MUST-401 Lessons

Professor Soleil enters the classroom, arms overflowing with various objects. Some are making strange sounds, others are flashing in a surprising way. She deposits the pile onto her desk before stopping to catch her breath. Once ready, she smiles and turns to the waiting class.

Welcome to class today, everyone! I’m excited to tackle a new subject with you all, one that has been requested by many of you during my time here. This will also tie into our discussion over the past couple of weeks about the Internet. Today we are delving into the world of taking Muggle objects and enchanting them. 

Enchanting the Objects

As many of you may know, Muggle items can be enchanted with magic in a way that may make the item more useful for the wizarding community. This can be done for many different reasons. One such reason is that the item cannot be used without altering it first. This is the case with computers. As we discussed last week, the Internet is a fine tool but computers pose a problem for magic users. As such, enchanting computers and other electronic gadgets have become more popular so witches and wizards (usually those of a younger generation) can get online.

I have brought in a few other examples today of enchanted Muggle objects, so you may check them out for yourself! The first enchanted object I want to share is what Muggles refer to as a mobile phone or cellphone (cell, or mobile for short, depending on what part of the world you come from). You may remember from our studies last year that a telephone is what is used by Muggles to speak to one another over long distances. The Muggle in question can use their personal phone to directly speak to another Muggle’s phone, similar to how we might use an owl to deliver a message directly to another person or use the Floo Network to transport our head to talk to another person. 

However, traditional telephones are on the bigger side and cannot leave the house. Many Muggle homes have a “home phone” (also known as a “landline”) which can only be used when the family is home. It generally has to be connected to their house in some way because it needs to be close to a source of electricity.

This is when the mobile phone comes in! As you can see, it has no wires in order to connect it to an electrical socket. It is a completely portable telephone! Imagine being able to speak to someone from anywhere - no fireplace or parchment required - and that’s basically what this small device is! It’s quite incredible! I’m sure you can see why witches and wizards would want to be able to use this technology. But like how most Muggle electronics are in magical hands, you would encounter some problems. Your innate magical field would interfere with the phone’s inner electrical workings and would result in the device throwing a fit or refusing to turn on altogether! Thankfully, clever magic users have devised some spells to help your magic from affecting certain devices too much. 

You may purchase phones that have already been enchanted by these spells. I will share with you a spell that can be used to protect electronic devices from your innate magical field, but I would strongly discourage any of you from attempting this yourself just yet! If you exert too much willpower, you may end up causing damage to the phone, and if your spell backfires, you may damage your own magical energy. 

Spell: The Magical Field Shielding Charm

Incantation: Aspida Magia (Asp-EE-duh Muh-GEE-uh)

Wand Movement: A complete anti-clockwise circle around the object you’re wanting to enchant

Concentration: High, envisioning a shield around the item you intend to enchant

Willpower: Moderate-High

At most, I imagine any students at your level would just be able to shield the phone from your magical energy a tiny bit; the risks highly outweigh the benefits of trying this spell on your own, so please exercise caution!

A mobile that has been enchanted by this spell will appear to be just like a traditional Muggle phone. The screen will still function in the same way, and the buttons could still be used to make calls as before. The only thing that’s changed is its insides. The theory holds that insulating the wires and other bits and bobbles inside an electric device with the spell will help keep your magical energy from permeating it, thus allowing the enchanted item to work correctly. The only true change you may notice is that the “signal” of the device (that is, the quality of the connection it can make when calling another phone) will most likely be dampened. The enchantment will also fade over time and will need to be re-cast every so often. You do not need to do this yourself; when you buy a magically enchanted mobile, it will come with some sort of an imbued magical object. They often resemble Muggle phone accessories, which helps allay any suspicion that someone may have about your phone usage. This “charger” will get plugged into your new phone, as demonstrated in the image above. Simply leave your new mobile connected to your charging object overnight  while you are sleeping so that it may magically “charge,” keeping the charm active.

Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office

Muggle objects have always existed alongside witches and wizards, which means that curious magic users have always tried to make Muggle inventions work for them, despite the magical field interference. Oftentimes it simply hasn’t worked, but sometimes it has, as with the mobile phone example that we’ve already discussed. By and large, most Muggle inventions are harmless enough for witches and wizards to interact with. The problem lies in what happens if a Muggle object that has been touched with magic ends up in the hands of a Muggle once again.

As per the ISoS, no wizarding devices can come in contact with Muggles. Such an event could possibly lead to a major breach of our secrecy, depending on what the specific item was. Can you imagine the serious ramifications if a Muggle accidentally got a hold of and used Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder? It could be a major problem. Therefore, magical items are off-limits to Muggles, and it stands to reason that any Muggle devices that have been magically altered are as well.

The Ministry of Magic has set up a division of the government to prevent such a problem from occurring. The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office’s chief responsibility is to regulate the amount of magic done to Muggle objects and to prevent those bewitched items from entering the Muggle world once more. To that end, it is also responsible for some rather involved raids of homes in search of dangerous Dark magic items. It is admittedly not the most glamorous department and unfortunately, it does not receive much support due to some magic users’ internal prejudices against Muggles. But its presence helps keep the Statute of Secrecy from being breached.

In 1992, this department passed a law called the Muggle Protection Act. This measure was considered controversial because it involved more extreme raids. The raids were to follow up on leads of unlawfully altered Muggle artefacts, but to that end, some long-standing pureblood wizarding families were affected. These families and others began to feel that they were unjustly targeted by the law, which left the department in ill favor of many people in the wizarding community.

Interestingly, years before the Muggle Protection Act, there were previous laws that regulated artefacts even further. In the 1980’s, there was a law that prohibited the ability to magic-ify Muggle items totally. As one might expect, this law did not last long as there were too many opportunities for loopholes. The original law itself said one could not enchant a Muggle artefact for an intent other than for what it was designed; one could circumvent this on a technicality by not intending to use this object at all. 

Overall, we see these laws in a state of flux because it is hard to write a law that truly keeps Muggles safe but isn’t too restrictive. This has become even more difficult after the advent of the Internet and other radical inventions that could change the face of history forever. It’s practically impossible to ban witches and wizards from using the Internet entirely, considering how ever-present it is. As of yet, there are no rules banning magic users from communicating online, but the general laws apply to keep the ISoS in place: no enchanted computers should ever be in the hands of Muggles, and no magical secrets are to be revealed to the Muggle world via the World Wide Web.

And that’s all for today! I simply have a quiz for you to go over the material we discussed. As always, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions!

Anna Soleil

SOURCES:

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/55d48bbedd0895f5048b4584-750-562.jpg

https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Misuse_of_Muggle_Artefacts_Office#Functions