Brave { Neville Longbottom}

Chapter Fourteen

Kefira was munching on a piece of toast happily at the table when the mail came in. An owl dropped a letter in front of her and she quickly recognized her mother's neat handwriting.

Kefira definitely did not inherit that from her mother, as her handwriting resembled a chicken attempting to write after it's head had been severed.

She glanced over to see that Neville had received some mail as well.

"Hey look!" Seamus began, " Neville's got a Remembrall."

"What's a Remembrall?" Kefira asked.

"I've  read about those," Hermione interjected,"when the smoke turns red, it means you've forgotten something."

Watching the smoke turn red in the circular object, Kefira grinned.

"Looks like you did forget something Neville."

"The only problem is, I can't remember what I've forgotten." Neville said scratching the top of his head.

"Don't worry, Neville, it'll come to you." Kefira told him as she held the mysterious ball in her hand. "Funny thing...wouldn't it just have been easier to send a letter telling you what you had forgotten?"

Standing outside the castle, Kefira was preparing for her first flying lesson.

"This is going to be great." Kefira said squeezing onto Faye's robes.

"Speak for yourself." Faye said. "Just the idea of flying is making me nauseous."

"What? Are you insane? I'm so excited, I might explode."

"Gee, I couldn't tell." Faye smirked.

"I can't wait to tell Mum about this. Flying brooms, she's never going to make me sweep the floors again once she hears about it!"

Madam Hooch was probably one of the coolest people Kefira had ever met. With her spikey grey hair and her amber hawk-like eyes, everything about the woman demanded Kefira's attention. She stood with her classmates,  as Madam Hooch greeted them.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" the woman said impatiently. "Everyone stand by a broomstick."

"I like her." Kefira said.

The first part of the lesson, involved just getting the broom up. Which proved way more difficult than the first years had anticipated.

Kefira couldn't get her broom up the first time along with many of her other classmates, but it didn't matter, she just enjoyed being outside, being able to look around.

However, Madam Hooch was becoming impatient with the lack of progress urging them to try harder.

Kefira looked around to where some of the Slytherin students were, but as she peered out of the corner of her eye she was able to see Harry Potter get his broom up.

She frowned focusing hard on her broom. "Up!"

The wood of the broom smacked her hand causing her to wince but she was glad to see that her broom was finally up.

After Madam Hooch managed to get all the students with the brooms up, she instructed them to mount.

 "Now, once you've got hold of your broom, I want you to mount it. And grip it tight, you don't want to be sliding off the end.  When I blow my whistle, I want each of you to kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your broom steady, hover for a moment, and then lean forward slightly and touch back down. On my whistle...three...two..."

She blew her whistle.

Before anyone could think of getting off the ground, Neville had beaten everyone to it. However, instead of lifting off the ground lightly, he was up in the air, unable to control his broom.

"Mr. Longbottom." Madam Hooch turned to the boy.

"Neville, what are you doing?" Kefira asked him.  

Before Madam Hooch could instruct the boy down, Neville took off on his broom.

"Whoa," Kefira grinned. "Look at him go!"

"I don't think this is intentional, Kefi." Faye said.

"Still, it's pretty awesome."

"I'm not sure Neville thinks so!"

"Help!" Neville called.

"Mr. Longbottom, come down here this instant." Madam Hooch ordered.

"Don't think he knows how to land yet, Madam." Kefira told the woman. Neville nearly crashed into the students as they all dodged out of the way, Kefira was dragged down by Dean who shook his head.

"The boy's going to get himself killed." Dean said.

The two winced as Neville struck the castle wall hard and fell to the ground.

"Ow." Kefira said softly.

"I know that hurt!" Dean added.

Madam Hooch had all the students stare clear as she checked Neville.

"Are you alright, Nev?" Kefira called to him.

"OW!" Neville screeched in response to Madam Hooch examining him, quickly discovering his broken wrist.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh dear. It's a broken wrist. Tch, tch, tch. Good boy, come on now, up you get." She helped the boy to his feet."  Everyone's to keep their feet firmly on the ground while I take Mr. Longbottom to the hospital wing. Understand? If I see a single broom in the air, the one riding it will find themselves out of Hogwarts before they can say, Quidditch."

The two left and soon after Kefira took a step toward the same direction they had left.

"Kefi," Faye grabbed her by the back of the robes. "Where are you going?"

"I want to see if he's okay."

"But Madam Hooch told us to stay here."

"No, she told us to keep our feet firmly on the ground." Kefira quipped before walking off leaving Faye along, just in time to hear Draco Malfoy run his mouth.

Draco had a hold of Neville's Remembrall in hand. "Did you see his face? Maybe if the fat lump had given this a squeeze, he'd have remembered to fall on his fat arse."

Faye's first thought was he was lucky that Harry Potter stepped in to intervene and not Kefira.

Kefira entered the Hospital Wing, and found Neville sitting on one of the beds and Hooch and Madame Pomfrey discussed what had happened.

"Hey Neville."

Neville's head whipped over to see her bouncing over to him before she plopped down on an empty bed beside his. He quickly wiped at his eyes using the sleeve of his robe.

"W-what are you doing here?" he asked.

"I wanted to see if you were okay. I know broken bones can be a complete pain...literally."

He grinned. "It's not so bad." he said trying his best to put on a brave face.

"I broke my wrist once too.." she told him. "Climbing up a tree in my front yard..."

Madam Hooch caught sight of one of her other students in the hospital wing, but instead of scolding the girl for leaving the other students, she allowed them to be.

"Well, at least the boy has stopped crying."