Luck of the Draw (HP Chaos Gacha)

[Bakkughan]

Chapter One: The Grimoire​

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I had been home for three days and still hadn't unpacked my trunk.

It sat at the foot of my bed, where Dad had helped me put it after picking me up from the station. I'd taken out enough clothes to get by, along with my toothbrush and the bag of sweets I'd bought on the train. Everything else could stay where it was for now. Ordinarily, leaving my schoolbooks packed away for the summer would have been a cause for celebration. This time, I kept looking at the bloody things and wondering where I was supposed to put them for the rest of my life (or at the very least, for the rest of my time still living at Dad's place, I suppose, which was also weird to think about).

There wasn't much room left on the shelves. My old books were still there, most of them about dinosaurs, with a few football trophies sharing the space beside them. None of those were for winning anything. Dad had been very proud of them anyway, though even he had struggled to say much about the one I'd received just for turning up.

I leaned back against the headboard, my heels resting on the edge of the trunk, and glanced towards the window. Someone down the street was mowing their lawn. Beyond that, the house was quiet. Dad had turned the television off downstairs, and there was nobody around to tell me I should be doing something productive.

I'd been looking forward to that for months.

Apparently, three days was about as much of it as I could take.

At Hogwarts, there had always been something coming up. An essay, a match, somebody's birthday, an examination I could postpone worrying about until it was far too late to do anything useful. Even during the holidays, September had given me a date to work towards. I'd go back, find the others, complain about our timetables and spend the first evening assuring myself that this year I would start my assignments early.

Seven years of that, and I'd never once managed it.

Now I was eighteen, finished with school, and apparently expected to know what to do with myself. Several of my classmates already had jobs waiting for them. A few were joining their parents' businesses, while others had secured apprenticeships months before we'd even sat our NEWTs. They'd spent the last week of term discussing wages and accommodation while I tried to remember whether I'd filled in the right address on the form for my diploma.

I rubbed my face, then let my hand drop into my lap. I could hear Dad moving about downstairs. Perhaps I should go and see if he wanted a cup of tea. It would at least get me out of my room, and he'd probably appreciate the company.

'Of course, then we'd have to find something to talk about…' I sighed as I let my head fall back against the headboard again.

That hadn't always been a problem. Before Hogwarts, I'd followed him around the house whenever he was home, asking questions while he cooked or tried to repair something that would inevitably end up having been cheaper to replace. He'd taken me swimming on Sundays. We'd watched films together, with him pretending not to notice when I stayed downstairs past my bedtime. Even during my first few years at school, I'd come home bursting with things to tell him.

Some of those had been rather difficult to explain.

Dad had tried. To be fair, he still tried. But there were only so many times a man could ask how Quidditch worked before his son started giving him the short version, and only so many friends I could mention before he lost track of who belonged to which House. The things that occupied most of my day were things he'd never seen. Eventually, when he asked how school was going, I'd started saying it was fine.

In fifth year, I'd stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas.

Most of my friends had been staying, and with our OWLs coming up, we'd convinced ourselves we'd get some revision done together. There had been other reasons, admittedly, most of which involved having the common room largely to ourselves and seeing how much food we could persuade the house-elves to bring us. At the time, it had seemed perfectly reasonable. I'd been home the previous summer. I'd be home again soon enough.

Dad had written back to say he understood. When I'd come home the following holiday, he'd asked whether I'd had a good time, and I'd said yes.

We'd never really spoken about it beyond that.

A knock on my door interrupted that rather miserable line of thought. I took my feet off the trunk and sat up as Dad poked his head around the frame, an envelope in one hand.

"You decent?"

"Bit late to ask now, isn't it?"

"I'll risk it." He came inside, smiling down at what he was carrying. "This just came for you. Recognised the crest."

My stomach tightened at the sight of the thick envelope. Hogwarts correspondence was difficult to mistake, particularly when the sender had decided that an ordinary address wouldn't do. Beneath my name, a neat green hand had helpfully informed the postman that I could be found in the upstairs bedroom overlooking the garden.

I hoped it hadn't come through the ordinary post.

"And the owl?" I asked, reaching for it.

"Still napping by the kitchen window. Gave me a fright, actually. Thought something had hit the glass." He handed it over, then stayed beside the bed, his hands finding his pockets. "Results, then?"

"Looks like it."

"Go on. Let's have a look."

He was trying to sound casual about it, though the grin rather spoiled the effect. I found myself smiling back as I slid a finger beneath the seal. For all the things he didn't understand about Hogwarts, an envelope full of examination results was something Dad knew what to do with.

I drew out the parchment, caught a glimpse of my full name beneath the school crest, and nearly swallowed my tongue when a large book appeared six inches in front of my face.

"Fuck!"

I jerked backwards, smacking my head against the wall and dropping the diploma. The book remained where it was, hanging above my knees while I stared at it with one hand pressed to the back of my skull.

Dad laughed.

"Grades can't be that bad if you graduated."

I looked from him to the book. He bent to retrieve the parchment, his shoulder passing close enough to the floating cover that I almost reached out to stop him. He straightened without so much as glancing at it, holding my diploma at arm's length while he searched for somewhere to start reading, squinting at the squiggles on the parchment.

I'd been bugging him to finally get some glasses for years now.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"You don't see..."

I stopped. His eyes flicked up towards me, and I slowly looked from him towards the floating grimoire.

"What?"

"Anything missing?"

"Wouldn't know, son. Tell you the truth, these grades still don't make a lick of sense to me." He peered at it again, his brow creasing. "Still, looks good, yeah?"

The book slowly opened between us.

"Yeah," I said faintly. "Looks good."

"Knew it would. Still remember you tellin' me once you Pufflehuffs got good work ethic." Dad gave my shoulder a proud squeeze. "We'll frame it. Hang it somewhere nice."

He ran his thumb beneath my name on the paper, still smiling, and I felt a little guilty about how keen I was to get him out of the room. I couldn't remember the last time he'd looked this pleased about something I'd done.

"Thanks, Dad."

He nodded, still smiling, and handed it back. "Your mum would've loved this."

I glanced at the book before I could help myself. There was writing appearing on its first page, thin strokes of dark ink spreading across the parchment without a quill in sight.

"Yeah," I murmured, accepting the diploma. "I reckon she would."

Dad looked towards the shelves, already considering where he might put it, and I hurried to my feet. The book drifted aside to let me stand, which was helpful, if fucking unnerving.

"Tell you what, I'll take you out tonight. Dinner. My treat."

"You don't have to do that." Dad blinked up at me in surprise.

"I know. I want to." I put a hand on his arm, guiding him gently towards the door. "Just let me get dressed and sort a few things out first."

"You're already dressed."

"Better dressed. Special occasion and all that."

He glanced down at my shirt. "You planning on somewhere expensive?"

"With my money?"

That got another laugh out of him, and he let me steer him into the hallway. At the door, he turned back and tapped the diploma with one finger.

"Don't fold it. You'll never get the crease out."

"I'm a wizard, Dad."

"And I'm the one buying the frame."

I promised to take care of it, waited until he'd started down the stairs, then closed the door and turned around.

The book was waiting above my bed.

I put the diploma carefully on my desk before drawing my wand.

"Right," I said, keeping my voice low. "What the hell are you?"

It was common practice not to trust anything if you couldn't see where it kept its brains, and suddenly appearing, apparently invisible, floating grimoires certainly counted in my book… no pun intended.

In response to my question, the grimoire simply turned a page.

I approached cautiously, keeping my wand out. It was a thick volume, bound in dark leather with richly decorated golden embellishments protecting the corners. The cover was difficult to make out now that it was floating there opened, to the point I couldn't even determine the colour (it was almost shifting between something like void-black and intense purple, with another colour I had never seen before and couldn't hope to describe scintillating in between), but I could see there was no title on it, nor any indication of an author. The pages looked like ordinary parchment, although ordinary parchment didn't usually write itself while hovering above my duvet.

I leaned forward to read.

Greetings from the Gacha Grimoire. We have been trying to reach you about your extended extra-dimensional multiversal cosmic powers.

I read the sentence twice, my concern briefly interrupted by the suspicion that I'd been handed some sort of advertisement.

"What the… extended cosmic powers-… what the fuck are you?!" I hissed, even pointing my wand closer to the floating book.

Said floating book appeared supremely unbothered by the eighteen year old pointing a stick at it as it languidly turned another page.

Achievement recognised

Graduate of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Awarded one (1) Golden Ability Ticket

Reward rarity increased in recognition of the institution's exceptional standing.

Below the writing, a rectangle of gold began to rise out of the page. I took a hurried step back, then felt rather foolish as it finished emerging and settled into the crease between the pages.

It appeared to be a ticket.

"An achievement? For graduating?"

The book didn't answer. Well, it wasn't as if it had a mouth to talk with and it had just put everything in writing, I supposed.

I glanced at the diploma on my desk. I was pleased to have passed, obviously, but I hadn't realised it was the sort of thing that warranted a magical artefact delivering prizes to my bedroom.

Apparently, going to a posh enough school helped.

