So this thread is inspired by the sick and perverse thread discussing how magical sex life.

I found it fascinating viewing magical society from that viewpoint and I can't help but think about the day to day function of magical society.

So. How do you guys the following industries work as:

1. Entertainment:
Prince of the Dark Kingdom had a really neat concept regarding how movies would work with pensive.

But other than that, how do you guys think the magic folk entertain themselves.

How do they watch quidditch matches? Is there an epl equivalent for quidditch?

Other than broomstick sports.

What would a typical 20-something year old witch or wizard do when they get home from work?

2. Food/Cuisine/Restaurants

We have only ever heard about food cooked by the elves.

But are there magical chefs out there with five star rated restaurants?

What kind of food would a world class magical chef cook you?

Do they have to be potion masters first?

Can you eat magical creatures in a restaurant?


3. Crime

How does crime happen in the HP universe?

What kind of businesses can grow in an effort to combat these crimes?


Lastly, lets just imagine a normal wizard's life.

What would their week look like?

 

As for 3.

I suspect the department of magical law enforcement has the equivalent of beat cops.

Where aurors are SWAT, or fuck, special force military units, typical DMLE employeess are the cops? Your excellent OWL Defense, transfiguration, potion and charms students ladder up to the NEWT requirements of aurors.

 

But other than cops.

How can a regular witch or wizard protect themselves from, someone performing leglimens on them and stealing there bank details.

Or someone Accioing(is that a word?) there wallet.

Or guarding against Love potions(which we know are apparently real from HBP)

What's the wizard's equivalent of last pass?

 

How do us muggly humans protect ourselves from pickpockets and roofies and identity theft?

I'd wager like that.

Report it, to the DMLE and hope we can build a case. I imagine the identity theft is doubly hard since the goblins would most likely find it hilarious.

 

I would like to think that some enterprising wizard/goblin could come up with a way to protect your thoughts at a few.

Or a union of potion masters came together and developed anti-mind altering potions that they sold to the public.

Especially after Tom's defeat when every Death Eater was crying "Mind control made me do it."

 

I like to think they've got a form of association football with magic to make it more fun / reduce delays. Instead of going out, the ball bounces back with greater force than before due to magical barriers. The point men downfield have to either receive and shoot on goal at the risk of their own shins, or let it bounce off an opponent first. Injuries are frequent, but do not pose any particular problem. Upper class kids prefer sky-golfing, which, while self-explanatory, allows them to illustrate their status.

To match canon flavor I can only think it would be something charming, yet silly at the same time, like enchanted thestral rump, and cuisine is more of a passion project than a massive source of income. There would be some famous chefs who would learn highly esoteric spells, but if elvish cookery is so good and dirt cheap, I would think the demand would be limited to those truly interested in pushing the boundaries of cuisine.

Sunday- Some references to religion exist here and there, but there seems to be no adherence. Perhaps there's something based around prophecy; for everyone else, which is probably the majority of people, it's a day of relaxation; everything is closed for some reason and people try to find agreeable low-effort activities with family, like magical board games. Listen to the wireless, why not.
Monday- Friday- I'll assume this person works at a private company even though it seems every other person works at some pointless department at the Ministry. Get in at ten, deal with customers and make a few sales; it's not going to break the bank either way. Lunch is brought in because it must add up somewhere. I would not expect people have a large amount of employees; magic can take care of anything we would normally see as low-skilled work, which is why we see mostly artisans in canon. If anything, there is an apprentice, but that person isn't doing menial tasks so much as learning the spells to take care of them.
Once out of work, we'll say this person is a real patron of the arts, in which case we're at a ballet, with an intermission for supper, which is a carb-laden sandwich at the nearest pub for the time constraint and damn if it isn't drunk food, then we're home once the show's over. Dual income never seemed interesting, so the wife's actually getting home from dance, acting, whatever else she wants to do with her time. It's a post-scarcity world; there are other jobs for those who want something exciting out of life.
Saturday- Get together with some old friends for a Quidditch game; wasn't our thing in school, but England's got a real shot this year, like every other year. Come up with a letter for the kids in Hogwarts to remind them you exist, then go back and forth about buying a new broom, just in case. Spend at least a few minutes gawking at the muggles and their strange habits, then dismiss them as any other momentary fascination.

