Flying Lessons

Chapter Five

"And then…" Nym stopped listening and shoved her head under her pillow. Did they ever shut up? It was always 'she did this' or 'he did that' or 'and then this so totally happened'. Never was there any hint of any sort of intelligence. Unless you thought a high IQ was needed to decided whether you looked better in blue or pink.

The 'Lion Grlz' were, unfortunately, Nym's only company in her House. She only knew the boys slightly, and she was still too shy to approach anyone in a higher year. Rick was a good friend, but she didn't see him all that often. Sure, they often met in the library after dinner, but he had his own House.

They started giggling again. What could possibly be so funny as to warrant the high, bubbly shrieks of laughter? Whatever it might be, it wouldn't appeal to her, even if they let her in on the joke. They were the 'Lion Grlz', four girls with four-letter names, who all had the same tastes and personalities. Together, they formed a tight little circle that no one, most especially one Nym Tonks, could break.

She groaned and left the dormitory. She didn't have anything to do, so she might as well go down to the Common Room. Students were mingling when she came down the stairs, chatting or doing homework or playing wizard chess. She'd never played that, though she'd watched parts of games. She could play muggle chess, but the violence of this version stopped her focusing on the plays.

One of the boys caught sight of her and made his way over. What could he possibly want, she wondered? She didn't know him, and he wasn't in any of her classes. She knew him by sight, as she did many of her Housemates, though she didn't know his name. She was pretty sure he was second year, though.

"You're Nym Tonks, right?" Well, he seemed to know her, anyway. Had she told him her name? She couldn't remember, but she didn't think so. Perhaps he knew her from her… memorable Sorting. Maybe that was it. She nodded, a little unsure how to talk to him.

He gave her an envelope, with an encouraging smile. "I'm not gonna eat you. Rick asked me to give this to you."

"Thank you," she murmured.

"No problem." Someone called him. He nodded to her, and left. She wandered over to a window and ripped it open.

Hey Nym. Heard about your flying lesson. Hope you're okay, and won't take it wrong if I ask this. One of my friends plays quidditch, and has helped me tons with my flying. If you want, you can tag along. We'll have you flying like a bird in no time. Anyway, if you want to come we'll be on the quidditch pitch at six, and see you there. It's not a big deal if you don't though, so don't feel like you have to. See you around, Rick.

Had everyone heard about her disastrous flying? It was nice of Rick to invite her, but she didn't want to fly any more. Not if it ended like that. She'd tell Rick that the next time she saw him. Flying just wasn't for her. It was scary, and nerve wracking, and… exhilarating. She remembered the incredible feeling of flying over the grass, and Madame Hooch's promises to the students that this was just the beginning. Some day they'd be able to fly like birds. She tried to imagine what that would be like, but couldn't. It was too incredible. And Rick had offered to teach her. She looked back at the note in her hand, written on thick cream parchment by a quill, rather than ballpoint pen on paper as she was used to. How could she have considered refusing? She'd go, and she'd learn, and maybe someday she'd even get to play quidditch for Gryffindor.

Half an hour later, after eating a quick supper in the Great Hall, Nym walked out onto the quidditch pitch. It dominated one side of the grounds, with the tall stands and gently sloping lawn. She'd used to stare at it during lessons, wondering what it would be like to play football on such a perfect field. Until she'd learned what it was really for. Until her flying lesson, two days before. She'd been careful to avoid looking at it since. It reminded her of flying, and her failure at it.

Rick and another boy were waiting for her. They had three brooms, two of which were the same as what Nym had ridden during that horrible lesson. The other was newer, sleeker, and even to Nym's inexperienced eye obviously much better.

"Hey Nym. Knew you'd come," Rick greeted her.

The other boy laughed. "Maybe you did, I didn't." Nym bristled, not liking his implications. "You gave the note to Jimmy. What're the chances he didn't remember until ten minutes ago?"

"He gave it to me half an hour ago," Nym said, trying to keep hostility out of her voice.

"Did he really? Then his memory's improved beyond measure." He stopped chuckling to himself. "Zack Smith. And you'd be Nym, I take it." She nodded. "Fell off your broom, did you?"

Nym bristled. She hadn't fallen off her broom, it had thrown her, and she told him so. Suddenly, Zack was very serious. "Are you sure? Are you positive that's what happened?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

Zack looked around, as though making sure no one was listening in. "It's been happening a lot. Happened to my own little sister. Half a dozen first years have been thrown like that."

