Law & Chaos: Special Magic Unit (HP Chaos Gacha)

[Ghostcraft19]

"Have at thee!"

Click to shrink...

This is great!

 

[JT'Tales]

There had also been remarks about his robes, his application fee and whether the DMLE needed somebody to sort its post. By the time he reached the part where she'd told a neighbour, his knuckles had turned white around the handle of his wand.

Then don't go home and let her be right," I said. "You might not pass. I might not pass. But you can at least make them kick you out, instead of saving them the trouble and proving your wife right."

Click to shrink...

Step 3: Leave that Harpy, cause goddamn. The first couple of remarks you could almost fool yourself that she's a worried wife poorly showing it by teasing her husband, but by the time it gets to shitting on him to the neighbors who have no business hearing this... yeah she's gotta go.

Don't worry Smidgy, I hear women love a man in uniform.

 

[CircusControl]

"Have at thee!"

Click to shrink...

Beast mode

 

[Yohnos]

Smidgeworth should get a divorce

 

[Poimenikos]

The toxicity just made ME want ask a lawyer for my options and I am happily married.
God. You cant chose the family you re born into. Nor your co-workers most of the time. You need a job. Even your kids are as they come. But your spouse you chose. And there is nothing worse than having the one person in your life, the only person in your existence that YOU chose to spend your years together not respect you. It eats you slowly like cancer.
Imagine. Being a magician. A minor reality wraper. And you still can have a miserable family life

 

[FTR2017]

I really love the way you've restricted the use of the Gacha to reasonable things, and I am really looking forward to what comes next with these 'coppers'.

Especially with the protagonist leaning on his transfiguration plus dispelling and magic blade thingy to help him along.

On a side thought: Will we be seeing some Pratchett shout-outs from his Guards stories?

 

[aokway]

I still would have preferred something a bit more… cop-like.

Click to shrink...

There is nothing more cop like than beaurocarcy

It would probably be useful on most working days,

Click to shrink...

I could probably find a use for it.

Click to shrink...

My brother in Christ
Over 70% of your job is management and math
On most days that number is over 90%
By week 4 your gonna be kissing that book forgiveness

No spells on the interviewee

Click to shrink...

Just spells then?
Cause
If we can get him to sign a contract about giving his wand back in a way we choose in exchange for some information then we can let him know what sounding is before very slowly going to shove his own wand up his urethra
I know not why
But I'm quite sure he'll start saying what we want to know by the time we start pulling his underwear down
I mean
He signed the contract~
And were legally required to abide by our side of the ~deal~
Though of course new information would come first to handing off what the deal is for due to importance so anything else he says would delay and potentially make us need to "reconvene" due to the expanded information given

Guess you didn't have the easiest time at school."

"Parents can be cruel."

Click to shrink...

Kids are cruel to!

Marchbanks glanced back at me as all of this was my fault all of a sudden.

Click to shrink...

"Interesting"

 

[Donokoni]

I think Will need to pass and be part of the MC group, they also can be the "golden trio" from the Aurors.

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter Six: The Duel​

​

---

Waiting by myself was worse.

I had nothing to do with my hands, no one to reassure and no way of finding out whether either of them had passed. Tonks had lasted until the clock ran out. That was promising, though I didn't know whether it would have kept running after she'd been disarmed. Wil had gone in looking prepared to hex somebody, which was either an improvement or something I'd soon be apologising for.

I tried going over my spells. My Shield Charm was better than it had been at school. I could Transfigure things with more confidence now, provided I had time to work out what I was doing. Magic Cutting would deal with ropes and anything else an opponent tried to bind me with. Counterspell Casting had stopped the cursed poker and the fugitive Snitch.

Against an actual person, I still had no idea how well any of that would work.

The time passed slowly enough that I found myself counting along with the second hand, then calculating how many seconds remained. Novice Math supplied the answer immediately. I hadn't needed assistance making the wait feel any longer than it already did, but there it was.

When the clock finally stopped, I stood before Marchbanks had even opened the door.

"Mr. Crawford. Come along."

I followed her into a long duelling chamber with a raised observation gallery along one wall. Several witches and wizards sat behind its railing. Protective magic shimmered faintly across the space in front of them, separating the benches from the floor below.

At ground level, wooden barriers and stone plinths divided the room into uneven lanes. There was enough cover to break somebody's line of sight, provided I could reach it. A pair of Healers waited near a side door with their bags open on a table.

My opponent stood beside the far boundary. He was a lean wizard with close-cropped brown hair and his sleeves fastened back at the wrists. He glanced at the parchment in Marchbanks's hand, then at me.

"Crawford. The Transfiguration resit?"

"Yes."

"Ah. The one without a Defence NEWT." He observed, though I couldn't help but feel as though there was something sneering in the way he said that. "Let's see what you can manage. Auror Renshaw."

He didn't offer to shake hands. I went to the mark Marchbanks indicated, trying not to read too much into that.

"The clock starts on my signal," she told us. "Stop immediately if I call a halt. A clear surrender ends the duel. Mr. Crawford, do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She walked up the steps into the gallery. Renshaw waited with his wand lowered at his side, looking comfortable enough that I felt foolish for how tightly I was holding mine.

"Begin."

His wand moved before I finished drawing breath.

"Protego!"

The Disarming Charm struck my shield and scattered in a burst of red light. I barely had time to register that I'd stopped it before he sent the next one. I caught that too, though the impact forced me back a step.

"Don't plant your feet," he said.

I moved left. A third spell hit the floor where I'd been standing, and I understood why he'd bothered offering advice.

There was a wooden barrier within reach. I ducked behind it, putting something solid between us while I tried to get my breathing under control. Through a gap beside the support, I could see him walking across the room to change the angle.

I aimed for his legs.

"Locomotor Mortis!"

He deflected it without stopping. The spell struck the back wall, and his next wand movement turned the top rail of my barrier into a length of rope.

It came down around my shoulders.

I pulled away before it could tighten, catching one loop on my forearm. Another curled towards my wand wrist. I cut across it with Magic Cutting, sending a narrow arc through the rope and letting the severed ends fall against my robes.

In my hurry though, I had overpowered it slightly.

'Slightly' in this case meaning I had cut through the ropes… as well as the top half off the barricade, letting it slowly slide off and fall to the floor with a deafening crash.

Renshaw stopped walking.

I got clear of the ruined barrier while he looked at the unnaturally smooth cut. There was no sense waiting to see what he'd do to the rest of it. A stone plinth stood a few yards away; I lengthened its upper edge into a slab as I moved behind it, giving myself enough cover to see over without exposing my chest.

His next spell struck the slab and chipped the corner.

I sent a Stunning Spell back. He shielded, moved and sent two more attacks from different angles quickly enough that I had to abandon the plinth altogether. All of it soundless too.

It quickly became frustrating how often I knew exactly what I'd done wrong only a moment after doing it. Magician might have helped more if Renshaw had been willing to give me the time to learn from my mistakes, but for all that the man looked like he was just taking a leisurely stroll down Diagon Alley, it didn't seem like the Auror was about to let up the pressure.

I kept moving, sometimes shielding, sometimes getting solid cover between us. The new grace from Novice Interfacing made the quick changes in direction easier, especially when Renshaw forced me to move before I was properly balanced.

It didn't stop my legs from tiring however, and it certainly didn't make the spells coming towards me any slower.

Renshaw was still barely breathing hard.

He flicked his wand towards a broken rail. It bent and split lengthways as it rose from the floor, becoming three thick bands that spread out to come at me from both sides like crushing snakes.

I cut through the first and shielded against the second, but the third caught my ankle and pulled tight, dragging my foot out from under me. I came down hard on one knee, but thankfully managed to slash through it before it could pull me any further. I shoved myself away from the severed length as it writhed across the floor.

Renshaw gave me no time to recover. Another Disarming Charm struck my shield before I was properly upright, jolting my wand arm with the impact.

I couldn't keep doing this, I realized. He'd just keep pressuring me with his far greater arsenal until I made a mistake. Not that the realization did anything to improve my current situation though; Renshaw didn't seem in any hurry to provide me with any alternatives.

When he animated the broken bands again, I desperately used a broader cut. It passed through both of them as if they weren't even there and sped across the room.

Renshaw moved, but not quite quickly enough, the sudden counter attack having taken him by surprise. His trouser leg split below the knee, and a thin red line opened along his calf.

He hissed and stepped back. I froze long enough to nearly let a loose binding catch my wrist.

"Sorry! I was aiming for the—"

"Then aim more carefully, you dolt." Renshaw bit out.

He sealed the cut with a sharp movement of his wand. When he looked up again, the casualness had gone out of his face.

I wished I'd simply kept my mouth shut.

The next hex burst against the edge of the plinth hard enough to knock fragments across my cheek. I ducked and raised a shield, only for another spell to strike it before I was properly balanced. My shoulder jarred. The shield held, but I was sent sliding back, my boots scrabbling for purchase.

Renshaw came forward.

There were no more ropes to cut, no more Transfiguration tricks turning the environment against me. The man was going in for the kill. He sent spells at my legs, my wand arm and the narrow spaces I needed to pass through to reach cover. When I tried to return a Stunner, he contemptuously knocked it aside and caught the edge of my left sleeve with something pale green.

