The runes lab was, in fact, as well stocked as McGonagall had insisted. My first placement test was Professor Babbling overseeing my plan for making a new blasting rod, staff, and shield bracelet. She seemed impressed, and said she didn't think there would be much to catch up on before I was at the same level as the rest of her class.

Unfortunately, Justin had not put much focus on astronomy at all, short of the basics of using a calendar to plan for ritually-significant dates. Meanwhile, Hogwarts for some reason thought it was a more important class than runes and taught it starting with first-years. The professor seemed to think that I'd be in her class with the first-years, if I didn't make some major headway memorizing the heavens.

Since they were electives and I was definitely already interested in arithmancy and runes to fill those slots, I didn't bother with placement for divination or care of magical creatures. McGonagall suggested that I take the muggle studies test just as an experiment. Turns out, I was already ready to pass my NEWTs on the subject. Personally, I figured I knew more about the subject than the professor. After the test, McGonagall acknowledged my assertion that this was a big problem.

The distracted and terse potions professor decided that my technique was adequate for my age, though I hadn't made some of the potions that were part of the curriculum and I'd need to know them for the OWLs. Similarly, the related herbology class had a similar result: competent but missing certain plants that were important to the British tests. To my credit, most of them didn't grow in America, and I could probably recognize a bunch of plants these kids had never seen.

My pidgin Latin that I'd always been ashamed of was apparently far ahead of grade level here, and the magic theory Justin had drilled me on was comprehensive. Professor Vector seemed excited to have me in her arithmancy class, especially since my C+ in high school geometry and algebra was way ahead of the mathematical background most of these kids had.

Justin had seen zero sense in training me to ride a broom when there were so many ways to teleport even if I didn't want to just drive a car, so the bird-aspected flying professor declared me completely hopeless for her class. Fortunately, it wasn't actually on the OWLs, just their PE-equivalent. McGonagall seemed strangely disappointed and muttered something about still being down a seeker. Similarly, we had wasted no time whatsoever on British wizarding history. The ghost that taught the class had provided me a parchment that was mostly asking the dates of various goblin rebellions. I figured I might just see how much of that I could self-study, if not skip entirely.

Finally, after a couple of weeks, I had the requisite tools to take the tests for what Hogwarts thought of as "wand magic" classes.

I actually didn't wind up using them much in McGonagall's transfiguration test, since her tasks were more on the vein of taking as long as I needed to turn a hedgehog into a pincushion than the combat transfigurations that Justin was so fond of. With all the time in the world, she was surprised to watch me ignore the foci she's so generously given me time to make only to scribe a chalk circle around the animal or object and treat the transfiguration as a short ritual rather than a charm. "Why the circle, Mr. Dresden?"

"Like the headmaster explained, I have way more power than finesse. When I have time to treat it as a ritual, I can charge up the circle and then slowly shape what I want it to do. Justin called this thaumaturgy. Do you not teach that here?" With that little zinger, I released the circle and the hedgehog immediately popped directly into a pincushion, as she'd specified.

"Five points to Gryffindor!" she exclaimed, even despite what she'd taken to referring to as cheek. "I'm not sure if those points will stand, as we have not technically begun the year. But good show. I'm quite looking forward to how the rest of the class will respond to your alternate form of these techniques. Now… have you learned the vanishing charm, yet?"

After hitting a few more points of the transfiguration curriculum in unexpected ways, my next test was charms. The professor was so tiny and obviously so smart that I almost missed some instructions because I was busy imaging a buddy comedy starring him and Hagrid. I was pretty sure I'd seen a motorcycle with a sidecar in Hagrid's barn, and it would just be perfect.

If anything, Flitwick was more confused by the variability in my capabilities than most of the other professors. With my staff and blasting rod ready to go, I effortlessly demonstrated exploding, banishing, fire-making, freezing, and all the other charms that involved directing energy or motion at a target and were considered age-appropriate magic. But I was a complete blank on things like the cheering charm and tickling charm that were taught to first-years. "Mr. Dresden. Have you studied anything besides combat magic?" asked the half-goblin.

I gave an apologetic smile and said, "In hindsight, it was pretty obvious that my mentor wasn't really a good person, sir."

"Well, we'll just have to show you that there's more to magic than dueling. This year should find you well ahead on the more offensive magics we teach, but I hope you can master some of the more subtle charms. In particular, I doubt any of your foci are appropriate to most of that part of the curriculum. My challenge to you, Mr. Dresden, is to come up with a focus that will accommodate those effects. I can provide you some examples of how the Goblin Nation accomplishes such things, as they are not allowed to use wands. You see, it's not your lack of a wand that surprises me, it's your utterly martial focus in your education."

And then it was on to defense against the dark arts. It seemed like a weird hodgepodge of a subject, as if magical combat wasn't enough to fill a class period so they stole pieces from charms and magical creatures class as well. McGonagall had even let slip that they'd had trouble keeping a long-term professor for the last several years, with some professors being more competent than others and some wildly deviating from the lesson plan. Which meant I had no idea what to expect would be required for fifth year competence.

I wasn't expecting my teacher to be lurking just inside the door of the classroom as I walked in, standing by a large item of furniture awkwardly placed amid the normal tables and chairs. "Ah, D-D-Dresden," stuttered the skinny man in the elaborate turban. "Are you r-ready t-to b-begin your exam?" I shrugged and he stepped away from what I could now see was a freestanding wardrobe behind him, opening the door as he went.

Emerging from the shadows within was a young woman's form. As the light hit her, I noticed that she was very badly burned, bones showing through her skin and blackened clothing indistinguishable from charred flesh. As the shambling dead girl's milky eyes blindly cast about to look at me, she spoke in the unmistakable voice of my girlfriend, Elaine, "Harry… how could you do this to me?"