5
After a few weeks, Ryan was getting better in class and making friends like William Samms in Gryffindor and Terry Ahern from Ravenclaw. He was also a bit sweet on Kelsey. Apparently he saw someone cute and special under those glasses. His third class for the day was Broom Riding with Madame Hooch, a stern but nearly attractive woman with spiked blonde hair like feathers and brown eyes like the eyes of an eagle. For the first month, class learned the aerodynamic properties of broom riding from the textbooks. Most witches and wizards flew on brooms, but they could fly on anything long and maneuverable like a rod, pestle or even a broken flagpole. However, brooms were traditional flying devices for magicians since medieval times. On the first clear day in October, Madame Hooch took the class outside for a first day of flying on the school grounds. Class was almost entirely female. Ryan and William were two of the five boys with seven girls. Gabrielle, Kelsey and Sharpay with Tawni and Lily took the grounds ahead of them and lined in two roles with the twelve kids in two roles of six facing each other.
"Good morning, class…" Madame Hooch walked through them.
"Good morning, Madame Hooch…" Class spoke in unison.
"Welcome to your first flying lesson.." She fretted with her gloves then took her stance. "Well, what are you waiting for, step up on the left side of your broomstick…" Her students mulled a bit and took their places. "Stick your right hand over the broom and with a firm voice, say 'Up!'"
"Up!" Gabrielle's broom jumped up immediately to her hand to her surprise. Among the others trying to take control of their brooms, Sharpay looked over jealous and started screaming at hers as if it was her brother. Meanwhile, Ryan's broom just bobbed and dropped, and Kelsey's rose just far enough and dropped. William's own broom punched him in the chin.
"Up?" Kelsey questioned hers as if it was a dog then tried again. "Up!"
"With feeling!" Madame Hooch went around telling them to change their tones or not sound so angry. Gabrielle put hers down and got it to jump up again for her. Kelsey's broom finally jumped into her hand and Sharpay and Lily got their brooms to come to them in unison. Ryan finally got his to obey. William's broom jumped past his hand and he grabbed it out of the air than lose it.
"Now…" Their teacher now stood at the other end of her class. "Once you have got a hold of your broom, I want you to mount it and grip it tightly… You don't want to be slipping off the end." Gabrielle looked up briefly with a toss of her hair as she pretended to be riding her broom. Sharpay was trying to find the most ladylike way to ride hers. Ryan and Kelsey shared a secret look at each other as William fumbled about on his trying to get used to it.
"When, I blow my whistle…" Madame Hooch continued. "I want each of you to kick off the ground hard, keeping your broom steady, and lean forward slowly… hovering briefly and then touching down…" William was struggling with his broom. It was probably too old and sensing his apprehension and fear. Gabrielle watched him struggling as he started bobbing higher and higher. Ryan reacted to his best friend besieged by his magic attempt. The others started chuckling or moving away from him.
"Mister Samms, control your broom…" Madame Hooch ordered him. "Mister Samms!!!"
"What's wrong with this…" His broom was taking flight!!! "Crazy thing!!" Before he knew it, he was soaring higher and higher and gripping the handle so hard his fingers were turning white. Madame Hooch was screaming at him to stop, but he had no idea what was going on or if he was even doing it. All he knew was that he did not want to fall! The broom was dipping up heading up and up and higher still… and then, grabbing the handle around his arms and hugged it as it dove to Earth and dive-bombed his classmates, but by then he was hanging for dear life to the broom taking him on a ride. Ryan tried to help William by grabbing him as he sailed by, but he got clipped across the shoulders by the attempt and knocked to his feet. Gabrielle pulled Kelsey out of the way as William shot past out of control. He should have let go when he was close to the ground, but before he knew it, he was soaring straight up, his broom bouncing against the front wall of the castle, trying to get through it or knock him off. Madame Hooch was yelling instructions, but he couldn't hear her. He was too terrified. He shot up again, around a spire and tried pushing downward as he grazed across the copper statue up top. His classmates started screaming. They thought he'd been impaled, but his broom soared away and landed halfway to Hagrid's hut. Meanwhile, William's school uniform tore and he hung by his coat tails twelve stories above. His classmates crowded beneath him fearing his fall… They watched him scrambling to grab the statue up top, but one movement too far and he ripped out of his school jacket and started plummeting to the sounds of screams.
