Riddle Me This: Chapter Seven
The first Monday in October found the first year Slytherins crowding around a notice board in the common room, chatting excitedly amongst themselves. Tom had been standing near the back of the small crowd, having woken up late with no longer a reason not to do so with Katrina gone, and was unable to see over most of their heads. He only found out what was going on when Blythe elbowed her way through the students, Dagon trailing at her heels. They both wore broad grins, not put out in the least when Tom didn't share their enthusiasm immediately.
"Flying lessons!" Blythe informed him. "We've got them today, just after dinner."
Tom gaped for a minute, trying to get his brain to process the information. Flying? But how? People couldn't fly. He furrowed his brow in concentration. And then it hit him.
"On brooms?" he asked, incredulously.
"No, dummy, on threstrals. Of course on brooms!" Blythe rolled her eyes.
So that's what those brooms were for in Diagon Alley, Tom thought. Flying. Wow. That would be an experience.
Tom's classes that day could not have been less interesting. Even Asotin failed to get a rise out of him when he started throwing spitballs during Binns' class, something which would usually irritate him beyond reason. The sandy-haired Gryffindor soon gave up on Tom, instead nailing Blythe with a large glob of the sticky mess. She needed only to turn around and wave her wand threateningly to make him stop altogether.
Besides, Tom knew he was just jealous anyway, because he was passing all his classes with flying colors and had beaten him in DADA. Really, the boy was a total flop with hexes and spells, surprising since he'd grown up around magic, being a pureblood and all. It was a wonder he'd gotten into the school at all, with all the magical prowess he showed.
It was like that at the orphanage, too, Tom realized with a start. The other kids were all jealous because he was smarter, nicer, better friends with the headmaster. Instead of trying to beat him academically, they beat him physically. With their fists.
Tom winced at the memories of the beatings he'd been unable to evade and went back to taking notes.
Following dinner, the Slytherin Six Pack (the boys and Blythe) headed down to the quidditch pitch, the sight of their flying lessons. All of the first years were to take them together to save time for their instructor, Madam Thao, who was also the librarian. It was rumored that she'd once played professional quidditch, but Tom had never gotten a chance to ask her if this was true or not.
A row of brooms was laid out on the ground in the center of the pitch, halfway between the three large hoops on either end. The students clustered around them as they waited for Madam Thao to arrive, those that grew up around brooms and flying muttering about the horrible quality of the brooms they were to use.
"I can't believe they're making us fly on Silver Comets!" Vince whined to his friends.
"That model is so old it's unbelievable," someone said from behind them. They turned to see Asotin, Will, and Grinberg, the latter of the three the one who'd spoken. He smiled at Blythe and got one in return, then returned his gaze to Vincent.
"What model are you used to, Malfoy?" he asked. To the casual observer, it would look like he was just trying to make small talk. But his housemates, and Vince's, knew he was trying to goad the blonde Slytherin once more.
"A Cleansweep Three," Vince responded without hesitation. "It's the newest and most expensive model going, and Quidditch Weekly claims that it is twice as fast as any other broom out there. Of course, as soon as the next one comes out I'll have that one, too." He smirked as if this proved he was better than the Gryffindor.
"What are you flying on, Mark?" Blythe asked. She and her DADA partner had decided to skip the whole surname thing, becoming fast friends in their studies of different hexes and curses during class.
"A Corona 1000," he said casually, watching Vince's face for his reaction. And he wasn't disappointed.
"How do you have the new Corona already?" Vince sputtered. "That's not supposed to come out until next year!"
"Yeah, well, my father called in a favor and got it for me for my birthday. It's supposed to be ten times better than the Cleansweep Three, hands down. It's more touch sensitive and can go from zero to full speed in under ten seconds. Not to mention that it's more aerodynamic and goes faster, but I won't go into details…" He trailed off, knowing he'd beaten the Slytherin once more. Acting as if this wasn't his intention all along, he turned towards Blythe.
"Anyway, Blythe, I was wondering if you wanted to grab a broom next to each other so we can discuss some of those new spells we learned for Vitale's class. What do you say?"
"What about your girlfriend?" Blythe asked, spotting the Hufflepuff behind Grinberg and hanging onto his every word. She shot a glare at the Slytherin and snaked her arms around her boyfriend's waist, hugging him from behind.
"Come on, Marcus," she simpered, "Madam Thao is ready to begin the lesson."
"Shauna," Grinberg said patiently, "I need to discuss some academics with Blythe, here. Why don't I catch up with you after this and we can find something to do?" He winked knowingly at her, and she backed off, blushing profusely. Rising to her toes, she kissed his cheek before scurrying off to find Adria. Grinberg watched her go, turning to face Blythe only after she'd disappeared behind a clump of Ravenclaws. He raised a brow, waiting for her decision.
