xviii. gryffindor

"Who, on earth, thought flying broomsticks were a good idea?"

Harriet asked herself the same thing when she saw the notice of their upcoming lessons posted on the common room board, though not with the same ire Elara injected into the words. The sentiment wasn't one reflected in the other Slytherins; the older students regaled the first years with tales of Quidditch and their own adventures while the first years themselves boasted about their brooms left at family estates or sneaking off to fly in the summertime when their parents weren't paying attention. Malfoy swore he almost collided with a helicopter.

"Like he even knows what a helicopter is," Harriet muttered under breath. Hermione coughed.

Harriet, Elara, and Hermione seemed to be the only ones who had never been flying, and the others made sure they felt every bit as inferior as the pure-blood Slytherins from proper pure-blood homes deigned them to be. Pansy had taken to stating "She can't really be a Black," while in Elara's hearing and Hermione snuck a copy of Quidditch Through the Age from the library when she thought Harriet wasn't looking. Draco liked to lean over his desk in class and tell Harriet she was evidence of how far "blood-traitor" families fall.

All in all, Harriet's second week at Hogwarts was not nearly as great as the first.

The Slytherins departed History of Magic on Thursday and, instead of enjoying a free period as they had the week prior, made their way to the main courtyard and the grassy quad beyond. Harriet, Elara, and Hermione hung behind the rest of their classmates—who all but raced forward in anticipation, the boys leading the way with the girls feigning indifference as they followed.

"I wandered through Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley," Harriet commented, uneasy. "And saw some pictures of people flying at Quidditch games and stuff. It looks like it could be fun."

Hermione sniffed. Elara had been looking a bit green since lunch and only paled further once they saw the line of brooms waiting for them. "It seems an utterly illogical mode of transportation," Hermione said. "When they have the Floo Network, and Apparition, the Knight Bus, and Portkeys available—."

"I don't have any idea what those are," Harriet interrupted, bemused.

"Honestly, Harriet, how did you even get to Diagon Alley?"

"Walked." She quickly backtracked when Hermione gave her a startled look. "Muggle bus. Took the Muggle bus."

Elara said nothing, even when Hermione's gaze rose to hers with an expectant brow quirked. Harriet didn't like that her two friends—or her one friend and almost-friend—didn't seem to like one another very much. They never argued or fought; in fact, Hermione and Elara barely ever exchanged a word. Elara was difficult to talk to, Harriet knew, and she thought this might be why Hermione—who appreciated forthrightness in all its forms—often got frustrated with her. Indeed, even now, Hermione huffed a breath and turned away when Elara didn't answer her.

"Find yourself a broom. Stand next to it—no touching yet!" called Madam Hooch, their flying instructor. Harriet and the two with her meandered over to pick their own spots, and a minute later the Gryffindors ambled up, their approach heard long before they appeared by the raucous echo emanating from the courtyard.

"Great," Malfoy sneered. "Longbottom and his leeches have arrived."

Harriet and the rest of the class soon learned Madam Hooch had attended Hogwarts with Neville's grandmother, and the other woman apparently enjoyed writing to all her old schoolmates to boast about her "talented grandson," about how he excelled, how he'd had the very best tutors in everything—even flying. Neville chatted loudly with the instructor about being taught to fly by the Arnold Vogler of the Heidelberg Harriers and the Gryffindors were suitably impressed while the boys of Slytherin rolled their eyes. Harriet, not knowing what a Heidelberg Harrier or an Arnold Vogler was, just toyed the grass and waited for instructions.

"To your place now, Mr Longbottom, thank you. Hold your dominant arm out over your broom, and in a firm voice say, 'up!' Are we clear? Go ahead!"

