Essentially the Thread Topic. How would you write Harry Potter if there was no Statue of Secrecy?

 

Let me tell you this, sir:

Hem, hem.

I'd set Hogwarts in London. That's pretty much it.

Spoiler

Stay tuned.
On the street outside the Tower of London, first one wizard appeared, then another. This second wizard was named Cornelius Fudge and he was the attaché to a junior minister. This particular minister was much younger than Fudge and his top hat and suit jacket seemed just a bit sharper than Fudge’s, his bearing a little more stately. In the offices of Whitehall, it was widely appreciated that junior minister Cavendish was one to watch. Fudge intended to be right alongside him as he rose to the top.

“Mr. Fudge, hurry up,” said Cavendish. He strode ahead, each step equal to two of Fudge’s even as the attaché struggled with the clips to his case. Away from the warm lights of the Westminster bar, Fudge struggled to draw level and engage him.

London lay under a thick wash of fog, and it was difficult to tell if the sun had risen or not. Each anbaric light passed them quickly, providing a brief moment of orange clarity atop a rusted iron lamp post before they were swallowed again. They took a quick turn up the Mint Street and followed the signs for the Ripper Museum, until they were in Whitechapel, proper. After five minutes they turned into Church Lane. Here, dirty brick rose up on both sides until Fudge lost sight of it. The pair’s footsteps echoed out of time with their footsteps, and in the chill of the night the hairs on Fudge’s neck began to rise. Cavendish said nothing.

Surely, two trained wizards have nothing to fear on the streets of London. No matter the time.

It became clear that they approached blue lights, the unnatural anbaric colour moving over the exit of the alley in long passes, casting depthless shadows.

“Mr. Fudge, find me the auror-inspector, thank you,” said Cavendish. They had approached a police line. Wasp-striped wooden barriers with 'Police' repeating across them had been placed along the width of the whole street, separating the wizards from the scene of the crime. Two wagons were present beyond the barrier which the police were constantly popping into and out of. Beside them, a muggle horseless car was sat silently. There was no broom floating nearby, nor could Fudge see the actinic glow of spell work. The scene seemed entirely muggle.

Cavendish looked at him expectantly. Holding his belly, he ducked under the barrier. Without any obvious target he fixed a smile to his face and wandered over to the horseless car. Next to it, surveilling the wagons, a muggle turned to face him. He had two diamonds on his epaulettes. His face was lined like slate and, as he looked at Fudge, his expression was about as hard.

“Hello, Inspector,” said Fudge, “my name is Cornelius Fudge. I was wondering if I could get a moment of your time.”

“A moment?” asked the Inspector. “You can get as long as it takes you to magic your way out of handcuffs unless you can tell me what you’re doing intruding on my crime scene, right sharpish, hennish.”

 

They would still hide, but most of the action would happen in a shadow world interlacing with the mundane one. Witches would disappear from the real world rather permanently once their powers surfaced, only to return as adults if they're feeling nostalgic or trying to connect with someone hiding from other witches. The main character would return to mundanity as a safety measure and because his friend Hermione insists on maintaining ties to her mundane family. From her perspective, witches are betraying humanity by not using their gifts to help.

Actually, the more I think about it, the uglier the theme gets.

 

Wizards rule over muggles.

 

As above really.

The initial point of departure is around 1500. In canon, the wizarding world decided that the best response to muggle persecution and witch trials was to hide. The only other option available would be to fight back, either with military force or a political coup. I'd lean towards the second option.

You can argue all you like about wizards vs muggles today, but back then, a trained wizard was practically a god in the face of the tech of the day. I'd say it'd be a case of months for wizards to quietly install themselves in positions of power within the Church and muggle governments within Europe and start to shift the official position on magic. Give it a couple generations, a judicious use of the Imperius and a few 'miracles' performed by prominent clergymen and magic would be regarded as a blessing, not a sin.

After that, it becomes a simple case of power and economics. The wizards are objectibely better in almost every single way than their muggle counterparts. Health, general utility, martial force, possibly even general levels of education. They also have ways of bending the minds of the populace to their will.

