“You’re bleeding on my floor.”

Harry’s eyes snapped open. He was lying spread-eagled on a smooth floor – linoleum, he thought. He saw white ceiling and a tarnished-looking silver chandelier hanging directly over him. He sat up and scanned the room. It was plain-looking and completely unfamiliar. There was a fireplace to the left, a couple of rusty-red armchairs ahead of him with a small wooden cabinet squeezed in between, and a door to his right. Apart from that, the room was bare.

He was indeed bleeding, he realised as he became aware of the stinging pain in his left arm. He looked down to see a long, jagged gash that extended right up his forearm, oozing blood onto the robe he was wearing, which was an odd mauve colour. Instinctively he grabbed, with his right hand, a fistful of robe and pressed it up against the cut to stem the bleeding. As he did, he could feel the heavy throb-throb of blood rushing through his veins and realised he was breathing very fast. Why was he so panicked?

“Are you all right?”

The voice, which had been playful at first, now held a tinge of concern. Harry spun around and located the source: a young woman, about his own age, was peering at him anxiously. She wore robes that were the same shade of mauve as his own, and her light-brown hair was cut smoothly at her neck. From her gaze, it seemed as if the woman knew him and expected him to know her, but Harry was positive that he’d never met her before in his life.

“Who – who’re you?” said Harry warily.

The woman’s eyes widened. “You don’t remember –?” Her jaw tightened, as if she’d bitten into something foul-tasting. She then swore violently. “Damn it all – I’d hoped – they got you, didn’t they?”

“Who got me?” said Harry immediately. He let go of his robes, allowing his cut to bleed afresh, in favour of grasping for his wand – which, he was relieved to find, was stowed safely in the folds of his robes.

“The Collectors – a criminal gang we’re investigating,” said the woman very quickly. “We were on the case, but got spotted – I thought I’d gotten us out of there in time, but…”

“On the case?” said Harry. “What d’you mean by that?” As he thought about it, he realised he had no idea what he did for a living. By the sound of it, law enforcement of some kind?

The woman laughed a high, humourless sort of laugh, the sort that you only laughed when you knew things had gone terribly wrong.

“We’re Aurors,” she explained. “You asked who I was… I’m your Auror partner. Lisa Turpin. We were in the same year at school.”

Lisa Turpin… To Harry’s relief, he did recognise the name. She’d been sorted after him at Hogwarts. He was still certain he didn’t know this woman, but then Harry had never interacted with Lisa much at school. She hadn’t been in the D.A., he was sure of that, and he didn’t think she’d fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, although he could easily have missed seeing her amongst the many combatants.

Even thinking these things gave him some peace of mind. Evidently, he remembered some things – Hogwarts, the D.A., the fight against Voldemort. But being an Auror – he was sure something like that would stick out in his memory, but he remembered nothing of it.

Lisa Turpin – if that was who she was – was frowning at Harry’s left arm, which was once again dripping blood onto the floor. “That looks bad,” she said, biting her lip. “I Side-Along-Apparated us out of there, but we had to leave in a hurry. Must have Splinched…”

Harry was sure he knew spells that could heal cuts like this, but he was hesitant: would whatever spell had taken his memories interfere with his magic as well? He offered his arm to Lisa. “Could you, er…”

But Lisa backed away a step, shaking her head slowly. “I – I can’t do Healing spells to save my life,” she muttered, flushing red with embarrassment. “You’re the Healer on our team. Do you think you’re still able to…?” She trailed off.

Nervously, Harry pointed his wand at the gash on his arm – but found, with relief, that something inside of him seemed to know innately what to do next. “Vulnera Sanentur,” he said, tracing his wand lightly over the cut; as he did, an odd, icy feeling shot up his injured arm while, before Harry’s eyes, the skin knitted itself together. “Tergeo,” he added, and the residual blood on his arm vanished, leaving fresh, if slightly pink-looking, skin.

