Pre-Chapter A/N: More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
"No, not like that" I whispered as the glass ballerina shattered into a million pieces. With a sigh and a wave of my wand, it came back together again. "Now, let's try again, Miss Perkins. I need you to animate that to dance and just to dance. You can see that it is in a certain position already. What do they call that?" I asked myself, trying to figure out what the ballet position was known as.
"A pirouette" my student for the day said. That was it.
"Yes, that's it. Brilliant. Do you like ballet?" I asked like I hadn't used legilimency to skim her surface thought and seen her love for the art when the ballerinas were first brought out.
"I love to dance" She whispered to me and I nodded like she had told me the most important secret the world would ever hear.
"Good. Love to hear it. Now tell me what you love about it".
"I love the way I move. It feels like flying. The freedom, the grace, the way a perfectly practiced routine comes together. It's art with our bodies, Miss Anne says" She said.
"Good. Now think of how good you feel when you dance. This ballerina was made from glass and stuck in this position. What's it called again?" I asked to keep her attentive.
"A pirouette" She said, chirping up the answer like a cute little bird.
"Oh yes. She's stuck mid-pirouette and can't finish it. What I need you to do is help her finish it and then decide what to do next. Can you do that, Miss Perkins?" I asked, seeing that I had the young third year eating out of my hands.
"I can, Professor Potter." She said, eyes bright with determination. With a fire that belied her Ravenclaw roots.
"Now do it" I said, stepping back.
She pointed her wand at the glass figure and then turned to me, fire noticeably dimmer, replaced with confusion.
"I forgot the incantation, Professor Potter" She said when I gave her a questioning look. I surpassed my instinctive reaction. I could see it in her mind how she expected this to go, and I could see the effects already. She'd cringe, return to her shell, and fail the spell again. No. \\
"That's perfectly fine, Miss Perkins. I'll give you a reminder and a hint. It's Locomotor rhymes with promoter" I said, causing her to giggle before facing the figurine again.
"Locomotor rhymes with promoter" the little jewel said with all the confidence of a mad man facing down oncoming traffic. Her words caused the entire class to turn to us, but it didn't matter. The ballerina completed her spin and then her foot returned to the floor, and she began to dance. Not a simple thing like most of the others did, but a complicated routine that lasted at least two minutes involving multiple spins, dips, and all sorts of moves that Perkins' mind supplied as Chaînés, Assemblés, Pas de bourrées, and a dozen others that I cared too little to note. It completed it all with a bow and a step back.
"Well done, Miss Perkins. Fifteen points to Ravenclaw for an outstanding performance" Flitwick said, heralding the applause. She looked up at me, shocked to be recognised, but I just gave her a smile and joined the applause.
"Well done to you as well, Mr. Potter. That's some good teamwork skills I'm seeing", He said, and even the urge to scowl from the reminder of what this punishment truly was could not beat the pride I felt at seeing the little girl succeed at a spell she'd previously found difficult. It was the same kind of joy new associates showed when their first draft finally managed to make it through my desk with no revisions, and it reminded me of a different time. A different, much less magical life.
"Now, class dismissed" the half-goblin said as the bell rang to signify the period's completion.
"Thank you, Professor Potter" the girl said, seeming to think something over for a second, and as I caught a glimpse of it, I made sure to push the idea of kissing me on my cheek as far to the back of her mind as I could. Instead, she gave me a hug that I returned very thankfully before sending her on her way to her Potions Class.
"Does that mean I don't have to do this anymore?" I asked, more than sick and tired of the time being wasted.
"Whatever could you possibly be talking about? You're excellent at this, and that should mean I get you to do it even more. The last time Miss Perkins successfully cast a spell in a classroom setting before you were assigned to her was close to a year ago in Professor Lupin's Defence Against the Dark Arts Class, where she managed what I've been told was a singularly impressive disarming charm. Now look at you getting to perform week in and week out." He said.
"Well, if I'm doing such a good job, then it should be enough motivation for you to tell me what I missed about the Dumbledore and Voldemort fight."
"Not that good a job, unfortunately. I will give you a hint, though. Go back and count every spell used by both parties." He said before turning and waddling off to his desk to prepare for the next class.
"Can I go now?" I asked.
"And deprive Miss Edgecombe of your charming personality? Perish the thought." Oh, what I would give to wipe that smirk off his face. Still, the fact that I knew this now meant that the me that would use the time turner in a few hours to go practice in the Room of Requirement would know to do that, and had probably already figured out whatever it is there was to learn from the duel and even now, was likely implementing it into our fighting style. Because while I could not use legilimency on Flitwick for fear of being caught, I had a hunch that part of this whole improving teamwork bit he had me doing was to slow down my progress. Whether on Dumbledore's behest or not was yet to be seen, but it could go either way.