In the face of that, if you were a local noble, or a king or a prominent clergyman, you'd absolutely want to employ wizards. The service they give is better, they'll win your wars, heal your ills and give advice on the political machinations of your enemies via legilimency whilst simultaneouly acting with the power of an entire conventional army. Those who still fear the wizards would start to slip in standing through not having access to their gifts.

Both today and especially back then, successful advisers, business people or military commanders (even if they're not willing to simply Imperio their employers and act as the power behind the throne) tend to become ennobled / promoted and become powers in their own right. Then it's just a matter of waiting until almost all the muggle nobles get 'outcompeted' and die out. This could occur organically because wizards through virtue of their arts have a habit of winning duels, contests and battles, tend to be very successful politically and happen to be very successful in business. It could of course also be organised foul play to bring about wizarding supremacy, either way it doesn't matter. Wizards would quickly come to dominate the ruling classes.

What's interesting at that point, is what impact does this have on mankinds development? Would the sciences advance in the Renaissance if magc could solve all your engineering or military needs? Would the industrial revolution be a thing if wizards can already mass produce good with a wave of a wand and a few words? What value is placed on the education of muggles if they are hamstrung in terms of social mobility and practical ability by the very virtue of being muggle?

Everything from that point onwards would be different. Transport, warfare, communications, production, society, goods and services, all would revolve to a greater or lesser extent around magic. This isn't far fetched. They say need is the mother of invention, and with magic, why do you need a faster horse, better healthcare, a better spear, better architects or a better communication method? The solution is obvious; pay a wizard to sort it.

Fast forwarding to the modern era, I'd envision a caste type system, with the only way to progress past a certain, frankly menial level, is to be magical. Society would be more stagnant, more socially regressive compared to today, both because wizards live longer, and also because it's very difficult to curb the power of the ruling classes to the same degree when they can change your mind with a word and literally know what you're thinking as you think it.

I'd say the equivalent to the Voldermort war would be on the grounds of treatment and status of muggles, much as before, with a subset of muggleborns, recently elevated to the ruling elite, but still facing discrimination for their lowly origins, campaigning on behalf of their families and childhood friends, whilst the established magical families seek to retain their status in the face of this percieved threat.

 

Basically what Alastair said. If magic were out in the open, how (and why) would Muggle science and technology develop? Why would there be research interest in, e.g., physics over transfiguration when the application of the latter was so apparent?

I would be curious to see a fic or a world with more ambiguous lines of demarcation between Muggle and magical. If we added magic users to current nation states for example—rather than thinking about an alternate history of development—what would that look like?

If democratic states still existed and Muggles notionally had the same political rights as wizards, then that could create an interesting and very Orwellian situation where the clear power difference between magic users and Muggles worked itself out in a subtler way than a clear caste system. What recourse does a Muggle have in a state that should represent them but where they can easily be interfered with by magicians on the street or people in government who primarily represent magical interests? What would a progressive Wizarding politics look like in that case and how would they act?

 

Ok, no fooling now.

I've recently been trying to consider this exact scenario using the method proposed for alternate history proposed by Hellofutureme and his world building videos [I'll edit the link in later].

Certainly, to facilitate a world without a statute of secrecy I think you need to track changes backwards and forwards through time in order to reach a point where wizarding society no longer tends towards secrecy and you need to establish a point of divergence where that happens.

In my own story, that's the founders brainstorming Hogwarts in 989 and ending up helping out with the fire of London at the time and getting a gift to found their school on the southbank moor. I'm not going to go on about it (if that interests you, then look at the timeline thread I threw up and I'm always interested in feedback) but it's the reason for the somewhat anglo-centric approach below but I'll try and be more broad in my thought, in general as much as I consciously can.