Lisa sighed, looking as relieved as he felt. “We were told that the Memory Charms these wizards were messing around with wouldn’t affect our magical abilities, even if we forgot where we learned them,” she explained. “Still, I was worried…”

Now the pain in his arm had dissipated, Harry started to focus on the matter at hand.

“Where are we?” he asked Lisa.

“My flat,” said Lisa quickly. “It was the first place I could think of.”

Harry didn’t dwell on that. He was thinking furiously.

“So, this gang – Collectors, you called them,” he said slowly. “What are they after, exactly? What’s their crime? And their Memory Charms…” Harry was well acquainted with how Memory Charms worked; the incident with Gilderoy Lockhart in his second year stuck freshly in his mind. “Memory Charms normally remove memories from a block of time, don’t they? The last few minutes, the last day, your whole life if you’re unlucky. But I’ve forgotten everything related to a single subject – my job as an Auror. I think that’s it, anyway. I remember other things… birthdays… friends… my wedding…”

Lisa nodded. “Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s a really complex bit of magic, even the Department of Mysteries are… well, mystified. As to what they’re after – money, we think. They’re stealing priceless artefacts, heirlooms and the like, and selling them. People are getting Charmed into forgetting that they ever owned them, and because there are no obvious gaps in their memories, it’s incredibly hard to detect. We’re only finding out because some of these items end up on black markets we’ve got tapped. They could be doing other things as well. We just don’t know.”

“And we’re investigating them?”

“Yeah. We were doing recon, but we got found out.” Lisa winced. “Completely my fault – but what’s done is done.”

Harry rubbed his hand through his hair. “So, what now? Is there a procedure for what to do when one of us gets Obliviated?”

Lisa frowned, and seemed to consider the question for a moment. “Not really. No. I think… normally I’d take you back to the Ministry to get checked out. But, the case…”

“What about it?” Harry pressed her. Something in him – he didn’t know whether it was the distant memory of his school days or some sort of Auror’s instinct that hadn’t been Memory Charmed out of him – was pressing him to solve this mystery. “Did we find something?”

Lisa nodded again. “Yeah. That’s why they tried to wipe our memories, I think. We found a location – an address. Number twenty-two, Danby Court, Islington. Barely two miles from here.”

Harry wanted to tear off to number twenty-two, Danby Court immediately, but no sooner had he thought it than he realised it may not be the wisest choice.

“Should we go then? Given there are only two of us and one of us doesn’t even remember being an Auror?” said Harry. “Surely we could get reinforcements or something.”

“Won’t work,” said Lisa promptly. “It’s under a Fidelius Charm. We’re the only ones who saw the address, so only we can find it. Also, magical travel is out: Floo is blocked, and brooms, Apparition or Portkeys will set off alarms from a mile off. That’s why I think this address is so important. They’re hiding something and if we’re not quick, we might be too late – they might be gone.” She bit her lip nervously. “They might already be.”

Harry nodded grimly. It seemed they were going to Islington after all.

“How are we getting there?” he said.

Lisa, who was very tense, seemed to relax; it seemed as though she wasn’t sure he would agree to go.

“I have a car,” said Lisa. “I’m not the best driver, but I suppose it’s safer if I do it. We learned to drive as part of our training, and if they took that memory from you…”

Harry nodded. “Well, we’d better go, then. You know the place and I don’t – lead the way.”

Lisa, it transpired, was a terrible driver. In what ought to have been a simple trip, she ran two red lights, missed a turn-off and had to drive around the block to get back on course, and nearly caused an accident when she indicated the wrong direction at a roundabout. More than once, Harry was tempted to jump across and grab the steering wheel, and only rejected this course of action because the gears and pedals in the car looked utterly foreign to him, and he couldn’t be sure driving would come as naturally to him as Healing spells.

Aside from the moments when he was fearing for his life, the car trip did give him a chance to settle his thoughts and mull over Lisa’s story. He still did not trust her completely. She seemed far too eager to walk into what sounded like a very dangerous situation with just one potentially compromised Auror for backup, and Harry hadn’t seen any proof that she was truly an Auror, nor that her story about the Collectors was factual. In hindsight, he realised, he should have demanded something: some sort of identification from Lisa, and perhaps a newspaper article about the Collectors. But there was nothing else for it now. He’d just have to be very careful.