I lowered my wand a fraction and reached towards the ticket. It was warm beneath my fingers, with a metallic sheen that shifted as I lifted it. Despite its appearance, it flexed like stiff paper. The words Golden Ability Ticket were printed across one side, surrounded by a filigreed border too fine for me to make out properly.

The page beneath it turned.

Attunement complete

A noteworthy achievement has established contact with the designated successor.

Awarded one (1) Platinum Trait Ticket

I frowned.

"Sorry. A noteworthy achievement?"

A second ticket emerged, this one a pale, silvery white. I picked it up almost absently, my attention caught on the sentence above it.

"I've been doing magic for seven years."

The writing remained exactly where it was.

I'd learned to fly (on a broom, and not that well according to Madam Hooch, but still). I'd grown plants that could bite through gardening gloves and persuaded animals to let me feed them despite being rather lower on the food chain compared to them than I would have liked. In sixth year, I'd managed a Summoning Charm from the other end of a greenhouse without breaking a single pane of glass, something Professor Sprout had been sufficiently pleased about to award me House points.

Apparently, none of that counted.

Eighteen years old, and the first and only time I'd managed to distinguish myself to extradimensional powers was by doing something most of my classmates had also done. Several of them considerably better.

I sat down on the bed.

"Well, that's depressing."

After a moment, I looked at the two tickets in my hand as my mind caught on the last sentence had displayed.

"Wait, 'designated successor'? What do you mean, successor?"

The writing faded. New lines appeared in its place, and I leaned forward as my mother's name formed across the page.

Original designated recipient: Endora Crawford

Original attunement incomplete. Recipient deceased.

Successor: Julian Ambrose Crawford

I reached up and caught the edge of the book, drawing it towards me. The binding felt solid in my hand. I could feel the weight of it now, though it continued to support itself as I turned it to inspect the cover again, looking for a note, a signature, anything.

"This was Mum's?"

This grimoire was intended for Endora Crawford. Attunement was not completed during her lifetime.

"Intended by who?"

It didn't elaborate.

"What was she doing with you?"

Again, nothing.

Mum had died when I was very young. I had a few memories of her, although it was difficult to tell how many were genuine and how many I'd assembled from photographs and stories Dad had told me. I remembered sitting on her lap while she brushed something out of my hair. I remembered her laughing at something behind me. Mostly, I remembered wanting Dad to tell me the same stories again because I liked the way he sounded when he talked about her.

Endora Crawford had been, by all accounts, an unusual woman, even by the… looser standards of Wizarding Britain.

Dad called her eccentric, generally with a fond smile and an anecdote about something she'd done to the house. She'd enjoyed experimenting with household charms, with varying degrees of success. One of her improvements to the laundry had apparently required him to retrieve his shirts from a neighbour's garden, where they'd been making a determined attempt to get over the fence.

He'd married her anyway.

In fact, judging by the way he told those stories, the wandering laundry had probably helped. Bob Crawford was about as ordinary a man as you could hope to meet. He bought the same newspaper, went to the same pub and had strong opinions about the correct day to put the bins out. Somehow, he'd fallen completely in love with a woman who'd worked closely with the Lovegoods.

Even among wizards, who had a rather generous allowance for peculiar behaviour, the name tended to make people pause before deciding how politely they wanted to continue the conversation. Discovering Mum had been involved in their research had prompted quite a few questions on my part. Unfortunately, Dad hadn't been much help. He could remember the visits and some of the arguments, but the actual subject of their work had largely escaped him.

It had involved things he couldn't see, theories he didn't understand, and a wife who was very excited to explain both to him over dinner. He'd mostly remembered the dinner.

I looked down at my full name on the grimoire's pages.

Ambrose had been her idea. She'd wanted it as my first name, and Dad had apparently put his foot down for once. His son was going to attend an ordinary primary school, and he didn't intend to send me there with a name that would get me beaten up before the register was finished. They'd compromised on Julian Ambrose, which Mum had considered suitably distinguished and Dad had considered something I could leave off a job application.

I rather appreciated his intervention. Hogwarts would have been fine with Ambrose. The children at my primary school had once made a boy cry because his packed lunch smelled funny.

"Were the Lovegoods involved?" I asked the book. When no reply appeared, I flicked through several more pages, searching for a note or an inscription in my mother's handwriting. Every sheet was blank. Even the inside of the cover offered nothing, and from going through Mum's stuff Dad kept at the house, that woman had been eager to scrawl her name in chicken scratches on all the things she owned, not just her many books.

Apparently, after they got officially married, one of Mum's first acts had been to sign her name across Dad's whole chest. It hadn't been a tattoo or permanent ink, thank Merlin, but with my Mum it had been a close thing.

Dad had never remarried, nor shown much interest in finding anyone else. As far as I knew, I was the only family he kept in touch with, save a distant nephew in Leicester that he only ever called on Christmas and New Year's. There were relatives on Mum's side I might have asked, if I'd known where to find them. Marrying a Muggle and moving into suburbia hadn't exactly endeared her to them, and whatever contact they'd reluctantly kept had ended before I was old enough to remember it. From the little Dad had said, I hadn't been particularly inclined to seek them out.

I could ask the Lovegoods, perhaps. That would involve finding them first, then trying to work out whether whatever they told me was useful information or something I ought to discuss with a Healer.

For now, I had the book itself, which seemed determined to be as unhelpful as possible.

"Did she make you? Find you? Was somebody supposed to deliver you?" I asked, growing more frustrated.

Letters finally began appearing again. I stopped turning the pages and pulled it closer.

Offer a ticket to receive its reward.

"Fine. Keep your bloody secrets," I muttered when it became clear that was all I was getting.

I glanced towards the door, wondering whether to call Dad back. He might recognise the book, even if I'd have to describe it to him. Then I remembered the way he'd smiled over my diploma, and looked back at the page informing me I ought to redeem a ticket.

I'd ask him about Mum later. Once I had some idea what I was actually holding, and preferably without suggesting his dead wife had been trying to arrange delivery of multiversal cosmic powers.

Setting my wand beside me, I held the golden ticket over the open pages. Nothing happened. I laid it flat on the parchment, then picked it up and turned it over. There were no instructions on the back, nor any indication of which end I was supposed to offer.

"You've got room for all that rubbish about cosmic powers, but you couldn't fit in a user's manual or something? A drawing or diagram, anything?"

The book ignored me. I pinched the ticket between my fingers, looking for a perforation. It was a ticket, after all. Presumably the principle was much the same whether you were getting on a bus, going to the cinema or collecting something from your dead mother's suspiciously evasive spellbook.

I tore it in half.

Gold spilled out between my fingers. I almost dropped both pieces, then watched as they crumbled into fine, gleaming particles that sank through my hands. There was a brief warmth in my palms, followed by an odd sensation that travelled up my arms and settled somewhere behind my eyes.

I blinked and gripped the edge of the mattress.

For a moment, I could feel the beginning of a wand movement without having made it. My fingers twitched, and I found myself looking towards my wand with the certainty that I knew how to do something I hadn't known a few seconds earlier. Trying to put it into words made it harder to grasp, so I stopped and let the feeling settle while fresh writing spread across the grimoire.

[Counterspell Casting]

|Elite Ability|

DnD - Allows you to cast spells specifically designed to respond to an opponent's spellcasting, either nullifying their magic entirely or redirecting it against them. The more powerful the opposing spell, the more energy you must expend to counter it.

"Oh."

I picked up my wand.

Knowing things I'd never been taught was a strange feeling. I knew where I ought to direct my attention, how to draw on my magic when another spell was cast towards me. The knowledge felt as familiar as the grip of my wand, despite the fact that, until a moment ago, my preferred response to hostile spellcasting had been to get out of the fucking way.

I turned my wrist experimentally, following the movement I'd felt. Nothing happened, which was probably sensible given that nobody was attacking me. Unfortunately, that also made it rather difficult to tell how well it worked.

"Nullifying or redirecting," I repeated, leaning over the book. "Any spell?"

The description remained where it was. I read the final sentence again, paying rather more attention to it this time. Greater energy for more powerful spells. That seemed reasonable, although it left a considerable amount of wiggle room between bouncing back a Tickling Charm and trying to tank a curse that would take my head off.

I wasn't in any hurry to explore the difference.

Still, it was an impressive gift. I could think of several occasions at school when I'd have been very pleased to send a jinx back towards whoever had cast it. There had been a Slytherin boy in the year above me who'd considered tripping people on the stairs the height of comedy. Returning the favour without having to run away from him and his buddies would have improved fourth year considerably.

For now, I set my wand down and reached for the second ticket.

If graduating had been worth an ability like that, I was rather interested in what finally getting the book to acknowledge my existence would earn me. Platinum sounded promising. Dad had once explained why it cost more than gold while staring through a jeweller's window, though most of what I'd taken from the conversation was that I shouldn't expect a watch for Christmas.

The pale ticket tore just as easily as the first. This time the light was cooler, spreading over my fingers before disappearing into my skin. I held still, waiting for another strange movement or a rush of knowledge.

Instead, a mild pressure built behind my forehead, enough to make me close my eyes. It eased almost immediately. When I opened them again, the book had finished writing.

