Angela Cross and the End All Spell

Angela Cross and the End-All Spell

--a Harry Potter Universe fanfiction--

Chapter Eight

**Crates and Broomsticks**

"What time is it?"

"I don't know."

Though they didn't illuminate the area particularly well, the hallway's torches never went down or darkened, and there were no windows anywhere or means to tell time, so the girls had absolutely no idea how long they had been stuck there.

Angela and Kathy sat on an old wooden box, exhausted and hungry. They had been winding through what seemed to be an endless length of storage rooms and hallways for hours with no exit in sight. The girls had tried to move boxes out of the way to see if there were hidden passages behind them, but no such luck. They even tried to tap their wands on the wallstones to see if they would move like the ones leading into Diagon Alley, but again nothing. It looked as though there was really no way out of this labyrinth. Opening the boxes to see what was inside was impossible, as they were nailed tight and shut.

"I bet they've already started dinner," Angela grumbled. Despite all the lunch she had had, her stomach was now empty and ready for the feast that had awaited her every night since she first came to Hogwarts. The lack of nourishment available was beginning to make her cranky.

Kathy, obviously hungry too, tried to comfort Angela, telling her that someone from either of their houses was bound to notice they were missing sooner or later and track them down. Angela wasn't worried about this, though; her primary concern was that she was missing the scrumptious meal somewhere else in the castle and had no idea where to get food after meal hours. Thinking about food again only seemed to sour her mood.

Kathy suddenly burst out with laughter. Angela looked at her, a little irritated, wondering what was so funny at a time like this. Kathy could see Angela's expression, but continued to giggle.

"I was just thinking," she said, "about those old cartoons. You know, where the two guys are stuck on the life raft out in the middle of the ocean and haven't eaten for days? And when they look at each other, they start turning into a hamburger or a hot dog before the other's eyes?"

Angela nodded in acknowledgment, but wasn't sure why Kathy was remaining on the subject of food.

"Well, we've got our school supplies," continued Kathy, "if we practice our Transfiguration enough while we're down here, we can turn each other into a hot dog or hamburger and we'll be set."

Angela couldn't help but laugh at this, even just a little: Kathy sure had a knack for keeping the mood upbeat. The two laughed, though Kathy looked a little nervous when Angela looked her up and down while giggling. Surely she wasn't thinking of actually doing it? Angela could see her reaction and gave her a sly grin along with an insidious Oooh-ho-ho! laugh to keep her on her toes.

She was about to ask Kathy how she'd even seen a cartoon, as the pure-bloods she had met so far apparently had no access to television or technology of any kind, when the diversion was suddenly cut short as by a loud skritching sound along the ground. The girls stopped laughing immediately and looked down the hall behind Angela. It was hard to see, but ever so often the girls would catch small shadows scurrying along the ground. They had noticed a rat or two before while they were first trying to find their way out, dark ones with strange pink bulbs sticking from their heads, but the scuttling this time was getting more and more pronounced.

There was definitely more than one rat this time. As more scratching of tiny feet resounded from down the dark hallway, the girls grabbed their school supplies and got to their feet, backing slowly away from the noise.

There was definitely a lot more than one rat. It now sounded like dozens of tiny feet moving across the gray cobblestones of the halls, all of them beginning to pick up the pace and head towards where the girls were. Angela and Kathy looked at each other and proceeded to pick up their own pace.

As they walked down the hall, the scurrying began to grow faster and faster. Small shadows would flicker across the ground where the sound originated from, but it was still too dark to see what exactly was following them. The girls decided not to take any further chances and now turned and moved in a jog away from the sounds. At first they succeeded in putting some distance between themselves and the noise, but then the sounds began to promptly close in, picking up their own pace and now definitely homing in on the girls.

What was a jog now became an out-and-out break down the hall. The girls weren't even looking behind them any more, but from the sound of it those little feet were pushing as well, wanting to catch up to them. Angela had no idea what was down there, and from one of the books she had read while in Diagon Alley - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - she would rather have not found out up close and personal; the wizarding world had more than its share of particularly lethal creatures in its ensemble, and this was not the time to meet any without teacher supervision.

The two could see the hallway up ahead end in a dim T-intersection, and the girls edged towards the left pass as they approached it. They had no idea where it would lead, but wanted to make sure they stuck together. As they came close, though, a large, plodding shadow stepped out of the left path, and the girls came to a sliding halt just before it. The scurrying behind them proceeded to halt immediately as well, equally shocked.

Before they even reached the intersection, the acrid aroma filled the room, striking sharply like a slap to the face. But when they finally reached their destination, the owner of the smell stepped out to meet them: a man, seven feet tall, wearing ratty old bed sheets and apparently not having been alive for quite some time was standing only three feet away from the girls.

