MoM Elections: Q&A With William Waverly
In order to learn a little bit more about the candidates for the current Minister of Magic elections, I caught up with William Waverly and asked him a few questions.
My first questions were about his platform. A proud Muggle-born, Mr. Waverly seems to have a few ideas about how to improve the current laws dealing with Muggle artifacts. When asked about this, Mr. Waverly was more than happy to explain. “There are just so many things that Muggles have invented that I would love to see brought into the wizarding world,” he said excitedly, “computers, televisions, and of course robots. Especially when you think about how much they could be improved with magic! Unfortunately, the current laws don’t allow for that, for fear that these enchanted objects could fall into Muggle hands. But we don’t hear anything about Muggles getting ahold of brooms or wands, so I don’t see why these items should be any different. There’d be consequences if such an incident did happen, of course, but I doubt there’d be many. So I truly believe that the Ministry should allow enchantment of Muggle objects, encourage it even! The things we could invent, it would be incredible.”
After hearing about Mr. Waverly’s interesting proposition, I turned my attention to current events. As you readers may know, there has been some debate recently as to whether or not Dementors should be kept as the guards for Azkaban prison. Before answering me, Mr Waverly took a moment to think. Eventually, he said “I do believe that alternatives should be looked into. While replacing them immediately would be difficult, I’d like to see the Dementors removed from Azkaban for several reasons. The first being concerns for their loyalty. We all know that You-Know-Who used Dementors in the last war. So how do we know for sure that those creatures won’t end up helping another criminal in the future? Questionable loyalties are not what I look for in a prison guard. Furthermore,” he continued, “I find the current conditions of Azkaban to be inhumane. In the Muggle world, they believe that even prisoners have basic rights, and quite frankly, Azkaban denies its prisoners any such rights. The Dementors practically torture the prisoners, driving them insane. They may be criminals, but most of them don’t deserve that.”
Once he had finished speaking about his feelings on Dementors, I asked Mr. Waverly about another concerning issue: the recent protests against the Statute of Secrecy. Upon being asked, Mr. Waverly frowned a little. “I have been hearing about those,” he told me solemnly, “and I can’t say I support them. I do understand where they’re coming from, though. Being a Muggle-born, there were moments when I was younger where I became frustrated that I couldn’t tell my Muggle friends about magic, especially when my inability to tell them anything about my life cost me those friendships. But the Statute of Secrecy exists for a reason; I can’t justify the risks we would take if we abolished it. So while I’m sympathetic toward the protesters, I ask them to think more carefully about their cause and not to do anything rash.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to ask Mr. Waverly any other questions, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him more as the election goes on. So keep an eye on the election, and think carefully about whom you’re going to vote for.