Feeling silly, Harriet did as Madam Hooch instructed—and her rather raggedy broom leapt right off the ground and into her hand. She gave it a surprised glance, then looked about at the others, who had mixed levels of success. Malfoy and Longbottom, of course, had their brooms in hands and smug grins on their faces. Ron managed it after repeating himself. Some brooms rose about halfway off the grass before faltering, falling with dull thumps. Elara's almost made it, and she swooped forward to snatch it before Madam Hooch could see. Hermione's rolled on the ground as her face became increasingly red and Daphne Greengrass snickered.

Harriet scrutinized her broom. With twigs sticking out every which way, it didn't look anything like those sleek products she'd seen in Diagon.

"Now," Madam Hooch called once everyone had their brooms. Hermione, like several others, had finally given up and grabbed it off the ground. "Straddle your broom and take the handle in a firm grip—like so." She displayed the proper technique for them on a broom of her own and Harriet mimicked her. It felt ridiculous to hold that position for so long while Hooch walked along the line, correcting as she went, but Harriet's patience was rewarded when the instructor paused by Malfoy to fix his hands.

"I've been flying for years!" he argued.

"Well, you've been flying wrong for years," she rebuffed. If the Gryffindors hadn't laughed, Harriet was sure she would have.

At last, Madam Hooch reached the end of the arrangement and told them they could kick off. "No more than ten feet!" she ordered above the excited whispers. "Anyone who goes higher without my say so will be grounded! On my mark. One, two, three…."

She blew her whistle. Harriet pushed herself upward—and her apprehension faded to white noise in the back of her mind as the weightless sensation of flight seeped into her very bones. Her hands stopped strangling the broom's handle and her posture loosened, relaxed, and though the urge to keep rising up and up an up roared in her ears, Harriet stopped just shy of ten feet, kicking her legs.

Elara, who had become greener and greener as the lesson progressed, only made it two feet before she pitched herself off her broom and vomited on the lawn.

"Ew!" Pansy shrieked, chorused by several of the girls in Gryffindor.

"Elara!" Harriet pointed her broom toward the ground and landed as swiftly as she could, going to the other girl's side. Hermione and Tracey Davis did the same, along with Theodore Nott, though the others looked a bit more unsure about what they were doing. Elara retched again.

"Oh dear," Madam Hooch said with a tired sigh, feet thumping on the dirt. "There's always one." She shooed Harriet back as she approached, took a firm grip on Elara's elbow, and hefted the ill girl to her feet. "Motion sickness among the old families always seems more common than not. You there—Granger was it?"

"Yes, ma'am?" Hermione responded.

"Take Miss Black on to see Madam Pomfrey."

Harriet wanted to protest, wanted to take her herself, but there was no reason to be fussy so long as Elara was all right in the end. She watched Hermione lead an unsteady Elara away and Harriet didn't think she imagined the grateful look on Hermione's face as they hurried from the quad and the collection of waiting brooms. Madam Hooch ushered Harriet farther down the line, away from the sick splattered in the grass, and she somehow managed to be slotted between Ronald Weasley and Draco Malfoy.

Great.

Malfoy didn't hesitate to lampoon Elara. He was in rare form today, his jaw locked in that practiced grin just shy of a sneer, pale hair windblown like the fluff off a dandelion. "What kind of witch can't fly?" he asked aloud, earning a snort from Goyle. One didn't have to be clever to earn a laugh from Goyle or Crabbe; one simply had to look in their direction after speaking and wait. "It all comes down to blood, my father says, and her branch of the Black family has gone rotten. Did you know that, Potter? Whole lot of them went spare. Black's father is a madman, after all."

"Stop being a tit, Malfoy," Harriet hissed through her teeth as she kept her eyes on Madam Hooch.

"He was a blood-traitor, too. But you would know all about that, wouldn't you?"

No, Harriet wouldn't. She couldn't fathom why everything always came down to blood with Malfoy and people like him. To use Hermione's word, it seemed quite inane. Magic was magic to Harriet. She'd rather be a Muggle-born than a plain Muggle—and if being a pure-blood meant having a bunch of blokes in her family like Draco, then maybe she was better off being just a half-blood. She'd put enough pieces together between her Aunt Petunia and Hagrid to realize her mum must have been a Muggle-born just like Hermione, and that was just fine with her.

