The Wizarding Bounty Hunters Protecting Muggles

Our reporter from the Quibbler found himself in a rather strange situation whilst investigating reports of magically-related crime in the Miami-Dade County of Florida, the United States. Both the Miami-Dade Police Department and the American Aurors were tasked with looking into several extreme assaults within the county, with magical evidence showing that the victims had been placed under the Imperius Curse.

Soon, the culprit was named and identified as a Brazilian wizard who did it for what he described as, “A laugh.” After an open bounty was issued for him, he was delivered to the Aurors heavily beaten and barely conscious. He is now facing serious charges of using dark magic on Muggles, use of an Unforgivable Curse, breach of the International Statute of Secrecy as well as assault, aggravated assault, grievous bodily harm, and attempted murder and could face life in prison.

Strangely, this led to us sitting in a high-rise building, in the offices of a high-value law firm, the one that answers to some of the richest businessmen in the area. We were sat just behind the desk of a worker who was proof-reading a contract on his computer screen that was at least a hundred-pages long and he was getting frustrated.

‘You see this?’ he commented as he pointed to a clause he had highlighted. ‘Whomever wrote this pile of crap obviously skipped the first class on contract law. There are so many clauses here that are expressly illegal, I don’t even know what they were doing.’

This was Tony. For most of his co-workers, he was just the head of contract negotiations for a firm that wishes to be unnamed. As others at the firm explained, he was a rather amiable manager to work under, always being known for gentle condemnation for mistakes and encouraging free thinking and independence in his day-to-day work.

But upon seeing him, there were several oddities that were immediately apparent. For one thing, he was a giant of a man that was absolutely packed with toned, thick, and wide muscle, his shoulders so wide that he often needed to turn on his side because he was often wider than most doorway frames. Just to the top of his scalp, he stood at an impressive six-foot-seven and that wasn't taking into account his hair.

Note: For this editorial piece, names have been changed or are kept vague for the protection of those featured in this article.

His dress and style were other oddities in an office that would encourage a strict professional-level dress code. Instead of slicked-back or quiffed hair that men in his position were encour aged to wear, his head was shaved completely bald save for the large, free-standing mohawk that reached two-to-three feet from his head, looking more like a horse’s mane. The professional civility of his grey suit with golden pinstripes was betrayed by the tanned-leather, fingerless gloves with lead shots on the knuckles to add extra oomph to his punches, or the fact that instead of shiny black leather dress shoes, he wore military-grade combat boots, which were eventually pointed out.

‘Truth be told, I’m what most people would call a “Fixer”,’ Tony explained. ‘Although I’m kind of offended by the name since it’s often used to describe people who help cover up their rich clients’ crimes.’

INVESTIGATING CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST MUGGLES, EVEN AVENGING THEM, IN WHAT CRITICS CALL A MODERN-DAY SCOURERS

You’re more like a vigilante,’ his boss, a senior partner called Peter, explained. ‘We pay him, at least. Although we do also call him our inhouse security consultant.’

Tony had also recently become notable within the Muggle community due to a legal matter called The People V Crunchem Hall. In that legal matter, a group of children had gathered evidence of extreme levels of physical abuse and torture carried out by the principal of their school as well as a litany of other crimes including murder and theft of inheritance of a charge.

The ringleader of the exposure of the teacher’s crimes was a seven-year-old girl, who pointed out the numerous ways that students could gather evidence of the crimes of their principal. But given the extreme threats that the teacher had made on her students and the fact that she is known to have carried them out meant that it was decided that the main witness should be given a bodyguard.

‘That was a wild case,’ Tony explained to me. ‘Agatha Trunchbull - in case you know the name, she used to be part of the British Olympic track and field team in the 1970’s - she went out of her way to commit crimes of such having a closet lined with nails and broken glass she called the Chokey which she would force kids to stand inside of when she was mad at them.’

‘That was only one,’ Peter explained. ‘We actually got involved in the matter because of my secretary, Ann - her nephew was a student at the school who was accused of stealing a piece of chocolate cake and she force-fed him an entire cake - I mean, two feet wide–’

‘Three feet,’ a woman said as she walked in with some coffee. ‘We checked.’

‘And he ate the whole thing,’ Peter said. ‘Like a champ, he celebrated when he was finished by holding the glass plate over his head like it was a trophy. Trunchbull then brought it right down and shattered it on his head. We got the whole thing on video. It was wild.’

‘I just love the fact that the kid took it like a champ,’ Tony laughed. ‘He just turned around and belched right in her face. Then, when he got home and his mother found glass in his hair, he showed the videos that was secretly recorded by about fifteen different kids. That’s when we got involved.’

