Chapter Text
Prologue
Minutes of the International Confederation of Warlocks
Emergency Session on Muggle Technological Proliferation
Geneva, Switzerland — November 3rd, 1989
The Grand Assembly Hall of the International Confederation of Warlocks had seen many things in its four centuries of operation. It had weathered the Goblin Rebellions of 1612, the Statute of Secrecy debates of 1692, two attempted coups, one accidental fire of disputed origin, and the infamous Incident of 1743 which nobody discussed anymore and which had been formally expunged from the minutes at the request of seven separate delegations. It had not, in living memory, been asked to consider a resolution concerning something called the World Wide Web.
The Presiding Officer called the assembly to order at precisely nine o’clock in the morning. Half the delegates looked harassed and bleary, having crossed enough time zones via Portkey that their bodies had entirely ceased to agree on what time it was. The packets of parchment already waiting at each seat had met with mixed reception; the delegates from Japan, Korea, and Canada turned pages with quiet diligence, but the majority had not touched theirs. Several delegates from the eastern bloc were directing pointed looks at the British, French, and Australian delegations with resentment. The delegate from Luxembourg had brought a pastry. Several people looked at it enviously.
The Presiding Officer cleared his throat and, with a tone suggesting he had rehearsed his prepared remarks several times and still wasn’t quite ready, tried again.
“We are here to discuss the matter of Muggle technological advancement and its implications for our continued secrecy.”
He paused to allow the muttering to subside.
It did not subside.
“The matter,” he said, more firmly, “has been tabled for discussion following a joint submission from the delegations of Great Britain, France, and Australia, who have collectively identified what they term an escalating risk of exposure.” He glanced down at his notes. “The submission refers specifically to the proliferation of closed-circuit surveillance cameras, military satellite imaging technology, and a nascent communications network currently operating under Muggle military and academic designation as ARPANET, referred to internally within several Muggle governments as the ‘internet’. Our intelligence suggests it will not remain restricted to military and academic channels. Plans to open a version of the network to the general public are already in development, with internal Muggle projections estimating public access within three to five years. Wizarding audits of these projections suggest that timeline is, if anything, optimistic.”
From somewhere near the back, the delegate from the United States said, “I’m sorry, they’re calling it the what?”
“The internet.”
“And this concerns us because—”
“Because it takes photographs,” said the delegate from Great Britain, with thinly veiled patience. She was a small woman with an extremely upright posture, and judging by the stack of parchment before her, she had prepared extensively for this meeting. “From space. Among other places. Continuously.”
The silence that followed made it abundantly clear that space was not a direction anyone in the room had previously considered being seen from.
“Satellites,” said the delegate from France. “Zey ’ave been launching zem since ze 50s. We ’ave prepared a full briefing document.” She held up her copy—it was quite thick—and gestured toward the packets already waiting at each seat. Around the room, delegates began guiltily flipping through pages they should have already looked through prior to the meeting start.
“Great Britain,” Great Britain continued, setting down her own copy, “has conducted an internal review over the past eighteen months. The findings are concerning. In 1987 alone, seventeen separate magical incidents were captured on CCTV footage in Greater London—wizards performing magic in locations they believed to be private, entirely unaware that cameras existed, let alone that one might be pointed at them. In fourteen of those cases, our Obliviation teams were able to contain the situation. In the remaining three, we were fortunate. We may not always be fortunate.”
“Viss all respect,” said the delegate from Russia, a large man with a grey beard and a surly demeanour, “ziss is problem of own making. Ze growing number of muggleborns entering vorld creates vulnerabilities. Solution is not to accommodate Muggle technology. Solution is to address source.”
The muttering resumed, louder this time, and with a different quality to it, some approving, some sharply not.
“The delegate from Russia,” said the Presiding Officer carefully, “will confine his remarks to the matter at hand.”
“Ze matter at hand,” Russia retorted in a mocking tone, “is secrecy. I address secrecy. But let us be honest viss ourselves, yes? Every muggleborn who crosses into vorld carries Muggle vorld viss zem. Families. Connections.” He waved a hand. “Devices. More of zem zere are, more porous boundary becomes. Proposal does not address porousness. It simply asks us to—how do you say—patch holes viss more holes.”
“You are addressing blood status,” said Australia flatly, “which is not on today’s agenda.”
“I address reality,” Russia said. “But yes. I vill confine myself.” He sat back, point made, and folded his hands.