Lisa pulled up halfway down a quiet street, directly out the front of number twenty-two: a small, very old-looking two-storey house. It looked as though it had certainly seen better days: the brown paint was peeling and cracking in many places, showing rotten-looking wood. Lisa and Harry exited the car and stood on the pavement, facing the house. It was late afternoon, and the street was deserted. The resulting silence was slightly eerie.

“Looks abandoned,” said Harry.

“Looks can be deceiving,” Lisa pointed out, pulling out her wand. “Homenum revelio!”

Nothing happened.

“No one in the house,” muttered Lisa. “Which means they’ve probably already left. Still, they might have left behind something useful.”

“Or it might be a trap,” said Harry, fingering his own wand.

“True,” admitted Lisa. “But nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let’s have a look – we’ll just have to keep our eyes open.” With that, she approached the pasty-coloured, rickety-looking front door. Harry followed a pace behind her with a growing feeling of apprehension.

The door was locked, but didn’t seem to be magically protected in any way. Harry was a little surprised when the door swung open at Lisa’s “Alohomora!” Lisa, for her part, pursed her lips before tentatively stepping inside.

They stepped into a long entrance hall that reminded Harry, in mood and décor, of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Dark, musty wallpaper was peeling off the walls, and a cobweb-ridden chandelier that might not have been used in decades hung in the centre of the room. Small, high windows let only slivers of the afternoon light in that, once Harry closed the front door behind him, only just allowed him to make out the features of the hall. The overall effect gave the room a darkened, foreboding feel.

Lisa started to make her way cautiously down the hall, stopping every few seconds to mutter spells that Harry didn’t recognise, occasionally fingering the walls on either side. Harry was reminded of Albus Dumbledore’s detection abilities in the cave where they had found the fake locket, all those years ago. He wondered if this was part of the Auror training he couldn’t remember.

“What are you doing?” said Harry, his curiosity overcoming his embarrassment at having to ask.

“Checking for wards, traps, hidden doors – anything I can find,” replied Lisa, pausing in her work. “I’m good at that, and it’s a good thing, too. You’re the wonder child at combat and Healing – I need to beat you at something.” She shot him an impish smile, and then went back to prodding the walls and muttering.

With nothing else to do and his uneasiness having not entirely faded, Harry pulled out his wand and eyed the front door – just in case the Collectors or some other foe were to come charging into the house. Nothing happened, however, and after a couple of long minutes, they reached the door at the other end of the hall and Lisa seemed to be satisfied.

“Nothing?” said Harry.

“Nothing,” confirmed Lisa. “That’s just one room, though. We’ve got a lot more checking to do. Stand back.”

She cast the Human Presence Charm again, with no effect. They were still alone.

“There could still be creatures around, could there? Non-humans wouldn’t set off the charm, and could still be dangerous,” said Harry in a low voice, remembering Grimmauld Place once more.

Lisa shot him a sharp look, but then nodded. “Good point.” She studied the door carefully and then, abruptly, shoved it open, her wand at the ready.

Nothing happened – nothing sprang out to attack them and Lisa slowly lowered her wand, as did Harry. The door led to what appeared to be a sitting room, with the same high windows and dark wallpaper as the entrance hall. There was a dark-coloured sofa – leather, Harry thought – a couple of old, spindly chairs and a matching table, all arranged in front of a small fireplace off to one side. Various doors led, presumably, to other rooms, and at the very back a flight of stairs led up to the top floor.

Lisa set about her magical detection spells again, with Harry keeping a lookout. Minutes passed without incident, and Lisa soon completed a circuit of the sitting room before moving on to adjoining rooms – the kitchen, a dining room, a bathroom, and what might once have been a bedroom or drawing room but was now completely vacant as far as Harry could tell. Lisa took some time before declaring that one, too, clean of any magic.