Essential characteristics of canon, modern wizarding society:

1. Wizarding society is small.

a. I think I attribute this in one half to them setting up a formal school early. They have no higher education, and so they marry early and live long, but they obviously have some method of contraception and they educate wizards and witches equally. I think they reach a post-industrial level of living very early on. Whether this is pre- or post-statute is difficult to decide. It depends on when certain magics were established.

b. It's not as simple as being born. Most wizards are able to produce wizard children, but squibs are definitely a thing, and not perishingly rare. Likewise, squibs can go on to have muggleborns at some point in the future. They're not a culture that can really control their 'immigration' and 'emmigration'. You're born with it or not. And, that rate of muggleborns is based on that rate of squibs. It's unlikely then, to my mind, that as the muggle population explodes post-industrial revolution that the wizarding population did the same. In a statute-less world, this may be different, where they are less insulated from this.

2. Magic, not just magical government was profoundly altered in its progression by the statute of secrecy. It is clear from the Tales of Beedle the Bard, and Wendelyn the Weird that wizards had a way to escape muggle persecution. But I am not clear when exactly wizards developed the means to avoid muggles. I would suggest that in a world without the statute, they do not develop obliviation, muggle-repelling charms, unplottable charms etc. Further, wizarding dress will fundamentally change, and reflect something more contemporary if not the same as muggles (muggles weren't wearing robes casually in 1689). Wizards on founding their own world would have steered into having their own customs and unique cultural attributes to separate the societies further.

Without the requirement that wizards maintain the magical world and separate it, I think courses such as Care of Magical Creatures wouldn't be offered at Hogwarts as it would be a wizard's interest not his prerogative. They'd have to suffer more unfun things such as English and Sciences.

3. Wizards are mobile. Witches and Wizards have long been capable of scorning muggle borders and established a world ICW that convinced all magical societies to hide themselves, before western muggles had even discovered every continent. They've had flight, at the very least, for a good long time. Wizards tend towards co-operation in a way that muggle's lack or lacked. My final essential supposition is that this is because of their mobility and lack of care for borders.

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Having discussed that, the rest of this assumes a few things. First, that the statute did not come into creation in 1689 but that the ICW did and did not pursue it, rather they pursued active management of issues. That ICW is what it says on the tin, a loose confederation of wizards from various nation-states and does not hold itself accountable to a muggle nation in particular. That the line of history prior to 1689 is relatively unaltered, excepting whatever small butterfly causes the lack of the SoS. That some of the essential key players of the canon universe continue to exist in this one - let's say it's the privilege of a magical soul, the magic of continuity.

Economical:

Mercantilism and protectionism were the predominant theories of this time, pushed by the merchant companys that dominated all the colonial powers. I think this would be very quickly challenged by the existence of wizards, particularly a global confederation of wizards who represent some of the colonised countries. With a decision for wizards to be more globally involved in their countries, I suspect this would be quickly pushed more towards free trade.

Wizards cannot create food or money, and the focus on exportation of food and the import of manufactured goods does not particularly do it for wizards. I think they would be able roundly defeat this trend by creating more raw goods or many more manufactured goods in their country, either or. I suspect this economic impetus would be the driving force behind any magical revolution that occurred as a result of whatever statute the ICW passed at this point.

I think it was the larger community of wizards, globally, working together that would've driven that surge of spell and potion creation. By creating a global talent pool the number of wizards and witches working together on something in concert would lead to the modern magic-style we see in canon, where there are international magical journals and a community of Professors. In lieu of a political statute passing, I'd go with an economic one. But whatever you decided it was they'd worked together on is probably where I think you'd have to push their magic development towards.

Further, either paper currency by virtue of its being 'money' is fine or it's not. I'd go with fine, whether this was due to something innate to money or due to copyright-charms. A wizarding world without precious-metal currency would be less whimisical but it would cause the birth of proper inflation and free-trade that would otherwise result a hundred years later than in the purely muggle world.

I'm not an economist, but I think economy is the underpinner of all the rest, and understanding how wizards would become interested in money leads to every other change. In this case, wizards become particularly efficient in magics that effect resources, banks and money.

Political:

It's hard to be clear if this is just a modern perspective, and with the idea of telling a story with mass appeal, but I think colonialism would stumble to a relative halt. The pressures of muggle effects of stable wizarding cultures, is probably a major pressure in the evolution of the original SoS (and the fact they'd be persecuted whenever they tried to defend their homelands).

