Chapter 17: Testing patience

The MSATs weren't easy, but Graham had worked like hell to prepare, and the effort had paid off. He'd been in the exam hall for two and a half hours before he got to the first question he wasn't comfortable with - it was one of the simpler ones, but simplicity was his Achilles' heel. Ask him to theorise wand movements for a biphasic lumos charm and he'd have been off to the races, but he was somehow struggling to remember the tenth through twelfth uses of dragon blood, which Slughorn had insisted on making the first years at Hogwarts memorize.

He took a deep breath, and took a moment to flip back through his answers, double-checking them while he let the rest of his mind mull over dragon blood - his slightly bifurcated brain helping him give both tasks due consideration. By the time he'd run through his earlier responses, he had another couple, removing spots and cleaning ovens - Albus Dumbledore was a terrible fraud who just happened to also be the greatest wizard alive - along with the self-confidence to move on to the final few questions on the paper.

After the exam was over, Graham made his way out of the repurposed courtroom (exams in Britain were typically taken in Hogwarts or not at all, which had given the MSAT a decidedly improvisational bent), feeling surprisingly pleased with himself. It took him a minute to reorient himself: given that the ministry was, for an organisation governing fewer than twenty thousand people, it was ludicrously overlarge.

Eventually, though, Graham found his way back to the lobby. He had the best part of two hours before his practical test and, by his reckoning, had excelled on the written one. And yet, as he stared out at the bustling mass of wizardry before him, he felt a discomfiting wave of panic stir in his belly, and suddenly felt an urge to be somewhere - anywhere - else.

Luckily, muggle London - and its many sandwich shops - were just moments away. Half an hour later found Graham tossing chunks of crust to the ducks in St James' Park, trying to exorcise the sudden discomfort. With Bagnold just weeks away from leaving office, the carefully choreographed dance of magical electoralism was well under way, with Bartholomew Gamp and Derwent Smythe as the final two candidates up for consideration. For some reason, the race felt especially unpleasant to Graham, even though Gamp was being hailed as a figure who could restore rationality, decency, and honesty to the ministry.

Certainly, there was no question that he was a better pick than Smythe, for whom the proposal to boil the Black Lake to get rid of the giant squid actually ranked among the more sensible of his policies. Sirius had met Gamp more than once as a child, and had told Graham that he had never said anything overtly awful - at least, not in front of Sirius, and that was rarity enough in the Black family's social circle.

And yet. Graham had heard the man give a speech over the wireless a few days before the MSATs, and he'd been reminded of another well-spoken politician from his childhood. The son of Irish parents, Graham had learned that his father had been turfed out of more than one boarding house as a young man, and his mother treated like an indentured servant while she'd worked as a cleaner to pay her way through University. They'd made damn sure that he had a finely tuned eye for prejudice.

Gamp had spoken about his concern for "decent, ordinary Wizards"; had decried the practice of elevating a "privileged class with protections denied to the rest of us", had alluded to the danger of "imminent moral neglect." And it had taken Graham back to 1968, when his mother had made him read Enoch Powell's speech predicting rivers of blood and explained exactly what he'd been implying. Gamp was, undeniably, a good old-fashioned wizard. But Graham knew just what kind of good being old-fashioned meant in the wizarding world, and just who the man believed made up the privileged class he'd decried - and it wasn't the wizards that lived in mansions.

In an academic way, Graham had understood that it was unlikely that things would get much better at the ministry after You-Know-Who was slain. The man had, literally and figuratively, been the unpleasant face of blood purity, and the fear of his reprisal (and, as the war worsened, of Dumbledore's) had rendered ministerial policy in the War largely inoffensive, presumably out of a sincere hope that both sides might forget that the ministry existed at all. But Gamp made Graham nervous in a way that Minchum never had, because he seemed profoundly competent - and Graham found competence in his enemies much more frightening than malevolence.

Checking his watch, Graham gathered his thoughts, took a moment to re-tie an errant shoelace, and hurried back to the ministry. That the MSAT had been hosted in England that year was a stroke of luck - apparently, the Americans had decided to situate their Europe-wide testing facilities in the Ministry that year as a diplomatic gesture in light of You-Know-Who's demise. Although magic didn't exactly make travel an issue, it had meant that Graham didn't need to worry about finding his way around a foreign magical country just to take it.

