Harry could hardly believe that he was up on a broom, winging through space, slowed only by the additional weight of Neville behind him.
His friends were flying in tandem with him, their bells helping him keep track of where they were.
I love flying! I wonder if I can still play Quidditch? Maybe I can!
That elating thought was quickly squashed by the memory of Professor McGonagall's voice expressly forbidding him to play and then another voice entered his memory, squeezing him further—that of Professor Snape's accusatory tone… he could hear Snape claiming that the vibrations and bells gave Harry an unfair advantage. The wind whipping through his hair helped Harry shake the voices out of his head.
"I thought that flying carpets were outlawed in Britain," Tony called out to Aminah.
"We're not in Britain!" she shot back.
Harry hooted at Tony's groan and Neville's silent laugh shook the broom a bit.
"Still, but how'd you get by the Ministry? I thought they confiscated them," Tony said.
"I got permission to use it… since other forms of transportation are so challenging. My mum went in front of a committee and pleaded our case. Don't worry—I won't be hauled off to Azkaban for using an illegal form of transportation…" Aminah chided.
"Azkaban?" Harry muttered.
"Wizard prison," Neville explained.
"Oh, yeah—I heard there was one. I just didn't know the name of it. Thanks, mate."
Harry was starting to work on acclimating Neville to tighter turns and sharper movements up and down as they zoomed across the lake. Neville was getting the hang of it—learning how to lean in with a shoulder or a hip and pull in his elbows to allow the broom to move more freely through space. He was learning to move with it, instead of fighting it as he had before.
"Harry, I've never flown like this before!" Neville confessed.
"I know! Isn't it amazing. Wait until we get you on your own broom. It's even better," Harry encouraged.
"Oh, blimey. I don't know," Neville backpedaled.
"You're doing it, mate. You'll be able to do it on your own, too. Just wait and see," Harry said.
Harry could hear a bell coming toward them at an alarming rate. Harry wondered if they were going to collide. He started to pull up, but then it sounded like they were also moving up so he leaned forward to go down toward the lake.
"Bloody hell, Peter!" Tony shouted as the form whooshed over their heads. "Are you trying to knock us off our brooms?"
"Whoo hoo!" Harry shouted, even though he knew Peter couldn't hear him. "He's having a blast! Wow! I bet this is even better for him."
"Isn't he both deaf and blind?" Neville asked.
"Yeah, he is," Harry said, agreeing as he noted the sound of Peter's bells.
"Here comes Gemma!" Aminah shouted.
She also buzzed them, but not quite as close—probably because she could see their terrified faces. Harry wondered if Peter even knew that they were there until he got close enough to sense them through vibrations of his broom.
Arig followed close behind her and did a loop-de-loop—his bells sounding like jingle bells. The wind was picking up a little and Harry felt the hairs on his arms prickling with cold. The breeze brought scents along with it—and Harry wondered how close they were to the island. He could smell pine trees.
He was tempted to tail Peter, to give chase, but he resisted knowing that Neville wouldn't think it was fun.
"Hey, Arig," Harry called out, twisting around so that his words wouldn't be carried away by the wind like the slips of paper. "Tony said you might have an extra broom that Neville could borrow."
"Yeah! I do. Let's land on the island and I'll get it for him." Arig's voice faded out at the end as he moved past them.
Harry started angling toward the scent of pine, wondering what the terrain would be like.
"It's pretty rocky—but over on this side—er- to the right, the east side of the island, there's a little flat spot that we were able to land on. Really nice view of the mountains from there. Oh, well, you know…" Arig said as he pulled up next to Harry and Neville as the rest of the group continued to fly circles around each other.
"Yeah, that's perfect," Harry said, though he was a little nervous—not sure if he'd be able to land without spilling Neville again.
"It's pretty wild to see how Peter loves flying so much—I guess he knows we're going to get out of his way. We should have done this earlier. I had no idea," Arig said. "He looks like a little kid at the carnival. What a transformation!"
As they drew closer to the island and got lower to the ground, Neville drew in his breath.
"What is it, Neville?"
"Oh, it's just so beautiful. The lake is so clear and deeply blue and the island has these perfect trees that are reflected on the surface of the lake and then the whole thing is framed by the mountains. It's hard to imagine a more gorgeous spot on earth."
"It smells good, too," Harry agreed as he drew in a deep breath. "The pine trees smell so fresh and clean; the air is crisp—I can smell the water in it. And the way the wind sounds in the trees—whooshing. The bird songs—there are so many on that island—I can hear them farther away, too, on the mainland, but they are really concentrated on that island—calling to one another. The sun doesn't feel so hot anymore—more like a gentle warmth on my face."
"You make it sound beautiful, too, Harry," Neville said. "I hadn't noticed those things before."
"This time when we land, let me put my feet down first, then once we're stopped, you can put yours down, okay?"
"Yeah, sorry," Neville said.
"No worries. We should have talked about it before we took off the first time," Harry said. "Okay, here we go!"
