The grass on the pitch was soaked with morning dew.
Twenty school brooms were lined up neatly on the ground.
Their tail twigs stuck up into the air, looking like a row of malnourished chicken tails.
The Hufflepuff and Slytherin students stood in two rows on opposing sides, separated by a safe distance of three meters.
In the center stood Madam Hooch, her short hair crisp and neat, her hawk-like eyes scanning the crowd.
“Everyone stand to the left of your broom!
Stick your right hand out over the handle and say ‘Up!'”
Evelyn looked down at the broom assigned to her.
There were three visible cracks along the handle, and half of its tail twigs were missing.
“Up.”
The broom didn’t budge.
“Up!”
The broom rolled over on the grass and continued to lie there.
Evelyn squatted down and flicked the handle with her finger.
“What are you playing dead for?”
Beside her, Ernie shouted four times before his broom finally floated up to his waist.
His hands trembled as he grabbed hold of the handle.
“Up!” Evelyn called out a third time.
The broom finally wobbled into the air, ascending to knee height.
It gave a sudden shiver and dropped right back down.
Evelyn: (ꐦ⊙ᗝ⊙)
“Valentine, there is something wrong with your magical affinity,” Madam Hooch said, walking over with a frown.
“It’s not my fault, Madam,” Evelyn replied.
“This broom is advanced in age and requires physical assistance.”
She stooped down, picked up the broom, and mounted it directly.
“I didn’t say you could mount it!”
“Madam, it refuses to get up on its own, so I’m just giving it a hand.”
Across the pitch in the Slytherin line, Draco’s broom had leaped into his palm on his very first call.
He was already mounted, maintaining a textbook posture with his chin raised high.
“Some people can’t even get a broom to rise—they’d be better off going home and riding a mop!”
Draco: (ᕦ⊙ˍ⊙ᕤ)
Evelyn glanced at him from three meters away.
“Malfoy, do you want me to help refresh your memory about the time you were choked by a measuring tape in the robe shop?”
Draco’s textbook posture tilted off-center by five degrees.
Neville stood just behind Evelyn to her left, his hands gripping his broom handle so tightly his knuckles were white.
His pocket bulged visibly, showing the curved edge of a glass sphere.
“Longbottom, what’s that in your pocket?” Madam Hooch asked as she walked over.
“I-It’s a Remembrall.
My gran sent it to me.”
Neville pulled out a glass ball the size of a fist.
The smoke inside the center was swirling red.
“If it turns red, it means I’ve forgotten something…
but I can’t remember what I forgot.”
“Put it away during class!
Everyone, listen for my whistle!”
“Grip your broom with both hands, push off lightly with your toes…”
Neville’s broom went out of control first.
Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, it launched straight into the air.
Carrying Neville along, it shot up erratically to a height of fifteen feet.
“Longbottom!
Get down here!”
Neville’s hands slipped from the broom handle, and his whole body flipped sideways.
*THUD!* He crashed onto the grass, his wrist bending at a sickening, wrong angle.
The Remembrall rolled out of his pocket, spun three times across the turf, and came to a stop right at the tip of Evelyn’s boot.
Madam Hooch rushed over instantly, dropping to her knees to inspect Neville’s wrist.
“It’s broken.
Don’t move, Longbottom.
I’m taking you to the Hospital Wing.”
She stood up and glared around at the pitch.
“Everyone stay on the ground!
Anyone who touches a broom while I’m gone will be expelled!”
Madam Hooch supported Neville as they walked off into the distance.
The pitch remained quiet for about five seconds.
Then Draco stepped out from the Slytherin line, bent down, and picked up the Remembrall.
“Look at this trash.
He forgets way too many things—like his own brain!”
Crabbe and Goyle burst into laughter behind him.
Evelyn held out a hand.
“Malfoy, give it back.”
Draco tossed the Remembrall twice in his hand, shaking his head with a smirk.
“Want it?
Come and get it!”
He swung a leg over his broom, kicked off the ground, and shot into the sky.
Hovering twenty feet up in the air, Draco twirled the Remembrall on his fingertips.
“What’s wrong, Valentine?
Your piece-of-trash broom won’t even come up when called—you think you can fly up here and take it?”
Draco: (`ε´;凸)
Ernie tugged on Evelyn’s sleeve from the side.
“Don’t go!
Madam Hooch said anyone who flies will be expelled!”
Evelyn looked down at the broom playing dead near her feet.
She didn’t bother shouting “Up.”
Instead, she simply bent over, grabbed the broom handle, yanked it off the ground, and mounted it.
“Valentine!” several Hufflepuffs gasped.
Evelyn dug her boot heel into the broom’s tail.
The broom shuddered, finally resigning itself to its fate.
It carried Evelyn into the air, rising erratically.
When it reached twelve feet, the handle let out a groaning creak.
Evelyn gripped the broom with her left hand while her right hand reached into the leather loop on the side of her robes, drawing out an aluminum baseball bat.
The aluminum gleamed sharply under the sunlight, catching a brilliant white glare.
Down on the grass, every single head turned upward at once.
Ernie: (⊙Д⊙;)
Draco’s smirk vanished completely.
“P-Put that thing down!
This is Flying Class!
Not—”
“Malfoy,” Evelyn called out, stabilizing her broom at fifteen feet.
