Ch 39 Ordinary Wizarding Levels
Albus, Cleo, Rose and Scorpius walked out of Hogwarts Castle the first Saturday in May, and made their way towards the lake and the forbidden forest. The day was sunny, warm but not hot, with a slight breeze blowing. It was perhaps the most perfect spring day they could imagine.
There were tulip beds around the castle walls. Early tulips were past their peak, but the late tulips were still blooming. On the very edge of the forest was a glade of bluebells. Crocus snuck up at the edge of the grass, and into the grass, somehow having avoided being eaten by the sheep and other animals that grazed on the lawn and kept it short. Albus thought there must be some magic that kept the crocus from being eaten, they were so plentiful. Iris were growing in the boggy areas around the pond. The whole outdoors was a riot of spring colors and smells.
Albus could see why Christians celebrated Easter in the spring. All of nature seemed to be celebrating the return of life after the cold and dead of winter. Somehow it was easier to believe that death was not the end of everything in the spring. He had met people who had moved on to the other side of life, not ghosts who were afraid to move on but people who had. Still, it was hard to imagine anything more peaceful and wonderful than a day so perfect, and to share it with your friends.
Albus glanced at the map he carried. Celia Hernandes and Francisco Villodas were in the forbidden forest, but not too close to the pond. He knew that the map would buzz if those two were too close. It was hard to fully enjoy the spring day when there were dangers, always dangers, haunting him.
He and Cleo were going to have to confront Jezebel eventually, and there was no guarantee they would win. Even if they did win, what would the cost be? Over fifty good people died at the Battle of Hogwarts, and many more died before that final battle.
Cleo squeezed Albus's hand. "You think too much sometimes, Albus. Just relax! Smell the flowers, the grass, the lake. Smell spring." Cleo closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, her face in a radiant smile.
Albus did his best to relax. He slipped into Cleo's mind, riding of the surface of her thoughts, wallowing in her sense of smell, so much more sensitive than his although his was not bad. Cleo could lose herself in nature in a way he could not. Cleo could just experience in a way he could not. In some ways his mind was always the observer, and it was hard for him to just live in the moment.
Albus spread out a blanket, and the couple lay down on it. They moved next to each other, holding hands, breathing together. Cleo tried to project to Albus spring, this perfect spring day. She could feel him start to relax.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.
Rose had been watching Albus and Cleo. Both were laying down, holding each other, eyes closed, breathing deep, seemingly asleep, but every once in a while one would smile, sigh or giggle. She turned to Scorpius and told him, "I wish I could relax as totally as Cleo. I need to think about things and talk about them."
"Me too," Scorpius replied. "I don't see how two such different people can be so much a couple."
"I don't either," Rose responded, "except there is something incomplete in each of them that the other furnishes. Albus can be too much, almost like a machine sometimes. Too much in control. Cleo softens him. And Cleo needs Albus to control her at times out of control emotions."
Scorpius picked a few crocus, to keep from covering them with the blanket he was going to spread on the grass. "Pretty flowers for a pretty witch," he proclaimed as he presented the flowers to Rose.
"Thank you," a giggling Rose beamed, sniffing the flowers. She turned to Scorpius and hugged him. She was reasonably tall, and thin, but Scorpius was taller, and although he was also thin his figure had matured. They were, she reflected, definitely female and male, and she relished in the feel of bodies touching. They separated and lie down on the blanket, held hands, and relaxed. Their breathing matched, and they tried to just relax, laying on the blanket, enjoying the perfect spring day.
Eventually Albus's map buzzed, and he heard hoofs galloping towards them. Two dots, Celia Hernandes and Francisco Villodas, were moving into the forest. They disappeared, Albus thought Apparating away. He looked at his watch. It was almost lunch time, and their morning of relaxing was over.
It was going to be hard to relax this afternoon.
Boggarts.
Cleo turned to him and hugged him. "I'm sorry, Albus," she commiserated. "It was nice relaxing in the sunlight of a perfect spring day. But you know, you could relax! Your map warned us."
