[Transcript excerpt from The Quibbler Wandcast, 3 June 2019 episode, ‘The Albanian Conspiracy w/ historian Lee Jordan‘. See pt. 1.]
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QUIBBLER: So, we’ve talked about the role of the KEK and Ded Shtrigë in the early and mid 1980s in the Albanian Conspiracy. But I want to get to the turning point of that Conspiracy, and I think that means we have to talk about Alexis Gage.
JORDAN: Yes, let’s talk about Alexis Gage. Dear God, what a nutter. [Laughs.] Maybe my favourite nutter in this story.
QUIBBLER: Now listeners may recognize that name from our episodes on the 1970s Hallows quests and the Borgin & Burke’s ring – but for those who might be unfamiliar, can you give us a quick introduction to Alexis Gage?
JORDAN: Can I give an introduction to Alexis Gage . . . let’s see. I – gosh, I just wish we could show a photo, it would really sum it all up.
QUIBBLER: A truly extraordinary gentlemen.
JORDAN: Alexis Gage, let’s see. So Gage is a man of another era. French wizard, Beauxbatons grad, relative of the French Lestrange family, who I’m sure you’re familiar with. And Gage is – I don’t really know what to call him – a collector, I suppose, of, um, magical oddities.
QUIBBLER: A quester, you might say.
JORDAN: A quester, I like that. Yes, Gage is a phenomenally wealthy gent, primarily interested in the collection of – not necessarily dark artefacts, but perhaps less than honourable ones. And he’s a figure you see popping up in strange circles all throughout Europe for much of the latter half of the 20th century. There’s a small uprising of Danish wizards doing something strange to goats and you can bet that there’s some Gage money floating around nearby. A real eccentric, definitely involved in – um, lets say the less savoury side of upper-class life. I don’t want to cast imputations –
QUIBBLER: But Gage’s main role is as Ministry collaborator, yes?
JORDAN: Oh, yes, I suppose I’m burying the lede there, aren’t I? Yes, the man is a classic DoM asset. An informant, yes, but also a funder. A means of moving dark money around the continent. I don’t believe there have been any credible allegations to Gage’s link to the Death Eaters, but he’s the type –
QUIBBLER: A French Lucius Malfoy, perhaps?
JORDAN: Yes, exactly. An independent agent, sure, but one who’s never far from a DoM handler and whose purse is always following the strings of the Ministry, as it were. I’m mixing my metaphors here but you catch my drift.
QUIBBLER: And Gage ends up in Albania?
JORDAN: Yes, Gage ends up in Albania. Most likely around 1985, he catches wind of the KEK, and what he sees there is absolute freakazoid catnip. You’ve got funny occult business, potential government disruption, ancient groves –
QUIBBLER: Maybe even a tie-in to a legendary artefact?
Jordan: [Laughs] I don’t suspect actually that he was aware of the Diadem link, that’s very much of British interest, I don’t reckon the French care too much about Hogwarts lore – but anyway, Gage catches wind of the Theth business and by 1985 he’s taken up near full residence in Shkodër County as a senior member of the KEK. And this is a phenomenal boon for historians, because Gage, unlike the DoM, was sloppy with his records, and we’ve got all sorts of correspondences from 1986 onward.
QUIBBLER: Tell us a little bit about Gage’s role in the Conspiracy, both internally and externally.
JORDAN: Well, I imagine Shtrigë was a bit threatened by Gage, he being a fully accomplished wizard and all, but Gage I think was quite careful about maintaining the good thing Shtrigë had going, and at least at the start we’ve no sorts of power struggles. Gage plays the role of, you know, eccentric millionaire, interest at a distance, likes to play-act as a member from time to time but mostly just sits back and funds and recruits. I’m sure he got up in there you know in whatever, um, rituals they were up to, at least the exotic ones – but I expect he likely took a relatively passive role within the KEK. Now, externally, on the other hand, it’s a whole different story. Gage is sending information direct to his contacts in the intelligence community from day one.
QUIBBLER: Do we know who those contacts were?
JORDAN: We do not, no. And I suspect he wasn’t just communicating with the British DoM. He was a string-puller, Gage, and I’d be willing to bet he had boys at the French Ministry, the Bulgarians maybe, the Chinese – the guy was a, what do you call it, an international man of mystery. But as for the British Ministry, no, I don’t know who his contact might have been. Those records have all been destroyed.
QUIBBLER: What records do we have?
