Chapter Fifteen
Auror Exams
Ron's brain hadn't been this exhausted since taking his N.E.W.T.s. Chief Atalanta wasn't kidding when she said they only accepted the best in the Academy. The written exams were so tough he knew he would fail it if Harry wasn't there to help him. Not that Harry was any better than him at theoretical tests, but at least the two of them combined could level off a passing score, particularly in potions.
A bell sounded indicating the end of the written exams. Ron reluctantly lowered their pen. Their recipe for Veritaserum was still incomplete and would most likely kill someone if they were asked to perform it using the combination of ingredients they wrote down.
"At least we got the formula for Polyjuice Potion and Wolfsbane right. That's got to be worth something," Harry reassured. "And there's still the practical part. I'm sure we can do well in that."
"Yeah, let's just hope we do. Because if we don't, I reckon we better start looking for alternative careers. That broom tester offer is beginning to look enticing. I wish Hermione was sharing my body with us."
Harry flushed and Ron realized what he said could be horribly misconstrued.
"Don't ever say that again."
"I didn't mean—oh hell, Potter. That's not what I meant." Awful images were running through his mind and his own embarrassment combined with Harry's initial one made him twice as uncomfortable. He didn't want to know what Harry was thinking about just that moment. He turned his attention back to Shacklebolt's ghost.
"Now that you've finished your written tests, we're going to the second part of this examination. We will be testing your knowledge and skills of spells as well as your abilities to handle tight situations. You will be flooing in to the testing room at the Auror Academy. Follow me please."
Ron and Harry made their way up front, nearest to Shacklebolt. "Hey Kingsley," Ron said. "I never got to ask how you ended up like this."
Shacklebolt chuckled. "I think it's pretty simple; I died."
"No, I mean, you're a ghost. You never told us and you've never even come to see us."
"Well, after I died, I chose to stay as a ghost. I loved being an Auror so much I didn't want to leave. I couldn't go on field anymore, but I'm in charge of training new recruits and that's good enough for me. I can't go beyond Auror Academy and the Auror Headquarters. Ministry hasn't approved my wandering pass yet—it's a regulation for all spirits. My request is still buried in the Spirit Division. You know red tape, bureaucracy and everything. But when I get it, I'll be sure to visit. Heard you have a new house coming along."
"Yeah, Godric's Hollow," Harry replied. "We're moving in today after exams. Come over when you can."
"Glad to. Now here we are." They stopped in front of several fireplaces. Shacklebolt turned to face the applicants. "Just say 'Auror Academy.' I'll meet you there."
Ron and Harry got into the fireplace and did as they were told. They landed at a large bare room that contained only a reception desk with a witch behind it and several hard benches along the walls. There was a pair of large doors near the reception desk and there were large windows that opened up to a view of an open field.
They peered outside and watched a group of young witches and wizards running around an oval track. A distance away, they could see another group flying on broomsticks in a tight formation. Suddenly, the group was shot with spells from ground but they stuck to their clustered position. There was an answer of spells from their target but the flying group moved as one, shooting back a combination of spells.
"Ah, group flying attack," said Shacklebolt who appeared behind them. "You'll get to that eventually."
They waited for the rest of the applicants to arrive before Shacklebolt floated near the closed double doors and turned to them again.
"You will now be entering the testing room where you will be encountering challenges to test your practical skills. You have at most three hours to finish it to pass. I will be sending you in one by one, five minutes apart from each other. The room is enchanted with sensors to lock into your magical signatures so we know who is performing what spell." He looked at Ron and Harry. Ron understood. They would know whether it was he or Harry who was performing the spell during the course of the exam.
"You will also be monitored visually by the faculty who will be evaluating you. I'll give you five minutes to relax and get ready. Ron, a word please."
Ron followed Shacklebolt aside.
"Harry, Ron, since there are two of you, you have to do an extra exam after this. It's going to test you individually. Stay behind after I dismiss the other applicants."
"Okay," Harry answered.
"Good, in this round, you can work as a team. Chief Atalanta wants to see what you can do together. But you will still be evaluated separately according to the spells you perform. Are we clear on that?"