My hand clenched so tightly that the nails dug into my palm.

I stumbled, staring at the fist I couldn't open. The muscles along my forearm knotted painfully beneath the skin. I brought my wand across them, reached for Counterspell Casting and felt the jinx break under the pressure.

My fingers opened. Before I could enjoy that, I had to shield again.

The next spell struck hard enough to send a fresh stab of pain through my shoulder. My wand arm jerked sideways, and Renshaw flicked his wrist before I could bring it back.

"Expelliarmus!"

The alder tore out of my fingers. I made a desperate grab for it with my other hand, caught nothing and watched it bounce across the floor before rolling to a stop midway between me and Renshaw.

Almost automatically, I started towards it before remembering the man who had so easily torn it from my hand. Renshaw's wand followed me, and I hurriedly put the pillar between us instead.

"Just yield already, Crawford."

I chanced a quick glance at the large ornate clock overlooking the duelling area.

'A good seven minutes left… which means…' Novice Maths immediately supplied the answer. 'Oh fuckin' Merlin, are you seriously saying I've been getting my shit kicked in for barely five minutes?!'

Some traitorous, tired part of me, the slacking Hufflepuff who hadn't even taken DADA for his final years of Hogwarts because it involved far too much running around and sweating for no good reason, briefly considered taking the man's sneered advice. For the first time since deciding to apply, I seriously considered giving up.

I'd been driven into the corner between the boundary and a tall stone pillar. I could try to get round it, but Renshaw had the angle covered. My shoulder ached, my legs were trembling and my wand was lying somewhere I couldn't reach without losing anyway. There was still far too much time left on the clock.

My right hand closed uselessly around the space where my wand ought to have been. The other was still sore from Renshaw's pale green curse, the muscles aching somewhere between the aftermath of a really intense forearm workout and the worst cramp of my entire life. I'd only got it working again by using Counterspell Casting to break the curse.

But that wasn't the only way Counterspell Casting worked.

I looked past the pillar at Renshaw, then down at my empty hand.

There was no incantation to remember or wand movement to get right. The knowledge was already there; all I needed was one of Renshaw's spells and enough magic to turn it around.

Assuming I could do it without a wand.

I'd been holding mine every time I'd used the ability, but that didn't necessarily mean I needed it. The Grimoire hadn't mentioned one in the description. Novice Math worked perfectly well without a wand. So did Novice Management.

Admittedly, neither of those had ever been asked to stop a curse coming at my face, but I was running out of better ideas.

"Crawford. I can see your feet."

I pulled them further behind the pillar, feeling my face grow hot.

Wandless magic had never featured in any of my plans for getting through the appraisal. It was the sort of thing I'd occasionally seen a professor do, usually while their hands were occupied with something else. After seven years at Hogwarts, I still needed a wand to Summon a forgotten quill from the other side of my bedroom.

I looked towards the alder lying near Renshaw's advancing feet.

Well, I wasn't going to manage it that way now.

The knowledge from Counterspell Casting was still there when I reached for it. Losing my wand hadn't changed that. I could feel how to catch an incoming spell, how to take hold of the magic and turn it back towards its caster. Whether I could actually make it happen with nothing in my hand was something I would apparently have to find out the hard way.

I needed an attack I could see coming. One big one he committed to, instead of a quick jinx followed immediately by another. A spell that would decide the entire match in one go.

"Having trouble?" I called out as I brazenly stepped out from my cover, desperately hoping the Auror wouldn't notice just how heavily I was breathing.

He paused, just long enough for me to wonder whether I'd lost my mind. His eyes moved over my empty hands before returning to my face.

"Trouble? With what?"

"With the kid who just has a Defence OWL. Imagine that. Big scary Auror, can't even knock out someone who dropped his subject in fifth year."

His jaw tightened.

I straightened, resisting the urge to glance towards my wand again. Renshaw knew exactly where it was. He'd put it there himself, and judging by the look on his face, my continued refusal to concede was beginning to seem like a personal insult.

He shifted his weight onto his back foot and swept his wand through a larger movement, pale green light gathering at the tip. I recognised the colour immediately, my left hand cramping up again at the mere sight of it.

'Please let this work.'

I waited until he released it.

The spell came straight at my chest. I threw up my empty right hand and reached for Counterspell Casting, trying to 'catch' it and send it straight back.

For a brief instant, nothing happened.

Then the pressure struck my palm, drove through my arm and shoulder and seemed to settle behind my ribs. I couldn't draw breath. The pale green light buckled in front of my outstretched fingers, close enough to make every crease in my skin stand out.

Renshaw's eyes widened. His gaze caught on my empty hand, and his wand came up sharply as he realised I was actually doing something with it.

I barely had enough attention left to notice. There was far more magic in this curse than in the one he'd used on my hand, and for one horrible moment I thought I'd made it worse by trying to hold onto it.

I put everything I had into the reversal, bracing myself for the curse to break through anyway.

Instead, the green light twisted.

For a fraction of a second it seemed to hang between us, bent sharply around the end of my wand, before to my own surprise, it snapped back the way it had come.

Renshaw hadn't expected it either. His eyes widened and his wand started to come up, but his own curse was already crossing the room. It struck him squarely in the chest.

I didn't even see him fall. My knees hit the floor, my free hand following them as I tried to stop myself pitching forward. There was a rushing noise in my ears as I swallowed against a surge of nausea and forced my eyes back up.

Renshaw was curled up on his side, legs drawn towards his chest. His hands had clenched like mine had, the tendons standing out along his neck as he fought to straighten himself. A strangled cry escaped him when another spasm pulled his shoulders tight.

His wand lay a few feet away. Mine was still lying about halfway between us.

The clock was still running. Nobody had called a halt.

I put one foot beneath me and pushed myself upright, nearly going straight down again. The pillar kept me standing until the room stopped tilting, then I made myself move towards him, one staggering step at a time.

Renshaw was already dragging one hand towards his wand, his spasming fingers opening and closing with the monumental effort by the time I had picked mine up with trembling hands. I gathered enough magic for the narrowest application of Magic Cutting and sent it into the floor beside his head like a bullet.

Stone cracked with a sharp report, and a chip struck his cheek.

He stopped reaching.

I took the last step, sank to a knee beside the downed Auror and placed the tip of my wand against his Adam's apple. Keeping it steady took more effort than I wanted him to see.

"Yield." I croaked, my voice hoarse to my own ears.

His eyes lifted to mine. After a moment, he managed a quick nod, as far as his cramped position allowed at least.

I kept the wand against his throat until I was certain he'd understood. Above us, the viewing gallery had gone completely silent.

"Yield accepted," Marchbanks said at last. "Mr Crawford, step back."

I obeyed. A Healer was beside Renshaw almost immediately, breaking the jinx while the second caught my elbow and guided me towards a chair.

I sat down before anybody could change their mind.

---

The Healer made me drink something bitter, inspected my shoulder and asked whether I could feel all my fingers. I could. I was less certain about my legs, although they improved after a few minutes sitting still. The arm that had been caught in the same curse that had ultimately cost Renshaw the match still felt like pinpricks and needles though, like I had spent all day sitting on it, even after the Healer went over it with a soothing warm light from her wand.

I couldn't imagine how it must feel to have that curse cover your entire body and my eyes flitted to the other side of the room. Renshaw himself was sitting upright with another Healer beside him. He flexed one hand, spoke briefly to Marchbanks and looked away when he noticed me watching. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do about that. Apologising hadn't helped the first time.

Marchbanks came over once the Healer had finished with my shoulder.

"You're to rest in the changing rooms while we complete our reports. Someone will come for you."

I nodded and stood carefully. My legs held. The Healer still accompanied me through the side door, waited while I found the next bench and told me to keep drinking water.

Tonks looked up as we entered.

"Julian! How did it go?" She got to her feet, then took a better look at me. "Sit down. Wil, move your bag."

I lowered myself onto the cleared space. Wil passed me a cup while Tonks settled beside me, looking at the torn sleeve and the dust on my robes.

"Are you hurt?" she worried.

"Mostly tired. The Healer says I'll be fine." I drank half the water in a single gulp, feeling my completely tanked energy levels slowly begin to stabilize, before asking, "What about you?"

"I lasted. Barely." She leaned back against the lockers with a huff. "Couldn't get a spell near her, so I spent most of it staying behind things. At one point she turned the barrier I was hiding behind into a flock of geese. I thought they were going to have me before she did."

I looked at the scrape across her knuckles. "How did you get away?"

"Made myself small enough to get between two plinths, almost as thin as paper. She had to come round, and the geese couldn't work out where I'd gone." Her grin returned. "The clock went before she caught up. I thought I was going to fall over when they told me to stop, I've never pushed my abilities that far before."

Twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. She'd been doing that while I sat outside trying to talk Wil into entering at all.

"I'm glad you made it," I said honestly.

"So am I. Wil did too, though you wouldn't know it from looking at him."

He sat opposite us with his hands folded round his cup. At the mention of his name, he looked up and gave a hesitant smile.

"I was rather cross when I went in."

"That's putting it mildly." I said with a grin.

