The Department of Mysteries: Consists of two groups. Researchers and field agents. The field agents aren't super secret spies or anything. They just go around attempting to acquire interesting magical objects for the researchers to study. If Gringotts encounters something that kills off too many of their curse breakers or seems to contain something that isn't profitable but might be worthy of research, they put the location of the site up for auction to the different magical governments who then send out their field agents to deal with the issue if they win the bid.

On the subject of magical research, the reason there seems to be so few purely magical towns is that historically wizards don't like living too close to other wizards. Nobody wants to wake up in the middle of the night because their neighbor's house exploded due to magic gone wrong, and the more paranoid wizards would have been afraid of their neighbors trying to steal their secrets.

 

I'm of the opinion that the magical world is almost double the size of the muggle, due to all the hidden areas. Ranging from small shops or homes to entire landmasses. And many population figures only count wizards and witches who follow in the Roman teachings (wands).

Dodging spells is seen by many as a lack of confidence or trust in one's own magic.

The world is full of schools and magical academies, but only a few offer OWL certifications/courses and even less NEWTs.

 

I'm of the opinion that the magical world is almost double the size of the muggle, due to all the hidden areas. Ranging from small shops or homes to entire landmasses. And many population figures only count wizards and witches who follow in the Roman teachings (wands).

Dodging spells is seen by many as a lack of confidence or trust in one's own magic.

The world is full of schools and magical academies, but only a few offer OWL certifications/courses and even less NEWTs.

 

The food the Wizards eat is mostly multiplied, enlarged and transfigured. This is done both by food producers who sell the product(mostly quite cheap compared to the muggle world) and by wizarding families who mostly live in rural areas and can easily keep gardens, though how much they do it depends on their individual magic skills.

Molly for example grows a small selection of vegetables in her garden, as well as keeps some chickens and when she needs anything paticular, she just transfigures the most similar one into it and then increases the amount through magic. For example if she needs some onions she may just turn a garlic clove into one and then multiply it or if she wants some ham or bacon she just turns some of the chicken meat or eggs into it.

At larger, older places such as castles and manors , it's usually the House Elves who fulfill that role. The Hogwarts house elves for example produce all the pumpkin juice the school needs with the Pumpkins Hagrid grows and all their meat needs with the chickens Hagrid keeps.

Thinking about it, chickens are probably the animals wizards are mostly likely to use as cattle considering how fast they reproduce and grow, while also giving them access to eggs that can be transformed into a variety of breakfast food.

 

Mad-Eye is still alive. Once he realized that Crouch Jr. had been kissed, he decided that a perfectly good body shouldn't go to waste and used the Imperius curse on the soulless body and had it keep drinking polyjuice out of his flask to throw off his enemies.

 

Dark and would make an excellent short story.

 

That reminds me a bit of the R trilogy by GreenGecko, something similar was a bit of a side plot with Mad Eye

Spoiler: spoiler about the side plot.

faking his death and impersonating Percy Weasley.

 

I don't think muggle parents truly have the choice of sending their child to Hogwarts or not. They only have the illusion of choice. Confunding charms takes care of any reluctance. Parents contacting others and forming parents' associations are quietly "discouraged" and obliviated of the idea. It's simply not allowed to happen.

I don't think my parents wouldn't have accepted if only because of the boarding school thing ("we want to be the ones raising our children, and we can't do that if they're away 10 months out of 12").

Not to mention that, if there is the possibility of magical homeschooling (whatever alternative you can think of) everybody would want to take advantage of it. I mean who would want to send their children away in a world where they would never be welcome themselves? It's like sending your child to immigrate on another continent without going with him/her. Nobody does that unless they are truly desesperate and have absolutely no other choice.

 

The Patronus Charm isn't actually that difficult a spell to master. The Ministry propagates the most ineffective way to cast the spell (Focus on a good memory!) with the idea that most wizards/witches who try will fail repeatedly and then give up. There is a much more effective method of learning the spell, but it has been suppressed.

