My alarm clock rang on this, my final Saturday. I was determined, dedicated, and not in the least bit deterred from my original goal... and I still can't get the damn broom to come up. Yeah, it takes First Years a max of ten minutes and it's taken me twenty seven days... and counting.

It's not for a lack of trying - I've spent every Saturday and Sunday on flying, I've read thirteen books on flying theory - hell, I've done everything short of getting private lessons from Professor Wood which, by the way, is totally out of the question.

I mean, how do you tell the boy-broom wonder that you've spent an entire month trying to get your broom to listen to your first, basic command? You can't, not when your name is Aletta Ashling Darling and you have fist-fought with said wonder about the point of brooms.

I really have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow. I couldn't live with myself if I bewitched the broom, not after all the work I put into doing this right. Not to mention I can't imagine getting away with it. Maybe I won't be the only one to fail, I hoped, Maybe everyone else forgot how to ride... and I'll magically learn the secrets to riding a broom today and sweep everyone off their feet. Yeah, right.

!!

"What am I going to do, Siren," I moaned at dinner. Seventeen hours until hell and counting.

"I can't believe you still haven't gotten your broom off the ground," Siren confessed, "You've spent every waking moment on this."

"I know," I groaned, all but shoving my face into my soup.

"Ah, Miss Darling, sitting at the wrong table, I observe."

"Using the word 'observe' doesn't make you sound any smarter," I shot back at the Potions Master before I realized that the Potions Master is, well... Professor Wiggins.

My eyes grew wide before, "Detention, Miss Darling, and fifteen points from Ravenclaw."

Siren and Penny laughed at me, but I just shoved my soup aside so I could lay my head on the table, "Why am I so dead? How does anyone manage to be so dead?"

"You're not dead, just screwed," Penny pointed out nonchalantly.

"I'd rather be dead."

!!

"This is gonna be it - you're so close," Susan urged, unmistakably optimistic.

But I couldn't bring myself to share her enthusiasm - I've got fifteen minutes to be able to do loop-de-loops, "I'm no closer than yesterday!" I wanted to cry. Dramatic, but I've just never failed this horribly at something I tried so hard for. It's a real spirit crusher.

I wiped at my eyes as Susan responded desperately, "Of course you are! The broom is twitching in a much more vertical way, now."

At the word 'twitching,' which sounded so pitifully when Susan could get her broom to float so gracefully in comparison, tears actually started to fall, I'm not going to graduate because of this freaking stick. I started to pull at my hair in distress.

"Oy, you two," I heard a distinctive Scottish accent call, "Who is that? Phillips and Darling? What, last minute lessons? That's good, preparation, I'll keep it in mind. Want to help me set up?" I glanced over my shoulder to see Wood, clipboard and wand in hand, "It's a fun set-up, I swear."

He started to move closer towards us, in the center of the Quidditch Pitch, and I moved closer to Susan, "I can't do this, Susan. I just can't. I'm Head Girl, and I can't even ride a broom? No, it's too ridiculous."

"Aly," Susan cried as I turned my back on her, rushing towards the entrance Wood had just come in through.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, and I felt him grab my arm, but I just shook him off and kept running. No, I'm freaking crying, this is the last way I want anyone to see me.



Certain that if I ran into any of my friends, they would make me come back and face the jeering crowd that I've already created in my mind, - and no that is not happening - I decided to go to a place where they can't catch me. Reminiscent of my first flying 'lesson' with Wood so long ago, I started to wave my arms and was quickly lifted into the air by my wings.

Turning away from the woods, I instead made my way for the most peaceful place ever to fly - over the lake.

I know what Susan thinks - she thinks I can't stand to fail publically, that I'm scared to be humiliated. But that is not how this is. I've failed publically before - Snape used to love to make me the butt of many a failed-potion jokes. He'd compare me to Neville Longbottom and occasionally would keep my potion to show to the other kids in my year. Oh yes, if anyone conditioned me for failing publically, or conditioned anyone for failing publically, it was Snape.

And humiliation? I mean - I trip every which way, my friends and I are the loudest girls to ever grace the halls of Hogwarts, and, well, if having your potion actually saved for the other class to laugh at isn't humiliating, I don't know what is.

I, just, I can't face it. I don't know what it is I can't face about failing this test, but I can't. It's like - well, it isn't the humiliation in front of my peers, and it isn't the failure, I guess...

Oh God.

Someone is going to think its Professor Wood.

I could already hear the conversation in my head. "Where's Aly?" "She took off - she really didn't want to take this test." "I don't see why not, what's so bad?" "You know she can't stand to fail. She's a Ravenclaw." "You saw that Befuddlement Draught she made, everyone saw that." "Wonder what's so bad." "WOOD!"

Oh lord, I'm never going to hear the end of it...

!!

"Hey, Aly," Willow said, sitting next to me on the lawn, where I sought refuge after my flight around the lake.

"I did not run away because of Professor Wood," I cut in, figuring it was best to suck the poison out before they could try and bite me.

Penny glanced at Siren before sitting down on the other side of Willow, "I don't remember mentioning that it was."

"We didn't even think of it," Siren agreed, and with a horrible squelch in my stomach I realized they were completely serious. I just totally took the poisonous snake and shoved its fangs into me.

