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Aurora seemed to register that Ian truly did have comprehension issues.
"Remember when I told you Dumbledore asked me to keep an eye on you? This is the same principle." She kindly summarized.
"Exactly, clear as crystal. Dumbledore believes that as long as you're all right, everyone else's defenses against dark magic are safe too."
"If you pass the psychological exam, then we all pass. But if you fail… well, then we've got a real problem. I think he'll subject you to what you're always calling a 'harmless disposal.'" Aurora spoke with a trace of dramatic flair, clearly having misinterpreted both Ian's usual phrasing and Dumbledore's methods.
Even though she now studied under the greatest white wizard of the age, her personal views on Albus Dumbledore's moral compass remained... complicated.
"You think that if my mind shows any signs of instability, Headmaster Dumbledore would just get rid of me?" Ian blinked at her in stunned disbelief. With the kind of magic he wielded, able to call forth long-lost souls in the Twilight Realm, including echoes of Dumbledore's own truth, it was hard to believe their headmaster would ever do such a thing.
Still, Aurora's logic was a little too convincing for comfort.
"What else do you expect him to do? You really don't understand our headmaster." Aurora didn't answer directly. Instead, she posed a weighty rhetorical question:
"Do you really think that, if the time came to eliminate a potential threat like you, Dumbledore would hesitate?"
"I'm fairly certain, he wouldn't even mourn you."
To be fair, looking from Aurora's perspective, her reasoning wasn't baseless. Some of Dumbledore's early-life decisions had bordered on ruthless. It was just that Ian had seen a more... merciful side.
Aurora, however, wasn't privy to the secret rapport Ian shared with Dumbledore—nor the things whispered to him by the phantoms in the Twilight Realm.
"You've over-analyzed this so thoroughly I'm starting to get nervous myself… Good thing I'm confident in my answers. If I end up losing sleep tonight, I'm blaming you."
Ian thumped his chest dramatically, as if he'd narrowly escaped execution.
"So you really did cheat successfully."
Aurora shut the notebook in her hands, gave Ian a parting wave, and headed off toward the exam room. She clearly had an impeccable sense of when her turn was up.
"Being able to see the future, that's real cheating."
Ian bid his peculiar friend farewell and climbed the staircase back to the Room of Requirement. Owing to earlier mishaps, he now had to churn out another round of limited-edition gas masks in a hurry.
The sort of decadent, thrill-seeking Slytherins just loved this kind of novelty.
And just as Ian immersed himself in production—
…
Elsewhere:
"Come in."
The gentle voice of Albus Dumbledore echoed from behind the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam room. Aurora stepped through to begin her trial.
"Hm?"
As the door shut automatically behind her, she noticed something most young wizards would have missed: there was a glowing white pillar near the front of the room, casting a soft, steady light.
"That's a precaution to prevent exam questions from being leaked. Time was tight, and I couldn't devise separate trials for every year." Albus Dumbledore explained, preempting Aurora's unspoken question.
She nodded, already thoughtful.
"Does it wipe our memory of the exam afterward?" She voiced her suspicion with blunt honesty.
At that, Dumbledore let out a soft chuckle.
"It seems your opinion of me hasn't improved much. I wouldn't tamper with young minds so casually."
"This lamp merely ensures that, for a short time after leaving, you won't recall the exam's contents clearly." He didn't hide the truth behind the spellwork, not from her.
"If it troubles you, I can turn it off. After all, your answers won't affect anyone else's."
Without waiting for her reply, he gave a casual wave. The white glow faded into nothing, and the classroom reverted to how it had looked during Ian's session.
"Are you going to test me on the Patronus Charm?" Aurora asked flatly, already trying to guess how Dumbledore might attempt to "challenge" her.
"That spell can wait. I believe you'll master it in time, but you still need to settle yourself first." Dumbledore's eyes were deep and unreadable.
"Settle what? My happy memories?" Aurora's brows knit together. She was rarely unsettled, but now she pressed him for clarity.
"What you lack isn't memory, it's conviction." Dumbledore replied gently, not giving her the chance to reflect before changing the subject entirely.
"Before we begin, I'd like you to assist me with something."
He pulled a parchment from the drawer.
Inside were several identical scrolls, clearly copies of a standard exam.
"What is it?" Aurora sat across from him, watching curiously.
"I'd like you to mark any answers that, from your perspective, don't reflect reality, answers given by our Mr. Prince." Under her confused gaze, Dumbledore slid the scroll toward her.
"This is the psychological assessment you gave Ian?" Aurora's mind immediately flew back to her earlier conversation. She scanned the parchment, puzzled by the responses Ian had given.
"He's already answered everything. What's the point of me correcting it now?" Aurora hesitated, eyeing the quill Dumbledore handed her with a trace of reluctance.
"Of course there's a point." Albus Dumbledore glanced toward the corner of his desk.
There—
Several duplicates of the same test parchment lay neatly stacked, covered in notes and comments, alongside the names of those who had reviewed them.
William, Michael, Cho Chang, Zhang… All familiar names to Ian, etched in distinctive inks and varied handwriting.
"You're the last one. Once you've added your observations, I can finally make a definitive evaluation."
Dumbledore's tone was gentle, but it made Aurora's expression tighten slightly.
She couldn't help but raise a wary brow—
"Once I walk out that door… will I even remember you asked me to do this?"
Let's just say, when it came to paranoia and conspiracy theories, Ian wasn't the only one wearing a crown at Hogwarts.
"Are you always this suspicious?" Even Albus Dumbledore rubbed his temple, visibly amused but also somewhat exasperated.
He was beginning to suspect that whatever training Grindelwald had given his apprentice, it definitely included more than just spellwork...
…
The Hogwarts exams concluded successfully.
The end-of-term feast was scheduled just before the students departed for the summer.
It would be the last time this term that all the Hogwarts houses gathered for a grand meal and naturally, the house-elves had gone all out. The scent of rich roasts and buttered vegetables filled every corner of the castle.
When the time came, students and professors poured into the Great Hall one after another.
Even some of the older students, those who usually skipped dinner in vain pursuit of a fashionable waistline turned up, unwilling to miss the grand finale. It was a proper celebration, and nearly everyone was there.
Nearly—
"Nearly" being the key word. Two Gryffindor students were notably absent: the infamous twin brothers, who had been abruptly taken away and placed in isolation earlier that afternoon.
Now, Ian's products had always been trustworthy, top-notch enchantments, no misleading advertising, but the twins' sudden bout of what Madam Pomfrey dramatically named 'Truth Confused by Lies Syndrome' had startled both her and Albus Dumbledore right out of their exam invigilation duties.
Madam Pomfrey turned positively white. To describe her panic—
Even Ian's enchanted gas masks won her over.
(To Be Continued…)
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