The zombie's face, flickering in and out of visibility from the worthless hanging lamp above it, showed a leathery, flaky skin peeling away in various patches along the face. The skin portions along the side of its mouth were all but gone, just sinewy bits keeping the jaw together. There was no hair on its head, and underneath its left eye the skin was so baggy that it looked like part of the face had melted and re-cooled in place. The creature's body, despite the apparent skin condition, was huge. It looked dreadfully powerful, and its hands looked especially large, even for its already considerable girth. Both eyes could be seen, gleaming in the torch-light, one blue and one gray, both watery and bloodshot, and both as huge and bulging as billiard balls.

The eyes slowly turned as the girls came to a stop, and as they jumped back at the sight of the zombie its whole body twisted with impressive speed, towering over them both with a curious look at what had wandered into its domain.

Angela and Kathy promptly screamed, throwing their arms and subsequently their school supplies up into the air and without even waiting a single second bolted down the opposite direction of the T-intersection as fast as they could possibly run.

"Z-zombie!!!" Kathy gasped out as she ran.

"What kind of place is this school??" Angela exclaimed, wondering just what other terrible things lived in Hogwarts. She didn't get to contemplate this very long, however, for both she and Kathy stumbled, crumpling to the ground in a heap as they tried to avoid crashing into the pile of rotten wooden crates that stood before them, stacked from floor to ceiling and completely barring any further passage. It appeared to be a dead-end in the truest sense of the word.

The girls got up as fast as they could, gasping and completely winded from both running and crashing, and madly looked around everywhere in the stony hallway for another route. The crates were unfortunately too tightly stacked to pull or push them and see if another passageway laid behind them, and there was no way out except for the way they came.

The way they came, however, was now echoing a dull shuffling motion, the sound of one foot walking and the other foot dragging. There was also a dull, loud moan coming from down the hall. In the distance, amid the weak torches, the girls could see the twinkle of two eyes moving step by step, closer and closer. Angela's heart began to pound in her chest, and she could feel her breaths coming in short bursts. As she looked at Kathy, the young girl was almost white with fear, and Angela was sure her own face was just as pale.

The figure slowly shuffled into the light, looking intently at them with its mouth hanging open, its arms swaying at its sides, its fingers dangling dully from its hands. The creature moaned as it shuffled, a low guttural sound. The two girls gathered close together, holding each other tight as it came, only ten feet away now. Its stink was hitting them both in the face like a series of slaps.

Eaten by a zombie while lost in a hidden passage in a magic school in England... Honestly, it wasn't the way Angela thought she'd be going. Worse yet, she was going to end up being on the main course along with her new friend Kathy.

"Maybe... Maybe we can run past it," Kathy suggested.

"I'll take the left, you take the right," Angela agreed. "At least that way it can't get both of us." Kathy nodded her acknowledgement to Angela, though she was obviously as scared of this ugly thing as her friend was. The two got ready, the creature shuffled closer and closer, and then, when it was only an arm's length from the girls...

"Now!" Angela and Kathy bolted as fast as they could along their respective walls.

They made it a total of three steps each before they were yanked backwards, feet pulled off the ground, lifted up by the scruff of their shirts. The zombie was apparently much, much faster than it had first appeared, and their tactic of trying to split its attention was utterly useless because Angela could see its eyes were now facing in two separate directions, each aimed at the opposite girl. Its grip was like steel, so no matter how much they struggled they couldn't even make it budge. Angela kicked and thrashed as much as she could, but the acrid stink coming from it was making her woozy and heady; her stomach was knotting up like a fist, and along with the stench, the combination of hunger and the nervousness of being manhandled by one of the undead made Angela feel as though she was going to barf in a moment.

The zombie turned and looked completely at Kathy, who was trying to slide out of her sweater and perhaps out of the creature's grip, but the outfit was too bunched up and actually was beginning to choke her as she struggled. It then turned its head and its huge, googley eyes at Angela, groaning as it looked her up and down. Angela felt her face go from pale to green as what smelled like way too much Aqua Velva forced its way up her nostrils and beat her senseless-

Aqua Velva?

"Whaaaat are you twoooo doing down heeere?"

The voice was deep and resounding, almost impossibly so, like Lurch from the Addams Family. Still hanging from its hands, the girls just looked at the speaking zombie, stunned and not sure what was happening. The zombie's watery eyes just looked them over, its arms settling down by its sides where it placed the girls carefully on the ground, and it gave them a minor look of impatience.

"Hooooow did you get heeeere? This place is oooooooff limits to chiiiiiildren." It spoke slowly, drudgingly, but spoke with definite intelligence.

"I... W-We..." Angela didn't know what to say at all here. Kathy just stayed silent like the zombie said.

The zombie sighed, a loud rasp coming from its throat as it did so. It was obviously irritated with the two. Up close now, it reminded Angela of the school caretaker Argus Filch to a small extent, though with less of a snarl to its lips.

"Aaalright, cooooome with me," it said, pulling a torch off the wall and turning its back on the two. It began to shuffle off, but neither Angela or Kathy moved; the shock of this little incident was still telling Angela that moving from this spot and following something like a zombie into a dark hallway was far from a good idea.

The zombie stepped a little more before turning around to make sure the girls were coming. When it saw they were still in place, it shrugged and continued on its way.

