Chapter 6 - First Battle and Flying
The next week, for their second Battle Class, on Tuesday, Professor Quirrell had them call out their Pokemon. They were told to use their Starters, not gifts or house Pokemon. He wanted to see what they could do. Hermione was paired up with the mean boy from the first night.
One by one the went. The battles took up to ten minutes to complete, often times lasting much shorter times. When it was Hermione's turn and she had seen her opponent's Pokemon, she was glad that her opponent's Pokemon was too low leveled to know any type moves that could be seriously damaging to Chomper.
As soon as the battle started, Hermione called out to Chomper to use Tackle. Chomper rushed forward and bashed into the opposing Sneasel before it's trainer could call out the demand to dodge.
Draco retaliated by telling his Pokemon to Scratch. After she called out for Chomper to dodge it and hit the Sneasel with Tackle again, Chomper calmly dodged like from practice and hit his opponent with another Tackle.
Draco grit his teeth and told his Pokemon to keep trying to land a hit. Hermione called out for Chomper to keep dodging, then attacking. Chomper unfortunately was hit by the next attack, but with Hermione calling out encouragement, he managed to hit the Sneasel again.
"Again, Chomper!" Hermione called out. Chomper complied quickly before Draco could get a command in for his Pokemon. With the last hit, the Sneasel fainted. "Good job Chomper, you did great in your first battle!" Hermione cheered while hugging her Pokemon and jumping up and down with excitement.
On Thursday was their first flying class. Hermione thought that she would be sick just thinking about it. When she mentioned flying class to Chomper, he looked just as sick as she felt.
During flying class, they learned how to properly mount a flying Pokemon, in this case, they used the school Golbats.
Suddenly, the Golbat that Neville had mounted shot into the air. It was obvious to Hermione that he was terrified and not in control. It seemed that Professor Hooch couldn't tell for some reason as she called for Neville to bring the Pokemon down. Either that or she was calling for the Pokemon to come down. It was hard to tell.
Neville started to tilt first one way, then the other. He seemed to do this repeatedly, each time he tilted farther. Finailly after several minutes, Neville went plummeting down some ten feet to the ground.
As her only non-Pokemon companion, Hermione found herself extremely worried for him. She ran towards where he would land. While running, Hermione called out Chomper. "Quickly Chomper! Sand attack on the ground where Neville will land to soften the impact!" She called out to her most loyal companion. Understanding that the situation was dire from her panicked tone of voice, Chomper immediately complied.
Seemingly as soon as Chomper had finished his assigned task, Neville landed on the softened dirt with a loud snap. Hermione arrived just as the Professor started to move toward Neville.
"Are you alright? What am I saying! Of course you're not alright! Tell me what hurts, Neville!" Hermione rushed out, kneeling next to him with Chomper. She reached out to him but stopped just short of touching him. She was afraid to touch him and make something worse.
Professor Hooch bustled over and seemingly without a care to his condition, helped him up. "Broken wrist," she commented after inspecting him. She continued in a raised voice. "Everyone is to stay on the ground while I get him," here she indicated to Neville, "to the hospital wing. If any of you so much as mount one of the Pokemon, you'll be expelled faster than you can say Quidditch." With that parting word, the professor led Neville away from them to the hospital wing.
Hermione wished that she could go with them to make sure that Neville was okay, but she knew that she had to stay with the others. When Professor Hooch returned, the lesson resumed as if nothing had happened. In her worry, Hermione barely registered being off the ground as she followed the instructions. As soon as the class was over, Hermione rushed to the hospital wing after getting directions from Professor Hooch.
Hermione stayed with Neville in the hospital wing until the matron kicked her out.
