Bab 20: The Flying Lesson

Charles Gaunt POV

A little before three-thirty in the afternoon, Charles, Theo, Blaise and the other Slytherin students left their Transfiguration classroom early for their Flying practise with Gryffindor. They had expected the Gryffindors to already be there as they didn't have a class beforehand, but as they hurried down the fronts steps and onto the caste grounds – they found themselves to be the first there.

A quick look around and they spotted two lines of old brooms laying parallel on the grass which they quickly made their way over to. A minute or so later, the Gryffindors arrived with their teacher, Madam Hooch, not far behind them.

She took off her pointed hat, revealing shot grey hair, and her yellow hawk-like eyes scanned over them as they stood there waiting. "Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

'No introduction?' thought Charles. 'Well nice to meet you too, Madam Hooch.'

Charles at the end of the line and looked at his broom. It didn't look as old as the others, but its pole bent at odd angles and had quite a few twigs which weren't as long as the others. Charles wondered if the reason it didn't look as worn was that not many people dared to use it. He just hoped it would fly straight.

Madam Hooch got straight into the lesson. "Stick your right hand out over your broom, and say, Up!"

"Up!" the class chorused. Charles waited a moment to watch how the others did. Most of the broom just rattled against the ground or did nothing at all, but a few shot straight up into ready hands and Blaise looked rather smug as he held his. Theo succeeded on his second try, but not many else had.

Suddenly Madam Hooch was in front of him. "Quickly, boy. Get to it already," she instructed. "Don't worry about it not working, that's what I'm here for."

Charles nodded. He thought about what the correct method to do it was and settled on the only idea that came to mind. "Up!" he commanded. The broom flew into his palm with a surprising speed; his hand tingled at the impact.

"There we go, nothing to worry about," said Madam Hooch, a touch of surprise on her face. Charles couldn't help but smirk at Theo's dropped jaw. From the little experience he had with magic – though it was increasing more and more each day – he recalled reading that intent was one of the most important in casting spells and reasoned a broom should work similarly. Even if he was wrong, what he did had worked either way and he was very pleased with himself.

He noticed Emily was still having a hard time with hers. 'I guess I can give her a few tips later.'

Once enough of them had brought up their brooms, she demonstrated how to mount them correctly so that they wouldn't slip off mid-flight. She walked past each of them, correcting their forms whenever she deemed appropriate. Both Charles and Malfoy were apparently sitting too close to the end of their brooms.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms stead, rise a few feet and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle – three – two –"

All of a sudden, before Madam Hooch's lips had even touched her whistle, Neville was up in the air, whimpering as he rose higher and higher.

"Come back, boy," she shouted, but Neville was too caught up in his panic and wailing to hear. Even higher he went, shooting up like a cork from a wine bottle – he was close to twenty feet in the air when Charles realised he was almost about push off the ground himself. He quickly took a step away from his broom before he did anything reckless. There was no point in getting himself hurt trying to help Neville, that was the teacher's job.

Unfortunately for Neville, Madam Hooch must have thought differently as she did very little to protect him when he slipped off his broom and dropped harshly onto the short cut grass. There was an audible crack when his body thudded on impact. The class watched as his broomstick soared away to the forbidden forest until it was finally out of sight.

Madam was leaning over Neville now, her face a similar pale to her injured student, likely worried about the consequence of her negligence, Charles thought. "Broken wrist," she muttered quietly. "Come on, boy – it's alright – up you get."

She lifted up the tear-stricken Neville and turned to the class. None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch'. Come on, dear."

When they were out of view, Charles walked back to his broom and found a glass ball right next to it. He picked it up. 'Neville's Remembrall… It's still white,' he mused, looking at the whirling smoke inside it. But he wasn't the only one who had noticed the sphere. Malfoy was his way, his eyes homed in on the Remembrall. 'It's really not your day Neville.'

Draco Malfoy POV

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" Draco laughed. The chubby Longbottom had broken his wrist falling from his broom and had been taken to the hospital wing by Madam Hooch just moments ago. Not that Draco cared for his arm, 'Serves him right. He's an embarrassment to our kind.'

He wasn't the only one amused. "Bet he's still crying right now," said Mauricius, a dark-skinned boy whose father owned a jewellery in France. 'Father's bought Mother a necklace from there once,' Draco recalled.

Draco and his friends were having wonderful time cracking jokes and mocking Longbottom's pudgy face until Parvati Patil decided to open her stupid mouth. "Shut up, Malfoy," she snapped, singling him out from the group.

'Of course she only calls me out!' thought Draco, annoyed. It wasn't like he didn't understand why, however. People like her were jealous of Noble families for their history and legacies and the Malfoy family was noblest one of them all. 'We could fit ten houses of her home's size in our Manor and still have room left over.' Thinking himself far too generous, Draco changed the number to fifteen as Pansy responded for him.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom? Never thought you'd like fat little cry babies, Parvati," she mocked.

