Chapter 150: Prison Speech

Zhang Qiu's transparent figure stopped, and Harry also stopped. The two thirteen-year-old young wizards paused beside a dim cell, listening to the speech inside.

"We wizards have always been oppressed by Muggles; it has been like this since the Middle Ages." The man continued. "The oppression of wizards by Muggles is mainly reflected in three aspects. The first is the Muggle Gaze. We wear wizard robes, wizard hats, or alchemical robes, and wear any magical accessories we like—this is all allowed. Wearing what one wants is a right everyone deserves. But Muggles? They point at our clothing, demanding every wizard wear their Muggle attire. Once you put on a wizard robe, you are met with endless insults, suspicion, and groundless malice. Do you think this is normal?"

"Muggles always like things that are 'modern' and 'scientific'. They use these aesthetic standards to gaze at wizards, the essence of which is to hope our spellcasting ability will degenerate, so it's more convenient for them to control us. How vicious!"

Harry scratched his head; he felt these words were a bit strange, but he couldn't say where.

"What else have Muggles done? The stereotypes formed since the Middle Ages still haven't changed today. They always feel that wizards are evil, and to stop us from casting spells, they often resort to violence. Are there few examples of wizards being attacked by Muggles for casting spells on the street?"

The speaker talked eloquently and gave many examples, such as wizards being suddenly beaten on the subway, Muggles shooting wizards walking at night, drunks in bars breaking wizards' wands, etc. Although Harry had never heard of those cases, he felt some empathy and couldn't help but feel a bit scared.

"This is complementary to the Muggle Gaze. We must fight for the freedom of dress, oppose robe-shaming, and oppose stereotypes. Every wizard has the right to live equally and should not be maliciously attacked by Muggles just because they wore a robe or cast a cleaning spell. This is an urgent matter we need to solve."

A burst of cheers erupted from the opposite cell, which startled Harry.

"Of course, after saying this, we also need to talk about Muggle discrimination against wizards. Have you noticed that almost all high-paying positions are held by Muggles? Engineers, lawyers, dentists, corporate executives... Which industry dares to confidently say that we hire as many Muggles as wizards?" The speaker's tone suddenly became passionate. "None! Even our government only has one Ministry of Magic hiring wizards; the rest—the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Administration, etc. —are all full of Muggles, not even a single wizard!"

"They also practice educational discrimination, not allowing wizards to receive education." The speech continued. "When you prepare to apply to Oxford or Cambridge, any Muggle middle school, even the most lousy ones, is an accepted educational experience. Only our Hogwarts, the best magic school in the UK, is not recognized by universities! When you take your OWL or NEWTS exam results to apply for university, they don't even look at them and throw them directly into the trash! Muggle-borns might be able to keep a primary school degree, but what about us wizard children? We have no educational experience at all. They even suspect I'm illiterate!"

Harry felt this was somewhat unreasonable. The things taught were different, and the two educational systems couldn't be compatible anyway.

"Wizards' intelligence is no worse than Muggles', and often better, but why is the current society completely controlled by Muggles, and wizards are always unable to enter the upper class?"

After this question, the speech paused, and Harry couldn't help but think.

Actually, the answer to the question is very simple: the number of wizards is too small, which determines that the current society should still be dominated by Muggle society, and wizards can only circle themselves in the Wizarding World.

Immediately, Harry noticed another problem: for hundreds of years, there has only been one school in the UK, Hogwarts. In other words, for hundreds of years, the number of school-age children each year has been roughly the same, and the total population of the Wizarding World has always been constant.

The answer to this question might not be complicated either. Harry immediately thought of Death's manipulation. When He feels there are too many wizards, Squibs appear; and when He feels there are too few wizards, Muggle-borns emerge.

However, in the case of a small and constant wizard population, the Statute of Secrecy is already the best way. Once wizards stand up to fight for their rights, perhaps Muggles will conclude in annoyance and dissatisfaction that the world would be better off without wizards.

"Friends, isn't this question easy to answer?" The man started his speech again. "That's right, the answer is actually very simple: our numbers are too small, and each person's ability far exceeds that of Muggles."

"So where does our path forward lie? It is foreseeable that in the near future, as more and more Muggles learn of the existence of wizards, our living environment will also be in jeopardy."

Just when Harry thought he was going to say words of hatred toward Muggles, the tone of the speech suddenly changed.