"Madame Hooch said it was because the brooms were old," Nym offered.

"I suppose you could say that. The spells are probably getting weaker, but that wouldn't make it plow first years into the ground. No, I'd say," and here he glanced around again and lowered his voice, "someone's been tampering with them."

"But why?" Zack suddenly didn't seem so big and threatening. She'd just misread him. Nym silently resolved never to do that again.

"I don't know," Rick answered.

Zack gave him a look that said 'now there's a surprise, be quiet why don't you?'. "It's hard to be sure, but we can guess. See, it's only first year muggle-borns being thrown. And none of them have been Slytherin."

"There aren't any muggle-borns in Slytherin," Rick said. "There aren't even half-bloods."

"Shows what you know. Richard Flint is muggle born, and Jennifer Parker is a half-blood." Nym had never heard of either of those people, but Rick seemed to have, or perhaps he just pretended to.

"Maybe," Nym said, "but I'm not a muggle-born. I'm half-blood."

"Are you really? Well, perhaps that was enough to qualify you. Or maybe it was bad luck. Anyway, it won't happen now, so do you want to start flying?" Zack obviously thought they'd been talking long enough.

Nym had been completely unable to find something to compare the feeling of flying to during her first lesson. Flying with Zack, who played Beater for the Ravenclaw team, beggared even that. They soared around the pitch, faster than Nym could have imagined. By the time it was getting dark, Nym could feel the improvement in her flying, even if she was no where near as good as either of the boys. Zack was a good teacher, and could spend more time coaching her than Madame Hooch had been able to, having had nineteen other students to pay attention to. Nym was sure that, with lots of practice and Zack's help, she'd be able to make the Gryffindor team next year. Even if she didn't, she'd keep flying, because it was that incredible.

Time seemed to slip away. Before Nym really understood what had been going on, a month had slipped by. She found ways to keep herself busy, between attending classes, working on her homework, and flying with Zack. Rick joined them often, but he freely confessed that he wasn't much of a flier.

"What're you talking about?" Nym demanded one time he said this. "You're really good." Well, not really good, but pretty good, she amended silently. As she'd improved, she'd begun to see the faults in her own flying, and Rick's. She didn't even look at Zack's flying; she'd tried, and she'd never found anything wrong with it.

"Nym," Rick had said with a laugh, "you're almost as good as I am, and you know it. You've been flying, how long, a month? I've been flying almost all my life." As far as he was concerned, that settled it, and Nym couldn't think of any answer. So she kept her mouth shut when Rick opted not to fly with them.

Halloween was a week away when Nym and Zack were flying. They'd left the quidditch pitch, and were flying over the Forbidden Forest. Zack had always been very careful when they flew over the Forest, flying closer to Nym and keeping to the edges. He hadn't even let her leave the pitch for weeks, saying he wanted to make sure she could take care of herself before he would let her risk it.

They were headed down to land when Nym felt her broom seize up. It was a feeling she'd know anywhere. It was just like that first flying lesson, except this time she was much, much higher. She hurtled toward the ground, desperately holding on. If she could wait until the last second to jump, she might be able to avoid getting hurt.

For the most part, it worked. She leapt clear a few feet from the ground, rolling over and over when she hit. It was like the first time, rolling over and over, with one important difference; her first impact was accompanied by a sharp crack. She screamed, tears coursing down her face as the wind, and her scream, were knocked out of her.

She heard people yelling, and several someones came running from different directions, converging on her. Someone was saying her name urgently. "Nym. Nym, are you okay? Nym?"

"Zack?" she muttered. He helped her sit up, and face the other person. A boy who she'd seen once or twice in the Common Room, knelt in front of her.

"Are you alright?" the boy asked. Nym couldn't answer, only cradled her arm.

Two more boys came up, as old as the other two. Nym had seen them several times in the Common Room, from a distance. They were always the center of attention. Both had black hair and strong faces, and from the look of them they could be brothers. Through the pain, or perhaps because of it, Nym thought they had an unusual resemblance to her mother.

"How is she?" one of them asked.

"I think the arm's broken," the boy kneeling in front of her said, turning to face them. His hair looked oddly gray, like he was much older than sixteen or seventeen.

