The crushing sensation of the "tube" grew stronger as it spun.
Perhaps only a second had passed, or perhaps a very long time. Time seemed meaningless here. Just as Vaughn felt he could no longer resist the "tube's" pressure—
He was spat out!
Another sharp crack rang out, like something exploding.
Vaughn fell.
Soft grass lay beneath his feet. He shook his head, and after several more seconds of dizziness, his vision cleared enough for him to see that he had appeared beside Crouch.
He looked down and saw that he was standing inside the circle!
"You succeeded... on your first try!"
Beside him, Crouch's eyes were wide. Though his tone remained dry, the slight trembling of the two tiny tufts of mustache beneath his nose gave away his shock.
Vaughn had no mood to care what he thought.
Successfully Apparating certainly delighted him, but he was even more worried about whether anything else had gone wrong. He hurriedly looked himself over as he asked, "Barty, did I get splinched? Or anything else?"
Crouch quickly checked him as well. "...All four limbs are present. No obvious bloodstains... Oh, you lost a shoe..."
After checking again, they discovered that Vaughn had lost one shoe, one button, and a small piece of fingernail during that Apparition.
They found the fingernail where he had been standing before, but the shoe and button were nowhere to be found.
In his dry, wrung-out-rag voice, Crouch said, "That's perfectly normal. In fact, your performance has exceeded my expectations... Ninety-nine percent of wizards fail the first time they practice Apparition."
"Most of them simply fail, standing foolishly in place until they spin themselves dizzy and stumble to the ground. A small number have it worse. I still remember Amelia's first time—one of her arms flew straight into