Joanne woke up to find her owl's previous day's lunch an inch from her face. From this rather personal angle she could make out in surprising detail the regurgitated mass of bones and fur and also some of the parchment from her attempt at sending a letter home. She was glad to see this, at least hadn't gone down without a fight. The relationship between the owl and its mistress had, if it was possible, deteriorated even further to the point where if Joanne walked into the room, it would start hacking up a pellet and if the opportunity arose, the owl would in return get 'accidentally' smacked out of the window with a flailing arm/book/coal bucket.

Lessons had been progressing even though Divination was more an exercise in staying awake and refraining from laughing at the sight of twenty teenagers taking their shoes and socks off and attempting to divine the future from the lines on their feet than an instructive lesson in alternative magic. The best Joanne could manage from inspecting the feet of a guy called Ben, was that he was seventy three years old and about to happen upon some misfortune if he wasn't killed before middle age by a love rival with a grudge against his mother.

After studying Joanne's feet for a considerable amount of time and using his quill to occasionally scribble notes on them, Ben then confidently announced that she was planning to get married but she didn't know who to and after this she would have a short, difficult life avoiding commitment and bad financial decisions. When she pointed out that getting married to somebody she didn't know was about as bad a financial decision as you could make and also something she'd be unlikely to do if she was afraid of commitment, he got offended and suggested that she should read her own feet in future if she didn't like hearing the harsh, bitter truth. He then turned around and joining in the heated debate next to them upon whether a line running horizontally across the arch meant imminent death or something lost, something gained.

Half an hour of foot-reading later, the room was beginning to smell pretty sweaty despite the perfume and Joanne was feeling faint as well as a bit stupid. Eventually they were let out and she hurled herself into the fresh air. That was horrific, how on earth could spending ages in a stifling room peering at people's feet help her write a story?

Joanne then stopped dead and narrowed her eyes as something dawned on her.

"YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE DIDN'T YOU?"

"Jo?"

Joanne looked down from where she'd been yelling at the sky, to see Hermione stood in front of her with a confused expression on her face.

"Who are you yelling at?"

"Arggh! I've just had Divination."

This seemed to be explanation enough for Hermione who spent the rest of their walk to the Quidditch pitch calling Professor Trelawney a long list of names which often featured the words 'lying', 'old' and 'hag'.

Harry and Ron were cruising about on broomsticks getting a bit of practise in before new teams had to be chosen. Hermione seemed to have no inclination to hover forty feet above the air with just a stick between her and imminent death and settled down to make notes on what to do if you accidentally swallow a bottle of poison. Joanne was about to suggest 'learn to read labels' when Ginny sat down next to her, carrying her own broom.

"Do you play?" she asked, indicating up to where Harry was doing his best to hit Ron in the back of the head with the Quaffle.

"I've never flown on a broom."

"What?!" Ginny looked horrified. "How? What? Why? Right."

Before she knew it, Joanne was stood on the grass clutching onto what was basically a flying brush. She had never felt more uncomfortable in her life.

"How do you stop the twigs digging in?"

This was apparently not a question Ginny wanted to hear and therefore ignored it as she checked Joanne's positioning. Finally she stood back.

"Off you go then."

Joanne looked up at where Ron and Harry were leaning on the goalposts, trying not to laugh, and gritted her teeth. What's the worst that could happen? Just push off, drift for a bit and then hit the ground again without flashing her knickers, it'll be fine. She bent her knees a bit and took a deep breath. "One…two…three…go!"

She bunny hopped into the air and landed on the grass again. Ron nearly wet himself laughing and had to be helped to the ground by Harry. This did not amuse Joanne who gave him evils then crouched again, this time she was going to at least get more than half an inch in the air if she dislocated something doing it.

"One…two…three…arghhhh!"

Joanne launched herself upwards and to the immense shock of everybody watching, didn't stop. She rocketed straight upwards into the clouds and eventually vanished. Harry, Ron and Ginny all climbed onto their brooms and went after her, leaving Hermione stood there wondering what on earth Joanne had managed to do now.

