Dawn Rivera

The Midnight Duel

Me and Hermione are almost as nervous about flying as Neville is. This is something you can't learn by heart out of a book - not that we haven't tried. At breakfast on Thursday we bore them all with, what they probably think them as, stupid flying tips we got out of a library book called Quidditch Through The Ages. Neville is hanging onto our every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everyone else seems very pleased when our lecture is interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

I've noticed that Harry has only had one letter, something Malfoy has been quick to notice too, of course. Malfoy's eagle owl is always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opens gloatingly at the Slytherin table.

A barn owl brings Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opens it excitedly and shows us a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seems to be filled with white smoke.

"It's a Remembrall!" Neville explains. "Gran knows I forget things - this tells you if there's something you've forgotton to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red-oh..." His face falls, because the Remembrall has suddenly glowed scarlett. I look at him fondly. We've gotten closer these past days...

"You've forgotton something..." Harry states the obvious.

Neville is trying to remember what he's forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who is passing the Gryffindor table, snatches the Remembrall out of his hand. I glare at him.

Harry and Ron jump to their feet. They are half-hoping for a reason to fight Malfoy, but Professor McGonagall, who can spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, is here in a flash.

"What's going on?" she asks.

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor." Neville tells her.

Scowling, Malfoy quickly drops the Remembrall back on the table.

"Just looking," he says, and he slopes away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him.

At the three thirty in the afternoon, me, Harry, Ron and the other Gryffindors hurry down the front steps onto the grounds for our first flying lesson. It is a clear, breezy day, and the grass ripples under our feet as we march down the sloping lawns onto a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees are swaying darkly in the distance.

The Slytherins are already there, and so are twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. I heard the Weasley twins complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them start to vibrate if you fly too high, or always fly slightly to the left.

Our teacher, Madam Hooch, arrives. She has short, grey hair and yellow eyes like a hawk.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she barks. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

I glance down at my broom.It is old and some of the twigs stick out at odd angles.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," calls Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"

"Up!" everyone shouts.

Harry's broom jumps into his hand at once, but it is one of the few that does. Mine and Hermione's simply roll over on the ground, and Neville's hasn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, can tell when you're afraid, I think; there is a quaver in Neville's voice that says only too clearly he wants to keep his feet on the ground.

Madam Hooch then shows us how to mount our brooms without sliding off the end, and walks up and down the rows correcting our grip. Harry and Ron are clearly delighted when she tells Malfoy he's been doing it wrong for years.