Harry frowned. Something definitely didn’t add up. The place, while far from pristine, could be made liveable easily enough. It did not have the infestations of magical pests that were typical of long-abandoned magical houses, which made Harry think it might be a Muggle house, although the dearth of any modern technology such as a television made that explanation unlikely as well. The most unsettling thing about the house was how devoid it was of any evidence anyone had lived there recently. There were no belongings, no knick-knacks, and the cupboards and antique refrigerator in the kitchen were all empty. If the Collectors had left in a hurry with less than an hour’s notice, surely they would have left something behind?

Harry gripped his wand tighter as he followed Lisa up the stairs. If she was lying to him… if she was luring him into a trap, or using him in some other way… what would he do? He might have to fight his way out. He thought he could defeat Lisa one on one, especially if he had the element of surprise; he didn’t know exactly what the woman was capable of, though, so he couldn’t be overconfident. And if she had backup, he was in serious trouble.

Drawing level with Lisa at the landing, Harry cast the Human Presence Charm himself this time. For the third time, nothing happened. Lisa gave Harry a scrutinising, narrow-eyed look, but did not comment.

They faced a long, narrow corridor that seemed to extend back up to the front of the house, lit only by a window at their back. Lisa flicked her wand and an old gas lantern near them, hanging off the wall to their right, ignited. In its light, Harry saw doors along the corridor: four of them, two on either side.

Lisa muttered another spell and then inhaled sharply. Harry saw it, too. One of the doors – the one nearest to them on their left – was glowing a soft green colour.

“Wards,” said Lisa in an excited whisper. “This must be it – I knew we’d find something – come on!”

She hurried down the corridor and stopped at the door, already muttering counter-curses. Harry didn’t follow her. It took Lisa several seconds before she noticed, paused and looked back.

“Harry, aren’t you –” She faltered.

Harry was standing, still at the landing, his wand trained on Lisa’s chest.

“W-what are you doing?” said Lisa in a high-pitched voice, her wand twitching in her hand.

“Lower your wand,” said Harry quietly.

Slowly, tremulously, Lisa did so. Harry didn’t speak again until Lisa’s wand was pointed safely at the ground.

“Tell me something,” said Harry, still in that quiet, oddly calm voice that was at odds with his racing heart. “Why are you so eager to break into a house, with no backup except a Memory Charmed Auror and no evidence except that it has apparently been used by an organisation that I have no proof exists – despite the fact that it looks like it hasn’t been lived in for some time, and the only sign of magic is a single jinxed door that you can conveniently detect and counter?”

Lisa stared, wide-eyed. To Harry, she strongly resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights.

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” Harry continued, still eyeing Lisa keenly, ready to act on any sudden move. “But you’re not telling me the whole truth. I know that much. So, what is it? Are you a real Auror gone renegade, or are you just pretending to be one to gain my trust? Perhaps you’re one of these Collectors – maybe you’re the one who removed my memories and you’re now using me to do your dirty work? Perhaps you’re trying to frame or implicate me so you can make a clean getaway?”

Lisa’s lip was trembling.

“I want answers,” whispered Harry. “So, are you going to give them to me, or am I going to have to make you?”

Harry stood, waiting for Lisa to react, for a full ten seconds. She seemed rooted to the spot, frozen. Then, very suddenly, with a speed that impressed Harry despite the situation, she whipped her wand up to point directly at Harry, already shouting a spell –

“Stupef–”

“Stupefy!”

– Harry was faster.

Lisa was blasted back, away from Harry, away from the door, at least halfway down the corridor. She was unconscious before she hit the floor.

Harry barely had a second to register what had just happened. Then, the door Lisa had just stood beside, the door that had apparently been warded, burst open so forcefully it bounced off the adjacent wall – and about six or seven mauve-robed wizards and witches streamed out, already firing curses and hexes his way.

Instinctively, Harry cast a non-verbal Shield Charm. Two spells shattered it and Harry counted himself lucky the other curses were off-target. Turning on his heel, he leapt down the stairs, covering half of them in a single bound, while at the same time pointing his wand at the banister and shouting, “Depulso!” The banister snapped clean off and threw itself back up at the oncoming wizards, earning grunts of surprise and – Harry hoped – pain.

