-Chapter Eight-
Taking Flight
Harry had complied with Professor Snape's instructions, going straight to the great hall rather than making a short detour to the Slytherin common room to drop off his bag. He found a space close to the doors and carefully sat down. From a glance up at the staff table, it was clear to see that Professor Snape, although seeming to look around the room with disinterest, was not doing so out of any duty to oversee the students. His gaze was lingering slightly longer upon the end of the green-themed table closest to the door and it made Harry slightly uncomfortable.
While Harry watched the professor, their eyes met for a few seconds. Without breaking that eye contact, Professor Snape lifted a chicken drumstick from his plate to his mouth and bit into it in what seemed like a rather exaggerated manner. When Harry made no move, Snape raised an eyebrow and the boy understood. Harry piled some food onto his own golden plate and began to shuttle small piles into his mouth. Satisfied, Professor Snape didn't look at him even once after that point.
The meeting with Madam Pomfrey was, unfortunately, no less awkward. After asking about that week's potion usage and whether he had felt any other symptoms, she continued to ask further questions about his scar. Some of her questions were very strange and he didn't know where she was going with her line of questioning. He didn't like people talking about his scar anyway. It never went well for him. He needed this to end. He had to get out. To go. To run. Now.
Relief was an insufficient description for how Harry felt when he was released from Madam Pomfrey's interrogation with his potions restocked. Not wanting to seem rude, he quickly thanked her and turned to walk calmly - miraculously more so than he felt - out of the hospital wing. As soon as he was out of sight, however, he bolted, shoes slapping against the flagstones of the corridor before he could be called back.
#
The first month of Hogwarts passed more quickly than Harry thought possible. Defence Against the Dark Arts classes were mostly pain free thanks to the regularly-restocked supply of potions, although Madam Pomfrey was now giving him only enough to last three of the four lessons each fortnight. Apparently, pain potions could have detrimental effects with prolonged use.
Charms class was enjoyable, although a little hazardous as small fires kept breaking out. They were sticking to using the most basic form of magic, which was shooting sparks out of their wands. Unfortunately, the amount of parchment in the classroom made the usual classroom setup somewhat prone to random ignitions, so Professor Flitwick had secured the use of a different classroom, one end set up with some kind of fireproof material. Each class of first years had been practicing modifying their sparks in terms of their colour and size, and they soon learned that magic was more than just about following a set of instructions.
Transfiguration was oddly tiring when it was a practical lesson, although the students weren't running around or exerting themselves physically in any way. They had started trying to turn a match into a needle, which had caused a couple of hours of straining and scowling at sticks of wood as they stubbornly refused to become something else, no matter how similar. Eventually, though, everybody managed the transformation - some, like Crabbe and Goyle, with more than a little help - and the class discussed other similar objects that they could use as practice.
"A mouse and a rat?" Theodore Nott suggested when he was called on.
"Very good," Professor McGonagall commented, "although transfiguring animate objects is much harder than transfiguring inanimate objects. You'll learn this for your OWLs. Please don't try to transfigure your or other students' pets. Mr Zabini?"
"A carrot and a parsnip?" Blaise said, clearly thinking about lunch.
"Similar objects, yes, but I'm afraid food cannot be transfigured. Do not attempt to transfigure any food or anything into food." Thus began a long lecture about the dangers of transfiguring food and, by extension, anything designed to enter a living creature.
The lecture in Transfiguration was much more pleasant to endure than any of the lectures in History of Magic. It was the only class to be taught by a ghost, Professor Binns, and it seemed to be his mission to ensure as many students as possible joined him beyond the veil by boring them to death. After the first few lessons, the Slytherin first years had compared their notes to the textbook and realised that Bathilda Bagshot's work contained more detail than their combined scrawlings. Harry felt this was a waste of a period that could easily be put to better use, although many of his classmates thought sleep counted towards that.
The other subject in which the first years found it difficult to keep their eyes open was Astronomy. The main reason for this is that the class took place at midnight every Wednesday. By that point, the first years had already been through a long day, followed by a warm, hearty meal that turned their eyelids to lead. After all that, they had to work in the dark, the dim light from the castle windows barely bright enough to read or write by. The strain made their eyes dry and crusty, begging to be closed. They couldn't even light a candle, else they would be blinded from observing the night sky.
Despite the fact that there were more professors at the school, the first years continued to just study the seven core subjects and quickly fell into a routine. Harry was impressed with himself for not having to look at his timetable beyond the first day. It was surprising, considering that he personally considered his memory to be pretty poor at times. However, he was brought out of his musing by almost bumping into somebody much taller than him.
"Sorry, sir," Harry said, looking up into the man's face. Professor Snape raised an eyebrow at him and carried on walking through the dungeons. "Subtlety," Harry muttered as he approached the wall that barred the way into the common room.
