Over breakfast, Hermione read aloud flying tips from Quidditch Through the Ages. She could hear Ron and Seamus (mostly Ron) scoffing at the idea that you could learn to fly from a book. She wanted to tear into them, but she was much too worried that they might be right. Their first flying lesson would be that afternoon.
After leaning over to squint at the open pages of Quidditch Through the Ages, Harry called across the table. "Ron, would you take flying advice from Winston O'Brey, former coach of Puddlemere United?"
"Course I would," said Ron. "He's only the best coach ever."
"Well, his advice is what Hermione's reading. There's even diagrams."
Ron was frozen for a moment with a bite of sausage halfway to his mouth, and then he turned red to the tips of his ears. Hermione huffed triumphantly and read a little louder, not missing that Ron and Seamus were now listening, even if they were pretending not to. Neville especially was hanging on her every word
She was interrupted by the arrival of the mail, the general great sussuration of feathers and eagerly taken up packages. Her parents had been instructed on how to send post to Hogwarts — accommodations had been made so that it would be neither expensive nor difficult for the parents of muggleborns — and she was hoping for a reply to the letter she'd sent summarizing her first week.
She didn't get it that morning, but a barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of smoke.
"It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "Gran knows I forget things — this tells you if there's something you've forgot to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red — oh…" His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed scarlet, "...you've forgot something…"
Hermione was fascinated. She would think, coming at it from a logical perspective, that the ball would need to keep a list of everything you were supposed to do and a second list of everything you'd done, and constantly compare them to see if anything was missing from the second list. She knew that wasn't at all how magic worked, but she was still very much struggling to wrap her mind around how it did work.
And then, with incredible rudeness, Draco Malfoy snatched the object of her interest from Neville's hand.
Hermione had only been aware of Draco Malfoy for about a week, dating back to when he, holding a box of chocolates from an owl under his arm, had come all the way over from the Slytherin table to point out that Harry hadn't got any packages. She had come to dislike him intensely, and she knew Harry felt the same.
She was still surprised when Harry shot to his feet. Ron did the same, Dean and Seamus following his lead a moment later. She was very much afraid that the boys might actually get into a fight.
But of course, Professor McGonagall was there in a flash.
"What's going on?"
"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor."
With a terrible glare, Malfoy dropped the Remembrall back on the table, and none too gently.
"Just looking," he said, high-tailing it back to the Slytherin table with his two goons at his heels, and Hermione went back to looking at Coach O'Brey's flying advice, as reprinted by Quidditch Through the Ages.
But hours later, watching Madam Hooch demonstrate exactly the grip O'Brey had outlined, she wasn't sure it would help. Could you get vertigo just from looking up and understanding than in a few moments, you'd be up there? She wished the sky had a lid on it, because it felt as if, once she got on the broom, she might just rise and rise like a balloon until she froze to death in the upper atmosphere.
And before Madam Hooch had even blown her whistle, Neville took a try at doing exactly that, jetting straight up into air instead of the gentle bob Madam Hooch had been describing. With a scream of terror, Neville let go of the broom and fell to the ground with a crack and a shout. He lay facedown in the grass in a heap, and his wrist was bent at an unnatural angle. Madam Hooch bent over him, her face as white as his.
She turned to the rest of them.
"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."
Neville, crying and clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Malfoy burst into laughter.
"Did you see his face, the great lump?" he said, and his friends joined in the mockery.
"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped Parvati.
"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."
Look," said Malfoy, pointing at the grass, and Hermione spotted Neville's Remembrall. Before she could take more than one step forward, he'd snatched it up. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."
He held it up, glittering.
"Give that here, Malfoy," said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking, looking at the two of them.
Malfoy smiled nastily. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find — how about — up a tree?"
"Give it here!" Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broom and taken off. All his boasting about how good a flier he was must not be completely baseless, because he certainly seemed in control. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak, he called, "Come and get it, Potter!"
Harry grabbed his broom.