"Suuuuit yourselves," it said, "but the cranium rats will be baaaaack and its beeeeeen quite a while since they've had a stuuuuuudent for dinner."

The torch began to move farther and farther away, and the sudden realization that they were going to be left in the dark with the scurrying little feet caught up to the girls quickly. Without a moment to lose they ran down the hall towards the shambling creature, still keeping a little distance from it (if anything just to keep away from its overwhelming aroma) and picking up their strewn-about school supplies as they went.

The zombie said nothing, just walking down the way it had originally come from slowly. The trio walked for about ten minutes, farther and farther down the damp stone path, and ever so often the girls could hear scampering of little feet in the distance, though not so many and nowhere near as close as they had been before. With the shuffling zombie ahead of them, they actually felt a lot safer than they had before: it was apparent now that the being wasn't interested in eating them, though where they were going was still a mystery. The girls stayed close to one-another just to be sure.

They hadn't noticed it at first, but as they progressed there was now a loud scraping sound and the noise of heavy thudding in the distance, as well as a cool draft moving through the hall. The light in the room remained weak for the longest time, and the girls were walking for what seemed like forever behind this pungent zombie, trying their best not to breathe in too much. But with every step, the breeze began to build up and the sting of the horrible aftershave smell dispersed more and more, until the girls could finally pull their hands from their noses and breathe in to a limited extent without any problems.

As they turned the next corner, the round stones along the floor and wall began to take on a new light, an orange glow from down the way now bringing the hall into better view. Water was more prevalent against the surfaces, especially the floor, and more than once Angela had to regain her footing to keep from slipping on the slick surface. In the improved light, she could see the zombie was not wearing a bed sheet but rather what looked like a ratty old toga draped purposefully over its shoulder.

It was at the end of this final hall that Angela and Kathy let out a sigh of relief and looked at each other with a smile. They had emerged in an underground cave with small stones and pebbles spilled all over the ground, and cutting through the cave was a long river that disappeared into the black distance: it was the cavern the first years had passed through on their way to the Sorting Ceremony on Sunday. Sure enough, there were the stairs leading out onto the school grounds not too far down the way. The only difference was that now the cavern was stacked with boxes everywhere, all neatly placed about on the stones or upon a small stone dock to their left. Some of the boxes were opened, their tops placed properly on the ground next to them, and inside were all manner of things: foodstuffs, glass panes, books, pots, tiles for the castle roof, even a large batch of glass bottles with contents that looked like they belonged on Professor Snape's shelves.

"'Ello, what've we got 'ere?"

Coming down the steps, carrying a torch and each massive step of his galoshes causing the water to ripple, was the giant groundskeeper Hagrid. He looked rather perplexed to find the two girls with the zombie, which was funny considering he didn't even find the fact a zombie was there surprising at all.

"What're you two doin' down 'ere after hours?" he asked, walking up to the group; despite the zombie's impressive size, Hagrid still overshadowed everyone present by leaps and bounds. "You should be in yer house rooms. Filch is gonna have a fit if he finds ya playin' 'round the docks."

"Is that where we are?" asked Kathy, walking up to Hagrid and looking more than pleased to see him.

"I fooooound them down in the stoooooorerooms," said the zombie.

"Blimey! Down there?"

"We got lost on our way from the owlery," said Kathy.

"Is dinner already over?" asked Angela, almost desperately.

"Aye, they just shut the Great Hall doors," Hagrid said, "I been down 'ere 'elpin' Grazzle with th' goods from our latest shipment. 'Ow long you two been wanderin' around in the storerooms?"

"Since lunch," Angela said bitterly, thoroughly disappointed that she'd missed out on the big meal.

"Ah, well, sorry 'bout that. You should pay more attention where yer goin' next time."

Angela wanted to glower at the big man for making such an obvious assessment, but the fact that he was there and would now be able to escort her and Kathy back to familiar territory helped keep any impatience she was feeling from surfacing.

"'Ere," he said, sticking a giant hand into his massive fur coat and producing what looked like a small lumpy cake with raisins in it, "made these meself, got tons left over in me 'ouse." She wasn't a fan of things with raisins in it, but at this point Angela couldn't have care less if it was filled with rocks...

... Which was good, because when she enthusiastically took it, the cake weighed like it was filled with rocks. When she took a bite out of it, it felt like it was indeed made out of rocks for that matter, her teeth aching terribly as she tried to take a chunk out of the cake: it was like trying to eat a jawbreaker. Despite this, Angela was hungry enough to keep trying to gnaw at it in the hope of getting to an edible part.

Hagrid smiled at Angela's enthusiasm. "Not bad, eh?"

Angela just continued to try eating the petrified cake without responding. It was the closest thing she'd had to food all night and she was determined to get some nutrients out of it, even if she was going to wear her teeth down to flat nubs to do it.

"I'll take 'em back up, Grazzle, thanks fer watchin' out fer 'em."

The zombie just looked at Hagrid and shrugged, then gave the girls one more look-over. "Kiiiiids today. Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis

exponebantur ad necem," he said, shaking his head and shuffling off to a grouping of crates, though Angela could swear it smirked at them before heading off; it was hard to tell with the wear and tear its face carried.