The Ministry is doing this because they don't want the population to have access to the only tool that can fight their deadliest and most formidable weapon.

Agreed. Were I the Creevy, Finch-Fletchly, Clearwater, or Granger parents, there is absolutely no way in hell I am voluntarily allowing my child to return to Hogwarts after CoS.

 

Hermione was petrified for months and if her parents had been notified there's no way they'd let her go back to school which kind of parent would? So I'm supposing they haven't been notified because muggles simply don't have a say. Muggleborns are basically trusted to take their own decisions from the age of 11. (Not that they would be allowed to refuse Hogwarts either, I don't think.)

I mean even without the admittedly extraordinary events around Harry... sending your child to boarding school is an important decision that you don't want to take lightly and you'd want to make a well informed decision... I mean basically somebody comes to your house and you're supposed to trust them enough after barely an hour to give up your child to them? That's super fishy. No way any parent would just give up their child like that.

And if you're given the time to decide... imagine you get a few months and you read a bunch of history books about the wizarding world and you see it's a society full of nepotism where your child will be discriminated against and, more importantly, an instable society with a class-problem where there is a dark lord rise every 30-40 years... who the hell would want to live there? (unless you've been brainwashed and desensitized as a child to find it ok of course).

 

I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories and of the "ministry is restricting good magic" trope.
But... apparently Kingsley got rid of the dementors according to canon (though it is vague what exactly is meant by that).
So the argument "but we need akzaban because there is nothing else to do with the dementors" isn't valid.
It shows that your idea has merit.
And that the facts dementors were used as azkaban guards for so long means the wizarding society world is truly rotten (and once again I'm asking myself why would people want to live there, the muggleborns should all run away screaming... better not think too much about it otherwise nothing makes sense).

 

I think maybe some of you don't understand, or under estimate, the darker sides of the real world.

You're also completely ignoring the obvious line of thinking that parents of muggleborns will take when deciding whether to send their kids to Hogwarts - do I want my kid to learn magic or not. You'd have to be a remarkably shitty person to deny your child the option of learning how to do real, honest to goodness, magic.

Those parents aren't going to be going and buying 20 books on wizarding history and culture. They're going to ask McGonagall a few questions about the wizarding world and take her answers at face value - "yes, much like muggle society we unfortunately do have our share of crime but the Ministry has a good handle on it and the Headmaster has a very good track record at ensuring the safety of Hogwarts students" or "much like in the muggle world, there are some forms of bigotry, but I can assure you that Hogwarts operates a zero tolerance policy" or "as with the muggle world we've had our issues with terrorism over the last few decades, but I can assure you that there is no where safer than Hogwarts".

And I'm going to say it again. You would have to be a reality shitty person and parent to decide "I don't agree with boarding schools so I will deny my child the ability to learn magic".

Being a muggleborn might expose you to problems and risks that don't exist in the muggle world. But it also solves damn near every problem you might face in the muggle world.

 

Seriously?!? You speak an hour with a person, take what she says at face value and just assume that person is trustworthy and give your child away? (for all you know it's a pureblood extremist in disguise and he's just going to kill them and dump them in a sewer somewhere or sell them to a slave smuggling ring or something).

Sorry, but no. Just no. That's incredibly irresponsible. No parent irl would do that (except the ones that hate their children or don't want them in the first place I suppose)... or if there is magically induced trust.

And no magic doesn't solve every muggle problem. Otherwise there would be no statute of secrecy and no problems in the world because magic would have solved all.
"The problem is that the other side has magic". Magic CREATES as many problems as it solves so you're not better off just because you have magic.
In fact we don't need magic to solve all the problems in the muggle world. We pretty much have enough resources for everybody, we're just incredibly selfish creatures and badly organized. And wizards are no better.
And given the disparities caused by magic, it seems more likely to create an unequal society than not.

