Chapter 97: Aurors, Hit Wizards, and Raid

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

A small, lonely single-story wood cabin built with logs notched at the ends laid one upon another with the spaces filled with mortar, stood in a small clearing inside a dense forest. The log cabin was traditional in its design; a sloping, single-gabled timbered roof and small windows.

Inside the forest trees surrounding the log cabin stood men and women in various attires, although all of their clothes had one thing in common; all wore some kind of overcoat.

"Are you sure the intel is solid?" asked a tall, well-built, fair-skinned, handsome man who had lustrous black hair. The man had an air of casual elegance with a tinge of mischievousness.

"It's legit information; Conebush and Clocks saw them gathering inside the cabin," answered a tall, thin man with hazel-colored eyes and untidy black hair that stuck up at the back. The man was well-groomed and had an indefinable air of confidence.

"Potter, Black, come on, the Hit Wizards are ready," called out Captain Auror Gawain Robards. "It's time to infiltrate the site."

Senior Aurors, James Potter, and Sirius Black turned to face their captain and nodded in response.

An Auror was a magic-user who acted as a highly trained law enforcement official for magical governments. Auror training was immensely difficult and intensive, so there were few qualified applicants. Aurors of different countries dealt with different high-risk situations that were most prominent to them. Their training and areas of responsibility varied greatly depending on the type of threats for which they were prepared for and the magical education they had received beforehand.

The hierarchy within the British Auror's office went as follows.

Trainee Auror, -> Junior Auror, -> Senior Auror, -> Captain Auror, -> Head Auror.

James Potter and Sirius Black were Senior Aurors with a considerable amount of experience. On the other hand, Gawain Robards was a Captain Auror with excellent leadership skills. In charge of his own squad of two Senior Aurors and five Junior Aurors.

Gawain Robards was one of the few Captain Auror in the Auror Office and reported to the Head Auror Rufus Scrimgeour, who was in charge of the entire Auror Office.

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement had squads of trained Hit Wizards and Witches, whose job was to move out in dire and dangerous situations at a moment's notice, either to disperse a crowd during riots or to apprehend dangerous wizarding criminals once they had been located.

While Hit Wizards were trained to fight Dark Wizards, just like the Aurors, Aurors were more of an elite force whose abilities went far beyond simply arresting suspects, such as investigation, concealment, disguise, stealth, tracking, poisons and antidotes. Hit Wizards seemed to be primarily a fighting and controlling force and did high-risk arrests, riot controls, and hostage situations and weren't trained to investigate crime.

In non-magical terms, the distinction would be roughly comparable to that of the Homicide and Major Crimes Command and the specialist firearms officers of the Metropolitan Police. In the United States, the equivalent of this would be the differing roles of elite paramilitary units (example, S.W.A.T.) compared to national criminal investigative bodies (example, F.B.I).

In the current situation where Aurors were going to a potentially dangerous situation, they would call upon Hit Wizards, who had superior offensive training and capabilities.

Many Aurors and Hit Wizards gathered for the final briefing before they started the operation.

"According to the information we have, the log cabin you see there is the meeting place of the Novellus Accionites. Currently, multiple members are in the cabin. We're going to apprehend them," stated Gawain as he addressed the gathered team. "We all know this is an important mission. Some issues between the higher-ups have delayed this mission; we should've been deployed to deal with this situation a long time ago."

The conflict between the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Head, Madam Amelia Bones, and the Cornelius Fudge's Minister faction had finally been put aside because of the looming threat from the Novellus Accionites.

"This operation is going to be the first of many. As such, we need to obtain success so that the higher-ups get off our backs and let us do our work. Failure isn't an option, so don't mess up."

"Black and Buttonwood are going to be at the front. Check for charms and wards, make sure we aren't detected. I want the element of surprise with us," ordered Gawain, looking at Sirius and Junior Auror Shelly Buttonwood.

Both Aurors and Hit Wizards were trained in stealth and detection. Sirius Black and Shelly Buttonwood were his two best ward charms experts, so he chose them to make sure they went inside undetected.

He turned to the four Hit Wizards that had been assigned to him for this operation and commanded, "I want two of you to be behind Black and Buttonwood. We will provide cover for you two, so do crowd control and put them into the backfoot. The other two will be at the back in case of an ambush and will provide further cover."