Hagrid gave a friendly wave to the zombie, then looked at the girls with a cheery smile. "Well, let's be off then," he said. Kathy nodded enthusiastically and followed him closely, while Angela continued to try and make headway with the rock cake, following a couple of steps behind.

"Best you two stay away from the storerooms in th' future," Hagrid said as they climbed the stairs, trying to sound stern. "Dangerous place it is, only me, Filch an' Grazzle ever go down there. Lots o' nasty things run around in them catacombs."

"We know!" Kathy said. "We were being chased by some little skittering things in there before we bumped into that zombie, I think they were rats."

"Worse'n that down there, let me tell you. Good thing Grazzle got a hold of you before anythin' else did."

"So Grazzle really is a zombie?" asked Angela, finally giving up on the cake and sticking it in her cloak pocket - perhaps she could soak it in water or milk later to soften it up.

"That he is," said Hagrid. "Quartermaster fer Hogwarts, spends most've 'is time down 'ere handlin' shipments an' managin' our stocks. Good fella, if ya stay on 'is good side."

"You have a zombie working for Hogwarts?" asked Kathy, a little surprised.

"Fella's gotta make a livin' even if 'e's dead." Hagrid chuckled at his own comment for a moment, and Kathy joined in. "'Sides, plenty of ghosts call Hogwarts kip, why not ol' Grazzle Stumpfoot? Unlike the others like Sir Nicholas or th' Bloody Baron though, his body jus' din't wanna give up the ghost is all when he died."

Kathy laughed at Hagrid's comment, which brought a smile from the giant man: apparently he thoroughly enjoyed having others acknowledge the cleverness of his jokes.

"We heard that Professor Quirrell had to fight a zombie once," Kathy told him.

Hagrid just laughed at this. "Grazzle's never gonna live down that vacation 'e took," he said, wiping his eye. "Was sightseein' up in Africa, right? When his cover gets blown, whole kingdom freaks out an' calls th' Ministry fer help. Imagine Quirenius Quirrell's reaction when he's sent down there an' finds th' big bad zombie's none other than one o' his co-workers. Magicks Grazzle back ta Hogwarts, royal family thinks Quirrell's done blown it up, an' he gets to be the big hero while Grazzle's vacation ends early with his picture in all th' papers."

"It's a good thing they didn't hurt him," Kathy said.

"Hurt him? Grazzle? Nah, zombies can't be hurt, already dead. Tough as nails, they is."

"What did he say when we were leaving?" Angela asked.

"Ah." Hagrid looked a little embarrassed, but answered her anyway. "Grazzle's an ol' fella, that was Latin. He said 'In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.' " The girls looked at Hagrid with their jaws open. "I'm sure he was kidding," he added with a wink.

The group finally made it up the stairs and appeared out in front of the school grounds again. Percy Weasley and a Ravenclaw girl with curly black hair and a prefect's badge were just stepping out of the front door as they arrived.

"There you are!" Percy wasn't particularly pleased to see Angela, and the Ravenclaw girl gave Kathy the same irritated expression. Percy was wearing another prefect's badge as well, apparently replacing the one taken from him before, and Angela was hoping he wasn't going to connect her to the twins' mischief from earlier in the day. "We were just starting to look for you two, what are you two doing out of the house rooms after hours?"

"Now, now," Hagrid said, trying to calm Percy down, "the girls've been trapped in the storerooms all day and couldn't get out, go easy on 'em."

"Ah. Well, alright then." Hagrid's word appeared enough to satisfy Percy, who more than likely just didn't want word to get out that a student under his care was out after school hours. "Let's not dilly-dally any further, though, off to the rooms with you. Thank you for keeping them out of trouble, Hagrid."

"G'night, ladies," Hagrid said with a slight bow, "stay out o' trouble."

Kathy's face turned slightly red and she threw Hagrid a giggle and a smile. Angela thanked Hagrid for his cake (despite not being able to make a dent in it) and for helping them out of their jam, and with that the girls waved goodbye both to him and to each other, everyone heading to bed. It had been a particularly long and exhausting day, and Angela was just looking forward to ending it with bed; the sooner she slept, the sooner the breakfast feast for the upcoming day would arrive.

The second week of classes was as educational as the first, though now that Angela had some experience with the classes things moved along a lot smoother. She no longer got lost on her way to the Great Hall or to classes - even Neville was making it everywhere in the nick of time - and this gave her the luxury of eating as much as she wanted with Kathy joining her. She was pleased to see no one else seemed to care that a Gryffindor and Ravenclaw shared a table; according to the Weasleys, it was just a select few that really cared about that level of house separation, though the Hufflepuff/Slytherin friendship of Wages and McGee was still considered completely taboo by most of the student body; it was practically unanimous amongst the students that Slytherins didn't belong with any house but their own, even amongst the Slytherin students. The Hufflepuff table seemed to have finally grown tolerant enough of it to ignore them, though Slytherin's table still seemed to view the whole thing as blasphemous in the extreme. Angela wondered how this was affecting both boys when they were in their own house rooms after hours.

