The Formation Of The Ministry Of Magic
Chapter 24
Before the creation of any official wizarding governing body in Britain, witches and wizards lived among Muggles in plain sight. While they certainly did not publicize their existence, Muggles knew of them and, to a certain extent, tolerated them. When it became apparent in the turn of the first millennium that Muggles were incapable of interfering in wizarding affairs, a brief (if not reluctant) understanding arose between wizards and Muggles. However, this was not enough to keep wizards from interfering in Muggle affairs. Early Muggle sporting events were rigged for the benefit of the occasional gambler, and the results of these events were tampered with for reasons ranging from petty revenge to mere amusement. It was eventually a game of Cuaditch (pre-Quidditch) in which the Bludgers escaped the confines of the pitch and caused 29 Muggle casualties that spurred the creation of the Wizards’ Council in the following year, 1269.The Wizards’ Council’s first acts were to establish rules and regulations in regards to wizard sporting events. This goal was theoretically meant to detract from wizard involvement in Muggle sports and to prevent further harm on the Muggle population. The Wizards’ Council’s first Chief Warlock was Barberus Bragge, best known for his release of a Golden Snidget onto the field of a Cuaditch match and offering 150 galleons for its capture. Bragge was primarily ruled by his fondness for hunting, his tendency to look down on Muggles as inferior beings, and a love for fruit ganache. Thus began the rocky road of British wizarding politics.
For the majority of his four year term as Chief Warlock, Bragge’s advisor Eadlac Earl worked behind the scenes to establish the first British Wizard Census, an official compilation of English spells and enchantments that was based off of the Standard Book of Spells written in the year 132 AD, and The Wizarding Entities’ Decree of Unlawful Magic in 1273, or WEDUM. WEDUM was the first British document to outline a system of punishments and fines for using magic that would harm, endanger, or kill other humans. The decree was later revised to include goblins in 1285 (though this was later revoked during the goblin rebellions), merpeople in 1294, and other human-like creatures (including vampires and hags) in 1301. Efforts were made to include centaurs and leprechauns, though none were successful, namely because centaurs thought themselves too intelligent for wizards, and leprechauns wouldn’t stop laughing long enough to sign anything. Eadlac Earl went on to become Chief Warlock for twenty years (from 1273 to 1293) after Bragge’s accidental death, in which he was pecked to death by a flock of Golden Snidgets when his wand snapped on a hunting excursion.
Burdock Muldoon, Chief Warlock from 1388 to 1402 was the first to attempt to establish an official electoral process, and the majority of his two year term was spent establishing which magical creatures would be responsible for governing the beings of the wizarding world. This first required that the Wizards’ Council define ‘being.’ Muldoon initially defined it as anything or anyone who walked on two legs. On 14 September 1391, Muldoon extended an invitation to all magical ‘beings’ to gather in Stockport, a village just to the south east of Manchester. The goblins–with whom there was already increased hostility–took advantage of this definition and took it upon themselves to invite every imaginable two-legged creature, from trolls to pixies to diricrawls and the only Occamy at the time residing in Great Britain. The entire village was closed off for three weeks and its residents evacuated until such a time that the Occamy could be relocated back to its nest. Muldoon’s successor, Elfrida Clagg attempted several times to convene another meeting of magical beings, this time altering the definition of ‘being’ to include anyone or anything which could speak in human languages. As an added precaution the meeting was held in a magically closed off area in northern Britain, in Cove Bay, Aberdeen on 2 July 1404. However, with the revised definition, creatures such as Jarveys attended, causing equal mayhem.
