text stringlengths 2 72 |
|---|
Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn't have to |
put up with Malfoy much. Or at least, they didn't until they spotted a |
notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made them all groan. |
Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday -- and Gryffindor and |
Slytherin would be learning together. |
"Typical," said Harry darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool |
of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy." |
He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else. |
"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," said Ron |
reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he |
is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk." |
Malfay certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about |
first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams and told long, |
boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping |
Muggles in helicopters. He wasn't the only one, though: the way Seamus |
Finnigan told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the |
countryside on his broomstick. Even Ron would tell anyone who'd listen |
about the time he'd almost hit a hang glider on Charlie's old broom. |
Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron |
had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared their |
dormitory, about soccer. Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game |
with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Harry had caught Ron |
prodding Dean's poster of West Ham soccer team, trying to make the |
players move. |
Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his |
grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she'd had |
good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of |
accidents even with both feet on the ground. |
Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was. This |
was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book -- not that she |
hadn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with |
flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through |
the Ages. Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for |
anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but |
everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted |
by the arrival of the mail. |
Harry hadn't had a single letter since Hagrid's note, something that |
Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course. Malfoy's eagle owl was |
always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened |
gloatingly at the Slytherin table. |
A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He |
opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large |
marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke. |
"It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "Gran knows I forget things -- this |
tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it |
tight like this and if it turns red -- oh..." His face fell, because the |
Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, |
"You've forgotten something..." |
Neville was trying to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco Malfoy, |
who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his |
hand. |
Harry and Ron jumped to their feet. They were half hoping for a reason |
to fight Malfay, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble |
quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash. |
"What's going on?" |
"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor." |
Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table. |
"Just looking," he said, and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind |
him. |
At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors |
hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying |
lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their |
feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn |
on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees |
were swaying darkly in the distance. |
The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying |
in neat lines on the ground. Harry had heard Fred and George Weasley |
complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to |
vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left. |
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and |
yellow eyes like a hawk. |
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a |
broomstick. Come on, hurry up." |
Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck |
out at odd angles. |
"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the |
front, "and say 'Up!"' |
"UPF everyone shouted. |
Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few |
that did. Hermione Granger's had simply rolled over on the ground, and |
Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell |
when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's |
voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the |
ground. |
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding |
off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. |
Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it |
wrong for years. |
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said |
Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come |
straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle -- three |
-- two --" |
But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the |
ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's |
lips. |
"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a |
cork shot out of a bottle -- twelve feet -- twenty feet. Harry saw his |
scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, |
slip sideways off the broom and -- |
WHAM -- a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.