Torquil Travers

Torquil Travers was Head of Magical Law Enforcement for the Ministry of Magic during the mid-1920s. His swaggering personality was “harsh and mean-spirited” (CG).

When Newt Scamander requested to have his international travel restrictions lifted in 1927 after confronting Grindelwald and an Obscurus in New York City, Travers exaggerated his role, accusing Newt of “destroying half of New York,” which was not a fair appraisal. He insisted that Newt either had to become an Auror like his brother, Theseus, or never travel abroad again. Newt declined the invitation, and went abroad to Paris soon after (without permission) to be reunited with American Auror Tina Goldstein.

Travers was just as rough and tough on Dumbledore, who was teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts in 1927. He believed that Dumbledore sent Newt to Paris for reasons of his own, and that Dumbledore was plotting against him. However, even though Travers did not like Dumbledore, he believed that he was the only one who could equal Grindelwald’s power and stop his rampage across Europe. When Dumbledore declined, Travers implied that it was because he and Grindelwald were once “as close as brothers,” and showed all the Aurors a slideshow of pictures of the two boys together in their youth. Getting nowhere with this rude tactic, Travers merely slapped metal Admonitor cuffs on Dumbledore which would keep track of all his spells, and flew off to Paris with the other Aurors to confront Grindelwald head-on. But Dumbledore warned Newt’s brother Theseus that this approach to Grindelwald would only cause more deaths, and urged him not to follow orders from Travers.