Flying
Marlene sat with her legs crossed over the bench at the Gryffindor table, “You know,” she said through a mouthful of porridge, Lily wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Marls, do you really need to talk with your mouthful? I don’t want to see what you're eating,” She said, shuddering slightly. Marlene screwed up her face, swallowed, and then poked out her tongue. Mary laughed, “Real mature,” Lily said, fighting back a smile.
“Anyways, what was it you were going to say?” Mary said as Marlene opened her mouth to retaliate. “Oh, I haven’t heard back from my brother yet, I thought he would respond straight away, but it’s been nearly a week,” she says, somewhat disappointed by her brother's radio silence. “I mean…” she sighed, “I just miss him,” She stared sadly into her porridge, Mary reached over to pat her arm. “Don’t worry Marls, I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe he’s been busy with work, or your owl’s sick!”
“Of course,” she said, the sound of an owl screeching filling the great hall, “Maybe he’s written something today?” Lily said, trying to be positive for her friend.
But when the post had come and gone and no letter had arrived for Marlene, she finished eating her porridge and attempted to push down the disappointment she could feel bubbling up inside her.
Lily and Mary finished the last of their toast, but before any of them were able to pack up, a large brown owl swooped in and made a beeline for where they sat. Mary shrieked, ducking her head as the large owl swooped down and sat right in front of Marlene, offering up a brown envelope in its mouth to her.
Her eyes shone with excitement as she grabbed the letter quickly but gently, and tore it open. She carefully pulled the letter out and began reading it. “It's from my brother!” she squealed gleefully. Mary and Lily exchanged smiles at their friend's delighted face.
Dear Marlene,
I’m sorry I haven’t written to you sooner. I’ve been super busy with Quidditch and haven’t been able to answer.
Congratulations on getting into Gryffindor, I knew you would!
I hope school hasn’t been too busy for you yet, I remember when I went, we didn’t do fun stuff until well after the winter holidays.
But don’t worry you’ll get there eventually!
I’m glad you were able to make friends so quickly, maybe you should invite them around during these coming holidays? I wouldn’t mind having you all over.
Or I’m sure Euphemia would gladly host you all.
Hey, speaking of the Potters, don’t worry about not talking to James and Peter as often, I know that you guys will always be friends. I mean you have been since you were all little kids. I wouldn’t be too worried about it.
Quidditch has been going alright, like I said before it’s super busy, but at least it's fun.
I can’t wait to see you for the holidays
Your Brother,
Josh
She reread the letter again and held it to her chest tightly as if she were imagining hugging her brother.
“You were right,” She directed to Mary, “He was just busy with Quidditch stuff,” “I knew there would have been a reason for it!” she chirped. The girls began packing up their things, and Marlene carefully slid the letter between two of her books, making sure to not crinkle or dirty the letter.
“Ughh, we have our first flying lesson today” Lily groaned, staring down at the crumpled timetable in her hand.
“YES” Marlene shrieked excitedly “I LOVE FLYING, I’m going to make the team next year you know, the youngest girl in a century”
“Easy for you to say” Lily grumbled, “You’ve been flying your whole life, The only thing I’ve ever used a broom for is sweeping”
“You’re going to love it so much!” Marlene exclaimed, her eyes lighting up in excitement, “It’s like floating, but really really fast, and the broom listens to you, wherever you want to go! it just takes you there! And then…”
“Alright, Marlene” Mary cut her off laughing, “save some of the experience for when we’re actually in the air. C’mon now, we still have to make it through our first two classes.”
When they stumbled into the great hall after a particularly exciting herbology lesson (one of the plants had grabbed a student by the ankle and dangled him in the air for twenty minutes) they noticed Peter waving them down with an exasperated expression.
“James will not shut up about flying” Peter huffed, beckoning for them to sit down.
“Neither will Marlene,” Mary replied grinning as Marlene sat herself down opposite James and they immediately fell into conversation.
The pair chatted together, getting louder and louder the more excited they became. Lunch had appeared on the table, and Marlene hadn’t even battered an eye when the food appeared, she mindlessly reached for an orange but missed it. She waved her hand around foolishly before even hitting the bowl.
She stopped mid-sentence and glanced down to where her hand was, she rolled her eyes and laughed, picking up a slice. James laughed too, throwing a grape in the air and catching it in his mouth with perfect precision. “Nice one, James,” Sirius said, smacking his arm. He tried to do the same but instead of catching it in his mouth, the grape landed in his eye.
