{Quidditch Pitch, Hogwarts}
{7th Sep 1991}
{3rd Person POV}
*Piiiiiiiiii*
Rigel kicked off the ground hard as he slowly levitated. Even if normally he didn't focus on any hobbies after arriving in this world as magic and its existence had taken a lot of his time, he quickly realized that this flying class wouldn't be a one-time thing. He didn't force himself to fly away too much though, his bottom line would not let him risk performing stunts in the air.
His broom hovered a solid couple of meters off the ground, and the feeling of looking down, levitating, was exhilarating. A soft breeze tousled through his hair and as he looked around he couldn't help but lean back and enjoy the view.
A sudden jolt from his broom indicated that posture mattered a lot more than he thought it would. The Flying experience was a lot different than what Rigel was imagining, simply it was different at the very first step because there was no uncomfortable situation of the broomstick giving him a wedgie. Although completely illogical, and he could see the broomstick underneath him passing through between his legs, he felt like he was sitting on a cushioned seat like that of a motorcycle.
Magic would be Rigel's easiest guess and a stare at the old-looking broomstick gave him a response.
...
[Cleansweep VI (Rare): An enchanted artifact made through careful manipulation of a specific runic scheme, The Cleansweep VI is the sixth iteration model of the famous Cleansweep I launched in 1926. Built for professional Quidditch matches in 1948, the broom is outdated from today's standard but has good and stable performance.
+ Cushioning Runic Scheme.
+ Levi-Hydro Runic Scheme.
+ Hydro-Deacceleration Runic Scheme.
+ Hydro-Acceleration Runic Scheme]
...
The magic of the broomstick and its description once again fascinated Rigel, he knew he had lost himself in learning spells, but it seemed like other than spells most of Wizard's innovation had gone into the making of runes and other artifacts.
...
"Whoh~ Whaa~ H-Harry~"
*Gasp*
"Look!"
...
Sounds of surprised gasps and Neville's screams brought Rigel back to the real world. It seems like Neville couldn't escape the fate of a faulty broom, or was it something else?
Quite a lot of his classmates were hovering in the air carefully but Neville somehow managed to get himself into a mess again.
During the potions class, Neville hadn't blown up his cauldron so Rigel was more than inclined to think that just like a lot of things, his situation had changed, he wasn't a nervous 11 year old kid. But when Rigel's eyes looked at Neville's trembling arms that were grabbing onto the broomstick and Neville's bobbing head, he realized that maybe some things just couldn't be changed.
'Was there a prophecy or something that Neville would have a broken arm?' Rigel questioned but Madam Hooch's words cleared the situation for him.
"Mr. Longbottom stop jerking your broom around and grab it with confidence, your trembling arms are messing with the control scheme of the broom." Her powerful voice cut through the chaos but unfortunately, Neville was too far gone. Rigel couldn't see his face but his trembling hands didn't stop and with every second the absurd motions of the broomsticks kept on increasing as the chaotic momentum kept building up.
Rigel hesitated, Neville was not too far away from him and he was confident he could pull the boy off by grabbing his robe. But they were in the air and although he was quite sure he could pull it off, he was not really inclined to rush at Neville when his broom was making such erratic movements.
"Neville cal-" Professor Hooch tried again but her voice was cut off as Neville hugged the broom in fear. His actions caused the broom to accelerate straight down and a second later he collided with the ground.
*Thud* *Snap* *Snap*
Rigel winced as he heard two snaps, and while one of them could be from the broom he was pretty sure the second one was from Neville's arm. Now the question remained as to which one.
"Everyone down now!!" Professor Hooch shouted as she ran to Neville, her concerned face was relieved when she saw that there was no blood. The broom was clearly broken into two and Neville was whimpering slightly as he hugged his broken arm.
Rigel grabbed onto the end of his broom and slightly lowered the end, he had seen what happened to Neville's broom just now so he was very careful with his manipulation. His broom followed a graceful descent and a second later his feet touched the ground.
"Just a bad break, nothing more. Madam Pomphery would fix you up in a jiffy." Madam Hooch consoled Neville who nodded slightly, even if he was suffering from a clearly broken bone his face had a relieved expression.
"You lot, I'll be taking young Mr. Longbottom to the infirmary, in the meantime I don't want any brooms in the air-" Madam Hooch continued her speech along with her dialogue about quidditch but Rigel had tuned her out. He lifted his leg slightly and pulled out the broom from under him.
His first taste of flying had been quite good and as Madam Hooch walked away he turned around to see the perfect divide that existed between the two houses. Most of the Slytherin's weren't fazed by the accident but Rigel saw that Hermione looked rather pale.
He walked a couple of steps toward her before he stopped and walked back toward Daphne, it was not a wise idea to comfort Hermione in public.
"You alright?" He asked Daphne who gave him a small nod.
"Yeah... I heard that Longbottom was incompetent but not by this much..." Her face scrunched up at the thought of a Pureblood behaving in such a shameful manner.
"You heard much about him?" Rigel asked curiously, considering Neville was the one to destroy the final Horcrux and him also being the only other candidate for the Prophecy, it wouldn't be bad to know about him.
"Well, he's a pureblood..." Daphne shrugged, "...even if his magical qualifications are quite questionable, he comes from an ancient and powerful family. His grandmother is a formidable figure in the Progressive faction."
After saying a couple of good things about the Longbottom family her voice lowered some more and she continued, "I heard that he was a late bloomer, with him being considered basically a squib until his teen years when his magic saved him from a rather dangerous fall." Daphne finished, she paused and then shook her head.
"Our Family don't run in the same circle so I don't know much more..."
Rigel nodded at her as he watched Madam Hooch take Neville away, he waited for a couple of moments before turning to Tracy.
"So future quidditch star, will you teach me how to do this?"
...
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AN - At first I was thinking about exploring more quidditch, but I saw your guy's comments and they made sense. I had to change a lot of this chapter because of that and a couple of chapters were ruined because of that so thank you very much for that :P!!
Instead, I'll use this incident to change Rigel's focus to Runes!!
P.S - 40+ Advanced Chapters on P.atreon + a Poll related to the next story!