After what seemed like several minutes of screaming wind and splinters, Joanne decided that she should at least open her eyes in case she hit an aeroplane or something. She did so and saw a large dark grey mass directly above her, approaching at high speed so she shut them again and wished that life wasn't such a bitch. The cloud hit her like a bucket of cold water and the shock made her wrench the handle around so instead of going vertically upwards she was plummeting to the ground headfirst. Upon opening her eyes a second time Joanne quickly came to the conclusion that this situation wasn't much of an improvement upon the first and wrenched the handle away to the left so she ended up flying upside-down at a hundred and ninety two miles an hour out across the Forbidden Forest. It was absolutely freezing and being wet made it worse but Joanne's main concern was not falling off and getting chewed to death by a werewolf or some other thing with more teeth than should be allowed.

"Jo!"

She peered through her hair and saw Harry flying parallel, trying to mime something to her and doing rolls on his broom. Joanne would have sworn at him for showing off when she was basically hurtling to her death but she didn't want to let go of the handle. Eventually he gave up and flew underneath her, grabbing the back of her robes and spinning her so she was sat upright again then took the end of her broom and tilted it slightly upwards so they gradually slowed down to a gentle cruising speed.

"What the hell were you doing?!"

Joanne prised her fingernails out of the wood and tried to gather the faints scraps of dignity she had left.

"Just putting it through its paces. Not a bad broom, judders a little over one-fifty but apart from that…"

Harry thought it was best just to not say anything.

At dinner that evening, Ron told her she should apply for the team as a Bludger and basically scare everybody senseless careering around the pitch. Joanne silently vowed never to as much as jump off a step again for as long as she lived and decided that the mashed potato she was eating was the most amazing thing she had ever tasted. She found that near-death experiences tended to make her quite sentimental.

Hermione had given her a long lecture on how many horrible, big, hairy things lived in the Forbidden Forest and exactly how each of them would have torn her to pieces if she had landed in there, which surprisingly hadn't made her feel much better. At least she knew now that the way she would have died if caught by a giant spider was wrapped up in a cocoon and injected with gastric juices so she dissolved from the inside out. Ginny had told her to save the descriptions until after dinner so they were now idly wondering what would be happening for Halloween at the castle. Joanne's mother had never allowed her to go out at night to badger old people for sweets just because she'd put a plastic witch mask on so she was not particularly bothered about it but having a Halloween where there were proper witches around could be interesting.

Letting her eyes drift over the crowd she gave Malfoy a sneer as he levitated the eyes out of the grilled fish in front of him into the pocket of a Ravenclaw, and ended up looking at the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher chatting with McGonagall. Called Professor le Fay, he was in his mid-thirties from what she could guess, tall, shoulder length blonde hair, bright green eyes and quite a hit with the female section of Hogwarts. Joanne wasn't convinced; there must be something dodgy about him, and she was going to find out what it was. She had had a few Defence lessons and she had to admit that he was a pretty good teacher, amusing, charming and engaging he took a boring topic and instead of talking at you about it, actually encouraged discussion. Hermione could barely contain herself in his presence, much to the annoyance of Ron who couldn't hate le Fay as much as he wanted to because he had congratulated him on answering a question correctly. Joanne however refused to let herself be drawn in by his good looks, he was blatantly evil.

Le Fay finished speaking and turned to pick up his goblet, Joanne stuffed a chicken leg in her mouth and tried to look inconspicuous. Professor Dumbledore then stood up and surveyed his students, which were doing their best to grab things off the plates before they disappeared.

"Now that we've had our fill of such delicious desserts I would like to say a couple of announcements. Firstly, a belated welcome to our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Le Fay who assures me that he already feels quite at home."

Le Fay gave a roguish grin and saluted the hall with his goblet. MacGonagall tapped his arm in an indulgent 'don't encourage them' way.

"She fancies him," Joanne muttered to Ginny underneath the cheering.

"Doesn't everybody?" she replied.

Joanne looked at Snape, who for somebody who had famously wanted that job for years seemed remarkably unbitter about it going to somebody far better-looking and younger than him.

"Hmm, maybe."