[Magician]

|Elite Trait|

You are a natural-born Magician, making you naturally talented in the mystical arts, allowing you to learn, understand, and develop magic far faster and you have a unique intuition when it comes to matters of magic.

I stared at the words, before slowly dragging my eyes to the diploma on my desk.

"Now?"

The book floated quietly in front of me, having apparently finished its contribution to the conversation.

"You give me that now?"

Seven years. Seven fucking years of copying notes, practising wand movements and trying to work out why my results bore so little resemblance to the instructions. I'd spent evenings in the common room reading the same page until the words stopped meaning anything, then gone to bed and dreamed about being asked questions I couldn't answer. During the weeks before my NEWTs, I'd even started getting up six in the morning just to revise.

And only now, with my education finished and my results already written out in very expensive ink, I received a talent for learning magic.

I could have cried.

I rubbed both hands over my face, trying to remember that I'd just received something extraordinary and should probably be grateful instead.

"All right. Thank you. The timing's shit, but… thank you."

It was difficult to remain entirely miserable while holding that description in front of me. I read it again, wondering what an intuitive grasp of magic actually felt like. So far, my head seemed much the same. There were no answers presenting themselves, no sudden understanding of how the grimoire worked. I still couldn't explain why it was floating, though I supposed that was asking rather a lot of a talent I'd possessed for less than a minute.

I drew my wand and pointed it at the empty sweet bag beside my pillow.

"Wingardium Leviosa."

The bag rose, turning slowly in the air.

I'd been able to do that since first year. It was hardly a useful demonstration of my newfound brilliance.

Still, as I watched it, I became aware of the little corrections I was making with my wrist. I'd always done those without thinking, adjusting whenever whatever I was levitating began to wobble or drift. This time, I could feel myself anticipating the movement. I eased my grip, changed the angle slightly, and the bag stopped turning.

I lowered it onto my knee, then raised it again. The second attempt was smoother. On the third, I held it still just above the duvet, moving my wand away from the line I ordinarily followed without losing control of the charm.

My mouth slowly widened into a grin.

"Well, hello."

I spent the next few minutes moving an empty sweet bag around my bedroom with considerably more enthusiasm than the activity probably warranted. By the time I let it fall into the bin, I could make it stop where I wanted with very little of the usual overshooting. More importantly, I had a much clearer idea of what I'd been doing wrong. I could have practised for an hour before without noticing half of it.

The urge to find something else to try sent me straight towards my trunk. I lifted out a jumble of robes, found my Charms book beneath them, and sat back on the bed with it open across my knees.

I'd marked several difficult passages while revising. One of those caught my attention now, , an explanation of why vanishing something became harder with greater size and complexity. I'd memorised the rule about living things well enough, but never understood why it mattered.

Except as I went back over the text, it now felt obvious enough that I glanced at the notes I'd made in the margin, wondering how I'd even managed to overlook it.

I read on, following a reference back to an earlier chapter. Some of it still took thought, but I could work through it. The more I read, the more I wanted to try, until I reached for my wand and realised I'd been grinning at a textbook.

I was a Hufflepuff. I liked magic as much as the next wizard, but I had spent seven years watching Ravenclaws become unreasonably excited about supplementary reading and had never once felt deprived. If this thing was going to turn me into somebody who considered a quiet evening with a reference index a good time, I wanted to know about it in advance.

Looking at the open book, I considered reading the next chapter.

Then I considered putting it down and going out for dinner.

Dinner still won quite comfortably. Good. I shut the textbook, keeping a finger between the pages to mark my place, and glanced towards the grimoire.

"So. What do I do with you?"

It offered no career advice, which seemed an oversight given how much effort it had apparently put into contacting me. I set the Charms book aside and leaned back against the wall, thinking through what the rewards actually meant for my future.

The obvious answer was to keep studying. With a talent like Magician, I could learn things that had previously been well beyond me, perhaps even make a living developing charms or researching some obscure branch of magic. There were people who did very well out of that. Flitwick occasionally mentioned former students who had published something, usually while suggesting the rest of us might aspire to hand in our homework.

I could see myself enjoying parts of it. Understanding that passage had felt good, and getting the charm right had felt better. But the prospect of spending my days shut away in a library, emerging only to shuffle into a laboratory, didn't particularly appeal.

Perhaps I could combine the two. A labrary. Save myself the walk.

I glanced at the window, then back at the textbook. No. I wanted a nice place to live, enough money to go out when I felt like it, and work that left me with the time and energy to enjoy both. Being able to study more easily was wonderful. It didn't mean I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing it.

Of course, that left the other reward, whose description seemed rather more interested in people trying to hurt me.

I picked up my wand and rolled it between my fingers. Counterspell Casting would undoubtedly be useful in a fight. Having it made me feel a great deal more comfortable about the possibility of being in one. That didn't extend to wanting somebody to start throwing spells at me so I could put it to use.

There had been plenty of Gryffindors at school who'd have loved it. I could practically hear them volunteering to try it out, followed by the inevitable argument over whether the person casting the test curse had gone too far. They'd generally held those arguments on the way to the hospital wing.

By their standards, I could be considered a coward, though by the standards of normal people, I considered myself simply sensible. I preferred having all my bits attached, and considered routinely putting them at risk a poor career choice.

Curse-breaking, though...

I sat up a little, considering it. I'd seen the pamphlets during our careers consultations. There had been pictures of old ruins, descriptions of expeditions abroad, and a rather handsome list of benefits for successful applicants. At the time, the required expertise had put me off reading much further. With Magician, acquiring that expertise might actually be possible.

It would give me a reason to keep learning, too. Useful things, with a decent wage waiting once I'd learned them. I could see the appeal of travelling somewhere interesting, working my way through an old enchantment, then retiring to comfortable accommodation with my share of the proceeds. Compared to dealing with a person actively trying to murder me, a curse that had been sitting on a box for a few hundred years seemed a more manageable sort of danger.

Provided my ability actually worked on it.

I leaned forward and read Counterspell Casting again. Hostile spellcasting. That certainly covered somebody pointing a wand at me. Whether it also covered runes carved into a tomb, a cursed necklace, or an enchantment quietly waiting for somebody to touch the wrong thing was rather less clear.

"What about a curse that's already been cast?" I asked.

The book remained silent.

"A ward? Enchanted objects? Anything?"

Still nothing. I was beginning to miss textbooks. Those at least had the decency to provide an index before refusing to answer my questions.

The trouble was that curse-breakers tended to be rather protective of how they did their jobs. The pamphlets had been very enthusiastic about opportunities and considerably less forthcoming about the actual work. I couldn't simply wander into Gringotts and ask someone to explain their professional secrets while I decided whether a mysterious ability from my mother's invisible book would let me bypass half of them.

Well, I could, but I doubted I'd enjoy the response.

Until I knew more, it seemed an unwise thing to build my future around. I let the idea go reluctantly and tried to remember what else had been on offer.

Hit Wizards came to mind for approximately three seconds, if only because it was one of the few reasonably well-paying professions that only required OWLs.

Then I remembered what they did for that money and dismissed the idea with considerably less regret. If the Ministry wanted people to break up a violent crowd or haul some dangerous bastard out of a building, those were the wizards it sent. Whatever the wages, getting paid to stand at the front while angry people tried to hex my teeth out sounded like a poor job prospect. There was a reason they needed protective equipment.

Aurors, on the other hand, focused more on investigations.

There was danger involved, obviously. They dealt with Dark wizards, and those weren't known for coming quietly when asked. But the war had been over for years. There had to be considerably more work involved in finding criminals than actually fighting them, and the Ministry could hardly expect every Auror to spend every working day exchanging curses with somebody.

I frowned, trying to recall the recruitment information. Three years of training. Extensive instruction in defensive magic, concealment, tracking and all the other things necessary to catch people who were presumably quite keen to remain uncaught. The sort of education that would cost a fortune to acquire privately, assuming you could find someone willing to teach you in the first place.

Outside the Department of Mysteries, I wasn't sure where else an adult could get access to anything comparable. And applying to the Unspeakables struck me as an excellent way to end up in a labrary without being allowed to tell anyone how bored I was.

An Auror's salary was good, too. I remembered that part rather more clearly than the training requirements. It was the sort of job people respected, one I could mention without having to explain what I actually did or why it counted as proper employment. Even Dad would understand being a policeman, although I'd probably leave out some of the details about the criminals.

Counterspell Casting would be useful if anything went wrong. Magician would help me through the training. Once I qualified, I could find out which parts of the office dealt with the quieter investigations and make myself very useful to whoever was in charge of them.

That sounded... rather good, actually.

I found myself sitting straighter. A paid education, followed by a respectable job with a comfortable wage. I wouldn't have to ask Dad to support me while I spent years learning something I might never be able to turn into a living. I could afford my own place. Somewhere with a proper fireplace, perhaps, so visiting friends wouldn't involve half a day's travel and an explanation to the neighbours about why there were so many brooms parked in the driveway.

For the first time since getting off the train, I had some idea what I wanted to do.

Then my eyes fell on the diploma.

I stared at it for a few seconds before reaching across the desk and picking it up. The parchment was still perfectly flat. Dad would be pleased.

