The Spiteful Sorting Hat

Halloween

The day finally came when Professor Flitwick announced that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly. The students were put into pairs to practice. Harry found himself partnered with Millicent, which made him slightly nervous. Millie was incredibly gifted when it came to hexes and jinxes, but was stunningly awful at charms. It was a fact that often led her to get frustrated during class, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Harry cast an imploring glance toward Blaise, who snickered at his plight. He didn't have long to laugh at Harry's expense, as he was quickly paired off with Draco Malfoy. Harry suppressed his own laughter at the look of dismay that overspread Blaise's features.

"Now, don't forget that wrist movement we've been practicing!" squeaked Professor Flitwick. He was a minuscule man, and had to deliver this speech from the top of a pile of spell-books. "Swish and flick!"

He lifted his arm in a demonstration of the movement, inviting students to practice the correct form themselves. Harry watched a few sparks skip out of the end of Millie's wand with apprehension.

"Very good!" Professor Flitwick said. He hadn't noticed Millicent's pyrotechnic display. "And saying the magic words properly is very important as well! Remember, Wingardium Leviosa!"

It was very difficult. Harry was too preoccupied with keeping Millie's temper in check to really focus on making their feather fly. Though perhaps if he manged it, he could give her the credit and fend off a possible magic fit.

"Did you see that?" Millie asked, "I think it moved just a little, don't you?"

Harry was of the opinion that the draft caused by all their swishing and flicking was the result of the slight shift of their feather, but he quickly agreed that they were certainly making progress. He felt slightly better upon seeing that Malfoy was struggling just as much as them.

"Wingardriam Levioosa!" he shouted, waving his arm about and doing very little to move his feather.

Blaise watched him with a smile on his face, head resting in one hand, elbow propped on the desk. "You're saying it wrong, Draco."

"Well, why don't you give it a try?" Malfoy whined, "You've done nothing but sit there watching me for the past ten minutes!"

"Wingardium Leviosa," Blaise said with a lazy flick of his wand. Harry was astonished to see the feather not only rise off the desk, but float with an easy grace over the heads of the students. It finally came to rest directly on top of Professor Flitwick's head.

"What? What's this? Who's...? Ah, Mr. Zabini! Yes, well done! See here, everyone, Mr. Zabini has got the hang of it! Five points to Slytherin!"

Malfoy made a sour expression, adding to Harry's pleasure at his friend's success. Millie, however, looked just as displeased as Malfoy.

"Show off..." she muttered so that only Harry could hear.

Harry gave her a sympathetic smile. "Relax, you know he'll teach us both how to do it as soon as class is over."

And he was right. Blaise was perfectly happy to describe his spell-casting process to his friends, though they had to wade through all the boasting to get at any useful information.

"Sure, charms are easy. Once you've got the hang of one or two, you basically can figure out how to do them all," he bragged, sounding more like a man who had been practicing wandwork over a long career and not a boy of eleven who had only been studying magic for two months. "The movement and the pronunciation are all well and good, but it's the feeling more than anything else. You just have to know what you want to do, and know that you can do it."