Besides, he'd been looking forward to the practical for weeks.

In fact, it took another hour of waiting before Graham was called in for his test - enough time for him to scope out the forty-odd wizards and witches who had pitched up for the MSATs. It was a pretty multicultural set: Britain was hardly the most magically populous country in Europe, after all (though, if Graham had anything to do with it, that would change soon enough), and America had never really stopped being a land of new beginnings for wizards and witches.

He did, however, spot a few of his compatriots in the mix. Beyond a couple of purebloods he vaguely recalled from school (from his hazy recollections and by the cut of their robes, he suspected that they'd been first- or second- year Slytherins when he'd been doing his NEWTs), everyone else he recognised was a muggleborn. Hogwarts had familiarised him with about 12 years' worth of muggleborn students, to varying degrees, and he recognised four - one older, three younger - from his time there. Four didn't sound like a lot, but waiting gave him the time to run through a mental calculus of the 50-or-so muggleborns he'd met at Hogwarts, and given their attrition rate, he guessed that he was looking at nearly twenty percent of what was left of them.

The thought filled him with a peculiar combination of sorrow and joy - joy that there was a meaningful, magical path out for his compatriots, sorrow that they had to take it. He exchanged a few encouraging smiles as they were called up before him - melancholy was entirely unhelpful in an exam, after all - and then it was his turn to face the music.

Potions and herbology had already been dealt with through coursework, so the final practical, as Jess had 'reassured' him in their last cram session, only covered arithmancy, transfiguration, charms, and runes.

A herculean task, certainly, but by no means an impossible one. Steeling himself, Graham strode into the exam room, signed the - binding - honesty agreement on the lectern by the entrance, and introduced himself to the room, as he'd been instructed in the waiting room.

The board of examiners - five, comprising one for each subject and a chairwoman - was more diverse than Graham would have expected, mostly because he was used to British wizardry: it was odd enough that that it was majority female and minority white, but the real surprise he felt was at its relative youth. Aside from the chairwoman, who bore her age well but bore it all the same, the rest of the board was barely brushing forty - and a couple looked as young as he was. It was a remarkable difference, Graham thought, from the fossils that made up the Wizarding Examinations Authority.

The chairwoman's manner was brusque, though not unfriendly. If anything, Graham was put firmly in mind of Professor McGonagall (well, Professor McGonagall with a thick Southern drawl instead of a Scottish burr).

"Mr. Longshaw - good to have you with us." she said, sifting through a pile of parchment on the desk before her. "I understand that you intend to pursue a healer's qualification at Salem?"

"Yes, ma'am." he answered. "Assuming I'm up to their standards, of course."

"Indeed." she said, after she'd paused to scan the document she'd been looking for. "Well, then. Mr. Briggs, if you're ready?"

"Yes - good afternoon!" said the young man to her right, evidently rather more cheerful than his superior. "I'll be assessing your transfig skills - let's get stuck in, why don't we?."

With a lazy sweep of his wand, an elaborate wrought iron lamp post sprouted, fully formed, in front of Graham and, with a gentle clink, lit up the room.

Despite himself, Graham was quite impressed by the spellwork. The fine detail would have been taxing enough, but the incorporation of a quasi-electric effect suggested a degree of built-in enchantment, and it was very difficult to tie enchantments into freeform transfiguration.

"In your own time, Mr. Longshaw," said Mr. Briggs, "I'd like you to explain, and then implement, the transformation of this lamppost into a bird of prey - sorcerer's choice as to which."

Graham couldn't help the slight smile that formed as he considered the task - if only because it showed that he'd genuinely grown as a wizard. He stared at the lamppost for a moment, cast a diagnostic spell, thought, double-checked his conclusions, and turned back to the examiners.

"Well." he said. "I think that the simplest path would involve some conceptual substitution and transmutation so as to facilitate step-based transfiguration. After an initial sweep to dispel any enchantments inherent to the lamp - hunting birds are imposing enough without glowing eyes - I would reconceptualise the lantern as a metallic torch, focusing on shared sympathetic qualities of those items in terms of light and security. Then, I'd transmute the torch to a kiln via shared affinity to flame - specifically, an iron kiln, given the teething issues that iron can cause - followed by a like-to-like transmutation to a clay kiln, which would be the easiest way to solve the iron problem."

