Chapter Six: The Broom
On the morning a notice pinned in the Slytherin common-room announced the first years were scheduled for flying lessons on Thursday of that following week, Draco turned positively sugar-rushed, squirming bug-eyed in a gesture that paid tribute to fits of rapture Harry had witnessed of Dudley on his birthdays and Christmas in particular. On the other hand, a light flapping spread down in Harry's stomach. He had only ever handled brooms, mops, feather dusters, and the like for an obligatory purpose in cleaning, so still, the idea of perching astrid one and floating up off the ground upon it caused him a few recoiling episodes. Harry appeared alone in his apprehension as usual. The upcoming lesson with Madam Hooch was all the chatter of that week, Draco filling his crew's ears to the brim with his variety of personal anecdotes of flying the countryside around his manor in Wiltshire.
"Barely crashed into my first helicopter just before my sixth birthday," Draco spoke up out of nowhere in the middle of breakfast Tuesday morning. "Had to swoop for cover behind some trees then again when I was eight. Got Mother quite upset, but Father assured her it was our elf's fault because he was supposed to be monitoring me, had him flogged and locked up in one of our storage attics for half a week. Stupid elf couldn't have done shite to stop me anyway."
A vague frown tugged at Harry's lips before he straightened them in reflexive restraint. While Crabbe was smirking, shaking his head for the stupid elf's mishaps, a certain, foreign sort of pressure pushed in Harry's throat, and it contained an urging gargle of, "That's just cruel." For the life of him, for the security of his social placement, he played the coward, just as he reckoned he would be for the unforeseeable future. Habit was made of swallowing his peace.
Come Thursday morning in the Great Hall during post, when Neville had enthused with too high of a chant that Gran had sent him a Remembrall, Draco's attention was stroked, his head tilting past Harry's shoulder. Draco rose to his feet. "C'mon, let's check it out," he said. Harry's windpipe had been punched, and he was leisurely to tag the crew over to the Gryffindor table.
"She knows I forget things every day," Neville was explaining to those immediate surrounding Gryffindors. The translucent marble-sized glass ball he was rolling gently in his hands stored a vivid white smoke. "So when you squeeze it tighter like this...uh oh…" The smoke was bleeding a scarlet twirl now in his hands. "Um, it goes red like this when you have forgotten something."
"Idiot," Draco remarked right at his shoulder, groping for the ball. Unashamed, he inspected it in his hands, the smoke bleaching itself out in its natural state no further than ten seconds later. He grew bored of the device in below a minute, handing it over to satiate Goyle's curiosity. Harry took a step back, curious himself although unmotivated to partake in the show of greed. Neville was blinking up at them with nervous hurt, nibbling at his bottom lip.
"Give it back, you damn oaf," Ron snapped at Goyle, freckles popping tenfold in his flaming cheeks. "It's his."
"Shove it, Weasley," Draco said calmly. "We're only having a quick look here. The thing's already informed him of his doomed goofiness."
The ball was tinting deep pink in Crabbe's hands as McGonagall strode by them with an air of piercing intuition they couldn't dream of. "What is going on here?"
"That Remembrall is Neville's, Professor, they stole it," Ron blurted out, pointing a firm forefinger at the guilty. Harry tried to shrivel up behind their backs, paling.
Crabbe slapped the ball into Neville's limp palms before being requested to. "We're on our way, ma'am," Draco excused for them in his best effort at remorse. A shrewd brow held still on McGonagall's forehead, her nose flickering up in her curt turn for her seat at the staff's table. Draco lifted his arms, signaling retreat for their own table, but Harry caught the unfaltering glare Ron was facing him with. It stabbed straight through Harry, beating to a fine pulp his spirits not for the first time. Actions spoke volumes, the expression rang truer than Harry had felt before as he straggled behind Blaise, offering Crabbe and Goyle the last of his blueberry waffles.
"They're gonna be in for it this afternoon," Draco beamed. "We'll bury their faces down in the dirt out there on the pitch, you just wait."
Harry would for an eternity if he could.
.
.
.
"Hurry along," Draco snapped over his shoulder, racing them outdoors at 3:12. Crabbe and Goyle were huffing amongst themselves in their side-by-side jogs to keep up with their charge, while Harry and Blaise decided a fierce sprint down to the practice fields was unnecessary.