"Because of this, we need to unite and win over those Muggles who are willing to accept the existence of wizards and are happy to coexist with wizards. The most obvious ones are the families of Muggle-borns. Secondly, we should also welcome any Muggle who accepts the existence of magic and is willing to serve wizards..."

"You're talking nonsense!" Someone in the opposite cell suddenly cursed. "Muggles are all dirty and stupid things, and Muggle-borns carry even lower-class blood. How can they be mentioned in the same breath as orthodox wizards?"

"Don't be impatient, my Death Eater friend, please listen to my good idea."

"If we wizards unite and take a portion of Muggles to establish a new country, like India." He began to state his proposition. "Pure-blood wizards are first-class citizens, half-blood wizards are second-class citizens, and Muggle-borns and Squibs are third-class."

"Muggles and their descendants are forever fourth-class citizens. We will open special Muggle schools for them, teaching them to serve wizards; after all, we always need someone to farm, herd, or clear sewers." He talked eloquently in a seductive tone. "Think again, in such a country, the upper-class citizens are all wizards. Those Muggles, in order to obtain higher social status, will definitely try every means to please wizards, hoping that a wizard will favor their wives or daughters, thereby allowing their descendants to be promoted to third-class citizens."

Some male prisoners began to fantasize about this kind of privilege, which was like the right of the first night.

"And pure-blood families will forever be noble, forever ruling this ideal country of wizards, unless someone's child is disobedient and wants to marry a Muggle."

"That won't happen!" A sharp voice came from the opposite cell. "Whoever dares to tarnish the family's honor, I will kill them."

It seems the one in the opposite cell is a die-hard Death Eater, Harry thought secretly.

"Please note, friends, I am not daydreaming." The voice of the speech became passionate again. "Imagine, all the wizards in the UK unite, control the local government of Northern Ireland, and then declare independence from the UK."

"Then, we can continuously accept wizards from the UK who are suffering from persecution. We can also use the influence of the Ministry of Magic to continuously obtain help from the UK, turning the British mainland into a colony of our Wizarding Country."

"When we achieve a certain international status, we can continue to promote the Wizard Rights Movement worldwide. Its platform is what I said at the beginning: oppose the Muggle Gaze, oppose stereotypes, call for freedom of dress, abandon educational discrimination, and a series of other reasonable political demands."

"It is foreseeable that the local Muggle government will definitely not agree. They will continue to suppress the wizard movement, and at this time, we can come out and declare 'Wizards help Wizards', bringing the oppressed wizards to our country."

"When the population becomes larger and the scale becomes bigger, we can further expand to the south. Ireland is just a poor and weak small country, which can easily evolve into a true Wizarding Country."

"Next, the most exciting moment arrives. When the entire island of Ireland belongs to the Wizarding Country, we can call on everyone to cast magic together and float this island up from the sea. From then on, wizards will live in a floating city above the clouds, completely separated from the low-class and ignorant Muggles."

"Of course, we don't have to use our noble, spellcasting hands to farm or herd. We can let half-blood wizards maintain contact with the Muggles on the ground, continuously obtaining supplies from the UK. And pure-blood families only need to proudly enjoy a life above ten thousand people. No need to worry about any trivial matters."

After listening to this prison speech, Harry admitted that the speaker had proposed a plan that almost no wizard could refuse, and this plan also had considerable feasibility.

"A very grand plan, I'm almost tempted." Agent Johnny England, wearing his long black trench coat, walked in front of the cell with an arrogant face. "But unfortunately, I won't allow you to implement it."

"Harry? Did you follow?" Zhang Qiu's mosquito-like voice came over.

Harry pulled open a corner of the Invisibility Cloak, signaling her to come in.

"Did you notice? The one giving the speech is William, that American agent." As soon as she slipped into the Invisibility Cloak, Zhang Qiu whispered in his ear.

"What?" Harry tried to recall. He remembered the first-year incident, when he and Zhang Qiu witnessed the secret meeting between Zhuang Xu and his superior in the Forbidden Forest. At that time, that superior seemed to be called William.

"Oh, who are you?" William's tone suddenly became lacking in confidence. "I was just joking with my cellmates. You know, the nights in Azkaban are really hard to endure."

"If you said you wanted to attack France or bomb Warsaw, I would think you were joking, but this one doesn't look like it." Johnny's tone was unusually serious. "And if I remember correctly, you are just a smuggler. Why are you in a prison that holds Death Eaters?" ===== CHAPTER 151 =====