Ministry machinations
DMLE
Ministry tracking people
The most obvious method of tracking would be apparition licenses, floo addresses, and the Hogwarts registry.
The ministry has ways of tracking magic in the muggle world, but seemingly only when it's in front of those not-in-the-know and serious enough that Obliviators have to be sent (since there is no indication anyone was ever sent to Harry's residence, and nobody came ever to Hermione's family – which implies that some muggleborn would sent to be exorcised by confused and frightened adults).
So careful adult wixen in the muggle world should not be traceable if they don't register with the Ministry/get a Floo connection.
Does the Ministrywork in conjunction with the PM's office for stuff that gets reported?
That would make muggles flip out so badly if they found out
"they've infiltrated our government? they can erase MEMORIES? they can do miND CONTROL?"
"They've been living under our noses all this time!!!!"
Legal punishments
Wand snapping
Considering Hagrid, Barty Crouch Jr. and Sirius, is your soul tied to your wand? Will a wand snapped before the end of puberty stunt emotional growth and cause immaturity? Or is it caused by their exposure to dementors? Speaking of
Azkaban
First of all:
wizard war criminal (she/they) Azkaban would be on my to-do list as a dark lord. 1) Massive threat to any imprisoned followers 2) what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck 3) i hate it here i hate it here i hate it here 4) Floating depression monsters are Not Good. Floating depression monsters that steal your soul are To Be Destroyed At Any Cost
Why is Azkaban seemingly the only prison using dementors? Is there a treaty with the dementors? The breakout rate is a fake reason, considering that Nurmengard held Grindelwald just fine. It may be cheaper to use Dementors, but it also causes seemingly irreversible damage to prisoner's minds which makes reintegration extremely difficult. That is not exactly helpful in an already tiny society.
Department of Mysteries
Unspeakables
Ways to keep them from spilling secrets:place- and password- locked obliviation spells, so that they literally cannot speak of what they work on because they dont know until they get back to the department, thus preventing them from spilling secrets or being tortured/legilimens'd for them
Prophecies
Who decides what a "dark lord" even is? Like, is there a group of people who go "yeah ok that guy's a dark lord" or do you have to claim the title? Could a child playing become a dark lord just by saying they are? What's the criteria for this?
"born to those who have thrice defied him" ok, only three times? no more, no less? what consists of "defiance?" "born as the seventh month dies" the seventh month of WHAT ? the calendar year? which calendar? does it happen in this century? in this country, even?
If you just ignore it and leave the next dark lord to deal with it, are there any repercussions? Will the prophecy latch onto the first people capable of fulfilling it and manipulate them into forcing it to come true? Are prophecies sentient or the way a sentient Fate interferes with the real world? Something else entirely?
Little crack-fic
There is a Thought Chamber, if someone can hide a secret in a soul, why not hide a secret in a brain/ the brain vat
lmao going to work like 'oh boy back to my daily grind of shelving paperwor-' walks into department of mysteries 'tangerine' ' oh fuck the brains I forgot to lock the brain container'
'they start summoning dead gods if we leave them alone too long it’s been TWELVE HOURS'
"management was like 'the department will be fine if we take a break' and 'you all need a break before making light sabers again' and then what happened? A couple of schoolkids fucked up like three of the halls, squashed Jeremy's pet brains, and Voldemort broke in!
VOLDEMORT! have we no professional pride anymore!
Jeremy I’m so sorry they tried to eat a child
and the entire hall of prophecy
i guess because they hadn’t done enough damage already
Jeremy: No, it’s fine, I was having an argument with the ethics committee so I could feed them human blood so this is interesting actually
Jane: Actually, there is no ethics committee I've just been polyjuicing and making up laws for the past 4 years
Oh, and I found this dog sitting in the death room? who brought their pet into work and LEFT it here?
Department of Education
(the absurd level of education and lack of social activities at Hogwarts requires it own chapter)
How likely is it that employees messed with the OWL and NEWT results of students disliked by the ministry? Specifically, knowing that Harry wants to be an auror and that Snape only accepts O students in his NEWT classes, how likely is it that they shaved down just enough points for him to get an EE?