"No!" Hermione shouted. "Madam Hooch told us not to move — you could get expelled!"
But Harry didn't seem to hear her. He began to mount the broom.
So Hermione tackled him. They hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and robes, the broom no help at all. "You can't, Harry, you can't!"
Even as Malfoy laughed from above, Harry struggled to untangle them. He pushed her off of him in the process of rolling to his feet — he was surprisingly strong for such a scrawny little thing — but he helped her right back to her feet and said, "I can't just let him steal it!"
"But if you get caught flying, you'll be in so much trouble! Didn't you hear Madam Hooch? She said you'll be expelled!"
"Right," said Harry, his eyes lighting up. "Right." And he grinned, shook his fist at Malfoy and hollered up, "Get down here, Malfoy, and give it back!"
"Too afraid to come up, Potter!" Malfoy sneered. "Or maybe your girlfriend won't let you, is that it?"
"It's not fair!" shouted Harry. "I don't know how to fly. Just come down."
Malfoy laughed, twirled, and did a loop. "Make me come down, then. But while I'm waiting, I'll find a nice place for Longbottom's-"
At that moment, two things happened simultaneously. Ron Weasley slung a leg over his broom and started up, and a woman's voice shouted "MALFOY, WHAT IN THE BLAZES DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING UP THERE?"
Malfoy puffed up like a frightened cat. Ron dove down the moment he heard the voice, but it was too late — Professor McGonagall had already spotted him.
"YOU TOO, WEASLEY! DROP THAT BROOM THIS INSTANT!"
In moments, they had both landed and dropped their brooms. Ron was pale and shaky, and Malfoy looked queasy. They started yelling recriminations at once.
"Silence, both of you!," said Professor McGonagall, and the two boys went quiet at once. "Now, Mr Malfoy, what's this Mr Weasley is saying about Mr Longbottom's Remembrall? I recall you looking at it this morning."
"I…" He licked his lips. "I only picked up the Remembrall to give it back, but Potter came at me like a madman, so I had to take to the air. For safety."
"Which is why you had no choice but to fly so high and do several loops and rolls?"
"Ah, well…" Malfoy just stood there with a stupid look on his face, not thinking of anything to say to that.
Professor McGonagall took the Remembrall from him and scanned the crowd, looking, perhaps, for Neville and Madam Hooch, but her eyes landed on Hermione.
"Miss Granger, what happened?"
Hermione lit up. She loved when this happened. It was as if the teacher were a great general and she were the general's most trusted Lieutenant, depended on to give thorough and accurate reports.
"Neville Longbottom fell and broke his wrist. Madam Hooch took him to the hospital wing, and before we left she said that anyone who started flying would be expelled. But Malfoy noticed that when Neville had fallen, his remembrall had come out of his pocket. He picked it up and made a rude comment about Neville. Harry told him to give it over — not rudely or anything, he didn't raise his voice until Malfoy stated his intention to leave the Remembrall at the top of a tree — and then Malfoy hopped up on his broom and flew into the sky, telling Harry to come get it.
"Harry picked up his broom, though I don't know for sure if he actually would've flown, but I stopped him and reminded him that we weren't supposed to. Then he and I were shouting at Malfoy to come down, but he kept telling Harry to come up. Finally, Ronald tried flying up to Malfoy, and that's when you arrived, Professor."
Hermione finished her recitation with a broad grin, ignoring the looks and protests of other students in favor of Professor McGonagall's approving nod.
"Thank you Miss Granger." She turned to the Slytherins and said, "Miss... Davis, what do you say happened?"
Tracy glanced from the Professor McGonagall to the other Slytherins and back. "I don't know. I wasn't paying attention. The first I knew, Draco was flying. There was so much yelling that I couldn't make out what people were saying. Weasley started flying too, and then you got here."
Professor McGonagall nodded. "Stay here, all of you, and absolutely no more flying or foolishness until Madam Hooch is back, which should be shortly. Malfoy, Weasley, you'll come with me. And Miss Granger? Take this to Mr Longbottom as soon as you're done here."
