Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or anything related to him.

Note: This was written for Fire the Canon's "50 Days of Inspiration" competition using the prompt accuracy.

Warnings: n/a

Rating: K+

Characters: Harry

Word Count: 641

Harry ducked and swirled, alternating between shielding to block the incoming spellfire and returning spells of his own. A flash of green approached, and he immediately conjured a stone block to shield against the Killing Curse he would be unable to dodge, ignoring the stings that came from the block shattered and spraying him with shrapnel. He knew of two targets ahead of him and one to his right, but the Muggles running around in panic made it difficult to get a clear shot on them. With the enemies' anti-Apparition wards up, Harry just continued his work of moving through the crowd, trying to line up his spells as best as he could.

A break in the crowd opened, and Harry spotted a man standing with his back nearly to him, too focused on the Muggle girl he was torturing to notice that he had become target number one. Harry took him out with a quiet stunner his distraction caught the better of him as he was forced to throw up a shield to prevent the yellow curse from hitting him, afraid to just dodge it, given the number of people still surrounding him that could have been hit in his place. Finally, on a cue unseen to Harry, all the opponents still able Apparated out, leaving the young Auror standing in a mall full of Muggles panicking at the damage and bodies surrounding them.

Then, as one, all the Muggles froze and began vanishing, along with the structure he was in, leaving Harry standing in a giant auditorium. "Very good, Mr. Potter," his instructor told him as she walked up.

With the simulation over, Harry leaned over slightly, placing the palms of his hands on his thighs as he took several deep breaths to try to calm his beating heart. "How did I do?" He asked. It was the final test to see if he would become an official Auror. Failing this would mean another year of classes, and he didn't think he could live down the shame if it got out that the Boy-Who-Lived, defeater of the Dark Lord had to take remedial Auror classes.

"Well, your overall accuracy was 47%, including the shots that were blocked. You took down a total of seven opponents, with one death and six disables. Of your misses, you only hit the Muggles with non-damaging spells, stunning twelve and disarming three women of their purses. You also managed to protect several of the people in your vicinity by shielding and blocking spells, rather than dodging." She read off, studying the clipboard in front of her that the instructors had likely written done all their notes of his performance while they were watching.

"Damn," Harry muttered quietly.

"Problem, Mr. Potter?" The instructor asked, catching the word that Harry hadn't meant for her to hear.

"I thought I would have done better than that," Harry admitted.

"You had some of the highest scores we're seen in a while, and that's not good enough for you?" The instructor asked as she raised an eyebrow.

"But I didn't even get half accuracy!" Harry protested.

"Mr. Potter, while I know you can hit a stationary target perfectly, and a moving target with great accuracy, this is not a game and was not meant to be a game. It was a simulation of a possible battle situation. In those real battle situations, you aren't going to have the luxury of having a perfect shot. You're going to have to do the best you can and make do with what you have. Sometimes, you might fail, things might turn out horribly, but you have to keep pushing forward, adapt to the moment and move on. Which you demonstrated during your battle. That, Mr. Potter, is why you passed." With those harshly accurate words, she departed, leaving Harry with his thoughts.