"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say, "Up!"'
"UP!" everyone shouted.
Alexandra's broom rose slowly into the hair to reach her hand in a slow motion. She looked around, and she realised only about half of the brooms had answered to the command. The vast majority of the rest were rolling over on the ground, unaware of the frustration they posed to the students. One or two, like Zacharias Smith's own broom, didn't move at all. The strangest answer without contest came from Megan Jones broom, the object giving her a playful spanking on her behind when she told "UP!"
After ten minutes of "UP!","UP!", each student had managed to call its own broom at least once, and Professor Hooch proceeded to show them how to mount this flying means of locomotion correctly. According to her instructions, you had to not slide off the end and you had to have the correct grip on the handle of the broom. Some Ravenclaw and Hufflepuffs were told they had been using wrong positions for years. Zacharias Smith, again, didn't take this judgement with courtesy and humility.
"But the manager my father invited told me that's the perfect position!" Wailed the haughty Hufflepuff.
"When you will be an expert player, Smith! And you are far from this level!" Barked Professor Hooch, who didn't appreciate her authority being challenged.
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said the Flying teacher, more irritated in her tone and manners. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet and then come straight back down by leaning forwards slightly. On my whistle – three – two –one-GO!"
Alexandra kicked the ground hard, but as the broom she was sitting on was only for training the beginners, her rise towards the sky was slow and unimpressive. Near to her, the group of her year mates also soared progressively in the air.
Air billowing her robes beyond her, Alexandra found flying extremely pleasant. Now, if only the broom had been able to speed even a little, it would have been wonderful. The manoeuvres Professor Hooch taught them during the rest of the class were not completely useless, but when your broom went at a snail's pace, it was boring nonetheless. The only exciting moment was when Zacharias Smith almost crashed in Susan Bones, making the former the target of several black eyes from his fellow Hufflepuffs and the anger of the redoubtable Professor Hooch.
"Smith! Do you want to kill someone? Five points from Hufflepuff! Now descend from your broom the lesson is over for you!"
The rest of the lessons ended without any other notable incidents.
Coming back to the castle, Alexandra decided to buy a broom for next year. Not an expensive and cutting-edge broomstick, she couldn't afford spending hundreds of Galleons with the majority of her family's fortune inaccessible to her, but there had to be a market for second-hand brooms. Alexandra would never be selected on the Quidditch team due to her extreme unpopularity, but she could fly one hour or two by herself around the castle without breaking any rules. The school brooms were too slow anyway, the older students had been right on that point, and she wanted to experience a bit of speed on a magical means of transportation. If not, where was the fun? Even Dudley had wanted a racing bike to go faster last year, proof everyone wanted to experience the sheer joy of extreme speed. Although what her cousin did with the racing bike after he got it was a subject not best thinking about. There were performances unavailable to you when you had the constitution of a very large pig.
The noise and the odour of a dungbomb exploding in the nearby corridor forced her to stop these thoughts and run to avoid a new wave of pranks. This time it was not a student, but Peeves, the poltergeist of Hogwarts. Unlike the ghosts, this spirit was a massive threat to peace, serenity and tranquillity.
"HA, HA, HA! FLEE BEFORE PEEVES POTTSY!" Shouted the poltergeist, who enjoyed abandoning himself to the delights of dungbomb-throwing and anything which might annoy the residents of Hogwarts.
As she heard from Hogwarts legendary rumour mill the next day, the Flying lesson between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins on Thursday afternoon had been far more explosive. Alexandra wondered who had had the brilliant idea to pair for a class in a relative dangerous environment two Houses who were doing their best to tear each other apart. Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs by comparison, had a set of challenges between the Houses, each trying to beat the other students academically and in long-term competitions the Hogwarts Cup. But this was, to emphasize it again, a friendly competition, with the Ravens and the Badgers never going further than throwing ironic remarks and a few jokes about the "permanents residents of the library" or "bookworms" and the "badgers" or "duffers". Ravenclaws were far nastier to everyone of their own House who didn't meet their expectations, as Alexandra had learnt rapidly to her disadvantage. She had no idea how Hufflepuff as a whole was doing with the problematic students.
Coming back to said Flying lesson, all began according to Lavender Brown when Nigel Wolpert, the first-year Lion who was always at the infirmary, found a way to rise fifteen feet with a training broom in less than five seconds, before falling and breaking his arm. While Professor Hooch escorted him to the infirmary, the situation on the lawn degenerated in the absence of the teacher. The source of the conflict was none other than Draco Malfoy, who had seized a necklace belonging to Nigel. The object which had been thrown away on the grass with the fall of the Gryffindor boy, and Draco Malfoy had seized the opportunity to tease the first-years Lions.
Too predictably, it didn't stop there. Wands were drawn, spells were exchanged with the Gryffindors gaining the ascendant from the beginning, until Draco used one of the school brooms to evade one of Leo Black spells, letting his followers on the ground eating the dust when they faced the charge of the enthusiastic Gryffindors.
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