"The gentleman told me to begin, and I just... did. Everything I could remember, every spell I ever learned, I just threw it all at him. It's a bit of a haze, but I'm fairly sure I even ended up casting Orchideous; at the end of the duel, the whole floor was covered in flowers." He glanced down. "Caught his sleeve with a Scorching Charm though. I felt rather bad about that afterwards."

"You actually hit him?" Tonks asked.

"Only his sleeve. But he stepped back into one of the barriers, and I had time to get behind a pillar. After that, I mostly tried to stay out of his way."

I tried to picture it. The man who'd nearly apologised to our suspect for banging on the table had gone into a duel and driven an Auror back far enough to escape him.

"For the whole time?"

"I had to move quite a lot," he admitted. "Kept changing the colour of my robes to match whatever I was behind. I used to do it in the warehouse when I needed ten minutes to finish the accounts without anyone finding me."

Tonks laughed. He smiled a little more confidently.

"It was past the ten minute mark when he confronted me at the edge of the platform. He, well… uhm, he caught on to my trick and… he…" the man's voice died and Tonks and I shared a look.

"C'mon Wil, it's okay. We've all been through hell today, it can't have been that bad-" Tonks tried.

"He Vanished my clothes."

"… well, that is… one way of winning." I blinked at the man.

"After that, as you can imagine, things took a turn for the worse. The auror had me at wand point, demanded I yield. For a second I thought about fighting anyway, but… well, there's only so much courage a man can summon when he's standing in front of a committee in just his underwear and socks." Smidgeworth continued as Tonks and I just stared at him.

"I yielded and… that was it. Apparently, knowing when you're beaten and not engaging in fights you cannot win counted as proper auror instincts. He resummoned my clothes and I was led to the waiting room."

For a moment, neither of us knew how to respond to that. There was some indignation that Smidgeworth hadn't needed to last the full twelve minutes (and thirteen seconds) as we had, but then again, that indignation faded pretty quickly when we thought of what else the man had been forced to endure instead.

"Figures they'd mess with our heads about the time requirement. So far, every single test had some kind of hidden message or layer we had to figure out, makes sense they'd still try and test us even when it's presented as a straight up brawl. Good for you for seeing through it." I tried to encourage Smidgeworth.

Though that just reminded me of the examination where I had failed to get an achievement from my Gacha Grimoire and briefly I worried that by brute-forcing my way through this trial, I had lost out on an extra reward for the second time.

Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Smidgeworth looked pleased, then remembered that I hadn't answered Tonks first question when I had come into the changing rooms.

"And what about you? How did you survive your duel?"

"Hm? Oh, I won mine."

Tonks stared at me for several long seconds. "… What?"

"I got him with his own jinx. He dropped his wand, and I managed to get over there before he picked it up again." I looked down at my cup. "He yielded."

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

"You beat him?" Tonks asked, incredulous. "Julian, you're saying you beat an Auror."

"I know, I was there." I rubbed at the my still stinging arm. "I'm not saying I could do it again. He just wasn't expecting the spell to come back at him. Just my luck he had intended that spell to finish the match… which, to be fair, it did."

"… are you sure you're not secretly a Gryffindor?" Tonks asked with narrowed eyes, which got a laugh out of me.

Across from us though, Wil had gone very still.

"I don't think..." He stopped, swallowed and started again. "I don't think anyone's done that for over a hundred years."

I looked up. "What?"

"An applicant. Defeating their examiner." He glanced between us. "I read a history of the office when I was preparing. There was a section on recruitment, and one of the people they mentioned there had done it. But that was in the nineteenth century. They said nobody had managed it since."

Tonks was still looking at me as though she'd only just met me. After the morning's conversation about my resit, this was becoming a habit I could have done without. At least she seemed pleased this time.

"What did you send back?" she asked.

"Something that makes your muscles cramp. He caught my arm with a bit of it first." I opened and closed my left hand. "The second one was stronger."

"And you turned it back on him?"

"Just barely, but yes. Whatever it is, it's nasty work. Basically won the match for me; once he got hit with it, the fight was over. I don't think my gamble would've worked if he sent something weaker though, so on the whole I'm glad I managed it."

She sat back, letting out a breath. "You'll have to show me how you did that."

I began thinking of an answer that wouldn't involve telling her about the invisible book. Which is of course when it suddenly appeared over my knees and made the conversation considerably harder to follow.

Achievement recognised

A fully qualified Auror defeated in single combat during the Aurorial Appraisal.

An exceptional result achieved against a substantially more experienced opponent.

Awarded one (1) Silver Skill Ticket.

I caught myself staring before Tonks could ask what I was looking at.

"Can you guys give me a minute? I'd like to get out of these." I pulled at the torn training robes. "And wash some of this off."

"Of course." Tonks got up to let me past. "Do you need anything?"

"No. Thanks. I'll be all right."

I took my clothes into one of the cubicles and pulled the curtain closed. The grimoire followed, waiting while I sat on the little stool and examined the silver rectangle resting between its pages.

So Wil hadn't been exaggerating quite as much as I'd hoped. The book certainly considered it worth more than the written assessment.

I tore the ticket.

The knowledge arrived while I was still watching the silver fragments disappear. I knew how to hold a bow, how to draw without wasting effort in my shoulders and how to judge an arrow's flight. I knew where to put my feet with a blade in my hand. Sequences of movement made sense to me without anybody having demonstrated them, including places to cast where the spell and the strike would support each other.

It was more than I could properly examine while sitting in a changing cubicle. I reached for the book before I could become distracted trying.

[Elf Combat]

|Elite Skill|

You are trained in elven martial arts, a graceful yet lethal fighting style that blends magical affinity with swift, precise movements. Your combat style favors finesse, archery and enchanted blade work, letting you weave spells into every strike.

Elite. From a silver ticket.

I read the description again, then stood carefully. My legs were still tired, but I knew how I would move if somebody came through the curtain with a weapon. I also knew how to use the narrow space against them, and several of the options were unpleasant enough that I sat down again.

'This is… this is too much. I need to keep this secret somehow…' I quickly realized.

I'd spent seven years at school doing nothing that might explain any of this.

Tonks had shared lessons with me. McGonagall had already wanted to know why my Transfiguration had improved so suddenly. Even a new instructor would notice if I went from the performance I'd just given to moving as though I'd spent years being taught how to fight with a sword.

'I'll have to be careful. Practice privately, find legitimate opportunities to learn and let people see the improvements over time. Magician makes me a quick learner, but I still need to be seen actually learning in the first place.' I changed into clean robes as I thought it through.

It was a good problem to have. I kinda wished it had arrived before I'd allowed Renshaw to chase me round a room as if I was a pinata and his birthday had come early this year, but I wasn't going to complain about receiving an Elite Skill afterwards.

I dismissed the book and finished changing. There was a bruise forming along my hip where I'd hit the floor, which brought me back to the more immediate benefits of learning to fight properly. If this was the entrance examination, I doubted the apprenticeship was going to be gentle.

When I pulled the curtain back, Tonks was telling Wil that he ought to keep the robes from the Snitch pursuit, which his auror opponent had kindly un-Vanished.

"You've got to show her something," she said. "Take the Snitch if they'll let you. Put it on the mantelpiece."

"I'm not sure Mavis would like that."

Tonks opened her mouth, reconsidered whatever she had been about to say and looked towards me instead.

"Feeling better?"

"A bit." I sat down beside her. "Still tired."

"You look it." She passed me the water again, then moved her bag so I had more room. We waited together while the clock above the lockers ticked through another ten minutes.

---

The committee occupied a meeting room further along the corridor. By the time we were called in, I'd recovered enough to walk without complaining about my knees, though I still appreciated finding three chairs waiting on our side of the table.

Marchbanks sat with two other examiners, a silver-haired witch and a broad-faced wizard whose notes covered several sheets. Our files lay in front of them, each topped with the photograph taken from our application.

Mine looked far less tired than I felt.

"Please sit," Marchbanks said. "We've completed our review."

We obeyed. Tonks sat forward with her hands clasped together. Smidgeworth adjusted his sleeves, then his spectacles, then seemed to realise what he was doing and stopped.

"Before we give you the result, I'd like to explain some of what you were assessed on," Marchbanks continued. "The written exercise contained more material than you could reasonably investigate in two hours. We needed to see what you prioritised and whether you recognised when action couldn't wait."

She glanced down at the files.

"A complete report is of little use to the child injured while you were finishing it. All three of you requested intervention in the jewellery-box case before completing your recommendations on the seller."

Wil let out a small breath. I understood the feeling, even with the grimoire having already reassured me.

"The missing chairs were deliberate as well," the silver-haired witch added. "We were interested in how you responded to unnecessary difficulty and whether you displayed the initiative to resolve it. You were free to ask for a chair, make one or decide you worked better standing, should you have thought to see that the desks' legs were adjustable. Several candidates spent the entire exercise uncomfortable because they assumed being uncomfortable was part of the instructions."

Tonks glanced at me, and I kept my eyes on the committee.

"In the practical search," Marchbanks said, "securing a dangerous object did not conclude the investigation. We wanted you to distinguish between dealing with an immediate threat and establishing that the premises were safe. There were also opportunities to recover and interpret evidence beyond the obvious hazards."

