Luck of the Draw (HP Chaos Gacha)

[Bakkughan]

Chapter One​

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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.