"Velocitus impedatus!!!" Gabrielle's wand jumped to her hand and she slowed his ascent toward the ground. He was falling to his death one minute, and then reducing in speed and coming to a stop just a foot over the grass at the base of the school. Madame Hooch was first to get to him. He was shaking in shock from his tumultuous ride.
"Will, you all right?" Ryan helped him up.
"Fast thinking, Miss. Russo…" Madame Hooch took charge of things. "Five points Griffindor for your fast thinking. Everyone else is to keep their feet on the ground as I take Mr. Samms and Mr. Evans to the hospital wing…" She placed her cloak around William to keep him calm. "If I see as much as one broom in the air," She was looking at Sharpay and her friends. "The one riding it will be tossed out of Hogwarts faster that you say Quidditch!" She took the two boys with her toward the archway into the north courtyard of the grounds. Without her, her classmates started getting distracted and mulling around already bored. Sharpay looked around and noticed something in the grass from when William plowed through them. She found Kelsey's Remembrall on the ground.
"Oh, Sharpay…" Kelsey reached to take it back. "That's mine. Can I have it back?"
"Yours?" Sharpay pulled it away. "You don't do a good job holding on to it, did you?" Lily and Tawni looked at each other as Sharpay had her moment.
"Sharpay…" Gabrielle came round to her. "It is hers. I was there when she got it."
"Please, Sharpay, it belonged to my mother." Kelsey implored the spoiled princess.
"Really?" Sharpay was mocking her with it. "Maybe you'd like to come after it…" She took her broom and started levitating off the ground.
"Sharpay!!" Gabrielle looked back for Madame Hooch's return. "We're not supposed to be flying!"
"If you're going to follow the rules your whole life…" Sharpay looked at her. "You will never get anywhere!" The blonde one just cackled a bit, mocking her ethics of not breaking the rules, and clenched her broom tightly to ascend the air. Gabrielle scowled a bit and found her nerve. Sharpay had a lot of Alex in her; they both could push her buttons. She took her broom and jumped off the ground before her classmates to take after Sharpay, her eyes narrowing against the breeze to her face, following the trail to Hogsmeade then stopping two hundred feet above the Dark Forest.
"Give it back, Sharpay!!!" The young ingénue proved she could be fierce.
"Catch me if you can!!!" Sharpay giggled and soared toward the lake into a big circle trying to reach the ground before Gabrielle could. She sped over her classmates on the front grounds and slowed to a stop that she might use one hand to toss Kelsey's Remembrall against the school and shatter it, but Gabrielle sped up and shot past Sharpay as fast as she could. From inside the school, Professor Dumbledore and Miss McGonagal noticed the tail end of the strife with Gabrielle catching the ball.
"Any openings in Gryffindor's Quidditch Team for a flier like that?" Dumbledore asked.
"Not a one…" Miss McGonagal lamented, but she was sure wherever Madame Hooch was, she'd deal with the two girls.
"How mad was Madame Hooch when she heard you and Sharpay were flying?" Troy was asking Gabrielle forty minutes after Flying Class ended.
"Pretty mad…" Gabrielle carried her books from her History of Magic class to head to the Gryffindor Common Room. "But I had about seven witnesses backing me to confirm Sharpay started the whole thing." They were coming up on the tower room with the portraits and staircases. "We both lost twenty points from both our houses, but at least Kelsey got her Remembrall back."
"That Sharpay…" Chad was annoyed just thinking about her then changed the subject. "So, where did you get that spell that saved William?"
"That's another spell Justin gave me…" Gabrielle looked back at him as they approached the steps to their hall. "I tend to fall off the balcony at home a lot whenever Alex and I are looking at the stars."
"Fall off?" Troy looked to Chad and back to Gabrielle wondering if she was blind to how mean her Cousin Alex was to her. "Gabrielle, don't you think that Alex might be pushing you off? I've known you only a few weeks, and… well, you don't seem as accident-prone here as you think you are at home."