I thought of the receipt book I'd bagged without examining the contents. I hadn't tried to work out what the missing pages meant or whether the binding on the poker connected it to anything else. I'd been occupied with keeping the furniture away from my legs.

That explained the absent ticket. I'd done enough to pass and left it there.

"The pursuit gave you a more tempting objective," the broad-faced wizard said. "A fast-moving target, a time limit and a chance to arrive before the others and bag the suspect and thus the glory. It tends to bring out habits some people would try to conceal at a desk."

By his tone of voice, it wasn't hard to figure out who he meant with 'some people' as I thought of the thirty year old man threatening to call his dad. Marchbanks took up the next sheet.

"Instead, you treated it as a shared task. Mr. Crawford initiated the coordination, Miss Tonks found a useful position despite her difficulties flying, and Mr. Smidgeworth identified the travel enchantment. Once the Snitch fell, you recovered it without losing the contents. Your group was the only one to complete that exercise successfully."

Wil looked down at his repaired spectacles. Tonks nudged his elbow beneath the table, and he managed a smile.

"Your interview relied on an opportunity particular to the exercise," Marchbanks continued. "You won't routinely find criminals willing to explain their role once they believe a performance is over. You did, however, recognise what this individual wanted, established a plan and used each member of the team to carry it out. Those are skills we can develop."

She turned to the final page.

"The duels tested how you behaved when a plan became difficult to maintain. Miss Tonks, you continued defending yourself under pressure. Mr. Smidgeworth, you took an opening and then used concealment to compensate for your opponent's advantage, knowing when it was wisest to admit defeat rather than keep fighting pointlessly. Mr. Crawford..."

I sat a little straighter.

"You forced a surrender."

The broad-faced wizard looked at me over his notes. I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing.

"There is a great deal for all three of you to learn," Marchbanks said. "That is what the apprenticeship is for. Today's appraisal establishes whether we believe you have the judgement and capacity to undertake it."

She closed the file.

"You have all passed. Congratulations."

Tonks let out a breath that was almost a laugh. Beside her, Smidgeworth stared at Marchbanks and then at the closed files, apparently waiting for her to open one again and explain why, actually, his result didn't count.

I barely noticed, still stuck on Marchbanks's first words.

'I … passed?'

For a moment, I couldn't think beyond that. I'd spent the morning worrying about the written test, the afternoon being attacked by household objects and the last hour wondering whether beating my examiner might somehow count against me. Now the people responsible for deciding whether or not I even had a future in law enforcement had finally finished their discussion, and apparently, the answer was 'yes'.

Tonks caught my arm under the table. When I looked at her, she was grinning so broadly that I found myself doing the same.

Then the grimoire appeared above my file.

Achievement recognised

Aurorial Appraisal completed successfully.

Accepted for Auror apprenticeship following all required assessments.

Rare achievement recognised.

Awarded one (1) Golden Ability Ticket.

That certainly got my attention. Another Golden ticket was waiting between the pages, but even though I badly wanted to know what I'd won, I forced myself to ignore it. Reaching for something invisible right in front of the committee before the ink on my acceptance letter had even had a chance to dry seemed like a good way to have said letter torn to shreds right in front of me. Instead, I deliberately kept looking past the Gacha Grimoire's pages at Marchbanks, trying to remember what she'd said before the ticket had risen out of the page.

The silver-haired witch had moved on to tomorrow's reporting arrangements, so I concentrated on listening while Tonks continued gripping my arm beneath the table. Smidgeworth was having rather less success containing himself and had begun tearfully thanking the examiners from her other side.

I almost wanted to join in. I also wanted them to stop talking long enough for me to find somewhere private and see what I'd won.

"Your mentors will be assigned tomorrow morning," the witch said. "Report to Auror Headquarters at nine. The three of you are this year's only successful applicants; you'll receive the remaining induction material together."

The broad-faced wizard grinned at us, his more serious demeanor fading rapidly now that the official part had apparently come to an end. "Three recruits in one year. That's a good intake."

"High, but hardly unprecedented," Marchbanks responded.

"Perhaps not, but when was the last time all three came from the same House?"

Marchbanks paused at that. "I couldn't say."

"All Hufflepuffs, too." the man said with undisguised pride, even giving us a nod that I hesitantly returned.

She considered us for another moment before giving a small nod. "That may actually be a first."

Tonks looked delighted. Smidgeworth merely blinked, apparently still struggling with the idea that they'd meant it when they said he'd passed.

"Thank you," I said, dragging my attention away from the tantalizing Golden ticket long enough to mean it.

Marchbanks rose from her chair and began gathering the files in front of her. Tonks was already getting to her feet, so Smidgeworth and I followed, exchanging handshakes with the committee before making our way towards the door.

We'd barely made it into the corridor before Tonks turned around and threw both arms around me.

"We did it!"

I laughed, returning the hug carefully while my shoulder reminded me it had had a long day. She let go and turned to Smidgeworth before he could intercept the human missile that was Tonks. He stood stiffly for a moment as she embraced him, then patted her back with an expression of dazed pleasure.

"I really ought to tell Mavis," he said when she released him.

"In a minute. We're celebrating first." Tonks looked between us. "Ice cream. Fortescue's. My treat, and neither of you is saying no."

"I wasn't going to," I assured her.

Wil opened his mouth, glanced at us both and closed it again. "I suppose I could send an owl from the Alley."

"Exactly. Come on!"

She took his arm and started towards the lifts. I followed for a few steps, then slowed beside an empty alcove.

"Just a moment. I need to check something."

Tonks waved without turning round. Smidgeworth had begun asking whether she was quite sure all three of us had been accepted, and she was assuring him that he'd heard correctly.

I pulled the grimoire closer and caught the golden ticket. Counterspell Casting had come from one of these. After what it had done for me today, I was trying very hard not to expect too much from the next one (not that I was very successful, I had always been an overly optimistic Hufflepuff).

I tore it before I could spend any more time wondering.

[Detection Magic]

|Elite Ability|

Allows you to sense the presence of anything using magic as the medium, gaining detailed information about what you find including its size, quantity, and whether it is hidden. Tracking Evasion users can slip past your senses.

I read the words twice, trying not to feel too disappointed. It wasn't as immediately impressive as being able to turn someone's spell against them. Then I remembered the room full of enchanted furniture and the missing reward I'd been sulking over afterwards.

I let a little magic spread out from me.

The cupboard opposite contained six shelves, four crates and a narrow space behind the lower boards. There was something wrapped in cloth in that space, small and flat, concealed where I wouldn't have thought to look. Further along, I could sense two people passing behind a closed door. I hadn't heard either of them approach.

I drew the magic back before I became distracted examining things I had no business investigating.

Back in the mock-up of the crime scene, I'd needed to expose myself to the cursed poker before I could establish what was there. I'd recovered a receipt book without knowing whether something more important was hidden nearby. With this, I could search the place before putting my hands anywhere near its contents.

The lack of a reward made rather more sense now. I'd missed opportunities because I hadn't even known they were there.

I closed the grimoire, already thinking about how I'd use Detection Magic the next time somebody asked me to investigate a room. It might not look as dramatic as sending a curse back at its caster, but I could see myself using it every day.

"Julian!" Tonks called. "The lift's here!"

I tucked my wand away and hurried to join them before the grille closed. I could put off planning my future career and possible Gacha rewards for tomorrow.

For now, there was a bowl of ice-cream with my name on it.

---

AN: You can read up to 5 chapters ahead over on my Patreon

 

[aokway]

Elf Combat

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Detection Magic

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Wizards have magic
This is basically magic Byakugon
You are officially in "spy movie action hero" levels of fighting skill

 

[KingNecron101]

Loved the chapter. All the characters so far have been very charming. Also love to see Tonks be part of the main cast.

 

[Kaithar]

So Tonks is the love interest, right? Riiiiight?! *glare*

For a fraction of a second it seemed to hang between us, bent sharply around the end of my wand, before to my own surprise, it snapped back the way it had come.

Click to shrink...

Um, what? His wand is over yonder on the ground... am I missing something?

 

[Ralyx]

For a fraction of a second it seemed to hang between us, bent sharply around the end of my wand,

Click to shrink...

Continuity error: he does not have his wand at this point.

 

[l---erddad---l]

Those rolls are wild. Combat jumpstart if I've ever seen one.

 

[FTR2017]

Excellent chapter, I look forward to Crawford slowly changing from his Hufflepuff mediocrity straight into Green Hornet territory with the nonsense he can pull off.

 

[Yohnos]

He basically got the six eyes now, he just needs to get an equivalent of limitless

 

[RandomWebPasserBy]

So Tonks is the love interest, right? Riiiiight?! *glare*


Um, what? His wand is over yonder on the ground... am I missing something?

Click to shrink...

I think the author wanted to write hand and wrote wand by mistake.

 

[Kaithar]

I think the author wanted to write hand and wrote wand by mistake.

Click to shrink...

Ooooh, that would definitely make sense. Though, "end of my hand" is a little odd in phrasing, normally it'd be "back of my hand" or "tips of my fingers" or something... still, the scene makes sense which is the important part.