JORDAN: Oh, loads of personal correspondences. The man loved to write, he had quite an inflated sense of how interesting his comings and goings might be to the public. We’ve got letters to a whole who’s-who of 20th-century luminaries, Flamel, Dumbledore, your dear founder, Xenophilus Lovegood – plus we’ve got his personal journals, a handful of photos – he left it all to be published. It never has been, it all ended up in the French Ministry archives, but you can access it all if you go through the right channels and can read some French – the man might have been interested in secrets but he wanted everyone in the world to know he was in on them.
QUIBBLER: So it’s really not surprising that the DoM was involved quite shortly after Gage’s arrival.
JORDAN: Exactly. So Gage gets involved, and pretty soon we start to see other wizards joining up. We don’t have names for any of these people, unfortunately, but from Gage’s correspondences we know that there were two Durmstrang students who join up in around 1986, and then a sort of disciple it seems of Gage who comes later that year, and then a goon or two from England in early 1987. So now after Gage’s arrival this KEK business has gone from an almost entirely muggle operation to one that’s got quite a few wizards – not particularly skilful wizards, mind you, but people with wands nonetheless. And no power struggle with Shtrigë, quite – mysteriously.
QUIBBLER: Most mysterious. And is there any activity that the KEK is explicitly engaged in at this time?
JORDAN: Less than you might expect. I think at this point Shtrigë is really trying to keep his power over his little cult, and he does that by making sure the grove remains as secret as possible. He’s the one communicating with the tree, with the snakes – and he really doesn’t know quite what he’s supposed to be doing. So what the KEK as a whole starts doing is mostly just funding itself, and that’s largely through trafficking. A steady stream of restricted goods start going in and out of Theth, and all of that is turning into income, all managed by Monsieur Gage. His cover to the muggles was that he was an importer of exotic liqueurs. He had a little business venture, getting black market liquors out to the commies who only got Yugoslav vodka. So there’s that going on, and then you’ve got a variety of – rituals.
QUIBBLER: Rituals.
JORDAN: Yes. Now we don’t know what these are, but they seem quite important to Gage and the rest of the KEK. It’s possible that these resulted in some deaths, sacrifices, of humans and animals – this is an area where I really don’t care to speculate, though my brain goes their sometimes, but it’s not a nice place. But – we know, even if the KEK foot soldiers didn’t, what they were trying to do there –
QUIBBLER: Reanimating the, er, kukudh.
JORDAN: Exactly. And we know that this isn’t an – a nice project. So, I don’t want to know exactly what they tried out, but with a guy like Gage involved, one who knows all sorts of strange, bleak stuff – and then Shtrigë, who, despite his limitations, is communicating with demons on a regular basis – I imagine they were trying all sorts of ghastly stuff to bring about their Kulshedra.
QUIBBLER: Yes. I’ve looked into some of the stuff that’s been explored for corporal reanimation and – well, we’re not here to make anyone feel nice, but we don’t need anyone to lose their lunch. But I want to keep moving with the narrative. Now if I recall correctly the turning point comes in 1988 –
JORDAN: Yes, in 1988 – and now we’ve got records, official Ministry records, though they’ve been redacted to shite, and also some first-hand interviews I’ve done with a source who, at least right now I can’t disclose – but the Auror Office decides to send a team of undercover agents out there to infiltrate the cell. And this part of the story is quite funny. The DMLE blokes show up, and immediately the two Durmstrang kids are out of there – absolutely split. And the London blokes, they, well – the short answer is that they were almost definitely DoM.
QUIBBLER: Full Unspeakables.
JORDAN: Yes. The DMLE report I got my hands on, which sadly I can’t share, says something like ‘Participants 3 and 4 uninvolved in suspicious action’ or ‘provided witness, recused from investigation’, stuff like that. So either the DMLE was providing remarkable amnesty to British dark wizards, or – or the aurors realised they were bungling a Department of Mysteries deep-cover campaign.
QUIBBLER: And did the Durmstrang students – did they flee because they realized that they were being infiltrated?
JORDAN: That’s possible – or, it’s just as likely that they were agents as well. Maybe not British but some sort of intelligence. Between foreign Ministries, the DMLE, the DoM, and affiliated assets – I’m not sure if there was ever a point that there was ever a single non-intelligence member of the KEK. Really extraordinary police work our boys do. But nevertheless, bungled as it all is, this is incredibly useful because it’s quite evident now to all involved that there’s some dark stuff occupying this Albanian grove, and, inter-departmental politics aside, the Ministry now has complete control over that reality. Almost by chance. And that’s not a bad place for Ministry intelligence to be.
