Step aside Death Eaters, it’s the ‘Scourers’ turn.
[dropcap size=small]W[/dropcap]e’ve been getting a lot from J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world lately – what with the upcoming 8th installment in the Harry Potter series, and the November release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them this year – and Pottermore keeps on dishing us up new tales of the wizarding world and its lore.
Rowling recently published a new story segment on Pottermore titled The History of Magic in North America, which gives us a detailed history of the wizarding community across the pond from Harry.
Since Fantastic Beasts will be set in 1920’s New York, and will follow author Newt Scamander as he engages with the wizarding community, it’s not at all surprising that Rowling is treating us to some background information.
Perhaps one of the most interesting elements we are introduced to in the second part of the history (Seventeenth Century and Beyond), is a brand new type of villain known as the ‘Scourers.’
Rowling first went on to explain that there was no particular governing body or law enforcement within the small magical community in America to begin with:
As the wizarding community in America was small, scattered and secretive, it had as yet no law enforcement mechanism of its own.
This then left the door open for criminals to go about their business unhindered, and here’s where we first meet the ‘Scourers:’
[T]he most dangerous problem encountered by wizards newly arrived in North America were the Scourers…an unscrupulous band of wizarding mercenaries of many foreign nationalities, who formed a much-feared and brutal taskforce committed to hunting down not only known criminals, but anyone who might be worth some gold.
They sound like a lovely bunch, don’t they?
Well, they just get even more charming, as they traffik fellow wizards, and even eventually those known as ‘No-Majs’ (the American term for muggles or non-magical folk):
Scourers enjoyed bloodshed and torture, and even went so far as trafficking their fellow wizards. The numbers of Scourers multiplied across America in the late seventeenth century and there is evidence that they were not above passing off innocent No-Majs as wizards, to collect rewards from gullible non-magic members of the community.
Rowling goes into a lot of detail about the tumultuous history of the new villains, and reveals that they were implicated in the Salem witch trials, where they aided in the persecution of hundreds of innocent so called ‘magical’ folk.
The actions and events surrounding the ‘Scourers’ had, as Rowling puts it:
far-reaching repercussions on the way the American wizarding community is governed.
You can’t help but guess that these ‘repercussions’ will be explored in Fantastic Beasts, where we’ll no doubt encounter these villainous characters alongside Scamander, one way or another.
If you’re looking for a darn good read, be sure to check out Pottermore for more of Rowling’s detailed history of this new magical community.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is due for release 18 November, 2016.