Harry, for his part, paid for his multi-tasking as he failed to find his footing and ended up tumbling down the rest of the stairs, hitting his head on the hard floor. Blinking back stars from his eyes, he scrambled to his feet and dashed for the door that led to the entrance hall and the exit –

CRASH!

A massive chunk of the ceiling splintered off from the rest. Harry skidded to a halt as the mass of wood and plaster landed right in front of him, blocking his path and obscuring the door completely. He swore – he didn’t have time to blast or levitate it out of the way. He was trapped.

Harry wheeled around just in time to dodge a Stunner. One of the mauve-clad wizards, a hard-faced man with short black hair and rough stubble, was racing down the stairs: he dodged an Impediment Jinx from Harry, returned fire, and they began to duel in earnest, the man still halfway down the stairs. A moment later he was joined by a woman with iron-grey hair; it was now two on one and soon, Harry realised, the others would arrive and he would be overwhelmed. He needed a distraction – suddenly, a memory from the Battle of Hogwarts struck him and he shouted, “Glisseo!”

Immediately, the stairs Harry’s assailants were standing on morphed into a smooth slide and they slipped and slid to the bottom, across the floor and into the wall. Immediately, Harry turned back to the collapsed ceiling, intending to blast his way through, but –

“Expelliarmus!”

– the hard-faced man, somehow, had kept his wits about him. His lips curved into a smile as he caught Harry’s wand in his other hand and trained them both on Harry. Harry swore again.

The other wizards were sliding down the chute and arriving in front of Harry like a firing squad. He dodged one, two, three curses, then was hit by a Body-Bind Curse and rocked back, stiff as a board, to lie flat on the floor.

Unable to move a muscle, Harry could only stare defiantly as the hard-faced man came into view. Bending down over Harry’s body, the man wordlessly traced his wand across Harry’s eyes, from left to right, and –

– Harry remembered.

Images flooded through his mind… signing up for Auror training along with Ron… going through the trials and tests… the elation of finally becoming a fully-fledged Auror… his first mission… his first arrest… being assigned to partner with Lisa after his first partner, Savage, retired… and the events leading up to today’s, which –

If Harry could speak, he would have sworn violently. Today had been a test. Worse, it was one he had well and truly fouled up. The consequences for today… well, he was certainly not looking forward to debriefing.

The grey-haired witch, who Harry now realised he knew – a Senior Auror named Langdon – had now come into view. She was chuckling, but her smile had a slightly rueful edge. “Finite,” she said, and Harry could move again. “Only you, Potter, would take on the entire Senior Auror team and nearly escape. Lucky Robards here knows your style so well, or we’d all probably be in trouble with the Statute of Secrecy. Made a right mess of this place as is.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me if I don’t feel so lucky right now,” said Harry irritably, rubbing his sore head as he clambered to his feet.

Langdon snickered again. “Don’t feel so bad, Potter. You figured it out in the end – that’s more than some have managed.”

The hard-faced man – Gawain Robards, Harry realised with an unpleasant twist of his stomach that he’d nearly cursed his boss – glowered at Langdon. “Enough chit-chat,” he snapped. “Langdon, you and the others clean up this mess. Potter, we’re upstairs for debrief.”

Harry winced and followed Robards back up the stairs, which had reverted to their usual form – someone had ended his enchantment. He saw Langdon and the other Senior Aurors starting to repair the considerable damage to the sitting room before he reached the landing and lost sight of them.

Robards led him past the shattered banister and into the room behind the enchanted door, where the Senior Aurors had been lying in wait for Harry. The room was simple and undecorated, consisting only of a large circular table surrounded by several high-backed wooden chairs, one of which was currently occupied.

Lisa looked up as they entered. “Did you have to put so much power in that Stunner?” she complained. “I’ve a splitting headache now.”

