So there's this idea that has been percolating in my mind for awhile now, and I figured I should share it and also get some of your opinions.

Muggleborns are usually not utilized alot both in fanon and canon. But I think there is a lot of potential in muggleborns and how they can fir into the story.

One of the main ideas I've been thinking about is, what happens to Muggleborns after they graduate Hogwarts?

I've been thinking, a lot of Muggleborns should surely choose to go back to the Muggle world and become mini demigods or something like that.

As far as I know, magic isn't really traced, even if you cast in the muggle world as an adult wizard. Its only illegal if you're under age.

So why can't a muggle born go back to the muggle world and use magic to live as lavishly and largely as possible.

According to Canon, the ministry only cared when magic items are enchanted to harm Muggles. However, even this part of the government is treated as a joke and was only created as a consolation to Arthur Weasley.

So I've been thinking, in canon, why would a muggleborn choose to live in Wizarding society, as a minnow in an ocean, when they can be the largest fish in a small muggle pond?



Another thing I have been thinking about in regards to the Muggleborns, is how Voldemort never used them for his agenda.

Voldermort could have easily used his charm, charisma and intellect to setup an, equivalent of death eaters among the Muggleborns.

I think there is a way he can stoke the anger of muggleborns and half-bloods and incite them to go against the system that either treats them as second class citizens or forces them to abandon their families and loved ones, since they have to perpetuate the statute of secrecy.

Voldemort can convince them to perform terrorist acts. This way he also stokes anger among the pure bloods and then his true agenda becomes easier to accomplish.

It also sows chaos against the people who are against him, like the order of the phoenix, because they will be fighting on two fronts. Trying to stop both death eater factions at the same time.


So, how else do you guys the Muggleborns and Half-bloods of the wizarding world could have played important roles in the story?

 

My brother in lore, the titular character of the franchise is a half-blood. So is the main villain. Are those roles not important enough for you?

 

Lol, I meant as a group. How would a group of half-bloods and/or Muggles fit into the story/universe.

To be honest, Tom and Harry have fully embraced the wizarding world.

I was thinking about the people who still straddle that line.

 

Muggleborn 'Insert that goes through Hogwarts, graduating in 1990, and immediately fucks off to the Muggle world to make savvy investments and live the high life while studiously ignoring the events of canon going off in the background' when.

 

I‘d say that all sounds somewhat reasonable.

I sort of imagine that some vague sort of social isolation/ being part of an “out group” since you can’t discuss magic would be the only reason not to do that -

- But even then, magical transportation solves that issue. There’s no reason they couldn’t live a lavish life but pop back to the magical world periodically to catch up with school friends/peers and do their magic shopping.

 

Disagree with the fundamental premise. I imagine Azkaban is full of people who thought they had clever ideas to use magic to get rich in the Muggle world, only to find out the Ministry takes a dim view of it as a breach of the Statute of Secrecy.

 

I'm also not sure what being rich in the muggle world would get you. I mean, sure, a wizard could easily become rich or obtain all the muggle material goods desirable with a couple confundments (assuming that the ministry does not regulate this - which I think is unlikely). But it seems to me that wizarding goods are fundamentally superior. The pepper-up potion instantly cures a cold. Muggles can only treat the symptoms of a cold. Wizards can buy razors that automatically shave. Muggles have electric razors.

Yes, we know that muggleborns can exchange muggle currency for galleons. But in my opinion, this has to be subsidized by the ministry. I see no reason why muggle money would be of any significant value in the wizarding world when wizarding goods are superior and confundment seems more convenient for trips into the muggle world.

Nor do I truly believe that getting rich in the muggle world to obtain gold and then selling it in the wizarding world would be that lucrative. Yes, it is impossible to conjure gold. However, wizarding currency is not just based on gold. It is based on goblin forging, which cannot be replicated by wizards, which I think is what lends it so much value.

I think muggleborns who go to boarding school for the majority of the year starting at age 11 will have assimilated fairly quickly into the magical world, when they spend the majority of their most formative years in a wizarding social environment. We see Hermione in 4th year talking about muggle technology as "substitutes" - very clearly from a wizarding perspective. Then, if muggleborns want to enjoy magical goods, they'll need to work in the magical world to earn magical currency.