Around the late 15th to early 16th century, animosity between Muggle and wizarding populations grew at an alarming rate. Witch burnings, while relatively harmless, became increasingly frequent, and in the Muggle’s quest to eradicate magic from their lands, many non-magical Muggles were also executed. Elfrida Clagg, who remained Chieftainess of the Wizards’ Council from 1402 to 1433, was the first in British wizarding history to implement the Wizarding Entities’ Decree for Magic in the Presence of Muggles (WEDMPM). The wizarding census, which up until that point had been voluntary, was now lawful and enforced. Witches and wizards who lived among Muggles were forced to pass Muggle-Authentication Exams (MAE), in which they had to prove that they could live among Muggles without arousing suspicion. This method for establishing secrecy was rather ineffective, especially given that no one knew exactly what it was that made Muggles suspicious of magic. As such, examining the MAE’s was a very subjective process.
While WEDMPM explicitly prohibited magic in the presence of a Muggle, catching and prosecuting those who went against the decree was extremely difficult. The Wizards’ Council did not have the manpower to actively supervise Muggle locations, nor were there spells at the time that could identify magic-users in Muggle territory. For a period of approximately six months the Wizards’ Council attempted to limit the use of all magic to only certain pre-approved areas in Britain, though this was met with massive resistance. Ironically, the struggle to hide magic from Muggles led to approximately two centuries (from the end of Clagg’s term as Chieftainess to the late 1600s) where magic was as prominent as ever in Muggle territory.
The bloody 1612 goblin rebellion left the wizarding Britain reeling, and concessions made to the goblins following the truce in Hogsmeade did not sit well with the majority of wizarding Britain, who were outraged by the actions of the goblins in the Scottish town. Goblin hate-groups continued to exist, though the Wizards’ Council officially promised the goblins security and recognized the opinions of the Brotherhood of Goblins. A few members of the Wizards’ Council even resigned over the recognition of the Brotherhood of Goblins, though most stayed on ‘to fight the problem where we can,’ as one Council member wrote in his private journals.
Dissatisfied with the Wizard Council’s ‘capitulation’ to the goblins, the wizarding population of Britain began to grumble about the government’s ‘failure to protect the wizards,’ already threatened by Muggle witch-hysteria prior to the goblins’ uprising. Dissatisfied wizards refrained from acting against the government, however, and eventual change came from within the Council itself.
Darryl Swigart doomed himself to be the last Chief Warlock of the Wizards’ Council when he followed the example of Muggle King Charles I, who dissolving Parliament in March 1629, ruled as no British king had since the thirteenth century without consulting a council of freemen. Encouraged perhaps by the comparatively wise and successful rulings of Charles I following the dissolution of Parliament and seeing many of the Muggle king’s opponents returning to him, Swigart tried to use his title of Chief to assert sole authority or ‘personal rule’ as the king had done. This greatly angered other members of the Council, in which decisions had always been made by debate and vote.
The Council, perhaps also looking to the Muggle government for inspiration, presented Swigart with a list of demands and refused to leave Swigarts’ home, where the Council, in the absence of any public building for the wizarding government, was then convening. One of these demands was that a number of formalized advisors to the Chief be elected, each in charge of a specific department of the government, thereby setting in place a system of checks and balances to the Chief. From this emerged the Ministry of Magic’s department and office heads.
The Council also demanded that Swigart immediately resign from his position as Chief. Swigart remained on the Council and sat grumbling in the corner as the wizards sat down to rearrange governing council of wizarding Britain.
The Council voted to dismiss several weeks later with an outline for a new governing system to be known as the Ministry of Magic.
Meetings of the Wizards’ Council continued till 1631 when the Council agreed to enact their changes in whole, elected the first Minister for Magic, Damian Muther, who held the position till 1657, disbanded the Wizards’ Council, and reconvened as the Ministry of Magic.
One of the Ministry’s first acts was to pass the so-called Wand Ban, a clause in the Code of Wand Use that forbade any magical beings apart from wizards, witches, beings that were half-witch or –wizard, and werewolves from carrying a wand, striking a blow against the goblins and reassuring the general wizarding community that the new government would listen to their complaints.
Initially the Ministry only had four departments: The Department of International Magical Cooperation, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and its largest department today, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Soon after its creation the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes became a necessary addition.