Muggle Studies — Outstanding

Charms — Exceeds Expectations

Herbology — Exceeds Expectations

Care of Magical Creatures — Exceeds Expectations

Transfiguration — Acceptable

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

Five NEWTs. The Auror entry exam required five NEWTs at Exceeds Expectations or better to even be considered for participation. I remembered that now, along with the part of the careers consultation where I'd politely lost interest at that point and asked Professor Sprout what else there was.

I read the results again, as though one of them might improve under sufficient scrutiny.

My only Outstanding was in Muggle Studies. Given that I'd grown up in a house with electricity and knew how a telephone worked, I wasn't sure how impressed an Auror recruiter would be by that. The three Es were perfectly respectable. I'd worked for those, particularly Care of Magical Creatures, where getting through the practical had required approaching a hippogriff that had already taken a dislike to two candidates before me. I still thought bowing to something capable of opening my chest with one swipe was an unnecessarily optimistic way to introduce myself.

And then there was Transfiguration.

Acceptable.

Considering how hard I had to work for the required EE at OWL level for McGonagall to even let me take NEWT lessons for her class, I'd been rather relieved about that until a moment ago.

Defence wasn't even on the parchment. I'd scraped an A at OWL and hadn't continued to NEWT, a decision that had seemed sensible when I'd made it. There hadn't been much point spending another two years struggling through a subject I wasn't particularly good at when I could concentrate on ones where I had a chance of doing well.

That was going to be an enjoyable thing to explain during an application to fight Dark wizards.

Potions might have filled that gap, considering they could do everything from healing to hurting, but Snape had made it perfectly clear that to be a pipe dream from my first lesson as a Firstie. I had fought tooth and nail to scrape by an A for the OWL level, and the greasy bastard only allowed people with an Outstanding to even think about following his class at NEWT level.

I laid the diploma down, then picked it up again. Perhaps there was some flexibility. Five qualifying NEWTs sounded like the sort of requirement somebody had written down because it was a nice round number. Surely they made exceptions for people with useful talents. An ability to turn an opponent's spells against them ought to count for something, particularly if I could demonstrate it without being asked to explain where I'd learned it.

Of course, that would require someone to agree to see me. If the first thing they did was count my grades, I might never get further than the front desk.

I set the parchment down more carefully this time and reached for the grimoire.

"You couldn't have turned up a month ago?" I shook it, though I didn't even manage to ruffle its pages.

It of course had nothing to say for itself and I let go of it with a frustrated huff, flopping back onto the bed.

I spent quite some time turning the problem over in my head. Briefly, I considered writing directly to the Auror Office, but couldn't think of a promising way to begin a letter explaining that I didn't meet their entrance requirements but would still very much like to join their ranks, pretty please?

Eventually, I returned to the only mark on my report card that was close enough to be of any use.

'Can I take Transfiguration again?'

People must fail their NEWTs. They couldn't all be expected to accept that and spend the rest of their lives wishing they'd revised more. There had to be some means of sitting another examination and with Magician, improving by a single grade suddenly didn't seem that impossible anymore.

However, that still left me with a big problem: I had no idea how to arrange it.

Downstairs, a cupboard closed, followed by the familiar rattle of the kettle being filled. I glanced at the door. Dad would listen if I went down and explained, but even I could get him to understand, this wasn't something he could help me with no matter how he'd try. He didn't know anyone at the Ministry. He didn't know how NEWTs worked. An hour ago, he'd needed me to tell him whether these grades were even any good.

I couldn't expect him to know how to improve them.

'But there is someone I know who would.' I realized as my gaze turned from the diploma to the trunk beside the bed.

I pulled out my writing things, cleared a space on the desk and uncorked the ink. For a few seconds, I held the quill above the parchment, feeling faintly embarrassed. I'd only been out of Hogwarts for three days. Professor Sprout had just finished dealing with our year, and here I was preparing to bother her again.

Then again, she'd told us to write if we needed anything. She'd said it to me personally before I'd left, holding my hand between both of hers and looking up at me with such earnestness that I'd found myself promising I would.

I'd trusted her since first year. If there was a way to do this, she'd tell me. If there wasn't, she'd tell me that too, probably with an offer of biscuits to soften the disappointment.

I dipped the quill.

Dear Professor Sprout,

I hope you're enjoying the start of the holidays. My results arrived today, and I've been thinking about the careers we discussed before the examinations. I'd like to apply for Auror training, but I'm short a fifth NEWT at Exceeds Expectations.

I paused, reading the lines back. There didn't seem much point trying to make it sound better than it was. She knew my grades already, and after seven years as my Head of House, she'd undoubtedly heard me attempt more convincing excuses.

Is there any way I could resit Transfiguration? I know I would need to improve, but I'm willing to put in the work. If it's possible, I'd be very grateful for your advice on how to arrange it.

Thank you for your help, and for everything over the last seven years.

Yours sincerely,

Julian A. Crawford

I waited for the ink to dry, resisting the urge to add a paragraph assuring her I hadn't suddenly lost my mind. That would probably only make her suspicious. Once the letter was sealed, I put it beside my wand where I wouldn't forget to take it with me. I'd stop at the owl post before dinner.

The grimoire drifted closer as I stood. I regarded it for a moment, then reached out and closed the cover. It disappeared beneath my hand.

"Oh, that's convenient."

Thinking about opening it brought it back. I tried once more, satisfied myself that I hadn't just lost the most valuable thing I'd ever owned, and left it dismissed while I found a clean shirt.

"Julian?" Dad called from downstairs. "Want a cup?"

"Please!"

I picked up the diploma on my way to the door, careful to keep the ink on my fingers away from it. Dad could have it for the frame. If Sprout knew a way to help, hopefully I'd be making him take it out again soon enough.

"And Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Where d'you fancy going tonight?"

---

The following morning, an owl settled on a fence in Privet Drive and inspected the houses opposite.

The street was quiet. A car rolled past, its driver paying no attention to the bird as it turned its head to watch him go. Once he had disappeared around the corner, the owl looked down at the envelope clutched in its talons, then back towards number four.

All the windows were shut.

It waited a little longer. Behind one of the upstairs curtains, a light went out. Somewhere inside the house, a man called for someone to get a move on, his voice carrying clearly through the otherwise peaceful morning.

The owl shook out its feathers, took the envelope in its beak and flew across the road. It landed beside the front door, inspected the letterbox, and pushed the thick parchment through.

Inside, Harry Potter's first Hogwarts letter fell onto the doormat.

---

AN: You can read up to 5 chapters ahead over on my Patreon (same name)

 

[ENDDRAGON]

Hope the MC bangs Hermione, Luna, Lavender Brown, Susan Bones(Lavender and Susan have the largest breasts in fanon), Fleur, her sister, mom, and grandmother.

 

[TheJabberwock]

Interesting start. Watched and am eager for more. I kinda thought the curse breaking would be an interesting avenue for the counterspell skill. But I get that auror training would probably lead to better opportunities for tickets

 

[The Mad Ghoul]

Hope the MC bangs Hermione, Luna, Lavender Brown, Susan Bones(Lavender and Susan have the largest breasts in fanon), Fleur, her sister, mom, and grandmother.

Click to shrink...

They're 9-12 right now; MCs 18. Go for Tonks, she's 16-17 right now and going to start training to become an auror soon.

Edit: also this isn't tagged as nsfw

 

[Bakkughan]

Hope the MC bangs Hermione, Luna, Lavender Brown, Susan Bones(Lavender and Susan have the largest breasts in fanon), Fleur, her sister, mom, and grandmother.

Click to shrink...

Uhm, quite a bit to unpack here.

1. As another reader already mentioned, most of these figures are currently 11 to 12 years old (making it kinda creepy you know which one of them have the largest breast size). also, bagging daughter, mother and even grandmother is kinda icky too.
2. I will never write a harem story. I think they are the laziest, most degenerate sort of wish fullfillment there is and a narrative dead end. The moment you introduce a harem, you killed your fic, because plot takes a backseat and your characterization needs to go out the window to make people bend over backwards to be accepting of something as ridiculous as a harem. I do not read them, I will never write them.
3. This basically reads like a shopping list and I don't think including it serves the quality of the story. I don't write nsfw stories either way, so it's a bit of a moot point.

I don't really wanna go after you personally, but again, we're talking about minors here while the MC has just turned eighteen, so this list is just all kinds of squick for me...

Interesting start. Watched and am eager for more. I kinda thought the curse breaking would be an interesting avenue for the counterspell skill. But I get that auror training would probably lead to better opportunities for tickets

Click to shrink...

I did initially think cursebreaker would be a cool profession, but there were a few things that eventually held me back. As much as I'd like to write about an Indiana Jones type figure, it would mean deviating even further from canon in the books, which could be fun but it was also what ended up killing my previous HP fic as I just kept drifting further and further away from the original premise and setting. Additionally, like Julian remarks on in-universe, I didn't get the feeling that Counterspell Casting would reliably work on hidden traps and ancient curses. So I brought it back to auror training instead, since it neatly slots him in the canon timeline. He's in the same year as Tonks, stays in Britain (though an arc abroad definitely could be fun and is something I'm nebulously planning towards) and I have a good excuse to bring him in either in Third or Fourth Year to interact with the canon cast, which means not too much time passes.