Once inside, as though passing through an invisible, soundproof bubble, his ears were met with a hubbub of chatter. This was unusual in the Slytherin common room as far as Harry had experienced. The normal state of affairs was quiet, with hushed conversations taking place in shady corners or on huddled couches, depending on whether they were for business or pleasure. The rest of the occupants of the common room tended to be silently reading great tomes from the library.
However, scowls were being shot at the group of fellow first years gathered around the notice board. It was a muted affair with precisely-arranged, neatly-scribed notice cards, but fingers seemed to be pointed at one in particular.
Harry sidled up to the group, craning his neck to see what all the fuss was about, concerned that the card might indicate something happening at short notice. He recognised the handwriting as the spiky lettering of their head of house and realised how recently Professor Snape must have affixed this card to the notice board. Regardless of the short time the card had spent on display, there was already a large, grubby fingerprint on its bottom half. He didn't care to guess whether that was the handiwork of Crabbe or Goyle.
The two heavyset boys were somewhat of a mystery. They didn't tend to talk and, judging by their almost constant presence at Draco's shoulders, they had clearly had the virtues of silence drilled into them. Most of the professors had given up on calling on them in class, but Professor McGonagall seemed honourbound to at least try to elicit an answer from them in each class. Harry couldn't envisage either of them giving much of a coherent or thought-out answer, though.
Also not in the realm of imagination was the two whizzing around the sky on broomsticks. However, it seemed that this was going to be an experience in the near future according to the notice card. Flying lessons were scheduled to begin after classes on Thursdays. Harry was quite excited at the prospect of being able to fly, to be free like the birds he so often watched out of the corner of his eye while working in Aunt Petunia's garden.
"I don't see the point of having flying lessons," Draco was saying at the other side of the group. "I've been flying since I was three. My father says I'm a natural. It's a travesty that first years aren't allowed their own brooms. I blame the mudbloods. Dumbledore's probably worried that one of them will break their neck. Big deal."
"I suppose it would make sense to allow Slytherins to have their own brooms," Theo Nott said. "Nothing for Dumbledore to worry about then."
"Except for favouritism," Blaise countered. "You've got to play the political game, Theo. Even Draco knows that." To Harry, Draco looked distinctly as though he agreed with every word Theo had said, but quickly rushed to agree with Blaise. Behind Draco's back, Theo rolled his eyes.
The three boys began a heated discussion and the other first years took this as their cue to busy themselves elsewhere. Harry agreed with the general consensus that this wasn't a conversation he ought to weigh in on. In fact, he knew he would just show his ignorance if he tried.
He remained in a pensive mood all the way to the shared dormitory, repeating the conversation in his head. No matter how much he went over the words, however, he couldn't glean the answers to his questions from the context. There was always the opportunity to dismiss the questions, particularly if there was a risk of embarrassment, but Harry eventually decided that flying was worth it.
The knocks on Tracey's door echoed through the dormitory, devoid of people to absorb the sound waves. After a few seconds, the handle rattled and the door was pulled inward to reveal Tracey. By the looks of her desk, she had been about to start a piece of homework.
"Hi, Harry," she said with a bright smile. "You alright?"
"Uh, yeah," Harry said eloquently. "I, er-"
"Come in, come in," Tracey interrupted, stepping aside from the doorway and gesturing to her bed. Harry smiled at her, thankful for the chance to line up his next few words. "You look like you've got a question." Spot on. Harry sat on the edge of her bed.
"Yeah, I just wanted to ask⦠Well, I was listening to the guys talking about flying lessons and stuff and Draco said something and I was wondering if you knew what a mudblood was." Tracey frowned at this and Harry began to meticulously study his hands clasped in his lap. She pulled the chair away from her desk and sat down.
"Right, I suppose you wouldn't know, would you?" Tracey sighed and ran her hand through her hair. Harry looked up at her, their eyes meeting, and she paused. "It's not something we say in my house and it's certainly not something you hear in polite company. It's really rude, actually." Harry blushed, knowing exactly what 'really rude' things people had started talking about in his old school. "Not like that," Tracey rushed to say. "It's a rude word for someone who's Muggle-born. You know, someone whose parents are both Muggles."
"Oh." Tracey sat back at Harry's short response. "What's wrong with being a Muggle-born?"
"Nothing at all," Tracey said, shaking her head, "but not everyone believes that. In Slytherin, there are a lot of Pureblood families, where magic has run in their blood for many generations. Salazar Slytherin believed that only Purebloods should be taught magic, so Purebloods often think they're better than Muggle-borns, especially in Slytherin. My dad told me that people used to think the same about people who had different colour skin, which is even more stupid. He also said it's probably best to just play along with things when people are being idiots, if you want life in Slytherin to be easy."
"Like that's ever going to be the case," Harry muttered. "People already hate me here."
"Hey, maybe if you're obviously a benefit to the house, people will back off. I mean, nobody hassles the Quidditch players."