 

To be quite frank, if they're capable of legilimizing someone in public without anyone noticing, so presumably silently and quickly and possibly even wandlessly, they've probably got better crime or job prospects than identity theft. Not to mention, I'm not sure that bank details would really matter in the wizarding world given that they use physical means of access, e.g. keys, wands, etc. Probably easier to quietly stun someone and rob their shit.

Honestly, I think wizarding crime for the most part is going to be like the real world and possibly even more difficult. Magic requires education. Even a pickpocket who wants to steal with accio (assuming of course, that wizards don't have magical protections against theft that they regularly employ) has to study magic to the 4th year competently. At that point, they could probably just pass the owls and get an actual job. Sure, there'll still be some Fletchers who are presumably competent but it's not as if law enforcement doesn't exist. And just how much danger is the average wizard in from getting love potioned? I'd wager it's low.

 

Hehe, I am amused by your view that someone with an education won't resort to crime because they can get a job.

As for crime.

I'm not thinking about the common mugger(Although I would also like to see how a wizard mugs or gets mugged)

But something more like organized crime.

Where you have the magically educated folks pulling off the crime.

So for example they could use Legilimens to find out the Secret keeper or phrase to a hidden secret.

Or get incriminating information from them.

In a world where a child with enough determination and resources can brew up a polyjuice potion.

What kind of devastation can a full blown adult with knowledge, experience and the determination to commit a crime wrought on the world.

What protects the wizarding world from these kind of paranoid thoughts?

Especially during the death eater days.

"Is this a death eater with Polyjuice pretending to be my wife?"

"Can my rival polyjuice into meand go fuck with my family? "" How can they know its not me?"

 

When it comes to crime the important question is what is illegal in the Wizarding world? Organized crime is all about meeting demand by providing goods and services that are otherwise deemed illegal, be that drugs, prostitution or immigration. So are there illegal magical drugs or are they just considered potions and sold legally? Is prostitution illegal? Are there illegal immigrants, or are all wizards allowed to move from one country to another freely with no restrictions?

Obviously petty theft like shoplifting is going to be a thing, same with murder, embezzlement and fraud. Social engineering has obviously quite a lot more potential in the magical world thanks to polyjuice potion, confundus charm and other ways of deceiving people.

The biggest difference imho is the presence of muggles. I could easily see the "smarter" criminals trying to make their fortune in the muggle world. How easy would it be for a wizard to smuggle huge amounts of cocaine across any border, using expanded luggage and transfiguration, or simply apparating past any checkpoints? Or say, art fraud using duplication charms? Or simply apparating through closed doors and stealing whatever is held in any bank vault? Would messing with muggles in this way be considered illegal, and how much resources would the ministry allocate into stopping such crime?

 

A 100liter hiking backpack is available on the market. Whilst cocaine isn't the same weight as water, it's good enough for vague estimates. Assuming a physically strong wizard, or weight reduction/floating charms and nothing else, that means a single person could carry 100kg of cocaine relatively easily. A quick google puts 1kg of cocaine at $1800 in Colombia, and higher the further you go.
This article puts out that London consumes 23kg of cocaine a day, with a street value of £2.75m (3.58m USD at the time). So $13m worth.

This put the 100kg backpack at about 2.2 million galleons, if Gringotts is willing to exchange that amount in one.

That assumes that the Wizarding authorities don't carry about smuggling muggle goods, of course.

Going further, however, we see that when the Trio are avoiding Voldemort, they manage to put up enough defenses that they're relative secure, despite being actively hunted. Bearing in mind that they are, effectively, drop-outs (even if they're smart), I'm making the assumption that so long as you're not continuously casting magic, it's not impossible to dodge the law. Put some minor muggle repelling charms on the bag, and come over on a ferry or airplane, if you can't apparate or portkey in.

