Draco Malfoy and the Sorcerer's Stone

ᗰIᗪᑎIGᕼT ᗪᑌEᒪ

(If it's glitching out, please ignore the first photo. The second one is Casper Thorn, not the first)

I never thought I would hate so much, then I met Casper Thorn. Let me explain, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so I didn't have to put up with Thorn much after. Or at least, I didn't until we spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room that made us all groan. Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday — and, Slytherin and Gryffindors 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 Thorn." 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 I reasonably. "Anyway, I know Thorn always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk." I assured. Thorn 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 about the time he'd almost hit a hang glider on Charlie's old broom. Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron told us he had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared a dormitory, about soccer. Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his grandmother had never let him near one.

Privately, I 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 us 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.

I had been getting more letters from Sirius and Y/n, something that Thorn had been quick to notice, of course. Thorn's eagle owl was always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table. A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed 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 Casper Thorn, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand.

Harry, Ron, and I jumped to our feet. We were half hoping for a reason to fight Thorn, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash. "What's going on?" She questioned. "Thorn's got my Remembrall, Professor." Neville replied. Scowling, Thorn quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table. "Just looking," he said, and he sloped away. At three-thirty that afternoon, Harry and I, and the other Gryffindor house hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for our first flying lesson.

It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under our feet as they marched 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 Slytherin were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. I had heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.