The Restrainers of the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau, housed in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures at the Ministry of Magic, London.
[L-R; Oren McArty - Head Restrainer (42), Jillian Richards - Deputy Head Restrainer (52), Clio Keylock-Turner - Restrainer and Romanian Dragon Sanctuary Liaison (45), Xiong Bao - Restrainer and Chinese Dragon Sanctuary Liaison & Representative (35), Ingrid Lindström - Restrainer and Swedish Dragon Sanctuary Liaison & Representative (37), Damon Hawkins - Dragon Keeper (21), Ruben Dowson - Junior Restrainer (26), Estelle "Estie" Gray - Junior Restrainer (21)].
The Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau consists most basically of two departments; the Researchers and the Restrainers. Running the Restraint department is Oren McArty, alongside long-term colleague Jillian Richards. The team in the Bureau are among the best in the magical world, with representatives from each key Dragon Sanctuary showcasing their skills. The crew aren’t without their rivalries, but all of them are friendly in an effort to keep them on their toes and maintain a strive for improvement. Restraining can be a dangerous job, but when the team get sent on assignments, they know the best of the best has their back.
At some point during the 1990s a herd of Heliopaths was stolen from the Kenyan Rift Valley Magical Reserve and illegally imported into the UK. The DRMC has no official statement regarding this occurrence, but there are a series of memos (please see attached appendix A) regarding unusual fire-related accidents that caused DRMC agents at the time to postulate that a nesting dragon might be on the loose. This is, of course, patently ridiculous as nesting dragons stay close to their nesting grounds and the series of accidents were noted at wildly disparate locations. In fact, for years the DRMC flatly denied allegations from such publications as the Quibbler regarding a herd of Heliopaths in wizarding Britain because according to our intel, moving Heliopaths to wizarding Britain would have been a) incredibly dangerous for wizarding Britain and b) unwise for the Heliopaths.
After the sacking of Minister of Magic Fudge there was a general inquest, and it was during this inquest that papers were discovered revealing both the theft and the relocation of an actual herd of Heliopaths to wizarding Britain. The current Minister, Kingsley Shacklebolt, felt that the DRMC would be the best department to handle this particular situation.
The Kenyan Representative to the International Confederation of Wizards (ICW) had filed several formal complaints with the ICW and requested an injunction against wizarding Britain in open session regarding the theft of Heliopaths from the Magical Reserve.[i] The British representative, operating under the information available to him, vehemently objected to the accusations of the Kenyan representative. At the time the Supreme Mugwump was Albus Dumbledore, Order of Merlin 1st Class, and it has been suggested that he declined to partake in discussion on this subject for fear of compromising his objectivity. In the 1999-2000 ICW Session this subject was addressed again by the Kenyan Representative who had the backing of a substantial number of ICW member nations. In each successive year, in each ICW Regular Session, the Kenyan Representative made a formal petition for the return of the Heliopaths.
Once it became clear that we did indeed have an illegal Heliopath herd on British soil, the British representative was alerted and cautioned to be circumspect in all future discussions involving the Heliopaths and our government’s potential culpability. After intense negotiations which were mediated by the ICW Office of International Affairs over a period of ten years the UK Representative agreed to the repatriation of the Heliopath herd under a joint effort by the DRCMC, the ICW Office of Magizoological Issues (OMI), and the Kenyan Ministry of Magic’s Department for the Conservation of Magical Creatures (DCMC).
Our group spent an entire year performing due diligence to ensure optimal safety for all teams involved and for the Heliopaths themselves. A small group visited the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary and met with Dragonologist Charles Weasley to discuss the merits of several different types of fire resistant gear. Mr. Weasley was not apprised of our exact need only that it involved fire breathing creatures that were not dragons. He was able to suggest an appropriate uniform for team members to wear while dealing with the Heliopath herd. Mr. Weasley’s design was executed by the Department of Mysteries, and has been included with this report.
Logistics for extraction proved problematic throughout the entire operation. Despite the necessarily clandestine nature of this classified project we were required to work in conjunction with multiple MoM departments including the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes (DMAC), the Department of International Magical Cooperation (DIMC), the Department of Magical Transportation (DMT), and the Department of Security (DoS). Training exercises between all groups were performed on a regular basis with a minimum of 300 hours per agent. All team members logged the prerequisite hours in addition to surprise emergency drills.
As a precaution, we had Obliviators Headquarters on 24-hour standby during the entire operation. The DoS and DMAC had squads of wizards in 24-hour rotations to make sure that any and all fires were extinguished promptly. All teams performed in an exemplary manner during the operation. There was only one incident on British soil that required the attention of the Obliviators.[ii] As you can see, the investigators concluded that the team members were not responsible for the incident.
During the time that the Heliopath herd spent in wizarding Britain it had increased by 25% despite the climate and temperature conditions, which ought to have hindered the reproductive viability of both the male and female Heliopaths.[iii] This population growth necessitated transporting the herd in smaller groups, which required additional stops being added to our itinerary.[iv]
Arrival in Kenya’s Rift Valley was uneventful and successful. We were met by Kenyan MoM Department of International Magical Cooperation Head Muroki Odumbe who oversaw the transferal and settling in of the Heliopath herd. A formal ceremony was held and all of our party’s members took part with appropriate reverence and respect for wizarding Kenya’s culture and traditions. I was informed that in the next ICW session the Kenyan representative will read a formal thank you aloud so that it can be incorporated into the notes for the session.
As per the special parameters, all knowledge of this operation was kept out of the public eye. All participating teams swore oaths of secrecy and all documents have been sealed. All in all, it ought to be considered a successful mission and I have included notes for such here.
