Link to short story that JKR wrote for charity is n...

[Zara]

> > Magpie:
> > But they wouldn't be bad guys, which I recall was my impression. 
They 
> > would be somebody who could get them in trouble. I wouldn't 
expect 
> > them to knock them out either. I'd think they'd react to Aurors 
the 
> > same way as they would Muggle police, actually. It would require 
a 
> > little more work, but I think they'd be snarky and escape.
> > 
> 
> 
> Alla;
> 
> Agreed, and the expression that you were looking for, James and 
Sirius 
> are portrayed "alert as gundogs", which to me also suggest that 
they 
> see real bad guys. IMO of course.

Zara:
Surely, James occasionally looked alert, even, very alert, or "alert 
as a gundog" during Quidditch games? Heck, Sirius managed to look 
alert in a doglike way when James spotted Sev sitting in the bushes 
with his nose in a test paper a year or so before this story is 
supposed to be set. All I get from that is that the people on brooms 
were more of a threat than the fat cop it was funny to irritate. 
(Almost anything/anyone would be). There is nothing within the text 
which indicates the people on brooms were bad guys in any objective 
sense. From everything we know about the characters and Rowling's 
opinion of them, I think it is likely they were "bad guys" of some 
kind (DEs, or given Sandy's point about their lack of deadliness, 
perhaps school-age, unmarked members of the infamous "Slytherin Gang" 
up to no good), but nothing they do or say, nothing in their 
description (no masks mentioned, no Dark Marks in the sky, e. g.) 
indicates this.

I am not sure I buy the argument that 17/18 year old James and Sirius 
had achieved such a degree of responsibility and understanding that 
they would not have damaged cars and brooms and bodies in a 
successful attempt to evade both Muggle and Wizard law enforcement, 
so therefore it had to be real bad guys.

(Not Aurors, by the way, I was suggesting Misuse of Muggle Artifacts 
Office employees.)