A thread for the unexplained things of canon. I'll start it off with something that's always made me wonder.

Who are Hitwizards? FBI, Military or just cops?

What about Unspeakables? Spies or Scientists?

 

I reckon for questions like this which are pretty shallow over a broad area you're better putting them here...

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=27266&page=80

 

That thread is more for questions that have a definitive answer from canon that you can reference without generating debate.

 

I think the implications for Hitwizards are pretty clear in canon.

As Aurors are specifically trained to capture and fight Dark Wizards foreign and domestic, I'd say they are the FBI/CIA MI5/MI6 of the wizarding world, rolled into one. Hitwizards are the specialized fighting arm of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad (your standard wizard cops). So they are essentially police SWAT forces.

Given all the weird magical phenomenon housed at the Department of Mysteries, I think it's a logical jump to assume Unspeakables mainly deal in classified research.

 

I disagree. After the fFirst WAr, mentions of hitwizards vanish.

My headcanon has hitwizards being a war expedient measure. The MoM did not need magical detectives like aurors were but they did need their fighting capability so they cut down auror training to only include combat related stuff and called them hitwizards. It explains why none were ever seen and they only got passing historical mentions.

 

It's certainly compatible with canon, but I get the impression they still exist.

This is, as best as I can tell, literally the only mention of them in the books. Fudge seems like he's talking about something which, while specialist, is something he expects his audience to be familiar with. I think perhaps Rowling had something in mind of the Flying Squad, albeit perhaps with less of an investigative role.

EDIT: Tangentially, and possibly only of interest to me, it seems like a pretty good job. You only need five OWLs to join and starting salary in 1999 was 700 Galleons a month!

 

There was an ad for hit wizards in Rowling written Daily Prophet newsletter for year 1998 which read as follow.

Which fits exactly with what Khan said.

 

I mean... maybe. But unlikely. The MLES and Auror office are separate subdivisions of the DMLE. I feel that distinction is made for a reason. At the very least, they have different jurisdictions.

 

I've read fics where people thought hit wizards were like cops and the Aurors were the military. I've also seen where people thought hit wizards were bounty hunters, special ops, or reserves on call waiting for a war, like the army reserves. Of course, we can look on the HP Lexicon:
What are Hit Wizards?

 

The Lexicon is a dubious source of information, mostly because of poor citations. Was JKR the one who wrote the Prophet article mentioned?

 

Yes. Rowling wrote the Daily Prophet News letters, albeit before all the books was finished, so some details don't match later books.