Chapter 25
Returning to Hogwarts after a fairly long summer break was, for me… a pretty trivial event. I'd already managed to meet most of my school friends before the year even began, and the train ride itself brought nothing new.
And watching the first-years get Sorted was nowhere near as interesting or nerve-racking as actually taking part in it. The only thing was that I got another close look at the Sorting Hat, but even with my gradually improving magical sensitivity, I couldn't make out anything dramatically new about it.
So September first—and the first few school days after—passed in a blur. The professors didn't teach anything new; mostly they tested what students still remembered from last year and let everyone ease back into the rhythm.
I didn't do anything radically new either. Even when I went to the library, it wasn't to hunt fresh spells or deep theoretical tomes, but to build my own study program for the year. I made a reading list, compared it to the school curriculum and my own preferences, and decided to look more closely at the subjects that would appear next year.
I wanted to be ready in advance for choosing electives—what I should take and what I could ignore because it was useless, or because I could teach myself later if needed.
In short, routine. A little motivating, making me think through strategy, but mostly tedious work in the library. Even the first lessons with Gilderoy Lockhart—who somehow got hired with nearly zero actual magical skill—felt like a breath of fresh air.
The professor himself was a disappointment, forcing me to add second-year Defense material to my private program, but… at least he was entertaining to watch. His heroic bravado and "true stories too incredible to stay silent about" were amusing in their own way.
Especially if you turned your brain off during his classes and treated his "lectures" like a miniature circus act. Perfect for killing a couple hours between real lessons. The only downside was how repetitive his stories were, which made me wonder how quickly these free performances would start to bore me, but…
The first two lessons were tolerable. Though I'd heard that in his first class with Gryffindor and Slytherin, Lockhart had messed up badly—he released a whole swarm of small magical pests and then couldn't deal with them. Yes, I was probably lucky not to see that.
If I could stomach a clown as a Defense professor, I was not prepared to stomach that same clown trying to "teach" magic with a serious face. That would've been exhausting and not funny at all… And reading his books—required for essays—after meeting the author in person was hard enough already.
Luckily, I didn't need to rush. I read fast, and my self-writing quill handled a lot of the work for those dull assignments. After last year, when I'd gotten very good at producing passable homework quickly, this year I didn't spend nearly as much time on it as I could have.
Which somehow left my weekends almost completely free of homework. And I didn't schedule many personal training sessions for the first weekend of September either—clubs hadn't restarted yet, and I wasn't in a hurry to dive headfirst into new magical literature.
That meant I finally had time to do something I'd wanted for ages.
"Hey, Potter? Why do you have a broom? Planning to practice before team tryouts?" a third-year girl snapped at me at the common room exit, with clear dislike. Cho Chang—short, dark-haired, very visibly Asian but not unattractive. Pretty, really—except her personality made her far less appealing.
Though maybe I wasn't unbiased. She'd disliked me since last year because of rumors about my skill on a broom. I distinctly remembered her coming to our flying lessons once, genuinely worried I might take her place as Ravenclaw's main Seeker.
"I don't remember signing up for tryouts. Quidditch doesn't interest me that much," I stopped by the door and calmly shut down her attempt to pick a fight. I wasn't going to feed a pointless conflict.
"Oh? Then your broom says otherwise. That's a seventh-model Cleansweep, isn't it? Are you telling me you dragged it into Hogwarts for no reason?" the black-haired girl refused to back off, stepping closer as if trying to loom over me. It didn't work. "Our whole team uses those, and you—"
"I'm going to fly it for my own enjoyment," I cut her off with a snort, meeting her eyes without a trace of concern. "I like flying. I like speed and the feeling of free fall… But I don't want to play Quidditch. Watching Bludgers smash into people is much more enjoyable than becoming part of the show myself."
"Hmph. So you're just a coward scared of a simple enchanted ball," she sneered, her tone turning nastier—enough to start irritating me for real.
"No. I'm just reasonable enough to enjoy the spectacle instead of turning into entertainment for other people," I grinned.
A few accidental witnesses nearby snickered and even laughed quietly at the way I'd framed it.
Only actual Quidditch players—active or aspiring—looked offended. But nobody pushed it further. Cho fell silent, unable to respond fast enough, and I simply left the common room before she recovered.
We weren't in Gryffindor. At Ravenclaw, you didn't usually crush someone with pure emotional shouting. Older students even liked turning younger students' arguments into impromptu debates. That habit shaped how Ravenclaws fought with words.
And in this case, it helped me. I kept the last word and left the castle grounds with a clear mind… without even thinking about any future conflict with Cho Chang. Tryouts would be within the next two weeks. Once she realized I truly wasn't going, the whole thing would settle down on its own.
Her only real problem was fear of losing her cherished spot on the team. She was Ravenclaw's main and only Seeker. The spotlight on the pitch—and in the team, even in the House—naturally focused on her, because Seeker was objectively the most important and unbalanced role in Quidditch. And Cho clearly liked that attention. She seemed to enjoy her importance.
Or maybe that was just how I interpreted it. I couldn't be sure. I didn't care enough to worry about one unpleasant conversation. Being able to fly freely for once mattered more than petty school tension.
To be honest, that Saturday I flew for almost the entire day, testing my new broom and enjoying a rare sunny Scottish day. I even forgot about my plan to locate Ginny Weasley and the diary that was probably with her.
Flying gave too many impressions and too many bright emotions for my mind to hold onto anything else. The only new thought it planted was the idea of learning to fly without a broom.
Not because a broom was especially uncomfortable or unpleasant. The enchantments made it almost as comfortable as sitting on a bicycle.
Maybe a little worse. You hardly move your legs, and you grip the broom handle like an improvised steering bar the whole time, which naturally adds stiffness in your body. But I was flexible and athletic. And already used to mental "self-torture" practices.
So it wasn't a real problem. Even after six hours of flying over the Forbidden Forest, I felt fine—just a slight discomfort in my back and shoulders once I returned. Racing at the top speed a seventh-model Cleansweep could give was unbelievably fun, but lying along a broom handle was still not the most comfortable position.
"I should check the library soon—or ask the team—if there are any spells for this. Quidditch has no time limit at all, which is why professional matches sometimes last for an entire day until one of the two Seekers finally catches the Snitch," I decided, already certain I wasn't giving up this new hobby any time soon.
More than that—I'd invite my friends next weekend. Draco and Daphne, at least. I wasn't sure the others had brought brooms to school. Malfoy was a Quidditch fanatic who definitely planned to make the Slytherin team. And Daphne had brought her own broom mostly for company—because she'd known about my love of flying and my plan to bring a broom to Hogwarts.
In that sense, Greengrass had absolutely brought her broom because of me, correctly assuming that at the start of the year I'd be ready to spend nearly all my free time in the air. I liked it that much.
A good broom was better than any sport bike. I could say that with total confidence now, and I hardly doubted that this hobby would disappear from my life any time soon.
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