"We'll have to take her to Madame Pomfrey." At first, Nym thought the speaker might be one of the black haired boys, but then she realized there was a fourth boy, hiding behind them. He was small, and plain, and pudgy, with a distinctly rat-like face. She wasn't sure if she had seen him before, but she thought she might have.

"Don't be an idiot, Wormtail. And admit we weren't in detention?" said the black haired boy. She couldn't tell if it was the one who had spoken before or not. Their voices, like their looks, were very similar.

"But if her arm is broken…"

"Stow it, Wormtail," snapped one of the black haired boys. He knelt beside the boy with graying hair. "Can you fix it, Moony?"

"I might be able to. Evans would be better at it, of course."

"But she's not going to find out." This from the black-haired boy still standing and glaring at Wormtail. "She'd never forgive me for skipping detention. So Moony?"

"Give me a minute." The boy pulled out his wand and ran it up and down her arm, frowning and muttering to himself. Then he tapped her arm, right at the pain epicenter. Nym cried out, and Zack looked at her with concern. Moony looked sheepish, "As I said, Lily would have done it better. But it's healed, good as new. How's it feel, young one?"

"Better," Nym admitted, moving her arm, testing the healing.

"Would you like to meet the culprit?" Offered the kneeling black-haired boy.

"The who?"

"The one who's been jinxing the brooms."

"I thought we were doing that," piped up Wormtail.

"Wormtail, you idiot, think a minute. Why would we hurt first years? And, in case you couldn't tell, that was a stunning spell Prongs did just there, not a jinx. The villain is unconscious under the bleachers over there. Be a pal and drag the scum out, would you?" The rat-faced boy trotted off to do as he was told.

"What's your name?" Moony asked.

"Nym Tonks," Nym said. Compared to these boys' names, it wasn't really all that odd. Who would call their child 'Wormtail', after all?

"Tonks," repeated the kneeling black haired boy. "I know that name from somewhere."

"A relative?" Moony suggested.

"Of course." A light seemed to go on in the boy's eyes. "Dear Andromeda. Married that muggle-born Tonks." Before Nym could protest that her father was a muggle, not a muggle-born, Wormtail came back, dragging a limp form, which he dropped with mixed disgust and pride in front of his companions, like a dog bringing back a catch to his master.

The boy called Prongs turned it over with his toe. "Well what do you know. Padfoot, old boy, looks like today's a day for family reunions."

The boy looked rather like the one called Padfoot, though he wasn't as handsome and he didn't have that certain something which suggested to Nym a good deal of courage and power. Instead, he was like a shrunken, pitiful copy made by someone who couldn't quite remember what the original looked like.

"Regulus. I might have known," said Padfoot with obvious disgust. "Well, we'll deal with him later."

Prongs turned to Zack. "It's Smith, isn't it?" Zack nodded. "Well, you'd best be off. We'll take care of the kid. And not a word of this to anyone, understood?" Zack nodded and took off. What could make him obey like that, Nym wondered.

Padfoot seemed to think it was time for introductions. "This here," he indicated Moony, "is our prefect, Remus Lupin."

"It's not like it's a title or anything," snapped Moony. "She doesn't need to know that."

Padfoot shrugged and ignored him. "That over there is Peter Pettigrew." He jerked his head towards Wormtail. Nym thought his nickname fitted him much better. "Our golden boy, Head Boy and quidditch captain James Potter. And of course my humble but brilliant and dashing self, Sirius Black."

"And modest, of course," Lupin added.

"My mum mentioned you."

"Did she now. And what did she say?"

"That you were her cousin and that you might be able to help if I got in trouble." Nym looked at Sirius in awe. "And I guess you did."

Prongs started laughing. "Sirius get you out of trouble? He'd throw you into it head first."

Sirius pretended to be offended. "I would never do that. She's family."

"That's family," Prongs reminded him, kicking the still prone for of Regulus.

"If you insist on being accurate."

"What should I do with him?" piped up Wormtail.

"You aren't going to do anything," Lupin said firmly. "You'll only screw it up."

"But…"

"We'll take care of him. You take Nym back to the Common Room."

"But…"

"Stop arguing, Wormtail," put in Prongs. Wormtail nodded sullenly. As he escorted Nym back to the Common Room, she looked behind her. Sirius, James and Remus were walking towards the forest, the prone form of Regulus dragging magically behind in the dust. Sirius was cool, and popular, and a really good wizard. He was everything she'd dreamed and more.