A notice was pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made them all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday -- and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.
"Typical," said Harry darkly. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy."
He had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.
"You don't know that you'll make a fool of yourself," said Ron reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk."
Malfay certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about first years never getting on the house Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters.
He wasn't the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick.
Even Ron would tell anyone who'd listen, and Violet wasn't one of them, about the time he'd almost hit a hang glider on Charlie's old broom.
Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared their dormitory, about football. Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Harry and Violet had caught Ron prodding Dean's poster of West Ham soccer team, trying to make the players move.
"It's a Muggle poster, Ron," Violet told him, making him jump. "They're not going to move."
"Why not?"
"Because the way pictures here move are made by magic, and Muggles don't have magic," she said as if she was speaiking to a young child, not one that was older than herself.
Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Violet felt 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 a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.
Violet got a small package, and it had been sent by Chris. Inside were her favourite Muggle sweet that he made. She cast a spell on them to never run out, then handed it over to Harry after taking one, and he handed it around.
A barn owl brought Neville 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 scarlet, "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 Malfay, 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 back on the table.