"James, you take your two and apprehend as many as you see. Act as a three-man team and handle the hostiles," Gawain instructed James and the two Junior Aurors under him. He then turned to the remaining two Junior Aurors and ordered, "You two will be with me. We'll be in the center and we will act according to the situation."

Looking at the entire team, Gawain finished with, "Take care of yourselves, cover for your teammates, don't be hasty, trust your partners and work as a squad. Now, let's get in. Black, cast the group disillusionment spell. Let's move in formation."

The team moved in formation as Sirius raised his wand and cast an enchantment that turned a group of people invisible, while the people disillusioned could still see each other. It was a spell used by the more talented Aurors and Hit Wizards that were talented in the field of charms.

Dull, silvery light was emitted from Sirius's wand tip in a circular wave, and as it passed through the Aurors and Hit Wizards, they turned invisible to the world.

"Let's go," commanded Gawain, and the team silently moved towards the log cabin.

With Sirius Black and Shelly Buttonwood in the lead, the group moved forward as the two in front continuously cast to check the presence of wards. The two didn't find any ward until they reached the threshold of the cabin, where they found a detection ward.

Shelly Buttonwood raised her hand in a fist, which caused everybody to stop. She looked at Sirius, and the Senior Auror nodded before holding his wand vertically. He waved it in a pattern and, slowly, a red tint appeared in front of them and expanded.

Buttonwood opened her fisted hand and moved her wrist forward to motion the team that it was time to move again.

Everybody walked ahead and passed through the red tint. The red coloration corresponded to the region whose function had been disabled. As long as everyone passed through the red layer, the detection ward wouldn't pick anyone up.

The invisible squad entered the log cabin with a simple unlocking charm, as the door had nothing on it.

Dust, cobwebs, sheets on furniture, broken tables, chairs, windows, lamps, gaps in the floorboards, holes in the walls, chandelier with broken strings of crystals, broken glass on the floor, rust, mildew, ripped curtains, and shadows around the room greeted the team.

It looked like no one had lived or even visited this place for ages. But the scouts had clearly reported that they had seen people going inside the abandoned log cabin.

All sets of eyes looked around the cabin to see the entry point, and one of the Hit Wizards gained everybody's attention by pointing at the corner of the log cabin. The rest of the team followed the lead and saw crates lined on the floor against the wall.

The Hit Wizard carefully stepped out of formation, stood in front of the second box from the left, and pointed at the wooden crate.

It took the rest of the team a couple of seconds to understand what they were looking at before it clicked. The dust pattern on the crate was different from the rest of the boxes. Meaning, it had been moved. And in the abandoned place, this was the only indication of disturbance.

Gawain nodded, giving authorization to the hit wizard, who then used his wand to lift the crate and rotate before setting it down. And immediately, a piece of floorboard disappeared to reveal a flight of stairs going underground.

The team had found one of the meeting places of the Novellus Accionites.

Gawain pointed at one of the Hit Wizards and James told them to take the lead down the stairs and rearrange the formation to fit the narrow stairs. He also asked two of the junior Aurors to stay in the cabin for safety and lookout.

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The group, part two members, moved down the stone stairs. The stair tunnel was lit with fire torches which had a design of a hand holding a torch.

The stair tunnel finally opened up in a corridor, and the invisible infiltrators could hear voices from the end of that corridor.

James alone walked forward with the leading Hit Wizard trailing closely, and the rest of the team followed. As he reached the end of the corridor, James raised his wand and stepped out of the corridor.

There he discovered the source of the voices. James saw a group of people standing around in small groups talking to each other in an enormous hall. A gathering of men and women who wore the same outfits, talking to each other over wine and confectionaries.

The same outfits had the Novellus Accionites symbol on them, which clearly provided that this was a gathering full of terrorists and the people who supported them.

He had counted that there were around thirty to thirty-five people in the hall. The mission group had twelve members, and with two people above in the log cabin, the current body count was ten people: one Captain Auror, two Senior Aurors, three Junior Aurors, and four Hit Wizards.

James noticed that all the people present looked young, but that didn't give him an idea about their age. Magical kind had slower aging than their non-magical counterparts. Because their lifespan was twice to thrice as long as the non-magical humans, magical humans' aging had become different.

First, magical humans usually reached physical maturity earlier than their non-magical counterparts. Most of them reached their physical maturity at eighteen or nineteen years old (18-19 yrs.). After that, aging slowed down drastically.

James, who was thirty-three years old (33 yrs. old) this year, didn't look one day over that of the early twenties. He had this same physical appearance for closer than a decade. And people who were gathered here also looked the same age as him. Despite that, James didn't know the actual ages of the people.