"And with your clay kiln?" Mr. Briggs broke in as Graham paused to breathe.

"Well, it's simple from there." Graham said. "Kiln to pot to vase is just basic subject manipulation, and vase to ceramic sculpture is quite trivial given the basic malleability of clay. I'd create a suitably avian sculpture for that final association, then transmute straight to bird by means of a Nachmanidean shem-golem visualisation."

Broken down, every individual step of that transformation would have been feasible for a third-year student - admittedly, a very well-read one, particularly in respect of traditional Jewish golem animation. The process as a whole, though, was more advanced, and envisioning transformative chains was where the real grist of the discipline often lay.

"You've studied more broadly than the typical British curriculum, then." Mr. Briggs said, sounding rather pleased. "I always like it when people bring some Kabbalist theory into proceedings. Is that your plan, then?"

The outlined method would certainly have given him the marks he needed, but Graham wanted to showboat, so he shook his head.

"I'd actually like to try a freeform transformation, if that's alright?" he said.

Mr. Briggs nodded his agreement. So, setting thought and theory aside, Graham drew his wand, sunk into the quasi-meditative state that transfiguration demanded, and - with a careful mid-sequence twist of his wand to remove its enchanted light - subtracted a lamp-post from the world and added a bald eagle in its place.

"Very good!" Mr. Briggs exclaimed, after he'd inspected and dismissed the finished product. "I think that's everything I need from you, Mr. Longshaw, so I'll hand over to Miss Addison for your Arithmancy assessment."

The remaining tests flew by. Although free transfiguration exceeded the official requirements of the MSAT more than any of his other demonstrations (freeform changes were very hard to teach and even harder to learn), Graham still left the Ministry feeling about as confident as he could have hoped. Charms had been a doddle, of course - not least because they'd decided to test his knowledge of NEWT-level healing, and he had perfected that body of charms years ago - and both Arithmancy (snaring and deconstructing a hex in real time) and Runes (reviewing and revising a boundary ward to add pest control functionality) had played into his long-standing interest in fiddling with things.

His only job, then, was to wait - and, even though it felt a bit too close to hubris for comfort - to plan for the three years he'd be spending in Salem.

Well, once he'd worked off his post-exams celebratory hangover, anyway.

"And Sirius, I imagine you'll be glad to hear, won't be working in a professorial capacity - Remus and I will be the sole teachers, and we'll bring in further - similarly qualified - support as and when student numbers demand it."

Amelia Bones was embarrassed to admit that she hadn't really been aware of Delia Thistle at Hogwarts, even though the girl had been just a year below her at Hogwarts. She hadn't really reflected on it at the time, but once she'd learned that Delia was a muggleborn, Amelia had largely put her out of mind and focused on the friends she'd had as a child - viz. a bevy of purebloods, along with a few token half-bloods which her parents had permitted her to fraternise with as proof of the Bones's best-in-class centrist credentials.

That immaculate social circle, carefully vetted and thoughtfully distributed across Hogwarts' houses, was one of the key reasons for her meteoric rise in the DMLE (commanding a team of Aurors as a 27-year old was unheard of, and her pending promotion to senior auror at 28, if Scrimgeour hewed to his word, would make her the youngest in more than fifty years). But, as Delia wrapped up her explanation of Lockwood Manor's ten-year plan, Amelia couldn't help but rue that decision a little - clearly, if Graham and Delia were typical Muggleborns, she'd missed a hell of a lot of talent in the process, even if very little of that talent had survived the war.

She pulled herself out of her introspection and returned to the matter at hand.

"You and Remus - so Longshaw won't be a teacher? I thought this was all his idea in the first place."

"He's actually going to America to qualify as a healer, though he might pitch in and teach, depending on how things develop."

"Oh - well, good for him. Well, this certainly looks promising." she said, after another scan through the documents Delia had brought with her. "I'll need to take a closer look at this muggle institution - the Open University? - but the curriculum seems acceptable. I'm glad to hear that Longshaw will get a proper healing mastery, too."