This led to a notable video of Miss Trunchbull trying to attack one of the children who exposed her, even throwing a punch right at the girl’s head… only for the fist to be caught inches from the child’s face and immediately returned with added gusto, leading to Trunchbull’s being knocked out and arrested.

However, Tony is also notable within the Wizarding Community as what his enemies called a modern-day “Scourer,” the name given to the mercenaries and dark wizards who became the earliest criminals of Wizarding America due to their selling their fellow wizards to participants of the Witch Hunts.

I’m not even offended,’ Tony said. ‘Hell, I’ve got it on my business cards. I was offended when they called me a Snatcher, however.’

‘So, you know about them?’ our reporter asked.

‘No more than thugs who are complicit in the crimes of Voldemort,’ he scoffed. ‘They’re a sign of how not to operate as a bounty hunter and also a prime example of how actual bounty hunters have ethical standards.’

The legal firm that Peter and Tony work at happens to cater both to Muggles and Wizardkind. In fact, half of all employees have had close encounters with magic of some sort if they aren’t either related to or are wizards themselves. Both Tony and Peter are former graduates of Ilvermorny as well as notable graduates of Harvard Law School.

They also happen to be involved in the bounty hunting trade, capturing criminals who target Muggles and protecting the Muggles from the legal ramifications of being targeted by magic. One of Peter’s most notable court cases was showing that a man accused of the crime of reckless driving which killed several other drivers during a professional driving competition was in fact due to someone “Tampering with his water bottle with a hallucinogenic” to keep him from winning; in fact, several drivers were “Proven” to have been drugged.

The truth of the situation was that a criminal had confounded several of the racers during the race and tried to cause as much chaos as possible. He was arrested and tried by the Magical Congress’ justice department as well as both the Department of NoMaj Misinformation and the Federal Bureau of Covert Vigilance and No-Maj Obliviation to help build up a case.

‘So, you work a front for the Magical Congress?’ our reporter asked.

‘We only so much as work for them as any contractor for the government is hired to take a job,’ Peter explains. ‘Sometimes we can negotiate a better offer, sometimes we can outright refuse a gig. Have you ever turned down a job…?’

‘Not a government contract, no,’ Tony explained. ‘But a private gig, not overseen by the government? Yeah, quite a few. Probably because they were highly unethical in the sense of, “Pay Evil Unto Evil” and that sort. Someone requested I mutilate a target who liked to maim No-Majes with curses, another involved poisoning someone with a Destroying Angel mushroom - not only can I not actually kill someone unless I get a warrant, that’s a horrible way to die… I did one bounty for free because the target was a paedophile but what I was offered to do to the guy… No. Just no.’

‘You did squeeze a man’s hand so hard to completely shatter the bones,’ Peter’s secretary interjected, which he nodded to.

‘Well, he did shrink Muggles so he could crush them in his hands,’ Tony commented.

Tony is referred to as a Scourer by some. A somewhat notorious individual within the magical community, he is also nicknamed the “Breaker” by law enforcement, which our reporter had to comment on.

‘Let’s just say that if I get involved,’ he mused, ‘then something has gone terribly wrong. The Mac doesn’t like to admit it, but there’s been a decline in active-duty officers working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. You see… How do I describe this?’

‘Blame the Brits,’ Peter explained. ‘Or rather, blame Voldemort. There was a sharp decline in the quality of magical law enforcement in Britain due to both the honest officers all being killed and the inadequacies of their successors - in fact, some of them were Death Eaters. Well, his defeat in the late-nineties saw most of them being disgraced and– and there were plenty of scrutiny against pureblood extremism around the time as well.’

‘Well, American Aurors have always been good at screening candidates and setting a high standard the world over,’ Peter continued on, ‘but this scared off quite a few potential candidates. Especially since this also coincided with a few politicians who were trying to kill the repeals of Rappaport’s law. So, they had to subside on issuing contracts to bounty hunters.’

‘Fun fact,’ Tony explained. ‘Unlike the No-Maj governments where save for America and the Philippines, bounty hunting is allowed the world over in the Wizarding world. As long as everyone knows the target is a Wizard, I have free reign to do as I please.’ ‘But there are restrictions, aren’t there?’ our reporter had to ask.

‘Well, the concept of “Dead or Alive” contracts aren’t permitted,’ Tony said, ‘but we can kill our targets outright but only if we are expressly given the contract directly - only a special licence. And if you kill the wrong person, you could be charged with murder. That’s never happened to me yet, but I know one guy who royally screwed up and was charged with negligent homicide.’

