Always You

He didn’t believe he had ever met someone more insufferable than Malfoy. First-year Gryffindors only shared Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn’t have to put up with Malfoy much.

At least they didn’t until the notice pinned up in their common room that their flying lessons, starting on Thursday, would be shared with Slytherin. Was there any worst notice? Flying was Charles’ favourite thing in the whole world and he wouldn’t let Draco Malfoy ruin it.

“Typical,” said Harry. “Just what I wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy.”

“You don’t know you’ll make a fool of yourself,” said Ron, trying to cheer him up. “Anyway, I know Malfoy’s always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that’s all talk.”

Malfoy did  talk about flying a lot. But so did he, and Seamus Finnegan, and Ron, and many, many other first years. Seamus spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broom, Ron would tell anyone about the time he’d almost hit a hang glider on Charlie’s old broom. Every single student coming from a magical family talked about Quidditch. It made sense, it was the best sport ever. Ron and Dean Thomas got into a serious argument about a thing called “football”. Ron couldn’t see what was exciting about a game where they weren't allowed to fly. Neither did him, but muggles didn’t have flying brooms so it must be the most exciting thing they had. 

Neville had never been on a broom in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Charles thought she’d had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.

Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was. This was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book — not that she hadn’t tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bored them all stupid with flying tips she’d gotten out of Quidditch Through the Ages. What a way to ruin one of his favourite books.

 Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broom later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione’s lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

Most of the letters he received were from his dad. They still weren’t much, but there was something. However, that morning was different. Moony had written to him again.

Dear Charles,

Glad to hear that, McGonagall is just like that, you’ll warm up to her. About Snape.. I went to school with him and was never pleasant to talk to. I hope he changed, if not, don’t get into his wrong side.

I’ll see if i can pay you a visit on Christmas, I’ll do my best. I miss you too kiddo, and glad you are confident about you and Ella sticking up together and I hope that keeps like that.

If there is anything you want to ask or tell me, don’t give it a second thought and write whenever you want to. If you have any concerns or whatsoever, here I am. 

Hope you like the gift. xx

Your Uncle Moony.

Pd: Still don’t have Early On.

He turned now into the package on the table. Could it be? He opened it quickly with Ron looking curiously on his side. Not one, not two, but three records. Hot Space from Queen, Aladdin Sane from Bowie and Voulez-Vous from Abba. 

He could thank Moony for his music taste. David Bowie was for sure his favourite. He grew up listening to him, Queen, Abba, and that kind of music. Hermione and Dean were looking now.

“Is that an Abba record? Do you like them?” she asked

“Uh.. yeah! Do you?”

“Oh I love them! They are the best band ever. What’s your favourite song?”

He spend at least fifteen minutes talking about Abba with her. They seemed to have some music interests in common. She also liked some of Bowie’s albums. They had a great time. Charles understood just a little his sister, Hermione was not too unbearable when she was not too desperate to prove herself.

Opposite to them, there was Neville Longbottom, who received a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.

“It’s a Remembrall!” he explained. “Gran knows I forget things — this tells you if there’s something you’ve forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red — oh ...” His face fell, because the Remembrall had suddenly glowed searlet, “... you’ve forgotten something ...”

Neville was trying to remember what he’d forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand.

Harry and Ron jumped to their feet. They were half hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

“What’s going on?”

“Malfoy’s got my Remembrall, Professor.”

Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall baek on the table.

“Just looking,” he said, and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him. And left

Charles now grabbed his quill in order to write his answer to Moony.

Dear Moony,

Did you really? I Thought he was much older than you. Yeah, no he didn’t. He seems to hate every student but the Slytherins. Has something against Gryffindors too, hate in his eyes all the time. 

Of course I am, she made her friends, I s'pose she told you, but I did too! I've mentioned Ron of course, but I've met Harry, Seamus, Dean and Neville. They are also my roommates. I'm closer to Harry and Ron, but I’m having a great time.

Actually.. there is something. It’s not anything about school tho. The first night here I had this really weird dream.  I was in the forest, walking with some girl. I walked forward, leaving her behind. I just couldn’t stop. Then I saw bright blue eyes in the middle of the dark. They were bright as the light, and blue like the sky. That was all I could see. I was looking for something, I don’t know what but I could just walk towards those scary eyes. They had a deadly look. Then I was so close I could see his smile. It was unnatural, an evil smile. Pointed teeth. I couldn’t recognize much of him, I didn’t have my wand and neither did they. Then I felt pain. ACTUAL pain. I was on the floor, unable to move. My skin was burning. My face, my whole body. Right when the bright blue eyes looked straight at me again there was a burst of red. And then I woke up.up. Uncle Moony I felt actual pain. My whole body burned all day, my muscles ACTUALLY hurted.