"What are you guys talking about," I covered lamely, with full knowledge that now I was about to be teased, and I couldn't even say the possibility didn't cross my mind, "How did you all do?"

"Pass."

"Pass."

"Pass."

"Everyone passed," Siren finished up.

"Everyone?"

"Everyone."

I scrunched my face, "I'm in a grade with a bunch of freaks."

"What's gonna happen to you," Willow questioned, picking at the grass between her and Siren.

I sighed, falling back into the grass, "I have no idea. Probably fail this year and have to come back to take the lessons with the first years next year."

"I saw the cutest first year today. He-" I glared at Penny, "Oh, never mind."

For a few minutes, we all laid on the lawn in relative silence, not counting Siren and Willow talking about their assignment in Muggle Studies and giggling about the teacher, who I've heard is a hack. And for a 

few seconds here and there I forgot that I had just thrown graduating down the tube, along with my honor and the ability to show myself in public.

"Ow," I cried as I felt a sharp pain in my shin.

Siren laughed, "Well, maybe if you'd have gotten the letter before, the owl wouldn't be so angry."

"This is why I have a cat - they're silent too, but they don't go around pecking people in the shins," I muttered to myself as I took the letter from the pecky little owl. I glanced at the signature before reading the letter, "Figures. Wood's owl."

"LOVER," Willow shouted, and the group dissolved into giggles as I read the letter.

Dear Miss Darling,

You have failed the flying test. Please report to my office in the castle as soon as possible to arrange a solution. The test is mandatory for graduation.

Professor Wood

Well, that was to the point. Wood doesn't seem to feel I need any condolence. Is it weird if I think his handwriting looks pompous? It's definitely pompous - freaking straight lines and boxy letters. Except for the signature - that was a stereotypical cursive, almost indistinguishable scribble. Still, unnaturally straight. He must use a ruler.

I sum this all up to pompous handwriting, though.

"Gotta go," I stood, brushing the grass off my bum, "Wood calls."

"Oh, rephrase that right now."

"The most obnoxious man I've ever met beckons."

"How do you know he's so obnoxious?" Willow looked confused.

"He beckons cause he's got morning wood," Penny ignored Willow's question.

I rolled my eyes, "You guys are sick. It's half past noon - he does not have morning wood."

"Fine, he's got afternoon wood," Penny giggled as I turned towards the castle.

"I can't hear you! Bye! Going to talk to the PROFESSOR!"

"PROFESSOR OF LOVE!" With freaking obnoxious handwriting.

!!

I ran a hand through my hair, knocking on Professor Wood's door, "Come in." I obliged, glancing nervously around the office before heading to the couch behind Wood's desk, "Ah, Miss Darling."

"Professor Wood." I sounded stiff, but I just wanted to get this all over with ASAP.

"So," he put down his quill and turned his chair, planting his elbow on his armrest and resting his chin on his hand, "What do you want to do about this?"

God, that accent is sexy an accent. I shrugged, "I don't know. Lie to McGonagall?"

His lips pursed and he turned to grab what I assumed was my file, "You know I can't do that." He smiled, though, when he opened my file, "Your picture is always so obscene to me."

"What?"

"Anyway, we need to figure out something. First off, why did you run off today?" I looked pointedly to the ceiling, almost refusing to even think about it. "I mean - a month of private lessons with Susan Phillips. You should be an avid flyer." Silence is oh so golden. "Right?" Shut up, Wood. "You can fly, right Darling?" Shut up, Wood. "Oh Merlin, have you ever even been off the ground?"

"On a broom?"

"Of course on a broom - what other way is there?"

The natural way. "Once."

"The time with the Ravenclaw girl? And you fell off?"

"Yes." Way to have tact Wood. Oh, what I wish I could do to your face right now. Like that isn't a slightly painful memory - falling to your feet like a pitiful, pleading fan girl.

"Oh. Wow. But you had lessons-"



"I know."

"A-"

"What are we going to do?" Just shut up, give me an order, and let me leave.

"I guess I'll just have to give you the lessons and you'll take the test... in a few months, or whenever you're ready."

I should have seen this coming - I mean, what? I keep getting lessons that are getting me flying at the speed of a very lazy sloth? Not likely - not on the broom boy wonder's watch.

But still, I'm kind of annoyed right now. I really want to fight him on this, because he definitely cannot do this legally. Forcing someone into private lessons has got to be somewhere in the student handbook as not right.

Then again, I'm not sure if I have a choice. What else can I do? The lessons with Susan are getting me nowhere but upset, and I can't keep skipping the test forever. At least this way I can graduate with the rest of my class.

"I severely dislike this idea." Just because I accept it doesn't mean I'm not going to fight about it.

"I'd assume so. I'm not quite sure why you hate me so much."

"Well, why do you hate me so much," I retorted, "It's a mystery." I stood, taking Wood's cue that the meeting was over.

"I don't hate you." I ignored his comment as I made my way out of his room, allowing him to snicker, "You've got grass on your bum."

My brow furrowed, and as I wiped at the rear end I SWEAR I cleaned off, I was dismayed to find he was right. The grass on the stone floor confirmed it. Hey... why was he looking?