Hogwarts Research Teams

The **Hogwarts Research Teams** were created by Regulus Black, disguised as Gilderoy Lockhart, during his tenure at Hogwarts as the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. These teams were created by him to develop the skills and tools required to break his brother, Sirius Black, out of Azkaban Prison. The teams were later shutdown following Regulus' escape from Hogwarts when he was confronted about being the Heir to Slytherin.

Regulus' plan would prove successfully when the Azkaban Conspiracy correctly utilised the tools developed by the Research Teams to break into Azkaban and remove several high-security prisoners, including Sirius Black.

## Team Backdoor

### Purpose

Team Backdoor's purpose was to create a "Super-Portkey", a device that would allow the wielder to escape through normal anti-apparation and anti-portkey jinxes, unlike a normal Portkey. The reason given to the members was, during the War with Voldemort, his Dark Mark would activate such jinxes, preventing people to escape. However, since such jinxes were used were modern Aurors, the members were forced to give secrecy vows to given their work to the Ministry if their work proved successful before being allowed on the team.

Although the team was unable to complete the project before the research teams were shut down, George Weasley finished the Super-Portkey during the holidays. When Regulus Black, under the guise of a Ministry Auror, came to collect George's research, he "confiscated" it along with the rest of the research.

The Super-Portkey was later used by the Azkaban Conspiracy to escape Azkaban Prison once they had recovered the prisoners they needed.

### Members

* George Weasley
* Cassius Warrington III
* Melissa "Missy" Bulstrode
* Lucian Bole

## Team Counterstrike

### Purpose

Team Counterstrike's purpose was to develop the skills required to master the underated shielding spell Averto. Whilst this spell can deflect many spells, its limitation are rather obvious, requring near-perfect reaction timing. Regulus Black decided that the best way to teach the needed technique was through Ping-Pong, a Muggle game which required the needed reflexes to win the game.

He also chose the Quidditch Seekers of each house to make up the members of the group, however Justin Finch-Fletchley was also selected to his mastery of the game to provide a challenge to the others. Harry Potter also joined later when he received detention with Jim and Regulus used the game to force them to make up.

After a while, when participants had learnt to rally to ball effectively, Regulus decided to up the challenge. To encourage the participants, the bats each participants were given would eventually shrink down to become wand size whilst the balls were enchanted to produce a mild Stinging Hex to the loser of each round.

### Members

* Justin Finch-Fletchley  (mentor)
* Draco Malfoy
* Jim Potter
* Cho Chang
* Cedric Diggory
* Harry Potter (joined later, due to detention with Jim)

## Team Chameleon

### Purpose

Team Chameleon's purpose was to create an enhanced variation of the Polyjuice Potion, which would both extend the duration of the potion for more than one hour whilst also rendering it immune to the normal polyjuice counters. When Percy Weasley handed up his final paper for the team, it was about a theoretical method for extending the duration of the potion but would cause the user to become quite sick afterwards.

Regardless of the after-effects, the modified potion was successfully used by the Azkaban Conspiracy to prevent their identities from being discovered whilst performing the Breakout.

## Team Mysterioso

### Purpose

Team Mysterioso purpose was to determine why the existence of Nargles and Wrackspurts was hidden. Team Mysterioso was the only team created by Regulus whose purpose wasn't tied to the Azkaban Breakout, but to satisfy his own curiosity.

Whilst preparing for his DADA classes before the term, Regulus found that his copy of the textbook had references to Nargles, Wrackspurts, and several other creatures yet despite not remembering them, they contained noted written by him. When he contacted the author of the book, he was told off for "wasting her time" and when compared with another copy printed at the same time, he found the pages were replaced. As such, he needed to know whether
a) someone was playing an elaborate joke on him, or b) whether someone was attempting to hide the existence of such creatures.

After studying Luna's memories and seeing the creatures were, in fact, real, it was decided that the team would need to dig deeper. The answer was revealed when the team, plus Harry Potter, delved into Luna's memory of her mother's death. It was revealed that her mother, Pandora Lovegood, used the Imago Dei spell to remove all knowledge of Heliopathy to prevent Luna, a confirmed Heliopath, from being taken by the Ministry but was killed by the spell. The spell, despite being viewed as a memory, also attempted to influence the present, causing the team to evacuate the memory before the destruction of the Pensieve being used to view it.

As a result of the forbidden knowledge they now possessed, Regulus had the team bribed with a perfect mark on their grades regarding the team and are excused from writing an end-of-term paper. Luckily, Regulus had the team take an Unbreakable Vow before they viewed the memory due to the fact they might witness a crime. Although he intended it to protect himself and Luna from backlash and had it so Luna could excuse them from the Vow after witnessing the memory, he made it clear that this option was *not* to be taken.

### Members

* Luna Lovegood
* Hermione Granger
* Ginny Weasley
* Penelope Clearwater

## Team Protector

### Purpose

Team Protector's purpose was to tutor students in the casting of the Patronus Charm, a charm that successfully defends against several magical creatures by creating an animal projection of the caster's happiest memories and having the creature feed on it rather than the caster before driving the creature off. This was considered a hard skill to master, so much that most adults couldn't properly cast the spell, thus teaching it to children would seem impossible.

The team was later deemed a success as by the end of the year, all the members could cast at least the shield variation of the Patronus, with at least two members (Marcus Flint and Neville Longbottom) being able to cast corporeal Patroni.

The teaching methods employed in this team were used by the Azkaban Conspiracy to teach the required members the Patronus Charm in a timely manner, to protect themselves during their raid on Azkaban.

### Members

* Harry Potter
* Marcus Flint
* Neville Longbottom
* Emily Rossen
* A few Hufflepuff students

## Team Recall

### Purpose

Team Recall's purpose was to research Memory Charms, how to better defend against them and how to better recover from them.

The skills and methods discovered to better recover from them were used by the Azkaban Conspiracy to accelerate the psychological healing of Sirius Black following his escape from Azkaban prison.

### Members

* Blaise Zabini
* Hermione Granger