"Bloody hell, this class is going to kill me!"
"Don't you think you're being a tad dramatic?"
"No." Harry replied. "I don't understand why we have flying, especially on a Monday, Monday's suck."
It was Monday, and it was once again flying class. Madam Hooch instructed them to get into partners because they were going to practise tossing a quaffle back, and forth. Jasper was partnered with Harry.
"You need to try." Jasper told him.
Harry sighed heavily. "You should have partnered up with Ian, I am going to hold you back."
Jasper shook his head. "Not if you try." Harry looked at him nervously. "Just get on the broom."
Harry sighed giving up, and swung his legs so he was sitting on the broomstick. Jasper was floating 3 feet above him holding the quaffle. Harry sat on the broom nervous to push off the ground.
Jasper gave him a smile. "You can do it." He said encouragingly. "You don't have to even go that high."
Madam Hooch walked over to Harry. "Mr. Warbeck." She started. "This is a flying class, now come on."
Harry took a deep breath, and lifted his legs off of the grass, and he started to slowly float up to where Jasper was. "See I knew you could do it!" Jasper told him, happily.
Harry had his eyes closed. This was terrifying. He didn't like heights, he didn't like flying, why did he have to take this class? What was even the point? It wasn't like he needed flying for every single career.
"I hate this. I hate this. I hate this." Harry kept repeating this phrase over, and over.
Jasper chewed his lip. Harry was only a foot off the ground with his eyes closed. "Harry...you need to open your eyes, you're not that high."
Harry slowly opened his eyes. He was floating ever so slowly higher, and higher. "I - no - I - um - how do I stop?!" He asked fearfully. Some of the other kids were looking toward him with humour on their faces.
"Steady yourself Mr. Warbeck!" Yelled Madam Hooch.
"How do I do that?!" He yelled. He kept floating higher, and higher. Jasper flew up beside him.
"Control your broom. Bring the handle down to go down, and up, to go up." Instructed Madam Hooch from below.
"Okay...okay." Harry said to himself quietly. He tried to direct the broom downwards.
All of sudden a strong wind came blowing the trees ever so slightly, making all the first years wobble on their brooms. Jasper quickly righted himself. Everyone did except...
Harry.
He was surprised by the sudden wind, and got knocked off his broom. Unfortunately he was not only a foot off the ground, during his time up in the air, he slowly had gotten higher, and higher, so he now was falling from 10 feet in the air.
Which sure, it isn't the highest you could have gone, but it spooked him. It was all so sudden, one moment he was on the broom the next he was falling, he was sure these were going to be his last moments. His falling triggered many thoughts, and familiar feelings from the first time he flew, and that had ended badly, just as this was. Harry felt like he was falling in slow motion. He could see the ground coming closer, and closer....
It was the early evening, and Harry had snuck out of the house to go to his treehouse as he called it. It was a little wooden house up in a tree that his father had built. It had become one of Harry's favourite spots to do things. Read, write, draw, just imagine anything.
It was also strangely private from all the cameras that sometimes came around his parents house seeking information on his mother. The house was hidden away, the only way you could have seen it, is if you lived next door.
The house next door.
The house next door was strange to say the least. It always seemed quiet. No one came out, no one came in it seemed. The house seemed abandoned.
But that simply wasn't true. Thanks to his treehouse he had found out people did in fact live in that house, he had seen the man, and women go out sometime, they were wizards, they wore black robes which were wizards clothing.
He remembered one day asking his mother if there was a kid his age to play with there, and all she said was "Yes, but I don't think he would like you, that family are a bunch of blood purists, stay away from them."
It wasn't hard seeing as only the parents went out every so often.
In fact he thought his mother had been lying when she said they had a son, because he never saw him.
It changed that night.
Harry was just in his treehouse, drawing when he heard a rustle from below. He at first ignored it, thinking it was a bunny, or maybe a fox, but he heard it again, so, curiosity taking over him, he looked out the window of his treehouse.
There was a figure hiding in the bushes.
Now the smart thing that Harry should've done was either hide in the treehouse, or run back to his house, but he decided to grab a flashlight, and direct the light to the bushes, and the person.
The boy in the bushes yelped, and covered his eyes. He was about Harry's age by the looks of it, maybe younger. He was small for his age. "What are you doing in the bushes?" Harry asked him.
"Ennai maneego." (Forgive me.) The boy replied frantically. "Nan summa thaan antha maramle irinthekonde veetu pakka vanthan." (I was just interested by the house in the tree, and wanted to get a closer look.)
Harry blinked, not understanding what this kid was saying, he wasn't even sure what language it was. "Er...yeah?"
The boy cocked his head to the side. "Ugh, nan enna sollaren ne ounnaku puritha?" (Do you know what I'm saying?)
"Um..." Harry started.
The boy chuckled. "Oh you must be an English boy?"
Harry nodded slowly. "Uh - yeah sorry - I mean I don't know what you're saying, sorry - um...sorry."
"No, it's my fault, I should have assumed." He looked up at Harry covering his eyes a bit from the flashlight. Harry directed it elsewhere so it wasn't shining in the boy's eyes. "In my house we speak mostly Tamil, so I forget that others...don't, does that make sense?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah I think so." He looked down at the boy who was now standing awkwardly below. "Do you want to come in?"
The boy bit his lip. "I don't know if I am allowed, I just wanted to see it. I didn't even think anyone would be in there. I'm sorry."
