Aurors: Do you think they worked more like the police or the military? How do you think ranking worked? Canon says little. So thoughts?

I think they're like a mixture of both but more on the military side as the ministry has the department of magical law enforcement. Then the Aurors are a step up and they deal with pretty much only dark wizards so they're more like special agents of the ministry. Both protect the laws of the Ministry. The Aurors are a sub division in the law enforcement department. They have a Head Auror and a Senior Auror. They also apprentice recruits for a small period, after they past a series of test and training. Going off the friendly way Tonks acted with Kingsley and Mad Eye, I'm guessing they would probably argue with the head if they really disagreed with the orders they were given but maybe not too much in case they got fired. I'm guessing there's probably some kind of ranking with how senior they are but maybe not official ranks apart from having the head.

 

Two posts so quickly together that could have been better served being asked here.

None the less I'll give my view which is more along the lines of a non-military police force.

DMLE has several departments with different sub-departments. There's the general force (No idea on name, never really mentioned) and within that are the departments that handle obliviation, theft, general muggle issues and so on. Petty stuff.

There's Hitwizards, which are a step up and are basically SWAT (or UK version thereof) which handles generic bad guys like Muggle slavers, Illegal Potions rings, that sort of thing.

Then the Aurors are basically your FBI/CIA in that they go after the dark wizards or "Most Wanted" of the British Wizarding World.

I'm hazy as to whether foreign policies are mentioned in terms of a police force but this is roughly what I think most MoM's would have. As for training, it'd probably be similar to Special Services traing (MI6, FBI or whatever your countries equivalent department is).

 

I don't think Muggle comparisons work very well. I don't think there's any real Muggle equivalent. If you try to find a Muggle equivalent you end up saying that they're a cross between FBI/CIA/special forces, which is an immensely broad category.

Aurors:

- Hunt dark wizards, which includes the highest level of crime (i.e. murder) but also terrorism and coup attempts.

- Use stealth, tracking, and disguise.

- Are highly able at personal combat.

- Have an office.

- Have a Head Auror.

- Protect VIPs.

Aurors don't:

- Investigate general crime.

I think fanfiction has generally depicted Aurors poorly, making them too bureaucratic, too much like police. They've been "Mugglefied" in general: most Auror fics are just Muggle CSI fics, with spells taking the place of technology analogues, with magical equivalents of fingerprints, ballistics and camera footage. Boring.

I tend to think of Aurors in the way they were first introduced to us: "Dark wizard hunters". Emphasis on the "hunters". I see Aurors as a rather rag-tag bunch, like a small group of Ministry-authorised bounty-hunters. Each one works largely alone, has their own methods and tools. There's not a great amount of hierarchy, bureaucracy or paperwork.

I don't think there's any kind of Auror school or academy. They only take on a single recruit every few years (McGonagal in OotP); the wizarding population is far too small to support a large group of Aurors. Each new Auror has to be taught on the job, largely informally, though there are field tests to qualify. The lack of a school to teach standardised methods, with more of a master-apprentice system (which we see with Tonks and Moody), further backs up the idea that Aurors don't necessarily use the same techniques or tactics.

 

I think the best parallel to draw might be with the US Marshals who had/have a rather similar set of responsibilities. Especially if you specifically go for old west Marshals.

 

In opposite to Riley, I don't think that Hitwizards are a normal part of the DMLE. We only have one reference to them and that is in the days after the first war ended. I think they're just stripped down Aurors who are just trained to fight rather than fight and investigate so they can create a force of them quickly.

 

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of the Aurors being similar to the Spectres in the Mass Effect universe, even if canon doesn't really support it much.

I.E. highly elite operatives, told to get the job done (find and catch that dark wizard, now), period, and given minimal oversight.

 

My understanding was that hit wizards were basically generic shared DMLE grunt troops. Many of the branches of the DMLE have only one or two members, because they investigate a very particular category of crimes. When they need enough wizards for a real raid they get a squad of hit wizards.
For example, the Misuse of muggle artifacts only has like two people, and probably spends most of its time investigating. When they actually find someone misusing muggle artifacts, they probably get some hit wizards to raid their place or arrest them.

Aurors on the other hand are dark wizard hunters. THey'd investigate, but only dark magic, much like how the misuse of muggle artifacts department only investigates misuse of muggle artifacts. Unlike the other departments, the auror department is fully combat capable on its own and wouldn't rely on hit wizards, who probably aren't trained to fight dark wizards anyway.

 

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Oh man, that feels good.

 

Why do you think wizards would need an auror academy to have auror training, study or get top marks? Mad Eye could have set up, administrated and graded the tests. Maybe he called in an observer from the Auror office.

 

Its possible and not completely inconsistent with canon, but its clearly not what canon was going for.

 

Nothing in that quote contradicts what I said, and what I said was in reference to that quote. Tonks says there's training and that there's tests. I said there was training ("taught on the job... a master-apprentice system"); I said there are tests ("there are field tests to qualify").

Tonks' quote says nothing about an Auror school or academy, which is what I said does not exist.

You jumped the gun a bit, there.

 

The way I see it ...

The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has multiple sub-departments that serve various functions. Only three of them have arrest powers - the Auror Office, the Magical Law Enforcement Squad and the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol. For all of them initial training is done at what we'll call the Magical Law Enforcement Training Centre (MLETC, pronounced MLET-see) in Holyhead. After one year of training they diverge into specialist courses according to their branch.

The Aurors are a small, highly trained group of fighters and investigators who specialise in crimes involving dark magic but may also investigate other major crimes like murder. After MLETC their training is done via apprenticeship, with serving Aurors selecting their apprentices. Each apprentice must pass various tests at certain stages of their apprenticeship. To avoid bias the tests are administered by a three person panel of current and retired Aurors, not including the apprentice's master.

Aurors answer to the Head Auror but command and control is very loose. Aurors are assigned tasks, give periodic reports but are largely left free to pursue their targets so long as they obey their admittedly loose rules.

The Magical Law Enforcement Squad are the Hit Wizards. Based on Fudge's comment in PoA about Hit Wizards arresting Sirius I envision them as pure combat wizards. There's even fewer of them than there are Aurors. Individual Hit Wizards serve as force multipliers for other forces and a group of them is considered nearly unbeatable by a single wizard unless they're of Dumbledore/Voldemort-calibre. After MLETC they attend a combat course taught by retired Hit Wizards (Aurors can choose to attend this course).

The Magical Law Enforcement Patrol is the largest branch of the DMLE. Its uniformed branch is responsible for patrolling Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. It has a plain clothes investigative branch responsible for crimes that aren't in the purview of Aurors. Patrollers provide muscle for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, the Obliviators and other branches of the DMLE that don't have arrest powers. After MLETC Patrollers receive on the job training but unlike in the Aurors training officers don't have a choice in who they train.

This is my opinion on how it works, developed for a story I never wrote (Apprentice!Harry, Master!Moody and/or Master!Kingsley). Basically, you should take CheddarTrek's advice if you're trying to write a story.