Hermione took the Remembrall with a flush.
When the three of them had disappeared into the castle, Malfoy and Ron shooting glares at each other the whole way, Pansy spoke up.
"What's wrong with you, you filthy half-blood? Slytherins stick together."
"There's sticking together," said Tracy, "And there's lying to the Deputy Headmistress when there was a whole crowd of witnesses from her House. You're crazy if you think I'm doing that."
Pansy appeared about to reply, but Daphne spoke up in a hiss. "We'll talk about it in the dorms. Not out here."
Not long after, Madam Hooch came out, having already met Professor McGonagall on the way out and in no good mood about it. She had them all mount their brooms again and bob gently up into the air, and all of them were too frightened of her furious glare to do it wrong.
Bobbing a few feet above the ground was fine, pleasant even, so long as she didn't think about what'd happened to Neville. And when Madam Hooch had them fly along a few feet above the grassy turf, that was even a bit fun. But when Madam Hooch asked them to go a little higher and to make turns now and then…
"The book said to stay loose and move with the broom," said Harry, who was gliding along as gracefully as any bird.
"I am!" snapped Hermione, knowing all the while that she was stiff as a board. But she couldn't not be stiff, and how on Earth was Harry making it look so easy?
She tried telling herself that this was like therapy to address a phobia of heights, but she didn't have a phobia, just a healthy respect for what it would feel like to hit the ground from twenty feet up, and recalling the angle at which Neville's wrist had bent, the sound like a cracking twig, did nothing good for Hermione' nerves.
But at last the torture ended. They set their brooms back on the ground in a row, and Hermione broke off from the other Gryffindors, heading for the hospital wing, Harry at her side.
He was looking at her strangely.
At last, Hermione couldn't take it anymore. "I'm not sorry for tackling you," she burst out.
"Why did you?"
"You're my best friend, Harry! Imagine if you got kicked out. You wouldn't get to study magic anymore, and you'd have to go back to live with your relatives, who, from what you've said, you don't get on with very well. I wasn't going to let that happen."
He seemed surprised, though she couldn't think why, but he grinned and didn't seem upset. "I thought I was in for it when Malfoy tried blaming things on me."
"Don't be absurd, Harry. That was never going to work."
"But do you think they'll really get expelled?" he said.
"Madam Hooch said so, didn't she? I won't be sorry to see the last of Malfoy — he reminds me very much of a boy from my old school who I was happy to leave behind."
"Reminds me of Dudley, just less stupid. But do you think Ron will be expelled too?" Harry asked, worried.
"I'm sure the Headmaster will take his provocation into account," though she wasn't actually sure of that.
Entering the hospital wing, they found Neville sitting up on the edge of a bed, moving his wrist back and forth.
"All better?" she asked.
"I guess."
"You dropped this when you fell."
Neville thanked her gratefully, and went wide-eyed as she told him the story of what'd happened. Madam Pomfrey came over as she was finishing and asked him to wiggle his fingers.
When he'd done so without any pain, they were free to leave, but Hermione saw an opportunity. Every time she'd reminded Harry that he should go to the hospital wing for a check-up, he'd grunted and not done it, but now that they were actually here…
"Madam Pomfrey, Harry tells me he's never had a check-up in his life. He wasn't taken to Saint Mungo's or anything, and he doesn't remember ever going to a muggle doctor or anything. Could you look at him?"
"Never had a check-up?" said Madam Pomfrey even as Harry gave Hermione a betrayed look. "Is that true, Mr Potter?"
"Er, I guess."
"You guess?"
He muttered that it was true.
"Take a seat on that bed."
Hermione sat next to Neville, prepared to wait, but Madam Pomfrey kicked them out, saying check-ups were private business. As they walked out the door, she heard Madam Pomfrey saying, "Now, let's get you a full workup."
