Violet thought it was a little funny to have flying class at Hogwarts. For one thing, brooms really weren't that complicated — you hopped on, and leaned in the direction you wanted to go, and there, you're done. So, because it was so easy, she guessed it made sense that there were only a handful of total classes, and you could get out of most of them if you proved you knew what you were doing, but still.

Also, most of the magic-raised people probably already knew how to fly? Or well, no, Violet knew that wasn't really true. Brooms were a special complicated enchanted thing, which meant they were expensive, so a lot of people couldn't afford them — kind of like wands, in that way — but most kids who went to Hogwarts would already know how to fly? At least, if they wanted to. Most people didn't really have a reason to fly, but if you, like, thought quidditch was neat or whatever, even people who lived in towns so didn't have a lot of room to fly around could go down to the local club or whatever and learn — they gave lessons to little kids for free, Violet guessed partly trying to find new talent early, and also just fun things for kids in the neighbourhood, you know, whatever.

Though there might be magic-raised kids who didn't know how to fly, but that was probably just because they didn't need to? Like, there was really nothing you needed to know how to fly a broom for — there was quidditch, and a couple other broom games, but that was really it. Mum said people used to fly brooms to get around, a long time ago, but you could actually get in trouble if you tried to do that now, for Secrecy reasons. Also, they didn't really have the floo back then? Now that the Floo Network existed, that was faster and much more convenient than flying everywhere, and without the risk of being spotted by muggles. There was quidditch, a few other games, people doing races or, like, stunt shows and stuff, and some people liked to fly around just for fun, but those were basically the only reasons people used brooms at all anymore, they just weren't as common as they used to be centuries ago.

So...there was really no reason the muggleborns, who wouldn't have had a chance to learn before, needed to know it? She guessed it was fair, for if they wanted to try to join the quidditch teams later, to at least learn the basics, but actually that still wasn't fair at all — the magic-raised kids could practise over the summers, and get lessons with the professional clubs, some of them already played in kiddie leagues and stuff. Like, Fay and Michael did, and a few other people weren't in any actual teams, but they went to stuff done by whatever club and played some games and stuff. A muggleborn had to be really good to get into one of the Hogwarts teams, because the competition was not fair, not even a little bit.

Fay wasn't even going to go for the Gryffindor team — she was going to try to stay in the kiddie league team she was already in, which might be awkward, since it would mean leaving the school all the time for practices and games and stuff — but that wasn't the point. The point was that, sure, maybe knowing how to fly used to be useful for stuff, before the Floo Network existed and you didn't have to worry about muggles seeing you flying around, but it wasn't something most people really used anymore.

But, you know, Astronomy was kind of like that too — it used to be used in a lot of magic stuff, but it really wasn't anymore, but it was just tradition to keep studying it, so everyone still did. And maybe Astronomy wasn't very useful, but space was cool! Flying might not be useful either, but it was fun, so. Violet wasn't complaining that there were a couple evenings where they went flying around just because, it was just a little silly that they bothered.

They'd already had one of these flying 'lessons', last week. That one was just half of their year — the Hufflepuffs had it with the Ravenclaws — and Madam Hooch only had them doing super basic stuff, like helping the people who couldn't already fly to figure out how to use one at all, hovering in place and moving up and down, that was really it. There was actually a little hassle before the lesson, because the posting on the notice board reminded them to wear appropriate clothing — the muggleborns didn't know what was appropriate to go flying in, obviously, and there hadn't been anything about it on the shopping list, so they weren't prepared. And there were only a couple days between the post going up and the day of the lesson, so the people who didn't have anything appropriate didn't have much time to figure it out, either.

Violet overheard some girls (and even a couple boys) hadn't had any trousers or shorts or whatever that would work, so had to figure something out. In Hufflepuff, the only people who had a problem were Lily and Sally-Anne — Lily's parents lived in Hogsmeade, so she just asked a prefect to walk her down to the village so she could pick up something from home, but Sally-Anne was more difficult to figure out. She said she didn't own any trousers at all, even stuff she had back at home, and even if she did, there wasn't really enough time to ask to have something sent up to the school...even if her parents could figure out how to send something that big by owl, which wasn't a sure thing. Maybe she could check the lost and found for something, but there was no guarantee she'd find something that fit; asking a prefect to take her out to buy something was also an option, except she didn't have any money, so someone would need to lend her it, and she didn't know when she'd be able to pay them back (and not paying someone back would be kind of embarrassing).