The fifth years filed in across the next five minutes. A Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff class. At least Flitwick had the good sense not to have me working with other Gryffindors or the Slytherins. Those ones would have found some way to make this experience even more painful than it already was. Flitwick's idea of teamwork, contrary to what I had expected, consisted of me being attached to the problem children of his class— from the first years to the fifth years.
When Edgecombe finally came in, I was unsurprised to see her smile fold into a scowl on seeing me, as her lips pursed. I could understand some of where her dissatisfaction was coming from, but at this point, it was getting more than a little annoying. Yes, I got it. It harmed her pride for someone younger than her to be assigned to helping her get better with magic. But if she just cooperated and did as I said, then we would both be able to end it sooner rather than later.
"Your tutor's waiting, Edgecombe" One of the Ravenclaw boys said with a snicker as he took note of her jut standing frozen at the door. Yeah, the Ravenclaws themselves did little to make it better. Anyone who thought these people were unproblematic nerds had another thing coming. From watching them across five years, I was beginning to think that they were actually the most internally critical of all the houses. Where Gryffindor and Slytherin turned their aggression outwards, and Hufflepuffs hid theirs behind a veneer of kindness and care, Ravenclaws turned all of theirs inwards, to themselves, to their housemates. It was a true snake pit, to be honest.
So I did Edgecombe a favour and cast a nonverbal tripping jinx on the boy who had just mocked her. He fell over on his way to his seat, and the rest of the class laughed at his apparent clumsiness. Flitwick was shaking his head in my direction, but I ignored it. That boy was making my job harder for no other reason than the fact that he could. What an arsehole.
Edgecombe finally came over. "Good morning, Miss Edgecombe" I greeted as she took her seat, with me standing behind her.
She grunted, no reply. Of fucking course. So we were back to this now, were we?
"I would have assumed that we had grown past the silent treatment, Miss Edgecombe" I said to her.
"Then you assumed wrongly" The pimple-faced girl replied with a sneer on her face.
"If you work with me, then at some point I won't have to keep coming back here to see you, you know that, right? I mean, it's not like you think I'm enjoying this, either. I have much better things I could be doing with my time, trust me" I said. She ignored my words, merely huffing and turning back to her notes.
"Today we'll be revising the cheering charms from last year one more time. Like I said, these always come out in the practical examinations for the OWLs so you must ensure your grasp of them is perfect" He said, and I sighed. This was going to be a hard one.
—
"Just one more time, please think about your best memories. The times you've felt happiest. You need to isolate those feelings and put them into the magic. It's not enough to just say the words and point your wand— not with charms at this level" I said, only for my words to get ignored as I was struck with another light pink bolt of magic.
"At this point, if you won't even—" Another bolt of magic that failed to have any effect.
"Did you even try for that one?" I asked, another bolt to the face. No effect.
"You know this is a third year charm, right? The little girl I'm teaching from that class could do a much better job" Another bolt, nothing.
"Can you just try listening to me for a second? Less than a second even—" pink spell to the head, nothing but a vague sense of fogginess.
"Hold on, I almost felt something now. Keep trying like this, and maybe you'll pass your OWLs with Dennis Creevey" I said, and this time the spell that hit me made me feel like there was something crawling on my skin that I just couldn't see. Like there was someone behind me watching what I was doing. I snapped the spell with my occlumency, but I could not deny being fascinated.
"What was that?" I asked, not even noticing that my voice had become a chill whisper.
"What?"
"I mean what was that you just did" I asked.
"A cheering charm" She said with a scoff, turning away. I felt my irritation bloom. With a snap of my wand, her body forced itself to face my direction with a crack.
"We both know that was no cheering charm. Now tell me what that spell was. Or at least what it was supposed to be." I asked.
"I just wanted you to shut up" She said, but even as she spoke, I rifled through her mind at will. Yule break, she wanted to see if there was anything in her father's notes that could help her get better at magic. Her father, who was an unspeakable at the ministry. She found the spell notes in his drawer— a spell to isolate what a dementor did and call up that feeling at any time. Not a spell, no. The beginnings of a ward were the major prize, the spell was just—
"Mr. Potter" Flitwick's arm was snapping out with a disarming charm aimed in my direction. I deflected it to the side.
"We do not use magic on students at Hogwarts, Mr. Potter. And we definitely do not do what you were just doing. Out. Out with you" His shrill voice rang through the room.
"Gladly" I said, sweeping out. I was done with this.
