Disclaimer: This is a fictional article. The Sentinel belongs to UPN/Paramount and Pet Fly Productions. Harry Potter belongs to Scholastic and J. K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has changed hands.

Author's note: I wrote this to organize my thoughts on A Matter of Magic, but I thought it was good enough to post in its own right. However, I won't do that until after I finish that story. I wouldn't want to spoil the story for anyone. If you are trying to read this before you have read all of AMoM, be warned. It will tell you exactly how things will work if you pay close enough attention.

Also, this is written as an article, not as a story. Blair published this article in two prominant journals, a British one called "Magical Science," and an American one called "Past And Future," following the events of AMoM. The wizarding community couldn't care less about his problems with the Muggle academic comunity, and he had no problem getting the thing published.

INTRODUCTION
As a Muggle, when I was first introduced to the world of wizardry, things looked very strange. Some of my first encounters with magic were things that I'm sure the wizard world takes for granted, but they were very unusual to me and those who were with me. A houseplant standing guard over an Auror captain's office, along with a house elf secretary and a front desk clerk who had to be reminded to change the color of her eyes, were all weird and exciting to my previous experience.

I was an anthropologist (a scientist who studies man, both ancient and modern) before I was a cop (an Auror of the Muggle world) and I never stopped studying human culture. I wanted to know the roots of magic, how humans came to use it in the first place, and how that use has changed humanity over the millennia. After all, such a force is bound to be included in the way evolution changes humans and nature alike, just as gravity and light are.

I was granted access to the Oxford Library of Magic for the purpose of researching that question, as I was on leave from work in order to visit with my new in-laws in England, and that research, combined with Muggle reference materials already in my possession, resulted in these conclusions.

PREHISTORY
Before the advent of the great urban societies, like the Chinese, Egyptian, and various South American empires, humans lived only in tribal groupings, both large and small. These tribes depended on tribal guardians for their survival. Those guardians came in pairs, the Shaman, and the Sentinel. The Sentinel was an individual with senses far greater than those of normal men. They could predict weather changes, find game, and warn of natural disasters and approaching enemies. The Shaman was both the spiritual leader of the tribe and the partner of the Sentinel, who could become very focused on one sense and lose himself to it unless he had someone there to watch his back. As the Sentinel's partner, the Shaman had to be with him in the field, but the Shaman also had to be available to the tribe as a healer and a mediator with the spirits or gods.

Shamen used magic, but they used it much differently than the modern wizard. Rather than focusing their own power through a magical medium like a wand, they were themselves the focus for the magic of the spirit world. As such, they were both more powerful and had less control over their lives. They were the servant of the tribe and the spirits. They would never have imagined using magic to light a candle or to make things fly. To them, as they were far more concerned with survival, it would have seemed like a waste of power to use magic for such mundane things.

With urbanization, though, the needs of society changed. There were far too many people in one place for a single pair of guardians to be sufficient, so the leaders of these societies started armies to replace the Sentinel. The Shamen, whose potential gift was much more common than that of the Sentinel, were able to group together and organize, but the Sentinel became extinct in these societies, only appearing in the still-numerous tribal groups away from the cities.

THE CHANGE
Along with the new organization of the Shamen into priesthoods of various orders, the social and political structure of these societies were also changing. Urban societies are much more individualistic than tribal ones, though it might seem like a contradiction. You can't possibly know everyone in a large urban center, so you tend to focus more on just yourself and your closest neighbors. With that change, greed becomes a more prevalent motivation, both for material possessions and for power.

Many priests decided that they no longer wished to follow the spirits' guidance in matters of magic use, so they developed methods of using their own internal power. This was finally achieved by the use of focus objects, from crystals and gems to living animals. Finally, in Egypt, toward the end of the 18th Dynasty, the Egyptians who were attempting to use their own power finally succeeded. Great staves of date palm wood were carved with symbols of power and were hollowed out, allowing for the insertion of magical elements from nature, such as lotus, eagle feathers and sphinx hairs as core material, then the entire thing would be polished with a mixture of fish oil and dates to seal and varnish it. The first recorded incident involving these first true wizards was in the Book of Exodus when Moses' brother, Aaron, went up against Ramses II's court magicians. Aaron was, of course, of the older system, a Shaman, though he would soon become a priest. He was the hand through which his God was acting. The wizards didn't stand a chance against that kind of backing and were easily defeated.

One might wonder why, if the Shamans were so much more powerful, it is the wizards who became the dominant magic workers. Quite simply, number weight. It is far easier to train a child to become a wizard than it is to train him to become a Shaman. It became common practice to take talented children just before puberty and begin their training in wizard magic. It also became common to accept female children by the time of the Grecco/Roman era, sometimes in all female schools, like certain supposed cults of Athena. They worshipped learning itself, which fell under Athena's jurisdiction, but they didn't actually worship Her.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND MASS PRODUCTION
Before the 4th century B.C., all wizards had to craft their own supplies, which was tedious, and sometimes hazardous. After all, if you want the heartstring of a dragon, you either have to find a dead one, or you have to kill it. But in that century, a large group of Greek and Roman wizards started fooling around with mass production, first with the most basic things, like cauldrons, quills, and ink, and then with more complex things, like wands and potion ingredients. Great gardens sprung up, full of all manner of magical pharmocopia, and professional harvesters started slaughtering businesses to gather animal ingredients. One of these early mass production artists was the highly talented Olivander the First, whose extraordinary gift with charming animals and eidetic memory have been passed through his family 'till this very day and who began the most successful wandiry in all of Eurasia.