"Sure," Ron replied unenthusiastically.
"You'll do fine," Shacklebolt assured. "Though you might want to postpone moving into that new house of yours until tomorrow. After this round of exams, you might prefer to just crawl into bed when you get home," he added before floating away.
"Oh that's really reassuring," Ron muttered.
"Get ready!" Shacklebolt called to the applicants. "When I call your name, you are to enter these doors. You will be initially asked to perform a lighting charm so we'll have a sample of your magical signature before proceeding to the tasks."
The girl at the reception desk floated a parchment at Shacklebolt's eye level. "Blake, Oswald."
One of the boys Ron recognized earlier as Fred's and George's classmate nervously stepped forward in front of the double doors. He waited for them to open. He looked at Shacklebolt. The ghost gave him a blank expression.
"Uhm… aren't they supposed to open for me?" he asked.
Shacklebolt shook his head. "Don't expect everything handled to you in a silver platter, Mr. Blake. Something you should learn if you want to be an Auror."
The boy looked confused. He stared at the doors. There were no door knobs or handles anywhere. He pushed at them but they refused to budge.
"You're wasting your time," Shacklebolt admonished.
Blake looked around him, pleading at his co-applicants what to do. The receptionist witch was giving him an amused look and she began tapping her wand on her desk. The boy finally got the hint. He got out his own wand.
"Alohomora!"
The doors opened and the boy looked embarrassed.
"That's two minutes of your time; I'm sending the next person in three. You might want to make a move on," the ghost said.
Blake turned a deeper shade of red and took off running in. The doors closed behind him.
"Boot, get ready. The rest of you sit down until I call you."
Ron sat between Alicia and Padma. Both girls didn't seem to want to talk so he took his time to observe the other applicants, who mostly glanced at his direction when they thought he wasn't looking or whispered together. A few months ago, he probably would have welcomed the attention, but now he was slightly annoyed by it. His reputation as "the-Boy-who-Survived" wasn't exactly flattering knowing what scars—both the physical one and the emotional wounds—he received to get it.
He concentrated on looking for familiar faces. There were a couple of people there whom he vaguely knew as old Hogwarts students a few years ahead of him. There was even a young man he remembered he'd seen as among the Durmstrang students who visited in his fourth year. But there were people his age he had never seen before. He figured they probably went to some other wizarding schools outside Britain.
"Boot, Terry," Shacklebolt called. Everybody turned to Terry who jumped up front, shouted the spell and was in, in less than five seconds. The doors closed again and everybody seemed to breathe easier.
Ron felt a prickly feeling up his neck. He looked around and locked eyes with a dark haired boy he didn't know. He expected the boy to turn away and look guilty for staring at him. But he kept matching Ron's stare, as if challenging him.
"Who the hell is that?" Harry asked.
"No idea, but he doesn't seem like the good type. He reminds me of Malfoy."
"Psst, Padma. He's looking here," Ron heard Alicia whisper over his shoulder.
Padma leaned behind him to whisper back. "Don't make it too obvious. You think he's looking at one of us?"
Ron and Harry both rolled their eyes. Girls.
"Maybe he's not looking at us. I think he's checking out Padma or Alicia," Harry suggested.
Ron turned and met the boy's gaze again. "If he is then why does he keep staring in our direction?"
"He's gorgeous. Where do you think he comes from?" Alicia asked.
Padma let out a giggle. Ron gave her an annoyed look, but she slapped his shoulder and whispered to him. "Pretend you're talking to me." She leaned closer to him but her words were for Alicia. "I talked to one of the French girls over there—Madeleine. She says he went to Beauxbatons with her. He was top student in his year, probably the best in the last decade. I didn't quite catch his name though."
"de Lancre, Orion Pierre," Shacklebolt called.
The mysterious boy calmly stood up. He continued to stare at Ron while he walked to the doors and confidently shouted the spell. He gave Ron a smug look before disappearing into the room.
"The slimy git is really asking for it!" Ron exclaimed.
"Save it. Maybe we'll meet him inside. Then we can see what he can do."
"I can barely wait."