Harry slowed down a lot as they approached the island—he had to be close for the vibrations to give him any sense of the obstacles. He drew in another deep breath—soaking in the piney scent that was even stronger now among the trees. There were other aromas—pungent—like wet earth and decomposing leaves.
They landed much more smoothly this time, barely stumbling over the rocks and tufts of grass that littered the landing spot. Arig hopped off next to them, yelped and then shook out his crutches.
"Yikes, my foot fell asleep—that was close," Arig said as he stumbled around a bit.
"Yeah, mine, too," Harry said.
"I had the foot rests at least," said Neville, "but yeah—the broom handle kind of cuts off circulation, doesn't it."
"Here you go, Neville," Arig said.
"Oh, are you sure? This looks like a really nice broom," Neville said.
"Yeah, it is. It was my sister's, but she outgrew it and now she's flying on a Firebolt and trying out for the Appleby Arrows. I think she has a decent shot. It was just gathering cobwebs in the broom shed, so I asked if I could bring it here in case someone wanted to try flying who didn't have a broom," Arig explained.
"What kind of broom is it?" Harry asked, reaching out his hand. Neville pushed the handle against it and Harry felt the length, footrests, and bristles. "Is it a Nimbus?"
"Yeah, a 1700 series… older than yours, but still a good broom."
"Nice. So, Neville—it'll handle a lot like my broom… so that's good. You'll be fine on this," Harry encouraged, holding it out to him.
Neville was shaking a bit when he took the broom from Harry.
"Remember to hold on with your knees and lean into the curves. Do what you were doing with me. You were really moving with the broom," Harry said.
"Well, that was easy—all I had to do was mimic what you were doing," Neville moaned.
"You can do this. Really, Neville. You were already doing it," Harry said, impatient to chase Gemma and Peter around over the lake. The bells on their brooms were taunting him.
"Oh, we've got to put bells on our brooms!" Harry said and Neville, who had started to take off, skidded to a stop, pebbles cascading down a slope near them.
"Right. How do you do that?" Neville asked.
"Campanis minima," Harry said as he tapped his wand to his own broom and charmed it to chime pleasantly.
Neville tried the incantation several times, but couldn't get the bells to sound.
"We can work on the charm later, Neville. I'll just do it now so that we can fly, all right?"
"All right. Thanks," Neville said. "Okay, here goes nothing!"
Harry hooted as Neville shot off into the sky—his bells ringing madly as he wobbled out over the lake. Harry hopped on his broom to chase him, slowly first until he cleared the trees. Arig raced by him.
Harry pulled ahead in a spiraling twist once he was clear of the trees, listening to the sounds of the bells on his friend's brooms and feeling the vibrations of their forms as they came into range of his staff.
"Nice move, Harry! You're on the Gryffindor team, right?" Arig shouted.
"Yep!" Harry agreed in delight. He wasn't going to let thoughts of being kicked off the team ruin this day and this moment of pure flying bliss. He felt more secure on his broom now that he could place his feet on the footrests and take some of the pressure off his bum. He leaned low against his broom, the familiar grain of the wood felt warm and comforting under his hands.
"You'd give my sister a run for her money, that's for sure," Arig exclaimed.
Harry fell back for a bit to fly next to Neville and give him more tips about how to fly more steadily. Neville was definitely doing a way better job of flying than Harry had ever noticed before (he was staying on his broom for one!) and he felt bad that it never occurred to him that Neville might just need some coaching.
Why had I never taken the time to help him before?
Harry felt like an ass.
"You're doing great, Neville!" he said, trying to cover up his regret.
Aminah was approaching them, but she was so far below that Harry was certain that she must be hovering right over the surface of the lake.
He swung down to her in another dizzying spiral that was almost too much—but because he was in control, he could pull out of it before it sent him over the edge. He evened out next to her feeling the spray of the water coat his face and hands.
"You all right?" he asked
"Yeah, I love it. I want to do this all the time. You better go catch up with Gemma and Peter, they are dying to fly with you. Thanks for encouraging me to do this. I had no idea it would be so brilliant! I feel like a phoenix!"
Harry zipped back to Neville who seemed to be doing fine—his voice was happy like he was actually enjoying flying, and then raced ahead to catch up with Gemma and Peter's bells. He could move so easily out here—knowing that there was nothing in his path and just leaning into his broom to make it swoop one way or another and feeling his muscles stretching and engaging with the twists.
He could hear Neville speeding up behind him, trying to keep pace and he slowed a bit so that he wouldn't leave Neville completely behind.
Finally, he was drawing up alongside Gemma. He reached out—holding his hand out to her and she waved across it, obviously delighted. She had charmed her hands again as he had last week when they were in the park. Her "yes" rang out across the lake triumphantly.
Harry flew to the other side of Gemma listening carefully to Peter's bells and stretched out his hands until he found Peter's hand so that they were lightly touching each other—they were connected three across, arms outstretched and flying toward the blazing sun that had to be setting because the temperature was dropping, but it was a piercing ball of light that forced his eyes closed. Their motion of moving up and down made their hands wave across each other's hands in the haptic sign of bliss.