CHAPTER FIVE

Author's Note: If you play a flute, and might be offended by this chapter, please chill out. I'm sure you're not a ditz, but a lot of the flute players I know are.

Aulophobia- Fear of flutes.

No matter how rationally I think about, flutes scare me deep down inside.

Yes, me. Hermione Granger. Terrified of flutes. Go ahead, laugh.

I know that's very stupid, but I am.I think I know why, too.

I was in the school band when I was in the Muggle school. I played clarinet. All the preppy girls played flute. They'd probably break a nail carrying anything else. They were always laughing and giggling and ruining the practice. They never practiced, or listened to the director. They represented everything I disliked.

They still do.

I like the instrument itself. If I was just looking at a flute, thinking rationally, I wouldn't be bothered. But if someone played it, anyone, just the sound of it sends shivers down my spine. The flutists go around saying that that's the sound you would have heard "a million, billion years ago when cavemen were burying dead people." It's not. They used RECORDERS. Flutes have keys and are made out of metal. "Cavemen" couldn't have made them. Take that.

Still, the sound is pretty unearthly. Perhaps that what's throws me off about flutes. Such a high, spiritual tone combined with such bubbleheaded idiots.

It beggars belief.

I won't ever be able to listen to a flute solo, but maybe if I listen to tapes of orchestras playing, I might be able the stand holding one. I doubt it, though.

I very much hope the last Horcrux isn't guarded by flute-bearing monsters. If so, Harry will be on his own.