After they worried about it for a few hours, the girls trying to come up with ideas and seeing if anyone had an extra thing that fit (Leanne's things almost fit, but not very well), Violet decided to fix the problem. While everyone was busy with homework, she asked Sally-Anne to follow her back to their room, and had her promise to keep what they were about to do secret. Sally-Anne promised, so then Violet had her pick something out of Violet's trousers and shorts she liked — Violet cast a doubling charm on it, transfigured it a little to fit. That was hard to do — it took a lot of power to conjure something as big as a pair of denims, Violet's wand arm went all tingly, and she got a little dizzy — but the denims came out looking right, and she didn't think she messed anything up, so.

Sally-Anne didn't act like Violet conjuring clothes for her was weird — it'd only been a couple weeks, but the other kids in her year were already used to the idea that she was especially good at magic. Of course, Professor McGonagall said in their very first lesson that transfiguration was supposed to be temporary, but just because they were told something didn't mean it sank in very well. All magic was still, well, magic to the muggleborns, so someone making a pair of denims out of nothing wasn't some super special thing they had to freak out about, no more than any other thing people were doing all the time. She thought Sally-Anne maybe got that it wasn't something they were supposed to be doing, but Violet wasn't sure if she understood why. Like, Professor McGonagall said not to play around with transfiguration outside of class, maybe she thought that was why Violet didn't want her telling people.

Not that it really mattered, as far as she knew Sally-Anne had kept her promise, and keeping it secret was the important thing, so.

(Doing a nice thing for a friend was also the important thing — Violet liked helping people, when she could.)

Tonight they were having their second flying lesson, this time with their whole year, like Astronomy. That seemed like a lot of people for Madam Hooch to keep track of, especially when they were doing a dangerous thing like flying — but, when Lily brought it up, Dora said there would be volunteers from the quidditch teams to help keep an eye on them, and she'd just be letting the people who could already fly play around, so. After dinner, they went back downstairs to change into appropriate clothing — it was still warm enough outside, so Violet picked a tee shirt and shorts — then they waited around for a couple minutes for everyone to be ready, Violet feeding the kittens in the meanwhile, before all of the Hufflepuffs left together in a big blob.

On the way, she looked over Sally-Anne's denims, trying not to be obvious about it. It looked like they were still holding up — fabric was complicated, it was possible she could have gotten something wrong, that made them fall apart really easily. That was good.

Also, she was kind of impressed with herself, because an entire pair of denims was a super big, complicated thing to conjure, especially for an eleven-year-old! But her weird fairy magic was supposed to be a secret, so she couldn't tell anyone. She wasn't even supposed to put it in letters, in case someone stole it or the owl got lost, so she couldn't tell her parents about it either, at least not until she saw them in person again. Oh well.

It was pretty out! It was starting to get late enough in the season that the sun set earlier — it was a little before seven in the evening, and while the sun wasn't quite set yet, like proper, it was low enough that the sky went all colourful. Oranges and reds and pinks, blobs and streaks of darker purple colours here and there, some of the clouds all glowing, burning like fire but softer and gentler-looking, it was pretty! For the first little bit of the walk out toward the quidditch pitch, Violet went quiet, her head turned up at the sky, looking.

Eventually, she thought she heard someone say her name, turned away from the sky to look around the clump of Hufflepuffs. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You've come back now?" Hannah said, with a little teasing bounce. Apparently people noticed that sometimes she would get distracted by something, and it'd be really hard to get her attention for a minute — things were pretty sometimes, okay! she couldn't help it!

"Yep, I'm b-back. Was someone saying something?"

