Chapter 7: Up!
"Look! There she is!"
"Who?"
"Rose Potter! Next to the skinny girl!"
These low murmurs of conversation seemed to follow Rose everywhere she went. It was as though rather than talking and getting to know their hero, they would rather merely point her out to their friends.
"Hey! Who're you calling skinny?" Ivy asked, rounding on the gossiping third-year girls.
Rose seemed unbothered by all of the unwanted attention, however. She remained calm and collected, even smiling slightly when a second-year boy asked her out, before inevitably saying no.
"I don't know how you can stand it…" Ivy muttered as the four of them, herself, Rose, Draco, and Ron, dodged out of the way of Peeves, who was attempting to throw spiders onto unsuspecting students. "All of the attention, like,"
"Oh… you know," she replied unhelpfully, with a vague gesture at herself with her left hand.
"I wouldn't mind it, honestly. I don't reckon you would, either, would you, Weasley?" Draco asked thoughtfully, as Peeves bombarded the boy who had attempted to ask out Rose. Draco and Ron, since their first Potions lesson, had somewhat embraced each other's company. They had a level of respect that Ivy could not have previously hoped for, though they still bickered from time to time and called each other by their surnames.
"If you ask me…" Ron replied, darkly, "Only bad things come with fame. I mean, it can be handled well, look at Dumbledore, and I'm sure Rose will too, but think how it would affect someone like Hermione…"
Ivy shuddered at the thought. "Probably go straight to her head, and she'd start telling people off for smiling too widely in the corridors,"
Everyone else nodded and agreed, except for Rose.
"Well, whatever you think, I talk to Hermione every now and again, and she's really nice, once you get to know her," she replied, frowning at them.
"Still… Regardless…" Draco said, unperturbed as a few young Hufflepuffs screamed and ran away from a cackling Peeves, who started chasing them around. "I think Weasley's got a point, it could do a number on most of us, though I wouldn't mind being famous, if only for a day or two."
"Speak for yourself," Ivy muttered, bitterly, "Listen, you may like the idea, but I despise being asked a million questions a day about how Rose is, and what her favourite type of chocolates are, and her personality, and her birthday, and whatever other random topics they want to know about her, when, of course, I'm not 'the skinny one'," and as they broke into the midday sunshine, she kicked over a nearby rock, so that it rolled into the lake, which rippled, and then was still again.
…
"Now, I want you all to place your right hand above your brooms, and say Up!" said Madam Hooch, their flying teacher, to the amassed Slytherin and Gryffindor students.
"Up!" they all yelled at their brooms.
To Ivy's immense relief, her broom immediately flew up into her hand, briefly appearing as an oak blur before she catched it. Although, she felt sure she saw (AN: Say that three times quickly) a few loose twigs fly off of it.
"Too easy…" Draco said to her, admiring his broom, which was in much better condition than hers, against the backdrop of the clear, baby blue sky. "I didn't realise our first flying lesson would involve this…"
While Draco found the process of making his broom jump into his hand easy and somewhat pointless, it seemed many of the others were struggling to make their brooms so much as hop briefly. Hermione, who approximately nobody believed was going to be much good at this, was furiously repeating the word 'up' to no avail. Neville Longbottom had managed to make his broom slither across the ground like a snake, occasionally rearing up and head-bonking anyone with brown eyes. This was a very impressive piece of magic indeed, although it served no practical use whatsoever.
Among those who had succeeded were Theo, who effortlessly managed to grab the broom on his first attempt, Rose, on her second attempt, and Ron, on his fourth.
After many fruitless tries, and a handful of tears, all of the students there had finally managed to gain control over their school broom, though many looked dazed and already weary. Surprisingly, neither Neville nor Hermione had been the last person to do this, rather, it was Pansy Parkinson who was last. Once this had happened, Hooch walked up and down the rows, peering through her orange goggles, and correcting anyone doing it wrong.
"Right!" she shouted, when she was at last convinced that nobody there was handling their broom like a lunatic, "When I say three, I want you to kick off, hover a few feet in the air for a few seconds, and then come down. Right then, one… two… WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
The last part of Madam Hooch's statement was a shout at Neville, who had very suddenly kicked off from the ground too soon, and was flying far too high and far too quickly above the ground. He was shouting in terror, as were many of the other students. Amidst the panic, Ivy could barely hear Madam Hooch shouting at him.
