Hello.....

Guess what?

I'm being a witch from Hogwarts for Halloween! I got my costume yesterday. It's pretty epic. :')

I wasn't too nervous about flying lessons. I had riden a broom thousands of times before, but I wasn't flaunting my stories like Draco was. He kept on saying how he almost got caught by muggles thousands of times.

"He's all talk." I grumbled to Hermione one afternoon. "He's never even been seen by a muggle."

Hermione was seriously nervous about flying. Neville was just as nervous.

At breakfast on Thursday she bored us all stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

My brother and I often got packages from home, filled with chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Malfoy usually flaunted them off, teasing Harry about his lack of letters. I tried to share mine with them, but Ron thought they were poisoned. Hermione gladly shared my sweets with me.

Today, Neville recieved a package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed us a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.

"It's a Remembrall!" he explained. "Gran knows I forget things -- this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Look, you hold it tight like this and if it turns red -- oh..."

The ball suddenly turned red.

"You've forgotten something... " I murmered quietly. Neville was trying to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the Remembrall out of his hand. Harry and Ron jumped to their feet. I had a feeling that they were half hoping for a reason to fight Draco, but Professor McGonagall, who could spot trouble quicker than any teacher in the school, was there in a flash.

 "What's going on?" She asked.

"Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor." Neville said. Scowling, Draco quickly dropped the Remembrall back on the table.

 "Just looking." he said, and he sloped away with Crabbe and Goyle behind him. I loaded my spoon with jelly and shot it at the back of his head. It hit him and he turned. He glared at Harry and Ron, then his eyes slipped to me. I waved the spoon in the air and smiled at him. He shot his worst glare at me and stormed out of the Great Hall.

Harry grinned at me. I grinned back.

At three-thirty that afternoon, the other Gryffindors and I hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for our first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as we marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds tothe forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance. The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. I had heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left.

The teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

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

I looked down at my broom and scowled. It must've been and Cleansweep 3, maybe 4. I couldn't tell.

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

"UP!" We shouted. Mine flew into my hand. I guess it wasn't that bad, for an old broom. Not many did. Hermione's just rolled around on the ground. Harry had gotten his up, though.

Madam Hooch showed us how to stay on the broom without falling off and walked down the rows correcting our grips. When she told Draco he'd been doing it wrong for years, I quickly corrected mine. She praised me on gripping it correctly. Draco shot me a dirty look. I just stuck my tongue out at him.

 "Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard." said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle -- three -- two --- "

But Neville kicked off to early. 

"Come back, boy!" Madam Hooch shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle --twelve feet -- twenty feet.

I saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away. I saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and --WHAM -- a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay face down on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and started to drift lazily toward the Forbidden Forest and out of sight. Madam Hooch was bending over Neville, her face as white as his.

"Broken wrist." I heard her mutter. "Come on, boy -- it's all right, up you get."

Ouch, I thought. I had broken a wrist before. It hurt, like, bad.

She turned to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where theyare or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbled off with Madam Hooch, who had her arm around him. No sooner were they out of earshot than Draco burst into laughter.

 "Did you see his face, the great lump?" Draco said. The other Slytherins joined in.

"Shut up, Malfoy." snapped Parvati Patil before I could.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy. "Never thought you'd like fat little cry babies, Parvati."

"Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

The Remembrall glittered in the sun as he held it up.

"Give that here, Malfoy." said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch. Draco smiled cruelly. It was times like this that made me mad. Sad, even. I just wanted my brother. Not this, this monster.

 "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find -- how about -- up a tree?" Draco sneered.

"YOU JERK!" I shouted. Everyone stared at me. "What? I bet most of you were thinking it!"

"Give it here!" Harry yelled, totally ignoring what I said. But Draco had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. What an idiot. I wonder who'll get chewed out more: Me for getting in Gryffindor or Draco for getting expelled.

Hovering level with the top most branches of an oak he called, "Come and get it, Potter!" Harry grabbed his broom.

"No!" shouted Hermione. "Madam Hooch told us not to move -- you'll get us all into trouble."

Harry ignored her. He mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind hm. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher. Some girls screamed and some gasped. Ron let out an admiring whoop. He turned his broomstick sharply to face Draco in midair. Draco looked stunned.

"Give it here, " Harry called, "or I'll knock you off that broom!"

"Oh, yeah?" said Draco, trying to sneer, but looking worried. Ha ha, fail whale.

He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Draco like a javelin. Draco only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping. Someone whistled.

Oh, that was me.

"No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy." Harry called. The same thought seemed to have struck Draco.

 "Catch it if you can, then!" Draco shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground. I saw the ball rise up in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down -- next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball -- wind whistled in his ears, mingled with the screams of people watching -- he stretched out his hand -- a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.

"HARRY POTTER!" I gulped. Even though he rejected my friend request, I didn't want to see him be kicked out. Professor McGonagall was running toward them. He got to his feet, trembling.

"Never -- in all my time at Hogwarts --- " Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, "-- how dareyou -- might have broken your neck --- "

"It wasn't his fault, Professor --- "

"Be quiet, Miss Patil"

"But Malfoy--- "

"That's enough, Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now."

Harry sulked off behind Professor McGonagall. I frowned after him. Then I knew what I had to do.

I walked up to Draco and I bitch-slapped him. Everyone gasped. Draco just stared at me in shock.

"You idiot!" I shouted. "You heart-less little---"

"Jinx!" Hermione screeched at me. She dragged a swearing me away from my brother. "Do you want to get expelled too?"

"Sure." I said. "Why not? my parents will do worse to me when they find out I'm in Gryffindor. Harry and I will go be muggle llama farmers."

She stared at me. Mostly everyone else was staring at me too.

"I'm not insane." I insisted. "Sanity's just too ordinary. Be different, I say!"

She just shook her head and looked towards the castle, where Harry was most likely getting chewed out by Dumbledore, Madam Hooch, and Professor McGonagall.