Áirneas said, "Zach and I were wondering if you'd be playing with us. If Hooch lets us have a quaffle, I mean."

"Oh, sure! I, I, I'm, I mostly play b-beater, um—"

"I don't think Hooch is going to let us do that today," Zach said, sounding a little annoyed — as much at Hooch as at Violet for the stammering, she thought.

"I know, I was only saying..."

(Zach really wasn't very nice sometimes. She couldn't help wondering why he was even in Hufflepuff in the first place.)

The Hufflepuffs were the first of the houses to all show up, but they weren't actually the first people here: maybe half of the kids in other Houses got here before them. There were a bunch of uniform robes sitting on the grass in a row over there, reds and blues — Violet thought the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors all dressed in their flying clothes under their robes today, so they didn't have to go all the way up to their towers and come back. Also, Madam Hooch and her helpers were already here, and already set up for the lesson, a bunch of brooms laid out in rows on the grass in the middle of the quidditch pitch. More than in the previous lesson, enough for the whole class, though some of them really didn't look very nice.

Some of the school brooms were old quidditch or racing brooms, which students had left here after they were done at Hogwarts for whatever reason, but over half of them were craft brooms, which were kind of a different thing. Most modern brooms were made with enchanting — like, there were a bunch of tiny tiny runes carved into them, mostly actually on the inside somehow, so you couldn't see them — but flying brooms were from the north and west of Europe and enchanting was from West Asia and Egypt, and brooms were around a long time before enchanting really got popular here. The original brooms were made with old traditional witchcraft. Violet didn't know how it worked, exactly — the branch needed to be from a magical tree, and it need to be made by hand, no using your wand at all, and there were multiple big long rituals to make it work right, it was complicated.

That used to be how basically all brooms were made, but it wasn't common anymore. Rune-enchanted brooms could have more complicated spells on them, and they could go faster, and were more comfortable, and had better protections against breaking, all kinds of things. There were still people who made ritual brooms, mostly poor people who couldn't afford an enchanted one, or if someone was just a witchcraft nerd and wanted to do it for fun. So, since people didn't have much reason to use brooms anymore, nobody had much reason to make ritual brooms...and also, like a lot of ritual-made stuff, the spells would die with the person who made it — there were fewer and fewer craft brooms in the country every year, as the old ones stopped working and new ones weren't made to replaced them. Hogwarts probably actually had a pretty big fraction of all craft brooms in existence, which was kind of neat to think about.

And also sad? Like, it was an old kind of magic, that people used to do for ages and ages, and they had all these stories and traditions and stuff about it, but nobody really needed it anymore, so it was going away... Maybe it didn't make a lot of sense to be sad about it, since people didn't need them anymore, but Violet still thought it was sad. At their first lesson, she'd picked one of the craft brooms, even though they weren't as good as the rune-enchanted ones — she didn't know how many times she'd get a chance to fly one.

(She was still going to be around after they were all gone, since she was living forever and all.)

As the Hufflepuffs came over, some of the other kids started making their way toward them, Olivie skipping out ahead. "Violet, hi!" She met Violet with a hug, as usual — Olivie was a very huggy person — before moving on to hug a few of the other girls, skipping Lily and Leanne. (Lily was shy, and could get really awkward about touching, and Leanne didn't like Olivie much for some reason.) Áirneas and Wayne got a hug too, because again, Olivie was like that — not Justin or Zach, because Justin was very stiff and proper like that, and Olivie didn't like Zach much.

Violet noticed Wayne's face go very very red, which was kind of funny.

While Olivie was saying hi to everyone else, the rest of the kids reached them — Millie and Daphne and Tracey were here, and Fay and Michael, with Draco and Greg and Vincent. Fay skipped up in front waving over at their group. "Hey, Hooch is going to let us who already know how to fly play around with a couple quaffles. You in, Violet, Áirneas?" Most people called Áirneas Ernest (or Ernie), which was supposed to be his name in English, but Fay knew him as Áirneas first, back at an Ollscoil, she slipped up sometimes.

"We were talking about that on the way— Ach, okay..." Áirneas was interrupted by Olivie hugging him, which was also kind of funny.