The big thing that Angela had been looking forward to was Thursday: the day she would finally begin flying lessons! During breakfast that day, Kathy would go on and on about how fantastic it was. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff had their first lesson on Tuesday afternoon and it was a lot of fun; she'd never gotten to fly on her own before, always having to share a broom with her parents or brothers, but while she still needed some practice she really loved finally being able to do it on her own. Angela was so excited after hearing this that she was practically jumping in her chair. The two girls weren't the only ones talking about it though, for every first year at the table was talking about flying, be it their own personal experiences or their anticipation (or apprehension) at taking the stick later in the day. Hermione Granger wouldn't shut up about all she had read on the matter, even though she'd never actually ridden a broom in her life, while Harry Potter kept insisting he was going to end up making a fool of himself in front of Draco Malfoy and the Slytherin students; why he cared what Slytherin thought of him, Angela had no idea.

Charms couldn't pass fast enough for her that day. While she loved Professor Flitwick and thoroughly enjoyed the lesson, which this time involved the more complex charm of making their fruits cycle through a specific pattern of colors, it was the upcoming broom lesson that she was counting the hours down to. It was a shame that first years weren't allowed a broom of their own to practice with after class, but that would just mean she would have to appreciate that time on the broom all the more.

Charms came and went. Lunch came and went. And then, finally, 3:30 began to roll around.

It was the perfect day for her first time in the air, clear skies and a cool, gentle breeze being the forecast. She was a little sorry she made it out to the grounds for the lesson so early, for the only other ones who were there in advance were Slytherin students who generally took the opportunity to chide her. She ignored them though, for nothing could ruin this day for her (unless she found she wasn't gifted with the ability to fly a broom, which would certainly put a downward spin on her time at the school); the jibes didn't last long at any rate for the class instructor, Madam Hooch, came striding down the green, grassy slopes from the school with a bundle of broomsticks floating behind her.

Hooch looked like she was born to fly: she had short arced-back gray hair and very hawk-like features, even bright yellow eyes that looked like a hawk's. When she came, the present students promptly shut up, even if they were still off the clock for a few more minutes. Swiftly, more students began to line up as Madam Hooch waved her wand, twenty broomsticks lining up for each of the two rows, one side for Gryffindors and the other side for Slytherins; they weren't quite as shiny or well-groomed as the Nimbus 2000 in Diagon Alley, but as long as they flew, who cared?

Neville actually made it before too much time had passed, though this was primarily because he was in tow of Hermione Granger. Angela wondered if she had stopped talking once since breakfast, for she was still continuing on about all the fundamentals she had researched on broomstick flying. Neville was eating it all up, eyeing the laid-out brooms nervously - Angela suspected he was not particularly confident with his own flying skills.

Hermione and Neville parked themselves next to Angela, which actually presented her with an opportunity she had put off for the last couple of weeks. Angela cleared her throat slightly before speaking to Neville.

"Hey," she said with a smile.

Neville looked away from Hermione's droning with a small jolt, not sure if it was he who was being addressed at the moment. When he saw Angela speaking to him, he looked down quickly and appeared rather flustered.

"Oh, um... hi," he said, he face a flushing red.

"How's it going?" she asked. Starting up a conversation out of the blue wasn't really something Angela liked doing, but she needed to talk with him.

Neville just stayed quiet for a moment, his face a cross between embarrassment and nausea. After an extended silence, which Angela thought was probably going to mark the end of their conversation before it even begun, he finally spat out, "I'm a little scared."

"Of what?"

"I've never been on a broom" he admitted, "My gran never let me near them. Too dangerous, she said."

"Oh. Well, I've never been on a broom before either. I've never even seen anyone ride a broom, so you're probably going to be tons better than I will."

Neville almost laughed at this; he apparently was as convinced as Harry Potter that he was going to screw up royally in this class and make a fool of himself in front of everyone. He just continued to look down at his shoes, nervous as could be, trying to keep an open ear to Hermione who was looking somewhat annoyed that no one was listening to her studies on the theory of broomstick flight.

"Anyway," Angela said, trying to get to her original point, "I'm really sorry about that thing with your frog on the train last week."

"With what?" Neville asked confused.

"I didn't mean to scare him or make him run away like that," Angela clarified. "And I'm sorry for having the volume up so loud on my Walkman, too. I hope it didn't hurt your ears too much or anything."

"Oh, that," Neville said; it seemed he had put the incident out of his head for the time being and was only now remembering it had even happened. "It's ok. I'm just not used to Muggle music, I guess. All I've ever heard before is that Lawrence Welk stuff Gran likes. Never heard him sing like that Nin person, though."

Angela laughed at the thought of Lawrence Welk singing Terrible Lie. Her amusement was contagious, for even Neville managed a small smile at whatever Angela found funny: he wasn't thinking of flying, at least for the moment, which Angela considered just compensation for causing the ruckus on the Hogwarts Express beforehand.