"Weasley would know all about blood-traitors, too," Malfoy said, speaking to the quiet red-head on Harriet's other side. "He comes from a whole wretched brood of them."

Ron's ears almost disappeared against his hair as blood rushed into them.

"How do your parents manage to feed you lot, Weasel? Does your mum just sell your filthy blood in vials as fertilizer?"

"You shut up about my mum, Malfoy," Ron spat as he trembled with rage.

"Does your family just share the one bed in that shack you call a house?"

"Stop it," Harriet said to Draco—and suddenly Ron rounded on her.

"I don't need your help, stupid Slytherin," he snarled, eyes glassy, blotchy patches of purple color blooming in his scrunched face. "I know all about your family, Potter. All the Potters have been Gryffindors since anyone can remember, and your mum and dad were both Gryffindors—so what's wrong with you? Why are you a slimy Slytherin? Bet your folks would be ashamed."

All week Harriet had been annoyed by the Slytherins' jeering her about flying; she was worried about Elara and mad Malfoy kept belittling Hermione, who was bloody brilliant and didn't deserve the rubbish that came spilling out of him like his head was a bin with a crack in the bottom. Defense Against the Dark Arts made her terribly nervous, and somewhere very distant from herself she kept remembering she lacked a home, and terror seized her when Harriet imagined what would happen when Christmas came rolling in, or the summer hols. Ron's words hit her anxieties like a stick whacking a beehive. Suddenly her arm jerked itself up, and her hand collided with Ron's mouth.

Honestly, the punch surprised the boy more than anything, and it hurt Harriet's hand rather than his face. Stunned, Ron took a step back, the class gasped, and Harriet had her fist still raised when Professor McGonagall shouted, "Harriet Potter!"

Harriet blinked, then stared at her own hand in baffled horror as the Transfiguration professor swept across the quad from her position near the courtyard's entrance and towered over the scattered students. "Twenty points from Slytherin, Miss Potter! We do not strike others here at Hogwarts! You'll have a detention—and your Head of House will be hearing about this!"

The horror thickened in her middle, folding tighter and tighter until it sat like one of those bezoars in a goat's stomach. Detention. Barely two weeks had passed, and Harriet already had a detention! What if she got suspended? Where would she go? What would she do? Could Hogwarts write to the Dursleys? What would the Dursleys say?

Class commenced, but Harriet wasn't allowed to fly again. Professor McGonagall dragged her to the shadow thrown by one of the school's spires and, in a quieter tone, demanded to know what had gotten into her, why she felt the need to hit somebody else.

"It was an accident, Professor," she said, and Harriet didn't think that a lie. She hadn't meant to punch Weasley, and certainly if a modicum of thought had passed through her brain, she would have restrained herself. Professor McGonagall didn't believe her and spent the remainder of the class scolding Harriet. She felt small, wilted like one of Aunt Petunia's violets on an extraordinarily hot summer day, and though she considered telling McGonagall one of her Gryffindors had been running his mouth—she refrained.

Harriet didn't know why. Tattling didn't seem like the right thing to do at the time.

High above their heads, Neville Longbottom took a spherical glass ball from his robe pocket—a Remembrall, she would later learn—and passed it back and forth between himself and his friends. They laughed and McGonagall watched, lips pursed and her eyes bright with a curious, expectant glint.

Harriet followed the flying students with her eyes as they swooped through the air, and just for a moment, she really did hate the Gryffindors.

A/N: No 1st year Quidditch for Harriet. I don't find her quite as daring as her male counterpart, and she's not the "Girl Who Lived." No special privileges :P. Ron seems a bit rude here, but his pride probably couldn't stand a Slytherin girl sticking up for him.