"I'll play too! Mostly I play b-b-bee-bkhh—"

"Beater," Zach said, with a thin sigh. "She mostly plays beater."

Fay shot Zach a little frown, but she just turned back to Violet after a second. "Yeah, I play beater too, so we'll both be off. It's only for fun anyway."

"Millie prefers beater too," Daphne said. "I don't know why all my friends like to hit things so much..."

"It's fun though!"

"Yeah, Greengrass, you should try it sometime."

"No thanks, I don't think I could bring myself to aim one of those at someone..."

That wasn't really a surprise, when Violet thought about it — they were super super nice and peaceful and not-hurting-anyone at the Greenwood. At least, she assumed the reason why Daphne wouldn't want to hurt anyone with a bludger was from the same stuff that made it so she wouldn't eat meat, or eggs, or anything like that, and only got dairy from places where the animals were treated nice. Like, if they were so serious about not hurting animals, it made sense that Daphne wouldn't like the idea of hurting people, even if it was only for a game.

There were some more hellos going around, talking about who would be playing and how they were going to split up into sides, but Violet was distracted by Draco and Gregory and Vincent reaching the group. "Potter, what are you wearing?"

Violet blinked at him for a second, then glanced down at herself. "What's wrong with it?" She guessed the shirt was a bit big on her? It was Muime's, something she got back when she was a teenager — it was a bit small on her now, but she wore it around the house sometimes, on lazy days. She let Violet have it months ago, because she thought the swirls and the purple heart design were pretty! (It was for some band she went to see back then, supposedly, Violet forgot the name.) The shorts were a birthday gift from Dora, denim dyed a bright bright pink, little curly floral designs done in rhinestones sparkling just a little. They were great! Dora always had the best clothes, Violet had no idea where she found this stuff — in the muggle world, apparently...

Giving her a funny curly-lipped toothy sort of look — which kind of reminded her of the goblins at the bank, actually? — Draco said, "I'd think Aunt Cassie would have taught you not to embarrass yourself like this."

...Violet didn't feel embarrassed? "Um."

"I think it's great!" Olivie said, appearing at Violet's side and hooking her elbow. "Too many people dress like they're afraid of colour. And these things are pretty," tweaking at one of the rhinestones on Violet's hip with a finger, "what are these?"

"Rr-wr-rwr... Winestones."

"Was that supposed to be rhinestones? like the river?" Her face feeling a little warm, flustered by her stupid mouth not talking right, Violet nodded. "Right, I don't think I've heard of them before."

"They're a mug-muggle thing." Violet considered adding I think they're made of glass, but she felt a little tense from screwing up already, she'd probably stammer badly on glass anyway.

"Of course," Draco muttered, scowling some more.

"Well, I think they're neat! Where'd you get them?"

"I'unno, D-Dora g-g-gh– they were a prr-present. They're pretty!"

"Yeah! Muggles make some neat things sometimes..."

There was some more chatter then about muggle clothes and stuff, Draco making more faces, Violet mostly ignored it and waved up at the boys behind Draco. "Hello Vincent, G-Grr-gkh-g— I'm sorry! It's, it's, it, that sound is so hard for me..."

Giving her a thin little smile, Gregory muttered, "It's okay."

"I feel b-b-badly, though, c-can't even say your name. Nnn– A nickname! D-d-do you have one already?"

Gregory's watery blue eyes went wider, blinking down at her for a second, Vincent turning to give him a funny look. "Er. No?"

"Okay. Um, um, um, um..." Violet snapped her fingers. "A Spéir! I c-c'n say that."

Olivie let out a long low ooooh sound. "Because he's so tall?"

"Yeah! And his eyes are super blue! I c-c– is that okay? If you d-d-don't like it, maybe think of something else..."

"Um..." Gregory blinked down at them for a bit, looking...almost embarrassed, maybe? Violet wasn't sure... "Is that Cambrian? I don't know Cambrian."

"Nope, G-g-gah-Gaelic! Bleh. Um, it means sky. Be, be, b-because your eyes are blue, and you're tall."

