also noticed, which I never had before, that though to me, and probably to Neville, shoving someone off a pier 1/2 mile out in the North Atlantic and dropping hir from an upstairs window seem equally life-threatening and terrifying, there's one very major difference from the family's point of view.
Drowning in the North Atlantic takes at least a few minutes; hypothermia takes longer. Algie and Enid and Augusta, having waited in vain for Neville's magic to rescue him, were probably pretty confident they could fish him out themselves if they chose. And presumably they did, or someone did.
Dropping someone HEADFIRST--if Neville's magic hadn't kicked in and rescued him, by the time it became clear it would not, the child would have been dead from a smashed skull or broken neck. So the earlier attempts may have felt life-threatening, but it may not have been until Neville was eight that he faced an actual do-or-die test. I remind you that Phineas Nigellus's brother Sirius was eight when he died....
Finally, we know that Argus remained in the WW in a menial position. Once we realize that Arabella is installed in Magnolia Crescent as Albus's spy on the Dursleys (and quite possibly as his pensioner), we can't say whether she lived in the Muggle world by choice. Neither of them are known to have any High Pureblood relatives.
The only Pureblood-related Squib we know anything about is Molly Prewett's second cousin. The accountant that we never talk about. (And Marius, blasted off the Black Tree, if one accepts the tree as cacon.) Here's the thing--Ron knows about the disgraceful accountant, but does he know about Ron? Rather, does he know anything about the magical world he was exiled from? Was he Obliviated before being cast out?
This might, indeed, seem merciful to the wizards. But then, killing the child might seem more merciful yet to some. Who'd want to live as a filthy Muggle?
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Malfalda
I have spoken before now about the Weasley cousin who made it quite a long way into 'Goblet of Fire' before I cut her. I really liked her as a character and did not want to sacrifice her, but she just wasn't doing the job she was supposed to do so she had to go.
Mafalda was the daughter of the 'second cousin who's a stockbroker' mentioned in 'Philosopher's Stone'. This stockbroker had been very rude to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley in the past, but now he and his (Muggle) wife had inconveniently produced a witch, they came back to the Weasleys asking for their help in introducing her to wizarding society before she starts at Hogwarts. The Weasleys agreed to taking her for part of the Summer, including the Quidditch World Cup, but regretted this almost immediately. Mrs. Weasley suspected that Mafalda's parents simply wanted to get rid of her for a while, because she turns out to be the most unpleasant child Mrs. Weasley has ever met.
Mafalda was supposed to convey certain information about the Death Eaters to Harry, Ron and Hermione, because as a nosy, eavesdropping Slytherin who likes to impress, she does not keep her mouth shut when she overhears their sons and daughters talking. Unfortunately, however bright I made her, there were obvious limitations to what an eleven year old closeted at school could discover, whereas Rita Skeeter, whom I subsequently built up to fulfil Mafalda's function, was much more flexible.
The best thing about Mafalda was that she was a match for Hermione. To the latter's horror, Mafalda was highly gifted and a real show-off, so that Hermione was torn between deploring the rule-breaking and longing to join in and beat her.
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Wait a second, wouldn't that make her a Muggleborn Slytherin? And a Weasley Slytherin too! I guess her Dad's a Squib technically, but she's still got two magicless parents and would've been raised Muggle (which is the main complaint against Muggleborns; "they don't know our ways").
I wonder how Mafalda would've done in Slytherin, considering her background, her peers are comfortable enough around her to talk to her at least. Maybe the Slyths aren't as awful as we've been led to believe by Harry's narration!
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