survivor | HARRY POTTER

-Chapter 5-

Alyssa had hardly ever thought she would meet a boy she despised more than her brother, who was currently in the stage of hating her guts for no reason whatsoever, but that was before she met Draco Malfoy. She had to put up with him every lesson, which was torture, and it only got worse when a notice was pinned in the house common rooms saying that Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday. "Typical." Jess had sighed, shaking her head and glaring at nothing when Alyssa and Millie had sat down in front of her at breakfast that morning. "Just what I always wanted. To make a fool out of myself in front of a bunch of people."

"You don't know you'll make a fool of yourself. Anyway, the people going on about how amazing they are at Quidditch are probably just lying anyways." Alyssa said reasonably. Malfoy, for one, most certainly did talk about Quidditch a lot, complaining loudly about the first years never making the house team until Alyssa turned around and whacked him on the head with a book, telling long and boastful stories which almost always seemed to end up with "Hey! Wake up everybody!" He wasn't the only one though: the way Seamus Finnegan told it, he had spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on a broomstick, and even Ron would tell anyone who would listen about the time he'd almost hit a hang-glider on Charlie's old broom.

Everyone from wizarding families was constantly talking about Quidditch, except for Alyssa, who had never been on a broomstick in her entire life. When Jess had asked her, Alyssa's response had been something along the lines of "sweetie, I don't have any coordination on the ground. Imagine what I'd be like in the air." It was true, as Jess knew, that the Ravenclaw was constantly tripping over things or getting herself into sticky situations. Neville, now fully healed from the potions incident, had never been on a broomstick his entire life, claiming his gran had never allowed him to even look at one. Millie couldn't help but think that this was for good reason, because Neville had managed to have an extraordinary number of incidents with both feet on the ground.

Hermione was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was, as Quidditch was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book, not that she hadn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday, she had bored everyone at the Gryffindor table with stupid flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book, Neville hanging on to every word whilst doing so, desperate for anything to help him stay on his broomstick later. She had only stopped when Millie had fallen asleep and ended up with her face in her porridge.
Harry hadn't received a single letter since Hagrid's note, something that Malfoy was quick to notice. Malfoy's eagle owl was always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table, making sure that Millie was watching him.

Just as Jess was pouring herself some more orange juice, something Alyssa was allergic to and refused to drink, a large barn owl dropped a small package in front of Neville, which turned out to be a glass ball the size of a large marble, filled with swirling white smoke. "It's a remembrall! 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 round face fell, because the remembrall had suddenly flowed scarlet. "... you've forgotten something." Millie, who was sat beside Neville, was trying to help the poor boy remember what he had forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was rather jealous to say the least, snatched the remembrall right out of his hand.

Harry, Ron, and Jess shot to their feet whilst Alyssa simply rolled her eyes and continued eating. Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble faster than any other teacher in the school, was there in a flash, glaring at the scene with flared nostrils and narrowed eyes. "What's going on?"
"Malfoy's got my remembrall, Professor."

Scowling, Malfoy quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table, glaring up at the teacher. "Just looking." He sneered, and sent a quick wink in Millie's direction before sloping away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.
At three thirty that afternoon, the first year students hurried down the front steps into the grounds for their first flying lesson of the year, eager and nervous smiles on their faces. It was a clear, breezy day, the emerald green grass rippling under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns towards a field on the opposite side of the grounds to the Forbidden Forest.