 

[RandomWebPasserBy]

I really like Wil, a middle aged man with a boring life going through his mid-life crisis and decides to try his hand at changing his life starting by trying a different job and surprise both himself and others by being good at it.

 

[Alltier]

Hoping for him to get the old blood trait or the caryll runes skill

 

[Red_Faux]

Get ready for a reputation of a man who refused to apply himself until now. Because it certainly looks like you just needed to actually try, and you had a bad case of "lazy as shit" syndrome. Not very Hufflepuff of you.

 

[Kaithar]

I think his best option of playing it off would be try claim some kind of magical inheritance from his mother's bloodline that had a condition only fulfilled after graduating... like "only revealed itself once I received my NEWT results", though something more mystical like "my 18th midsummer" would be more ideal... conveniently explains why he only started demonstrating talent now, why he's showing some unusual tricks like the counter curse, and can be played off as being something that needs time to stabilise and fully apply. It works nicely in this context with his mum having died already and bloodline magic being both something no one will push too hard to dig into and being rare and powerful enough to justify a gradual power creep. It's 100% the kind of thing an old pure blood line would do, concealing the details of a comprehension or manipulation talent behind a plausible obfuscation, so those jerks can be used to shield investigation into "Family Secrets" and such

 

[Bakkughan]

I think the author wanted to write hand and wrote wand by mistake.

Click to shrink...

Nope, I just fucked up. I changed my mind right before the upload about having Julian cast Counterspell wandlessly to show that it is tied to the Chaos Gacha and operates on different rules than the native magic. Had to make a bunch of edits, but this one slipped past :/

 

[Bakkughan]

Chapter Seven​

​

---

As soon as I got an apartment of my own, I was going to install a fireplace.

It could be in the smallest, dampest flat in Britain, provided somebody had connected it to the Floo Network, I couldn't care less. Watching the pavement rise past my face hadn't become any more pleasant the second time I took the disguised Ministry entrance, and I could have done without the brief stretch where there was nothing beyond the telephone box's windows but dark packed earth (especially since my mind immediately began to wonder about what would happen if the cramped cubicle just… stopped halfway).

Whoever had designed the visitors' entrance presumably arrived by some other means. That, or they were one of those adrenaline freaks that enjoyed cave diving and thought dying because they got stuck in some of the planet's most inhospitable places was an acceptable risk for a hobby to have.

Even Gryffindors weren't that insane… most of the time.

Dismissing the claustrophobic telephone box with a shrug, I pinned on the small medal and collected my wand from the security desk. I didn't take long before I found Tonks waving at me from beside the lifts. Smidgeworth stood with her, holding a leather bag against his stomach. Both looked considerably more awake than I felt.

"Morning!" Tonks said. "How's the arm?"

"Better. Still a bit sore." I flexed my fingers for her benefit. "Did you two get any sleep?"

"Eventually. Dad wanted to hear everything again when I got home. Apparently, reading the acceptance letter, twice mind you, wasn't enough." She smiled, then stepped aside as a wizard hurried past us carrying a cage full of rattling teacups.

"Your parents must be pleased," Smidgeworth said warmly.

"They are. Dad wanted to know whether there'd be a photograph of the three of us in the Prophet. I told him we hadn't actually done anything yet, but he reckons just passing the Auroral Appraisal and even getting in ought to count."

"There might be," Smidgeworth said. "It is quite an honour. And, apparently, a record for us Hufflepuffs."

"Don't tell him that. He'll write in, tell them to get my good side. As if I even have one." Tonks laughed a bit self-consciously, her hair going through a rainbow of colours. "Even if I did, I could just make every side my good side!"

I smiled at her enthusiasm, but privately hoped the papers wouldn't want a photograph just yet. I'd checked my acceptance letter again before leaving the house, and still felt as though someone might take it off me and apologise for the misunderstanding.

"What about your mum?" I asked and Tonks tugged at the strap of her bag.

"Proud. She kept telling me she knew I could do it, which made one of us at least. Then she wanted to know who'd be teaching me. And when they'd expect us to go out on cases. And whether we'd have someone with us the whole time if we ever go out into the field."

"Does she know anyone here?" I asked.

"A few people. Mostly she just wants to be sure they're looking after us properly." She paused. "She worries. That's all."

I nodded and left it there. I'd heard enough at school about Tonks' maternal family to know better than to ask which people her mum knew at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Andromeda Tonks had been a Black before she'd married a Muggle-born wizard and taken his name, and there were still people who considered that worth gossiping about twenty years later, especially since just barely over a decade ago, her cousin Sirius Black (in)famously betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord.

Marrying Ted Tonks had taken some spine, considering the family Tonk's mum had to leave to do it. I could understand why she'd want to know a few names before trusting the Ministry to look after her daughter. She'd grown up with exactly the sort of people I'd hopefully be given several years of Auror training before having to meet after all.

"What about you? How did your dad take it?" Tonks asked as the lift arrived.

"Hugged me. Told me he was proud of me. Asked whether anyone I arrested would be able to turn me into an animal."

"Oh."

"I should have said no…"

She waited until we'd stepped inside and Smidgeworth had found a place beside the rail. "What did you say?"

"That I'd have three years of training before I had to worry about that. Then he wanted to know whether being turned back hurt and how he'd recognise me if I came home like that. Who he ought to call if a strange animal kept coming back to the house, animal control or the Ministry."

Tonks pressed her lips together as she valiantly tried to suppress the shaking of her shoulders. Smidgeworth looked genuinely concerned.

"I told him they'd train you to deal with that," I added. "Which helped until he asked what happened if they turned the instructor into something as well."

That got a laugh out of Tonks, though she looked apologetic about it afterwards as I sighed, the conversation turning a bit darker.

"Then he asked about injuries. The hospital, Saint Mungo's, what they could do if I ever got hurt and if they had a way of contacting him more directly than just by bird. He even asked whether he could post bits of me there separately."

"Oh." Tonks blinked up at me, disturbed.

"Apparently, if you're quick enough, you can reattach fingers as long as you keep them cold. Muggle ones, I mean. He'd seen something about it on the television."

I'd spent seven years assuming Bob Crawford lacked the imagination to really understand my education, fruitlessly trying to get Dad to take an interest in things more exciting than whether I'd remembered to pack enough socks. Now he'd discovered that criminals could do magic too, and I'd spent most of dinner wishing I could go back to discussing laundry. The man's imagination had gone into overdrive over dinner.

He was proud of me. He'd said so more than once, and I hadn't missed the way he'd put my acceptance letter beside my diploma instead of leaving it with the rest of the post. But as far as he understood it, his little boy had just joined the police in a world where even the furniture could try to eat him.

Knowing Dad, he'd have felt better if he could have come here himself and asked someone to explain it all. Knowing the Ministry, that would probably just have made things worse.

I could have done without quite so many worries and suggestions about my eventual injuries, though. Every reassurance only reminded Dad of something else that might happen to me, before he tried to convince me (or perhaps more so himself) that something like that was highly unlikely and I just shouldn't think about it.

"But what if someone blasts your legs off and those doctors at St. Mangoes grow you new feet except they put 'em on backwards? Uhm… I mean, son, I'm so glad you're going to become cop… I mean, magical police officer… but, what if-?"

There were only so many times someone could tell you not to think about pink elephants before you started picturing them. By the time we'd finished washing up, my imagination had acquired an entire rainbow-coloured zoo.

Apparently, knowing exactly what an Auror did and having absolutely no idea whatsoever were equally effective ways of worrying yourself sick.

"And Mavis?" Tonks asked, turning to Smidgeworth. "What did she say when you got home?"

He looked down at his bag, a small, hesitant smile appearing beneath his spectacles.

"Well, nothing. At first, at least."

That didn't sound promising. I glanced at Tonks. Her smile had become rather fixed.

"Right," I said. "Was that... good?"

"I wasn't sure. She took the forms and read them, then asked if they were mine. So I showed her where they'd put my name." He adjusted his grip on the bag. "She went quite quiet again after that."

The lift lurched sideways. I caught the rail, trying to decide how much responsibility I bore if yesterday's encouragement had just cost the man his marriage. From the look Tonks gave me, she was having similar thoughts.

"But then, this morning… look!" He brought his bag round in front of him and undid the buckle.

We both looked inside. There was a parcel of sandwiches, an apple, a little pot with a spoon tucked beside it and a thick slice of cake wrapped separately in paper. It was considerably more than I'd brought.

"Ham and mustard, she knows that's my favourite…" he said, sounding almost disbelieving. "And there's some of yesterday's pudding. She said I'd need a proper meal if I was going to be on my feet all day."

Tonks's expression softened. "That's lovely, Wil."

"Yes. And when I left, she..." He put the sandwiches back with some care before looking up at us, beaming now. "She gave me a kiss. On the cheek. Told me not to be late for dinner."

Tonks caught my eye over his bag. Smidgeworth looked so pleased with himself that I felt rather bad about having spent the last few seconds wondering whether we'd talked him into a divorce. Still, I'd met the man only yesterday. There was probably a great deal about his marriage I didn't understand, and I was happy to keep it that way if he was going to look this pleased about some packed lunch and a peck on the cheek.

"Well done, Wil," I said instead. "Sounds like you surprised her."

"I think I did." He carefully closed the bag again. "I rather think I did."

