"Between you and me Genevere," Dumbledore said looking down the bridge of his nose, "I don't want to do this, but I have to do something, or Filch'll quit. I want you to at least try not to make trouble, from now on, or be sneaky about it. I don't want to punish you, because I know you're a smart girl. From the moment you boarded the Hogwarts Express I've been watching you, and I can tell just what kind of person you are. I know, just as you know that if I was to threaten you, you really wouldn't care. I might as well just let you do this, because there's no point to me throwing around punishments. I want to make you a deal. I'll let you continue to do exactly what you've been doing if you're a little bit more sneaky, and don't get caught. I'll even tell Peeves to help you."
"About Peeves," Gen said with a nervous laugh, "I kind of made him a deal… It'll make Filch mad, but it have to do it, or I'll be breaking my promise."
"As long as you don't get caught," Dumbledore said, "you may go," Dumbledore said. Gen got up to leave, but Dumbledore stopped her, "oh, and one more thing. It you don't tell Madame Hooch about the broom, I wont either." Gen smiled as she left the room, and went down the enchanted staircase. It was like an escalader. The stairs moved up on their own, which reminded Gen very much of times she and Morg had gone to the mall just to goof off, and they almost always wound up playing on the escalators. Gen felt the bitter pangs of guilt. She had simply left all that; her whole life. For all she knew she might never get back home. It seemed very selfish of her to just pick up and go on an adventure. She had left without even looking back once up until that moment. Gen had to bit her lip to keep tears of shame from her selfishness from falling…
~ * ~
Gen opened the door to the girls' bathroom, and took a step out. She saw two people standing outside the door, and sidestepped the door, leaving the bathroom, and closed the door firmly behind her. She leaned, with her back against the door staring straight out at Violet, and Pavati. They looked at her, as if to say, "Get out of the way."
"You don't want to go in there," Gen said with a nervous chuckle, "one of the toilets, er, flooded." The two girls looked at her funny, and turned the other way, leaving as fast as possible. Gen laughed, and began to walk away. She was about ten feet away when she heard a loud boom, and saw the door to the bathroom explode open with smoke, and an overflowing tidal wave of water. Gen didn't look back, but she laughed quietly to herself, and watched as Peeves went flying by, and smiled at her…
~ * ~
It was a cold afternoon. Classes were over for the day, and little event had happened besides Harry and Ron using an animation charm to bring their quills to life, on their desks in History of Magic. It was actually quite funny to watch a battle scene unfold between charmed quill soldiers in the aisle between Ron and Harry's desk, and to listen to Professor Binns describe a very similar battle in a goblin war. Gen decided to go to the library, instead of going to the cold dungeon where she normally worked. Unsurprisingly, in the library Gen found Hermione reading away in some book on werewolves.
"Hey," Gen said, sitting next to Hermione at the large table.
"Hey," Hermione replied, not looking up.
"So" Gen said uncomfortably, "what's up?"
"Reading," Hermione said off handedly.
"Reading what?"
"A book."
"So… you wanna come with me tonight to help Harry practice his flying?"
"Sure."
"We're gonna barrow some brooms from the school broom shed," Gen looked into Hermione's concentrated eyes.
"Okay." At this point Gen stopped believing that Hermione was listening at all. She decided to test her theory.
"And do obstacle courses in the school halls…"
"Sounds good."
"Then light ourselves on fire as a political demonstration," Hermione didn't even flinch, "Hermione, are you listening to me?"
"Huh?" Hermione looked up.
"At five," Gen said with a smile, "I'm meeting Harry at the Quidditch pitch. He wants me to teach him to fly like McGonagall thinks he can. He's supposed to meet wood at the field at seven, but he wants to be somewhat prepared before he has to show off what he can do."
"Oh," Hermione looked at her book forlornly, "I don't suppose i would be of any real help, and I really..." her voice trailed off.
"If you don't want to come you don't have to," Gen said with a laughing sigh, "I'll just have to brave the night alone." It was only three in the afternoon. Gen had plans to study up on the mechanics of a broomstick. It was only a few minutes before she found a stack of books about broomsticks. Some where the history there of, some were the make there of, some were the purpose there of, and some were the manner of use there of. Gen found most of it to be useless, no matter how interesting. Little of the books were of any use at all. Eventually she found one book that was just what she wanted, and decided to leave for the field early.
"I'm off!" Gen stood, and picked up her saddlebag-backpack, and walked to the front desk to check the book out.