Blythe shrugged. "Yeah, sure, I don't see why not. Come on, Tom, you can join us."
Grabbing Tom's hand, she followed Grinberg to a line of three brooms that had yet to be claimed, pleased to see that the Gryffindor was slightly annoyed by her choice of bringing her friend along. Her thoughts were cut off as Madam Thao blew a whistle, demanding the attention of the students. Everyone ceased talking immediately, looking to the witch as she paced in front of them.
"All of you please step up to a broom if you have not done so already, and hold your right hand over it." She paused, waiting for the students to follow directions. "Very good. Now, when I tell you to, I want you to say 'up,' and your broom should jump right up to your hand. Ready? Go."
"Up!" Tom commanded. His broom flipped over, but didn't rise to his hand. He said it again, and again, and slowly the broom started to float up to his hand, until he finally wrapped his fingers around it and turned his head to look at Blythe. She and Grinberg had both gotten their brooms on the first try, and so had Vincent, but many of the other students were still having problems.
Asotin and Dagon's brooms were just rolling on the ground with each command, and the Weasleys' and Will's only got the front half up. The albino twins weren't having as much trouble, and as Tom watched they got their twins in the air with satisfied smiles. Vince's girlfriend, Adria, and her friend had given up trying, and were gossiping about the latest rumor flowing around the school, occasionally shooting glares at Blythe for having dared steal Grinberg for an instant.
Madam Thao blew her whistle after the majority of the students got their brooms in the air, and they turned to look at her once more.
"Those of you that actually got your brooms into the air may now mount. Hold the handle firmly between your hands and on my whistle kick off from the ground. You are to rise only a few feet and hover for a moment, then come back down by angling the front of your broom towards the ground. Ready? One, two, three." She blew her whistle, and the students kicked off as one. Like before, a few of them had problems getting into the air, though not as many.
Tom felt his feet leave the ground after he kicked off, and looked down to see it falling away beneath him. He rose about ten feet into the air, glancing over at Blythe and grinning at her as she reached the same height. He felt like his stomach had bottomed-out, feet singing freely beneath him. Angling the front of his broom towards the ground after a moment or two, he descended slowly, staying mounted on his broom as he looked to Madam Thao for further instruction.
"Very good, all of you," she said. "This is probably a first that nothing catastrophic has happened in ten years. I'll leave it at this tonight, and anyone interested in more flying lessons is to report back here same time next Monday. Place your brooms back on the ground and you are dismissed."
Tom and Blythe shared a glance as they dismounted, nodding in unison. They both knew they'd be back next week.
The following Monday the Six Pack trooped back down to the pitch, not surprised to see that many students had not returned. They were the only students from Slytherin, Asotin and his buddies came from Gryffindor, there was one boy from Hufflepuff, and the albino twins and their red-head friend were the only three from Ravenclaw.
"Cella!" Blythe called across the pitch. The albino girl turned and waved.
"Hey, Blythe!" she called back. Turning to her brother and Kaldrian, she grabbed their hands and led them across the pitch towards where Blythe stood with her friends. Madam Thao had yet to appear, so they figured they had a few minutes.
"Long time no see," Blythe joked.
"Oh, yeah, only since Herbology this afternoon," her friend shot back.
Tom glanced over at Vincent to see him working his jaw as if he longed to throw insults or hexes at the mudblood, but instead settled for glaring. Tom smirked. He knew that Vincent was only behaving himself because Blythe would curse him into next week if he said anything.
"Tocelas, these are my friends from Slytherin: Stephen and Scott are the twins, the blonde is Vincent, Dagon's the one making the weird faces, and this one is Tom." Blythe gestured to Tom with a wave of her hand, and the albino girl's eyes immediately focused upon him. "Six Pack, this is Tocelas, her brother Tobias, and their friend Sean." Her voice alone was warning enough not to make any snide comments, and the look she shot over her shoulder convinced them.
"Hi," Tom said. He wasn't going to be enthusiastic, but that didn't mean he had to be completely mean about it. Maybe mudbloods weren't as horrid as Vincent claimed they were.
Tocelas and Tobias sized him up for a moment, but Sean didn't even glance his way. He was staring at Blythe with a vacant gaze that Tom recognized from that first day of duels in DADA with Vincent vs. Grinberg. He smirked again, and tuned in just in time to catch the girl's comment.
"Glad to see not all of you Slytherins are utter bigots."
Tom saw Vincent open his mouth to let loose a scalding retort, but he was cut off when a voice spoke from behind the three Ravenclaws.