They waited for what seemed like an eternity. One by one, the other applicants were called. Finally it was only them and Zabini that were left. Ron had completely forgotten about the other arrogant prat.
"Weasley, Ronald Bilius. Zabini, stand by."
"See you in a few, Weasley," Zabini taunted.
Ron gave him a smirk. He knew anything Zabini could throw at him, he could counter. Zabini may be a fairly good wizard, but he had seen enough of his dueling styles at the D.A. to know he could take him down easily.
"Alohomora!" Harry shouted and the doors opened to them. They went inside and found themselves in a small room with a door at the other end.
"Kindly cast a lighting charm," a pleasant female voice said out of nowhere.
"Lumos!" Ron and Harry said in unison. Their wands glowed together.
"Your signatures have been identified. Please proceed," the voice instructed.
They walked towards the second set of doors and were about to shout another spell when a piece of parchment appeared on the door:
TO: Harry James Potter/Ronald Bilius Weasley
ASSIGNMENT: Your mission is to find an entrapped person within the room and bring that person out safely with you. You will know it by the symbol Φ that will appear on the person's forehead when you encounter him/her. Go through whatever challenges you will meet to get that person out and perform them according to your own judgment of each situation. You have 02:58:23 left to finish this task.
The parchment folded itself and disappeared. The doors opened for them.
They stepped into a long dimly-lit hallway of what appeared to be a well-furnished house. It reminded Ron of the interior of those Muggle palaces in the seventeenth century that he saw in a picture of a Muggle magazine his father once brought home. It was complete with plush red draperies drawn with gold tassels, hardwood tables adorned with oriental vases full of flowers, shiny mirrors and framed pictures of landscapes that kept changing their weather.
"Looks like the interior decorator has a fondness for Muggle palaces," Harry said. "I think the entire room's an entire house and we have to find that person we're looking for. It's probably some sort of a maze."
"Maybe it's like that trip we had finding the Philosopher's Stone. We open doors to challenges and then we move on."
There was nowhere to go but forward until they reached a part where the hallway split in three directions.
"What now?" Ron asked. "This is eerily looking like the attack at the Riddle House."
"Don't remind me. Actually I prefer to think of it as the combination of the second and third tasks of the Triwizard Tournament. We have to find a hostage through a maze and get out with him or her. I don't think anyone's likely to die in this test."
"Let's just hope it's not a combination of all three tasks in the Triwizard Tournament. I'm not fancying a run with a dragon. So, decisions? Left or right, Harry?"
"Let's try right."
They stepped to the right and something heavy began moving behind them. They turned to see that an iron gate suddenly appeared from the ceiling, effectively closing them within this corridor. Harry dived behind a large chair. Shots of light flew to the direction where they were a split-second ago.
"Protego!" Harry shouted. Hexes safely bounced off them. "I think we just walked into an ambush!"
"Hold the spell, Harry. I'll see where the spells are coming from then I'll attack."
They slowly walked forward, with Harry sustaining the spell. Ron glanced around trying to see where the shots were coming from. There didn't seem to be anyone around, the spells were coming from the walls, one on each side of the corridor. Then he realized the paintings were shooting at them.
"When I say go, Harry, let down the spell and get ready to duck and shoot at pictures on the walls. Ready…Go!"
"Incendio! Incendio!" Ron let out on each corner before ducking down. Harry got the idea and started blasting it a second time with reductor curses. There were still a couple of shots firing at them. They dodged each one, hiding occasionally behind pieces of furniture. Ron took notice of where each spell was coming from and aimed his own spells at them. Finally, the corridor was silent.
"You think that's it?" Harry asked.
Ron thought for a moment. His found a large painted vase on the table where they were hiding. He grabbed it and hurled it in the air. A blast came from the end of the corridor, shattering the vase before it hit the ground.
"Definitely not. INCENDIO!"
The corridor was silent again. Ron grabbed what looked like a memorabilia plate that stood next to the vase he just destroyed and tossed it. It crashed into the ground without interruption. He moved forward into the next nearest table and grabbed another vase and did with it the same way with the first two ceramics he encountered. It broke on its own. He found another item, this time it was a delicate figurine of a young witch.