‘So, why do they call you the “Breaker”,’ our reporter interrupted.

‘Well, bread someone's wand,’ he commented, ‘break a wrist, break someone's femur, ...’

‘Have you actually broken someone’s femur?’ our reporter asked for clarification.

‘He was completely off his head on one of those “Legal Highs” that some Muggles sell.’ Tony explained. ‘Completely out of his mind and was even attacking after already being roughed up. I kind of panicked, grabbed his thigh with both hands and…’

‘I fixed his leg after,’ he defended himself. ‘Gotta have some medical knowledge in this profession.’

It was getting rather late, and the office was meant to be closing for the day. The original plan was for our reporter to meet with Tony tomorrow when he was officially “on-the-job” as it were, going out to hunt down serious criminals.

I was going to follow Tony out of his office as he performed some of his own “Minor Contracts” such as looking for a noted thief or a goblin who was a bit more forceful when collecting a debt owed to him, when Peter stopped us right at the door. ‘Sorry,’ he apologised, ‘but we have an emergency on our hands. The Aurors are asking for any spare bounty hunters to help on a large-scale clean-up job - corpse retrieval.’

Illustrated by The_Architect_Nurse

‘Corpse retrieval?’ Tony asked. ‘Lots of people killed by a dark wizard?’ ‘Worse than that,’ Peter answered. ‘You’re needed at Calvary Cemetery. Someone tried to create zombies from the graves.’

‘Calvary?’ Tony asked. ‘Where’s Calvary?’

‘It’s the largest graveyard in New York City,’ our reporter pointed out. ‘It’s about… three-million graves?’

‘Oh, for f***’s sake!’ Tony scoffed.

‘Hey, they caught the guy,’ Peter explained. ‘You’re just needed to… round up a few bodies and put them back in their grave.’

‘Looks like I’m getting changed,’ Tony groaned. ‘Don’t want rotting bodily fluids on these clothes.’

He invited our reporter along to at least see him at work, agreeing to meet up just outside the cemetery as he changed into something more appropriate. Our reporter had arrived first and was approached by an Auror dressed as a New York Police Department officer, but Tony had arrived shortly after us - dressed in jeans, a wifebeater shirt and a leather jacket and he cleared the way for our reporter to enter the scene.

There were several other individuals there, armed with both wands and handguns. Tony gave curt greetings to several of them as they were approached by Aurors who confirmed the situation; about sixty recently buried corpses were reanimated within the span of two nights and the cemetery is now under a quarantine until they are returned to their individual graves. But since the necromancer was detained, they are now wandering around without conscious thought.

‘This isn’t that unusual of a case for us to work on,’ Tony said as he patrolled the cemetery. ‘Although I only really do so in the Southern US or Caribbean, and that’s often a case of the zombie’s family wanting their undeath being ended.’

He stopped our reporter in their tracks and pushed him backwards as a zombie leapt at him from behind a large bush. Without even drawing his wand, the zombie fell over to the ground as it was petrified before Tony turned it onto its chest and, with a small-calibre handgun, put a single round into the back of its head right at the base of the skull.

‘When you’ve been on the job as long as I have, dealing with zombies has become something of a routine,’ Tony explained as he pulled a wand out, creating an orb of light that floated above trees over the corpse. ‘Take ‘em out, tag ‘em, and leave the body as intact as possible to preserve the poor bastards’ dignity. Also, if the body needs to be exhumed for any reason, you don’t want foul play involved.’

‘Has that ever come up?’ our reporter asked.

‘A cop friend of mine down in Louisiana had to blab about Wizardkind to his chief of police after a ballistics report came up tying my gun to a dead body they had to dig up. Turns out that it was a “Suicide” that had been “Hanged” and the family didn’t agree with that assessment. So, the family was right.’

He paused as he looked behind the nearby bushes after seeing something sticking out from there and cursed loudly. The zombie he had just taken out had managed to kill a Muggle from around the area.

We then heard a pair of gunshots only a short distance away. A female bounty hunter waved to us as she tagged two other dead bodies. Another zombie was about to leap at her, but she spun around and decapitated it with a machete… and managed to curse loudly.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Force of habit.’

‘That’s Marie,’ Tony explained to me. ‘She’s a professional undead hunter from Haiti. She knows the most about these creatures. Did a job with her back in ‘19 - ended up having to kill a bunch of decayed monsters while going after a dark wizard with an arrest warrant. Didn’t get to take the guy alive - he got bitten on the tongue by a snake.’

‘And the zombies?’ I asked.

