We had an interdepartmental session this morning, involving both Purity Control (i.e., the Committee for Muggleborn Labour Services) and Muggle Domestication. It was horrible. I'm sitting down to write this report with reluctance. In all honesty, I'd really prefer to be off drowning the memory of the meeting with shots of Firewhiskey.
It's become increasingly clear that the Vale of Glamorgan was a refuge of sorts for both muggles and muggleborns. Sort of a commune, if you will, run by several branches of the Wood and Ackerley families. They weren't involved with Dogstar (although that has been muddied in the Prophet). By way of a mix of bribes, sloppy record-keeping, and the occasional use of Imperius and Confundus, the wizarding families of Vale Glamorgan tracked down all their surviving muggle neighbors and arranged to have them consigned to them as 'labourers.' The muggles don't seem to have been under any constraint to stay, so with luck a few may have slipped through the Ministry's cordon, though the raid came at night and they had little warning. Their 'labour' seems to have taken the form of farming, and the produce from the farms appears to have been shared equally among wizard and muggle residents of the Vale. The muggles are all in excellent health, even down to their teeth, and apparently wizarding potions such as Dreamless Sleep were found in some of the muggle homes.
It must have been a lovely arrangement, while it lasted. But naturally, such beautiful cooperation between wizards (including a few muggleborns) and muggles is complete anathema under our present regime and must be soundly punished. And so we spent the morning squabbling over their fates. I don't know what will happen to the adult pureblood or halfblood wizards, as that's not my department, but I am sure it will be quite grim. I do know that their children will all be taken away and fostered with other families.
There were eight muggleborn wizards--well, nine, but one managed to kill himself within twenty-four hours of being placed in custody by the simple expedient of hanging himself with his belt. A check of the records showed that the muggleborns are apparently the newest arrivals. They were only there for a few years, and so I wondered whether the argument could be made that that they should be retrained for service somewhere they'd be treated 'properly.' There's always demand these days. The opinion was bruited about around the conference table, however, that the muggleborns in question most likely had been entirely 'ruined' by their dangerous exposure to traitorous ideas. A consensus quickly developed that they should be turned over for experimentation, meaning they'll be given to the likes of Rookwood and Carrow.
There are close to two hundred muggles, on the other hand, many of them children obviously too young to work. Deverill and Harkiss cheerfully spent fifteen minutes in a barbaric argument over whether it would be better to kill all the adults, or merely kill the men and then split up the women and children (with no regard to family ties of course). I caught Norma Brownmiller's eye, and saw she was close to tears although doing her level best not to show it. Clearly, she didn't dare to raise her voice to argue for mercy. I know the humanitarianism she's shown in the past has made her opinions suspect in department decisions.
I didn't dare speak up for both the muggleborns and the muggles. In the end I opted to cast my lot with the hopes of saving as many as possible and so I spoke in favour of sparing the muggles. They were mere animals, easy enough to terrorise into obedience with threats, and why should we not take advantage of their labour? Let them be reassigned to the camp at Cardiff, which lost many during the epidemic, and we can farm them out on various work details.
I don't know what will be decided yet. I imagine there will be a memo out tomorrow.
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