“Well, you did a right job of convincing me you were a Dark witch in need of a few hexes to the face,” Harry shot at her. “How could I not oblige?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. Robards coughed.

“All right, Potter,” he said gruffly. “Self-assess. Now.”

“The flat wasn’t Lisa’s,” said Harry immediately. “Hell, I’ve been to her place before, and it looks nothing like that. I guess you took my memory of that too, or it’d have been a dead giveaway, but I still should have realised something was off – the place was too bare, no photos or anything. And I should have questioned why Lisa would Apparate us to her flat when there are loads of better places: the Ministry, for one. That was my first big clue, and I missed it completely.”

“That you did,” said Robards, his face a mask. “Go on.”

“Lisa’s story was reasonable enough. She actually thought up some pretty good explanations as to how I came to be Obliviated and why we had to go to this house and why the other Aurors couldn’t get involved,” said Harry. Lisa ducked her head slightly. “But I should have asked for evidence. I had no proof that she was telling the truth. I actually realised that during the car trip, though it was a bit too late – it made me more cautious from then on, though.”

“Fair. Learning from your errors – that’s good,” said Robards, placing his left hand on his chin pensively. “What about the car ride?” he asked sharply.

“Well, that’s not really evidence of anything,” said Harry. “Lisa really is that bad a driver.”

Lisa went very red at that.

Robards shrugged. “Maybe so. Still, the fact is that Dark wizards tend to be a lot less acquainted with the Muggle world than most. As such, any particular incompetence in that area –” Lisa flushed even darker, “– ought to be taken as a clue, if not conclusive in itself.”

Harry nodded, conceding the point, and went on. “So, we arrived at the house, and Lisa cast Homenum revelio… she cast it twice, actually, and I did once, but nothing happened.” This was an issue that had been nagging at him for several minutes now. “How is that possible? There’s no counter to that spell, and you were all in the room –”

“Ah, but we weren’t,” said Robards, a wide smile forming on his face. Harry stared. “That was, I think, your biggest mistake – you took Turpin’s word on the house’s protections against magical travel for granted. They never existed. We Apparated here as soon as Turpin dispelled the Signal Charm on the door to this room. We did cast an Anti-Disapparition Jinx on arrival, but even that was unnecessary, since you didn’t even try to Disapparate. But, had you had the foresight and ability to check the enchantments on the house, you would instantly have spotted the deception. Instead, you relied on Turpin, and that was a crucial error that could have meant your death in a genuine assignment.

“This,” Robards continued, “is why we encourage all Aurors to continue to develop in all aspects of their training. We assign partners to complement one another and to compensate for each other’s weaknesses, but that does not mean you should neglect your deficiencies out of complacency that your partner will cover for them. What if Turpin is out of commission, or – as in this exercise – compromised? You must be able to take the load where necessary.”

Harry dropped his gaze. Truthfully, Robards’ criticism struck home. He did tend to rely on his combat skills and instincts to get him out of troublesome situations, and left the defter, subtler tasks to Lisa – partly because he knew she was better at those than he was, but also because he knew that, as much as she tried to hide it, Lisa had never truly lost her sense of inferiority at being partnered with the ‘Chosen One’ and he didn’t want her to feel useless. But Robards was right: he couldn’t be reliant on Lisa. He had to get better at magical detection – perhaps Lisa could help him with that.

Harry snapped back to attention as Robards started speaking again. “I heard your little chat with Turpin before you Stunned her, so I can guess the rest. You noticed that this house didn’t tally up with Turpin’s tale of the occupants making a quick exit, and you twigged that having one bit of magic in a whole house was a wee bit too convenient. You probably should have cast first and asked questions later, but when you’ve got reflexes like you have, I suppose I can let you off for that. If you’d confronted Turpin a second earlier, before she took care of the door, we’d never have turned up and you’d have passed the test. As it is, you technically failed – but I’m willing to write you a conceded pass provided you take and pass a Counter-Charms and Enchantments course. We need you in the field, Potter.”