“Gentlemen.” Great Britain did not raise her voice. She did not need to; her commanding presence was more than enough. “The muggleborn population of the wizarding world has increased by thirty-one percent in the last two decades. The squib population by a further nineteen. These are not trends which reverse themselves. The question before this assembly is not how we feel about those trends. The question is what we do about the world as it actually exists, rather than as some of us might prefer it.”
She let that sit for a moment.
“The world as it actually exists,” she continued, “contains satellites. It contains CCTV. It contains an expanding network of Muggle technology that, per our internal audits, is projected to deploy to the general public in less than half a decade. And it contains our people, living, as the overwhelming majority of them do, not in isolated magical communities but embedded within Muggle cities. London. Paris. Tokyo. São Paulo. There are almost no purely magical communities left of any significant size anywhere in the world. We have been neighbours with Muggles for centuries, and for centuries that arrangement has functioned because Muggles lacked the means to look too closely.
“That is changing. It has already changed in ways many in this room have not yet appreciated. How suspicious does it appear when a magical resident of London cannot identify a telephone? When they recoil from a television set? When they perform magic in what they believe to be an empty alleyway, unaware that a camera has been mounted above the door across the street? Every magical child born into a Muggle city grows up navigating two worlds. Their neighbours’ Muggle children know what satellites are. They know what video cameras are. They will shortly know what this worldwide network is. Our people cannot maintain secrecy around technology they do not understand and cannot recognise.
“Some will suggest we solve this by withdrawing, by establishing more explicitly magical communities where our people need not concern themselves with Muggle technology at all. I would ask those delegates to consider what they are actually proposing. They are asking families to vacate homes that in some cases have been in magical hands for three or four centuries. They are asking communities to uproot themselves entirely on the assumption that a contained magical settlement would be somehow less visible than the arrangement we currently have. It would not. A settlement of any size produces heat signatures, movement patterns, infrastructure. Satellites do not care whether the people they are photographing intended to be found.
“The only workable solution is liaison. We must establish formal channels with Muggle governments—controlled, bound, heavily regulated channels—so that we may work with them to apply magical safeguards to the technology that already exists and to ensure that what is yet to come is not deployed in ways that expose us. New satellites can be warded before launch if we have access. Receiving stations, imaging infrastructure, the network itself as it develops—all of it can be managed, but only if we are at the table. If we are not at the table, we are at the mercy of whatever the Muggle world decides to build next. And I assure this assembly, they will keep building.”
The assembly was paying rapt attention. Luxembourg took a bite of his pastry, a look of thoughtful curiosity on his face as he chewed.
“The joint submission,” Great Britain continued, “proposes the following. Each member nation of the Confederation to establish, within two years, a dedicated Department of Muggle Affairs and Technology. The remit of said department to include monitoring of Muggle technological development—with particular attention to surveillance infrastructure, satellite imaging, and the emerging communications network—liaison with respective Muggle governments under strict secrecy protocols, and the development of countermeasures, both magical and procedural, against technological exposure risks. Critically, this includes securing access to new satellite programmes before launch, so that appropriate magical safeguards may be applied at the source rather than retroactively. The departments are to share intelligence quarterly through this assembly, so that what one nation learns, all nations benefit from.” She sat down. “We are happy to take questions.”
There were, predictably, quite a lot of questions.
The United States went first. He was a broad man in expensive dress robes, with a confidence that suggested he was utterly untroubled by the possibility he might be wrong.
“I want to be clear,” he said, “that the American Magical Congress has significant reservations about this proposal. Significant reservations. We have maintained strict separation between the magical and No-Maj communities for over three centuries, and that separation has served us extremely well. What you’re proposing is not surveillance of No-Maj technology. You’re proposing active integration. Liaison offices. No-Maj government employees with knowledge of our existence.” He shook his head. “That’s an extraordinary security risk.”
“The risk,” said Australia, “is in doing nothing.”
“The risk is in allowing No-Maj involvement in magical governance. Full stop. I’ll tell you, back home this proposal wouldn’t make it past the first reading. The idea that we’d sit down with No-Majs and say, here, let us show you everything, let us bring you inside, let us trust you with the single most important secret in the history of our people—” He paused, apparently genuinely offended by the mental image. “And for what? Because the No-Majs invented a special camera? We’ve dealt with No-Maj cameras before. We’ve dealt with No-Maj journalists, No-Maj investigators, No-Maj governments. We’ve always managed. We don’t need to fundamentally restructure our relationship with the non-magical world because of some new gadget.”
“Zis is not some new gadget,” said France. “Zis is infrastructure. Global infrastructure. Ze difference between a camera and a satellite is ze difference between a candle and ze sun. You can blow out a candle, mon ami. You cannot blow out ze sun.”
