Tonks jumped as Moody flung the door open with an almighty 'CRASH' that morning. It had already been a strange morning; she had got here before him. Which wasn't normal at all unless he wanted to lull her into a false sense of security and try and attack her or something. Something he hadn't done either. She was genuinely here before him. And he didn't look happy about it. Or maybe that had more to do with the fact that he had a stack of parchment in his hands. Lots of parchment like that rarely meant anything good, she had come to learn.
Whatever had made Moody late was definitely not something good. The scowl on his face said everything. Probably because of the parchment. Today wasn't going to go well for her, was it? Every time he was in a less than good mood, she always ended up doing something boring. Not hard. Boring. Hard things were usually for when he was in a good mood because apparently Moody in a good mood always wanted to put her through her paces. Not that she was really complaining. It usually ended up being something interesting, even if she did end up exhausted and covered in way too many bruises at the end of it.
"Dare I ask what's going on?" She asked, trying very, very very hard to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
Of course, she didn't completely succeed, this was her after all, but surprisingly Moody didn't react to it. Normally she got told off or at least an eye roll. This time, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Well, except for him looking even more annoyed, if that was possible. Seriously, what would get him this mad? Was he trying to show her something vaguely illegal again?
"Apparently I have to evaluate you."
She blinked at him. What? Evaluate her? What in Merlin's name...
"Evaluate me? What do you mean evaluate me? Have I done something wrong?"
She hadn't been act8ng the fool or getting into fight a or anything like that. There hadn't been any time to do anything except work, work, work. Merlin, even when she was in her flat, she was still going over things, they all were. That's what happened when exams loomed over you. Exams that would determine if you had a job at the end of these long three years or not! She hadn't done anything except revise and try and learn things she swore she didn't know (It felt like there was a lot of things she didn't know and she didn't have enough time to learn everything). Why was she being evaluated? Did the powers that be think she wasn't up to the job or something? Could they do that so late in the game? She stared at Moody, hoping for some sort of an answer.
"It's supposed to tell the parchment pushers how well you're doing in each area."
Wait. That was it? It was a check in on their performance? Seriously?
"Isn't that what the exams are for?"
"This is for before the exams," he growled.
"That doesn't make sense. What's the point of me going through things twice?"
She didn't want to do exams twice! She didn't even want to do them once!
"These evaluations are supposed to reflect how much knowledge you can recall without revising. To see where you stand," he said, frowning at a piece of parchment in his hand that she assumed said just that. Or words to that effect.
"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that we're going to go through this list," he held up a different piece of parchment to the one he had been reading off, looking vaguely disgusted. "And see how well you do each thing."
"Right now?"
It couldn't be right Now! She wasn't ready! She had learned so many things, how was she supposed to do well on a test if she wasn't given a chance to revise.
"Yep. Everyone's to go though it today."
"But there's no way I know everything. I need to revise or I don't do well!"
Because that's how tests worked. You were supposed to learn everything and then regurgitate it. She was good at learning things, of course she was, she wouldn't have got this far if she wasn't. She could learn things, remember them and apply them later. That was something that she had honed over the past few years. But if she was being evaluated, simply applying her knowledge wouldn't be enough! She needed to give exact answers, straight from the textbook, right? She couldn't do that and the drop of a hat! She didn't have some magic memory!
"You're not expected to have a magic memory," he told her quite seriously.
Oops, she coloured up, he she said that out loud?
"But-"
"You're expected to know enough to come up with something for most situations. Doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to get the job done."
"Pretty sure that's the opposite to what the Academy tells us..."
"Well, the Academy's just a bunch of stuck-up examiners and they're wrong. Things aren't perfect in the real world; you get the job done and that's that."
The way he said it left no room for argument.
"But they are the ones marking my exams," she pointed out.
He snorted, showing very clearly his feelings about that.
"If I had my way you wouldn't have any written exams except for those legislation and procedure ones," he grumbled.
That actually sounded heaven to her. There was nothing she hated more was staring at a piece of paper, chewing on a quill in a stuffy exam hall trying to wreck her brain for answers that she wasn't even sure were correct.
"So, this has to happen even if you think it's a load of crap?"
He snorted at that but nodded. "When you're out in the field at some point you're going to have to be able into make a split-second decision on whatever knowledge you have and he well that outcome will be normally correlates to how much you know."
That actually made sense she thought begrudgingly. It didn't mean she had to like it though.
"So, what you're saying...?"
"I'm saying that this a more realistic look on how much you know than those exams you'll be taking in less than two months."
Yeah, she really didn't need to be reminded how fast her final exams were approaching, thank you very much. It was actually closer to a month away now but she wasn't going to point that out because she didn't want to think about it.
"Right."
She scrunched her nose up at that, still not completely happy with this whole thing despite making sense. She still wanted to do well, after all, she didn't want to fail.
"You're not going to fail. You can't fail."
"I could be behind in some skills though."
"You won't be."
Somehow that sounded more threatening than reassuring coming from him.
"Do we have to do this today?" She asked, changing tact.
Maybe even a day extra would help her a bit. She knew how to cram, after all. It wasn't always successful because it ran the risk of her forgetting stuff, she already knew but it was always worth giving a go.
"Yes."
Dammit.