From somewhere a little bit behind Violet, Hannah spoke up, her voice sounding a little shaky, like she was trying not to laugh. "And if you say someone is spéirúil, like the sky, it means cheerful — or beautiful."

Draco let out a snort, rolling his eyes, and Vincent turned to give Gregory a crooked little smirk. (Not a pleasant smile, Violet didn't think — Gregory seemed nice, but she didn't think Vincent did.) Gregory didn't say he liked the new nickname, but he didn't say he didn't like it either, instead just standing there not looking at anyone. His face was going a little pink, Violet thought, which was also kind of funny! So yeah, that was going to be his nickname now, until he told her to stop. It was way easier for her to say than Gregory.

Anyway, more people were starting to turn up by then. Their group of people went over to Madam Hooch, to ask if they were allowed to start playing before the class proper actually got going (mostly because Fay was already getting bored). Madam Hooch had gotten out a few quaffles, she gave them a short lecture about staying in sight and not doing anything stupid and not getting in the way of the people who needed the lesson, and then told them to go pick a broom and get started. Fay and Draco and Zach and Áirneas and Michael all ran off to get to one of the nicer-looking enchanted brooms first, but Violet went more slowly. Olivie and Daphne and Hannah were chattering around her, but she wasn't really listening, looking over the ritual brooms. There were obviously newer or older ones, and some of them looked kind of shabby...

Ooh! That one looked neat! Though, actually, this was a weird fairy magic thing again, she was pretty sure. The handle wasn't even straight, showing some of the kinks and knots and funny angles of a natural branch, the bristles making more of a puff at one end than the sleek straight shape enchanted brooms made. But to Violet's eyes, there was a rainbow sheen to it, almost like sunlight playing on oil — a lot of the brooms had something like that, at least a little bit, but this one was more obvious, brighter and more colourful. She had a good feeling about this broom.

Violet skipped over to the broom, leaving the other girls behind. When she held her hand out over it, the colourful sheen on it sparkled, and she felt the broom tune itself to her with a deep hum — it swooped up off the ground to meet her hand, smooth and graceful. Grinning, Violet threw her leg over the handle and shot up off the ground.

Oh, that was pretty nice, actually! One of the things that was normally better about enchanted brooms was that they added cushioning charms and stuff — the straight hard wooden handle of a broom was kind of an awkward thing to sit on. This one didn't have cushioning charms, doing that right took some pretty complicated spellwork, but instead as soon as Violet took off she just went completely weightless. Feeling all light and floaty, her stomach swooping up like she was falling, but without the actual feeling of falling, you know, she could feel her hair floating up around her head, this was neat!

It was kind of a weird feeling for flying a broom, though, so it took a little bit of playing around for Violet to figure out how to make it work. Her grip with her hands was pretty much the same, but there weren't any footposts, and while the floating meant it wasn't uncomfortable to sit (because she wasn't sitting at all), it could screw up her balance and stuff pretty easily. Not to mention just drifting off of the thing, she guessed. She experimented for a couple minutes, and eventually figured out that she could tuck the broom into her knee under her, and then hook it down closer to the base of the bristles with her other ankle, and that made it really easy to turn, and she could pull in to brace herself if she was taking a hard corner, this would work.

Ritual brooms might not be as fast or as nice as enchanted ones, but Violet thought they were kind of fun! She'd only flown two so far, but they were very different from each other — enchanted brooms all flew more or less the same, it was more interesting to not quite know what you were going to get when you picked one up.

(Which just made her even more sad that it probably wasn't going to be very much longer before people just stopped making them at all, but oh well.)

By the time Violet had a good feel for the broom, most of the rest of their class had shown up, more of the magic-raised kids already up in the air. One of the helpers — um, that was a Ravenclaw prefect, she thought, didn't remember his name — tossed a few quaffles up at them, one at a time, the kids who better knew what they were doing snatching them out of the air before they could fall very far. Their group of fliers moved higher up into the air, and away from the rows of brooms still on the ground, so they wouldn't get in the way of the people who still needed the lesson.