Harry breathed a huge sigh of relief. Vast amounts of the Auror force had been taken off active duty when the modified Memory Charms had come to light a few weeks ago, and Harry had feared that after failing this test it might be a long time before he’d be let out of the office again. After all that had happened, this was probably the best he could hope for.

“Thanks, sir,” he said to Robards at last. “I won’t let you down.”

“See that you don’t.” Robards coughed again and stood. “Well, that’s that,” he said. “Langdon and company should be finished downstairs – all cleaned up and ready for next time. Potter, you might want to get that car back to Sampson’s flat – you’ll be needing it again, after all. Turpin and I’ll meet you there.”

Harry and Lisa stared, not comprehending.

Robards grinned. “Didn’t I tell you? Potter’s not the only one being tested today. Turpin – you’re up next.”

Harry turned his head slowly to look at Lisa. He felt a smile start to cross his face, and saw Lisa tense and start to look faintly green. She had had her fun; now, it was his turn.

The drive from Islington back to the flat was a lot less eventful than the previous trip. Once again, it gave Harry time to think and by the time he pulled up, he had come up with a rudimentary plan to lure Lisa into number twenty-two, Danby Court. He wanted his partner to pass, of course, but he certainly wasn’t going to make it easy for her – after all, she certainly hadn’t done him any favours.

Harry met Robards in the same linoleum-floored room in which he had woken up a couple of hours previously. Lisa was already slumped on the floor, unconscious.

“She should be up in about five minutes,” said Robards quietly. “Go well, Potter.”

With a soft pop, he Disapparated.

Harry sat in one of the armchairs, going once more over the story he had prepared in his head. Like Lisa, he was going to claim that this flat was his, but he was sure Lisa – who was a lot more observant than him – would notice how bland and impersonal it was. Thoughtfully, he pulled out a shrunken photograph from his pocket that he always carried with him: a wizarding photo of his and Ginny’s wedding day. An Engorgement Charm and Sticking Charm later, it was displayed proudly above the mantelpiece. Hopefully that would throw off Lisa’s suspicions.

Satisfied, he slumped back in his chair. Lisa would surely be waking up very soon. Harry gazed down at her, lying in the same place he’d been not long ago. He could see the dark stain where his arm had bled onto the floor –

Harry stood up as an idea occurred to him. It probably wouldn’t affect Lisa’s chances of passing the test either way, but he just couldn’t resist the temptation. Bending down over Lisa’s side, he pulled part of her robe back, exposing her arm – her left arm – which lolled limply out onto the floor.

“Diffindo,” said Harry, moving his wand carefully, and a slash opened up down the length of Lisa’s forearm. It began to bleed immediately, dripping onto the floor and obscuring the existing stain from view. He forced down a twinge of guilt: it wouldn’t hurt much, and turnabout was fair play, after all.

Harry stowed his wand away quickly as Lisa began to stir. She moaned softly. Her eyelids fluttered.

Harry smirked. “You’re bleeding on my floor.”

 

Plot & Pacing: 5/5
Very tightly written set of events. Nothing feels excessive or too short and you keep things moving just enough so that the urge to know what happened neither dies, nor frustrates. The way you went with the story, being an Auror test, is something I've never thought of before and it was a refreshing twist on what I was sure was a "x cons y" story.

Agree with BTT that Lisa is an inspired choice. An unused character in the fandom without many fanon or canon expectations helped make the work straddle the fine line of believable but unpredictable.

Characters: 4/5
Harry acts pretty much as I expect him to act. He has agency and the confused daze he's in is believable, while at the same time the work is self-aware (reliant in fact) on the idea that he was making mistakes the whole time. Lisa was a tad generic, and Harry was definitely carrying the dynamic between the two of them. It works given it's a oneshot though.

Prompt Use: 5/5
While the prompt fits the genre of action/mystery that I suspected most would use it as, you worked with what you had and worked it well. This was far from what I expected and even halfway into the story I was second guessing my predictions for it. Kudos too for ending the way you began it without being contrived.