Now I do agree that if there is a chance that your child will be part of the magical world in some extent, it's essential for them to learn about magic, if only to defend themselves. But to make it believable that Muggle parents send their children to Hogwarts truly on their own free will, you'll have to put much more effort into it than a measly one-hour visit from McGonagall.

 

Oh, I think most parents who have dealt with their child's accidental magic for the last few years up until McGonagall appeared would be grateful to get clear answers and assistance for their impossible child.

[Ding-dong]

Desperate and harried-looking housewife opens the door. She looks at McGonagall, then says with a certain mix of apprehension and hope, "A-are you an exorcist?"

"No. I am, however, here to tell you that I run a school where we can teach your child to control their powers."

"Okay."

"He'll have to stay at the school for most of the year."

"Fine. When?"

"September 1st." Seeing the despair on the woman's face, McGonagall adds, "but I can clear up any problems you have at the moment. Also, most children calm down a bit once they know they have a path forward and the opportunity to master their--"

"Whatever! Where do I sign?"

 

If you follow the style of the first book (exaggerated style and Neville getting thrown off the windows is a good joke), yeah it fits.
If you take it seriously (style of the later books)... just don't ever have kids please.
That's why I love the first part of the series but kinda hate the end.

 

As wordhammer mentioned, you need to consider that these parents have spent 11 years dealing with the fact that weird and scary things happen around their child. Having a respectable looking and respectable sounding person turn up on your doorstep (remember, we're talking the early 90s and earlier here, when appearing respectable carried a huge amount of weight), who is able to explain exactly what has been going on with your child, and who can reassure you that under the tutelage of Hogwarts your child will also learn to perform magic. She can answer all your questions calmly, clearly, and confidently, she demonstrates what seems to be extremely high levels of skill at magic when asked to demonstrate, and more than anything else she offers reassurance - you're not going mad and your child isn't broken.

I'll grant you, maybe the meeting is more than an hour. But as far as I'm aware, there's nothing in canon to suggest she pops in for a cuppa, says "btw your kids a witch, she's off to Hogwarts in September", then leaves. I'd not be shocked if much of McGonagall's summer break each year is filled by her spending entire days with muggleborns and their families.

Well done, you just identified the reason for the Statute - "magic could solve everything", wizards don't want to be running around fixing every muggle problem that comes along. No one likes to be told by society "this is the thing you MUST spend your life doing", that just breeds resentment.

The poorest wizard, as long as they have their wand, is going to live a safer, more comfortable life than an impoverished muggle.

Yes, humans are fundamentally problematic. I don't see how that negates the point that wizards don't suffer from the tangible problems that plague the muggle world. Obviously there's no magical remedy for racism or anything like that. But a wizard with his wand is never going to go hungry, be homeless, be cold, or be in any meaningful physical danger from anything other than a magical threat etc.

I'd love to see where in canon you're getting that from? Sounds to me more than a fanon thing.

 

I believe that the magical world is meritocratic in regards to positions that need magical talent. Nepotism is possible only in the Ministry's bureaucracy. The anti-muggleborn sentiment exists because a very vocal minority of purebloods feel that under the current system an effective outsider can occupy positions of power and take jobs away from the 'real' wizards.

 

And that person is an asshole that has known about it for years and let you deal with the situation without helping...

It's like refusing medical care to a child until his condition is bad enough for the parents to be declared unfit to take care of them and telling that they should be hospitalised away from home without even trying to consider another solution.

If you look at it realistically it's really really bad and really drives the point home that muggles have no agency, are not allowed to make their own decisions about their own lives (and children). Like Hermione sends her parents to Australia without their consent and nobody bats an eye.

 

There's literally nothing in canon to suggest that muggles have no agency. And your medical care metaphor is...ludicrously extreme.

Hermione deciding to taking highly morally dubious decision of brain washing her parents and sending them off to the other side of the world isn't a reflection on the wizarding world, if anything her morals were just as strongly formed by her muggle upbringing as by her wizarding education.