As usual, the last ones to show were Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, but at least they had been showing up before classes had actually started this week. When all students were present, Madam Hooch strode between the two houses and without even introducing herself or going over flying fundamentals she dove right in.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she snapped. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." All the students moved forward next to their brooms, each one looking anxious. Even supposed seasoned fliers like Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley looked a bit nervous.

Without even looking to see if every student was ready, she continued on. "Stick out your right hand over your broom and say 'Up!'" she called.

With hands outstretched over their brooms, a resounding UP! was sounded by the students. Brooms moved with the call, but with varying degrees of success: some, like Harry Potter, James McGee, Draco Malfoy, and Dean Thomas, summoned their brooms to their hands either immediately or relatively quickly; others, like Ron Weasley or Pansy Parkinson, got their brooms with a certain level of difficulty, Ron's swinging up and smacking him in the face while Pansy's started spinning upward like a helicopter blade, swatting her in the shin on its way up; and still others, like Crabbe, Goyle, and Neville, couldn't get any response out of their broom no matter how much they commanded them to rise. Neville's voice just kept wavering as he called it, obviously scared once again about using the broom, while Crabbe and Goyle just yelled at the top of their lungs in a vain attempt to force the brooms to lift. Hermione Granger wasn't faring much better, he broom just flopping around on the ground like a fish.

Angela, to her disappointment, couldn't get her broom to budge an inch off the ground at all. No matter how much she said "UP!", the broom wouldn't even twitch. When Hooch had waited long enough, she ordered the students that hadn't yet summoned their brooms to gather them up themselves, and unhappily Angela reached down and picked up her broom.

"Now, mounting your brooms is a skill you must master if you want to stay on it while flying," Hooch continued, eyeing everyone intensely to make sure not a single person was missing this important point. "Before a one of you takes off the ground, each and every one of you will be seated properly upon your brooms and grip them correctly." Everyone put their brooms between their legs and Madam Hooch proceeded to go about correcting positions; Malfoy was chastised for sitting much too far back on his broom, while Lavender Brown was informed that, while popular amongst more reckless fliers, riding sidesaddle would not be acceptable for this class.

This part of the class lasted for well over half an hour: Hooch hadn't been kidding when she said they wouldn't budge from the ground until they got the seated-position fundamentals down. When she was satisfied that the broom-mounting was passable with her students, she moved on to the next step. "Now, when I blow my whistle," she said, "you kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two - "

Angela only caught a quick glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye when she turned to see Neville rising into the air before Madam Hooch had blown her whistle. His legs were kicking feverishly and he looked around at everyone with a panicked look in his eyes; it was obvious he was not controlling his broom as he would have liked. His eyes shot around, focusing on Madam Hooch for a moment with a desperate look, his face pale.

"Come back, boy!" Hooch yelled, but Neville couldn't no matter how much he obviously wanted to. He was much too high to leap off the broom now, rising swiftly to over thirty feet, and when he pressed forward on the handle in an attempt to coax it back downwards he only succeeded in prodding it ahead. The broom sped forward, Neville howling in fear as it flew into a brick wall, bouncing and spinning in midair after the impact wildly. Bits of the broom showered everywhere as it slammed into the wall over and over, Neville clinging on for his dear life, until it dove back down and wildly sped right at the group of students. Hooch pulled her wand out, intending to magic Neville to safety, but was forced to dive to the ground along with all the students as the broom whizzed past them all, through one of the parapets' passageways in the castle wall and into the air on the other side. The broom made a wild turn back, speeding too close to a bronze statue with a spear, and as it zipped by Neville's cloak caught onto the spear and yanked him off, swinging him side to side sickly like a chandelier.

Without a pilot, the broom just drifted off, slowing down and eventually arcing downward into the Forbidden Forest on the other side of the school, becoming lost in the trees. Neville on the other hand was too beaten to do anything but hang from the statue, everyone crowding the ground beneath him quickly. Before a rescue could be mounted, though, there was a loud ripping sound and the young boy's cloak removed itself from the sharp spear, sending the boy dropping twenty feet before it once again caught a surface, this time an empty sconce for a torch. The grip from the cloak wasn't strong enough this time and only acted as a buffer for half a second before tearing again. Neville fell to the ground with a loud crack.

Madam Hooch ran up to him, her face stricken with worry, and despite her attempts to remain tough-willed in this situation she certainly looked at Neville with a concerned, motherly face.

"Broken wrist," she said, checking the boy for injuries, "come on, boy - it's all right, up you get." She helped lift him to his feet and gave him an encouraging look, though once again in her tough, coaching demeanor. She then spun around on the students and gave them the sternest look any of them had seen from a faculty member yet. She promptly told the entire class that if any of them decided to attempt flying without her present she would send them packing in the blink of an eye, then returned her attention to Neville and escorted him gently off the practice field.