Oh hey, Susan turned up while Violet was figuring out her broom! She drifted over to say hi, giving Susan a kind of awkward sideways hug in mid-air — smiling at her, Susan teased that Violet was going to hurt herself if she didn't fly normal. Before she left to fly normal, she asked if Susan was okay, she looked a little tired. Yeah, Violet could make her some food! They'd just drop by the kitchens quick on the way back into school. They didn't need to hide her funny magic from the elves, they could always tell at a glance that she was different anyway...

Violet would look down at the lesson going on now and then during the class hour (and a half), to see what they were up to and how they were doing. It looked like Madam Hooch had them go over the basics again, you know, just lifting up and landing and stuff. But after that they actually started moving, having the new kids do gradually more difficult stuff — until, by the end of the class, Madam Hooch was leading the pack of kids in a long circuit around the pitch, taking slow gentle turns zig-zagging back and forth, still hanging close to the ground just in case. They were all going all slow and cautious, but some of the fliers were shakier than others, there were even a couple minor accidents as someone lost their grip or tipped over or whatever. They were getting there, though.

Up higher, they were just flying around and tossing quaffles back and forth. They weren't playing any particular game — there were too many fliers and too many quaffles to play quidditch (and also no bludgers) — just messing around. Some of them actually had played quidditch before, but mostly just randomly playing around for fun, Fay and Michael the only ones who were on a proper team or anything, but some of them, while they could fly, they never really did quidditch stuff before. When you only did basic flying before, learning how to fly and catch and throw a quaffle at the same time took a little bit of practice, so they had a pretty big range of skill levels. So, there wasn't really any way to split them into teams to have a fair game, messing around was the best option.

Violet ended up with some of the people who didn't know what they were doing as much, Susan and Olivie and Leanne and Daphne and Tracey and Terry and Stephen, a few other people coming and going now and then, just talking and tossing their quaffle back and forth. Sometimes someone would miss a catch or throw badly, and Violet would zip off to catch it most of the time, since she was the most comfortable flyer and the least likely to fall trying to catch a quaffle at speed — the times she managed to catch it before it hit the ground were pretty fun, but she wasn't always able to catch up. Since she was playing with the less experienced people, there were a few near accidents, someone slipping or losing their balance, but they got through the whole class period without anyone getting hurt, so.

They just talked about whatever, you know, classes or other students or their families or whatever news was going on. Violet didn't pay attention to the news, but most of them were nobility, which meant they often knew people who were in the news, or had behind-the-scenes information that wasn't in the papers anyway, and people were gossipy. None of it was super important, and nothing really happened, the lesson was pretty uneventful.

Except one part, where Draco came over to be weird and confusing. It wasn't unusual for him to be a bit weird and confusing these days — he was still angry with her for her little trick on the train, and for not telling him who she was for years, but he had really weird ways of showing it. Like, making fun of her clothes before they started flying, it was just little things like that, mostly. She didn't notice until Susan pointed it out over the weekend that Draco was trying to pick a fight, and was getting a little frustrated that she wasn't biting.

Which, that was silly! Draco had known her for years, he should know she didn't like fighting with people! When he was getting all weird and confrontational, she didn't get insulted or whatever, she mostly just got confused, and went to talk to someone else until he stopped being difficult...

They'd maybe been flying playing around for maybe a little less than an hour when Draco drifted over to their group. It was late enough that it was starting to get darker, but there were enchantments that kept it lit up inside the quidditch pitch, Violet could still see them fine. And it was them, since Gregory and Vincent were following him, but while Draco was flying all smooth and easy — even tossing the quaffle up and catching it over and over, hardly even using his hands — the bigger boys were a bit shakier, stiff and awkward. She guessed they probably didn't get as many chances to fly as Draco did. As he came up, he said, his voice raised a bit to be heard better, "I see you haven't forgotten how to fly."

Violet glanced around their little group, trying to figure out who he was talking about. "Oh, me? Why would I fork, forget how to fly?"