I don’t think it has a dark meaning but it sure means something, it was different to any other dream. Any ideas?

Thank you for the records,

Charles Miller.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry, Ron, and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived right after the Gryffindors. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”

Charles glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles, nothing like the one he had at home. However, he had a feeling of excitement. There was nothing like flying, the breeze on his face, moving all around in the air. Flying he felt at home. It could be freezing outside but when he was on his broom he always felt warm.

“Steak out your right hand over your broom,” walled Madam Hooch at the front, “and say ‘Up!’ ”

“UP!” everyone shouted.

Charles’ broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione Granger’s had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville’s hadn’t moved at all. Brooms could tell when you were scared or worried, and there was a quaver in Neville’s voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. He, Ron and Harry  were delighted when she told Malfoy he’d been doing it wrong for years right after she told Charles he was doing it perfectly.

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

He was ready to get off the ground, but Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on land, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.

“Come back, boy!” she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle. Anyone could see his seared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and then..

WHAM — a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay face down on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the forbidden forest and out of sight. Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.

“Broken wrist,” she muttered. “Come on, boy, it’s all right, up you get.”

She turned to the rest of 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.”

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him.

No sooner were they out of earshot than Malfoy burst into laughter. Prick.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?”

The other Slytherins joined him.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” snapped Parvati Patil.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look!” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”

Neville’s Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

“Give that here, Malfoy,” said Harry quietly. Everyone went silent to watch.

Malfoy smiled nastily.

“I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find — how about — up a tree?”

“Give it here!” Harry yelled, but Malfoy leapt onto his broomstick and took off. He hadn’t been lying, he could fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, “Come and get it. Potter!”

By now, Harry had grabbed his broom.

“No!” shouted Hermione Granger beside Charles. “Madam Hooch told us not to move — you’ll get us all into trouble.”

Harry completely ignored her.

He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him. It looked like he knew what he was doing, as if he had been flying for years. It was clearly easy for him, it wasn’t a problem of course. It was also easy for him,

“What an idiot.” Hermione said.

“It’s amazing” he said

“Don’t encourage him!”

“You have to admit it is kinda cool.” said Charles “Or are you telling me you rather have Malfoy picking on Neville?”

There were screams and gasps of girls and an admiring whoops from Ron and other boys from Gryffindor.

“How can he fly like that? He had never even touched a broom before!” said Ron.

“He must have some inner talent, of course, It looks easy for him.”

“Doesn’t it bother you? You fly since you were a toddler.”

“Nah. It’s also super easy for me. Plus, I can fly a bit better thanks to all the practice.”

“If you say so.” doubted Ron, “Hey look!”

They were talking just before. Harry leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp aboutface and held the broom steady. A few people were clapping.

“Catch it if you can, then!” Malfoy shouted so loud everyone on the ground could hear him, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked baek toward the ground.

The ball rised up in the air and then started to fall. Harry had leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down — next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball. There were lots of screams of the other students watching. Harry stretched out his hand and just feet from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist. 

It was just like seekers catching the golden snitch, maybe next year they could take the tryouts together for the quidditch team. He had amazing potential to be a seeker.

“HARRY POTTER!” Oh no.

Professor McGonagall was running toward them.

“Never — in all my time at Hogwarts —”

Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shook, and her glasses flashed furiously, “How dare you — might have broken your neck —”

“It wasn’t his fault. Professor..”

“Be quiet, Miss Patil.”

“But Malfoy..”

“That’s enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now.”

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle had triumphant faces as he left, it made no sense since the one that actually ‘won’ was the green eyed boy. Harry was walking numbly in Professor McGonagall’s wake as she strode toward the castle.

“What do you think it’s going to happen to him?” asked Ron

“At least a week of detention” said Charles. “He would make a perfect seeker”

“Now that you say so I kind of see it. Yeah he would. — You should tell him to do the tryouts with you next year!”

“Are you not?”

“Don’t think so. I want to get better before any tryout”

“Hope he gets expelled.” they overheard Malfoy said to Crabbe, Goyle and some other Slytherins.

“Shut your mouth, Malfoy.” said Charles. “As far as everyone here knows he’s not just better than you at flying but also did kinda humiliated you catching that Remembrall.”

His ears went pink and Ron had to contain his laugh. Something other Gryffindors didn’t do. He was really annoying and he had enough. He was clearly going to say something, but before he could do so Madam Hooch came back in order to finish the class.