However, I always got the feeling that wizards just... Don't care about muggles. Almost like the neighbour's pets. Annoying when they make a noise, but otherwise, invisible.

 

I always saw the Wizarding World to be more old school when it came to entertainment.

You have less of a need for TV, computers, and video games when you can literally teleport to your friends, your favorite pub across the country or to your favorite lake for a hike.

We have this technology today because we needed more entertainment when stuck in our houses. With the sheer amount of people today, it is impossible for everyone in even a small city to attend the local sports team event, or have everyone eat out at once. Add the fact that we must commute by bus/train/car to even see our friends or family (unless you are lucky to live within walking distance) and it's no surprise that most of our entertainment is now done within our own houses. I know I cannot be the only one who does very little on the weekdays, as the last thing I want to do after work is sit in traffic for 30 minutes to an hour to see a friend or an hour or two.

In the wizarding world, apparition makes all of the above easy, and likely far more common. Seeing your friends and family is just a pop away. Most wizards probably spend far more time out of their homes than the average muggle, and are often entertaining each other. Wizarding board games, chilling with records and other music, and eating good food is all common. When alone, wizards are likely reading books, gardening or potion making, and completing various tasks around the house.

This is why apparition would be my number one spell if I was allowed to pick any magic from HP.

 

I reckon there's loads of stuff wizards would do to protect against crime.

Off the top of my head, to protect against pick pockets you could do anything from buying a wallet with an anti-summoning charm, buy an enchanted one that protests loudly (in a thick Cockney accent, because whimsy) whenever it's held by anyone who isn't the owner, or have one that hits thieves with a stinging hex or even simply have a magical portrait in there with a sonorus charm to shout at thieves if it's stolen.

Similar stuff could be applied to brooms, or wireless sets or any other valuable item. Clothes especially could have enchantments to tie the laces of shoes together or tie up unauthorised users or whatever.

For houses, I reckon rich people just rely on house elves primarily, along with some basic wards. Poorer folks might have some sort of basic area alert ward scheme, or a set of linked family portraits at home at their office and maybe on their person, or buy a Crup.

Legilimency related identity theft could be a thing and far as I know you can't actually block it without learning Occlumency, which is both rare and difficult. I guess depending on how common the knowledge that Legilimency exists is, there'd be more of a cultural acceptance for simply not making eye contact with strangers and perhaps actually doing so is a complement and a sign of trust.

On the other hand, I don't think Legilimency is prevalent, commonly know or easily learnt either though, so it'd probably be easier to get that info with a simple Imperio or a potion or by rifling through someones bins or whatever. It also seems that there isn't so much in the way of indirect transactions in the wizarding world and a corresponding lack of interest in stuff like remote banking security or pin cards. A decently forged signature, their vault key and some polyjuice is probably all you'd need to get into someones vault or buy goods in their name on a 'tab' at a store, which brings us back to organized criminals stunning someone, stealing a couple hairs and their key then going to town.

Moving on to the 'how do wizards live' I agree with Lindsey that easy travel would be the major differentiating factor. I'd expect that in conjunction with the above ease of entertainment, Wizards don't really 'do' living in close proximity with others, or work, or whatever. The main reason us muggles tend to go with cities is because you need to live near your work, near a supermarket, near entertainment venues, ideally near your friends, maybe near an airport or a train station. Wizards just don't.

In that context, I expect that the Weasley's situation is far more common than it would be in the muggle world. Find a nice quiet area where land is cheap and you're isolated from muggles, build your place and who cares if work is 200 miles away. In that context it's weird that Hogwart's is a boarding school though, unless it's just done to enable wizard raised and muggle raised kids an even playing field and experience.