After getting a clear picture of the gathering, James gestured for everyone to walk into the hall and take positions. The Aurors and Hit Wizards entered the hall while in formation. They moved very slowly, so their disillusionment didn't show any distortions.

Gawain had his arm raised and, when everyone was in their position, he brought his arm down. And that was the signal for everyone to open fire.

Suddenly, the jolly vibe of the hall changed as spells rained down on the Novellus Accionites members. Every single member of the squad rained down Stunning spells on unarmed people.

Screams filled the hall as the people closest to the squad were hit with stunning spells and, because of the element of surprise and chaos, ten people immediately hit the ground unconscious.

One of the Accionites in the back of the hall didn't lose calm in the chaos. She threw a Revealing charm toward the group that revealed them to the rest of the party.

"Aurors!" yelled someone in the hall, and people who were still conscious got their wands out. The hall turned into a battlefield.

Immediately the squad switched their tactics as some of them switched to defense against the incoming spells. Stunning spells were reduced and turned into Disarming spells to get rid of their wands.

James Potter glanced at the chandeliers on the ceiling. And while being covered by a Shield charm, he raised his wand towards the ceiling and cast a transfiguration spell.

The spell targeted the glass around the candles and turned them into glass birds with sharp beaks, wings, and talons. The vicious birds descended on a group of Accionites and started to cut them. The transfigured glass birds were meant to be a distraction as, when Accionites tried to get rid of the birds, one of the squad members stunned or disarmed them.

Auror's training and areas of responsibility varied greatly depending on the type of threats for which they were prepared and the magical education they received beforehand. Transfiguration became easy to James Potter, so he was the type of duelist that heavily utilized transfiguration. Lots of his spell repertoire were material spells: the silver-shield spell or Arrowhead spells, and other similar spells.

That is why when one of the Accionites shot a killing curse, James immediately used a silver shield spell to block out the green light from reaching his team.

The state of the battle changed as half the remaining Accionites were getting used to the situation. But the mission squad couldn't let that happen.

One of the Hit Witches stepped forward and showed how they were different from Aurors. She swung her wand in a grand gesture and shot a huge Explosion charm towards one of the tables, annihilating it into pieces. She didn't stop and continued her aggressive attack and used powerful Banishing charms to violently slam Accionites into walls, and brutally knock them out.

Some of the Accionites who noticed their dwindling numbers decided to get out of there. Two Accionites used apparition to get out. But the thing about apparition was that most people didn't use apparition because of the danger of splinching and discomfort, and even those who did use it regularly used it when they were calm.

Out of the two who apparated, one of them ended up splinching himself because of panic; he left an entire leg behind.

Within three minutes, thirty-four Accionites were disarmed, stunned, and bound by ten Aurors and Hit Wizards. It showed how trained professionals pitted against people who didn't have the same training.

"Two escaped," spat Sirius said as he walked towards the splinched leg. He kicked it hard and smirked, "At least they will be feeling like hell."

"We should've set up an anti-apparition ward around the place," one of the Hit Wizards chimed in as he collected the wand off from the floor.

The ten squad members walked around the room, bounding people and collecting wands for safety reasons.

"This is good enough," replied Gawain as he looked at the thirty-something unconscious/injured bodies. "This will get us a task force up and running."

...

The next day, the news about the first successful raid against Novellus Accionites hit the Daily Prophet and other news outlets. The papers, who had been badmouthing the lack of action from Auror's part, were suddenly raining praises on them.

That same week, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement interrogated all the captured members and put them on trial by the end of the week. Unlike the end of the First Wizarding War, the Light faction was strong this time. So in Wizengamot, the trials didn't go in favor of the pureblood Novellus Accionties.

Out of the thirty-four people, ten of them were sent to low Dementor-exposure sections for a few years. Three people were sent to medium Dementor-exposure.

And the rest of those who weren't guilty of the murder of muggleborns and muggles had their wands taken for a year. To people who heavily depended on wands to perform magic, this was like taking their magic away from them.

The first raid and trials were the start of a fight against Novellus Accionites.

James Potter - Senior Auror - Prefers using Transfiguration.

Sirius Black - Senior Auror - Prefers using Charms.

Gawain Robards - Captain Auror - Specializes in criminal investigations.

Hit Wizards - Lucrative career - Starting salary of 700 Galleons per month.

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