Project Potter

Project Potter

Chapter Two

The New Department

[Late 2002]

"Hermione, are you on that confuter again?"

"Computer, Ron. You know that Dumbledore has asked us to keep looking for ways to prevent any damage to 'Project Potter' until the Ministry is ready for its public declarations."

Ron and Hermione were in the new electronics center; he usually preferred to leave all these gadgets to her, and to the other Muggle-born and Muggle-raised wizards and witches who knew about them. But of necessity, Ron had begun to learn the confusing world of "confuters". This center had been Dumbledore's brainchild, but the trio had been tapped to bring it to fruition.

When Dumbledore and Harry had finally succeeded in defeating Voldemort in Harry's 7^thYear, three things were obvious: Voldemort would be back; Wizards could no longer hide their world from the Muggles; and Dumbledore would have to remain in the job of Minister for Magic for a while longer than he'd hoped, to make his vision come to pass.

Wizards were too small and parochial a society, and the medieval reasons (witch burnings and persecutions) for their segregation and secrecy no longer made sense. Dumbledore read Muggle newspapers and books, and believed that the Wizarding world should at last end their centuries of hiding and make allies of the Muggles. The only way to do this would be to introduce them to each other gradually - through culture and media exchange.

It was one of Dumbledore's more brilliant ideas (and that was saying something) to have Harry's life story turned into an appealing series of novels and eventually movies, and make them into Muggle bestsellers and blockbusters. An unusually clever Muggle-born witch, writing under the name J. K. Rowling, was assigned to work with Dumbledore, Harry and his friends, to create a series of books that would have broad appeal to the non-wizarding world, and help create an atmosphere where they could lift the veil and re-introduce the two worlds to each other. After all, they had so much to offer one another, once their silly prejudices could be put to rest; and together they would have the strength to defeat the dark forces, which would be hard for either to do alone.

(The Death Eaters were evil and powerful - but their biggest weakness was their blind spot. In their derision and dismissal of all things Muggle, they had almost no appreciation for the power of a grenade launcher - or a TV network. Dumbledore always said the Nazis had made the same fatal mistake by rejecting Einstein and his so-called "Jewish science" - and that foolish prejudice had made certain that they could never develop the atomic bomb.)

The real trick would be to convince the other wizarding governments to go along with the scheme. Dumbledore cleverly deduced that, as it is always easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission, the British Ministry of Magic should proceed in secret without them, though perhaps in tandem with the Americans. Once the books were published in the English-speaking world, and no riots or persecutions resulted, there might be translations to all the other languages that would be just as helpful. It all worked even better than Dumbledore planned.

Soon, Harry Potter was nearly as famous in the Muggle world as he was among wizards. Thanks to shared royalties the trio were all now very well off. The only trick, for those wizards and witches who dealt with Muggles, was to remember two versions of his story: the up-to-date one they had read in the pages of the Daily Prophet, and the gradually-released literary one, which Muggles got from books and films.

Harry took this all with customary good grace and humor. This was made much easier for him by learning glamour charms, which made it possible for him to go anywhere in disguise and not be recognized unless he wanted to be. His scar never faded entirely, but a bit of makeup and longer hair helped to cover it up. The only ones who balked at all this were his real Muggle relatives, who were actually not named Dursley. They were easily threatened, however, by the exposure to public awareness of their real names. When they saw the first book and realized that as bad as they had looked, it didn't half describe the awfulness of their abuse - they agreed to stay completely silent.

Dumbledore had created the secret Department of Muggle Relations in 1998, two years after becoming Minister for Magic. He knew that the trio should eventually run it: Hermione, by dint of her fantastic attention to detail; Ron, thanks to his excellent grasp of strategy, and Harry, as a natural leader and visionary with wily instincts, to keep the broader perspective in focus. They were ideal in another sense: Hermione had grown up with loving Muggle parents, and was well-connected and terrifically well-informed in both worlds; Ron was from a pureblooded family who nevertheless had great affection and respect for Muggles; and Harry had been raised in a Muggle family who had abused him out of fear, hatred and ignorance, which he idealistically hoped to cure rather than punish.

But for five years, Dumbledore had put Arthur Weasley in temporary charge, while the trio were sufficiently trained. He gave him free reign to draw the best and brightest from other departments in the Ministry who could help the project. That's how the electronics center had been created - by bicultural wizards brought in from other departments, who were even more familiar with modern Muggle gadgets and devices than Hermione and Harry were. For the first time, there were electrical connections, telephone lines, and internet access within the Ministry - all subtly enhanced by magic. Arthur was in raptures of delight every time he saw it all.

Now it was the end of 2002, and the trio were getting ready to become the co-directors of the department early in the new year. Arthur was to be promoted to Deputy Minister; Dumbledore dearly hoped that he could be groomed for Minister in another five years, so he could return to Hogwarts. With the second film just out, and the fifth book soon to follow, the development of the new secret department was proceeding on track. The literary and cinematic work (still nicknamed "Project Potter") was already being dwarfed by the extensive department that had sprung up around it; but it was still the leading priority. Once the seventh book was published, the new department would be revealed to the Wizarding world, and the reality of the wizarding world itself would soon thereafter be revealed to the Muggle world.