The only limit to this seems to be international travel. Based on the Weasley's spending 1000 galleons on a trip to Egypt, it seems that travel abroad is expensive, and presumably you can't simply apparate that distance. It's also interesting that Fleur lives in the UK when working for Gringotts and dating Bill as opposed to simply commuting from France. I'd guess then that foreign holidays would be reasonably uncommon for Wizards, as they are for Muggles, and that this would be one of the few things you do need a steady and fairly substantial income to do.

On that note, I'd also agree that work is a lot more relaxed. If you have magic to cover most of your essentials, you don't really need to work 9-5 unless you've got a massive family to support like Mr Weasley, so it's more something you do for prestige, for additional expendable income, to fill your time and meet other people. Like the rich retiree doing a bit of consulting on the side. I expect wizards get bored and take a sabbatical year or simply have one or both parent stop working when they have young kids much more frequently than muggles do as well. I expect a lot of wizards retire pretty much as soon as they pay off their house and stay retired for a comparatively long time.

 

I'm gonna be honest: I don't see any point to money in the wizarding world. Food can be endlessly duplicated and everything else can be made from nothing, or dirt or something.

Need somewhere to live? Find a piece of land and embiggen it so there is now more land in that same space. Hide the extra land and call that your land. Magic a jenga-tower of a house onto it.

Need something to eat? Acquire some nutritious material, keep it magically fresh (this magic must exist), and duplicate it any time you are hungry. Don't like the taste? Transfigure it into something you do like, or confound yourself or something.

Want a new flying broomstick to play quiddich with? Do without because flying using a broom is ridiculous and quiddich is stupid.

 

The issue with this is that this realistically only applies if you have the skill level of a Snape. Magic is difficult. You can't just wave a wand and say some words and cast a perfect spell.The average ministry worker can't cast a proper shield charm. The charms OWL (which people fail) was a levitation charm, and a color-change charm. Harry got an exceeds expectations in Charms and he confused the color-change charm with the growth charm. This already means that he's more skilled than many adult wizards (Augusta Longbottom didn't pass her charms OWL).

So to successfully transfigure a home in magically expanded land while keeping getting essentials through duplication and transfiguration would be incredibly unmanageable for your average wizard. I'd expect even a wizard like Snape or Kingsley to struggle to manage this. Perhaps an average wizard can substitute herbology and care of magical creatures to get some essentials, but that just leads to an endless cycle of even more magical ability needed to get essentials such as fertilizer or taming creatures.

It's simply easier to set up a system of trade. Perhaps one wizard gets really good at enchanting homes and one wizard gets really good at constructing them. It seems straightforward that this wizard might trade his time for the second wizard's time for both to obtain a well-constructed, well-charmed home that works properly. But both wizards might need to trade with a witch to get their food, and trading gets more and more complicated which leads to inevitable need for a currency system. How about magical coins minted by goblins? I expect gold/other valuable materials to be too easy to obtain with magical mean for them to serve as a pure currency but if you take a valuable material like gold and tie in unique magic that wizards cannot access to create uncounterfeitable coins, then that can serve as good currency.

And of course, this lets wizards trade for "luxury" goods that life without would quite frankly be very unrealistic for wizards. Of course, some wizards are going to want broomsticks. They're also going to need potions, books, healing, charmed objects, floo powder, stationery, and other items because as we've established, for the average wizard they're too difficult to simply obtain on their own. Even a wizard like Dumbledore isn't going to spend an entire day hunting down in the wilds all the ingredients for a pepper-up potion so that they can brew it to cure their cold. They'll simply buy one (or in the case of Dumbledore, get one from the school stock paid for with Hogwarts money).

Edit: I do expect some things such as food to be drastically cheaper compared to the muggle world. Cheaper in value of course. I doubt pounds would be of any value to wizards given that you can obtain an infinite amount with the confundment charm. I fully expect that the currency exchange is subsidized by the ministry in a limited amount purely for muggleborn students. But just because food is cheaper and possibly something you can come up with on your own does not mean that there is no place for money.