Angela felt horrible for the poor boy: he seemed to be enduring nothing but bad luck since he had first set foot in Hogwarts (and even before), and now his first experience on a broom was an unprecedented disaster. She wondered if maybe there was something she could do for him later, like perhaps visit him with Kathy in the hospital wing if he was going to be stuck there for a while.

Her thoughts were cut short as many of the Slytherin students broke out laughing when Madam Hooch had disappeared from sight. "Did you see his face, the great lump?" exclaimed Draco Malfoy amidst a fit a laughter; if Angela could've disliked this boy any more, she wasn't sure just how it would have been possible. Before she could speak up, though, the other Gryffindors beat her to it.

"Shut up, Malfoy," exclaimed Parvati Patil with a furious gleam in her eye. The other Gryffindors stepped forward as well to back her up.

"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" said Pansy Parkinson with a sneer. "Never though you'd like fat little crybabies, Parvati."

Any moment now a fight was going to break out, which would've suited Angela just fine; she had some built-up frustration that these jerks were just itching to unleash, but suddenly Draco Malfoy looked beyond the entire group with a start, yelling "Look!" before running over to the grass where Neville had originally fallen. He bent down and picked something up from the grass, a small, finely-crafted glass bauble with a gold trim wrapped around it like a tiny belt. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him," he exclaimed hungrily as he held it up in the sunlight.

"Give that here, Malfoy," came a quiet, stern voice from within the group. Everyone turned and saw Harry Potter glaring at the blonde boy which immediately brought an awed hush from the students. Even Angela kept quiet, wondering just what the destroyer of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had planned in this situation. Despite the silence, Draco didn't seem intimidated in the least and just threw Harry an evil grin.

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find - how about - up a tree?" Harry yelled at him to return it again, but without waiting a moment Draco just hopped onto his broom and took off into the air like a shot, flying up to a nearby tree with impressive precision and skill. When he reached the top, he called tauntingly down at Harry to get him, which Harry was more than willing to oblige. Hermione quickly ran forward as Harry climbed onto a broom, reminding him he was going to get kicked out if he got caught, but the young boy just ignored her and with a whoosh zipped off into the air after him. Everyone just stared at Potter's skill on the broom, and despite what was going on Angela couldn't wait for Hooch to get back so they could all get a shot at flying like that. Ron Weasley let out a cheer as Harry climbed and attempted to tackle Malfoy in midair.

The two boys were exchanging words, but no one could hear them at this distance. There was a little mid-air jousting between the two with Potter looking like he had the upper-hand skill-wise, and after a little shouting Malfoy seemed to give up and threw the ball across the grounds at a wall before speeding down to return to the other students. Despite his attempt to land with an air of triumph, no one was watching him: they were all too transfixed on Harry, who had shot after the glass ball like a bullet. At this distance, the ball vanished from everyone's sight, but Harry zipped towards the ground like he was going to smash into it before reaching out and trying to grab what must've been the glass ball. As he dove, the students were suddenly pushed aside by a tall, swiftly striding woman in emerald-green: the sight of Professor McGonagall marching at Harry deliberately brought a series of loud gasps, panicked from the Gryffindor and elated from Slytherin.

Harry had stopped with a nice cushioning affect before slightly rolling from his broom onto the ground, looking at the glimmer of glass in his hands with a pleased smile: he had successfully rescued Neville's ball from imminent destruction, but his happiness was short-lived as McGonagall strode up at him in what appeared to be a red-faced fury. The other students followed her to see what was going to happen.

Professor McGonagall chewed Harry Potter out something fierce. Some of the students tried to back him up, claiming it was Malfoy's fault and that he wasn't purposely breaking the rules, but the teacher would hear nothing of it and demanded Harry follow her, striding back off the way she came with Harry miserably in tow.

There was again a total hush from the crowd as the two vanished from view, the Gryffindors looking at one another with eyes panicky. Harry Potter was without a doubt about to be thrown out of Hogwarts; it was a devastating morale-killer for everyone wearing a gold and red tie that moment. Malfoy and his cronies, however, couldn't help but break out laughing again at their luck.

"They keep this up and soon there won't be any Gryffindors left in the school!" laugh Parkinson. The Gryffindors didn't say anything, though, they just kept their hands clenched, dead silent and looking at the ground. A fight right now might have indeed meant another Gryffindor thrown off the campus, and it was obvious some of the students were calculating if it was truly worth it.

One thing about Gryffindor students, Angela would notice over time, is that they didn't spend long amounts of time weighing whether or not they'd get in trouble for certain actions. The entire class almost simultaneously turned and faced the Slytherins again, all of them furious at what had gone on and at Malfoy's part in it. Despite his attempts at bravado, it was clearly obvious that he was absolutely terrified that every Gryffindor eye was trained on him with the intent on beating his sorry butt into next Tuesday. His bodyguards, the beefy Crabbe and Goyle, stepped between them, popping their knuckles and looking menacing; to their credit, they didn't seem intimidated at all by the numbers - of course, they were also notoriously stupid and might have just thought the two of them outnumbered the eighteen remaining Gryffindors.