"Ron, I think that's enough."
Ron hurled the dainty object anyway and watched it fall to the ground with a loud shatter. "Just making sure, Harry. I don't want to be a human target."
"Well you made a mess out of it. I don't think destroying property counts as extra points on our side."
"Well at least we didn't get scratched. They could really dock points from us for that. Come on, our time's running."
They made their way onward and came upon three closed doors.
"Which one?" Harry asked.
Ron threw a spell on the first door to make it transparent. After their first encounter with a direct assault, he didn't want to go barging in blind.
"Looks like the potions classroom, lots of bottles in there," Harry said. "I think we may have to make a potion in that one. With our potion skills, we might just kill ourselves if we have to drink it."
"Moving on then." Ron checked the second door. "Can't see anything. It's hard to see past the mist. Don't know what that is. Third door."
There was some kind of blue light flitting around inside the third door. Ron realized it was Pixies. It looked like the easiest one.
They opened the door and shouted "Immobilus!" as soon as they entered. The Pixies froze in the air.
"That was pretty easy, Oww!"
Something pricked at them from the ground and in a moment Ron felt himself trip. His face hit the floor and he focused on something that stared up at his nose. It looked like a Pixie but this one didn't have wings.
"Imps!" Harry said. "They're trying to steal our wands." One imp caught them off guard and made off with both their wands. But Harry was quicker. "Accio Wands!"
Ron was grateful for Harry's ability to do wandless magic. They got their wands back and in seconds they managed to immobilize all the imps.
"Help!" someone called from the end of the room. Ron and Harry raced to it, hoping it was the wizard they needed to rescue. They found the Blake boy tied upside down to the wall.
"I'm glad you're here. Cut me loose will you. Those damn imps took off with my wand and tied me here. I couldn't see past the Pixies."
"Are we supposed to help?" Ron reasoned. "We're wasting time as it is."
"Well, we can't just leave him here."
"There you go again, Potter. Going heroic."
"Hey, last time I did that, I was displaying moral fiber."
"Okay, okay. Moral fiber it is. Evanesco!" The ropes that held Blake's legs disappeared and he dropped to the ground.
"Thanks," he said. He looked a mess with his robes slightly burned and his hair a little singed. He retrieved his wand from a corner where the imps had disposed of it.
"Now, where to?" Ron asked.
"This room is a dead end," Blake said. "We have to go back and choose another door."
"Oh great," Ron muttered. They ran together outside.
"Second door's mystery mist, first one is potions. I'm taking second," Ron announced.
"How do you know?" Blake asked.
"Just trust me."
"I'm taking the potions," Blake announced. "Sorry, don't want to risk something unknown." He entered the first door.
"Ungrateful prat! He could have at least backed us up."
"Maybe it's better this way," Harry suggested. "He may be more of a liability than an asset when we have to watch his back. He couldn't even handle Pixies."
They entered the middle door and walked into the mist. Suddenly Ron was standing upside down.
"Relax, Ron. I've encountered this before during the third task. We just walk straight on and everything goes to normal."
They slowly moved one foot forward. Ron's vision quickly righted itself up… before they fell into deep water.
Ron kicked until his head pushed above the water.
"IS WALKING INTO A LAKE PART OF EVERYTHING GOING BACK TO NORMAL?!" Ron criticized.
"Err… no. The part about the world turning itself back up was. But this water is pretty new to me too."
"Perfect! How do we get out of this one?"
They heard a sound that resembled a horse's neigh. Ron looked behind and saw there was a beautiful white horse with its head rising above the water. It stared at them as if inviting them to ride.
"You think it can carry us out of here?"
"I'm not sure Ron, it sounds fishy. What is a horse doing here anyway?"
The horse approached them and gave another friendly neigh. Ron slowly put a hand on its snout. It seemed to like his touch.
"Looks okay to me, Harry. Shall we?"
"Alright."
They grasped the neck of the horse and hoisted themselves up on its back. There was a sudden splash next to them and Alicia's head bobbled up.
"Oi! Alicia! I found a horse. I think it can take us out to the end of the lake, right there."