“I appreciate the poetry,” the United States said. “I don’t appreciate the implication that we’ve got no choice but to start inviting No-Majs into our confidence.”
“No one is inviting anyone into anything,” said Great Britain. “We are proposing a controlled, structured, heavily regulated engagement with specific Muggle governmental bodies under secrecy provisions. The alternative—and I cannot stress this clearly enough—is eventual discovery on their terms rather than ours. I know which I would prefer.”
“Furthermore,” said the delegate from the Philippines, who was neat and deliberate, “this assembly should consider the matter of containment. Not in the sense my colleague from Russia has raised, but in a practical sense. Information, once it is shared, it cannot be unshared already. Every Muggle who learns of our existence—that is a liability, is it? The proposal is speaking of secrecy protocols, but it does not specify what those said protocols are or how they are to be implemented.”
“That is precisely why the joint submission includes provision for mandatory magical confidentiality agreements for all Muggle personnel in liaison roles.”
“Confidentiality agreements,” said the Philippines, “are pieces of paper.”
“Magical confidentiality agreements,” said the delegate from France, “are somewhat more persuasive zan pieces of paper.”
“Actually, they are still voluntary. A Muggle must agree to be bound. What if it happens they do not agree? What if they agree and later on recant? What if they are replaced by someone new who is not agreed? What if their government changes and the new administration will not honour the arrangement of the previous one? These are not hypothetical concerns. These are the ordinary mechanics of Muggle governance, which is changing constantly and is not considering itself bound by the commitments of its predecessors.”
This produced a longer silence. It was a fair point and several delegates were visibly annoyed by it.
“Point of order.” The delegate from Japan had not spoken until this moment. He was a small, immaculately dressed man who had been listening to the entire preceding discussion with an expression of polite attention that gave absolutely nothing away. “If assembly will permit.”
The Presiding Officer nodded.
“Japan does not oppose proposal in principle,” he said. “Japan understands necessity. Concerns raised by colleague from Philippines are, however, well-founded—they deserve more robust answer than they have so far received. Confidentiality agreement which Muggle enters voluntarily may be withdrawn voluntarily. This creates inherent instability in any arrangement built upon it.”
He paused, his expression neutral. “Entire framework becomes only as secure as willingness of individual Muggles to remain silent. And individual Muggles, as colleague has observed, are subject to pressures, changes of conscience, and ordinary frailties of memory. Japan would like to propose amendment: That any Muggle made aware of our existence be required to submit to binding magical oath. Not simple magical agreement. An oath. One which cannot be withdrawn, and which carries appropriate consequences for breach. Oath to be administered by Ministry official before Muggle is given access to any information.”
The assembly considered this.
“That is not an unreasonable position,” said Great Britain, after a moment.
“It raises civil liberties questions,” said Australia.
“It raises secrecy questions if we do not,” said Japan pleasantly.
“A binding oath requirement would need to be written into ze amendment with considerable care,” said France. “Ze scope would need to be defined. Ze consequences specified. Zere are implications for—”
“We can work out the implications in committee,” said Great Britain. “In principle. Does the assembly accept the amendment in principle?”
The muttering this time had a different quality to it. Less ideological, more calculating. Even the Philippines, who had raised the original concern, appeared to find the amendment a satisfactory answer to it.
“Call the vote on the amendment,” said the Presiding Officer.
The amendment passed with an overwhelming majority, shortly followed by the main resolution. As expected, Russia and the United States both dissented. The surprise dissension was China, who had not spoken once during the proceedings and offered no explanation for their vote. It didn’t really matter. The resolution had passed and they would all be compelled to comply.
By half past twelve the assembly had begun to disperse. Aides gathered papers. Luxembourg picked pastry crumbs off his robes. Several people formed loose conversational clusters around the room, relief and complaint in roughly equal measure.
The delegate from Great Britain was gathering her documents when her assistant appeared at her elbow.
“Well done,” he said quietly. “I figured you wouldn’t be able to win over the Americans.”
“Yes, well. I got everyone else, which will have to do. The Americans will come around eventually. They always do, once they’ve had sufficient time to pretend the idea was theirs.” She snapped her briefcase shut. “Gerald.”
“Ma’am.”
“Send an owl to Arthur Weasley when we’re back. We’ll need someone with genuine enthusiasm for Muggles to head up the new DMAT. He’d be wasted if we leave him in that dead-end department of his any longer.” She picked up her briefcase. “This will be a worthy promotion for him.”
Gerald wrote it down, tucked his quill away, and followed her out.