"Wait until she sees you in the uniform," Tonks added as she wiggled her eyebrows (quite literally too, they almost looked like furry caterpillars before turning back to normal).

He straightened a little at that. The lift announced our floor before he could answer, and we followed the first of the violet memos out through the opening grille.

---

Auror Headquarters was already busy when we arrived. A witch at the front desk checked our names, told us Marchbanks was expecting us and pointed out a bench along the wall. We'd barely sat down before she appeared through the inner doors.

"Good. All here." She checked the clock. We were twelve minutes early, which probably counted as being barely on time by Auror standards. "Bring your things. We'll get you fitted before your instructors arrive."

The changing rooms were familiar, although someone had cleaned away all the evidence of yesterday's assessment. Three bundles of dark robes waited on the long bench, each with a pair of boots beneath it. Marchbanks gave us our locker numbers and directed Tonks towards the adjoining room.

"Try everything. If something doesn't fit, tell me before we leave."

Smidgeworth almost reverently picked up his bundle with both hands. I took mine into a cubicle and discovered that whoever had prepared them already knew my measurements. The sleeves ended neatly at my wrists, the shoulders sat properly, and I didn't have to curl my toes inside the boots. After seven years of growing out of things while Dad insisted they'd fitted perfectly well when he bought them, I spent a moment enjoying that.

The robes were heavier than my school ones, with reinforced seams and an inside pocket positioned where I could reach my wand without needing to rummage around in there. There was a Ministry crest on the breast, a small marking beneath it identifying me as a trainee, and a line of neat gold stitching.

Julian A. Crawford

I ran a thumb over the letters, grinning at my reflection before a less pleasant thought occurred to me. Was advertising my name to everyone I arrested really a good idea? A simple charm could probably cover it.

Then again, letting government employees hide their identities was probably frowned upon for a reason. People were entitled to know who was arresting them; if I'd wanted anonymity, I should have applied to the Unspeakables instead.

I decided to leave the stitching alone and stepped outside.

Smidgeworth was standing in front of the mirror, turning slightly to see how the robes sat across his shoulders. He stopped when he noticed me watching.

"Do these look all right?"

"Yes. Much better than yesterday's."

He looked down at himself, then gave a quiet laugh. "Rather more complete, certainly."

Tonks came back through the adjoining door while I was putting my old clothes away. Her hair was a bright, cheerful pink, and she gave a little twirl as she came in (almost sending her face-first into a nearby locker).

"Look at us," she said, smiling as she took in Smidgeworth and me. "We actually look like we belong here."

Marchbanks inspected us, adjusted one of Smidgeworth's cuffs with a flick of her wand and waited until we'd secured our belongings before leading us back out. The next room was further inside the department, with four chairs, a low table and a window looking onto a stretch of corridor.

"Your instructors will collect you here." She handed each of us a folded timetable. "Keep those with you. The first round of classes begins next week. Your mentor will deal with the rest of your induction today."

I unfolded mine, then blanched at just how tightly packed my schedule was to be for the foreseeable future. This made prepping for my NEWT exams practically look like a holiday.

"For the next three years, you'll be attached to your supervising Auror," Marchbanks continued. "You'll assist with their investigations, accompany them in the field when authorised and help maintain their casework. That includes reports and outstanding administrative work. You're there to learn the whole job."

Smidgeworth's eyes moved down his timetable.

"Are these courses away from the Ministry, ma'am?"

"Specialist instruction. Some are held at the DMLE; others use specialist teaching facilities. You'll find the addresses on the back. Your instructor is responsible for making sure you attend, but I suggest you take responsibility for knowing where you're meant to be."

I turned to the list on the back of the time-table and almost let out a low whistle at the sheer list of addresses, all of them apparently offering specialist classes to aspiring Aurors.

'Though I do wonder how Advanced Combat Pottery fits into that, career-wise?' I couldn't help but wonder, before Marchbanks' stern voice pulled me from my thoughts.

"When you aren't in class, you report to your instructor. They'll assign your reading and review your work. If they're called out, they decide whether you join them directly in the field or remain here with something to do."

"Do we stay with the same person throughout?" I asked.

"Barring a reassignment, yes. You'll be their shadow for the duration." She looked between us. "Ask questions while there's someone willing, or that very least paid, to answer them. And remember that passing yesterday merely entitles you to training. Your instructors will tell you when you're ready for more."

She left us with our timetables and a warning not to wonder off and closed the door. For a little while, we sat examining our timetables. Someone went past the window with a mug in one hand and a file in the other. Smidgeworth watched him go, an unusually serious look on his face.

"They do sometimes forget," he said.

Tonks looked up. "Who?"

"The supervisors. We had trainees in Transportation occasionally. It depended very much on who they were assigned to." He smoothed his timetable against his knee. "One young fellow spent most of his first month just… carrying things from one office to the next and back. His supervisor used to complain if he was late with the tea."

"Did he learn anything?"

"How everyone took it, certainly. He quickly became very good at that."

"Please tell me they eventually taught him something else. Anything else…" I asked, a bit worried now.

"I believe so. Although, he did transfer." Smidgeworth hesitated. "It shouldn't be like that here. Not after everything we had to do yesterday. They wouldn't go to all that trouble just to have someone fetch their coffee."

Tonks didn't look convinced. Neither was I.

"Mind you," Smidgeworth added, "I'm not entirely sure I'd object. To a quiet morning, I mean. Just to start with."

Which was when the door blew off its hinges.

It hit the table hard enough to send the timetables and a little dish of paperclips flying. Something bounced through the opening and rolled beneath a chair, hissing. I was already on the floor beside my seat when smoke began pouring out around our ankles.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

My wand cleared my pocket, and I found myself crouching with my shoulder against the wall, well out of the doorway. I hadn't thought about moving there, but Elf Combat apparently had, which I'd have appreciated more if my eyes hadn't been streaming from the smoke. I heard Smidgeworth cough somewhere to my right.

"Get down!" Tonks shouted.

I was already as low as I could reasonably get. My new combat knowledge offered several ways of moving out of the doorway's line of fire, most of which required me to know where everyone else was. I pushed a little magic out through the room as I tried to 'feel' my way through the smoke. Tonks was crouched behind the other chair. Smidgeworth had got himself against the wall, one arm over his head. Someone stood in the doorway, with more people approaching quickly from the corridor.

Detection Magic didn't tell me which one of them had thrown the smoke bomb, so just to be safe I kept my wand on the opening, trying not to breathe too deeply as the grey cloud rapidly filled the room.

"Wands down! Identify yourself!" a voice snapped from outside.

"It's Moody!" someone else called. "Alastor, what are you doing?"

A gust swept through the room. The smoke thinned, then rushed towards the ruined doorway in a grey stream as it was sucked up by one of the auror's wands, leaving me crouched beside an overturned chair with my wand aimed at a wooden leg.

It belonged to a man whose face looked as though someone had tried very hard to remove it. Scars ran across what remained of his nose and cheek, and one of his eyes was much too large and much too blue. It swivelled towards my wand while the normal one stayed on Tonks.

Alastor Moody.

Even if I hadn't heard his exasperated colleagues shout his name, there weren't many other people he could have been. Though even the most outlandish tales about the man (and there were several) hadn't prepared me for just how weird it was to see someone look at two people simultaneously that way. I resisted the urge to lean further round my chair and see whether the electric blue eye would follow.

Beside the doorway, three Aurors were lowering their wands with expressions ranging from annoyance to weary recognition.

"There are people working in here, Alastor." one of them said.

"Then they ought to have reacted faster." Moody's attention turned towards Smidgeworth, who was both trying very hard and failing miserably at trying to disguise his coughing behind his sleeve. "And you three! You ought to know better than to sit with your backs to a door. You intend to turn yourself into sitting Mooncalves on your first day on the job?!"

Moody was still facing Smidgeworth, but his blue eye lingered on my drawn wand before turning towards the patch of wall I'd ducked behind. It followed me as I got to my feet.

"Now there is a proper paranoid lad who knows the meaning of 'Constant Vigilance'. A shame really," the grizzled auror muttered under his breath. "Dunno why Marchbanks and Bones got all up in arms about not giving him to me."

"Alastor," the woman who'd cleared the smoke interrupted, "you've broken the door."

He shrugged and stepped over the smashed wood and turned towards Tonks, although it took his magical eye another moment to follow.

"Tonks. With me."

Her hair had gone white. She looked from him to me while she got to her feet, eyes wide above the collar of her new robes.

I gave her a thumbs up. There wasn't much else I could offer without volunteering to go along, and I wasn't feeling quite that supportive.

She snatched up her bag and hurried after him.

"Imperius Curse," Moody said as his wooden leg thumped away down the corridor with rather more speed than I would have expected from a one-legged man. Tonks had to quicken her pace just to keep up. "How do you spot someone who's under it?"

Tonks's answer became too faint to make out as they rounded the corner.

"Are you two all right?"

I turned back to the witch in the doorway. Smidgeworth was still coughing into his sleeve, his bag clutched against his chest.

"Yes, thank you," he managed. "Just startled."

Her eyes travelled past us to the door and the mess scattered across the floor.

"I'll speak to Marchbanks."