"Look, Ron," said Hermione, "Harry is gonna be back from lunch soon, and I'd rather you didn't mention this until I've got it better nailed down."

"Got what better nailed down?" came Harry's voice from the doorway.

"Oh, rats," muttered Hermione. "All right, come on, I'll show you both." She opened the laptop in front of her, drew her wand, and made its display appear in a much larger screen on the wall. "You remember the discussions we were having six months ago about fanfiction?"

"Come on, Hermione!" said Ron. "We agreed to leave it be, that it was relatively harmless. We haven't the time to worry about it now."

"No, go on, Hermione," Harry interjected, "what's the problem?"

"It's just that it's got so huge! Watch this." Harry and Ron's eyes started to glaze over. There were about 700 new chapters on the Harry Potter topic on fanfiction.net alone.

"That's remarkable, Hermione," said Harry.

"That's just today," she said softly. Harry's eyes bugged out and Ron made a low whistle.

"So - that's good, isn't it?" asked Ron. "More 'positive publicity for the wizarding world,' as Dumbledore always calls it. "I mean, even the bad stuff helps carry the message that wizards are mostly benign. We agreed that even if some of it embarrasses us, we ought to give it a more or less free hand to develop on its own."

"Don't worry, I still agree with that in principle," said Hermione. "It's just the size and scope of it all. Fan Fiction is now hundreds of times the size of the Rowling canon. And it's growing exponentially, so soon it'll be thousands. These authors are no longer just taking off from the four current books - they're adapting and borrowing from each other. We tried to paint a certain careful picture of the wizarding world - warts and all - and now it's getting rather - well, muddied with wild theories and irrational assumptions.

"I've talked it over with Arthur. He agrees with me that while we shouldn't become censors, it couldn't help to offer some anonymous guidance, to try to nudge some sanity back into it all. After all, there are fanfics that are making us look stupid, or degenerate - which has the opposite effect of why we created Project Potter to begin with."

"Hermione," said Harry, "the reason for the project was to lay the groundwork for a department. The Muggle Relations department is like an embassy to the Muggle world. If they perceive us to be meddling, it'll set us back."

"Honestly, give me a little credit!" said Hermione hotly. "I'm not talking about meddling! Just suggesting! These Muggles post their stories anonymously. So can we! We can create stories that depict us as characters talking about how we dislike being misrepresented.

"We'd set up a story that lets us - er - editorialize a little. Then we can tackle our primary pet peeves. Mine is continuity; Ron's is clichés; Harry, yours is powers. If we each spend a few days reading fanfiction, and start keeping a log of the misrepresentations and exaggerations and just plain nonsense that are most glaring, we can weave them into the story - and then present it as coming from a Muggle writer with editorial skills who merely wants to see better writing. That way nobody will suspect that it's really coming from us."

"Do you really think it'll work?" said Ron.

"Don't worry," said Harry. "It'll work. Maybe even too well! We need to try not to be too self-conscious," he grinned, arching an eyebrow. "And we should be careful not to make it too slick; so much of that fanfiction is junk, something of real clarity and quality might stick out too much."

"Stop being paranoid, Harry," said Hermione. "We aren't going to post this until we've all reviewed it and run it past Arthur. Together we'll see to it that it's not too brilliant, but gets our point across. Besides, some of the fanfiction really is brilliant; you'd almost think it came from the Project."

"Okay, where do we start?" said Ron.

"By turning your laptop on, Ron!" Harry smirked.

"Oh, yeah," muttered Ron, turning red.

The three friends spent the afternoon reading fanfiction on several sites, and making notes. Every so often they would exclaim their surprise or disgust out loud, but mostly they just sat staring at their screens, clicking keys and moving mouse pointers. Even Ron had become quite proficient, once he'd overcome his technology shyness and computer illiteracy.

At a few minutes to five, Harry logged off and shut down his laptop, rubbing his eyes and getting to his feet. "Come on, you lot; that's enough for one day."

"Ooh, I'll say," said Hermione, "so much of it is rubbish that I'm getting a headache."

"What annoys me is, why would someone write a Harry Potter story that's not about Harry Potter?" said Ron.

Harry turned a bit red and grinned. "I'd just as soon not be the sole representative of the wizarding world, thank you very much! But as to Hermione's point: The careful writers avoid clichés and make fewer serious errors. And they're more able to write real stories that make us human, rather than some kind of .. god. So for the purpose of this short project, I suspect we'll actually glean more useful material from the rubbish than we will from the good stuff."

"I know," said Hermione, "pity, isn't it? It's like looking at treasures among the trash - and having to take home the trash!" Both young men laughed. They yawned and helped each other up. After two more days of this, they would have to write their story. How to begin? Ah well, that was for another day.