"Of course they are, dear." It sounded familiar. "Just not around cute things such as yourself." The twins and Sean turned to see who was speaking, creating a gap between themselves and Blythe and allowing Asotin and his buddies to walk through. It was Grinberg who had spoken, as was becoming usual.
Tocelas arched one hardly visible eyebrow at the Gryffindors, looking past where Asotin stood in front of Will and Grinberg. She focused on the latter, knowing it had been he who had spoken.
"I think I'd prefer to be a lowly mudblood in the eyes of a Slytherin over a cute Ravenclaw any day," she shot back.
Grinberg stepped past Asotin, smiling his usual amused smile.
"And in the eyes of a Gryffindor?" he asked.
"Would that Gryffindor be you?"
"Of course," Grinberg said. "Who else?"
"Then I'd prefer the latter."
"The latter of the former?"
"No, the latter of the latter."
"So you'd prefer to be the former of the latter for a Slytherin, and the latter of the latter of a Gryffindor?"
"Precisely," Tocelas clarified.
"I see," said Grinberg. "Yes, that makes perfect sense. I feel the same way."
Tocelas was tapped on her shoulder by her twin, and he pointed across the field. Everyone followed the direction in which he pointed, spotting Madam Thao walking towards them with a line of broomsticks flying behind her. Upon reaching their group she stopped, lowering the brooms to the ground approximately five feet apart each. She looked to the students, then, and blew her whistle.
"Each of you grab a broom and do as we did last week with the 'up' command," she ordered. The students hastened to obey, and none of them had any problems getting their brooms in the air, mounting up and waiting for their next set of commands.
They were to hover for a few moments like they did last class, and as before there were no problems. Then the real flying started. Madam Thao taught them how to turn, go forward, ascend, descend, accelerate, and decelerate. They'd only been out for about an hour when she blew her whistle, calling them all to the ground.
"Because we have had no accidents so far, I have decided to move your lessons up by a week. You all seem to have the basic flying techniques down, and now I'm going to set up a few courses for you to test all of these skills. There will be three separate courses: a speed course, a reflex course, and a combination of the two. I want you to pair up with someone and decide which course you want to do first. There are…" she trailed off, quickly counting heads, "thirteen of you, so one of you will be partnered with me. Well, hop to it, find your partners!"
As was to be expected, both sets of twins claimed each other as partners, leaving the left-over Ravenclaw to partner with the Hufflepuff boy, and Tom and Dagon partnering together. Asotin and Will partnered up, leaving Grinberg, Blythe, and Vincent without a partner. It was a race to the girl for the two boys, and Grinberg was the one to get there first. Vincent fumed as Madam Thao took up position next to him, gathering the children's attention once more.
"Good. Now, as soon as I wave my wand, like so," she twirled her wand through the air in a show of complex movements, "the courses will appear and be ready for your use. They will, at first, appear to be just signs hovering in the air, but on the sign you will find instructions for what you are to do. There are to be just four of you at each course at a time, and only two of those four in the air for safety reasons. Find your groups and get started."
Madam Thao waved her wand through the air once more, and from the tip three smoky hazes started to appear. They took the shape of square signs, floating out across the pitch. Two headed towards the opposite ends while one stayed in the middle, and after a brief moment of silence the students dashed towards the course they wanted to take first.
Tom, Dagon, Blythe, and Grinberg claimed the speed course, finding the note on the sign just as Madam Thao said it would be. It read:
Speed Course
This course has been designed in order for you to test your speed on a racing broom. The purpose is to complete this course as swiftly as possible during a timed trial. You will go from the starting position, marked by an X, to the opposite end of the field, where you will find a gray pipe three feet in length. Pick up the pipe and return to the starting position, placing the pipe in the center of the X. Once there, the clock will stop. The lower the time, the better.
Blythe looked to the other boys in her group, waiting for them to finish reading. Her eyes danced lazily across the pitch, searching the other end for the pipe they were to find. She count it hovering about one hundred feet in the air right in front of the center hoop and nodded, turning back to face the boys to find they'd followed her gaze towards the pipe.
"Any of you lot want to go first, or would you prefer to know the time you can't beat before you go?" she asked with a smirk.
"Is that a challenge?" Grinberg retorted.
"Would I have asked if it wasn't?"
Tom rolled his eyes at Dagon and the two mounted up, kicking off into the air and flying in a circle above their housemate and her friend. Really, their constant challenges were getting to be quite irksome. Couldn't people do something just once without having to make it into a bet? He sighed in disgust, tuning back into the conversation in time to hear "loser does the winner's next History of Magic homework."