A/N: A thousand thank yous to my adorable PoI/SO Tokidokizenzen for helping me figure out the scientific (or magizoological) names for the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks.Â
Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (DRCMC)
The DRCMC was able to assemble and equip a small group of Magizoologists including eminent scholar Edwardus Lima to explore and catalogue the magizoology of Greenland during the summer of 2005. While exploring the Western coast of Greenland our group discovered a heretofore unknown colony of Crumple Horned Snorkacks which we subsequently christened Purpauribus groenlandensis. Previously, Crumple Horned Snorkacks (Purpauribus suecicus) were presumed to inhabit Sweden despite a lack of evidentiary proof. Through a grant from Malfoy Industries for the Advancement of Magical Studies we were able to spend the summer of 2006 in Sweden searching for evidentiary proof of a Crumple Horned Snorkack colony. This trip proved largely unsuccessful.
In Winter of 2007, a Muggle company called Grunnings was testing a new drill designed for artic and tundra conditions with permission of Sweden’s Muggle government. The chosen drilling site had been inspected during summer of 2007 and had been approved by Sweden’s Muggle government. However, when drilling was to commence the Muggle company discovered a population of an unknown species of animal.
On the orders of IWC and the DRCMC I rendezvoused with the Obliviator-in-charge of the Grunnings Incident to take over command of the situation. Within two weeks a special team of Magizoologists had been assembled to deal with the cataloging of Unknown Magical Species 897-S. The team sent by the DRCMC was comprised of DRCMC field agents Padma Patil, Lisa Turpin, and Pansy Parkinson working in conjunction with Magizoologists Edwardus Lima and Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank.
The team quickly established that Unknown Magical Species 897-S was remarkably similar to Purpauribus groenlandensis which we had previously discovered in Greenland. Over the next two months data was carefully collected on Unkown Magical Species 897-S which we had tentatively christened Purpauribus suecicus. While our original research group had labeled Purpauribus groenlandensis with the MoM DRCMC designation XX an incident involving Agent Parkinson has forced us to suggest a designation of XXX for Purpauribus suecicus. To prevent future issues we tagged several members of the population magically to alert us to Muggle activity near the colony. In addition, we hoped that the magical tagging might help explain why no one had found evidentiary proof of Purpauribus suecicus on previous DRCMC sanctioned research trips.
At the close of our time at the Swedish colony site we had submitted the following information to the MoM DRCMC and to the IWC’s Office of Interspecial Relations—Beast Division:
Taxonomic Classification of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack of Sweden
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Cricetidae
Genus: Purpauribus
Species: Suecicus
Taxonomic Classification of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack of Greenland
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Cricetidae
Genus: Purpauribus
Species: groenlandensis
Our research team’s recommendations were immediately approved by the IWC and by the DRCMC including our recommended designation changes for Purpauribus suecicus.
In 2009, Mr. Horatio Popple, Department Head of the DRCMC, requested follow up research trip to take place in summer 2010 to revisit the Swedish colony and the Greenland colony of the Crumple Horned Snorkack. As an agent with experience on the three previous expeditions I was selected as the senior agent for this expedition. The 2009 follow-up team was comprised of DRCMC agent Lisa Turpin, IWC-Beast Division agent Inga Malinsdotter, IWC-Beast Division agent Paolo Zabini, Magizoologist Ewardus Lima and Magizoologist Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank. Greenland was chosen as the first site with Sweden as the second site.
Upon our arrival at the first site in Greenland we set up camp and began preliminary work to prepare for the four weeks we had allotted to the Greenland site. Agent Turpin and IWC Agent Zabini attempted to magically tag a specimen only to discover that it had already been magically tagged. It was through this anomaly that we discovered that the Swedish colony and the Greenland colony of the Crumple Horned Snorkack were actually the same population.
Subsequent research has determined that the Crumple Horned Snorkack is actually migratory and moved from Sweden to Greenland in the summer. We were unable to establish the exact migration pattern because the Snorkacks disappear from all of our tracking spells at a certain point only to appear suddenly in Greenland. As far as we are able to tell, the Snorkack neither swims nor flies so we are uncertain how this migration is accomplished only that it does. Magizoologists Rufus & Luna Scamander have suggested that the Snokack is capable of teleportation, but we have no quantifiable evidence of this sort of behavior.
Considering all the available information at this time, our team submits a request to change the taxonomic classification of the Crumple Horned Snorkack to Purpauribus borealis which would better reflect the reality of the species and would hopefully appease the magical ministries of both Sweden and Greenland.
Who am I and why am I posting here? I never know how to answer those questions as simple as they are. The second part is the easiest; Sharon asked me if I would be interested in becoming a contributor and after a quick perusal of the site I said yes. I write fanfiction on FF.net and I post on LJ under MaryRoyale. You may or may not be familiar with my work; for the most part it's Hermionecentric and I seem to have some sort of obsession with time travel. Most of my pieces tend to be multi-chapter, but I've written one-shots as well.
Anyway, after arguing with myself for several days I've come to the conclusion that I'll contribute monthly. My column is going to subsist of monthly field reports for the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (DRCMC). This is mostly because even though I love Hermione I didn't care for her out-of-hand dismissal of the creatures that Luna Lovegood would expound on. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio and all that. I would imagine that magic would add to that. Most of the reports will cover magical creatures that are mentioned in the Harry Potter series. The first is listed as Special Report, but the subsequent reports will be monthly and posted on the 25th of the month.
Once I realized that this site was tied to Pottermore I bit the bullet and joined Pottermore. I was sorted into Ravenclaw--not that I was surprised by that. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the site and all the effort that Sharon and the others are putting into revitalizing it. :)
