Upon the Existence of Muggles

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

“Any woman can weep without tears, and most can heal with their hands.  It depends on the wound.” Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

If there is anything certain about the Potterverse, it is that there is an absolute gulf between Us and Them.  There are Muggles and their opposites:  Witches and Wizards.

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Minerva chimes in on the question of Voldemort and Secrecy

[sunnyskywalker]

I was just looking back through PS/SS Chapter 1, thanks to all this fantastic discussion and the beginning of the new read-through for the book, and lo and behold, Secrecy pops right up:

"A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all."

As I suspect most of us did, I had always read that as an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" comment. Wouldn't it be terrible to trade one problem for another?

But perhaps she was implying a connection. More like, "Wouldn't it be terrible if the guy who had been trying to destroy Secrecy finally disappeared, and then we managed to destroy it ourselves by celebrating his vanquishment? Oh, the irony!"

Book 1, chapter 1. The possibility was right there from the beginning.