"Roger! Roger! Roger, wake up! We've got our first flying lesson today!"

Roger yawned and sat up. Maurice was at the end of his bed, fully dressed, bouncing up and down. "Did I miss breakfast or something?" he asked. Maurice shook his head.

"No! I've just been awake for hours!"

Roger sighed and flopped back down onto his bed. Maurice sighed. Someone threw a shoe at Maurice, and suddenly Roger was on the floor, Maurice holding his arm. "Ow!" Roger complained. "Okay, I'm getting up."

Maurice cheered and shoved Roger's robes into his hand. "You had a bath yesterday, right? Right. You'll be fine. Get dressed. Then we'll go eat breakfast and-"

"Shut up!" the only other boy in their year yelled, burying his face into his pillow. Maurice giggled, and Roger rolled his eyes and got dressed. Maurice didn't wait for him to tie his tie, instead grabbing his hand and dragging him out of their dorm. They passed a bleary-eyed Jack and many sleeping seventh years in the common room, and once they got out of the dungeons, Roger stopped.

"What are you doing?" Maurice almost yelled, looking frantic.

"First of all, nobody's awake. Just being up doesn't make time go faster, in fact, it seems like it makes time go slower. Secondly, I need to tie this," he said. He wasn't very good at tying ties, but he figured that was okay, because Maurice was looking quite impatient, and it was quite funny.

Lockhart passed by them. "Having troubles with the ties, boys?" he asked. Roger refrained from rolling his eyes again. "No matter, no matter, I can teach you the perfect spell that can-"

"I got it," Roger said, yanking on it one last time before beginning to walk off. He heard Maurice stammer a greeting to Lockhart and run after him.

"Are you stupid? He could've gotten it looking nice!" Maurice said, getting the same look in his eyes that several of the female population of Hogwarts got when Lockhart entered the room. "I don't think you understand how amazing that man is."

Thankfully, Maurice stopped talking about Lockhart by the time they got up to the Great Hall. They were some of the first ones there, apart from a few Ravenclaws – Roger recognized them of them from the sorting – and two sets of Gryffindor twins.

Maurice ate everything in sight, including half of the food off of Roger's plate. Roger, on the other hand, was a bit nervous about flying lessons. He'd only been on a broom a few times before, when he was really young, and he'd heard that last year a boy's broom had gone crazy and he'd broken his wrist.

Of course, he'd also heard that this boy was Neville Longbottom, who was seen as sort of a joke in Slytherin, but still. He was still a bit nervous. He managed to force down a piece of toast and a few pieces of bacon.

Even with Maurice's appetite they were done before half of the school got up. They decided to wander around the school, peeking into random rooms. More than once they walked in on a couple snogging.

"Wanna check out the Quidditch pitch?" Maurice asked. Without waiting for Roger's answer, he bounded on, beginning to ramble about Quidditch. "I wish first-years could be on the Quidditch team. Harry Potter was on the Quidditch team when he was a first year, why can't I?"

"Because Harry Potter is shown loads of favoritism," Roger muttered. Maurice looked back at him.

"Yeah. That's why I don't like Gryffindors. The headmaster was one, so all Gryffindors are good and all Slytherins are evil!" Maurice said, throwing his hands up in the air. Roger rolled his eyes yet again. "Of course, I did choose Slytherin…"

Eventually they stumbled upon where they would be having their first flying class. A woman was taking out the school brooms and lining them up. "Hello boys," she said, glancing up. "Would you like to help me set up the brooms?"

"Okay!" Maurice said, bounding to take a few of the brooms from the woman. Roger followed his example, spreading them out as evenly as he could. Eventually, people started to drift out. They had flying lessons with the Gryffindors, and, for some reason, there weren't many of them. This year wasn't very large.

Roger ended up across from one of the Gryffindor twins. The Lark twins, were they? He couldn't quite remember, but he figured that was probably right. Roger smirked at the boy, who flinched.

And then the woman blew her whistle. Roger resisted the urge to cover his ears; that was way too high-pitched for his liking. "Step up to stand beside your brooms!" she barked. "Now, my name is Madam Hooch. We're going to start with the basics today – just hovering for the most part. Maybe if a few of you are advanced I can arrange for somebody to take you down to the pitch where you can practice long-term flying, but for today we'll just be hovering."