"Lean forward! Lean forward!"
And then, just as suddenly as he had begun, Neville slipped, and fell down to the ground. There was a dull thud, and Ivy thought she heard something crack. Something rolled out of the unconscious boy's pocket.
"Oh no…" Madam Hooch muttered. Turning to us, she said, "I will take this boy to the hospital wing, and while I am gone, you must stay here, you hear me? Do. Not. Move." The last two words were practically hissed.
As she walked off, huffing about not enough pay, Ivy turned to examine what Neville had had in his pocket. She moved closer. Small… red… and then realisation hit her.
"It's a remembrall…" she muttered, in awe. She reached to pick it up, but it was snatched out of her hands immediately by someone.
"Do you mind?" She asked, looking up. And then… she stopped. "Theo?" she asked in surprise.
His handsome, pale face smirked at her.
"Yes?"
"What are you doing?" she asked, pulling out her wand.
"What does it look like?" he asked, mimicking her growl, and pulling out his own. "I'm stealing Neville's… what did you call it? Remembrall?" He glanced around. "Tell you what… how about I leave it in… a tree? I know Longbottom loves heights…"
And before Ivy could stop him, Theo had mounted his broom, and flown up to a large oak, as if to place it in the branches, but he stopped, and his eyes were fixed on Ivy.
Snarling, Ivy made to ride her own broom, but Hermione grabbed her arm.
"No, Ivy! You'll get us in trouble!"
Rose and Ron nodded nervously from somewhere close behind her, but she took no notice, and clambered on anyway. Once she was in the air, she found it quite easy to level with Theo, but he immediately rose up away from the tree, and she was forced to chase him.
"Fine!" he screamed, wind billowing in his face, as he turned and grinned at Ivy. "You want it? Come- get it!" and with a final grunt, he threw the remembrall with all his might as high as he possibly could.
Panicking, Ivy rushed to grab it, first horizontally, but then it fell too low, and it turned into a dive.
She wasn't going to make it…
She wasn't going to-
But she was interrupted mid-thought as her hands closed around the cloudy, clear glass ball, and she swerved so that her back rather painfully skidded across the ground for a few feet. But, at last, it stopped, and she happily gazed up at the remembrall, safe and sound, before collapsing.
…
When Ivy Potter awoke three days later in the hospital wing, scratches, cuts and dirt splayed across her back, she considered lying back down, and going to sleep, but it was no good.
She glanced around. To her left, there was another bed, this one occupied by Neville, who had looked up when she awoke, and was smiling nervously at her. Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, had just noticed her awake, and muttered, 'finally, it's really difficult to give you medicine when you're asleep'.
But her biggest surprise was when she looked at the foot of her bed. Nothing short of heaps of fanmail, letters and presents were piled high there. She leaned over, and snatched the top letter, which looked the most official, off of the pile, and ripped it open.
Dear Ms. Ivy Potter,
Professor Severus Snape would like to offer his congratulations on your excellent flying skills on your first flying lesson, and a spot as seeker on the Slytherin quidditch team.
Practices start Sunday.
Severus Snape.
The letter, though brief, intrigued Ivy greatly. Snape had hated her in the only lesson the two had been in the same room, and now he was offering her to be seeker for his team?
It didn't make sense.
But regardless of Ivy's thoughts on it, the news seemed to have spread like wildfire across the school, judging by the amount of letters. She stretched, and began reading through them. Ron, Rose, and Draco had all sent 'Get Well Soon' cards, and heaps upon heaps of chocolate. She had received an awful lot of letters calling her their writer's lifelong idol, though she could have sworn she recognised some of the names as names of Rose's many admirers. She had received no fewer than six large boxes of chocolate frogs, and three letters attempting to ask her on a date, which she shredded and threw in the bin. And, finally, she had received a fully wrapped up present addressed from none other than Ron's mother. Opening it, she found twelve homemade mince pies.
…
Just as Ivy had suspected, everyone in Hogwarts had heard that Rose Potter's sister had become the youngest seeker in a century. However, what Ivy had not expected was that people seemed to have stopped caring about Rose at all. Suddenly, Ivy was the one people were talking about in the hallways.
She eventually snapped when someone in the Slytherin common room complimented her on her chess skills, which she had never displayed in Hogwarts in her life.
"I just wish they'd shut up!" she complained to Draco.
"Well, I might have told them about the chess skills…" he replied, nervously.