Peter laughed from the seat next to Marlene, Sirius scowled deeply, crossing his arms. “I could have gone blind Pettigrew, now is not the time to be laughing!” This made James and Marlene laugh now too. Sirius’ scowl deepened, he huffed and picked up another grape and this time missed his face altogether.
“Alright Sirius,” Marlene said, dragging the bowl of grapes away from him, “That's enough, you might take someone's eye out,” they erupted into laughter again, Sirius even cracked a small smile.
The first year Gryffindors and the first year Slytherins stood on their respective halves of the semi-circle; their teacher, Madame Volare, stood between the groups. Each student held a broom in their hand and had large goggles on their head.
“Now,” Madame Volare started at the front of the half circle, “Before we can do any flying, you will need to learn how to be able to mount, hover, and dismount your broom,” she listed sharply, she had a bird-like face and shirt grey hair that was cut close to her head.
Marlene, Mary, and Lily huddled together at the back of the class. Marlene was shivering. “I told you to bring a jumper,” Lily frowned, clearly more annoyed with herself for not preparing for her friend beforehand than with Marlene herself. “You can have mine,” Mary said, starting to shrug hers off. “Don’t worry about me,” Marlene said, rolling her shoulders, trying to act tough, “I’ll warm up in no time when I’m zooming around the field, kicking Slytherin Butt!” She added the last part more loudly so the Slytherins could hear her.
Unfortunately, this meant that Madam Volare could as well, “Ahhhh, there will be none of that, yet Miss Mckinnon,” she could hear the smile in her voice, “Although competitiveness is encouraged in my class, I don’t want to have to deal with the paperwork that comes with injuries so do try and be safe,” A wicked grin spreads across Marlene’s face. She’s been training for this moment her whole life, there's no way she isn’t going to show off now.
The class starts off easy, or at least what Marlene thinks to be easy, Dorcas and a few of the other Slytherins seem to be pretty confident with what they are doing. Dorcas seems to be the best of them, she was the first of them to start levitating on her broom, much to Marlene’s annoyance. She could feel the smirk that Dorcas had as she tried to get off the ground. It took two more kicks and she was floating as well, but slightly higher than the girl.
Dorcas noticed and screwed up her face, pulling up her broom so she now floated a few centimetres above Marlene. She watched as Marlene realised this and in turn, she scrunched up her face, annoyed. She huffed deeply and this time pulled the handle of her broom sharply skywards, the broom lurched 3 metres in the air.
Madame Volare stopped her lesson mid-sentence and turned her direction to Marlene, skywards. The rest of the class turned their faces to the pair. The Slytherin began a quick ascend upwards, quickly racing towards Marlene. James was hollering and cheering from his space in the crowd below.
“WOOOOO! GO MARLS! KICK HER BUTT!” From her bird's eye view, she could see him waving his fist in the air, the other he used to steady himself. A few feet to the left she could see the grinning face of Mary and the apprehensive expression on Lily’s. This made her falter slightly, Dorcas rocketed past on her broom, causing Marlene to lose her balance. Her broom began spiralling downwards.
A loud gasp could be heard from the Gryffindors, and a few snickers rippled through the Slytherins. Lily gasped, and her hand quickly flew to her mouth. Madame Volare snatched a broom from one of the still-grounded Skytherins. Quickly racing towards the falling girl she shouted, “Pull the handle of your broom up!” Marlene was in far too much of a panic to be able to register the words of her professor.
She could hear her blood racing in her ears, and the wind pushed all thoughts out of her head except for her only instinct to hold on as tightly as she could. The ground was getting closer and closer and very soon she was going to hit it.
She hit the ground hard, her vision blurring. A sharp pain shot through her left arm. She tried taking in a deep breath but she was far too winded. Gasping for air, Marlene tried to push herself up on her good arm. James was next to her in an instant. “Try not to move too many Marls, you might have broken something,” She could barely make out the figures of people standing above her. “Shhh, it's okay,” He said, patting her arm.
Someone next to her picked up her arm gently, “Definitely broken,” She muttered to herself. “Come on Marlene, dear, I’ll take you to the Nurse’s office.” Madame Volare said calmly, “As for the rest of you, class is off for the rest of the afternoon. Miss. Meadows, I expect to see you in detention at 5 o’clock sharp this evening.” she said, firmly. Everyone scattered, minus for Mary and Lily.