It's something I've noticed with my other Chaos Gacha fic, but in those type of stories you can't really do massive timeskips since the MC tends to grow so quickly and randomly. If I have Julian just pass the trials and then skip forwards four or more years, he'll be completely unrecognizable, so I need a reliable way to build him up without waiting too long for him to get involved with canon events. Around the third and fourth book is also where a lot of the earlier whimsy begins to fade from the series, so that would be a good point to insert an Auror (trainee) character as well. Most of these considerations found themselves in Julian's own internal monologue in chapter 1 as well.

 

[Yohnos]

So are we fixed on auror ? He could become a private curse breaker/ detective? Like a magically Sherlock Holmes (funnily enough, both the wizard and the Sherlock are played by Benedict)

 

[Bakkughan]

So are we fixed on auror ? He could become a private curse breaker/ detective? Like a magically Sherlock Holmes (funnily enough, both the wizard and the Sherlock are played by Benedict)

Click to shrink...

For the traineeship (three years) at the very least as I want him to complete the course and grow alongside Tonks. After the end of those three years, I want to bring him in for the escape of Sirius Black, and possibly have him present during parts of the Triwizarding Tournament as well. Afterwards, the war starts in the shadows of Magical Britain. Julian is a self-described sensible coward and in three years with a Chaos Gacha, he should be significantly more powerful, so he might decide to go while the getting is good and strike out on his own to avoid the war. I do feel for something like a PI or something, have Julian think that spying on cheating wives is a much safer way to spend his time, only to have one of his investigations unveil one of Voldemort's plots and inadverntently drag him back into the war somehow. But that's for the future, first I need to plan ahead on how I'm going to fill the time between his Auroral Appraisal and the escape of Sirius Black...

 

[ENDDRAGON]

I don't really wanna go after you personally, but again, we're talking about minors here while the MC has just turned eighteen, so this list is just all kinds of squick for me...

Click to shrink...

Wasn't really thinking to be honest. It's just that this is QQ so yeah.

 

[Qem1ng]

Better dressed. Special occasion and all that."

He glanced down at my shirt. "You planning on somewhere expensive?"

Click to shrink...

Isnt the MC a Male? This conversation doesnt feel very Male?

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter Two: The Resit​

​

---

Professor Sprout's reply arrived two days later.

I knew it was hers before I opened it. The handwriting on the front was familiar, and there were several small smudges of dirt along one edge of the envelope. One had left a partial fingerprint beside my name.

Dad was at work, but I still took it upstairs to my room before opening it. There wasn't any particular reason for the privacy, but after spending the previous two days trying not to think about what I'd do if Professor Sprout told me there was no way to resit a NEWT, I preferred to receive the bad news without an audience.

I sat on the edge of the bed and broke the seal.

Dear Julian,

It was lovely to hear from you, although I admit I was surprised by your choice of career. I don't recall you showing much interest in Auror work during our previous discussions.

That was putting it mildly.

Still, I am very pleased that you've found something you want to pursue. You always did better when you had something particular to work towards, and I think there is a great deal to be said for wanting to improve yourself rather than simply accepting that an opportunity has passed you by.

I'm afraid I cannot arrange another NEWT examination for you myself. Transfiguration isn't my subject, and examinations outside the usual period require rather more authority than an old Herbology professor asking nicely.

That was disappointing, although not particularly surprising. I'd written to Professor Sprout because she was the person I trusted to know what could be done, not because I'd expected her to march into the Wizarding Examinations Authority and demand they let one of her former students have another go.

Thankfully, she'd had another idea.

Most of the teaching staff remain at Hogwarts for part of the summer, and I have therefore had an opportunity to speak with Professor McGonagall about your situation.

I stopped reading.

"You did what?!"

Professor McGonagall had always been tough but fair (though the former more so than the latter), and I had never disliked her. I'd simply preferred not to attract her attention any more than absolutely necessary. Gryffindors seemed to see another side of her occasionally. As a Hufflepuff, most of my dealings with Professor McGonagall had involved doing what I was told and hoping my work gave her no reason to stop beside my desk and stare at my work as if I had conjured up a particularly nasty hairball.

Having my future prospects placed in her hands (or paws, as the case might be) was therefore not especially comforting.

Somewhat dreadfully, I continued reading Professor Sprout's obliviously cheerful words.

I explained what you told me in your letter and assured her that, if you say you're prepared to put in the work, I believe you. You were never the strongest student in Transfiguration, Julian, but you have always been a hard worker when something mattered to you, and I made sure Professor McGonagall knew that.

She has agreed to consider helping you arrange another examination.

I let out a breath.

I should warn you that she has attached conditions. Professor McGonagall wished to explain those herself, so I have enclosed her reply with mine.

There was another sheet of parchment folded behind Sprout's letter that I hadn't noticed before. I pulled it free and unfolded it, recognising the narrow handwriting immediately.

Mr Crawford,

Professor Sprout has informed me of your intention to apply for Auror training, as well as the difficulty presented by your Transfiguration result.

I must confess to having limited sympathy for your predicament.

I winced.

That sounded about right for the Gryffindor Head of House.

You were informed of the requirements for Auror training during your fifth-year career consultation. You subsequently received two years of NEWT-level instruction in Transfiguration in which to obtain the Exceeds Expectations required of an applicant.

The discovery, after receiving an Acceptable, that a higher mark would now be convenient does not ordinarily constitute grounds for another examination.

It was difficult to argue with that. I'd known the requirements and decided years ago that I wasn't going to meet them, then changed my mind three days after receiving the results. From McGonagall's perspective, this probably looked less like a carefully reconsidered career plan and more like a former student discovering consequences for the first time.

Fortunately, Professor Sprout's intervention appeared to have kept the letter going.

Professor Sprout has, however, spoken highly of both your character and your willingness to correct the deficiency rather than ask that the Auror Office overlook it. I also appreciate that you are prepared to subject yourself to further study and examination in order to improve your prospects.

I am therefore willing to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate that a resit would not be a waste of an examiner's time.

I sat a little straighter as I read what she wanted me to do.

I require you to demonstrate absolute mastery of the most advanced spell asked of you during your original practical examination. You must be able to explain your method and adapt the transformation under examination. A single successful attempt will not be sufficient.

I was to come to Hogwarts and show her my progress, and if (and only if) I impressed her, she would contact an examiner herself. Before I could cry about the injustice of it all, the ending of the professor's letter showed she had anticipated it already and cut it off before I could even get started.

You are asking me to arrange an examination outside the ordinary examination period, Mr Crawford. This is no small request. I see no reason why the effort required of you should be any less exceptional than the effort you are asking of others.

You have one week.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

I read the final instruction again. A week. I'd had two years to try and get an E the first time, and I hadn't spent those entire two years doing nothing. I'd studied. Quite a lot, towards the end. I'd gone into the NEWT examination knowing more Transfiguration than I ever had before and come out with an Acceptable to show for it.

Now McGonagall wanted me to become good enough in seven days that she'd be willing to put her name behind another attempt.

"This is impossible!" I groaned.

I put both letters on the bed beside me and lay back, looking up at the crack near the corner of my room that Dad kept saying he was going to fill. It'd been years now and if anything it had grown wider. I was fairly sure the damage was somehow a fitting metaphor for my situation, but I was agonizing over my future too much to really bother coming up with one. After a while of feeling sorry for myself through, I remembered that I'd acquired something rather important between sitting my first NEWT and receiving McGonagall's challenge.

"Gacha Grimoire," I called out hopefully, sitting up as the book appeared above me. I pulled it closer and opened the cover. The first few pages retained the records of my earlier rewards, and I turned past Counterspell Casting to the next entry.

[Magician]

|Elite Trait|

You are a natural-born Magician, making you naturally talented in the mystical arts, allowing you to learn, understand, and develop magic far faster and you have a unique intuition when it comes to matters of magic.

I'd spent most of the previous two days experimenting with that. It didn't just... dump pure knowledge in my head. Opening an unfamiliar chapter had quickly established that I still had to actually read the thing. But once I did, the explanation made sense and stayed that way. I could follow how each step led to the next without having to memorise the conclusion and hope nobody asked me to explain my workings.

Before, learning had felt like climbing a mountain, struggling upwards and constantly looking back to check I hadn't lost my way. Now, it was like sitting in a canoe going down a gentle river.

Everything just… flowed. One bit of information led naturally into another, and looking back at the end, I still could remember how I'd got there.

I reread McGonagall's letter, feeling a little better about my chances. I'd managed the spell well enough the first time around to (barely) pass my NEWT, so at least I had somewhere to start, and with Magician helping me understand where I'd gone wrong, a week might be enough to bring it up to her standards.

I dismissed the grimoire and ran into my first issue: I needed material to practise animal Transfiguration on and I'd rather not kidnap the neighbour's dog. However, a miniature version of one could work.

And so, off to the toy store I went.