Roger swallowed, trying to take all of this information in. He hadn't really paid attention in any of his other classes – especially not History of Magic – but he really didn't want to be the one to fall off of a broom.

"Hold your hand over your broom and say 'Up!'"

Roger swallowed, stuck his hand over his broom, and waited for someone else to do something before he did. Unluckily, everyone seemed to have the same idea. Even Maurice, who had been so ecstatic about this lesson, looked like he was having second thoughts. Eventually, the boy on the other side of Roger – Roger probably should learn his name; after all, he'd be sharing the room with him for his entire Hogwarts career – spoke up.

"Excuse- excuse me, but…" he trailed off, picking at his robes.

"Yes? Speak up!"

"It seems too simple," the boy blurted out. Madam Hooch sighed.

"What's your name?"

"H-Harold Yaxley, m'am," he stuttered.

"Well, Mister Yaxley, try it."

"Up?"

"Put more force in it, boy!"

The woman suddenly turned to Roger, who flinched. She looked him up and down, glanced at Maurice – at this point, Roger was crossing his fingers and hoping that she wouldn't talk to him about anything – and then looked back to him.

"What's your name?"

"Roger," he said, trying to look anywhere but her eyes. He settled on glaring at the Gryffindor across from him. The woman continued looking at him, as if waiting for something else. Oh yeah. His last name. "Greyback."

Madam Hooch didn't look as disturbed as most did, but she still looked a little shocked. She recovered quickly. "You do it. You've got your hand over the broom, now say 'up.'"

Roger took a deep breath. "Up."

The broom shot up with more force than Roger would've thought was possible. He clutched it, wavering a little at the strength of it. What he thought could pass as a smile flickered across Madam Hooch's face for a second, then she turned back to the class.

"See? It is that simple."

Spurred on by Roger's success, everyone began shouting out 'up!' Maurice and a red-headed Gryffindor girl were some of the first to get it up, and eventually they were waiting on a blond Gryffindor with a camera.

Seriously, who brought a camera to class? Flying class, especially?

After a few more stammered 'up's, they all were holding brooms. Roger was pretty sure he'd seen Harold just bend over and grab his quick while Hooch wasn't looking, but he wouldn't point that out. Slytherins stick together, right?

No, that was Hufflepuffs… Slytherins stick together unless there's something at stake? That sounded better.

Hooch looked around and, satisfied that they'd all managed to grab ahold of their brooms, nodded. "Now, mount your broom-"

Maurice sniggered. She was on him instantly.

"Is something funny, Mister…?"

"Macmillan," Maurice said, finding a sudden interest in his shoes.

"Mister Macmillan?"

Maurice shook his head violently, then grinned at Roger when Hooch turned away. "You're an idiot," Roger hissed. Maurice's grin grew.

"Mount your brooms, and, on my whistle, kick off from the ground, hard. Once you've hovered for a few seconds, lean forward to come back down. Yes, Yaxley?"

Harold, who looked more nervous than ever, swallowed. "Um- last year- didn't a boy fall off of his broom and break his wrist?"

Hooch scoffed. "Longbottom had it coming. If you're careful, you'll be fine. Now- three, two, one!" she blew her whistle and Roger kicked off, amazed at the high he got from being a few feet off the ground. He almost forgot to come down and Maurice had to pull at his sleeve.

"Good job, Greyback," Madam Hooch said, nodding to him. Roger felt heat rush to his face and nodded back, rubbing the wood of the broom with his thumb. "No, Yaxley, not like that!"

Roger walked off to Potions with a huge grin on his face; he wasn't quite sure why, but maybe it had to do with the fact that Madam Hooch had told him that maybe, by the end of the next lesson, he'd be able to go down to the Quidditch pitch with Maurice and the red-haired Gryffindor. Weasley, he thought.

Halfway through the door of the Potions classroom, Maurice stopped short. "I grabbed the wrong book!" he hissed. "Come with me to get it!"

"Get it yourself," Roger said, still on a Quidditch high. "I'm going to go sit down."

"But Roger!" Maurice whined. Roger rolled his eyes and pushed his way through the crowd into the Potions classroom. He chose a seat near the back of the class, throwing his back on the second chair to his table so Maurice would have somewhere to sit.

"Excuse me, but is anyone sitting here?"

