It was days like these, Hilary mused as she fastened her cloak, that really highlighted how different the members of the Gryffindor girls' dormintory were. They had been around each other for two weeks now, which was long enough for them to start feeling familiar, and then this fantastically dramatic school threw them for another loop.

This time, it was flying lessons. On broomsticks.

Hilary, a Muggleborn, had burst out into giggles when they had first been told that. She wasn't sure how she'd missed it in her extensive pre-reading, but then again she hadn't been looking for transportation. Broomsticks! It was almost as bad as the pointed black hats. What next, she had wheezed through giggles, a lesson on how to make your own warts?

Julia had understood that reference. She had no idea of her ancestry, since she and her brother had been abandoned as infants, but they had been found and brought up by a travelling showman family. When the twins had started making odd things happen around them, the pragmatic family had simply tried to work it into acts. Sometimes that had even worked. Their Hogwarts letters had come as a surprise (because what and where on earth was Hogwarts?) but not as a shock, because magic was accepted as something that was most probably true but just not seen very often. Her response to the flying lessons had been to start a long and eventually heated conversation with her brother over how useful that would have been when they were helping erect rides. Back in the dorm, she had debated with Hilary over whether this meant that anything could be ridden. They'd got quite excited over the idea of flying armchairs.

Mariah had instead been excited at the chance to learn how to ride properly, since broomsticks were a rare and much suspected object at home. She came from a tiny, closed-off wizarding community deep in the rural countryside. A cluster of several seventh-century wizarding houses and gardens hidden along the oldest street in a Muggle town. The community only occassionaly used the Muggle services they lived alongside, and scorned Hogwarts or any involvement with the magical government at all. Broomsticks were seen as a risky method of transportation because if the rider didn't reguarly cast a Disillusionment Charm upon both themselves and the broom they were exceedingly likely to be spotted by Muggles. And being spotted by Muggles meant the Ministry getting involved, which was practically considered a sin.

Mathilda, a pureblood with horrible strict and ideological parents, knew quite a lot about broom riding, along with Floo Powder and Portkeys, and barely even noticed the discomfort of Side-Along Apparation anymore. This was because her family was so hardline anti-Muggle that they refused to use Muggle transport, even the magically adapted ones like Ministry cars – and the Hogwarts train. At the start of the year two weeks ago she had appeared in Madam Rosemerta's fireplace and started the trudge up to the lake to meet the other first years. Ray had spotted her and waited for ten minutes for her to catch up (they were on different points of a very high hill). She had been so very glad of that, since she had had nightmares for weeks about everybody staring at her as she reached them, or about her missing the boats and the carriages and being stranded, and not being on her own had been such an incredible relief. Two weeks later, she still blushed and tripped over whenever Ray smiled at her. So yes, she knew how to fly, although it wasn't her favourite activity. For ancestral reasons her family supported Poland in the Quidditch World Cup, or whoever knocked Russia out of the competition that year, but on a more local level she had probably heard her father read every single newspaper article where the Falmouth Falcons featured since she was old enough to recognise what she was hearing. So she, like Mariah, was excited about the idea of being taught how to ride properly .Everyone knew, after all, that established broomstick riders often had awful habits. (She did, however, get very sulky when remembering that she couldn't have her own broom from home).

It turned out that the Gryffindors had flying lesson with the Hufflepuffs. Not that Hilary particuarly noticed the Hufflepuffs to be honest, they were all just a mass of new faces still.

They were all lined up next to a broom. Hilary still couldn't help but fight the urge to giggle a bit whenever she looked at it, or at Julia. It was just … a broom. It looked simultaneously so normal and so much like every cartoon witch she had ever seen that despite all the evidence to the contrary she had trouble imagining it flying at all.

Mathilda was still muttering away, like she'd been doing since the second she saw the brooms. Apparently these were very substandard brooms.

"Ssh already!" Mariah hissed as the teacher started speaking, but with such incredible vemon that Hilary felt certain Mathilda's disdain had hit a nerve or two.

Following directions from the weirdly hawklike teacher, they stood to the left of their brooms, held their hands out and shouted, "Up!"

The brooms belonging to Kai, Tyson, Mathilda and two Hufflepuffs jumped up at the first call.

"You five had flown a lot before, haven't you?" They all nodded. "No need to worry, class, it's all about practise and authority!"

Authority? Hilary thought disbelievingly. If it was about authority Mathilda's broom should never have left the ground. Then she felt bad for thinking that. She had a quick look around and saw to her dismay that most people were holding brooms, and that those who weren't, such as Julia, were scowling and red in the face or apathetic and not trying, and just generally losing patience fast. She hadn't even really tried yet. Too distracted by being mean, she told herself sternly. Now.

"Up!" To her delighted surprise, the broom soared straight up into her waiting hand. She squeezed it as instructed then mounted. Oh dear, she thought to herself just before the command to try and kick off the ground one at a time, I hope I don't get splinters. In hindsight, today had not been a good day to wear a skirt under her robes ...