—
"Mr. Harry James Potter for the Advanced Wizarding Levels" I said to the man at the reception desk. He took hold of my wand, placing it in their scanner before humming as it told him something.
"11 inches, Holly and Phoenix feather. In use for four years?" He asked. I nodded.
"Good, you can go in. Good luck, Mr. Potter. Those things are a nightmare" He said, and I nodded, taking the warning seriously. There was a reason I'd delayed my exams to this point, after all. While the International Ordinary Wizarding Levels and the regular OWLs were relatively comparable, even Britain's famous Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests failed to match up with what the Advanced Wizarding Levels brought to bear. According to Sirius and what I'd seen, the AWLs were more comparable to mastery tests, only falling shy of that by some small margin than school graduation exams.
It was why the IOWLS were enough to secure most jobs in the ICW. The few jobs that required AWLs usually only required one, or at most two, of them in extremely rare cases. In contrast to the IOWLS which I'd completed over two days, my AWLs were going to take twelve. For one, where most people only ever take one course, I was going to be taking a whole six: Charms, Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Potions, Duelling and Ancient Runes. This would be a statement. My statement to the world. My IOWL results were impressive, but they just marked me as another prodigy, another smart British wizard good at magic. We make like a dozen of those every century. This would tell the world that I was cut from a different coat. A different breed of monster. Not a Crouch Junior, but a Dumbledore, as much as that comparison irritated me to make.
The exam halls were the same place I'd taken the IOWLS in, but where the hall had previously been populated by at least some people, there was only one other woman in the hall for the Charms written exam. She looked to be in her forties, which in the wizarding world could mean anything from actually forty to eighty, was heavyset, and had a frantic look on her face as her eyes traveled the room, looking from object to object.
I did not bother saying hi, suspecting that it would not be much appreciated at this point. Not while she seemed to be going through a nervous breakdown before even seeing any questions or before the exam was even due to start, I thought looking at the clock. I'd come about twenty minutes early, as planned. I took my seat and began to stretch, searching for a comfortable enough position to wait in.
"Good morning, My name is Topsy Turvy. You might address me as Madam Turvy for the duration of these exams, even as I struggle to see any reason why you would want to address me during this process" The woman appeared at the desk in front of the room in a puff of smoke the moment the clock struck to make it 8 o'clock.
"As you must both be aware, the ICW does not tolerate cheating or malpractice of any forms in any of their examinations but this one most especially. Any attempt is punishable with six months in prison or a fine not less than five thousand galleons. Needless to say, neither of you should even consider it. This exam will last seven hours, with three breaks. The first break is a bathroom break, and trust me when I say you should abstain from temptation during that break, as you will be closely monitored all the way. The second break will be a lunch break. The Department has prepared a generous spread to help you replenish your energy, and the third will be the final bathroom break. There will be no unsanctioned stops once the exam begins, so if you have an urgent need to use the facilities, then do so now" She offered, and the woman to my side was practically hurling herself out of her chair to get out of the room.
"The bathroom is the first door to the left" Turvy called after her.
"No need to visit the bathroom, Mr. Potter?" The proctor turned to me afterward.
"None" I said.
"People have tried what you are trying before, you know? You're not the first to be confident" She said with a smile that must have come across as calming to some. I just found it patronizing.
"I'm the first to be me" I said, and I knew that was just the kind of arrogant reply she was expecting as she smiled from ear to ear at my words.
"Of course you are. All those before you either failed when the results were released or broke down midway. My superiors have asked me to inform you that they have an offer you would much appreciate it if you somehow manage not to fall victim to either fate," She said, I gave her a nod to show I understood even as I wondered what she meant as superiors. Superiors within the Department of Education, or superiors within the wider ICW itself? Why did something tell me that she had kept that vague on purpose?
The woman returned a few minutes later, and Turvy continued speaking like she had never stopped.
"There are seventy questions in each booklet. Each question must be answered to secure a passing grade, however, do be warned that wrong answers lead to point deductions. A passing grade in this exam requires seventy-seven points, so good luck" She said, and with a flick of her wand, the booklets soared over to us with pens attached.
I knew the pens were enchanted to the nines with every sort of anti-cheating enchantment they could find. Some articles even said the pen could detect potion-use.
"Now begin" Turvy said, and I flipped open the page.
The first question read, _'The cheering charm and the counter charm for hiccoughs share a unique connection. Expand on this connection with an explanation not longer than five lines, list three other sets of charms with similar connections, and suggest a suitable counter charm for the cheering charm from the within the list below'_
Well, this was going to be fun.
A/N: Here we go with another chapter. This one we spend some time with Flitwick, and we see the beginning of the IAWLS as the semester rounds off. Next two chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)( same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.