It was late September. Not quite autumn yet, but it was getting there. Gen stood on the steps to the school grounds. It was cold. There is no pretty way to put the feeling of the moment into words beyond it being cold. A breeze blew across Gen's hair, and she looked up into the sky as a chill ran along her back. "Storm," she whispered to herself.
"What?"
Gen turned to see Harry standing above her at the top of the stair. "Hmm?"
"What was that you said?"
"Oh," Gen took a step toward the edge of the stairs, and leant her body against the stone wall, "I was just saying that a storm is coming."
"How do you know that?"
"Well," the wind blew again, and Gen's short hair whipped about wildly, "ever since I was a little girl I've had this strange connection to weather. It's really just a sort of hunch thing. Like something inside me tells me it looks like a storms coming, and the next thing i know its raining. It's probably just a silly coincidence," Gen shrugged, "wait a second. Why are you here?"
"To practice."
"But it's only four."
"Oh," Harry looked confused, "I must be going crazy. I could have sworn it was five..."
"Well," Gen smiled, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, "that's alright, we can get a head start."
As it turned out there was really no purpose in Gen trying to "teach Harry her ways." It was less of a learnable talent, and more of an ingrained talent. For an hour they just flew about the field, trying to match each other's speeds. Gen would do strange maneuvers with Harry at her side on his own broomstick. Harry would attempt to copy her exactly, though it didn't seem to work. He didn't seem to be showing any improvement at all. After a while Gen felt like giving up. She made some remark about how she might as well take Polyjuice potion, and pretend to be Harry at all his games. It would be easier, and take a lot less work. Harry didn't know what Polyjuice potion was. That made Gen laugh. When Ron got there he couldn't tell which was which from the air. They came down to meet him, and he could only see the difference at a few feet away. Gen tried to explain how Harry would make a perfect seeker, because of his build, though he wasn't as aerodynamic as she was. This explanation wasn't really understood, so Gen subsided to explaining the reasons girls make better seekers. To her it made perfect sense.
"Well, girls have curves," She sighed frustrated, "see, instead of going straight up and down like Harry, I make curves. Think about an airplane."
"What's an airplane?"
"A muggle flying machine."
"Oh, right."
"They're shaped smoothly, in a curvy way, like girls."
Ron still didn't understand, though the airplane example seemed to help Harry understand. Gen decided to drill Harry, as she couldn't think of anything else to do, so she and Ron took a bag of gold painted golf balls from the broom shed, and threw them across the field for Harry to chase about. The first few he missed. He was a fair seeker. He could catch every third ball. With training he'd be good, though not as good as McGonagall thought he was.
Thunder rolled, and lightning crackled on the horizon. Subconsciously Gen counted the seconds between flashes, and thunder. It was only four miles away, three miles away, two miles away. It kept getting closer, but something seemed to stop it from getting too close to them. After a half hour of throwing golf balls Gen decided that they should try doing something different. She got on her broom, and motioned for Ron to do the same. They both flew up to meet Harry panting, and sweating from flying so hard.
"This is what we're going to do," Gen said circling about Harry like a shark, "I'm going to fly around the grounds, and you're going to follow me, and Ron is going to follow you. That way he can make sure you don't lag behind, and I can set a path for you to practice in. Ready?" Harry nodded, though he looked like he would have preferred to lie down for a while, and catch his breath, "good!" Gen broke the circle she was flying in, and started off. She could hear a ways behind her as Harry and Ron started after her. She started by flying a circuit of the Quidditch field, twenty feet in the air, waiting for Harry to catch up. After a minute he was right behind her. They did five turns around the pitch, and then Gen decided to test Harry's reflexes. She made a steep dive, pulling up after plummeting ten feet, and pulling out. She looked back to see Harry had done the same. She nodded an approval to him, and then, without any warning swerved into the middle of the field, and started making a wide figure eight around the edges of the Quidditch field. Slowly she made the figure eight tighter and tighter. After an insanely short time she was making such a tight figure eight that only she and Harry could fit inside it without crashing. Ron had to sit out and watch. As quick as she had moved into the figure eights she moved out, and zoomed full speed out of the Quidditch pitch. Harry had a hard time catching up, so she slowed down just a bit, and motioned for him to come up beside her. They flew abreast over the great lake until Gen dove down eight feet so that she was right on top of the water, and just barely dry. Harry attempted to do the same, but ended up splashing through a foot of the water before pulling up to Gen's height.
"If we had have been on the field still you would be unconscious," Gen shouted over the sound of the billowing wind.