"I guess," Albus replied, enjoying Cleo's hug, but still somewhat uptight and aware, his body full of conflicting emotions. It was not always easy being Albus Potter.
That afternoon Rose and Scorpius went over, again, the list of what they could be tested on for their O.W.L.'s. Rose had set up a spreadsheet on her magical tablet, and duplicated it for Scorpius. It was still hard to charge things at Malfoy Manor, but with the modest solar cell instillation not impossible. The Hogwarts Castle had, over the last twenty years, gone from a Medieval castle with somewhat modern plumbing to a somewhat Medieval looking building with modern wiring.
"I think we could pass our O.W.L.'s today," Rose reflected.
"I'm just not confident that we both will receive Outstanding marks for all of them, though," Scorpius shook his head. "I'm not too worried about the written part, and we both can do all of the spells, but I think we need to do them quickly and easily to receive an 'O'."
"I've changed the spread sheet to show not just if we can do a spell, but if I think we can do it in an 'O' way or if it just an 'E' way of doing it," Rose pointed out.
Rose had duplicated her spreadsheet for Albus and Cleo, and Albus was going over it with Cleo.
"There is not any magic you cannot do, nothing on the Ordinary Wizarding Levels, Cleo," Albus confirmed. "It is just writing down what you do verses what witches ordinarily do that is going to be so difficult."
"I'm just going to show them that I can do it," Cleo replied with a huff. "They cannot fail me if I can do the magic!"
"I still think we need to talk to Professor McGonagall about this," Albus told his girlfriend.
"You wished to meet with me?" Professor McGonagall asked as Albus and Cleo entered her office.
"It is about the O.W.L.'s," Albus told the headmistress. "Cleo can do all the spells, all the magic that we are told will be on the tests, but usually not the same way we are taught."
"Every professor who has ever taught you has struggled with how to grade you," McGonagall told Cleo. "You can do all the magic, so they have to pass you, and usually you can do it easier and better than the average student. You just do it differently often, so it is hard to tell what you have learned. Most of the professors, when you have breezed through doing all the required tests, have given you marks of 'O' or 'E' just because you can obviously do the magic."
"So I should be fine with my O.W.L.'s?" Cleo wondered.
"I am not sure if all the examiners will be as open minded," McGonagall pondered. "This is not the first time Hogwarts has had a student who did not always do magic the way the teachers wanted them to do it."
"Who?" Albus wondered.
"Pandora Lovegood, Mrs. Scamander's mother, for one. She was an extraordinary and talented witch, but rather eccentric. I know she fought with the examiners for her O.W.L.s and her N.E.W.T.'s.
"Thank you for reminding me about some of the issues we may have with Miss Smith and the tests, Albus. I will warn the examiners."
Hermione came storming into Harry's office, slammed the door, sat down at the conference table in his office, and slammed her fists on the table. She looked at Harry, snapping, "Two of my examiners are gormless martinets. Sometimes I wish I had Ginny's vocabulary of swear words."
Harry laughed. "All the Quidditch teams knows she is interested in new ones! The language of some of the players is," Harry cleared his throat, "rather colorful."
"Hermione, you don't need to know Ginny's swear words to curse. Gormless martinets! With your vocabulary, you could curse someone out and leave them wondering if you really insulted them or not."
"Kingsley put me in charge of the examiners for O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s," Hermione reminded Harry. "They can be given at any time, although they are usually given at Hogwarts Fifth and Seventh-year. With older Magi with more mature magic we are really looking for the ability to perform the magic, and we are not all that fussy about how they do it. Your magic matures as you age. It is more non-verbal, and often you just have to think what you want instead of saying a spell precisely.
"Hogwarts students, however, are expected to know how to do the spell as it is taught. Except Cleo doesn't do much anything as it is taught. I've just talked to Minerva about testing Cleo. She doesn't seem to do anything the normal way. She just thinks of what she wants to happen, what she wants the wand to do if she is using a wand, and it happens.