From her expression, I suspected Marchbanks was going to hear rather more about it than that. She stepped back into the office, leaving Smidgeworth and me alone in the corridor. I stood my chair up and helped Smidgeworth retrieve the timetables. The smoke bomb had stopped hissing by now. Since I had no idea what to do with it, I left it under the chair and pointed my wand at the door instead.

"Reparo."

The split wood pulled together. A hinge scraped across the floor and fitted itself back into place as I guided the door towards its frame. The second hinge was just fastening when a tall, bald wizard appeared on the other side.

The small gold hoop in his ear caught the light as he looked at the door, then at my raised wand, then back at the door.

"I... didn't do that, sir."

His expression gave me nothing.

"Wilburton Eleanor Meredith Smidgeworth?" he simply asked in a rich voice.

"Yes!" Smidgeworth got up so quickly he nearly undid my work with the chair. "Yes, sir. That's me."

Shacklebolt hadn't even paused over the middle names. I was fairly sure he was the first person I'd heard manage that, and immediately found myself hoping he was here to collect both of us.

"I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt. You'll be working with me. Have you got everything?"

Smidgeworth checked his pockets, then his bag. "Yes! Uhm, yes… I believe so."

"Good. Come along."

Smidgeworth gave me a small, relieved smile as he followed him out. Shacklebolt held the door while he passed through, glanced once at the hinges and let it close gently behind them.

I put the scattered paperclips back in their dish and sat down to wait.

---

My own instructor arrived a few minutes later.

He was a tough-looking man with wiry grey hair cropped close to his head, wearing robes that sat very straight across his shoulders. He stopped just inside the doorway, glanced at the empty chairs and looked at me.

"So, I take it you must be Julian. Follow me."

'Great deduction, Mr Detective, sir.' I thought, though I took care not to let anything show on my face. I didn't fancy finding out if this man belonged to the Mad-Eye Mood school of thought when it came to training new Aurors.

I gathered my things and followed him out. I still hadn't caught his name, but apparently that could wait until after he'd finished giving orders.

We passed between rows of occupied desks and partitions covered in notices, photographs and scraps of parchment. A pair of witches were arguing quietly over a map. Further along, somebody was trying to persuade a file to stop snapping shut whenever he put his fingers near it.

The man's own desk stood against one of the partitions. It was tidier than most of the others, with its files in labelled trays and a thick reference book open beside the blotter. A smaller desk had been placed at right angles to it. There was a chair, an inkwell and nothing else.

He pointed me towards it.

"John Dawlish. You'll address me as sir while we're on duty."

"Yes, sir. Julian Crawford. Pleased to meet you."

He'd already opened a folder, so I sat down and tried to work out where to put my bag without trapping my feet. My own photograph looked up at me from his desk. Somebody had underlined several things on the page beneath it.

"No advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts. No Potions. Merely an Acceptable in Transfiguration."

"Outstanding, sir. On the replacement certificate."

He tapped the original result with his finger.

"And yet you only managed an Acceptable the first time. Care to explain that, Crawford?"

He waited, apparently expecting something more. I looked from him to the folder, where the original grade remained underlined.

"I didn't have the marks to continue Defence or Potions after OWLs," I explained, to fill the silence if nothing else. "And I wasn't planning on becoming an Auror then."

"What were you planning?"

"Something in Herbology, possibly. Professor Sprout thought I could do well at it."

"And did you pursue that?"

"No. I decided I'd rather do this."

"After your final examinations." He put a finger on the underlined grade. "At which point you discovered you weren't qualified."

I was beginning to see why he'd kept the old certificate.

"That's why I resat Transfiguration."

"You were permitted to resit it. There's a difference. Personally, I don't consider changing your mind about your career sufficient grounds for a second attempt."

I bristled at that.

"Professor McGonagall tested me first. She wouldn't arrange anything until I'd shown her I could do better."

"You'd already had two years in which to show her that. You would have been better served applying yourself more before the exams rolled around, rather than after the fact."

That stung a little more than I wanted it to. Not that there was anything wrong with working hard. I'd spent seven years doing a fair amount of it myself, although the results hadn't been nearly as impressive until an invisible book began handing me prizes.

But McGonagall had made me work for that resit, and the examiner hadn't handed me an Outstanding just because I'd asked nicely. I had earned that mark.

"I took the full examination, sir." I said, somewhat defensively now.

"And the committee accepted your application. I'm aware," His finger settled on the edge of the folder. "I'm explaining that you won't receive special arrangements from me. I achieved an Outstanding in every NEWT I sat, Crawford, every single one. On my first attempt."

"Well done, sir." I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from saying anything more, though thankfully Dawlish didn't seem to notice.

"I did it by putting in the hours. Particularly in the areas I found difficult. There wasn't a subject I could afford to neglect because I found something else more interesting."

I could believe that. The open reference book had been underlined in much the same way as my certificate. What little space remained in the margins was packed with notes, and even the notes had additions squeezed between them. He probably would have been horrified by the messy drawings in my old Potions book, although in my defence it was difficult to concentrate on antidotes once Snape had started explaining why you shouldn't be trusted with a spoon.

Dawlish turned to the appraisal reports.

"Your assessment raises other concerns."

I resisted the urge to look at the clock. We'd been together less than ten minutes, and I was already starting to miss the room with the smoke bomb.

"The committee did mention there were things I needed to improve, yes-" I tried, but the older man continued on as if he hadn't even heard me.

"Several concerns, in fact. Your approach to the interview, for example. I see you arranged to have Miss Tonks impersonate the examiner."

"He thought the exercise was over. He'd been playing a character, so we got him out of it."

"You were meant to question him."

"We did. He told us where the rest of the stock was."

"After you'd persuaded him the assessment had ended. What does that tell me about your ability to conduct a proper interview? One with an actual suspect and not a mediocre actor?"

I didn't immediately have an answer to that. I'd mostly been interested in getting the information out of him at the time, and in whether Smidgeworth could keep up his performance without apologising to the man he was meant to be threatening.

The annoying thing was, as sour as he was being for some reason, Dawlish did have a point: I couldn't expect to spend my entire career interviewing amateur actors. I did need to learn how to question people who had a better reason to keep their mouths shut than loyalty to the Diagon Dramatic Society.

It was the way he kept returning to the fact we'd tried something different in the first place that bothered me.

"Marchbanks said we'd done well," I said sullenly. "She was there for it."

"Auror Marchbanks was satisfied with the result. But she is not your supervising officer; I am. And according to me, your little… 'trick' hasn't demonstrated any familiarity with proper investigatory techniques." He put the report down. "You'll learn the approved interview methods before you start deciding how to improve on them. There's a reason we teach them."

I clenched my jaw at that and tried not to lament the fact that it wasn't Marchbanks who was chosen to be my supervisor instead.

"The same applies to fieldwork. You report to the Auror in charge and follow instructions. You don't assign yourself command of a pursuit because you think you can organise it better. You had been assigned no authority over the other candidates."

I stared at him. "Authority? I asked them to help."

"You tried to commandeer Auberon Selwyn to join your pursuit, then physically intercepted him and tackled him off his broom when he did not follow your orders."

"I tackled him to save that idiot-!"

He gave me a level look. I made myself calm down before I said something I couldn't take back.

"We were just trying to work together, sir. There was no command-"

"There is now."

That effectively shut me up. Dawlish leaned closer towards me, his voice brooking no argument.

"You answer to me. I answer to my superiors. That's how this department functions, and it's how we maintain standards. When the Ministry gives you an instruction, Crawford, your job is to carry it out. When I give you a task, I expect you to complete that task as directed. If you believe the instructions are inadequate, you come to me. You don't decide on your own that you have a better use for the people or resources assigned to an investigation."

"Understood."

"Sir."

"Understood, sir."

I looked down at the edge of my desk, my jaw clenched. I hadn't joined the Aurors expecting to be given a wand and told to do whatever I fancied. There were whole subjects I needed to learn, I knew that. That was rather the point of applying in order to make the most of my Magician reward. But we'd found a way to get Plume talking when the questions weren't working, and kept Selwyn from grabbing a Portkey while he was busy ignoring us.

I just couldn't work out what Dawlish wanted me to regret about either of those things.

It wasn't going to make things any easier with the grimoire, either. I'd completed the search of the sitting room exactly as instructed and earned nothing. Taking the extra step had been what counted. I couldn't tell Dawlish I had a personal interest in being inventive because an invisible book handed out prizes, but asking his permission every time an idea occurred to me didn't seem likely to produce many of them.

"You'll need to make up the gaps in your education," Dawlish continued. "That takes sustained work. A single improved result doesn't—"

"Dawlish!" a loud voice boomed out across the cubicles.

A square-jawed witch with close-cropped grey hair and a monocle stopped beside his desk with several files under her arm. He shot up at once, almost catching my foot with his chair.

"Ma'am Bones."

"This your trainee?" She looked at me before he could answer. "Crawford, isn't it? Marchbanks tells me you got Renshaw to surrender."

"Yes, ma'am." I answered.

Dawlish' foot kicked one of the legs of my chair and under his foreboding gaze I hurriedly got to my feet as well, though his superior didn't seem to particularly mind, instead studying me with a piercing gaze.

