PHANTOM FIGURES | harry potter

4. midnight adventures

The next best thing anyone could talk about besides Harry, was flying and Quidditch. Everyday at meal times Aspen would constantly hear Draco Malfoy bragging about how good he was and how he narrowly escaped muggle helicopters when he rode. Padma said she and her sister had their own brooms at home, but their mother did not advise them to play for the school teams.

On Thursday morning, the day of their first Flying lesson, Aspen put jam on her toast as usual and listened to Sue and Padma talk about the new class.

"Are you guys not scared?" Aspen questioned.

Sue nodded her head. "Of course I am, but I'm almost positive we don't actually go in the air on the first day."

Padma agreed with her. "I think we just start with the basic things first, and half of it will probably be a lecture from Madam Hooch." She giggled at the idea.

Their conversation was interrupted when mail arrived. Multiple owls swarming the hall and dropping presents or letters to their respective owners. Padma and Sue each got a letter of their own. Aspen had already assumed she would not be getting anything because Margaret had no clue what to do.

"What did they say?"

"Oh, mom and dad are just checking up on me," Padma said. "They're surprised Parvarti and I got placed in different houses. We are quite similar, I suppose."

"My father is very pleased I'm in Ravenclaw, he was in it too." Sue smiled. "Aspen do you know which house your family was in?"

Aspen thought back to what the Sorting Hat had said, You could be like your father, but that might be too much. "I think my father was in a different house."

"Oh, that's all right," Sue comforted. "That happens with a lot of kids, so I've been told, just some of them happen to follow in their family's footsteps."

Aspen nodded, content with what she said. She looked over at the Gryffindor table, surprised to see Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle there (she did not take them as one who would eat with other Houses), Harry and Ron standing up too. "What is going on there?"

Sue and Padma turned as well, watching the scene play out. Professor McGonagall came to them quickly, she could spot trouble the fastest.

There was brief conversation before Malfoy dropped something on the table and slouched away, his friends at his side.

At three-thirty that afternoon, Aspen and other first years hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, the grass rippled under their feet as they walked 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 roughly thirty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Aspen had heard an older Ravenclaw boy complaining about the school brooms, saying they went haywire if you flew too high.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, grey 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."

Aspen was between Jasmine and Harry. Her broom was old and had some twigs sticking out at odd angles.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front. "And say 'Up!'"

"Up!" Everyone shouted.

Aspen's broom rolled on the ground for a moment before it went in the air and dropped down again. Next to her, Harry's broom went to his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione's rolled on the ground, and Neville's had not moved at all.