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement, already busy enforcing the Statue of Secrecy and taking to law those wizards whose hatred of Muggles boiled over into curses, was made busier in 1717 when Minister for Magic Larson Mole coined the term ‘Unforgivable Curses,’ and officially classified the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and Avada Kedavra as unforgivable and worthy of a lifetime sentence in Azkaban.
Magical transportation had, for the better part of the 18th and 19th century, been overseen by the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, what with the constant Splinching associated with Apparation, but once wizard Quintin Quale discovered how to connect to Muggle fireplaces using Floo powder in 1902, the workload for the department simply became too much, and the creation of the Department of Magical Transportation was added to the Ministry.
Sometime during the late 1800s the Department of Mysteries also came into being, though it is unclear exactly when, how, or why it came about. Not even the Minister for Magic at the time, Faris ‘Spout Hole’ Spavin knew of its existence until several years into his term.
From its founding in 1631, the early days of the Ministry were dedicated to creating and implementing wizarding policies. In over 300 years, there have been exactly twenty-five Ministers for Magic, all of whom were men until the year 1798 when Artemisia Lufkin, the twelfth Minister, was elected into office. As a result, several older members of the Wizengamot resigned in protest. Nevertheless, Lufkin had a successful term in office, and worked alongside the then Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Torin McTaggart to standardize training for Aurors and Hit Wizards.
Her successor Grogan Stump, who served in office from 1811–1819, is credited for the creation of the three sub-divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures: Being, Beast, and later, Spirit Division. Initially, there had only been two sub-divisions, but a protest float by the British ghost population caused Stump to create the aforementioned Spirit Division.
The Ministry’s involvement in British wizarding education was at a minimum until Ottaline Gambol came into office in 1935. Until that point, transportation to Hogwarts had been dependent on a number of Portkey collection points. However, the use of Portkeys caused several problems–approximately a third of students would fail to arrive every year, and those that did were prone to Portkey sickness. Previously Head of the Department of Magical Transportation, Gambol’s fascination with Muggle technology inspired the idea of using a train as a comfortable, safe alternative to Portkeys. Obtaining the locomotive itself required a large-scale operation involving one hundred and sixty-seven Memory Charms, combined with the largest Concealment Charm ever to be performed in British history.
Ottaline Gambol was also the first Minister for Magic to introduce herself to the acting Muggle Prime Minister. On 7 June 1935, the night that Muggle Stanley Baldwin was elected to his third term as Prime Minister, a portrait of former Minister for Magic Klaine Rogers was installed in the Prime Minister’s office. This move was highly criticized at the time, and Gambol was accused of breaking the Statute of Secrecy. However, her actions were praised by the International Confederation and allowed for open communication between the two governing bodies and the occasional influence on Muggle media when it suited the Ministry. It is now official policy for the acting Minister for Magic to introduce himself to the acting Muggle Prime Minister and to inform him of all pertinent incidences in the magical world that risk affecting the Muggle population.
Following the fall of Lord Voldemort in the year 1981, Britain was ruled by a succession of unsuccessful Ministers for Magic. Minister Millicent Bagnold’s retirement in 1990 was followed by the election of the wildly unpopular Minister Cornelius Fudge, who is best known for his refusal to acknowledge the return of Lord Voldemort and his fondness for bowler hats. Not long after Lord Voldemort’s second rise to power, Fudge resigned as a result of public pressure and was replaced by Minister Rufus Scrimgeour, who was Minister for Magic for little over a year before his death. Minister Pius Thicknesse then replaced Scrimgeour, though he too lasted a year only before his arrest for involvement with Lord Voldemort (doubt remains as to whether or not the Minister was acting under the Imperius). He was succeeded by the popular Kingsley Shacklebolt, a known member of the Order of the Phoenix and former Auror. He has been in office from 1998 to the present day.