"I don't know, I've only seen you playing that muggle trash since we got here."

"Hey!" Olivie snapped, shooting Draco a sharp glare. "Hurling isn't muggle trash! Mages have been playing hurling for millennia."

...He was talking about iomáint? Okay, Olivie was maybe exaggerating a little saying that mages had been playing it for millennia — Violet didn't think it was quite that old — but it had been around for a long time, yeah, since at least mediaeval Ireland. She guessed it was less obviously magical than quidditch, but she wasn't sure how that made it a muggle thing? Mages and muggles hadn't been separate yet back then, it was old enough that they both had it. Also, muggles had cool things sometimes! She really didn't get what Draco was trying to say...besides just being racist for no reason, she guessed.

Draco sneered at Olivie, another oddly goblin-like look. Was he trying to make his mean looks seem goblin-like, trying to be scary or something? (Violet had the thought of Draco practising his goblin expressions in the mirror, and bit her lip to keep herself from laughing out loud.) "Perhaps a certain sort of mages, I suppose. But you must be happy to be playing a real wizards' game again."

"You might not have noticed, Draco," Daphne said, "but we're witches." The way she said that word, it was almost like she was making a point, but Violet wasn't really sure what it was. She knew from her lessons with Arcturus that the Dark and the Light used those words differently, but she could only very rarely tell for certain which version someone meant when they said them.

...Brooms were witchcraft, she was pretty sure? So it should be a witches' game, she thought. Oh well.

Before Daphne interrupted, she was going to say that she liked both games, but then she got distracted thinking about that. She still hadn't responded yet when Leanne said, "Yeah, and you know what they say about witches who play quidditch."

"Hey Draco, didn't your mum play quidditch in school?" Susan was giving him a crooked little smirk...also like she was trying to say something with that, but Violet didn't know what this one meant either.

Draco's face went very pink, and then there was some teasing and shouting back and forth, which Violet mostly ignored. It was confusing, and she didn't really get what they were talking about, so she just focussed on passing the quaffle around. When she didn't know what was going on, it was best to not get in the way — or, less annoying for other people and less confusing for her, anyway. They were going on for a while before it got quieter, and Violet noticed after a few seconds that Draco was looking at her. "I'm sorry, what? Wasn't listening."

With a toothy little scowl, he said, "Head in the clouds again, Potter?"

She shrugged. "It dih, it dih, it dih, you were talking aahhbout things that d-d-didn't have anything to do with, with me, so. Bleh, stupid..."

For some reason, that just seemed to make Draco even more annoyed, glaring at her and with more pink going into his face. His voice thick and hissy, almost like he was pushing the words through his teeth, he said, "I was saying, we're having a proper game this weekend. Thankfully, my team is already full — I wouldn't want to be stuck with you, if you can't even pay attention to people talking right in front of you."

"I can, I'm not stupid, I j-j-ch– didn't want to." That wasn't making Draco less annoyed, but before he could start yelling or something, Violet said, "I can't p-play with you though. We're playing iomáint already this weekend, and, and, and, I have art homework I nnn-need to do." She ended up feeling out of breath by the time she got to the end of the sentence, took a big deep breath. Somehow other people could figure out how to breathe and talk at the same time, but she was just bad at everything to do with talking it was annoying. Tracey was looking her way, she tossed the quaffle over — her aim wasn't great, Violet dipping down and to the right to snatch it out of the air with one hand. Quaffles were squishy! like a football packed with some kind of gelatin, but not quite enough to fill the whole thing, it was weird...

"What do you mean, art homework?"

Violet shrugged. "I'm supposed to d-d-d-d—" She cut herself off, let herself breathe for a moment. While waiting for some of the tension built up from the stammering to loosen up again, she picked, um, Leanne out of their circle, tossed the quaffle over to her. Violet's aim was a little off, if not as bad as Tracey's — quaffles were squishy, they were awkward to throw. "Master Walter wants me to k-keep drawing, and paint and stuff, while I'm at school so I don't g-g-g-g– fall out of prrrraactice. Ugh."