QUIBBLER: Do you think the Ministry saw it that way?
JORDAN: Well, depends what you mean by the Ministry. The DoM? Absolutely, this is their bread and butter. The DMLE? That’s not their style, that’s not how they think. They don’t see narrative, long-term planning, political potential – they see an opportunity to catch some dark wizards and throw their meat out to the public. By ’88, ’89, there hadn’t been any dark wizards caught in half a decade. What’s the point of all this funding to the DMLE if they don’t do shite? Now the DMLE could have organized a full-on raid, taken out Shtrigë, locked up Gage, maybe even show-arrested a DoM agent and then chopped down the damn ghost tree, said ‘we defeated terrorism, again!’ But do that and, besides making quite a few other international agencies quite angry, you’ve cut off a danger stream, you’ve suddenly made the world actually quite a bit safer. And that’s – that’s no good, that’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to keep the wizarding community compliant, afraid, and protected. So the DMLE manoeuvred instead, I think, to do what they do best – they set up a trap.
QUIBBLER: And this brings us to the real star of this show, Quirinus Quirrell.
JORDAN: That’s right.
QUIBBLER: Could you give us a quick background on Quirrell, and then tell us how exactly he ended up involved in the KEK?
JORDAN: Sure. So Quirrell, Quirrell is actually a bit of sorry case because he really was one of the brilliant minds of that generation of Hogwarts students. He’s one of the only historians who was actually interested in the overlap between wizards and muggles – his work on muggle occultism in heavy metal music is absolutely foundational to my work on British Wicca, I couldn’t have written The People’s History without it. But – well, good thinkers go bad, and Quirrell is absolutely one of them unfortunately. But the man – he also got done dirty. So – I suppose I’m of two minds. Like on one hand to hell with the bloody blood supremacist – on the other, well, it’s not right for anyone to get chewed up by the DMLE no matter how bad they might be, that’s one of the – the core elements of the work that I do, I reckon.
So, anyway, Quirrell. Quirrell was the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts in the l980s, with as I said a particular interest in muggle ‘use’ of magic, particularly the dark arts. And he does great work on this topic in the North, very celebrated in certain circles, though maybe not among students so much, he doesn’t seem to have been too crack a teacher. So when the KEK rumours start breaking to the UK, Quirrell is obviously quite interested from an academic place in what’s happening over there. Now, that’s all well and good, but there’s another person who’s interested for quite a different reason, and that person happens to be Quirrell’s boss, Albus Dumbledore. So in the 1989-90 school year, Dumbledore proposes to Quirrell to take a year-long sabbatical to do research on recent developments in muggle occultism, and of course the immediate suggestion is to do an extended stay in Northwest Albania.
QUIBBLER: Quirrell’s motivation here seems quite obvious, but what do you think was Dumbledore’s?
JORDAN: Well, I think that’s quite obvious too. Dumbledore is surely in communication with the DoM at this point about a follow-up to Cassius. But Dumbledore likes to have his own agents in the field, he doesn’t quite trust the DoM anymore, but the problem is he doesn’t have too many friends at this point – or at least friends without, er, baggage. But Quirrell – he’s loyal, he’s a perfect fit, he’s got the knowledge to get close to the group, do informed observations, and pass it all along back to Hogwarts. So it’s all quite sensible, and the field experience will even earn him a promotion to Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, which to me seems mad but then Dumbledore’s strength was never as a personnel director, seems.
QUIBBLER: When does Quirrell arrive in Theth, and what happens when he does?
JORDAN: Well, this is rigorously documented, we’ve got every single letter, it was all essentially public Hogwarts archives. Quirrell kept close contact with Dumbledore the entire time. He shows up in October 1990, and he does sort of a loose undercover infiltration of the KEK. And we’ve got great documentation of everything, the letters are fabulous. And it seems, at the start at least, that Quirrell really believes this is a muggle operation. He only starts picking up on Shtrigë as a wizard around Christmas, and he doesn’t learn about the other wizards involved until February, March of 1991.
QUIBBLER: And from there?
JORDAN: From there he starts to take a deep dive. The last letter to Dumbledore is dated 25 April. Um, let me pull it up, it’s gold. Here, do you want to read it?