The potential rumble, however, ended swiftly as Madam Hooch returned from the hospital wing, though Neville wasn't in sight; Angela assumed he'd hurt his arm pretty bad and was going to be stuck up in the hospital wing for the night. It was a shame he was gone, she thought, because it would have probably made him quite happy to see just how much his classmates were standing up for him.

"Where's Potter?" asked Hooch as she approached the group, looking around with her brow furrowed. There was a silence from the Gryffindors at this, for no one wanted to share what had just transpired.

Draco, unsurprisingly, was more than eager to share the news, carefully omitting his own part in the whole fiasco.

"He what??"

"I tried to stop him," lied Malfoy, "but he just wanted to impress everyone so badly. It's a good thing Professor McGonagall stopped him, he was about to crash and break his neck."

Hooch went completely red with fury and was so agitated that when the Gryffindors spoke up to tell her what really happened she didn't hear a word of it. She looked positively murderous, and all the students in the group, including Malfoy, shut up and backed off.

It took a minute, but Hooch was able to pull herself together, taking in a deep breath and straightening her black cloak before turning like a lightning bolt at the students. She wasn't a particularly tall teacher, but when she approached the students she was so angry that she seemed as though she was towering over them all.

"I will not repeat myself on this:" she said with an air of deadly finality, "if I catch a single one of you - of either house - pulling a stunt like this again, I will see every member of Gryffindor and Slytherin, no matter their age, grounded for the rest of the school year. Do I make myself clear??"

Both groups gulped and nodded their acknowledgement to Madam Hooch. Even the Slytherin students appeared to take this quite seriously: no one wanted to have explain to the upperclassmen they'd been responsible for every broom in the school being put under lock and key.

"Right," she said, most of her composure back, "let's continue where we left off." Angela, along with the other students, mounted her broom and focused again on the prospect of flying. Despite their escapades, seeing Malfoy and Potter fly around like that was truly inspiring and Angela couldn't wait to try some of that herself.

"Everyone ready?" shouted Hooch. "Alright. Like before: kick off the ground hard, rise only a few feet, hover, then come back down with a slight forward push on the handle. On my mark - three - two - one - mark!"

Madam Hooch blew the whistle, and immediately students went bobbing into the air, again with varying degrees of success. It was no surprise that Draco Malfoy pulled the practice maneuver off perfectly, even faking a wide yawn to show off his comfort on the broom, and others with prior broomstick experience got to show off a little as well; even Ron Weasley could handle this part without any real difficulty. Hermione Granger was having trouble staying balanced on her broom and nearly twirled off on her first couple of attempts, while Lavender Brown bobbed quickly up and overcompensated to keep herself level, turning straight into the ground almost immediately and flipping off onto her back into the soft grass. Crabbe and Goyle, due to their size, could get the brooms up off the ground, but the brooms were almost straining to lift them; Hooch instructed them that brooms were designed to carry immense weights, but only when they people on them weren't trying to think of themselves as heavy, and the two large boys were so used to thinking of themselves as big that their thoughts were in fact weighing down their brooms.

Had someone been watching the practice field, which was more than likely the case since some of the class windows were facing the green hill, it would have been a hilarious sight: students were bobbing up and down wildly, dropping to the ground like flies, drifting left or right or even in circles, or otherwise demonstrating their general inexperience at broom flight. The only three that pulled off a perfect degree of broom control were Malfoy, McGee, and Dean Thomas, earning Slytherin ten points and Gryffindor five from Madam Hooch; it would have been a total of ten had Harry Potter not been expelled.

There was only one person who was not at least lifting from the ground during the whole lesson. Angela was sitting on her broom, continuously checking to make sure she was holding the handle right, that she was doing exactly what Madam Hooch told her, trying to kick off the ground, and all she was getting for her efforts was a feeling of complete embarrassment and a painful knot in her stomach.

She couldn't fly at all.

"Let's see now," said Hooch, trying to personally coach her. "Hands, check. Feet, check. You're concentrating, correct? Hm. Maybe it's the broom..." She took the broom and gave it a once over but couldn't find anything wrong with it, so she had Malfoy land and swap brooms with her: Angela confirmed that she could indeed dislike him more, for he shot her a smug, toothy sneer, obviously amused that yet another Gryffindor was showing broomstick ineptitude. When Angela attempted to kick off, she once again went nowhere, and tried so hard on her second kick that she actually fell forward and landed on her shoulder. Some of the Slytherin students laughed at her as she got up, but Angela just stayed quiet, more hurt by her inability to fly than any of their jeers.

"Well," said Hooch, scratching her head and trying to sound consoling but coming across as a bit disappointed, "there's always next week, we can try again then."

This was positively the worst day of her entire time at school. Even almost being eaten by rats last week didn't compare to the absolute misery Angela felt as she plodded back off to the Gryffindor common room. She was wanting to fly so badly, and now she was apparently stuck on the ground like a... well, like a Muggle. Daydreams of soaring around the sky on a broomstick were going to seem pretty bittersweet from this point on unless next week would turn out to be different. Feeling sick to her stomach, Angela decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in bed.