Patrick Stump and the Flying Car Brigade

Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The next weekend, a large sign was hanging in the Hufflepuff Common Room. Out of sheer curiosity I read it, and it turned out to be something rather important.

If you are seventeen years of age, or will turn seventeen on or before the next 31st of August, you are eligible for a twelve week course of Apparition Lessons from a Ministry of Magic Apparition instructor. Please sign below if you would like to participate. Cost: 12 Galleons.

My seventeenth birthday was on April 27th, so I was eligible. I took out a quill and signed up for the lessons. I was actually somewhat excited to learn how to Apparate. It would be nice not to have to use the Floo Powder system, which never seemed to understand what I was saying.

I showed up for the first Apparition lesson, along with most of my fellow sixth years. "I wish I was able to Apparate," Mikey complained as he glided by the Great Hall, where the lessons were being held. "I would have been eligible last fall if I was still alive."

"You can walk through walls, and we can't," Dallon said. "I think we're even."

Mikey shrugged and glided away, while all of the rest of us were stuck waiting for the Apparition instructor to show up. Eventually, a small wizard with wispy hair and a frail build entered the Great Hall. I presumed that he was the Apparition instructor from the Ministry of Magic. "Good morning," he said. "My name is Wilkie Twycross and I shall be your Ministry Apparation Instructor for the next twelve weeks. I hope to be able to prepare you for the upcoming Apparition test in August." Twycross continued to ramble on about how it was usually impossible to Apparate or Disapparate inside the castle, but the spell was lifted to allow us to practice. He then told us to find a spot in the Great Hall where we would have a metre or two of space in front of us. All of us spread out, and I found a space near Miss Jackson and Brendon.

Twycross then explained the "Three Ds" of Apparation: destination, determination, and deliberation. As far as I could, nobody was really listening to him. All that I determined was that I'd rather disappear, join a monastery, and go out and preach on Manic Street, but the other teenagers in the room could care less as long as someone'll bleed.

Hula hoops then appeared in front of each of us, and Twycross instructed us to try to Apparate into the hoop. "I told you that there was less violence in the world when people are using hula hoops," Mikey commented from his spot next to the wall.

I stared directly into the centre of the hoop, but the snickers of laughter that came from Mikey's observation were distracting me. I turned on the spot as instructed, but all I managed to do was fall flat on my back. I looked around, but it seemed that nearly everyone else had done the same thing. Brendon had made it into his hoop, but that was through a rather impressive backflip, and not a successful Apparition.

"Brendon, please focus on your lesson," Professor Longbottom reminded him as he passed through the Great Hall, but Brendon simply rolled his eyes and said something about how things had changed for him.

Twycross instructed us to try once again, but this only resulted in failure once again. The next few attempts were equally uninteresting. On the fifth attempt, Miss Jackson finally managed to Apparate to a spot about a metre to the left of her hoop. "I did it!" she exclaimed. "Wait, what happened to my eyebrows?!"

"They got Splinched," Twycross explained. "It happens when you are not determined enough, but that was very good."

"I feel kind of sick," Miss Jackson said, and one of the professors led her to the Hospital Wing. Nevertheless, that was our class' first successful Apparition.

The rest of us continued to struggle through the lesson. A Ravenclaw girl that I didn't know very well managed to Apparate across the room, but even she couldn't make it into the hoop. Everyone else fell on the floor or stumbled around each time the class attempted to Apparate. "I can't do this!" Brendon screamed after yet another failed attempt.

"You need a little bit more determination," Twycross told him. "Just focus."

"You can't tell me anything about determination!" Brendon snapped. "What do you know? You're just a Ministry puppet. If you want to start a fight, you'd better throw the first punch!"

"Please calm down," Twycross said. "Try focusing on your destination, in this case, the interior of the Hula Hoop, a little more."

"Don't you dare try to tell me what to do!" Brendon screamed. "I can move mountains and I can work a miracle. All you can do is merely a disappearing act."

"Ten points from Slytherin for talking back to an instructor," Professor McGonagall said, and she then promptly took another five away after Brendon cursed rather loudly in response.

"This is so stupid," Brendon said. "First the northern downpour comes, then my girlfriend leaves me, and now I'm going to fail Apparition, but I don't care what you think as long as it's about me. I'll get champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends, but we're dead flies in the summertime, and you only live forever in the lights you make, so I'M! LEAVING!"

Brendon stormed off, but Spencer tried to stop him. "Brendon, wait!" he shouted, but Brendon ignored him.

"I don't love you like I did yesterday, Spencer," Brendon said.

"Just finish the lesson," Spencer said. "It will be fun. We agreed to sign up together."

"Don't even try to talk me out of this," Brendon said. He ran out of the Great Hall, and while we all waited for him to return, he didn't come back to the Great Hall until dinnertime.

The rest of the lesson was fairly uneventful, but I couldn't help but worry about Brendon. He wasn't acting normally, and I was scared that it was all because of me. After all, I had told Miss Jackson that she could break up with him if she wanted to, and that's what she did.

After the lesson, I returned to the Hufflepuff Common Room. As I relaxed by the fireplace and began to work on my Care of Magical Creatures essay, I saw Gerard's face emerge from the fire. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"It's time to do it now and do it loud," Gerard told me, before disappearing almost immediately, and I knew what I had to do.

It was time to pay a visit to the Daily Prophet.