25 April 1991
Albus,
My initial wonderings that something much larger, much more important, than mere muggle play have been confirmed, it seems. I fear that writing too much will pose risk to the wonders that flow to and from this spectacular forest – suffice it to say that today I met the one they call Bullar, and I believe that his powers far exceeds Shtrigë’s. I speak in the parlance of the muggles – he’s a wizard, undoubtedly a wizard, and perhaps a great one. And within the glade – the Ershaj – whatever it is, today I felt it. I fear – not entirely a negative emotion, rather more of a trepidation, an anticipation of extraordinary wonder – that I have come upon something that far exceeds my initial studies but that will be immensely valuable in my preparations against the Dark Arts.
I suspect I will not write for some time, but I remain your faithful servant and when we speak again I will share with you a most impressive trove of knowings.
Yours,
Q.
QUIBBLER: Extraordinary.
JORDAN: I mean, there you have it. That’s the priori incantatem, as it were. The correspondences cut off there, and Quirrell after that point is in far deeper than he’d ever come out.
QUIBBLER: So what do you make it? How deep exactly did he fall?
JORDAN: Well, I don’t reckon too deep really, just deeper than he ought to have. Remember, everyone around him other than some muggles and Shtrigë is a spook, or something like one. I doubt Quirrell got any closer to the heart of it than anyone else, I doubt he ascended any higher than Gage let him, I doubt he learned any real secrets at all. Whose to say if he even really knew that what he was dealing with? I mean, this is what the DoM is exceptionally good at, its giving a mark exactly as much as they need to do whatever it is that the DoM wants them to do. Was Quirrell someone who if he realized he was deep in some dark shite would balk? Or was Quirrell a true believer, finally awakened to the blood-magic truth? That’s something I don’t reckon we’ll ever know. Either way, in the spring of 1991 he falls whole hog for something, and when he comes back into the real world in August he’s fully activated as a long-range agent of the KEK, that is full-out entrapped in a DMLE scheme to get himself arrested as a dark wizard.
QUIBBLER: But he returns to Britain?
JORDAN: He returns to Britain, but with a mission, and one that he starts picking up almost immediately.
QUIBBLER: The harvesting of unicorn blood.
JORDAN: Exactly. Now this, I don’t know if the idea came from Gage, or Shtrigë, or the DoM, or if it just got made up by the DMLE, or if it was a symbiosis of all of them together – but Quirrell was tasked with smuggling unicorn blood out of Scotland into Albania. And this was, I’ve got to say – I hate these people, I effing hate them, but I’ve got to tip my hat to how brilliant they sometime are – this is a perfect scheme. It’s a class-B non-tradeable, so that’s building up a great case for Quirrell’s arrest, which makes the DMLE happy, and it proves to be a necessary ingredient for – well, hang up, we’ll get to that later –
QUIBBLER: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
JORDAN: Spoiler alert [laughs]. But one of the prime places to get unicorn blood is of course Quirrell’s place of employment, the Hogwarts forest.
QUIBBLER: So was the plan just to let Quirrell start smuggling unicorn blood and then slapping cuffs on him at a a convenient time?
JORDAN: It seems that way. Now around July I suspect Dumbledore gets a tip-off from a contact at the DMLE that says ‘hey, your professor, er, seems to be in league with some dark shite, and, er, we’re going to have to, er, arrest him.’ Which I’m positive Dumbledore, legendary legilimens, is already aware. But here’s where Dumbledore does something truly bizarre, maybe the most bizarre decision of his career, I’d say the one that sort of initiates his downfall. Dumbledore says, yes, okay, I see what’s happening here with Quirrell, but what if you delay his arrest? Don’t you actually want to get him on a serious charge, something much, much worse, much splashier, than smuggling class-B untradeable goods? And the DMLE, Bones’s DMLE now, likes this, they like it a lot, and at the time Dumbledore’s still got good enough graces with them to get his little hunches approved right up to the top. So the DMLE agrees to play Dumbledore’s game, and at the same time he’s got a little game he’s playing with the DoM. And it’s right around this time, August 1991, that a little operation gets rolled out around the Boy Who Lived, and suddenly you’ve got that and the Albanian Conspiracy, bowling down now as a massive, bloated entrapment scheme around Quirinus Quirrell, gathering moss up all together into a nice little chunk of rock that we like to call the Philosopher’s Stone. But that, of course, that’s another story.
[. . .]
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