Hermione chatted with Neville on the way back to the dorms, but he didn't have much to say. Not that Harry was much of a talker himself, but at least he really responded to her instead of giving out an endless of strings huhs and uh-huhs.
She started the astronomy homework that had been assigned the night before and got on with her day, wondering when Harry would be done. They had just started dinner when Harry showed up, taking the seat next to her.
"Well?" she asked. "How'd it go?"
He sighed. "I can't even be angry at you."
"Why would you be angry?"
"Because you knew I didn't want a check-up, and you talked to Madam Pomfrey anyway, obviously. You can't do that. But-"
"Are those new spectacles?" They looked much better than the old ones. She hadn't ever noticed quite how bright his eyes were.
"Yes. That's why I can't be angry. My old ones weren't a great match anymore. Not too bad, but she says I should get an eye exam yearly. And these'll adjust to my eyes somewhat too." And look. He touched a finger to the lens. "No smudge. They won't get scratched either. So they're much better than my old ones." He said all that glumly, as if he didn't want it to be true.
"That's good then."
Harry reached for his fork, and a small golden chalice appeared in front of him, full of some foamy green liquid that put Hermione in mind of the shakes her mum ate for breakfast whenever she started talking about losing weight.
Harry tossed it back, drinking it one go, face twisting in disgust. "Blergh. That's terrible. Madam Pomfrey says I'm low on some of my vitamins, so I have to have this at the start of every meal for a whole week."
"Really?" she reached for the plate of green beans and started shoveling them onto his plate.
He caught her hand. "Hermione, I can serve my own food."
"Oh. Right."
Harry was stuffing himself like a goose when Ron appeared, taking the seat next to Dean and Seamus.
"So you aren't expelled?" said Hermione.
"No thanks to you. Couldn't you have made something up when she asked you what'd happened? I got a detention and minus twenty points for Gryffindor!"
"What about Malfoy?"
"He lost forty."
"But he's not expelled?"
Ron snorted. "'Course not. My brothers've done way more, and they're still here."
Hermione swayed. She had really, really hoped Malfoy would be gone. No, more than hoped — anticipated. But there he was, sitting at the Slytherin table and laughing, doing a dramatic re-enactment of events, from the looks of it.
"Maybe if you hadn't got on your broom, he wouldn't have got to spread the blame. At the very least, you wouldn't have lost 20 points for Gryffindor."
"Better than what you two did. It's not fair," he said in a bad and excessively high-pitched imitation of Harry, "I don't know how to fly."
Harry gulped down his food. "I was trying to get him to stay up there so he'd be in trouble."
"Really?" said Ron, nose wrinkling. "That's underhanded. Practically Slytherin."
Hermione said, "It was clever and responsible. More than that, it worked, and would've worked better if you had just followed the rules." Even if Malfoy wouldn't have got in any more trouble, she expected he would feel much less cheerful about it if he hadn't got a Gryffindor in trouble too.
Ron huffed dismissively and turned away.
/
In the relevant chapter of canon, it's stated that "everyone was bored to tears" by Hermione reading the flying tips from Quidditch Through the Ages. That story was told from Harry's perspective, but this is from Hermione's, and she thinks everything she says is interesting — that's why she says it. Her read on what other people think is often inaccurate.
And in this case, she's benefiting from what canon Harry offered to all his other friends — sticking up for her even though, in his heart of hearts, he agrees with the criticism.
Often in fandom, Hermione confidently spouting off ignorant, uninformed opinions and being initially unswayed when she meets someone who actually does know what's up. I like to think I know canon well… but I'm struggling to think of any canon examples of her going quite that far.
People point to the house-elf stuff, but while she's got some bad judgement there, she was at least somewhat informed. She spent a week reading up on the issue in the library before bringing it up to her friends, so she certainly knows more about it in an academic sense than anyone else we hear talk about it. Can anyone think of any better examples? I want to see this character flaw in canon before I replicate it for accuracy's sake.
I am struggling hardcore with the next chapter of Greatness. It's feeling dull, flat and preachy.