---

I came home with a carrier bag of supplies, set them beside my desk and spent the next two hours discovering how much I'd forgotten since the examination. This was a fairly unpleasant surprise, considering I hadn't done particularly well even back when I could still remember it all. My notes weren't much help either. Several passages ended halfway through an explanation, presumably because McGonagall had erased the board before I'd finished copying, and there were references to diagrams I apparently hadn't bothered drawing.

Fortunately, I still had the textbook. Working through the relevant chapter sent me back to sixth-year material, then a definition from fifth. Usually, I'd have given up and memorised whatever looked most likely to earn a mark. This time, I understood what I'd been missing.

I covered the explanation and worked through the example myself. It matched. Changing one of the conditions gave me a different answer, but I could work out why without checking the book.

I was halfway through trying it with another example when Dad called up to ask whether I wanted potatoes or chips.

"Either!" I called back, then realised that wasn't much help and leaned towards the door. "Chips, please. I'll be down in a minute."

By the time I got downstairs, he'd already served up. I apologised as I sat down and reached for the salt, only noticing the ink along the side of my hand when I left some on the tablecloth. Dad watched me try to rub it off with my thumb before getting up to fetch a damp cloth.

"Did you hear back from your teacher, then? Saw the envelope by the door."

"This morning. She can't arrange it herself, but she spoke to my Transfiguration professor, who might be able to." I took the cloth from him and wiped at the stain. "I've got to go back next week and show her I've improved enough to make it worth asking for another exam. If she's satisfied, she'll speak to someone about it."

Dad sat down again, frowning slightly as he cut into his dinner. "So you've got to pass a test before they'll let you take the test? Why can't they just let you sit it again? You'd think the result would tell them whether you'd improved."

"They've already held this year's exams. She'd have to get someone to come in especially for me, and I've only just scraped through the one they already gave me." Put like that, McGonagall was being fairly generous. I hadn't enjoyed coming to that conclusion. "She wants to know I won't waste their time."

"And you've only got the week?" He waited until I'd nodded before continuing. "You were revising for months before the last lot. What's going to be different?"

I concentrated on cutting my food while I considered how to answer that. It was a perfectly reasonable question. Unfortunately, the honest answer involved an invisible book and the phrase 'Platinum Trait Ticket', neither of which was likely to reassure him that I'd thought this through.

"I'm only working on one subject this time, for a start. And I know which parts I struggled with in the exam." Both of those things were true, even if they were doing considerably less of the work than the supernatural talent I'd recently acquired. "I went back over some of it this afternoon. It made more sense than it did when I was revising."

"Well, that's something." Dad ate for a moment, then glanced at me again. "What happens if she says no?"

"Then I'll have to find out when I can take it normally. Or look for something else, find another job somehow. I haven't applied for anything yet."

He nodded, although he still looked as if there was something he wanted to say. I'd seen that expression often enough over the holidays, usually just before he asked a question about Hogwarts and I gave him an answer that didn't explain very much.

"What is it?" I asked, putting my fork down.

"Nothing. Just... this police business. You never mentioned it before, and now you're spending all day upstairs trying to get into it. I thought you wanted something with those plants you studied."

"I considered it. Professor Sprout thought I could do well with them."

"But you don't fancy it?"

I looked down at my plate. I'd quite liked Herbology, actually. I'd liked being good at something, and Professor Sprout had made it easy to ask for help when I wasn't. Spending the rest of my life repotting things that would cheerfully digest me if given the opportunity was a different matter, though admittedly I wasn't sure becoming an Auror counted as an improvement on the safety front.

"I don't know that I'd want to do it every day," I said. "With the Aurors, there'd be more to learn. Different things to work on. Finding people, working out what's happened, learning how to undo whatever magic they've used. I think I'd be good at that part."

"What about the other part? The arresting them part."

"That's what the training's for. It's an apprenticeship, Dad. They don't give you a badge and tell you to get on with it."

He pushed a few peas together with his fork. "I know that, son. I get that they train you, but... Still allowed to worry about where they're sending you off to afterwards, aren't I?"

I almost told him there was nothing to worry about, but I wasn't sure I could say it with a straight face. Instead, I picked up my glass and admitted that I hadn't got nearly that far yet.

"I might not even get through the entrance assessment. For now, I just want the chance to try."

Dad considered that, then nodded. "All right. Just don't think you've got to rush into something because school's finished. You're welcome here while you work it out." He muttered as he looked down at his plate.

"I know. Thanks, Dad." I managed, heartfelt if somewhat awkwardly.

He returned to his dinner, and I did the same and conversation sort of dried up after that.

Afterwards, I washed up and went back upstairs. I'd left my textbook open, and before picking up my wand I checked whether I could still explain the example I'd been working on before dinner. I could, even without looking at my notes. That was encouraging enough that I stayed at the desk until Dad knocked on his way to bed and reminded me that it was nearly midnight.

Over the next few days, I studied the theory in the mornings and practised on the toys in the afternoons. There were still plenty of mistakes though. Magician hadn't given me McGonagall's experience along with the talent, and sometimes I needed to see a spell go wrong before I understood what the textbook had been warning me about.

The difference was how quickly I could do something about it. Previously, a bad attempt had usually meant trying again with a slightly different wand movement, or more concentration, or whatever vague advice I'd managed to extract from a classmate whose own result wasn't much better. Now, I could usually trace the problem back to something specific. Once I'd corrected that, I could move on instead of wasting the rest of the afternoon making the same mistake with increasing irritation.

By the fourth evening, I'd reached the point where I could have gone back to Hogwarts and shown McGonagall a much better result than I'd managed during my NEWT. Whether it would be good enough for her was another question. I kept practising, changing the conditions and checking that I could recover from a mistake without abandoning the whole spell. Somewhere along the way, I began trying things that weren't in the assignment at all.

I hadn't meant to spend much time on those. They were just ideas that occurred to me while I was working, and it seemed a shame to ignore them when I finally had a decent chance of finding out whether they'd work. Which was when my Dad came up to remind me it was already past eleven and I still had to get to Schotland early the following morning.

While I was grateful for the reminder, it turned out his warning didn't quite help; I didn't get much sleep either way as I laid in bed, staring up at the ceiling for several hours.

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamt of plastic figurines and Transfigured plushies.

---

The following morning I arrived in Hogsmeade through the Floo at the Leaky Cauldron early enough to walk up to the castle without rushing. The journey gave me time to go over what I'd prepared, although I stopped doing that after realising I'd only managed to make myself more nervous instead of less. Instead, I watched the grounds coming into view and wondered whether McGonagall would keep me for lunch if this went well. There had been very little in the house for breakfast, mostly because I'd already eaten most of it.

Doing as much magic as I had done over these past few days had required quite a lot more fuel than I had been used to during my younger years.

Hogwarts was quieter than I'd ever known it. Even at Christmas there had always been students about, but now I crossed the Entrance Hall without seeing anyone and could hear a suit of armour creaking in its alcove. The doors to the Great Hall were shut. I had just started up the stairs when Professor Sprout called my name from the corridor behind me.

"Julian! There you are. I was hoping to catch you before you went up." She came towards me with a basket hooked over one arm, wiping her free hand on her robes before taking mine. "How have you been getting on? Minerva's expecting you, but you've a few minutes yet."

"Much better than I expected, actually. I've been going back through the books as well as practising." I glanced towards the stairs, then back at her. "Thank you for arranging this, Professor. I wasn't sure anyone would let me take it again."

"Well, I couldn't promise that they would, which is why I went to Minerva. She needed to hear about it eventually." Sprout adjusted the basket on her arm. Something inside rustled against the cloth covering it. "She's quite right to ask you to demonstrate what you can do. If she approaches an examiner, she'll want to be able to explain why she thinks another examination is justified."

"I understand. I just wish I'd shown her more of it while I was still in her class."

"Then show her now," she said, quite matter-of-factly. "You won't improve your chances by apologising for your old marks. Answer her questions, take your time with the practical and let her judge the work in front of her."

I nodded, trying to keep that in mind. Sprout had given much the same advice before our Herbology practical, although on that occasion she'd also reminded us to fasten our gloves properly and keep our fingers out of anything that opened when we approached it.

"Will you be in the greenhouses afterwards? I'd like to let you know how it goes."

"Number Three, most likely. Do come and find me before you leave." The basket shifted again and she placed a firm hand over the cloth. "Provided you knock first. I've rather a lot out on the benches this morning."

I assured her that I would and continued upstairs, leaving her to whatever was trying to escape from the basket. By the time I reached the Transfiguration classroom, I'd stopped trying to remember the exact words of my prepared explanations. Sprout was right; I already knew what I knew, now all I had to do was prove it.

Professor McGonagall looked up when I knocked, her spectacles low on her nose and a pile of correspondence beside her elbow. She was wearing the same dark green robes I remembered from lessons, with her hair drawn back into its usual severe bun. I straightened without thinking as she beckoned me inside.

"Good morning, Mr Crawford. Put your things on the front desk, please."

"Morning, Professor." I set my bag down and took out the small box I'd brought, checking that its contents hadn't shifted on the journey while she finished what she was writing. The classroom looked much as I'd left it, although someone had finally removed the scorch mark from the corner of the blackboard. Personally, I never found out who was responsible for that, but whoever they were, I hoped they'd had the sense to graduate before she did.