Alicia looked at them and terror came into her face. "Ron, no! That's a—"
They never heard what it was, for the horse suddenly dove. Caught off guard, Ron fought to breathe but his lungs were bursting with the sudden intake of water. He was about to succumb to unconsciousness when he felt a tug and the horse was slowly lifted up to the surface. His head burst into the air and he gasped and coughed.
"Are you okay?" Alicia was holding the end of the bridle, the other end she managed to tie around the horse's neck.
Ron let out one last cough. "What is this thing?"
"It's a Kelpie. It disguises itself as a horse to fool it's victims before it dives at the bottom of the water so it can consume them and let their entrails float to the surface."
Ron and Harry looked at her with horror and let themselves off the creature's back.
"It's alright now. I tamed it. You just have to put a bridle on its neck and a placement charm. Lucky I got it lassoed just in time. We can ride it now."
She drew closer to the horse and hoisted herself up. He offered Ron a hand. Ron looked doubtfully at her but got on. The Kelpie slowly moved forward. When they reached the end of the lake, they jumped off the creature. Alicia released it from the bridle she conjured and it disappeared underneath the waves.
"Thanks a lot," Harry said to her as he dried them with a charm. "How are you doing?"
"I'm okay. I'm supposed to look for this enchanted book and bring it out safely. What do you need to do?"
"You mean we have different tasks?" Ron asked.
"Yup," said Alicia. "I met Padma along the way. She's supposed to get a feather from a golden Fwooper."
"That's easy. I need to rescue someone and I don't know who he is."
They entered another closed door and found themselves in what appeared to be a broom closet blocked by walls on all sides.
"Not another dead end!"
"No, look up there," Alicia pointed.
About a hundred feet above them was an opening that led to the upper floor. Harry looked around them and found a couple of broomsticks laid at one side.
They turned to Alicia. "Race you?"
"You're on, Weasley!"
They chose a broomstick each and kicked off hard. In seconds they reached the top floor. One side of the floor was closed with an iron gate, but the other, separated by the tiny room they just flew in from, had another set of three closed doors.
Ron cast the transparency charm on each door. The first revealed a room full of animals, Alicia said was Fwoopers. The second, to her delight, was a library. The third revealed nothing but darkness.
"I'm going through the middle," Alicia said. "Are you coming with me?"
"What do you think, Ron?"
"Well we know of the first two doors. Most likely the items each of us are looking for are in a separate room. Shall we have a bit of adventure and try the third?"
"I'm game if you are, Weasley."
"I'll go to the third. My hostage might be there."
Alicia nodded. "Good luck then!" She disappeared behind her door.
They stepped cautiously inside door number three. For several moments there was nothing there but darkness. Suddenly, Ron saw something in front of him. Somebody was lying on the ground.
Ron ran to it and turned it around, expecting it was their hostage. But when he turned to look at the face, he stepped back in shock.
It was Harry. But this was the Harry he saw dead in the graveyard in Little Hangleton.
"Harry?"
No response.
But then something was happening at the Harry in front of him. It was changing. The hair was turning to red, the nose was growing longer and the glasses disappeared. It became him.
"Harry, please answer me! Are you there?"
"Ron, I'm here. I think it's a boggart and it's confused."
"What do we do?"
"I've got an idea. Think of it turning into you. I'll imagine it looking like me. We do the spell together."
"What do you mean?"
"Just do it."
"Riddikulus!" they said together.
The dead image of Ron began to change. The hair turned black and the body grew shorter. Ron saw that the dead body was turning into Harry again. He got the idea and thought of it as something that looked like him. The body stopped short of changing fully into Harry. It turned into something that had Harry's face with a long nose, half-black, half-red hair and lots of freckles. The image looked so funny he laughed and at the same instant, he felt the Harry in him laugh along.
The body disappeared and torches began to light. A new door opened.
"Merlin's beard, Ron, that was creepy."
"Yeah, well at least we know one thing. We look awful when we combine our features."