Lastly, I also think people overestimate the average wizard's magical skill and how difficult magic is. Harry earned an E in charms on his OWL and straight up confused 2 charms. It took an entire exam period to vanish an iguana (he earned an E in transfiguration). Many adult wizards cannot manage a shield charm. Apparition is so difficult that plenty of adult wizards don't do it. So if an average muggleborn who manages an average of A across all subjects and maybe holds 1-2 NEWTs at most goes to the muggle world, I'm not sure they'll have a sizeable advantage. How are they going to confund a muggle or duplicate an expensive muggle item when they struggle to confund a cat or duplicate a quill?

 

He had that and the Reasonable Restriction on Underage Sorcery mixed up. Basically, kids can't do magic outside of magical areas at all, and if that was all there was to it, the Statute itself would be meaningless. Obliviators would have to work just as hard cleaning up an adult's mess as they did with Harry and Ron, and there's no way that there's an exception in place for not being noticed by the muggles. Where adults use magic outside of magical areas in the canon, there's always some reason they got away with it.

 

Or " Go on to maybe form their own cult

I agree that wealth in and of itself might not be alot of motivation for a muggleborn wizard to fully embrace the muggle world.

Edit: (just found this on the wiki, not sure how accurate it is) "The Malfoys were a wealthy and influential wizarding family who, notably, fervently opposed the imposition of the Statute. Despite their espousal of pure-blood values and their strong belief in wizards' superiority over Muggles, the Malfoys had always drawn a sharp distinction between poor Muggles and those with wealth and authority. They had historically been associated with high-born Muggle circles, such as royalty (William the Conqueror and Queen Elizabeth I being notable examples) and aristocracy. This resulted in the Malfoy's vast collection of Muggle treasures and works of art. Their strong opposition of the Statute was, in short, due to the fact that the law would force them to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life"

This implies that even wizards and witches appreciate and covet the wealth of muggles.

However, I think they could easily gain other forms of power. Power that they could never achieve in the wizarding world.

A muggleborn that can cast a simple Lumos spell can easily become a cult leader in the muggle world.

A couple of potions can make them become the most famous celebrity .

An enterprising muggleborn can even become an advisor to various governments in regards to dealing with wizards. Becoming an invaluable part of muggle society's interactions with the wizarding world.

Fame, love, adoration, authority etc. These are things that I think an ambitious muggleborn can easily attain outside wizarding society.

As for magical skill. Like you said, you can still exchange muggle money for galleons. So what can't be achieved by a spell you know, can probably be achieved by a potion or enchanted/transfigured item.

As we know from Chamber's of secret, the ministry doesn't really seem to care about enchanted items. Because the flying car's invisibility feature stopped working and muggles were able to see it for a brief period. We didn't hear any consequences of that from the ministry.

 

According to the wiki, the Statute of secrecy does not limit adult wizards from practiciing in the muggle world. It only limits magical creatures, underage magic and sports

"The Statute stated that each individual Ministry or Council was responsible for hiding the presence of the magical community in their own country. Each Ministry was held responsible for, among other things, the control of magical beasts, curbing public displays of underage magic, and ensuring that magical games and sports were played without risk of discovery."

 

A muggleborn who knows the Shrinking Spell and the levitating spell would be the most wanted and highly paid member of any armed force in the world.

Being able to create Portkeys for a military would make that military essentially unbeatable.

Think about the Abbotabad Raid that got OBL. Instead of Seal Team Six flying for two hours in enemy airspace into a compound filled with insurgents armed with RPG's and AK-47's, you have them all touch a length of rope and they are suddenly and silently in OBL's front garden. They grease him, and are home again instantaneously.

You could ask the US government to pay you $74 million for that single service and they still would have come out ahead (since a $75 million Blackhawk Helo was destroyed).

And that's not even considering all the other applications magic has for conventional warfare. Hell, being able to enchant a magazine to never run out of ammunition would be worth billions in the Arms industry.

 

This would force the Ministry to act as it is a flagrant breach of the Statutes.

If they do not, it will work initially before the local wizards get involved and it turns into a magical weapons competition. As was said in book 6, once both side have magic, it cannot be solved easily.