Other: 4/5
Reads smoothly. Normally, I give people a ton of shit for overusing adverbs and adjectives, but I barely noticed it on a first read through here which is a credit to your writing, even though on a more critical examination it does stand out. Other than overusing quickly and promptly, your writing is technically decent with no major issues in spacing, dialogue, grammar, spelling or prose that I could spot. Nothing a quick edit can't fix and even then not particularly in your face given the mystery works (although it would hurt your story's rereadability).

Total: 18/20

 

I really liked this one. I kept looking for things that weren't' there. Totally expected the double cross from Lisa but the fact that it was training game definitely didn't occur to me. I think the part that had me thrown off scent was the fact that the memory charm was so extensive. So, well executed. If there was a magical take on a Black Mirror episode, this would be it.

Things meshed really well from start to finish, and your use of the prompt was apt.

Plot and Pacing: 5/5. Very well done. I felt it was just the right pace, I didn't waffle about on things that weren't important, and we were pretty much playing clue the entire time. Which when it was all said and done it was easy to pick up the breadcrumbs after the fact. Great job.

Characters: 4/5: Good. Harry felt like Harry, and Lisa worked well. I don't really care about the other characters so I had no expectations on them. Lisa was dimensional enough that I felt like she was a definite antagonist, whether that was your goal or not. So good job on that, also, Harry felt more like a Harry I would expect to read than any others in the comp at this point.

Prompt Use: 5/5: Like I said before your use of the prompt was apt. It fed into the story, the transitioning was seamless and I didn't feel like it was something to be said so that you could get it out of the way. It does work well for mystery, I said in another review for someone that I expected everything to take a humor route on this prompt. Color me surprised.

Others: 5/5. The fact that it felt episodic, the pacing, the grammar didn't stand out to me, and I felt that the word choice was really well selected. Harry's voice was correct, the others didn't affect an air of anything other than their role. Which is great.

19/20 over all. Really liked it. Thanks for the story.

 

Initial thoughts is that you're doing a great job of showing Harry's confusion at the start. I'm right there with him in the best way. I'm learning what he's learning with him at about the pace I'd expect. I'm confused but not in a bad way, I'm right there with Harry.

Around the time that Harry is starting to ask questions about the gang and what they want, etc... I get the feeling that maybe Lisa should be enacting some sort of protocol. Should she call in that Harry is compromised? Do they have procedures in place for this? It's making me slightly suspicious that she's not taking some kind of predetermined action now that Harry is conscious, healed, and without his memory.

((You do explain this later, so all good - just a thought I had whilst reading. And Harry is suspicious later anyway, so you sorted that too. I guess, given how the story ends... it makes sense that it'd be possible to see through her this early.))​

I do like the concept though. Thieves and criminals who don't kill but instead just take the parts of your memories that allow you to pursue them.

I like how Harry notices the things in this house that don't add up. There's no infestations like he'd expect from a magical home, but also none of the things he'd expect in a muggle home or one recently (and rapidly) vacated either. I like that this is what finally makes him take action. In his debriefing later he mentions other things - which I enjoyed reading - but I really liked that the house seemed to make his suspicions concrete.

And a very fun ending! Though I did wonder if Lisa had more time to prep than Harry had. Guessing not, as it's quite possible it's a test for BOTH partners in this scenario. So conducting the test is part of a test in itself.

Neat. I like.

• Plot & Pacing 5/5
• Characters 4/5
• Prompt Use 5/5
• Other 4/5

Total: 18/20

So, great story overall. I liked the plot and the pacing - the plot was well thought out and the pacing was spot on. No issues there. Characters were good but really there wasn't much to nail there - Harry is the only character in this that we know well from canon, and he wasn't 100% on board here with the memory charms. So you did an excellent job but still just 4/5 because of how little you needed to worry with it. Prompt use was good - you made it part of the story instead of a throw-away thing and brought it back at the end.

Other is 4/5... because as much as I liked this story, I wouldn't quite rate it at 5/5 if I was doing it in WbA. Probably 4.5/5 instead. I could probably drill deeper and figure out why but it's a moot point.

Great job, *thumbs up*