The two agreed to it and shook hands, Grinberg opting to go first and taking up his starting position. He kicked off from the ground as soon as Blythe shouted "go," hurtling towards the opposite end of the field on the old school broom. Even Tom, with his lack of wizarding knowledge, knew that the boy could have probably gone faster on a newer broom, and hoped that his own didn't lag as Grinberg's seemed to. The Gryffindor steadily ascended as he flew, gaining altitude until he was on the same level with the pipe and flattening himself along the handle. He seemed to pick up a bit of speed with that, and had soon taken hold of the pipe and was on his way back. Dropping the pipe down into the center of the X, the large clock that had appeared on the original sign stopped ticking, and showed Grinberg's speed at one minute and forty-seven point eight seconds.
"Not too shabby, Mark," Blythe called up to him as he did a victory loop around the goal posts. "especially for a school broom. However, I recommend you ready your quill for getting me my A plus." She gave him the customary Slytherin Smirk and took her place on the red X marking the ground. The pipe was back in its position at the end of the field, and with a shout of "go" from Grinberg, she was off.
Tom saw her race along the field, small frame held flat against the length of the broom just as Grinberg had done. She seemed to be going just a hair faster, but the whole idea of flying on a broom was new to Tom, and he wasn't entirely sure. The pipe enclosed tightly in one fist, she circled around the center goal post and doubled back.
It was when she was three-quarters of the way back that catastrophe struck.
Her broom, like it had a mind of its own, started bucking wildly in the air, doing its best to throw her off. Blythe hadn't ever had a broom act like this one was now, and with a startled shriek she fell, still one hundred feet off the ground and approaching it more swiftly than she'd have liked. Her robes billowed around her as she fell, wand dropping from her pocket as she twisted in the air to find a hand hold. She was out of luck.
"Blythe!" Tom, Dagon, and Grinberg shouted as one. Tom and Dagon were struck with the horrible thought of her dying upon hitting the ground, and could only gape as the Gryffindor tore across the field on his broom. They were quick to catch on, and they, too, zoomed towards her.
The ground was drawing ever nearer, closing in on Blythe like the giant monster that had scared her as a little girl. A scream was torn from her throat as she stared down at it.
Fifty feet.
Grinberg was no where near reaching her.
Forty feet.
He still had a ways to go.
Twenty five feet.
Almost there…
Ten feet.
Blythe closed her eyes to prepare for impact…
Five feet.
A set of arms wrapped themselves around her waist, pulling her up onto another broomstick and holding her steady. She shivered, caught between the urge to sob and scream her throat raw. Face buried into Grinberg's cloak, she couldn't even pull away on her own as he landed on the ground, setting her on her feet as he had that time she'd slid down the banister, broom forgotten on the grass. And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, her knees buckled and she was once more scooped up into the Gryffindor's arms.
She couldn't even answer his urgent question of "are you all right?" and didn't open her eyes until Tom and Dagon shook her roughly. Teeth chattering, she was hard-pressed to even stammer out an "I'll be fine, I just need a moment."
Blythe had been terrified. She had been completely sure that her life was going to end in the moment she hit the ground, but she'd been once more snatched from death's jaws. Her body curled against her will, burying her face once more into that scarlet and gold crest to hide her moist eyes. Not only was she terrified, but not she was also humiliated. It wasn't bad enough that'd she'd screamed as she fell, but she'd been saved by a Gryffindor and was clinging to him like a child would. She hated herself for it.
Minutes passed, her three friend waiting to see if she'd be okay, failing to notice that all the other students were going about their flying lessons as if nothing was wrong. Finally Blythe turned her head back towards them, eyes rimmed in red and dirty streaks down her face.
"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I didn't mean for this to happen and to ruin your evening. But I think I want to head back to the common room and to bed…C'you put me down, Mark?"
Grinberg slowly set her back down on her feet, keeping a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
"Are you sure you're okay, Blythe? We should walk you back to the common room," Dagon said worriedly.
"No, don't; you guys have a lesson to finish. I'll be fine," she insisted.
"And what if you collapse on your way back?" Tom asked dryly. Blythe opened her mouth to respond, but Grinberg got to it first.
"I'll walk her back. I lost my partner anyway, and already took my turn at the speed course. Besides which, neither of you two would be able to carry her back there if she did collapse, even though she's a tiny little thing." He smiled down at her, and couldn't resist cracking a joke. "You seemed to have made throwing yourself at my feet a habit, and I can use the ego boost."
Blythe smiled feebly as Tom and Dagon chuckled and finally relented to letting the Gryffindor accompany her. Tom turned back towards the speed course, frowning as Grinberg's last words rang in his head.