 

Exactly this - Any tricks that someone would try- if they don’t want to get caught by the Ministry- should probably be completely invisible to muggles.

Even approaching the US military to ask would probably get you locked up by the US magical government nearly instantly.

 

It's interesting, thinking of how a trained witch or wizard could use magic to make money in the muggle world. There's a few blockers:

1 - It can't be obviously magical (IE flying carpet) - statute of secrecy is important.
2 - It can't have obviously magical outcomes (IE healing potions in protein powder) - you need to be within the bounds of (muggle) reality, or statute of secrecy gets broken.
3 - It can't be legally magical - if your pie shop never buys in fresh ingredients, then someone from HMRC (or IRS) might come knocking.

Off the top of my head, there's a few things you could maybe try:
1 - Skill based jobs that magic cheats at, such as a repair shop, mechanic, or chef
2 - Labour based jobs that magic cheats at, such as mopping the floor, cleaning sewage pipes, cuttings trees
3 - knowledge limited jobs, such as a PI using divination

Part of the problem is that anything that works incredibly well, to the point of never having to work again, is going to undergo scrutiny, from a legal perspective, but also from a competitor's perspective. But you're also unlikely to get that far, as you'd need to bring in more wizards to get past the bottleneck if you go big.

Something small and niche might work - a repairshop for old furniture, with 'contacts' that can deal with other items.

 

My argument was the conversion of muggle money for galleons is strictly limited by the ministry for ancillary Hogwarts expenses (with tuition paid for). I think muggle money is utterly worthless to the ministry and goblins so adult muggleborns would be unable to convert sizeable amounts of mugle currency to galleons, if at all. This is especially given how worthless muggle currency is in comparison to galleons, especially given what everyone has been pointing out about the ease of obtaining muggle currency.

Arthur Weasley pulls out a roll of paper money like it's worthless and both he and Hagrid seem to have no conceptual basis for its worth at all. This aligns more for me as the ministry simply providing muggle money to wizarding citizens on request for secrecy purposes. If there was an actual conversion, I think both he and Hagrid would have cared somewhat about the money and have some knowledge of its value. If someone gave me Indian Rupees, I would have no clue as to its value. If I converted 100 USD to Rupees I would most certainly have some idea of its value.

 

Ron can casually confound the examiner to get his muggle driving license, so a) there is clearly some use for even purebloods to integrate into the muggle world and b) using magic to get advantage over muggles doesn't get you into trouble with the ministry.

 

Exactly, we're talking about a society in which muggle baiting was an acceptable practice within living memory, and is still pretty widely done. A witch or wizard could find a nice house they like, make it unplottable or put muggle repelling charms on it and who's going to stop them?

 

This one is pretty good. In addition to PI work, you could operate as an information broker. In that line of work, you could probably also get away with adding a couple layers of indirection between you and the client for extra protection from the ministry.

 

hmm
The Obliviators had no way of knowing it was a kid driving the flying car through London; they had to get to work on wiping memories immediately. Arthur was nearly in trouble for it himself, and he only didn't suffer any consequence for enchanting the car because of a loophole he specifically wrote into the law, relying on this presumption that he didn't intend to use the car. It's fair that the letter of the law does not allow use of magic in muggle areas regardless of age. I'm sure there are one-off instances of the use of magic in canon that the Ministry doesn't catch, or disregards after seeing what kind of spell it was. I'm sure there are also instances of someone getting a warning about it off-screen. That's not the point. The Trace is bound to a location, not to the wands of underage wizards; that was how Harry got in trouble over Dobby's actions; Mafalda Hopkirk sent the warning letter just because there were no adult wizards living in the area, so he was presumed to have done it himself- she knew that a hover charm was used within seconds, and where. I don't think that no one at the Ministry would notice if a repair charm were being used in a supercar body shop every day of the week. It makes no sense to have an exception of not being caught by muggles, because no one would know whether or not you were seen, or someone simply figured out that something fishy had to be going on and started poking around.

 

That’s certainly true… But it seems inconsistently applied.

Surely if it was a general detection of “any” magic, they’d just search for usage of “avada kedavra” , find Little Hangleton and solve the Death Eater problem.