Graham Longshaw, a Muggle-born former Ravenclaw, is forced to return to Muggle life after graduating from Hogwarts due to a combination of Voldemort's first rise and Minister Minchum's anti-Muggleborn legislation. Now an Oxford medical student, Graham reads in The Prophet how his kin are being systematically hunted down and killed. Refusing to accept such a horrific status quo, he devises a radical plan to challenge magical demographics by infiltrating sperm banks to secretly introduce magical DNA into Muggle populations, aiming to increase "Muggleborn" numbers and shift wizarding society’s power balance.
A Wizard's Guide to 'Banking'
is a Potter Verse Fanfic written by Bakuraptor, published on January 18th, 2017, and hosted on FanFiction.Net, that focuses on the sociopolitical struggles of Muggleborns.
Tropes:
- Antagonistic Governor: Gamp is elected Minister for Magic after scandals force Fugde out of office. Gamp presents himself as the ultimate moderate (actually, a blood purist conservative who appeals to both the bigots and the need for peaceful rationality most of the non-pure blood base craves) with a squeaky clean record. This allows him to win and rapidly enact his policies, which aim to drive half-breeds out of wizarding society, completely isolate magical Britain from Muggles by any unscrupulous means necessary, and relegate Muggleborns to low-paying menial jobs. Graham is a Muggleborn himself who refuses to fully integrate with wizarding customs but still wants to partake in society as a physician (a profession forbidden to wizards with impure lineage). Naturally, he does everything in his power to resist this.
- Bigot with a Badge: Minister Gamp's administration openly encourages Aurors to get onto Muggleborns and Half-breed's cases for discriminatory stuff like wearing Muggle clothing or having non-Ministry-approved business on Diagon and Knockturn Alleys. Gamp has the gall to admit he doesn't actually want to drive Muggleborns out of Britain's wizarding community, merely to teach them their place.
- Bring Them Around: Graham's plan to eradicate Muggleborn prejudice by social engineering is extremely morally gray, so he always finds himself needing to convince friends and potential allies of how it's the only permanent solution to the issue. Most of the time, his strongest argument is that blood purism existed well before Voldemort and brewed the right climate for him to commit genocide against Muggleborns and half-humans. This is reinforced by how, even after the war, politicians and institutions keep favoring purebloods. The first two people he convinces are fellow Muggleborns, Lily Evans and Jessica. Alongside Lily, follow the Marauders. Some years later, when they are discovered by Amelia Bones, Sirius gives her the same arguments so she'll turn a blind eye to their operation. Amelia puts the condition that they keep her informed and that she can veto ideas she finds too morally dark.
- Child of Two Worlds: While canon acknowledges Muggleborns are often unable to fully integrate in wizarding society despite being assimilated at fairly young ages, it only does so passingly. Here, it's the main conflict. Muggleborns complete their formative years surrounded by magic in a way that leaves them almost incapable of integrating back into the Muggle system (e.g., they don't finish high school or get certifications needed to be employed). And yet, since they weren't raised as wizards, they miss out on many traditions and connections required for them to rise up in the ranks or even access some professions in the magical community. Most Muggleborns still love Muggle culture, or aspects of it, and wish they could be part of both, but they are essentially forbidden to do either due to pure blood bias.
- Class Struggle: The fic explores the prevalent systematic discrimination against Muggleborns and Half-breeds in Britain's wizarding society, and how it heightens to the point of behind-the-scenes rebellion as a result of Voldemort's Blood War. The aforementioned demographics are never given positions of power, while oft being driven to the fringes because of the blatant bias favoring purebloods. Minister Gramp's post-war oppressive bills provoke a mass exodus... right to Rebel Leader Graham's open arms, who plans to create a surplus of "muggleborns" (actually, half-bloods) through in-vitro insemination. He'll force Wizarding Britain to change its laws through sheer numbers alone; all the while providing the unemployed, marginalized demographics with jobs.
- Fan Prequel: A Wizard's Guide to Banking takes place an odd year or so before the Potters die by Voldemort's hand, right in the middle of the first Wizarding Blood War. From then on, it slowly builds up until it catches up to canon, where the effects of its Point of Divergence are felt in full.
- Inciting Incident: While it's more of a slowly-building frustration and impotence than a single event, Graham eventually has enough of witnessing (second-hand as it is) the escalating persecution of Muggle-borns during Voldemort’s rise to power. This systemic injustice, coupled with the tragic loss of several friends to wizarding society's apathy and discrimination, spurs him to concoct his radical plan to subvert the status quo. This moment crystallizes his determination to act, setting the story’s plot in motion and establishing its central conflict: the fight against entrenched wizarding prejudice.
- Irregular Series: The fic was first published on January 18th, 2017. Updates could take weeks or months, and there was a
Series Hiatus lasting from April 2022 to February 2025, when the author picked up again. - One-Word Title: The fourteenth and fifteenth chapters, respectively "Denouement" and "Schooling".
- Outdated Outfit: One of the many ways the Gamp regime makes life unpleasant for muggleborns and people in contact with the mundane world is by demanding that they wear muggle suitable clothing when passing in and out of the wizarding world. Their reference for "suitable muggle clothing" hasn't been updated since the 1920s.
- Science Hero: Despite eventually participating in the war as an emergency healer, Graham has never been much of a fighter. Instead, his hard-earned knowledge of both magical and Muggle procedures allows him to not only save many lives with mixed treatments but also to engineer a large-scale plan to force wizarding society to change. It's him who puts sperm donations and Muggleborn demographics in the same equation, something he wouldn't have been able to do had he not studied Muggle medicine as well. He and Lily are the ones who create and brew the complex Polyjuice-based potion required to diversify the samples' genomes.
- Sliding Scale of Proactiveness: The fic's protagonist is The Chessmaster, having come up with a plan to turn the tides on the blood purists in the long term and implementing most of it thanks to his intimate knowledge of both muggle and magical medicine practices. While his allies are not his pawns, he picks them based on how likely it is they'll be sympathetic to his house and what kind of resources they can offer him—e.g., Lily Potter for her expertise on Potions and Charms. Graham is the reason why there's a plot to speak of in the first place.
- To Be Lawful or Good: Switching sperm samples in a bank is illegal not only in the Muggle world but could be counted as Muggle-baiting according to the wizarding world's laws as well. Unfortunately, if one seeks to social-engineer the magical community so Muggleborns are no longer an easy-to-discriminate minority, there's hardly any other option. The fanfic examines the morality of Graham's plan, questioning the implications of tampering with Muggles' lives without consent and what amounts to using children as political tokens. Yet, Voldemort and Ministers Minchum and his successor Gamp have made it impossible for Muggleborns to work and live unharassed in the wizarding society.
- Transformation Conventions: Graham Longshaw's animagus form is a common cuckoo, a bird that thrives by laying its eggs on other birds' nests. This mirrors his grand plan to force Britain's Wizarding community to no longer discriminate against Muggleborns—swapping sperm bank samples for those of a wizard so that Muggleborns (actually, half-bloods) will quickly outnumber purebloods. Graham is a Muggleborn himself.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Graham, with the aid of Amelia Bones, is able to uncover the evidence that Sirius did not betray the Potters. However the scandal over the lack of trial collapses the Bagnold ministry, allowing Lucius Malfoy to put in the oppressive Gamp.
- With Great Power Comes Great Perks: It occurs to Graham that, to fund the pre-Hogwarts school for Muggleborns that he wants to implement, he can exploit the repairing charm to buy ruined buildings for cheap, restore them at no cost, and then generate unprecedented profits with the sale. Graham (only at the beginning), Remus, and Delia spend at least half a decade doing this.