Amelia hadn't actually planned on pushing the point about getting a 'qualified' healer, because she was fully aware that the muggleborn wizard was easily qualified to deal with any harm that magical children could cause; but a credentialled mastery was no bad thing, even if the news that he'd have to go overseas to acquire it made Amelia feel embarrassed on behalf of their country.

"I think he's glad, too." said Delia. "And keeping our circle of associates small limits the risk of exposure, which is, of course, a continuing priority."

"Yes." Amelia said. "About that. Am I right in thinking that Lockwood would only educate students through to the summer before their first year at Hogwarts?"

Delia nodded.

"Anything else would step onto Hogwarts' statutory footing, and Hogwarts letters go out to everybody, so we can't avoid them. I assume you're thinking about how best to prepare the school for an influx of students?"

"More that Dumbledore will either learn about the scheme through you, through your students, or through your prep school being outed to the world at large. I'm sure I don't need to tell you how bad children are at keeping secrets. Powerful wizards don't enjoy surprises, and I'm sure I don't need to tell you how important it'll be for you all to have a friend in the man."

That Amelia had no intention of making overtures on Longshaw and his associates' behalf had more than been covered in earlier meetings. For all that she hadn't ended their enterprise, her discomfort with being involved in any respect hadn't lessened at all.

"...We'll work something out." Delia said, at length. "I can't map that out unilaterally, you understand, but I'll update you at our next meeting."

"Our next - so, Sirius has delegated this little job to you, has he?"

"Well, he'd never planned on having an active role with Lockwood, so it's more that we wanted to ensure that you'd be talking to someone more involved in the management and decision-making process."

Amelia did her best to hide her irritation at that piece of news, not least because it was both petty and illogical. The past half-hour had already shown that Delia was competent, well abreast of the facts, and perfectly pleasant; and Amelia understood that Sirius, as a single parent with a busy day-job, probably didn't have that much time to spare for something he wasn't really invested in.

It was just that Amelia was a single parent with an even busier day-job, and she was even less invested in Lockwood, but she still had to put the time in. Even given how irritating the man could be, it rankled that her subordinate seemed, yet again, to have found a way to lighten his load.

At least, she thought, Delia already seemed like less of a nuisance than her predecessor...

Fifteen hundred feet off the ground, the thermal Graham had used in his climb finally levelled off, and he hovered for a long moment, held aloft by the wind.

Below him, Lockwood glowed in the light of a perfect late-August sunset, its red brick almost incandescent. The formal gardens, brought under control by a little spellwork and a lot of manual labour, finally seemed able to live up to the estate they belonged to - and the ornamental pond, once so marshy that they'd found a nest of dugbogs when they cleaned it out, was now clean enough that they'd been able to introduce a pair of plimpies, which numbered among the less dangerous magical creatures they hoped to introduce students to.

There was still plenty to do, of course. Acres of grounds to develop, for a start, and Remus' cell for full moons at the edge of the wards, while perfectly safe in principle, still needed a lot more work before the man would feel fully comfortable using it with children nearby. But they had time for that - still a good few years, in fact, because even precocious toddlers were too young to teach.

Still, as he adjusted his trim and began to descend, Graham felt torn between pride at what they'd accomplished and melancholy at his impending departure. His results, just as Remus had predicted, had been more than enough to guarantee his place at Salem, and his international portkey (paid for by the Institute, which was bloody right given how much they were charging for the mastery) was scheduled for the next day. He'd packed, said his goodbyes, even taken a few refresher driving lessons in case he needed to get about in no-maj America - he was as ready as ready could be, even if leaving Lockwood felt almost like abandoning a child.

Another effect of being a bird was that human emotions ebbed and flowed more quickly on the wing, and Graham was over his malaise by the time he was person-shaped again. Magic, he reflected, really was a wonder; and he was going to make the most of everything it had to offer, even if he had to cross the world first.

AN: Thank you for reading, and apologies for my delay - job chaos diverted my attention just a tad...

Events should start moving more swiftly from here on out, lest our characters be trapped forever in the early 80s!