They took the uneven plots of tall grass stretching partway along the border of the forbidden forest before reaching vast, smooth lawn. They were some of the first to come. Twenty broomsticks were lined up one-by-one, Draco strutting over to the finest looking, which was the one with the least curb, excess twigs and warp in wood. He offhandedly advised that Crabbe select the extra thickset one down the middle. Crabbe collected it, nothing in his eyes. Harry was not the only one run empty on a wealth of self-defenses.
First come, first serve, the five Slytherins secured the five most top-notch brooms available. Harry's had slight wayward curving and abrasion to it, but he was no one to fuss about aesthetic quality. He was clutching his broom with both hands, raking his eyes up and down its length in the deepest scrutiny his vision would lend. His palms were sweating. 'Hell, I'm going to muck this one up like that's the task.' There must have been a minimum of four lumps hardening in Harry's throat as he envisioned himself assuming flying position and becoming airborne. Approaching a stupor, he gazed off into the bright plump clouds roaming over, daring a quick thought at delving through up there, cool and unattached. Liberated. Harry gripped his broom harder once every first year Slytherin and Gryffindor had made attendance, Madam Hooch crossing the lawn momentarily.
"Well, don't just stand around," the middle-aged witch barked, her yellow eyes almost as striking as Janus'. "Everyone ready yourselves alongside your broomsticks." The kids better aligned themselves. "Stick your right hand over your broom, and say 'Up!'"
"UP!" roared twenty mouths, Harry gasping, stumbling in place as his bolted up off the ground and slapped against his palm. Few others got this reaction. Harry enveloped his fingers around the wood before it could drop. He'd had his head in the clouds, so he stayed there.
"Now to mount!" Hooch called, demonstrating with hers. Up and down the row, stray students were gripping theirs wrong, their bums poised too high or low, as with Draco, Harry was surprised to see, who'd been holding a faulty pose from the very start. Harry listened to him balk for half a minute, muttering that Father knew better than her, what the bleeding hell did she think she knew. Harry was also surprised but thankful to pass his inspection on the first try, catching some of Draco's heat for it, that touch of jealousy he recognized.
"Alright, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground hard as you can. Steady your brooms, rise a few feet, float several seconds, then slowly lean forward to come back down, plant your feet. On my whistle, one...two...three." Hooch blew shrilly into the air, one student bucking upwards half a second prematurely. All eyes flicked upon Neville, who was already a rough three yards high and swaying in a back and forth jerking motion as though he were riding a bull.
"Boy, calm yourself!" Hooch shouted, striding to stand tall a distance beneath him.
"Huh!" Neville cried, only falling higher. Somersaulting, he shot across the field in a drunken challenge on the speed of light, Harry beginning to pray for him in his mind. By God, he was going to chuck himself into the ground at dramatic mileage per hour and snap every bone. Harry squeezed his eyes closed the moment Neville dipped downwards, veering for the solid earth. However, he slipped off while airborne beforehand, broom and boy parting ways to plummet separately, an indicative snap echoing to them. Hooch swore under her breath, sprinting over to the boy so deft at lying wounded on his side, his face pinching in agony that matched what he'd worn on their first Potions lesson. Harry could feel his crew shaking with mirth.
Hooch was crouched at Neville's side, quiet around him before she helped him up to his feet. As they neared the class, the specific injury let itself be known without preamble, Neville's right wrist purpling and hanging limper than usual. "Nobody do anything until I return from the hospital wing, understood?" Hooch requested with a bitter tongue, half-hoisting the sickly Gryffindor back toward the castle.
"What a lummox," Draco scoffed for the whole class' ears.
"Shut up, Malfoy," snapped a dark-haired Indian Gryffindor girl, Parvati Patil.
"Ooh, you like that pathetic goober?" cooed Slytherin girl Pansy Parkinson, who Draco had spoken fondly of on and off. Pansy's face was scrunched often, in turn wicking away any softness to her features. "He's only a fat little baby, Parvati."
"Look what he have here." Draco stepped beyond the now scattered crowd and bent to pluck what Neville had lost amid his peril. Draco held the glass ball in the air. "It's that Remembrall thing stupid arse's gran sent him."
"Put that blasted thing back there," Ron fumed, his fists balled.
"Or what, Weasel? You going to sick your inbred brood on me? Oh that's right, I should be warned. You have a brother who deals with dragons, eh?"
