The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

Muggle-Wizard Relations

Peter, eager to show off his smarts, said, "Yes of course! The pot is the cauldron of a good old wizard who did loads of magic for the people who needed help in his village and his son inherits the pot and he's a grump so he refuses to help people and then the pot starts making him do the magic anyway and finally he cuts a deal with the pot that if it stops being awful to him he'll start making magic for the village people and they all live happy ever after."

Remus doodled a warty old pot with a single, short, hairy leg protruding from the bottom of it, dashing little details of coarse hair over the shin. He thought of the way Sirius's boots folded about his ankles as he drew the boot upon the pot's leg and he wondered if Sirius was behaving without him there to make him behave.

(In fact, Sirius and James were on the balcony high up in Gryffindor tower, smoking cigarettes and magicking paper birds with stupid jokes and laughing gas folded inside. The birds rained down over the courtyards below, to the amusement of the students that found them and unfurled them to find a good laugh inside.)

"And what lesson do young witches and wizards learn from the Hopping Pot?" Professor Gaunt asked.

Maryrose Jenkins raised her hand, "To be kind to Muggles."

Gaunt shook his head, "That's what some scholars will have you to believe, and yes, in a way, that is the moral, I suppose. But let's delve a bit deeper into the tale." He turned and walked up to the desk. "Who is the hero of the story? The father who died, the wizard whose heart was changed, or the pot who persisted?"

"The pot," answered Harry Warbeck. "Without the pot, the father wouldn't have had the magic to share and the wizard's heart would never have changed," he reasoned.

"To some, perhaps," Gaunt said.

Harry looked at Alabaster Jackson, who sat at his elbow, and Alabaster shrugged.

"The Pot was encouraging the greed of the muggles, however. Encouraging them to use the poor wizard who only wished for peace and quiet. But the Pot persisted and forced him to perform the tricks his father once had, forced him to give and give and give unto the muggles that never gave back, but only take away. This poor wizard, in order to gain peace, had to try to hide his identity from the muggles or else he would never be left alone again..." Gaunt said.

"They only wanted help," said Maryrose with a bit of a pleading, sad tone to her voice. "The people who asked the wizard for help needed the help and because he was magic he was able to help them!"

"And what if he really had refused? Really had turned away? What if the Hopping Pot had never forced the wizard to do the magic? Would the people, who already knew him to be magic because of his father's legacy, have ever let him be? Or would they have risen up in anger at his so-called selfish ways of keeping the magic to himself?" Remus looked up.

"This is the thinking that led to some of the early manifestations of muggle hatred toward the wizarding community. Witches and wizards who could not brew antidotes or else refused for other, perfectly acceptable reasons - reasons that they should not have to defend or explain as the magic is theirs to do with as they see fit - were considered evil, were burned alive by those who said they were worthless if they could not help and do the magic that was wanted..." Gaunt turned to the blackboard. "This term, we will be learning about the Trials and Torture of famous witches and wizards through history at the hands of the muggles - the first recorded Obscrurial, caused by muggle hatred..."

"I know muggle-wizard relations are rocky, especially in early times, but I mean isn't that something Binn ought to be covering?" Remus was saying later that evening as the Marauders walked down the stairs from Gryffindor Tower to dinner. He'd told them about the long winded lecture given by Professor Gaunt earlier and Sirius's mouth had twisted into a sour expression.