Marlene was lifted into the air by a strong pair of arms and was carried towards what she could only assume to be the castle. Somewhere along the distance from the quidditch pitch and the castle she lost consciousness. Not before she heard James asking, what she guessed to be Sirius, “She could’ve just jumped off her broom at the last second, right?” followed by a giggle from Sirius and a shushing sound from Lily.
Marlene was awoken by the gentle shaking of Madame Pomfrey, she opened her eyes, groggy, “Whe- where am I?” She said dazed, trying to push herself up onto her arms, but instead, she was pushed back down gently, but firmly, by Madame Pomfrey. “Stay still dear, I don’t want you to hurt yourself any more than what you have,” she says, concern etched across her forehead. “You’ve broken your left arm, and although it shouldn’t take me long to mend, I’m going to keep you in here tonight and tomorrow,”
Marlene nodded, “Alright,” she barely managed to croak out, her mouth dry.
The medwitch drifted to the other side of the room, she went over to a rack of potions and salves and selected a clear round bottle with a murky yellow liquid inside of it. Marlene groaned, knowing exactly what it was, having broken a few bones herself in her life. She closed her eyes in disgust, nearly considering telling the nurse to stick it and just let her bone heal the muggle way. Deciding against it in the end she allowed the nurse to pour the potion into a glass for her. “I know it’s disgusting,” the witch said sympathetically, “But if you drink it quickly it shouldn’t be too bad," she said, patting Marlene’s good arm.
Taking in a deep breath and blocking her nose, she tipped the cold glass to her mouth and knocked it back as quick as she could trying not to taste it, still, the repulsive flavour of the potion hit her hard. She gagged a little wrinkling up her face and began coughing, “Remind me,” she breathed, “to never ever ever, break another bone,” she half laughed. Madame Pomfrey smiled, and handed her a glass of water, “This should wash out the taste,” Marlene took the cup and downed the water in it, she yawned and tried to stretch out her arm, which had started to feel warm and tingly.
“You should get some rest now, dear, so you miss most of the effects,” Marlene did exactly that, she wiggled down into her bed sheets as much as she could and started to let herself drift away.
Not five minutes into her trying to sleep, the main door creaked slowly open. Whispers could be heard but she couldn’t make out what was being said, only a few words, ‘accident’ and ‘apology’ were among the ones she could gather. The door opened again and another set of footsteps could be heard.
Marlene opened her eyes properly and rubbed them until she felt a little more awake, she could see now that Madam Pomfrey, Madame Volare, and Dorcas Meadowes stood by the door. Dorcas stood there with her arms crossed across her chest and her brow creased? Although Marlene couldn’t tell from the distance.
They started walking over and when they reached the bed, Madame Pomfrey whispered to her, “Honey, are you still awake?” She decided on whether or not she was going to respond, and in the end, she decided she would, “Mhm,” She said, trying to sound more sleepy than she was. “Go on Dorcas,” Madame Volare said, Marlene had barely noticed her standing there, she nudged Dorcas's shoulder with her arm in encouragement.
Dorcas stood forward and cleared her throat, her face hard, unreadable, “Sorry, Marlene,” She started, “That you lost control of your broom,” she had a small smirk on her face, some of the hardness had left her expression. Madame Volare cleared her throat, crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, “And I’m sorry that I caused it,” she dropped her arms to her sides but her face was still screwed up.
Marlene shrugged as much as she could move, “It's okay,” she said, “I think that means I won though,” She laughed, but the other girl did not, although a sly smile grew on her lips, ”I don’t think so Mckinnon,” this made her smile too, despite her situation, “You’re on for a rematch, Meadowes,” Marlene said, her smile growing wider, Dorcas managed a soft smile back.
“Alright come on now, Dorcas,” Madame Volare said, “We best leave Marlene to rest now,” she put her hand on her shoulder blades and began leading the young witch away from the hospital bed, “Goodnight,” She called out over her shoulder, “Goodnight,” Marlene called back.
She rolled over in the lumpy bed and wondered what Salem would be doing by himself now, and before long one thought led to another and soon she had fallen asleep, dreaming dreams of skydivers and apologies.