"First in over a hundred years, apparently. Marchbanks was over the moon; seems like you won her quite a lot of Galleons. You must be pleased."

I was, actually. I'd been rather pleased with my Transfiguration result too, before Dawlish had begun tearing it apart, but something about the woman's glinting eyes told me this was a test of some sort, so I chose my words carefully.

"I am very grateful things worked out for me. Auror Renshaw was very skilled, though thankfully he underestimated me and I was fortunate enough to make use of the opportunity." I said demurely.

The austere woman held my gaze for several long moments before she let out a booming laugh.

"Ha! 'Fortunate opportunity' he says; that's certainly one way to call a full counter to the Slovakian Constriction Curse! With a feat like that under your belt, I wouldn't count on any further opponents within the DMLE underestimating you a second time. Though I imagine you'll make for a nasty little surprise against out more… willful suspects. Eh, Dawlish?"

"As you say, ma'am Bones." The man ground out as if made from wood and the square-jawed witch looked him up and down for a moment before shrugging and turning back to me again.

"Well, we'll be watching how you get on in any case. Settled in all right?"

"Just getting started," Dawlish said before I could answer. "I'm taking him through his assessment." He explained, clearly trying to signal that the conversation was at an end.

For a moment, I hoped Bones would remain but clearly, as his superior she had a workload of her own to get back to.

"Good. Oh, and I'm still waiting on those archive returns, Dawlish. Records are on my ass enough already as it is."

"You'll have them by Friday, ma'am."

She moved on, calling to someone on the far side of the office. Dawlish remained standing until she'd passed the next partition, then sat down and turned several pages in my file.

"Explain what happened with Renshaw." He said without looking up at me.

There was a note of bitterness in hit tone that I very deliberately chose not to examine further as I slowly sat back down again.

I gave him the same account I'd given Tonks and Smidgeworth. Renshaw had pressured me until I couldn't keep defending myself. I'd realised I might be able to reverse one of his spells, provoked him into committing to a stronger one and barely managed to send it back.

Dawlish listened without interrupting. His attention sharpened when I reached the reversal.

"He'd already cast when you began?"

"Yes. I had to catch what he was doing."

"And if he'd followed it with a second spell?"

"I'd have been in trouble. Just stopping that first one took nearly everything I had."

He found the Healer's note and read that as well.

"Renshaw is an experienced Auror, Crawford. We don't select new graduates to assess applicants. He should have known better than to commit himself that way."

I remembered being backed across the floor with a cramped hand, trying to find enough breath to insult a man who'd been quite capable of hurting me without the need for any encouragement. It hadn't felt as though Renshaw was doing me a favour at the time.

"He let you dictate the exchange," Dawlish said. "I wouldn't have given you that opening."

"Right."

"Sir."

"Right, sir."

I hadn't asked whether I could beat him. Still, when he'd said the trick wouldn't work on him, he'd sounded very certain for someone who'd just needed it explained twice.

"Experience and proper preparation are what makes the difference. You'll find that the Aurors who progress here are the ones who can be relied upon to perform their duties consistently. Senior officers may take an interest in an unusual result, but they'll expect more than one."

"I understand."

He waited.

"Sir."

The folder closed. I couldn't quite shake the impression that he'd been happier discussing my Acceptable than my win. Perhaps he was simply tired of hearing about it. I was beginning to sympathise, and it had happened to me.

Dawlish reached beneath his desk and pulled out a heavy wooden box. He set it on mine with enough force to make the inkwell jump, then retrieved a second and stacked it beside the first, leaving very little room for my elbows.

Dust settled onto my new sleeves.

"We'll start with case administration."

I looked into the nearest box. Files had been packed upright so tightly that several covers had bent against their neighbours. The dates on the visible tabs went back years.

"These are yours?"

"Mine, or transferred to my supervision. Resolved investigations, discontinued inquiries and dormant cases due for review. Records won't accept them until the paperwork is complete." He placed a register on top of the second box. "You'll check each file against its entry here. Names, dates, the recorded outcome. Every item of evidence needs to be accounted for. If a form is missing, note it. If an exhibit has been returned, there should be a receipt."

I opened the top folder. A photograph of a smashed shop window lay over several witness statements. Beneath those was a sheet listing the objects taken from the premises, with a blank space beside the heading for their eventual disposal.

"And if the case hasn't been solved?" I hazarded as a nebulous plan began to take shape in my mind, involving a stack of cold cases and an invisible floating Gacha Grimoire that rewarded going above and beyond.

"You're checking why work ceased and whether the closure or suspension was authorised. You aren't reopening investigations. If there's something missing, bring it to me."

Of course Dawlish wouldn't approve of showing initiative. Even though I'd spent less than half an hour with the man, I really ought to have known better by now. He took a stack of forms from a drawer and handed them over. There wasn't anywhere left to put them, so I balanced them on my knee.

"One of these for each file. In duplicate. I'll sign them before you take them to Records. Keep a separate list of discrepancies so I don't have to search through your work to find them."

I turned one of the forms over. There was more on the back. I glanced at the dates on the other folders. The whole top row predated my OWLs.

"All of these by Friday?"

"You've heard the deadline. We'll review your progress this afternoon."

I'd been hoping to find out what sort of cases he was working on now. There were files in the trays behind him, and a photograph pinned to the partition showing three people outside a house. One kept turning to look at whoever had taken it.

"Was there any… practical work you wanted me to do first?" I asked, slightly hopeful.

His expression hardened slightly.

"This is practical work. These are actual investigations with actual records to maintain. An Auror who can't account for what happened to the evidence has no business collecting more of it."

"I meant spellwork, sir. Will there be time to go through my remedial Defence work as well?"

"I know what you meant. We'll work on shoring up your academic shortcomings once I've seen how you handle this. There's no sense rushing ahead before you've demonstrated that you can complete a straightforward assignment." He tapped the box. "And don't skim them, Crawford. You need to actually read the files."

"Yes, sir."

He reopened his reference book. I got the loose parchment off my knees and rearranged the boxes until I had enough room to write.

There were things I could learn from old investigations. How witnesses were interviewed, which spells had been used, what an Auror actually wrote down after something went wrong. I'd wanted to know all of that before I'd applied. Dawlish might be giving me the work because it was tedious, but the contents were still worth reading.

I reminded myself of that as I went over the most recent case in the man's backlog. Apparently it had concerned a shop which sold second-hand cauldrons. Somebody had sent one through its front window, and I found three different accounts of why before I reached the evidence record again. There was a receipt further back in the file showing that the cauldron had been returned to its owner. I checked the date, copied it onto the form and found the next empty space.

By the third page, I was starting to think Smidgeworth had been wrong after all; fetching coffee seemed like a pretty good deal right about now.

---

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

 

[The Revanchist]

But of a hard ass but i dont really see anything really bad

 

[Shota]

Thanks for the chapter.
He really out of luck when he got Dawlish huh. Well every story needs a conflict after all.

 

[Peacemaren]

TFTC! Looking forward to more!

But of a hard ass but i dont really see anything really bad

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the chapter.
He really out of luck when he got Dawlish huh. Well every story needs a conflict after all.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Dawlish is an asshole, but it does make an interesting duo; working with someone that abrasive sets the MC up as an interesting foil, and will let him grow into his own type of Auror once he learns how to push back against Dawlish. It's for the best the other 2 didn't get Dawlish either, Smidgeworth would have been unfairly pressured working with Dawlish, and Tonks would have been liable to kill the man.

Dawlish is reasonably competent on paper and in canon, he has the right qualifications and everything; it's just that he consistently fails at the more physical aspect of cop work, which might be a good avenue for exploring his character too. You get to give someone who has only been identified as an ass in most HP fics much more depth as the MC works with him, and both the MC and Dawlish can cover each other's weaknesses. That's the shit that brotherhood-in-arms is built off of, if every dramatic cop movie has taught me anything: the grouchy, pissed-at-the-world cop works through his fears after a sudden reveal of his soft side and is made more honest, optimistic, and hard-working by the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed newbie.

Unless Dawlish completely shits the bed and tries to get Julian in trouble, in which case it'd be fun to see the MC smack him down.

 

[Andre Chaos]

Dawlish

Click to shrink...

I think, he will just use the boy as his secretary to do all the things he doesn't want to do.

 

[Red_Faux]

But of a hard ass but i dont really see anything really bad

Click to shrink...

Being a genuine prick is something rather bad. Being a genuine prick high on his limited power is definitely bad.

He sounds like a pretty damn shitty cop to me. I don't care how many cases he's done. This is just a different flavour of Mr "You'll be hearing from my father" from earlier, called "I'm a big Important man who commands respect that I am incapable of actually attaining instead of simply demanding"

 

[ShadowSaiyan666]

I very much despise Dawlish. The fact he was nitpicking over every failing of Julian's, real or imagined, and didn't touch on the historic thing he achieved is just the first sign. The fact that he's immediately made Julian do the archive returns that he apparently took on long enough ago that Bones was getting complained to by Archives for how long it was taking shows that he's a hypocrite. "Hard, sustained work" my rear end. He's also so by the book that I'm sure he'd be stumped by the first criminal to use a glamor to hide as a wall.