"Sara, you need to eat." Lily had a worried look on her face. It was lunch time, but I was too excited to do get anything down. "If I eat something, I'll throw up." I replied. Lily shook her head. "Sirius, you need to talk some sense into her." "Sara, nutrition is important for your health. You'll need strength to fly. Come on, eat something." In the end I ate a tiny bit of my lunch to make them both shut up about it.
"Hold your hand over your broom and say up." Madam Hooch told us. "Up." A moment later the broom was in my hand. I was amazed. Lily on my right looked a little bit jealous. "Wow, Sara." Sirius exclaimed. "How did you do that?" I shrugged. "Ahh, Miss Stähler, very good." Madam Hooch said. After trying some more, the others managed to get their brooms too. Then we had to mount our brooms. "Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick of from the ground, hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet and then come straight back down by leaning forwards. Three- two- one." She blew her whistle. I kicked hard against the ground and suddenly I was in the air. I felt amazing. I was sad when Hooch told us that it was time to get back down again. "Now you are going to get into groups of four. One group after the other will fly a round from here, over to the trees over there and back. While one group is in the air all others will stay down. I need to make sure you stay safe." I got into the group that would be the last to get into the air. I carefully watched the others. Some of them were good at it, others were struggling hard. Steering your broom didn't look easy. "It's your turn." My heart started beating faster when I mounted my broom. Sirius grinned at me. "Ready?" I nodded unable to speak a word. When I was in the air, I felt overwhelmed for a moment. It felt fantastic. I didn't need to think about what I was doing. Flying was as easy as breathing. I got higher into the air till I was thirty feet above the ground, higher than any of the others had gotten. Then I started flying into the direction of the trees. I leant forward and became faster. I leant a little forward a little bit more. I reached the trees before Sirius, Lily and Alice were even halfway there. I directed my broom upwards and got even higher. Seventy feet above the ground I stop, redirected my broom and flew back to the starting point. When the others got back too, I felt sad about having to get back to the ground. "Wow." James said. "That was high. I was afraid that you'd fly away." I stopped myself from telling him that I would have loved to do just that. Sirius looked really impressed too. "Miss Stähler." Madam Hooch's voice sounded icy cold. "Stay here to talk to me after the lesson please." "Oof." Sirius said. We got to fly the round two more times and, even though I was afraid of what Hooch would say to me later, I flew higher every time. A hundred-and-forty feet was the highest I got.
"Good luck." Lily said before she left. "Meet me in the common room afterwards, okay?" I nodded with a lump in my throat. "Miss Stähler. Please get up into the air once again." I did as I was told surprised at the request. "Higher. A little bit higher. Alright." Madam Hooch was flying next to me. We were about fifty metres above the ground and I was afraid of looking down. "Now fly from here to over there and try to do it as fast as you can." I flew in the direction she pointed and leant forward on the broom. My heart was racing. It felt awesome. Faster and faster. I felt the wind blowing. After a certain point the broom seemed to have reached it maximum speed. "Come back, Miss Stähler." I heard Madam Hooch shout. I redirected my broom and flew back at maximum speed. I only slowed down shortly before I reached her. "Miss Stähler, I want you to catch this ball." She showed me a big red ball. I caught it with ease. I had played handball before and catching had been the only thing I had been relatively decent at. "Very good." Hooch said. "Now take a look at this little ball here." She had a tiny golden ball in her hand. "I want you to catch it. You need to wait till I blow my whistle before you try to catch it." She let go off the ball. It had minuscule wings and started flying around. I kept my eyes on it. It flew about fifteen metres away from us before Hooch blew her whistle. I started flying and leant forward on my broom so far that I almost fell off. I caught the ball within one minute after I had started flying into its direction. When I came back to Madam Hooch, she looked impressed. "Seems like I was right. You have a natural talent at flying and would make an excellent quidditch player."
"She did what?" Sirius exclaimed. "She told me that, if I wanted to, she would give me extra flying lessons on Saturdays and that she was sure, I would get on the team next year and that I could play as a substitute this year. "Wow." James said. "I'm jealous." "No need to be. I'm sure you will get on the team too." I felt great. Finally, there was something I knew that I was good at. Something I loved. Lily and I went to the library to do our homework afterwards. Sirius told us, that we were boring and we had the whole weekend for doing that. To punish him I refused to give him my set of cards. "You will have to wait for the boring girls getting their homework done, I'm afraid. Can't trust a boy like you." After I had finished all of my papers, I decided to write another letter to Oliver.
"Dear Oli,
I hope I didn't scare you with my letter last night. I'm not going to harm myself. At the moment I feel better than I have in years. As you know we had our first flying lesson today. It was absolutely amazing. I was good at it. So good that the teacher offered me to have extra lessons on Saturdays and to become a substitute player at the quidditch team. It's so exciting!
But it's also confusing. Yesterday I was feeling like I would throw myself of the astronomy tower any minute and today I'm feeling like I'm flying without a broom. I don't know what to think of those mood swings. I hope you are feeling good, Oli.
Gudrun"
Then I went to the others in the common room and played Canasta till late after the curfew. Before I went to bed, I wrote another letter to my family about the flying lessons and everything that happened.
"Sara, wake up." Lily shouted at me. "Breakfast is going to be over in half an hour." I yawned. Sirius smiled at me when I got to the breakfast table. "Seems our natural quidditch talent didn't get enough sleep." "Shut up you idiot." "Sara, that's not nice." "Did anyone claim that I'm nice? I don't think so." That made him and James laugh. "Actually Lily claimed that you are nice on our first day here." "Looks like she was wrong, doesn't it? I'm only nice if I want to be. After breakfast I taught Sirius how to play patience and played four rounds with him. I won every time which didn't seem to bother him much. After lunch I went to Madam Hooch. "Today I will teach you basic weaving. It means making quick turns on your broom. For this purpose, I've put some enchanted rings into the air. You will have to fly through them. If you want, you can start slowly and go faster when you feel confident." It was easier than I had expected. With every time I went through, Madam Hooch made it harder by putting the rings closer to each other. "Amazing, Miss Stähler. Now fly back to the ground, someone wants to talk to you."
"Hi Sara. I'm Justin Kane, Gryffindor's quidditch captain. I saw you flying up there. You are quite good. If you want to you can come to team's practice. We practice on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays, unless it's a Hogsmeade weekend." "That's kind. When will you practice today?" "We practice at 6 pm normally and at 5 pm on Saturday, so you have half an hour. You'll need to change into practice clothing. Let me show you the way to the quidditch field."
"Welcome to the Quidditch team. I'm Jane." A young girl told me. "I'm in year two." She turned out to be the youngest player aside from me. We played in two teams. Four against four. We played without a snitch. I was the only one without a proper broom which meant that I was way slower than the others. It was still quite fun and I was good at it. My team won, but only by twenty points. After the training ended, I went back to the common room. "Hey Sara. I heard you went to the quidditch training. How was it?" Sirius smiled at me. "It was great. What did you do?" "Just talked to James about stuff and did some homework. Nothing exciting." "It seems you only do exciting stuff, when I'm around." I said smiling. I sat down on the sofa in the common room next to him. "Come, let's play a game of patience." Sirius started telling me dumb word jokes to distract me. It was funny to talk to him. "Why did the introvert become an astronomer? She needed her space. "„This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard." I said chuckling. "Thanks, Sirius." "Always at you service, Miss Stähler. What does Stähler mean? It's German, right?" "Stahl is steel. So Stähler is steeler." "That's fun. Let's go to dinner."