Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches

Chapter 34: Bonus - Gairsay Island

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text
For thousands of years, magicals traditionally considered technology the way a stern parent might consider a child's finger painting — endearing at best, a waste of time at worst. It had been rather a shock then, when the European renaissance gave way to the enlightenment, and the finger paintings suddenly flashed into technical drawings for iron foundries, guns, star charts, and more. The wizards watched with growing uncertainty as their non-magical brethren enthusiastically unravelled the non-magical components of alchemy, and published journal after journal, dreaming of ever greater and greater feats.

In the end, one wizard was all it took. One wizard barging into the ICW main conference hall, waving a just-published copy of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, the ramifications of which were clear to every present disciple of the magical art of arithmancy. For two whole years, the world balanced on a seesaw. A tiny force either way could have pushed the balance. But it just so happened that the wizarding world was fresh off the challenge of obliterating divination magics from the world, and thus had no shortage of memory altering expertise at the ready for the greatest mind control project the world would ever know — the enacting of the international statute of secrecy.

Such a draconically enforced cultural divide was not without it's consequences. While the muggle world lost much of the knowledge of the magical world, surviving only in myth and story, so too did the magical world lose touch with the technological forces that had originally driven a wedge between the two worlds.

But so long as muggleborns were removed from the muggle world at the age of eleven, and their parents subtly persuaded not to get involved, none of this mattered — not until a time travelling someone decided to interfere, that is.

Daphne Greengrass stepped out from the floo at the rookery, grasping a copy of the Daily Prophet in one dainty clenched fist. A tiny wooden witch danced out of a clock on the wall and struck a bell with a tiny mallet.

"Midnight," the wooden witch announced. "It is now June 23, 1992. Please enjoy another day of your life." It then shifted into an even smaller kneazle and scampered back into the clock.

Daphne stalked out of the sitting room, past the many magical creature heads mounted on the walls, and up the spiral staircase that led to the bedrooms. She reached her intended destination and knocked on the door.

"Nargles!"

Daphne opened the door, took one step into the room beyond, and stopped dead. A thousand moving pictures filled her vision, waving, fighting, clapping, talking, dancing. Every surface of the room had been plastered with cutouts from hundreds of wizard newspapers — the walls, the ceiling, the furniture, the frame of the slightly open window, even parts of the floor. In the middle of the room, laying on her tummy and wearing a nightdress, was Luna, spoon in one hand, pudding in the other, bright smile all across her face.

"Hi, Daph."

Daphne cast a final glance around the room, decided to ask later, and took another step into the room. "Luna, have you seen this?" She dropped the newspaper in front of her tentative friend and future sister wife, and sat down in the room's only chair, careful not to disturb the intricate collection of newspaper cutouts pilled up and around the desk.

Luna stuffed the pudding filled spoon into her mouth and held up the newspaper to read. "Tomowwos, Daily Pwofet?" she asked around the spoon still in her mouth. "Hawwy Potter Missing," she read. "Duellwing phenom, Hawwy Potter has been weported missing by Ward Potter." Luna swallowed and removed the spoon. "This isn't surprising, is it? We've known they knew he was gone for two weeks now."