They exited the boggart room and found themselves staring at a large staircase that led down one floor below into an enormous hall. Beyond the hall was a pair of doors that opened to a bridge outside where they could see Chief Atalanta waiting for them. But right below, there was a great level of activity. Around seven Aurors were there, two of them battling it out with two of the applicants. The other five had their wands out but were standing around watching and did not seem to want to interfere at all.
"Harry, they didn't tell us we have to get past the Aurors themselves!"
There were footsteps behind them and they found Alicia and two others—a strawberry blonde girl and a tall boy with sandy brown hair that Harry recognized as an older Hufflepuff—appear from three of the dozen doors that were behind them.
"What's going on?" Alicia asked. "Are we supposed to…?"
"Zat door leads outside to ze end of ze room, we 'ave to pass ze Aurors," the girl said in a thickly French accent.
"So we have to duel then," Harry said. They watched as a figure suddenly appeared from a floor below them and came barging in head on. One of the Aurors idly standing went on the alert and met the attacker. The fierce applicant sent two spells with such speed, they didn't even register what they were. It sent the Auror who was about to meet him sprawling to the ground ten feet away. The other Aurors let him pass.
The successful applicant paused at the door and turned around. Even though from his vantage point, Ron knew that person couldn't see them, he looked straight to where Harry and Ron were standing and gave them a superior gloat.
"It's Orion," said the French girl. "I zink he's ze first to get out. As uzual," she added in a tone of admiration that wasn't lost on Harry and Ron. They resolved not to be beaten by the bigheaded git.
He watched as one of the applicants battling down there got disarmed. His Auror opponent stood and tossed him his wand back and they started again.
"I think we only need to disarm one of them," Alicia said. "They'd let us go if we do, but they'll give us another chance if we get disarmed, maybe they'll just dock points. How many tries do you think we get?"
The boy who got disarmed earlier got another blast from his Auror opponent. This time, he was fully knocked off. He was levitated away.
"Okay, so maybe we get a chance until we get knocked out," said Alicia as she tapped at the book she was carrying and shrank it to fit in her pocket. Ron suddenly remembered something.
"Harry, we haven't got our hostage yet. I think everybody else got their assignments but we haven't got ours!"
"You think we should go back? I mean if we go through that duel we're ending the test and we haven't completed our mission."
"What in the world is he doing?"Alicia was pointing at someone below them. Ron saw that it was Zabini. He was using some sort of sticking charm so he could crawl on all fours against the wall. That part of the hall wasn't lit so none of the Aurors below could see him.
"I think he's trying to avoid going through a duel with the Aurors. He's crawling his way out, the cheating scum!" cried the Hufflepuff uffHHuboy.
But Harry and Ron weren't listening anymore. They were staring wide-eyed at Zabini. There, right on his forehead was the glowing symbol they were looking for.
"Zabini's the one we're supposed to rescue?!"
"I guess. It's on his head isn't it," Harry said.
"But that can't be right. Why him?"
"The Aurors probably planned it to be one of the other applicants. Maybe we were supposed to help someone who can't get out. They are monitoring us visually. Maybe they saw him looking stupid up there and decided to let us get him out of cheating."
"Whoever planned this has a horrible sense of humor. So how do we get to the little lizard?"
"I'm going out there," Alicia announced. "Hey, maybe we can synchronize attack. That will give us the advantage even for a few seconds. They can't really see us from here, so we can surprise them. Everybody got what they were assigned to get?"
The boy and the girl nodded and looked expectantly at him.
"I have to get him," Ron said pointing to Zabini who was looking really ridiculous now as struggled to hold on to the wall and be as quiet as possible.
Alicia and the two others giggled. "You're kidding, right?" Alicia asked.
"Nope," said Harry. "See that glowing thing that just appeared on his forehead. It's the sign I have to find. He's the one."
"I don't know how you're going to persuade him to get off the wall," Alicia laughed.
"Don't worry, I can handle this," Ron said. A plan was already forming in his mind. This was just like chess. It entailed strategy and the right moves to accomplish it. "Just do me a favor. Let's go in at once. Let's agree to lock on one Auror each. We barge in fast so we can confuse them a bit. After that, we're on our own."
The other three nodded.
