Disclaimer - See the first chapter, Lazy.
Chapter 9
Harold could barely move the next morning. He had been bruised when he fell of his horses but this was something else. He stretched warily, not wanting to make anything else ache, which was hard as there was nothing else left to hurt. He groaned as he struggled out of bed. As soon as he was up, he found that he was unable to walk normally, he had to stagger around bearing an uncanny resemblance to a certain John Wayne. This earned him a round of applause from the staff at the table in the great hall when he went in for breakfast.
Smiling amicably he made his may slowly and staggeringly down to the staff table and sat down next to Slughorn.
"Harold, m'boy." Greeted Slughorn. "Its good to see you, have some pie! Or a pasty?" Harold helped himself to the proffered cheese and onion pasty and tucked in.
"I hear you were enjoying yourself on that broomstick of yours? Harry seemed very pleased with how you were doing. Not everyone who can fly on his first time on a broom y'know."
"Well, Harry is a good teacher. And I had a lot of practice of riding the horses." Said Harold humbly.
"And you did fall of enough times anyway." Mentioned Slughorn with a laugh. "Looking at the way you walked in anyway. I've seen the students when they first get on again after the summer. Hilarious. Now I remember…" Here he launched into a long and involved reminiscence of his younger days when they were still playing with rocks for bludgers, and the golden snidget was a bird instead of the golden snitch. Although Harold found most of his new life fascinating, he could hear lectures like that any day of the week with the muggles so he ate very slowly nodding and mumbling yes's and letting his thoughts wander. Unprompted, they wandered towards Hermione, which Harold felt was quite disconcerting as he was struggling enough to cope with the new life as it was, without adding further complications in the form of females. His thoughts were fortunately interrupted by Harry's arrival. He walked up and sat down next to Harold.
"How are the legs?" He asked with a malicious grin.
"I think you know the answer to that! I look like John Wayne!"
"Who?" Asked Harry with a blank expression. Then he remembered from his muggle days and started to laugh. "You'll get used too it. If you want to carry on, that is?"
"Of course I do! I've had worse bruises when… O.K. I haven't had worse bruises but still. I want to continue."
Harry laughed. "Yeah, I know what you mean, it was the same for me. Couldn't walk for months but flying was better."
They finished up their lunch and started out to walk round the Lake, or rather, in Harold case, a hobble.
"You really should start on that Kwick spell course." Advised Harry. "You will only be helping me to mark and whatever at first, but when you are more competent you can help me give demonstrations and stuff."
"Sounds awesome" emphasised Harold eagerly. Harry laughed again.
"You are easily pleased. Marking homework is the worst thing since doing it! I'm so glad I'm not a student anymore, I don't know how I survived."
"No, nor me. I mean, I went to Muggle School but it's the same sort of thing."
"Yeah, I guess." They continued around the lake.
"Isn't this where you did that patronus in your 3rd year?" Asked Harold.
Harry looked around.
"Erm, yeah. Around here. But I think it has a far greater function in the last book."
"Do tell!" said Harold eagerly.
"I have been forbidden to say anything. J.K. Rowling would kill me!"
"She won't know!"
"Oh yes she will, you remember that spell that Hermione put on the parchment containing the names of the DA? Something similar is going on."
"Oh. Can I guess?"
"No."
Harold said something that I probably shouldn't type here before they continued their path around the lake in silence.
"Is there any chance of another flying lesson soon?" Asked Harold.
"Well, I'm busy today, but you can have a go yourself if you want. You may as well make the most of not having to share the pitch with hoards of overexcited, over competent teenagers showing off. Soon as term starts, you'll be forced to practice in the dark."
Which was how Harold found himself attempting to climb on a broomstick later that day after lunch (tomato soup). He got on the broom once, sitting to far forward. Its frond end lurched backwards, dumping Harold on the ground in a pile of mud. Then he attempted to get on again, but over compensated by stabbing himself with the twigs at the rear end and fell off again. After a few more tries he finally steadied himself and attempted to kick off, hard. The result was that the broom shot up in the air with a sudden acceleration of 0-60 in about half a second. This left Harold clinging to the handle for dear life, while most of his body was dangling off. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to persuade his broom to go down again, and by this time he was about 100ft in the air.
"Oh dear." He said as he felt himself slipping, he couldn't hold on any longer, his broomstick gradually eased itself from his grasp as he fell, the long fall towards the ground till it reached him with a bone crunching thud.