‘Far more than anticipated,’ Tony said. ‘Lost my wand, ran out of ammo… Had to take out most of them with my bare hands. I mean… have you ever just put your hands around something’s neck and pulled it clean off? Or crushed their head?’

‘Another reason you’re called Breaker, huh?’

‘Yeah, pretty much.’ In total, about fifty-seven zombies were re-killed and buried by the end of the night, with our own reporter helping to identify the bodies and find their original burial plots as well. Whilst not a licenced bounty hunter and thus not eligible for payment, he did receive a modest sum for his efforts.

That also gave him a chance to speak to others and their views of the profession in a magical bar within the area. ‘I only really focus on monsters and such,’ Marie explained as she cleaned off her knife. ‘Taking a job on the continent is rather odd for me.’

‘Same here, at least for cities,’ a wiry sort of fellow explained. ‘Work with centaurs. Normally, they self-govern their own criminals, but their main form of punishment is exile - utterly useless for a noted killer. For me, it’s also a diplomatic job as well. Sometimes I get Tony to help since he’s a good negotiator, to make sure we don’t get in trouble for capturing our target. I also get targets from them - killing monsters that prey on different herds.’

‘I do a lot of work with the goblins,’ one woman - Jane - explained. ‘Mostly debt contracts, so I am not permitted to kill my targets. I’m fairly good at subduing targets.’

‘So, can anyone take a bounty?’ our reporter asked. ‘Can anyone claim the reward?’ ‘

Of course not,’ Marie explained. ‘You have to leave a record to show that you took the job. If you failed to notify the office, you’d lack the legal protections that bounty hunting affords, and you could be in serious legal trouble for it.’

‘I actually have encountered this,’ Jane said, ‘back when I was an Auror. Someone was wanted for murder and the Department issued an open warrant for any information about the accused. Someone brought the guy in, heavily beaten to the point where he’d die without medical attention. He expected a thousand Dragots - he got arrested for assault.’

‘How does one get into bounty hunting?’ our reporter asked. ‘It’s not an easy job to join, is it?’

‘I fell into it,’ Jane explained. ‘I trained as an Auror, believe it or not. But I had the misfortune of being partnered with a blatant misogynist who kept putting me down and making me look bad for our superiors. I ended up applying for a bounty hunter’s licence with intention to quit my job when it was approved, got it handed to me by the head of the department with an open bounty and my severance pay. I’m now making four times the amount I would’ve made if I kept on my current career path.’

‘And what of your former training officer?’ Tony teasingly asked.

‘Fired for smacking another Auror,’ she said, ‘who proceeded to… What’s that Muggle song? It was in Charlie’s Angels, the alleyway fight with the Creepy Thin Man?’

‘Smack My Bitch Up,’ the wiry hunter - Troy - answered. ‘My dad was a bounty hunter, actually. Same for me, he worked with centaurs. I’m considered part of the herd, actually. But I was taught the ins and outs.’

‘And you, Tony?’ our reporter asked.

Tony proceeded to chuckle as he swirled his firewhiskey in his glass. ‘It’s… kind of a long story,’ he said. ‘I started in the legal trade and… It sort of happened.’

‘Bullshit,’ Jane said. ‘He was one of the victims of the Spencer City incident. He became a bounty hunter so he could punish the bastards responsible!’

Jane got a paper coaster thrown to her head by Tony who was clearly angered by her saying that. ‘The Spencer City incident?’

The cat was out of the bag and he knew it, so he volunteered the information to me openly. ‘It’s kind of the same story that inspired Resident Evil, or at Resident Evil 2. A company found to be developing biological weapons out of viruses, such as the bubonic plague and Ebola, was experimenting in a hidden lab near the water supply and someone got negligent. A super-virus they engineered was accidentally released into the post-treatment parts of the water purification facility and in April of 1992, practically everyone in Spencer City was infected.’ ‘Two-hundred and ninety people died,’ he explained. ‘Most survived their infection, but there was also a lot of damage to pre-natal infected; most never made it to term. But I did - I was born in October of that year.’

‘They found that the virus was an early prototype of what would later be known as the CRISPR gene editing technique,’ he said. ‘It was a failure because they couldn’t quite figure out how to do so without killing a still-living person. But a foetus that wasn’t born…’ ‘Anyway, I did some digging when I was in Harvard and I came across a wanted suspect mentioned in the files recovered by the federal government when they shut down Paraguas Industries,’ he explained. ‘And sure enough, I found that he was an employee at Ilvermorny during the Eighties as the Transfigurations professor before he moved over to working full-time in the Mac. When I dug into it, I found he had no position there. And a DNA test confirmed that I - a child of two No-Majes - was genetically half-giant.’