Unfortunately the statute comes too late to save the Aztecs, but I think it has a few particular political effects.

Much more severe disenfranchisement of Goblins - wizards would essentially be taking the goblin development track and I think they would be loathe to share it. Without the particular magics that Goblins developed, taking on the banking system post statute and the control over wizarding economy, I think the goblin rebellions are much less severe and frequent. They are also opposed by numerous muggles.

Wizards become more interested in higher education, and government. As in canon, where most wizards appear to work in state departments, I think this occurs in this timeline too. the ICWs effect on organising wizard encourages them to take roles in various civil services.

In many countries, the statute predates democracy. In France, the HRE and imperial Russia, wizarding appointments into higher offices become increasingly common. Where prejudice prevents this, rival states gain an immeasurable advantage.

Wizards endeavour to reduce war, and there become more fixed boundaries more early than in the real world. Particularly in the case of the Europeans, following the thirty-year war and the pressures of that and its eight million death toll.

Political pressure leads to softer borders between states.

Wizards as a cabal, pressure towards constitutional monarchy (I suspect many of them lack the drive for violent revolution). They pursue political unification of states in a manner similar to the ICW. Some body like the league of nations, or UN, perhaps adjoining to the ICW itself.

By the modern day they would've succeeded. There may be a greater number of muggle states, i.e. the confederacy and the USA, but there is either a one world federal government of some degree, or continental equivalents like the EU - but they're probably held in low regard by the general public.

Abolition of slavery is likely much earlier, due to the input of non-european wizards. Or, less likely, it is abolished much later due to the wizarding treatment of magical beings.

The Wizarding statute is anathemic to merchant company monopolies as much as it is to Goblins. There is no Berlin conference. India and Africa are therefore far less colonised and Anglo-european influence spread less far into the old world.

Witches have always been co-schooled with boys, and there were earlier female ministers for magic in canon, so I suspect that muggle enfranchisement of women would occur much more early than in real life.

Cultural:

The effect on wizard culture would be one of the largest visible aspects.

There statute would focus on integration and reduction of persecution by the control of vital muggle institutions world-wide and control of them beyond the people.

They would be a privileged class and embody the status quo, in large part. They would be liberal in 18th and 19th century history for their times and conservative in the 1990s in large part.

They would be an educated class. Integration in the muggle world would lead to higher learning, and I suspect some universities would cater for them (if they did so before the SoS in RL) or the ICW would found one.

Robes would've been incorporated into more muggle fashion and conical hats would be antiquated and formal, for weddings, like top-hats are for muggles. I'm seeing robes, in the context of the SoS being something chosen in canon for their academic sensibilities, something every wizard had and few muggles.

The greatest expansion of wizards might be their involvement in entertainment industries. Magic's ability to facilitate entertainment, and metamorphmagi and transfiguration, would lead to a long history of entertainment work for those who opposed finance and ministerial work. I imagine wizards dominating both Hollywood and the worlds of classical arts/music.

Wider afield, Africa would be a more dominant power having more wealth to its name. African and Indian culture would've spread more reciprocally with European and American culture, in light of the likelihood of Asian and African ICW senior wizards.

A longer history of enfranchised muggle women, and senior witches in halls of government would lead to a perhaps more-modern state of gender equality throughout history. The educational institutional dominance of women would've occurred much earlier and as such the end-result of that trend would be seen now, in either some measure to address the balance to 50:50 or a far more dichotomous gendered society in terms of muggle work-roles in stark contrast to wizarding society.

Healing and apothecary are low class roles amongst wizarding societies. I think muggle healing is vastly inferior to wizarding healing, and in this world healers would be those wizards who wanted an easy life, lots of work and didn't try very hard. Muggle ailments would be easy to fix, but there would be no end to demand. Perhaps they would be called doctors, along with the muggle professionals, and Healers would remain as canon, well trained and able to heal magical illnesses.

Technological:

Technology is the most difficult to predict. In some ways the continuing presence of wizards would retard technology, and in other ways advance it.