#
Quidditch involved flying, and this was all Harry heard about for the next two days. The Slytherin Quidditch team revelled in the attention that the upcoming classes brought and told stories of the feeling of wind whistling through you and the glory of daring manoeuvres. Draco gloated about pre-Hogwarts escapades whenever he was around Muggle-born students. Flying was convincingly the best thing in the world.
As much as Harry doubted the particulars of Draco's more far-fetched stories, the pure joy of the experience couldn't be masked. He had, for many years, looked up to the sky and envied the birds for their freedom. While on his knees in the dirt, covered in scrapes and bruises from his tasks in the garden, he had always longed to be able to trade places; to skim the clouds and become one with the swirling breeze.
Nobody could concentrate on their homework on Wednesday evening and first years of all houses could be seen lingering by the windows in the corridors or standing just outside the entrance, breathing deeply. Envious looks shot from the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables to the Slytherins and Gryffindors as the badgers and eagles would have to wait until the next day for their scheduled flying lessons, never more so when the two lines of red-clad and green-trimmed students passed through the corridors on their way to the Quidditch pitch.
The hawk-eyed Madam Hooch directed the Slytherins towards one of the two lines of broomsticks, where they waited for the Gryffindors to arrive. Although there was some jostling for the best-looking brooms, there wasn't much to recommend any of them. Most of them seemed wonky in one way or another, with twigs snapped to different lengths and bent at awkward angles. At the end of the tedious display of posturing, Harry was left with a broom which had a nasty crack along the length of the handle. It had been filled with some sort of grey putty and wrapped in what Harry had learned was called Spellotape.
Finally, the Gryffindors arrived, already stumbling over each other in their desperation to get to the broomsticks, as though reaching them immediately would let them fly immediately. Unfortunately, Madam Hooch had other ideas. A lecture about the anatomy of a broomstick would have made for a particularly interesting lesson at any other time, but as always anticipation was the death of patience and a stumbling block in the path of curiosity. In that very moment, despite how crucial it would feel after a long flight, nobody could dredge up the effort to care about the cushioning charm on the narrow handle or the way a fraction of the wind was deflected by the charms at the front end.
A safety lecture followed, stretching out interminably and barring the way to the flight at the end of the tunnel. However, they were eventually allowed to step up beside their brooms, waiting with one arm outstretched, ready to seize them.
"Up!" they all called when instructed. Harry and Draco were among only a select few, mostly on the Slytherin side of the teacher, whose brooms immediately jumped into their hands. Harry was grinning, revelling in the feeling of the broom thrumming within his grasp, pulling insistently into the sky. Draco was displaying his impatience by perfecting his sneer, directed at those slowing the class down.
Madam Hooch walked between the two lines of students when they had all successfully summoned their brooms, correcting their grips as they mounted. Draco scowled at being corrected, but bit back a retort with his eagerness. At the sound of the whistle, they were allowed to kick off, rise a few feet and dip back down to the ground. Harry's broom shuddered a little and seemed to want to drift off towards the Forbidden Forest, but those niggles paled in comparison to the sheer joy of even such a short flight.
Little by little, they were allowed to rise higher and higher and return to the ground as Madam Hooch examined their stability and their confidence. They moved on to drifting sideways before turning and, eventually, they were split into two large groups. Their lesson was almost at an end, but Harry and Draco's group were allowed to fly slowly around the edge of the Quidditch pitch while the flying instructor was helping the second group master the basics and improve in confidence. Of course, they were told in no uncertain terms what would happen if they were to fly too quickly or too high or mess about in any way imaginable.
It was wonderful.
The group of confident flyers glided gently around the pitch, sometimes drifting to one side or another but always keeping in a loose pack. They weren't going to give this up for a moment of foolishness. Indeed, many of them were whooping for joy, oblivious to the fact that many of those accompanying them were from a rival house.
Harry's broom began to shudder once more as he turned around behind the goalposts at one end of the pitch. He drifted a little wider than the group and tried to correct and catch up. However, the broom seemed like it was running out of energy, flying slower and slower, and yet it was now drifting further upwards. The shuddering got worse and, looking down at the broom, it seemed as though the grey putty filling the split in the handle was coming away from the edges and being pushed out.
Suddenly, the broom began to buck wildly, like a horse Harry had caught a glimpse of while Uncle Vernon was watching a programme about rodeos. Seeing his group far ahead and below him, and Madam Hooch concentrating on one of her group, with her back to him, he finally began to panic. The ground was falling ever further away and he was growing ever more likely to meet it on a one-way trip.
Like a dog fresh from a river, the broom started to roll along its length, attempting to shake Harry off like so much water. It rolled over completely and he was left hanging on by one hand, and yet it carried on rolling. His wrist was unable to roll around with the broom, so it began to rotate within his grip, friction burning the hand that was growing ever slicker with sweat. Finally, tasting the moisture of the clouds, he fell.