"I have a couple of examiners who are a stickler for having the students do it exactly as they have been taught. Classic gormless martinets. They need to write down how to do the spell almost as if it was copied from a text book, and then do it. Except Cleo cannot."
"But she can do the magic!" Harry exclaimed.
"DO IT? She almost levitated the whole of Hogwarts Castle her first year! It is not doing the magic that is a problem. It is passing the tests."
"Can other Magi examine Cleo?" Harry wondered.
"Examiners are rather protective of their own areas of expertise," Hermione explained. "Cleo may have to appeal her exam marks, and … and I just needed to vent. I vented to Jack Miller, my Administrative Assistant, and he told me to talk a walk. He suggested I see you, since you seem to be able to listen to me complain."
"I try to spend a fair amount of time out of the office with my Aurors," Harry let Hermione know. "Part of it is just management by wandering around. You should probably do a little more of that. Get to know the examiners on a more personal level."
"I'm not always as good as I could be with the human side of managing people," Hermione agreed. "Kingsley keeps telling me it is not like right after the War. I need to relax more."
"Her getting good marks on her O.W.L.'s is not what concerns me about Cleo," Harry let Hermione know. "If she passes what she needs to pass, that should be good enough. Don't let it worry you."
"Thank you Harry," Hermione said. She stood up sighing as she rubbed her temples then her shoulders. "I just needed to complain to someone."
"You are most welcome," Harry replied, grinning. Hermione was hardly the only person who occasionally came into his office to complain, and Harry had learned that often they did not so much want a problem solved as they wanted someone to just listen and sympathize.
Hermione left Harry's office much calmer than she entered it. Harry walked out of his office and watched her go.
Mary Lou Creevey laughed. "I'm glad you are my boss," she told Harry. "I understand that Hermione can be, not just demanding. My job can be demanding too. Impatient when she doesn't need to be impatient? Maybe that's it. I know that she has had a hard time finding a good administrative assistant, although Jack Miller seems to love his job. He has that rare ability to listen, like you do, and not let it frustrate him. Occasionally I know he just humors her, lets her vent."
"Management theory has different personality types," Harry reflected. "Hermione is definitely what they would call a type "A" personality, maybe an A-plus at times. She is a very good person, though, just a little intense."
"It is time to do a little management by sitting with your long suffering assistant and finishing some paperwork, Harry," Mary Lou remarked, showing Harry a pile of combined papers and parchment that needed to be finished.
Harry rolled his eyes, sighed, and invited Mary Lou into the office, as they spent a productive couple of hours in Harry's least favorite part of being a manager.
Albus, Rose and Scorpius watched as Cleo and a witch from the Ministry walked out of an examining classroom, the witch levitating a cage with four chickens.
"Your grade will depend on how tender these chickens are, Miss Smith," the witch kidded.
"Yes, Ma'am," Cleo beamed.
When the witch was gone Cleo grinned. "She wanted to fight with me, but when I realized that she had a hard time not making a chicken, but doing a transformation to make a tender good tasting chicken, everything changed. I showed her some tricks to make good tasting, tender food.
"I hope she tells the other examiners. I'm having trouble finishing the written part of exams because what I do is more complex, sometimes, and I have to explain why I don't do a charm exactly the same way someone else might do it sometimes. Usually I recover, like right now, though."
Cleo shrugged her shoulders. It was obviously less important to her to receive good marks on her O.W.L.'s than it was for Rose and Scorpius.
"How did you think you did?" Albus asked Rose and Scorpius.
"Good," Rose muttered. "I just hope it is good enough. How did you do?"
"I know what the text books say. I just wrote out what our text book said to answer all the questions," Albus replied. "I can visualize any page of any book I have ever read, and then I just have to transcribe what it says, more or less. So far all the exams have been easy."
Rose and Scorpius frowned at each other. It was frustrating when they had to study to learn something, and Albus could read it once and know it.
Friday June sixteenth was the last exam, and Saturday June seventeenth the students left for summer break. As before, only Albus and Cleo left by Floo; everyone else rode the train.
2021