The involvement of wizards in higher institutions of learning would be vital to this. And their role in funding research and education even more so.

I think arithmancy would have a vital role in this, but this entirely my fanon. I view arithmancy as a P=NP sort of thing, allowing the checks of information very well. I think this could be used to justify scientific development along whatever road you fancied.

In terms of magic, I am viewing charms developing that much more deal with the transfer of information, and legal contracts of more sophistication. The goblet of fire but common and less showy.

I think that arithmancy as I've viewed it above would make it difficult for computers to take off. The dependence on wizards for computation, and their ability to do it relatively quickly, would provide a block on developing computers from their starting point where they can't do these things well.

The other aspect of major consideration is space. The wizarding focus on community and transportation of goods in their early years would lead to magics that focus on large transit of peoples or goods rather than inconspicuous transit. That would either mean early and greater space travel or none at all. Depends on the wizards.

Personally, I take some inspiration from aristotlean physics in my magic, and the way they make use of starlight and moonlight and things and so I'm inclined to say magic works least well, as practiced by wizards, in space. In a word technologically depedent on wizards for methods of transport I'd go space travel is limited and more difficult than in real-life.

I think science would be slowed in some ways by the way Magic influences the development of the scientific method. I think it would tend to pluralism more than it does, slower to fast of theories. Conflicts would exist where some theories explain magic, but not physics. Perhaps some magical animals demonstrate clear Lamarckism, for example.

Religious:

Wizarding persecution would've been very effectively stymied in practice but not in theory.

The continuing presence of magic would present a more challenging refutation of faith. However, the practical implications of this would be faith specific. Western christian faith has a much different perspective on magic than that of Africa in this new world. In the west, I think the wizard would have a relatively 'jewish' reputation. Whether this would protect other targets of prejudice is unclear. They're involved in economic and entertainment endeavours and as a small community they have an outsized impact on the world, and the christian religion doesn't exactly embrace them.

The main factor preventing a very anti-wizard sentiment becoming something more medieval would be that they have the world's nuts in a vice, with magic literally controlling money and protecting them in most encounters.

Assassination of wizards would be something that occurs and they would be the focus of many an angry forum-post in certain corners of the internet.

Wizards themselves hold to mainstream religions in large part, as in canon.

(I'm omitting Geography 'cus it's Erf'. No Suez canal.)

(I'm going to be editing this a lot, I think, today, as this was written on my phone and is very unstructured. Feel free to check back later. It's actually very different to my story-timeline where the British wizards focused on war not economy and the ICW didn't take off.)

 

Interesting stuff Blorcyn. Ireally like a lot of what you have. One of my main concerns though with your thought process is that it seems it ties world history up neatly with a bow and no statute makes the world a better place generally.

While I don't necessarily think you have to go full dark caste system like was suggested above, what do you think are major negatives on having wizards in society?

I'd also ask you guys, more relevant to the books, how would you write the actual harry potter story in such a world?

 

I think the Dark Lords of the modern age would be Dark Lords regardless. But yes, perhaps, if you don’t mind certain aspects of muggle life under a commercial wizard-elite, your life might be better in terms of Quality and Poverty.

I don’t think that’s a problem though. Wizards went under the statute because they were being ineffectually persecuted which was annoying for them and dangerous for their untaught children. And, because with the other hand they were also being demanded to magic away all of muggles’s problems. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that they can magic away many muggle problems, and would if they’d stayed a part of the world.

 

Like exalted. Wizards would lead armies of muggles and rule the world.

 

I think you guys overestimate the loyalty wizards have to other wizards as opposed to their muggle families (in case of muggleborn and half-blood wizards). Sure, it would be super easy for wizards to totally rule over muggles with imperius and stuff, but do you really think that all wizards would be totally fine with that?

You could have some kind of oppressive wizarding rule with babies taken from their muggle parents to be brainwashed, but handling such operation world-wide seems like a recipe to a disaster. Might be a cool story, though: a wizarding civil war for muggle rights with underground schools of magic for half-bloods hidden away by their mixed parents.