Pansy often followed him around and, truth be told, he found her quite annoying. In fact, these days he couldn't help but get irritated with a lot of his friends – Pansy of course because of her duckling behaviour – Crabbe and his constant food stealing at the dinner table – and Goyle being too stupid to get his jokes. Without thinking he looked over to Theo and Blaise. He could barely even remember what caused their fight over summer, he mentioned something about Blaise using muggle tools to paint with or something similar to that, and after a bit of back and forth, the both of them against him – with Draco on the losing side – he had lashed out and said something he shouldn't have.

'I shouldn't have brought up his mother…'

Yet as regretful as he felt, he wouldn't embarrass himself by making it look like he was desperate for their friendship. No – he would wait for them to come to him, then they would both get over it and everything would be back to normal… at least, that had been the plan.

Looking at them now, he couldn't help but feel bitter. He had expected them to try and patch things up as soon as they realised people were avoiding them, but instead, they had been laughing and having fun the same as always – almost as though it made no difference whether he was around or not. Draco hated that feeling. To make things worse they had immediately started hanging out with Charles Gaunt, a pale boy with similarly coloured hair who people often said he looked like. Of course, Draco disagreed strongly with the notion, as he thought Charles's tired and void-like eyes were creepy and unsettling. Plus the boy's hair was as messy as Potter's! A far cry from his own slicked back and esteemed look. Looking at the three of them messing around together, Draco couldn't help feeling like he'd been replaced.

'Father wants me to befriend him because he's supposedly a Gaunt,' or so the man had written in his only reply so far to Draco's daily letters home. It was a short letter but his had also said he was proud of his son for being sorted into Slytherin and Draco's chest swelled with pride when he read it.

The only problem was he didn't know how to go about making friends with him, especially when he was with his old friends most of the time. And then there was the incident in the Slytherin common room their first night in the castle where Draco had called Charles out unnecessarily. The Gaunt hadn't made an issue of it at the time but Draco knew there wasn't any goodwill between them.

His eyes lingered on Charles and as he was about to look away – he saw the boy pick up Longbottom's Remembrall. Suddenly he had a great idea, a way to distract him from his thoughts.

"Look," said Draco. "Gaunt's got that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him." Draco held out his hand. "Well, go on – pass it over."

His dark eyed lookalike stood quietly for a moment, perhaps unsure if he should, but ultimately chucked it into Draco's hands. The glass ball glittered under the sun as Draco held it up for everyone to see. 'What an idiot, bringing something like this to a flying lesson. Let's see how long it takes Longbottom to find it now.' Draco had a few ideas of where he could hide the toy.

"Give that here, Malfoy," said Potter quietly and everyone went quiet, waiting to hear what they boy-who-lived had to say.

Draco smiled eagerly. The two of them had bad blood before even arriving at Hogwarts, since Potter had rudely declined his help and friendship. 'Come to think of it, wasn't Gaunt also in their compartment? I forgot because he didn't say anything.' Draco began feeling grateful the boy hadn't immediately tried to fight him like both Potter and Weasley had. Maybe they would get along so badly after all.

He pushed the thought aside, realising his chance for revenge as Potter stood in front of him. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to collect -how about – up a tree?" 'Or maybe a toilet bowl make him have to dip his hands into the dirty water.'

Harry wasn't amused, stepping closer to Draco hostilely. "Give it here!" Harry yelled. Suddenly, Draco had a better idea.

He leapt onto his broomstick, taking off to above the trees with ease. "Come and get it, Potter!" Draco jeered looking down.

Potter responded quickly to his provocation, grabbing his broom.

"No! shouted the stuck-up Hermione Granger. "Madam Hooch told us not to move – you're going to get us all into trouble."

Draco was ready to retort the annoying witch for getting in his way but felt no need when Potter ignored her – and with a hard kick, began shakily rising off the ground to get to Draco's height. He waited for the inexperienced flyer to mess up and embarrass himself, as did everyone else, judging by the gasps let out at Potter's every movement. However, it never came, and Potter soon faced him mid-air.

"Give it here, or I'll know you off that broom!" Potter told him.

"Oh yeah?" Draco sneered on impulse. But in truth, was getting worried, this wasn't what he had planned. He had expected Potter to slip off his broom, the same as Longbottom had and hopefully get injured the same as well – but they were too high up for that now, if one of them fell it would be worse than just a broken wrist and Potter didn't look like he was joking with his words.

The boy-who-lived charged forward at him amateurishly, but they were close – and Potter was surprisingly quick. Draco barely managed to get out of the way in time.

"No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy," the boy mocked Draco, swirling back around to face him.

'Please, those idiots can barely fly at all.'

Despite his thoughts, Draco was actually getting rather nervous. "Catch it if you can, then!" Draco lugged the Remembrall as far and high as he could, not caring if it broke hitting the ground.