"She has a whole schedule she has to keep," Leeanne said, tossing the quaffle over to Terry. "All of us got to see her drawing for last week, she's very good."

"I'm g-gonna make that one, of the, the, the, Castle at sunset, into a painting, for this month. Wanna sketch a few more little things first."

Olivie let out a long, bright oooohhh sound. "Can I see when you're done?"

"Us too," Daphne called from the other end of their group, waving a hand over her head. "I loved that one of a city that was at your birthday party. Was that Rome?"

Before Violet could answer — she thought she knew the painting Daphne was talking about, which was Rome, the view from the roof of their hotel just off the Vatican — Draco snapped, "Excuse me! We were in the middle of a conversation!"

"Were we?" Violet asked. "I said I c-can't play with you already. Maybe, um..." Well, probably not the weekend after that, she was going to need the time to work on her painting for the month. "...October, maybe?"

"October?"

"I'm busy! There's homework and art homework and nnnew friends and stuff, I c-c-can't drop everything and play with you, sorry! If you wanted to play q-q-q-kwih-q-quidditch with me—" She snuck in a quick breath. "—this weekend, you should have asked b-before I made plans already."

Scowling at her, Draco snarled, "Well, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

"...Thanks?" Violet said, frowning. There was a bit of an up-down wavering on his voice that sounded like he might be being sarcastic or something, but she didn't get how or why. He seemed weirdly angry with her, for some reason, she didn't understand. "Um, maybe the second weekend of October?"

"Is that soonest you can fit me in your schedule?"

Starting to get frustrated now, Violet said, "Why are you being so, so, so, so— You said you want to play, so I'm t-t-ch-trying to plan ahead. D-d-der-d-d—"

"Spit it out, Potter!"

"Hey!" Olivie snapped. "Be nice to your cousin, Malfoy."

"You're not my grandmother, Rivers. Honestly, I don't know what Aunt Cassie was thinking, sending an invalid to Hogwarts like she thinks—"

There was a lot of shouting then, some of their group swooping closer to yell at Draco, and it quickly got very noisy with multiple people talking all at once, Violet couldn't even really follow it. It did start with Draco insulting Violet — that's what he meant by invalid, he'd basically been calling her spastic — but it didn't stay about her very long, insults getting tossed back and forth between their group and Draco, and then more people coming over to see what was going on and joining the fighting, some on Draco's side and some on Olivie's. Violet just drifted away, further as more people showed up and the shouting got louder and louder — enough she kind of wished she had her noise amulet, but it was easy enough to just slip further away.

After a couple minutes of people shouting at each other, Draco suddenly bent double over his broom, his forehead nearly smacking into the handle — he'd just gotten whapped hard in the back of the head by a quaffle, the ball bouncing off, ran right into Stephen, so surprised he almost didn't manage to catch it. Draco's side of the argument whirled around, to find Fay and Parvati and Lavender hovering there — the other girls were turned around to stare open-mouthed at Fay, which was kind of funny — Fay yelling something at Draco Violet was too far away to hear, and then Draco was chasing Fay, the rest of the group following, shouting at each other and...

It was all very silly, and noisy and confusing, Violet was relieved she'd kept out of the middle of it. Susan and Tracey and Stephen were still here with her, so they just went back to passing the quaffle back and forth, like nothing had happened. The same quaffle that hit Draco in the head, she was pretty sure. He'd been being mean, sure, but there was really no reason for Fay to hit him like that — if Fay had asked Violet ahead of time, she would have told her not to. It wasn't like Draco hurt her feelings calling her names or anything, she'd been called a lot worse. But who knows, she hadn't been paying attention to the conversation anyway, maybe it wasn't even about her. Oh well, much too late to do anything about it now.

Pretty soon, while Fay and Draco and everyone were still chasing each other around, there was a harsh screech of a whistle on the air, gritting her teeth against the grinding in her ears — Madam Hooch was calling an end to the lesson. Right, good! She and Susan needed to go down to the kitchens to get her some food! Ravenclaw tower was so far up there, they didn't have a whole lot of time before curfew...