The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Flying Lessons

Sirius turned around just time time. The next thing any of them new, the two boys had their arms locked around each other's necks and were hitting one another quite hard like a couple of muggle boys.

"FIGHT!" bellowed one of the other Slytherin boys and they all gathered around in a circle, blocking Sirius and Severus from Lily's view.

"Oh don't! Don't! Please don't!" Lily shrieked, ducking left and right, trying desperately to break into the circle of Slytherins, plus James and Peter. Remus was standing outside of the loop, too, awkwardly rubbing his elbow and staring at Lily apologetically while she cried.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" Madam Hooch had just come from the Quidditch Equipment building by the pitch carrying armfuls of school brooms under her arms, which she dropped to the ground as she broke into a sprint, grabbing a whistle from around her neck and blowing into it frantically.

Fweet! Fweeeet! Fweeeet!

She pushed her way between the crowd of students and grabbed both Sirius and Severus around the necks of their robes roughly shoving them apart as they scrambled, trying to get at each other again. "Enough of this! Fifty points from both your houses! And detention for you both!" she shouted. The boys stopped fighting as she scolded them, glaring between the two of them, but it didn't stop them glowering at one another, each having bloody noses and Sirius a cut lip. "Everyone get a broom," she shouted at the rest of the students, "Arrange yourself about 3 feet apart in this area while I deposit these two with Madam Pomfrey in the castle." She frogmarched the boys off the grounds to the castle.

Lily watched them go, worried, wondering if she shouldn't go along with them to keep Severus company.

"I got you a broom before the best ones were taken," James was suddenly appearing at her elbow, holding out a broom. She took it hesitantly as the entrance door closed on the castle. "He'll be alright," he said to her. "Sirius didn't get many good shots in, honestly." He shrugged and turned away, running off to where Remus and Peter Pettigrew were checking that they were at least three feet away from the other students. Lily walked over and joined the end of the row.

"You Gryffindors better watch your back," said a large Slytherin boy from the other end of the row.

"Just let it go," Lily heard Remus hiss to James, who'd looked angrily in the direction of the Slytherins. "It's not worth the trouble we'll get into."

Lily sighed, standing there holding her broom, staring around at the other students. She'd never used a broom before, other than for cleaning, and this one was shaped very differently than any she'd ever seen before. James was one of the only ones that seemed fully comfortable with the brooms.

Madam Hooch came back across the grounds without Sirius and Severus and cleared her throat as she stood before them with her own broom, which was much nicer than any of the school brooms, which, Lily noticed, had little brass plates upon the handles with model numbers like Cleansweep 1970 and Starchaser 4 on them. Madam Hooch launched into a lecture on flying etiquette and the theory behind it. "Has anybody here flown before?" she asked.

James's hand flew into the air, as well as a few Slytherin hands, too.

"What sort of brooms do you fly?" she asked, going around through the people who had raised their hands. The models were varying, mostly the answers were various numbers of Starchasers - most of them higher numbers than a four, though one boy said he flew a Starchaser 2 - until they got to James who said he had one of the new Nimbus brooms. Madam Hooch looked impressed, "That's a very nice broom!" she exclaimed.

"My dad used to play for the team," James explained, "Quidditch has always been a big deal in the Potter house."

"Well that Cleansweep '70 you've got there is going to feel like it's parked compared to a Nimbus, but you should be able to fly it without much trouble." She cleared her throat, "Okay everybody, mount your brooms."