The Almost Chosen Ones: The Longbottom Twins (A Harry Potter Fan Fiction)

Airborne Trouble

After lunch we had History of Magic, so it didn't really get much better. It was taught by a ghost, Professor Binns, who had fallen asleep by the staff room fire and gotten up the next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. I think he was going over his own class notes when they just bored him to death. He droned on in a dull, monotonous voice while we wrote down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. Seemed like this was another class I'd have to learn by the book on my own.

Charms the next day wasn't too bad. It was taught by Professor Flitwick, Head of Ravenclaw, who was this tiny little wizard, who must have been at least part goblin. He had to stand on a pile of books just to see over his own desk. The most interesting thing that happened in that class was when he was doing roll call and he reached Harry's name, he gave an excited high-pitched squeak and toppled out of sight.

I was right to think that Professor McGonagall would not be a teacher you wanted to cross. She was very brilliant and strict. "Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said as soon as everyone sat down in their seats. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned."

She had us write a bunch of complicated notes before we were allowed to try the spell to turn a match into a needle. She transformed into a tabby cat, which was totally wicked, and stalked through the aisles a few times before jumping onto her desk.

Suddenly the door burst open before Ron and Harry walked briskly down the middle aisle to find an empty seat. Ron sighed loudly, "Finally, we made it. Can you imagine the look on McGonagall's face if we were late?" Yeah, about that. McGonagall jumped off her desk and transformed back into herself midair and walked up to the pair of them. Their jaws dropped. "That was bloody brilliant!" Ron exclaimed and I had to agree. "Well, thank you for that assessment Mr. Weasley. Perhaps it would be more useful if I were to transfigure Mr. Potter and yourself into a pocket watch, that one of you might be on time."

"We got lost." Harry said in defense.

"Then perhaps a map." She retorted. "I trust you don't need one to find your seats."

When we were done writing our notes for the day, we were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson Hermione was the only one who made any real difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the rest of the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Hermione a rare smile. My match was pointy, but still wooden.

Neville's favorite class was Herbology, of course, where we learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi that were in the greenhouses behind the castle. It was taught by a portly little witch called Professor Sprout, who was also the Head of Hufflepuff House.

Nothing really interesting happened until we came down the stairs on Saturday and saw a notice that must have been pinned up the night before in the Gryffindor common room that stated that flying lessons would be starting on Thursday at three thirty. The only problem with that is that we would be learning with the Slytherins. Great, just what I need. To hear Malfoy brag some more about how good of a flier he is...blah, blah, blah. 

Gran never let Nev and I near brooms because of our track record with accidents.  I mean, I know she has a point, we are danger magnets, but I was still really excited to learn how to fly. Nev didn't really share my excitement. In fact, he was out right terrified. Hermione was also scared that there was something that she couldn't learn from a book, not to say that she didn't try. Once Thursday came around she was bombarding us with tips that she got from Quidditch Through the Ages in the library. Nev was hanging onto her every word, while everyone else tried to ignore her rambling as they were eating breakfast.