"I know," Harry said following her as she swerved at a 90-degree angle to the right. They circled up slowly until they were about ten feet above the ground. After that Harry and Ron Chased Gen over the treetops of the dark forest. Gen smiled looking back into Harry's fatigued eyes.
"Catch me if you can!" She swooped low into the forest, weaving around the trees, careful not to hit anything. She heard branches snapping behind her, as Harry was inevitably still a worse flier than Gen. She didn't want to get Harry hurt, and she was worried that if he were in the forest for a moment longer he would run into something. She pulled up, and looked back to see him pulling up right on her tail. Gen smiled, "are you challenging me?" Harry didn't say a word, but he smiled. "Alright then," Gen pulled away as fast as she could, and Harry followed, with Ron following him. They flew about the castle for a time, swerving opened windows, and weaving around towers. Suddenly a heavy rain poured down. It was as if the heavens had opened up, and were dropping buckets of water on them. It came down in sheets, soaking Gen to the bone. After a time Gen made her way back to the Quidditch pitch, wet, tired, and seeing Harry now as a real danger. He had gotten better, though he wasn't quite good enough. Gen dove down with Harry right on her tail. Just before she hit the ground she pulled up to four feet, and he followed her. At that moment she decided that she was done playing the game, and let her broom drop to the ground, rolling off it, and landing on her back on the flooded grass. She looked up as Harry flew directly over her body, unable to stop as gracefully as she had. Suddenly his broom came to a halt, and started to fall, but just as it was Ron ran into him, and the two went splashing to the ground five yards away from Gen. Gen sat up, laughing, and watched as the two boys struggled to get up to their feet, slipping about in the mud. It was a pointless, and silly process, as, as soon as one got to his feet the other pulled him back down to help himself. Gen couldn't have been more amused at the moment, and felt happy, despite the bitter cold.
"Potter," A voice shouted from somewhere behind Gen, "Is that you?" Gen recognized the voice, though she had never heard it before in real life, and turned her head. It was Oliver Wood, though she couldn't see his face, he was wearing a hooded cloak, to protect him from the rain. Ron subsided, and Harry struggled to his feet.
"Yes," as the words left his lips he slipped in the negative traction, and went down on one knee.
"Who are you with? And what in the blazes are you doing?"
"It's just Ron and Gen," Harry said attempting again to get to his feet, but quickly fell back onto his bottom, sitting in the cold mud, "they were helping me practice flying."
"Well get inside," Wood said, walking to where Harry was, and giving him a dry hand, "I don't want my newest player catching his death before he even plays."
"Yes sir," Harry said once he was back on his feet. Harry helped Ron to his feet, and Gen got to her feet easily on her own, as she hadn't torn up the ground beneath her, and there was no mud. Wood decided it was necessary to escort them into the school, and then left them to make their way to the common room, saying something about the library. They were walking down the halls, headed for their common rooms, which consequently were very close to each other, in light conversation, when they met an unexpected person.
"At least I'm not muddy," Gen said with a laugh, skipping a step in her walking pattern.
"Oh, no?" Ron looked at her devilishly, and started to move in on her.
"Oh no you don't!" Gen said dodging a swipe he made for her waist.
"Come on Harry!" Ron said menacingly, "dog pile on Gen!" The two boys proceeded to chase Gen down the hall toward her common room entrance, she was just outside of it when they caught up with her, and the three of them went crashing to the floor.
"GEROFFMEH!" Gen shouted from underneath the two boys. She was now sufficiently covered in mud, and struggling to get out into the opened air. When she finally made her way so that the upper half of her body was out from under the two she was sorry she had, as standing above them was Argus Filch, the Hogwarts caretaker. He had a nasty look on his face, and was giving Gen the worst stare-down of her life
"What did I say about making trouble Miss Bangle?"
"Not to?"
"Exactly, now get out of my sight, the lot of you, or I'll be forced to alert Dumbledor of your doings." They were up, and gone before he even finished saying it. The last thing Gen needed was another talk with Dumbledor in the same day as the last. It hadn't been her fault this time, but she was willing to bet that Filch suspected her of blowing up the toilet, and she really didn't want to be expelled, as she would have nowhere to go if she was. Gen headed for the girls' showers, as the day wasn't quite out, and she suspected that within a few hours she would be back out of the Ravenclaw Dormitories...
Yay for chapter TEN. The big One-O! Sorry it took me so long to post this. The fact is I had an amazingly busy few weeks. With any luck my schedule will clear up soon. I just realized how idiotic it was to write R and R here, as at this point you've already read it, so I'm gonna just say Review ^_^