Resting the bat on her shoulder, she said, “Throw the ball over.”
“In your dreams!”
Draco clutched the Remembrall tight and spun his broom around, intending to flee.
Evelyn’s battered broom couldn’t catch up to him, but she hadn’t planned on chasing him anyway.
“Then don’t blame me for changing up the game.”
She released her left hand and pulled out her temporary wand.
Pointing the tip at the broom’s tail, she commanded, “Accelerate!”
A stream of soap bubbles burst from the wand tip.
There was no acceleration effect whatsoever.
Evelyn: (ꐦ-᷅_-᷄)
Right—that twenty-four-hour debuff hadn’t expired yet.
She stowed her wand and clamped her legs tight around the broom.
Leaning forward to the absolute limit, she squeezed out every last drop of speed through pure physical effort.
The dying broom emitted a high-pitched screech as the cracks on the handle widened visibly.
Draco looked back and saw Evelyn closing in.
His face turned pale.
“Stay back!
That junk broom of yours is going to fall apart!”
“Then you better hurry up and throw the ball before I break apart!”
“I won’t—”
Evelyn raised the baseball bat.
The aluminum cut a clean arc through the air, sunlight streaming across the metal barrel.
Looking at that metal bat, Draco suddenly remembered the measuring tape from the robe shop.
A wave of numbness washed over his spine.
He threw it.
The moment the Remembrall left his grip, he realized he had used too much force.
The glass sphere flew downward at an angle, hurtling directly toward the castle walls.
If no one caught it, it would smash against the stone wall and shatter into dust.
Evelyn dived her broom down.
Wind billowed into her robes, the fabric snapping violently behind her.
She plummeted from fifteen feet down to five in an instant.
The Remembrall was descending in a parabolic trajectory two meters ahead to her right.
Evelyn let go of the broom handle with one hand and leaned her upper body heavily to the right.
The baseball bat whipped off her shoulder.
At a hitting point just three feet above the ground, the aluminum collided with the glass sphere.
*CLANG!*
The sound was sharp, crisp, and pure.
It sounded like a bell being struck in an empty stadium.
The Remembrall ricocheted.
It didn’t fly toward the castle, nor did it smash into the ground.
Following a precisely calculated rising arc, it shot backward, rocketing straight up to a height of twenty feet—heading directly for Draco.
Draco was still hovering in midair.
He saw the sphere hurtling toward his chest at terrifying speed and opened his mouth to shout something.
It was too late!
*SMACK!*
The Remembrall slammed right into his chest.
The tremendous impact knocked his entire body clear off the broom.
Draco Malfoy—the sole heir of the Malfoy family—tumbled head-over-heels out of the sky in a thoroughly disgraced posture, crashing straight into a cushion of straw at the edge of the field.
Chaff exploded, showering the air in a wild flurry.
Draco: ( ×᷄д×᷅ 😉
The entire pitch fell deathly silent for two full seconds.
Then, the Hufflepuffs erupted into a thunderous cheer.
Over on the Slytherin side, everyone was stone-faced with shock.
Crabbe’s mouth hung open so wide he forgot to close it, and Goyle dropped his broom onto the grass.
Evelyn pulled up on her broom and landed smoothly.
The moment her boots touched the ground, her worn-out broom finally completed its duty.
The handle snapped clean in half right down the middle.
Carrying the broken half of the handle in one hand and her bat in the other, she walked over to the haystack.
Draco was half-buried in straw.
His platinum-blond hair was covered in chaff, and his school robes were pulled crookedly off one shoulder.
Evelyn squatted down, picked up the Remembrall, and wiped it twice against her robes.
“Ball caught.
Now we can give it back to Neville.”
Draco struggled to sit up, spitting out a piece of dried grass.
“You…
you hit me with a baseball bat!”
“I hit the ball.
You failed to catch it.”
“I got knocked down by the ball!
From twenty feet up!”
“Then that just means your flying skills need work.”
Draco’s face flushed bright red.
He tried to stand, but his left foot caught on the hem of his robe, sending him tumbling right back into the straw.
Chaff exploded into the air once more.
Parkinson ran out from the crowd to help him up, her face filled with terror.
High above, behind a corridor window of the castle, a dark figure stood concealed in the shadows.
Severus Snape had his arms crossed over his chest.
Through the glass, he stared down at the haystack, the broken broom, and the Hufflepuff girl holding a baseball bat.
His silky black hair still exuded a faint scent of roses.
Snape: (furious expression)
At the entrance to the training pitch, another figure hurried over.
Professor McGonagall’s pointed hat was tilted slightly in the wind.
She walked quickly to the edge of the grounds, her eyes sweeping over the scattered chaff and broom wreckage.
Finally, her gaze settled on the baseball bat in Evelyn’s hand.
“Miss Valentine!”
Evelyn turned around, resting the bat back over her shoulder.
“Professor McGonagall, Flying Class is really fun.”
Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, looked at Draco, and then looked at the perfectly intact Remembrall.
“Come with me, Miss Valentine.”
“Where to?”
Professor McGonagall didn’t look back, her brisk pace never slowing.
“I need to clarify something.”
“What thing?”
Professor McGonagall lowered her voice to a whisper: “That swing of yours just now—was the angle calculated, or was it pure luck?”