The Aurors

I hate rain. Well, that's not entirely true. A gentle spring shower can be nice. Sleet driven by thirty kilometer winds though, not my most favorite thing. I had to endured it with mundane means, a spell to protect myself from the weather would have been detected. Thus, in a back alley in the worst part of town, I was huddled in a rusty old shopping cart loaded with rubbish, and other things, wrapped in several layers of very old and mildew ridden denim with the remains of three separate ponchos sewn together into a serviceable whole on top. To the casual observer, I was nothing more than a derelict cart. On a night like this though, absolutely no one in their right mind would be out, even with several layers of proper attire, and rain gear. Unfortunately for me, my quarry was not such a person.

There I sat, not entirely dry, only vaguely warm, tense as a set mouse trap, waiting. Luckily I had spent the last three months learning the habits of my prey and had timed this right. I heard the quiet clicking first, almost undetectible over the pitter-pat of the rain. I peered into each of my six home made prism-and-cardboard-tube periscopes, one at a time. I got to scope four at any rate, when my target came 'round the corner into view.

He was human once. Well, genetically. Chester McEwan was never the most 'together' individual. He was diagnosed at the age of five with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Then with extreme Sociopath-ism and Psychopathy at age twelve when he single mindedly pursued the person who'd accidentally spilled a drink on his head from an elevated train station and beat them senseless. While in the High Security wing of the Mental hospital, he managed to remain on good behavior long enough, they allowed him to read enough entomology books that he may as well have a degree in the subject. Shortly after his release, he closed his account at Gringot's and bought some unformatted Polly Juice on the Black Market. To this he added not a human hair, but an entire live scorpion that he robbed from a Muggle pet shop. The results were, well, let's just say "hideous" is too kind a word, and exactly what he wanted.

Have you seen the end of "The Mummy 2"? Forget it.

The thing that came into my view was only five feet tall, but about eight feet long, not counting the tail for either statistic. In general, Chester now had a hunch-shouldered "centaur-oid" physiology, to coin a phrase. Chitinous plates of a tawny yellowish light brown covered every part of him. Five legs on either side made the clicking noise on the cobbles I'd heard a moment ago. A pair of ape-like arms hung from those hunched shoulders, each arm ended in pincher claws with enough joints in them to almost resemble hands. The tail added another five feet to his length, or another two feet to his height when he arched it over his head. His face... You know, I really don't want to talk about his face too much. Think of all the different permutations you could get making a hybrid of a hominid head with that of a scorpion, especially if you know how a scorpion's mouth works, and you still won't come close to how nightmarish this was. The Predator/Alien from "A.V.R." is a good almost, just add a bunch of eyes.

So, there he was, scuttling along the alley, headed for the one place on Earth that would willingly serve him a pint. I'll leave it to your own imagination as to where in the world that might be. All I needed was for him to walk past me, and then another twenty feet beyond. There was a rather large piece of half rotted old cardboard on the ground that Chester inevitably stepped on with one of his feet every time he walked this alley. Two days ago, I'd had a colleague enchant it to be a Portkey that could be triggered with a foot instead of a hand. It would transport him directly to a holding cell in Tasmania. Not bad, huh. My idea, but such a tricky bit of spell work is a little beyond me.

That was the plan anyhow.

Don't you hate how sometimes the scum of the Earth gets the best luck? Chester was maybe two or three 'regular human' paces away from the Portkey trap, when a gust of wind blew down the alley and wafted the cardboard into the air and away from him. It fetched neatly up against a wall and settled there. While Chester paid it no mind (What's another piece of ruddy flotsam in the wind on a night like this?), I could scarcely believe my eyes. I pulled out my Ring of True Sight to check for any ghosts going around invisible, and saw nothing. Sometimes you don't need a draught of Felicis's I guess.

Time for Plan B, then. In a single motion, I activated the Launch spell on the shopping cart and leaped. With an explosion of rubbish I sailed up past the third story of the buildings. Chester stopped in his tracks. I silently fired off a Stupify at him. He casually raised his right claw. Runes carved into his carapace flared. I recognized a shield charm, and cursed to myself. As I fell, I clicked my heels activating the Long Fall Boot spell on my shoes. Good thing the spell worked through my galoshes.

Turned out I didn't need it. Chester charged forward and thrust his stinger up to meet me. He caught me neat as you please. Good thing I had on both a Mundane kevlar vest as well as a dragon hide one. Between the two, I was afforded enough protection that Chester's tail 'only' knocked the wind out of me. Fortunately I'd made a special study of non-verbal spell casting. I was never very good at it in school, but I passed my O.W.L.s and I've since managed to drill it into myself fairly well. I hit him with the old Levicorpus prank. As he flipped, I fell from his tail, only to be snatched out of the air by his pincher.

Chester hung there, feet flailing feebly, tail coiled in tight. He held me by the arms, pinning them from any real movement. While he was upside down, I at least was right-side up, and thoroughly in his power. He moved me in close to his face and regarded me with his many eyes.

"Gregor!" he hissed in his wheezy rasp of a voice, "Long time no see."

I shrugged the best I could, "How've you been?"

The sound he made might have been a chuckle, "Well enough. Were you trying to catch me?"

"Can't blame an Auror for trying," I said with a nonchalant grin.

"I suppose so. Well, of course you must die now," and without further preamble, he trust his tail at me, aimed perfectly at my throat.

Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug, and some days you get to be the bird. I was certain my number was up. Half way through his thrust, the Levicorpus wore off. We fell together, but he stopped his tail thrust and opened his pinchers as he felt gravity reassert itself. I landed neatly on the pavement and pulled off a back flip to my hands, and then around back to my feet again. Worthy of an Olympiad I'm sure, but I was more concerned with getting out of range of his thrashing limbs as he tried to right himself. His thrashing gave me time to look about, and spy what I needed. With a flick and a wave, I bewitched a bunch of the more fibrous rubbish about into movement and had him tangled and ensnared in a jiffy. For the coup de grace, I lifted the rusty rim of an automobile wheel up high, then brought it crashing down on his head.

Ten minutes later, the clean up squad had come and gone, taking Chester with him and leaving me to my own devices. The debriefing wouldn't be until 10:00am Greenwich Mean Time tomorrow, so I went to the pub, ordered the beer that would have been Chester's, and raised the glass to him.

My name is Ian Gregor. I am a Wizard. Don't look at me like that. It's true. What's more, I am a Wizard with a very special job. You see, while I and my fellow Wizards may have access to some abilities that may seem, well frankly rather miraculous to Muggle eyes, we are in the end only human.

Sorry, a 'Muggle' is a slang term for a non-Wizard. I know it's kind of derogatory. Been trying to break the habit myself. I try to use the word 'mundane' instead. Yeah, I know. Not much better.

Anyroad, because we are only human, with miraculous powers, well like they say, with great power comes great responsibility, and those who cannot handle the responsibility tend to get corrupted by it. Often, at the very least, they convince themselves into thinking they are entitled to more power. To make matters worse, there are some very bigoted Wizards in the world, concerned with things like "Pure" blood-lines and such, who tend see Mundanes as little better than dumb animals. And for a lovely layer of frosting, there are Wizards who are just plain stark raving bonkers. And yes indeed there are those who are some combination of the above. Some of them even have access to, on top of their magic, such volatile and dangerous substances as money and clout.

I, am an Auror. We are the cops slash special forces slash super-hero good-guys who get sent out when such shit wads start thinking that playing with high speed fans is a good idea. It is not an easy job to be sure, but it's a living.