Quick reflexes and steady nerves are helpful, but the thing I find most critical in a really excellent Auror is intelligence. Well, a certain sort of intelligence -- the kind that spots connections between things, that can suss out a lie or something that really needs to be double-checked. Fighting skills, you can train. Teaching someone to spot the detail that doesn't fit, and working out what it means without tipping their hand? That's a lot harder.

The Aurors from that very first 'class' -- Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and Hydra and Justin Finch-Fletchley -- it's frankly unfair to compare later recruits to any of them. They were (and are) some of the bravest, most committed people I've ever known. They arrived with the sort of skills that are rarely found in Aurors today, simply because they'd trained so hard, with so much focus and dedication. It was an honour to work with them. Today's Aurors aren't ever going to come close, and it's not really fair to expect them to -- they grew up in a completely different world, they didn't decide at twelve or thirteen that they were willing to die to make things better, because thanks to the Order, they didn't have to.