Roger looked up to see a distant-looking Ravenclaw. "Obviously," Roger snorted, looking pointedly at his bag. The girl shrugged and skipped to the front of the room to join a smallish dark-haired Ravenclaw boy.

Roger bit his lip as who could only be Professor Snape swept into the classroom. Where was Maurice? God help him if he was just dawdling.

Snape stalked to the front of the classroom, looking over the students. Roger averted his eyes, staring at his desk. Snape began the class with roll call, and Roger glanced over at the door once more. He was paying so much attention to where Maurice could be he didn't hear his name being called.

"Greyback!"

"Oh, um, here," Roger said, flushing. A few names later, he got to "Macmillan."

"Macmillan?" Snape repeated. There were a few moments of silence, and then he scribbled something down in his book. "Well, then, absent…"

"I'm here!" Maurice gasped, propelling himself through the door, tripping over nothing, and falling flat on his face. Everyone laughed, and he came up with a grin on his face. "Sorry, Professor."

Snape's lip curled, but he simply nodded at Maurice and went back to the roll call. Once Yaxley's name was called, Snape slammed shut the book and glared at them again. "Now, Potions class…"

Roger ignored practically everything Snape said, figuring that if he needed to know anything that desperately, someone would tell him in more than the monotone that Snape was speaking in.

Eventually, the class was over, and Roger followed Maurice and Harold back to the common room. In the common room, Draco Malfoy was ranting to Jack, Crabbe and Goyle about something or other.

"What's the problem?" Maurice asked, flopping down on the couch next to Goyle. Goyle gave him a weird look and scooted closer to Crabbe. Maurice didn't take any notice of it. Harold muttered something about needing to go do something and left.

"He flies a car into the Whomping Willow and all he gets is one. Damn. Detention," Draco said. Roger noted with some interest that his face was almost bright red. "If it had been a Slytherin, Dumbledore would've at least given them a week's worth! If it had been anyone but Potter, he would've given them at least a week's worth! That is favoritism!"

"Slytherin's got its fair share of favoritism, though," Maurice pointed out. "Today I was five or so minutes late to class and he barely looked at me."

Draco snorted. "Yeah, but we deserve favoritism. What has Potter done?"

"Just defeated You-Know-"

"Maurice, just shut up," Jack snapped, speaking for the first time. Roger glanced at him. He was stretched out on the couch opposite Crabbe, Goyle, and Maurice, eyes closed. "Besides, Potter's not even the most annoying of the Gryffindors."

"There's nothing wrong with Roemers, despite the fact that he's a Gryffindor," Draco said, rolling his eyes. "At least he's not favored for no reason at all."

Jack snorted. "Yeah, he's not favored at all. Oh, except the fact that he's blond, good-looking, and already bragging about how he's going to be on the Gryffindor Quidditch team – speaking of Quidditch, d'you know when the tryouts are?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to be Seeker," Draco said loftily. "My father will buy brooms for the entire team, so they have to pick me. Why, you interested? I'm sure you could bribe them into letting you on, too. Hm, there's a free Beater spot…"

Jack shook his head. He was sitting up now, blue eyes open and shining. "No, I just wanted to… know, I guess…"

"We had our first flying lesson today! Madam Hooch says that me and Roger and… this Gryffindor girl might be able to go up to the pitch next time!" Maurice said, suddenly extremely excited. Of course, it didn't take much to set Maurice off.

"What did the girl look like? Red hair, and a hand-me-down robe?" Draco asked. Maurice thought for a bit, then nodded. "Must be a Weasley. Her older brothers are on the Quidditch team. Beaters. They would be okay, but their brooms are too old for them to do much damage. The Weasley's have no money whatsoever, and they're just a bunch of blood traitors. Roger, sit down, you look like an idiot just standing there."

Roger was going to point out that Draco was just standing there as well, but instead decided to just sit down on Jack's couch. Just like when he'd sat down on the train, Jack looked at him for an unnervingly long time. Roger swallowed and looked away, feeling heat rise to his face for probably the fiftieth time that day. He was unused to people paying attention to him. It was weird.

This is basically my favorite chapter so far. :D I don't know why. But it was fun to write. We should be getting to the plot sometime, I think…uh… in four chapters? Cx But, you know, whatever.