Ron's face contorted as to promise some degree of venom streaming underneath. At first glance, one could only see freckles when looking in his direction. Harry cowed, taking steps back, crossing his fingers that Ron would cut his valiance soon, not go hurting himself.
"That's right," Ron replied coolly. "But he'd lose his career wasting any of his trainees on you. I can handle you myself."
"Is that so?" Draco mused. On subconscious cue, Crabbe and Goyle lumbered forth, assembling their presences aside the smaller, knuckles crackling.
"Yeah, and I don't need an order of slaves either, just as I don't need them wiping my arse for me," Ron said, his brown eyes firm and controlled on Draco's, impressing Harry, frightening the daylights out of him to boot.
"You're going to regret that bit in a few seconds here," Draco said, looking to Crabbe meaningfully. "Stuff your wand, Crabbe. For kissing up to the Muggles as hard as he does, he oughta have a taste of their battle strategy."
Crabbe nodded, walking up to Ron, winding back a fist, which Ron stared gallantly at.
"Why don't we all take a breath!"
The tension knitted itself as the class turned their wonder onto Harry, whose mouth was hanging open after his sudden emotional choking out. That damn trusty, the flame, streaked his cheeks. Draco quirked a brow. "What? You heard him, Potter. It's a fight he's asking for."
"No fighting is necessary. We should just be quiet and set aside our differences. Madam Hooch will be back any minute." Harry inhaled through his nostrils, his tongue ramming against the top row of his teeth in a quick slip before he finished with, "And you should be considering the consequences, Draco. She'll take all the House points she likes if she walks in on you showing Weasley who's boss."
Draco squinted around in thought, his eager shoulders loosening as he lazily faced a still pumped-up Crabbe. "He's got a point about it. We'll get the blood-traitor sometime later outside of class."
Crabbe blew a lung or more out through his plugged nostrils, a brief squeak sounding in the vicinity. Ron glared his harshest eyes yet at Harry then. "I can stand up for myself fine, thanks. What're getting at anyway? Is it that you're already able to tell everyone in your House what to do? Just showing us all how powerful you've got?"
"No, no, it's not like that." Harry was wide-eyed, mustering every last ounce of candor up.
"Looking after the scoreboard of your precious home in Slytherin then? Is it that simple?"
"Yes, I reckon it is, you sidetracked dunce," Draco barged in. "You should be down on your knees in gratitude for that stunt he pulled there for you. As if you were hoping to be beaten into something uglier than you are now."
"Hand me the damn Remembrall," Ron commanded, stalking fast for Draco, red on white.
"Up yours!" Draco shrieked as Ron stomped well within his personal boundaries, grabbing for the fallen possession. The crowd panned out to provide any extra comfort room for the skirmish beginning to take place, opposing Houses swatting cheeks, cuffing ears, shoulders and chests, then toppling over to wrestle outright in the grass. The Remembrall glimmered in the sunlight, clutched in Draco's outstretched hand which he strained to barr from Ron's fierce pawing. While the students gasped and silenced in parts, in others they were giggling and rooting on whoever shared their House. The fire pooled in Harry's cheeks was traveling fast, sweeping from head to toe, and he was sure the unceasing strain in his brow bone would knit a sturdy headache shortly.
"Stop it!" Harry yelled.
"You're no fun, Potter," Goyle snickered, popping wild eyes over the disheveled, bruising boys.
Out of the blue, the glass ball was flung at Harry, scarcely thwacking his jawline. It was in his moist, limp fingers, forty eager eyes nailing him down. "He's got it now!" Draco cried in glee, pointing an unpinned finger dead on Harry.
"Um…" Harry was at a major loss for word or action. He stood bow-legged, as though he'd turned to statue. As Ron scrambled to his feet, another Slytherin boy whose name had escaped Harry snatched the ball from his loose fingers, hopped upon a stray broom and flew off. Shrinking into the distance, he pitched it with such a thrust that ensured it great height and momentum. The ball tore through the sky with a glitter, in the style of a shooting star, and not a second more passed before Harry fumbled for the first broom stranded by his feet and steadied himself on it, tearing upwards with grace and precision he was too bleary on adrenaline to be cocky about. The ball had peaked, rolling to a descent that whipped Harry with a random memory that must have been almost five years old where he busted one of Aunt Petunia's wine glasses while cleaning up the mess her and Vernon's dinner party gave him. Uncle Vernon had crushed him against the wall and taken his thickest leather belt to him in a minute-long lashing. He had cringed at the sight and sound of glass breaking since, whether cracking or exploding apart. All he could feel was saving that ball. Diving south with unfixed aggression that could've killed him on impact for not stopping a couple yards short of the ground, his fingers coiled sloppily around the intact glass. Groaning out in a gush of exhaust, he floated for another moment, then drifted to a crooked landing on his side, hitting his hip bone at a painful but not damaging angle. He lay in fetal position. Many feet rustled over, incoherence rambled.