They discussed which Aurors they were taking down. Ron chose the one nearest to the wall where Zabini was still struggling to hang on to.
"Okay Harry. You're better at me in dueling. When we go in, you start shooting. I'm going to un-stick our slimy friend and cause him to fall down. You go on offensive; I do defense and cover his pathetic back."
"Got it, mate."
"Are we ready?" Alicia said. "Let's go!"
They came barreling down with shouts even the Aurors were caught off-guard. But they quickly recovered and blocked their spells. Ron undid whatever spell Zabini was using and caused him to fall smack in front of another Auror. Ron threw him a protection spell just in time. Harry, on the other hand, managed to knock out his opponent with his initial wave of spells. What they didn't count on was that two Aurors were sent to deal with them instead of one. Even with Harry defeating one Auror, they still had to duel with two others—Zabini's and the second Auror meant for them.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted to his Auror. The words were hardly out of their mouth when Ron muttered "Stupefy!" at the other Auror. Both Aurors dodged their spells and seemed to reach a silent agreement to team up against them.
They dodged a trip jinx and sent two spells in two different directions. Harry's furnunculus hex managed to hit home but it didn't disarm the Auror. Ron managed to put up a protection spell in time to bounce off two nasty hexes.
"We can't win this way. We can't get to Zabini and hold them off at the same time," said Harry. "I've got an idea. Buy me time with that protection spell. I need to transfigure something."
Ron intensified the hold of the Protego charm. Harry summoned a small metallic object that looked to be a part of the hall décor. He tapped his wand on it and it transformed into a pair of dark glasses.
"Ron, I'm putting these on. When I shout a spell, hit both Aurors with stunners, summon Zabini and we run like hell out.
Ron didn't exactly know what Harry was getting at but he took note of where each Auror was located. Harry put on the glasses and his vision grew dark for a second before Harry shouted a spell:
"LUMOS SOLER!"
Everything went white. Calculating the last location where the two Aurors were, Ron sent stupefying charms in their direction. He summoned Zabini and they took off running, dragging the complaining Slytherin sliding forward on the floor. The darkened glasses made them see a little better than everyone else so they were able to pass between frantic Aurors, struggling blindly to find them.
They passed through the enormous doors and stepped on the bridge. It was only then that they loosened their spells.
The Aurors looked around in confusion for them, along with the other applicants who seemed to have forgotten they were dueling for their future careers.
"Over here!" Ron shouted at them from the bridge. Several faces turned to them in surprise. He recognized one of his Auror opponents, the one covered in fur.
"I think you missed that one, Ron."
"STUPEFY!" A jet of light flew from somewhere near their feet. It hit the half-dazed Auror, who dropped to the ground, unconscious. Ron looked down to see Zabini lying on his stomach, his wand raised. He beamed stupidly, before passing out.
"The slimy git just managed to disarm an Auror!" Ron cried incredulously.
"But not without our help. The little wanker, couldn't possibly pass with his cheating—"
Harry's rant was interrupted by the sound of applause. They turned around to find Alicia, and the two other applicants they met at the staircase standing at the other end of the bridge cheering them on. They parted to allow Chief Atalanta and Moody up front.
If it were possible, Ron could swear his and Harry's grin could reach the tips of their ears. Harry levitated Zabini and deposited him unceremoniously at the Chief Auror's feet.
"Here's the person you wanted," Ron announced. "Delivered safely out of there as ordered—though a bit bruised and battered."
Chief Atalanta looked at them with an expression that did not reveal any sign of her being impressed with them at all. Ron and Harry's grin melted.
"Very unorthodox, I might say," she said evenly.
Now they were worried. What did they do wrong?
"I expect however," she continued without changing her tone. "That by the end of your training from Auror Academy, you will learn not to manhandle the people you rescue or destroy any more property than necessary."
She made a hand signal as indication that they were dismissed to join Shacklebolt who was already ushering the other successful applicants out of the room. They slowly walked away, half-puzzled, half-guilty—then it sank in.
"Did she just say by the end of our training?" they both asked. The grin was back.
"Harry, we did it! We're in!"
"Yeah," Harry rejoiced. "I believe we did."