‘They were developing super-soldiers?’ our reporter asked.

‘And unfortunately, they were receiving magical assistance to do so,’ Tony said. ‘Didn’t work out - their own efforts failed. But for myself? Well, exaggerated height compared to my parents - they were less than six feet tall; exaggerated musculature as well. And, to some others’ condemnations if it were to ever come out…’

‘You’re a half-breed,’ our reporter filled in the blanks, which our reporter confirmed.

‘Of course not,’ he said as he downed his drink, then requested another. ‘Checking my genetic code with a lab who has connections to the Wizarding World, they found evidence of troll, ogre, goblin… I’m a thorough-bred mutt. Anyway, the bastard who helped Paraguas is on trial right now.’

‘How’d you get him convicted?’ our reporter asked. ‘If I’m not incorrect, you are suggesting that the person who was helping Paraguas was an Unspeakable. Those records are sealed.’

‘He was an Unspeakable,’ Tony explained. ‘But I was able to confirm he was openly dealing with Muggles and reported him for that. The person in the Aurors’ office was rather… negligent with paperwork when an arrest warrant was issued, with evidence submitted by Peter. Before the other Unspeakables found out and suppressed the case, I… had him turned over for breaches of the Statute of Secrecy. While he was in France on official business.’

‘Meaning that the American Aurors would have to process the arrest of their own officer anyway,’ Jane said, ‘and the Unspeakables couldn’t stop it.’

We were back in the office the next day, at least to start. Instead of the suit, Tony was wearing the same clothes as the previous evening. And oddly, Peter was dressed in a full cloak today.

‘I’ve got to meet a client facing trial for a serious charge later,’ he said, ‘but this is going to be a fun one for me. Not a major bounty - I have to deliver a writ.’

‘And my ass isn’t parked into a large office chair while having an espresso… why?’ Tony asked.

‘The writ is to be delivered to a Mr. Joseph Clarence down in Baltimore,’ he said. ‘The Mac has issued a writ forcing him to recognise that his wife has issued a divorce and he is no longer permitted to approach her. He also happens to be known for cursing lawyers who try to deliver this writ to him, thinking it can save his marriage. Which means…’

‘I am legally allowed to beat the s*** out of him if he tries anything except listen to said document being read aloud,’ Tony chuckled. ‘So, who is the guy?’

‘The Swing King,’ Peter said.

‘You’re s****ing me,’ Tony gasped in shock.

Peter saw that our reporter was confused, so explained it to him. ‘He ran an amusement park on a pier in Baltimore during the 80’s and 90’s. But the Mac found out that he was cheaping out on labour costs by having House Elves maintain the rides. They confiscated his House-Elves, but he failed to replace them with No-Maj manual labour, resulting in a massive catastrophe when a ride collapsed. Thirty-six people died. He pulled out of the Muggle world and lived in the Wizarding World, but he was effectively bankrupted and his wife was disgusted by his actions.’

This actually led to a halfhour debate as to whether it was safe to bring the reporter along for the job, given Clarence’s known violent habits. The reporter was not permitted into the office they were using for this discussion at the time. It took thirty minutes and when they finally finished, it was decided that it was too dangerous for anyone else but those two to go on the assignment. They left soon after. When they returned, they were clearly dismayed. ‘We went to deliver a writ,’ Peter said, ‘and instead we arrested the man for several dozen crimes. He’s in the Aurors’ custody now.’

‘What happened?’ our reporter had to ask.

‘He had his ex-wife’s attorneys tortured to death when they tried to deliver the notice of divorce,’ Peter said. ‘The place we went to, which was listed as his work address… He’d been trying to keep himself afloat by selling drugs. Place was crawling with Muggles armed with firearms.’

‘And… are they alright?’

‘Nope,’ Tony said as he checked his handgun. ‘All dead. The first person we encountered pulled a gun. Turned into a gunfight. But because the place was Unplotted, cops couldn’t go there. Peter had to go off and get the Aurors, who didn’t actually want to get involved over a simple divorce.’

The story would feature in the New York Ghost’s evening edition as a remark of Aurors getting into a gunfight with Muggles, but the full exposé featured as the front-page story of the same paper the next morning.

Our reporter would soon leave the offices of the law firm, having been given such an intricate look at the Wizarding bounty hunter trade. They never got to go on any minor assignments as promised – if anything, it was a bit too risky.

But also, this led to our reporter being given offers to follow and report on other bounty hunters from around the world, as well as an express offer to handle any legal matters he could have in the forthcoming future.

Illustrated by The_Architect_Nurse