My bet was on those Weasley twins

McGonagall put her quill aside and came round the desk. "My letter asked you to revisit the most advanced transformation required in your practical examination. Before you begin, tell me what difficulty you encountered on that previous occasion."

"I couldn't complete it properly. The result looked right, but parts of it hadn't changed all the way through. I tried to correct those separately and disturbed the rest of the spell."

"And what have you done to correct that?"

I explained how I'd gone back over the underlying principles and realised I'd been making the same mistake with the starting material for years. McGonagall listened without interrupting, though her gaze sharpened when I explained how I'd always tried to correct for differences in size and material after beginning the transformation instead of accounting for them from the start.

I'd lost marks for exactly that mistake in several essays. Remembering that while explaining my discovery to the woman who'd marked them wasn't especially comfortable.

"That distinction was covered in your sixth year," she observed coolly.

"Yes, Professor. I found it in my notes. I don't think I understood why it mattered until I tried to work out what I'd done wrong."

She held out her hand towards the box. "Very well. Let us see whether you understand it now."

I fished out the little grey cat I'd bought at the toy shop and set it on the desk. It was made of moulded plastic, with black stripes, a pink nose and four rigid paws that didn't quite sit flat on the wood. I could feel McGonagall's stare bore into the side of my head as her nostrils flared and silently I cursed my test subject. It hadn't been a dig at her, I'd simply chosen it because the proportions were reasonably accurate, which was more than I could say for several of the other animals in the packet.

Apparently, whoever designed them had decided a horse was essentially a barrel balanced on four sticks and that knees were optional.

'Well, no turning back now I guess.' I silently despaired as I focused back on the little plastic cat figurine.

The last time I'd attempted this in front of an examiner, I'd produced a flamingo that made a faint clicking noise when it walked (which was especially egregious as I had been asked to produce a Canadian Goose). At the time, I'd been too relieved it was even moving around at all to attempt anything more refined.

I drew my wand and cast.

The figurine swelled beneath the tip, its stiff back flexing as the grey plastic softened into fur. The paws spread against the desk, toes separating beneath them, and the painted eyes blinked open as its head rose. Within a few seconds, a living tabby stood in front of us, its tail curling up while it investigated the unfamiliar surface under its feet.

McGonagall approached and ran a hand along its back, then examined its legs and turned its head towards the light as she checked its teeth. I kept my wand lowered while she worked. The temptation to explain everything I'd improved was fairly strong, but she'd asked to see the spell, and interrupting her examination of it struck me as an excellent way to make her examine me instead.

"Change the markings," she instructed. "The coat only, Mr Crawford. Leave the underlying transformation intact."

I brought my wand up again, turning the dark stripes into small spots before changing the grey fur to white. The cat glanced round at its own flank and resumed sniffing at the desk. McGonagall asked me to reverse the colours, then make the markings symmetrical, watching closely as I worked across its back.

"You may stop there."

I let the last spot settle, then hesitated. She'd seen what she'd asked for. I could leave it at that and hope it was enough, 'Acceptable' even, or show her what else I'd learned and risk turning the originally-plastic cat back into a puddle of crude oil. But her letter had specifically stated 'mastery'… she had underlined it even.

Instead of lowering my wand, I began drawing the spots together, stretching some into thin lines while others spread into broader patches, forming a crude, furry map. The outline of the Black Lake took shape along the cat's flank, with the castle overlooking it from just below its shoulder. I worked the grounds around them, adding the sweep of the Forbidden Forest and a narrow path that wound up its back towards a rough collection of little rooftops.

McGonagall leaned closer, her eyes following the path towards the cat's shoulders.

"Is that Hogsmeade?"

"More or less, Professor. I couldn't fit all the houses in."

The cat twisted to lick its side, briefly obscuring most of the lake. I waited for it to finish before filling in the Quidditch pitch, then lowered my wand so she could examine the completed pattern. She turned slightly to follow the markings around its flank, and I found myself rather pleased that she was taking the time to look, even studying the Quidditch stands with an interested gaze.

I had cheated just a tad and made the Gryffindor half larger than the Slytherin one. The Lions' Head of House didn't seem to mind if the gleam in her eye was anything to go by.

"I've been working on further changes as well, Professor. May I show you?" I asked a bit more confidently now.

She studied me for a moment before stepping back from the desk. "Provided you can maintain control of the transformation. Proceed."

I returned the spots to stripes, deepening the white fur to orange as the cat began to grow. Its shoulders rose and broadened, paws spreading across the wood while its tail slid over the edge. The small head thickened into a heavy feline skull, whiskers brushing McGonagall's sleeve before she moved aside. A full-grown tiger stood on the desk, its weight making the legs creak against the flagstones.

That was the first time McGonagall's expression changed. Her eyes travelled along its flank, then returned to me, and I felt an almost vindictive surge of pleasure at having surprised her before I remembered that I was supposed to be concentrating. Being pleased with myself could wait until I no longer had several hundred pounds of predator standing within biting distance.

I guided it down onto the floor before continuing. The stripes faded as the body took on the tawny colour and heavier build of a lion. Its tail thickened into curved, armoured segments, the end drawing upwards into a scorpion's sting. Last of all, its face changed, the muzzle shortening as an extra row of teeth filled in and the features settled into a disturbingly human arrangement above the powerful feline chest.

The manticore turned its head towards us, and McGonagall's hand moved to her wand.

I completed the final movement before she had to use it. The creature Vanished cleanly, leaving us looking at the patch of floor where its paws had been. I kept my wand raised until I was certain there was nothing left, then lowered it and tried to read the professor's expression.

She was glancing at me over her spectacles. The look was familiar enough to make me wonder whether I should have stopped at the Hogsmeade map.

"A manticore, Mr Crawford?" she asked very carefully.

"Merely the form of one, Professor. I haven't tried to reproduce the venom or its magical resistance. I wanted to see how far I could alter the original result without having to reverse it first."

"You might have mentioned your intentions before proceeding." Her tone was crisp, although her attention briefly returned to the empty floor. "Describe how you managed the tail."

I explained the changes I'd made to the spell, including the point where I'd originally tried to preserve too much of the feline shape and had to reconsider the whole thing. She asked what that had done to the balance, then moved back to the tiger and the adjustments required as its size increased. This was considerably more detailed than the explanation I'd rehearsed on the way up to the castle. Fortunately, I'd made enough mistakes while practising to have fairly concrete answers.

At one point she stopped me and asked whether I'd needed a second levitation type spell to keep the result standing. I told her I hadn't, then reconsidered what I'd just said.

"I did at first," I admitted. "It concealed the problem for a while. I stopped using it once I realised I couldn't tell whether the transformation was stable on its own."

"Quite. An examiner would have noticed the additional charm, and you would have learned very little by continuing to rely on it." She returned to her desk and picked up a plain wooden ruler. "You have practised with that particular figurine. Let us try something less obliging."

I accepted the ruler and set it where the toy had been. Having a starting point that already resembled the intended result had made the first spell easier. Now I had to account for the shape as well as the substance, which took a little more thought. McGonagall waited while I considered it, then watched me produce a second cat, this one ginger and somewhat indignant about having been brought into existence on a desk it evidently wanted to get off.

"Keep it there, please. Now reverse the transformation."

I did so before it could jump, returning the ruler to the wood with a small clatter. McGonagall picked it up, inspected both sides to see if the numbers were still arrayed in order and there weren't any whiskers remaining. Seeing everything in order, she gave a curt nod and set it aside. She then changed the conditions again, asking me to explain what would be different if the target were already alive.

I was able to answer most of that from what I'd studied, although one question brought me up short. I'd understood how to do it, but explaining why an alternative method would fail required me to work backwards through the spell. Halfway through my answer, I spotted something I'd overlooked and corrected myself before she had to.

Her lips tightened slightly. I couldn't tell whether that meant I'd recovered or simply confirmed that I hadn't known the answer when I started. Either way, she allowed me to finish before asking anything else.

By the time she was satisfied, I'd been standing in front of her for considerably longer than my original NEWT examination had lasted. I'd also stopped worrying about whether I'd impressed her, mostly because answering her questions took all the attention I could spare. It was only when she put the ruler away and removed her spectacles that I remembered what depended on her opinion of the last half hour.

"You have made considerable progress," she said. "Your control is substantially better, and your explanations suggest you have addressed weaknesses that were evident in your written work as well. I should like to know why this application was absent during term."

There wasn't an answer to that which would satisfy both of us. I'd worked hard before the NEWTs, and I didn't particularly enjoy having that dismissed because I'd recently been handed a talent I hadn't earned. On the other hand, telling her about the grimoire was out of the question, and the woman had just spent half an hour testing me when she could have refused the whole business by return owl.

"I did try, Professor. I know it didn't always look like it. Working on this at home has helped, and once I started understanding where I'd gone wrong, it became easier to keep going."

She regarded me for a moment, then put her spectacles back on. "Then I suggest you continue. A successful demonstration does not exempt you from the remainder of the syllabus. If you sit another NEWT, the written paper will demand the same standard as the practical."

