Glancing up from the half written charms essay spread out across the table in the Gryffindor common, her eyes happened to catch sight of the clock. Eyes widening at what she saw, she hurridly began shoving her things into her bag, not caring that her parchment would probably end up slightly battered or that her quill was most likely broken. Lavender looked up from her own homework, startled at her friend's sudden movement.
"Parvati? What're you doing?" she asked, a slight frown marring her features, as she pulled out her wand. With a simple flick and a muttered incantation, Lavender cleaned the ink Parvati had dent flying across the table in her haste to leave. "Be more careful!"
"I'm sorry, I just realised I'm going to be late for something — something important. I probably won't be back till late," she called, practically running to the portrait hole, nearly tripping over a group of first years playing exploding snap on the floor and sending cards everywhere.
With another apology thrown over her shoulder, she was through the door and running down the corridor, not caring that she was out after curfew. She continued through the castle in this fashion, miraculously managing to avoid any prefects or staff members on her way.
It took her longer than she would have liked to reach her destination, but as she neared the Quidditch pitch she slowed to a more sedate pace and attempted to regain control of her breathing.
"I was starting to think you wouldn't come," a smooth voice called over from the bleachers. "I was just about to leave, actually," he continued, rising from his seat and making his way towards her.
"I'm sorry ..." she began, but let the sentence drift off in favour of regulating her breathing.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" he asked impatiently. He'd probably been waiting here for a while, and it was unseasonably cold for the beginning of April. At his unsubtle prompting, she left her bag by the Quidditch stand and followed him to the middle of the pitch.
They had agreed to meet up on the eight of every month, and this was only the fourth time they were doing this. In a way, she supposed she was quite lucky he had agreed to help her; he was somewhat reserved and he didn't seem to have made friends with any of the other Slytherins, regardless of the fact that they were now nearing the end of their sixth year at Hogwarts.
She reached down, grabbing the broom proped up next to where he'd been sitting, the wooden handle feeling to flimsy to support her weight. He gave her a rare smile of encouragement before kicking off the ground, leaving her staring up at him as he flew in a circle around the pitch.
She took a deep breath before mounting her own broom and taking flight. She rose a lot less gracefully than he had, her borrowed broom jerking every so often and occasionally drifting to the right ever so slightly.
"If you're really serious about learning Quidditch, you should probably get your own broom," he yelled from the other side of the Pitch. They didn't have to worry about noise out here, there was no one to hear them. He flew closer, speeding towards her, before he said: "The school brooms aren't very good."
He leant forward into a nosedive that had her holding her breath and gripping her broom in panic. When he eventually pulled out of it — much too close to the ground, in her opinion — he was laughing, head thrown back and the most at ease that she had ever seen him. He turned his broom around and flew towards her, a smile still on his face.
They spent hours working on her flying skills — he'd tried to get her to practice with the Quaffle, but she wasn't yet confident enough on a broom to be able to focus on staying in the air and on the ball. He was being patient with her though, giving her enough time to learn how to fly properly before he gave her anything more challenging to do.
It was slow going and it definitely wasn't easy, but her mother had once told her that the best things in life were always worth the hard work put into getting them.