Harry shrugged. "Well where are your parents?"
"Out."
"And who is looking after you?"
"My aunt." The boy replied. "But she thinks I am asleep...I may have snuck out."
Harry shrugged again. "Well you can come up here quickly, I don't think she would notice." The boy hesitated, thinking for a moment, but it seemed his curiosity overtook him, and he climbed up.
They both sat there staring at each other. Harry put the flashlight down, and turned on a lantern. "So do you live close by?"
"Um, right there actually." He pointed to the neighbouring house.
Harry gasped. "So people actually live in that house! I have only ever seen a man, and women come out sometimes, how come I haven't seen you until now?"
The boy hesitated. "I - I don't go out much..." He looked at the flashlight laying there. He looked at it in confusion. "What is that?"
Harry was confused by the question, and then realised this boy must have been a pureblood, and didn't know much about anything muggle related. "It's a flashlight, it um...well it lights up."
The boy's eyes widened. "That's amazing, and it doesn't use the lumos spell?" He quickly turned to face Harry. "You're a wizard right?" Harry nodded. The boy's face relaxed, and turned back to the flashlight. He picked it up, and examined it, turning it over in his hands. He clicked the button, turning it off.
He yelped. "What did I do?!"
Harry laughed. "You just turned it off. Press the button again, and it will turn on."
The boy cautiously pressed the button, lighting up the treehouse again. His eyes glowed, but not because of the light, it was because of the wonder in his eyes. "Wow." He breathed.
Another thought occurred to Harry, his mother had said the people next door were blood purists, people he should avoid being a halfblood himself, but he stared at the kid before him who was mesmerised by a flashlight. A muggle thing. That wasn't blood purist behaviour.
"So..." Harry started. "What's your name?"
The boy looked up from where he was still staring at the flashlight. "Well, I don't know if I should tell...my parents don't want me talking to strangers, and I am already disobeying them leaving the house, and talking to you, and-"
"But we're neighbours." Harry said. "We aren't technically strangers, not anymore."
The boy bit his lip. "Well...I am not supposed to be out here in the first place."
"What? Do they not let you go outside or something?" Harry asked him. He meant it as a joke.
The boy was quiet. "They are just very protective of me."
Harry nodded. "Well, don't worry." Harry told him. "I'm not going to kill you."
"Oh well that's good." The boy replied.
Harry was confused by that, but brushed it off. "So is this your first time in a treehouse?"
"I didn't know they existed." The boy replied, putting down the flashlight. "It is very cool, I didn't know houses could be in trees."
"It is more like a playhouse." Harry said.
The boy nodded. "What do you do in here?"
Harry thought for a moment. "I draw, and I read books too. Do you like to read?"
"Yeah, of course I do!" Said the boy quickly.
"What do you like to read?"
"Um..." The boy thought for a few moments. "The Beedle And The Bard?"
"Ah, the classics." Harry nodded. "Do you-"
There was a loud CRACK nearby. The boy quickly looked out the window. His parents were home. "Oh no."
"Well you better get going." Harry told him. "Do you think I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah." He said quickly. "Same time?" Harry nodded, and he jumped out of the treehouse, just jumped, and ran for his house, and seemingly snuck in by one of the lower windows.
They hung out daily in the evenings since, until one day the boy stopped coming out. Harry didn't know why, maybe his parents had caught him, and told him that Harry was halfblood, and that hanging out with someone like him was unacceptable. His parents were, to Harry's knowledge, blood purists, so maybe the kid was too.
Harry all of a sudden woke up in the Hospital Wing. He must have blacked out after falling off his broom.
"Harry!" Exclaimed a voice, Jasper's. "You're up! Are you okay?"
Harry stared at Jasper for a few moments, a bit disoriented, and nodded. "Uh, yeah." He yawned. "But I am never getting on a broom again."
"Well now you have an excuse not to fly I guess." Jasper said. Harry gave him a look. "What? You know you hate flying. Why are you so scared of heights, and flying anyway?"
Harry rubbed his eyes. It was a stupid story. "It is dumb Jaz, the first time I flew on my own, my dad was testing fireworks for something, and while I was flying one of them startled me, and I fell." Harry shrugged. "And I don't want that to happen again...well except it has, so I definitely don't want to fly again."
Jasper nodded, understanding this. Jasper knew if something scary happened to you as a child, it was bound to carry out throughout your life. "Well, how are you going to pass the class?"
"Honestly. I have no idea right now..." He gasped. "Please tell me I didn't miss History?"
"Well you're the first to say that." Said Madam Pomfrey as she came out of her office. "Any kid would have purposely hurt themselves to get out of that class, myself included."
Jasper laughed, and turned to Harry. "No, you just missed the rest of flying class, and a bit of lunch. Come on!" He turned to Madam Pomfrey. "Can he go now, miss?"
Madam Pomfrey nodded. "Everything seems to be in order, off you go Mr. Warbeck, and Mr. Odair."
Harry, and Jasper left the infirmary, and walked to the Great Hall. Harry kept thinking of his dream, well more so his memory. He didn't understand why he had been reminded of meeting that boy. It was a few years ago, before he had moved. Harry had kinda forgotten about him, but for some reason his brain just decided to magically remember him. He wondered if he was at Hogwarts. He wished he knew the name of the kid. Maybe he could find him? The question was why did he suddenly remember him? Why now?