"Yes, Professor. I've been revising the other chapters as well. I just wasn't sure whether..." I stopped before I could ask her outright whether I'd passed. She was already reaching for a clean sheet of parchment, and I was fairly sure she hadn't put me through all that just to write a more detailed rejection.

"Mr Crawford..."

I went ramrod straight at the familiar tone, only to find a very small smile playing around her lips.

"...I expect nothing less when the examiner tests your capabilities further."

I let out the breath I'd been holding. "Thank you, Professor. I appreciate it. And I'll keep working on the theory."

"See that you do. I shall write this afternoon. Until you hear from me, continue your revision and make yourself available at short notice. I cannot expect an examiner to rearrange the remainder of their summer around your convenience."

I assured her that wouldn't be a problem and began packing my things. Before I left, McGonagall asked me to pass on her regards to my father. I promised I would, thanked her again and made my way downstairs to find Professor Sprout, taking the steps quickly enough that one of the portraits I'd startled awake yelled at me to slow down.

I, of course, ignored him as any proper Hogwarts-alumni should.

---

McGonagall's owl arrived the following afternoon. She had found an examiner willing to see me at Hogwarts in three days' time, with the written examination in the morning and the practical after lunch. Her letter included the arrangements for entering the castle and a reminder to bring my own quills. I put it on the desk where I could see it, sent back my thanks and opened the textbook again.

The next three days gave me a fairly good idea of how much my demonstration had distracted me from the rest of the subject. I still had plenty to revise, and McGonagall's questions had helpfully identified several things I couldn't explain as clearly as I'd thought. I worked through those first, then started answering the questions at the end of each chapter without even needing to check my notes.

When it was finally time for the examination itself, it was almost disappointing.

I'd expected to struggle. The first time, I'd spent half the written paper trying to remember things I knew I'd revised, filling the margins with increasingly desperate attempts to work backwards from a formula. This time, I recognised the problems and knew what to do with them. One question took long enough that I left it until the end, but when I came back to it, the error in my first approach was obvious. I corrected it, checked the working and still had time to read through the rest.

The practical was much the same. I made a mistake during one of the transformations, noticed what I'd done and corrected it before the examiner moved on. There was no sinking feeling when he asked for something more complicated, no frantic attempt to remember how McGonagall had held her wand when she'd demonstrated it. I understood what he wanted and could work out how to provide it.

By the time he told me I could leave, I was convinced he'd forgotten to test me on something.

That feeling persisted all the way home. Dad asked how it had gone, and I told him I thought it had gone well, which pleased him enough that he didn't immediately notice how suspicious I was of my own answer. I spent the next two days finding excuses to reopen the textbook and check things I'd written on the paper. So far, I hadn't found anything that would justify the amount of worrying I was doing.

It was a rather unfamiliar problem.

The results arrived while I was downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table with the Ministry's recruitment information spread out in front of me. I'd collected it in Diagon Alley while buying more ink, and had spent the morning trying to determine whether my application could reach them before the next assessment. There was just enough time, provided the owl didn't take the scenic route.

Dad was in the garden when the Hogwarts bird landed on the back of an empty chair. He came in through the open door as I untied the envelope, drying his hands on his trousers.

"Is that the one you've been waiting for?" he asked. "Hang on, let me get these off."

He left his muddy shoes by the door and came to stand beside me to peer curiously over my shoulder as I opened the envelope, taking rather more care with the seal than was necessary. There was a short covering letter from McGonagall and a replacement copy of my results. I put her letter aside and went straight to the bottom of the list.

Muggle Studies — Outstanding

Charms — Exceeds Expectations

Herbology — Exceeds Expectations

Care of Magical Creatures — Exceeds Expectations

Transfiguration — Outstanding

I read the last line twice, then checked the name at the top, just in case. It was mine. There was even an official seal at the bottom to confirm that someone had looked at my work and decided that, as far as NEWT-level Transfiguration was concerned, I belonged in the same grade as some of the brightest 'Claws from my year.

"I've got an Outstanding," I said, looking up at Dad. Seeing he didn't quite get it, I elaborated. "I only needed an E. This is better, this is… this is the highest one, Dad."

His face broke into a grin as he leaned over to read it, one hand settling on my shoulder. "There you go. That's better than you thought, then, isn't it? Well done, son."

"A lot better." I turned the parchment so he could see it properly. "I was hoping I'd done enough to move up one grade. I didn't think I'd get past that."

"Your teacher must've thought you had a chance, or she wouldn't have put you in for it." He pulled out the chair beside me and sat down, still studying the results. "What did she say in the letter?"

I'd nearly forgotten there was one. I unfolded it and read McGonagall's congratulations, which were brief and followed by a reminder that the improved mark reflected a standard she expected me to maintain. She had also enclosed the certification I'd need for my application. Apparently, she'd anticipated my next problem before I'd finished enjoying having solved the first.

"She says congratulations, and she's sent the paperwork for the Ministry." I showed Dad the enclosed document. "I can apply now. With this, all five grades meet the requirement."

He glanced at the forms I'd been filling in. "Do you need to get that away today?"

"As soon as I can. The assessment's next week, but they have to approve the application first. I'll need to send these with it."

"Right. Well, make sure you've signed everything before you seal it up. You were always forgetting that bit on your school forms."

I started to object, remembered the permission slip he'd once had to send back to Hogwarts twice and decided to check instead. Dad took the results while I went through the application again, and he held them far enough away to make me wish he'd finally buy some reading glasses.

"You can have those for the frame," I told him. "I've got the separate certificate for the application."

"Good. I'll change it over after lunch." He placed the parchment carefully back on the table. "I'm happy for you, Julian. I know I don't follow all of it, but you've worked hard for this."

"Thanks, Dad." I looked at him, then down at the papers. "And thanks for letting me get on with it. I know I haven't been much company."

"You've had an exam to do. Don't worry about that." He got up and carried the results towards the sitting room, pausing in the doorway. "You can tell me how this next bit works over lunch, though. I still don't know where they're sending you."

I promised I would. Once he'd gone, I finished checking the application and reached for McGonagall's letter again, intending to write a reply before taking everything to the owl post. Golden sparks drifted over the table before I'd uncapped the ink, and I pulled my hand back as the grimoire appeared above the recruitment leaflet.

Apparently, I'd earned something else as well.

The book opened, writing spreading across the page while I glanced towards the sitting room to make sure Dad wasn't coming back. He was busy taking the frame down, judging by the scraping noise and the muttering that followed. I had a minute.

Achievement recognised

Previous academic result improved from Acceptable to Outstanding.

Exceptional advancement demonstrated within a limited period.

Mastery recognised by established experts in the field.

Awarded one (1) Silver Ability Ticket

A silver rectangle rose from the parchment, and I caught it before it could settle into the crease. The first two had been gold and platinum, so I assumed this was worth less, although considering what those had given me, that still left plenty of room for something useful. Besides, I'd essentially used the book's last present to qualify for another one. Complaining about the quality seemed a little ungrateful.

I tore the ticket and watched it dissolve between my fingers. Silver particles sank into my hands, bringing the same odd familiarity I'd felt when Counterspell Casting settled into my head. My wand lay beside the application forms, and with no warning I knew exactly how to cast a Cutting Spell I'd never learned before. I picked it up before I'd finished thinking about that, then put it down again rather carefully as the new description appeared.

[Magic Cutting]

|Rare Ability|

Allows you to project magical energy in cutting arcs, slashing through matter from a distance. Some users can focus the effect into a single piercing stab like an immaterial bullet. Certain materials may resist or outright stop the cut.

I leaned back in the chair and looked from the words to my wand. I'd learned the Severing Charm at school, but the knowledge that had just arrived didn't feel like another way of casting it. There was no incantation to remember. I could feel how to gather the magic, shape it and send it out, including the narrower application mentioned in the description. Trying either in the kitchen would probably cost us at least a cupboard.

Useful, certainly. Particularly for someone intending to work with people who might object to being arrested. I preferred to test it somewhere I couldn't accidentally destroy Dad's furniture, though, so I closed the grimoire and left my wand on the table.

From the sitting room, Dad called to ask whether the old results were worth keeping. I told him to leave them on my desk, then pulled the application back towards me and checked the final page. Everything seemed to be in order, including the required five NEWTs at EE or above, so I tucked the certification behind it and reached for an envelope.

For the first time, I could apply to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement because I met their standards rather than hoping they'd overlook them.

---

AN: Important notice! I am not entirely satisfied with the title of this story. As such, I am inviting all of my highest-tier Patrons to send me submissions for their suggestions of what the fic should be called. Over the week, I'll compile them all into a poll that will go live next Saturday with the newest chapter. Then from that Saturday until the week after, the three highest tiers of Patrons will be able to cast their vote on the new fic title.

You can read up to five chapters ahead over on my Patreon

 

[Yohnos]

[Magic Cutting]

|Rare Ability|

Allows you to project magical energy in cutting arcs, slashing through matter from a distance. Some users can focus the effect into a single piercing stab like an immaterial bullet. Certain materials may resist or outright stop the cut.

Click to shrink...

"DISMANTLE"

He now possess the perfect ability to neutralise belligerent, just cut the wand