"Harry Potter!"
It was McGonagall's shout. Harry peeked underneath his folded arm with dread. "Never, in my entire tenure at Hogwarts…" She halted briskly by his feet, which prompted him to sit upright and look up at her. "Dear boy, you could've broken your neck! That's nothing a few doses of Skele-gro will mend either."
Harry's mouth twitched none. He blinked back at her.
"Come with me."
He stood up with a dizzy wobble, rubbing the smeared Remembrall on his robes. Draco and Goyle were waving pity-faced goodbyes his way, hardly inclined to put themselves on the line. Harry faced forward as he trailed behind the professor, stiff in preparation for his upcoming seat in the headmaster's office, where his heart was swearing on expulsion.
She dragged him as though by an intangible leash inside the castle, from corridor to corridor, speechless, glimpsing back none in her brisk guidance. They ascended the moving staircases, walking the fourth floor alone, their feet scraping along the stone floor echoing throughout their trip, a simple noise rendered foreboding for Harry, who had bitten the inside of his cheek in his internalized frenzy, on the verge of a heart attack any time. He wasn't so petty as to go blurting out injustices on his person, blame that belonged elsewhere. That was Draco's calling. While Harry was pleased to bear more pride on that, he was wrenching handfuls of his baggy robes in his hands, the Remembrall safe in a pocket for Neville's rightful return. "Isn't this a shock, Petunia?" he could imagine his uncle musing the second he turned back up on that doorstep in Privet Drive months earlier than planned. "I told you so. Can't even get act his together at a school specializing in his disturbances. What are we to do now, hmm? Smeltings won't take the brat! We're looking at remedial programs here!"
Harry gasped. He could picture his ill-tempered uncle fetching that old belt, which had become too snug for waistline wear from its last violent use on Harry. That didn't mean it had been tossed however, and Harry would be defenseless. His eyes were stinging as she slowed before her classroom door. A few fat tears slid down Harry's pallor cheek, but he was swift to wipe it dry. She entered the empty room, asking that he close the door behind him and have a seat across her desk. He did as he was told as he believed a disoriented sloth would.
She clasped her hands beside a neat stack of graded scrolls, her lips pulled thin, but her eyes set in a gentle scrunch. "Potter, I assume Hagrid has explained some history on your father's participation in Quidditch."
Harry nodded. There was short, subtle mention of it weeks earlier, but with the glut of extra information there was to process, including the big reveal of murder playing a key hand in his parents' deaths, the sportsmanship aspect of his father's school years had ended up slipping by him until her reminder. "Yes, ma'am. Wasn't he a Chaser for the Gryffindors?"
"That's correct. So it would appear that a certain degree of his athletic talent has been linked on to you, fueling you out there." She drew her gaze downwards, her lips pulling thinner. "As it happens, it is my Gryffindor team in search of a new Seeker. Your House would be well in stock this term. Had you been Sorted otherwise, I'd have a mind to nag Professor Dumbledore about greasing by the rule which disallows first year players. I caught you there through my window, and you took my breath away, I will admit."
Harry's ramrod spine slacked a few inches in his momentous heaving. It was likely that expulsion would have been mentioned at this point. Despite the smoothing sailing, he cleared his throat and explained, "Actually I was getting Neville Longbottom's Remembrall, Professor. One of the Slytherins were trying to break it." Harry withdrew the ball from his pocket and placed it on her desk. "Could you get it back to him when you see him again? He had to go to the infirmary 'cause his broom went haywire on him and fractured his wrist, I think."
She smiled lightly. "Thank you, Potter. It's not easy standing up to others who aren't so ready to do the right thing, especially when they're so close to you." She stared at him in a hushed pause. "You're free to go, then. I'd suggest thinking twice around your friends out there who couldn't be so patient to do the same. I sense you have surprises for me still."
Harry smiled, nodding in exuberant thanks, standing and replacing the borrowed chair, quite content to trip into these unplanned good graces.