Mass production of magical supplies allowed for wizarding families to live a much easier life by enabling them to concentrate on other things. This changed the structure of the wizard community, giving them a reason to begin centralizing around the shops which sold those supplies for convenience's sake. Small villages began to pop up that were all or mostly wizards and magical creatures, among them Hogsmede, England, where the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were all born and raised.

ISOLATIONISM
If there is one constant in human nature, it is that humans fear that which they do not understand, and what humans fear, they tend to want to destroy. The beginnings of isolationist sentiment coincided with the persecution of the Christians by the Romans in the first century. Seeing what Muggles were capable of when large groups of them were afraid or angry, the wizard village populations began to swell, and entire communities were spelled to hide themselves. Still, some wizards persisted in remaining visible, some for good reasons, and others for bad.

Until the fall of Camelot, however, there was no attempt to regulate magic or its use through civil government. There were just things one did not do, and it didn't occur to most of the population that anyone would break those unwritten rules.

Merlin broke those rules for the sake of his friendship with Uthur Pendragon. The man was caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing what his friend wanted was wrong, but not wanting to deny him that which he most desired.

Of course, le Fey's reasons were much more selfish. She wanted power, pure and simple, and if she couldn't have it herself as a woman, she would gain it by controlling the men who did.

When Camelot fell, the entire world-wide population of wizards agreed to the international stricture to keep Muggles ignorant of magic, and to keep wizards out of Muggle conflict. This is why no wizard is allowed to join the armed forces of any nation.

Isolationist feelings were vindicated several times throughout the Crusades and with incidents such as the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, though Muggles in Salem didn't know how to recognize magic very well, nor how to combat it. Hence incidents like Wendolin the Weird, who grew addicted to the effects of the Flame Freezing Charm and allowed herself to be convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake on 47 separate occasions in various disguises.

CONSEQUENCES
As a result of this isolationism, the wizard community became very insular, ignoring the outside world, first as though it just didn't matter, and then as though it were inferior. This led to a stigma being placed on those who married Muggles, and on their children. Elitism led to the joining of wealthy families fortunes and to the current existence of the wealthy pureblooded families and their disdain for Muggle-born wizards and witches. This further lessened contact between wizards and the outside world, causing a decrease in the wizard population world wide.

Other consequences were more subtle. Muggles ceased to believe in magic after a time, putting sightings of magical creatures down to tricks of light or miscommunication, or even the more recent phenomenon of UFOs in the US and Europe. Wizards forgot what it was like in the outside world at all.

As far as my own observations of the American and British wizarding communities goes, I've noticed that few wizards consider Muggles to be a threat of any kind unless they are in large mobs. My partner and I were constantly underestimated because we didn't have magic. One incident in particular with a pair of young men named Fred and George Weasly illustrated this fact quite easily. Anyone who knows them knows that they are incurable pranksters, so they would have tried something anyway, but they would probably have done a much better job of it. As it is, they got too close to my partner before launching their charm and he simply grabbed their wands out of their hands before they could do anything. They were utterly defenseless, and had he been a true enemy, they would have been in serious trouble.

CURRENT TRENDS
Things are still changing. The ancient patterns never truly died out, though they have generally remained in only isolated primitive communities, such as the uncharted jungles of South America, and tribes still faithful to the ancient ways in both Africa and North America. Of course, priests of various orders are more common than Shamen and wizards put together, and not all are magically oriented.

Also, some of the most powerful wizards of this era are part-blooded. On both ends of the moral spectrum, you have Tom Riddle, whose father was a Muggle, and Harry Potter, whose maternal grandparents were Muggles. There is something to be said for genetic diversity, and it's very possible that the addition of non-magical blood will stimulate the gene pool of the magical community, allowing for the birth of even greater wizards in the future.

And the older patterns may yet re-emerge because of the isolation of the wizard community. As wizard magic is no longer interfering, Shamen may yet again be the focus of magical energy in the rest of the world, bringing us full circle. Perhaps the Sentinels will return as well, and the Guardian pairs will once again protect their tribes.

END

SOURCES
The Sentinels of Paraguay, by Sir Richard Burton
Shamanistic Religions in Pre-Civilized Cultures, by Dr. Eli Stoddard
The Bible, Exodus 7:8-12
The Book of the Soul, by Amunhotep, circa 2200 BCE, translated by Bill Weasly, May, 1988
Egypt of the Pharaohs, National Geographic Society
Prehistoric Magic, by Recorda Geschichte
A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot
Wizardry in Isolation, by Clandestina Hidings
Hogwarts, A History, by J. K. Rowling
A Wizard's History of Celtic England, by Lawrence Pendragon
Personal observations of Blair Sandburg, July, 2000

Author's actual sources
The Sentinel (TV series)
The Bible, Exodus 7:8-12
Egypt of the Pharaohs, National Geographic Society
Harry Potter books, 1, 2, 3 and 4, by J. K. Rowling
The Harry Potter Lexicon, www.hp-lexicon.org