"I don't think Alex would do that to me…" She neared their hallway as the staircase groaned and swung away from the wall to hook on to another balcony. These stairs were always changing. Chad's older brother, Tad, had warned them about it their first day, and they had seen it happen several times, but this was their first time to actually ride one across the width of the room. Troy held on to the railing, and Gabrielle held on to him. Chad looked around stunned as they rode across the swinging stairs to a new floor sliding out from an existing balcony and a railing from the wall. As soon as the top lodged firmly to the new door, Gabrielle raced ahead with Troy reaching the door for her. Chad jumped over to join them as they rushed into a darkened hall. They traveled a few feet and realized no one had been in this section of the castle in years. The statues were covered in dust and layers of spider webs. A lost mouse scurried along the length of the wall.
"Troy…" Gabrielle looked back. "I think this is the third floor corridor… we're not supposed to be in here."
"I forgot about that." Troy looked to Chad and back to her. "We can get downstairs down here…" They heard one of the spirits in the castle and stopped. From the other direction, they heard more solid voices and realized they were from real people coming up from the second floor. Troy made a face toward Gabrielle's shadow and grabbed Chad by the sleeve as they rushed to get out of sight. The door to the stairway was locked.
"It's locked!" He was scared they were going to get caught.
"Alohomora!" Gabrielle zapped it with her wand and the door popped open a crack. They pushed their way in and closed the door behind them, pressing against the other side as they hid. Troy parted the door just a bit to watched out for Snape or Filtch. From in the room, they heard a dull groan, the rattling of chains and the sound of something immense stirring. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Chad noticed something like pillars moving then arched his head up toward what they were supporting. They were not pillars, they were legs of a huge dull gray dog with three heads and six eyes staring at him, each of them with a mouth large enough to swallow them each! Gabrielle saw it next and Troy looked up next as they started screaming.
Preferring not to be eaten, Troy pulled the door open wide and rushed out then slammed it shut behind Gabrielle and Chad. They tried closing the door, but the animal's middle head was pushing against it. Chad helped him to get the door closed, pushing and shoving; Gabrielle lent her weight as well once she started breathing again. First they got lost in this part of the castle, and now they nearly let this monster loose. The three-headed creature pushed against them to get to them, and they pushed hard back in unison as the door finally latched. They had the door shut, but the great brute was not happy to be tempted and then denied a meal of three young students. It growled and rattled at the door for at least five minutes before it calmed down and once again relaxed, allowing the three First-Years to escape the third floor corridor and the rest of its secrets. Racing to the first floor, they rushed to take the long way to their common room covered in the gray dust and cobwebs of the third floor corridor.
"Why are they keeping something like that locked up in a school?" Chad rushed forward into the main floor gallery first as Troy braced on the wall to catch his breath. Gabrielle daintily held her own hand to her chest as she tried to catch her own breath. "I mean…" Chad continued. "Something like that doesn't deserve it's own wing, it deserves its own castle!"
"You didn't look very closely, did you?" Gabrielle took a deep breath and relaxed, turning round in her Hogwarts school uniform to Troy and Chad. "Did you see what it was laying on when we broke in?"
"Gabrielle," Troy gasped for breath once more and lead the way through the main floor hall of portraits for the hidden entrance to the staircase up to their common room. "We weren't exactly looking at its feet!"
"It was standing on a trap door…" She looked round as Troy said the password to the Fat Lady in the portrait and got access to their secret passageway. "That means it's there for a reason to guard something…" She thought back. "Why I bet it's guarding whatever Hagrid removed from Gringotts?! Remember, Kelsey said it was almost as if someone knew it was about to be stolen."
"She does have a point." Troy responded as they reached their common room.
"Yeah, but who would be stupid enough to try and get past that thing to get whatever it is?" Chad reacted to their conversation. "I mean… it can't possibility be worth losing these kind of looks over!" He pointed at his own face, scoffed under his breath and headed up to the rooms.
"He's really got to get his priorities straightened out…" Gabrielle announced to Chad.