Chapter 9: Flying Lessons

George leaned back from the worktable and stretched his arms over his head. He and Hermione had been working on the rubber duck prototype for over three hours and his back was screaming at him to stop. Glancing over next to him, he could see that Hermione was feeling the same way.

"What do you say we take a break and get some food?"

Hermione's head came up from the parchment and nodded. "Might as well. I've hit a dead end trying to make the charms undetectable." She shuffled the parchment into a pile and stood. "Where did you have in mind?"

"A picnic, huh? We seem to do a lot of those." Hermione commented fifteen minutes later. They were in a small park in London and between them was a small picnic basket.

"A lot meaning two," George said with a grin.

Hermione returned the grin and pulled a piece of chicken out of the basket. "So where did you get the food at?"

"Are you kidding me? My mother would have a heart attack if I didn't know at least basic cooking!"

She chuckled at his description of Molly Weasley, knowing it was all too true. Half an hour later, Hermione finished off a brownie and brushed the crumbs off her hands. "So what now, back to the lab?"

George shrugged. "Only if you want to. Or…" he trailed off. "Hey, on second thought, do you want to go to Hogsmeade? I have an idea."

"George Weasley, you are not getting me on that broom!"

"It's easy, Hermione," George replied, calmly leaning against his broom and holding out a spare to Hermione. "Besides, it's a useful skill. You never know when you might need to get away from the press."

"But then I can just disapparate," she pointed out logically.

"Humor me then. You said you'd go flying with me yesterday," George reminded her.

"I said maybe."

"So in this case maybe means yes."

I'm in a skirt here, Sparky," she argued but George could see she was caving in.

"So transfigure it. Were you or were you not the only witch at Hogwarts who got all O's on her N.E.W.T.s?"

That was the final straw. Hermione pulled out her wand and before George could blink, her white skirt became a pair of comfortable capris. "All right, fine. Teach me what you know, Yoda."

George gave her a strange look. "Who in the name of Merlin is Yoda?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Muggle movie reference. You'll have to see it sometime."

"Sounds like a plan." George stood so that his broom was to his right hovering in the air. "Now," he said, moving into teaching mode. "You know the basics, correct?"

"I can get the broom in the air, if that's what you mean, and I can steer to a limited degree."

"All right, we'll start with that. Mount up."

She did, and nudged the broom up a few feet off the ground. She gave him a nervous smile, even though her hands were gripping the handle so tightly they were white.

George mounted his own broom and flew up along side of her. "Not bad. First thing's first though. Loosen your grip."

"If I do that, I'll fall!"

"No you won't. Go ahead and relax your grip. The broom will respond better that way."

Hermione relaxed her grip the tiniest amount, causing George to laugh. "We'll work on that. Now, let's do a few slow laps around the field. Take your time."

They moved at a snail's pace around the field, George keeping pace beside Hermione lest she fall. Once she seemed a bit more confident, they moved the speed up a notch and continued around the field. An hour later, she was relaxed enough to carry on a conversation while flying.

"I've got to admit, Hermione, you have got me curious about something," George commented as he let his broom meander from side to side.

"What's that?"

"What got you into acting? We always pegged you as a professor or doing some kind of research after Hogwarts."

She smiled at him. "Actually, it was research that got me into acting, ironically enough." He looked interested, so she continued. "Seventh year, we had some American exchange students come to Hogwarts and one was named Haden Sinclair. He approached me with this idea of his and asked if I would be willing to help him research it more thoroughly. He was a muggleborn and loved filmmaking so he wanted to find out if he could translate it into a magical medium. I told him I'd think about it, but then we all got caught up in the final battle and it got put on the back burner.

"After Harry defeated Voldemort, Haden approached me again and I agreed, mostly because I didn't have anything else to do. I was contemplating taking classes to become a professor, but then this project really took off and in less than six months, we had the magical films working. It was really exciting stuff. We had a very limited budget, less than a thousand Galleons, and couldn't afford to hire any actors. So Haden wrote and directed this little short film and conned me into playing the lead. I was absolutely mortified! But then I fell in love with acting and I've been doing it ever since.

"We got someone to sponsor our ongoing research, Haden became a big name director in America, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"Wow," George breathed. "That is really, really cool."

Hermione smiled. "Tell me about it. Crazy, huh?"

"Definitely."

"So what are we going to do now?" Hermione asked.

George shrugged. "It's your pick now."

She tapped her chin. "Well, I just got a new idea for those charms, so I'd say we go back to the Bat Cave."

George just shook his head. "I'm just going to assume that's some sort of strange Muggle reference to the lab."

Hermione winked at him. "Very good, Sparky. You get a gold star. Let's go."