At long last, the day of Felix's first flying lesson arrived.
For this particular class, the Ravenclaws were paired with the Hufflepuffs. Combined, the first-years from both houses numbered around thirty or forty students, a nervous, chattering crowd gathered on the sprawling, flat lawn that bordered the Forbidden Forest. In the distance, the dark, ancient trees of the forest swayed ominously in the breeze, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching for the sky.
Before they had even arrived, about forty broomsticks had been laid out in neat, parallel rows on the dewy grass. They were a motley collection, clearly well-used.
Felix had heard Cho Chang complain before that the school brooms at Hogwarts were notoriously old and unreliable. Many of them, she'd said, had developed quirks over the years: some would start to tremble alarmingly if flown too high, while others had a stubborn tendency to veer slightly to the left or right, regardless of the rider's intentions.
Soon, their instructor, Madam Hooch, arrived. She was a woman with short, spiky grey hair and sharp, piercing yellow eyes that reminded Felix of a hawk's – eyes that missed nothing.
"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked, her voice crisp and authoritative. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up, step lively now!"
Felix, positioned somewhere in the middle of the group, reluctantly selected a battered, crooked old broom. Its twigs stuck out at odd, unruly angles, looking more like a bundle of kindling than a precision flying instrument.
Hermione stood beside him, curiously examining a broom that was so worn it was almost bald, its twigs sparse and frayed. She ran a finger over its rough handle, a frown of concentration on her face.
"Stick your right hand out over your broom," called Madam Hooch from the front, demonstrating the stance, "and say, 'Up!'"
"UP!" everyone shouted in a ragged chorus.
Felix didn't shout. He merely focused his intent, forming the command silently in his mind. Nevertheless, the old broomstick dutifully, if a little sluggishly, leaped into his waiting hand.
Issuing such a simple, non-verbal command, one that barely even qualified as a spell, was no challenge for him.
For the other young witches and wizards, however, it was a different story. Only a very small number managed it on their first try.
Hermione Granger's broom merely rolled over on the grass with a disgruntled twitch. Several other students' brooms remained stubbornly, resolutely motionless, no matter how loudly they yelled.
His three roommates were also struggling. Terry Boot's and Anthony Goldstein's brooms had somehow become entangled, their twigs locked together in a messy embrace. Michael Corner's broom, with a mischievous flick of its handle, whacked its owner smartly on the nose, causing him to yelp in surprise.
After a good deal of clamor, frustrated shouts, and a few more minor mishaps, everyone finally managed to get their brooms in hand, and they moved on to the next step.
Madam Hooch then demonstrated how to mount the broom without sliding off the end. She walked up and down the lines, correcting their grips, her sharp eyes catching every awkward posture and misplaced hand.
"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," Madam Hooch instructed. She then singled out Neville Longbottom as a cautionary example: his posture was incorrect, and he kicked off too eagerly and erratically. The unfortunate result, as she described (and as Felix recalled from the books), was Neville shooting uncontrollably upwards, veering off towards the Forbidden Forest, and ultimately falling and breaking his wrist. This tale served to heighten the nervousness of the already apprehensive first-years.
"Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle—three—two—one—"
What followed was another scene of utter chaos. Many students kicked off too weakly and toppled to the ground before they'd risen even half a meter. Hermione, her face a mask of intense concentration, managed to get her broom airborne but wobbled precariously for a full minute, struggling to maintain her balance just a few feet off the grass.
Perhaps due to her Indian heritage and a possible innate grace, Padma Patil's broom seemed to take on a life of its own, carrying her into the air in a series of surprisingly acrobatic loops and swoops. Many of the young wizards below watched her with wide, envious eyes, murmuring in awe.
Felix, however, noticed the terrified, pale expression on Padma's face and the death grip she had on her broom handle. These aerial maneuvers, he suspected, were definitely not intentional on her part.
Justin Finch-Fletchley's broom seemed determined to spin him in relentless circles on the spot, until a dizzy and disoriented Justin finally tumbled off onto the grass.
Felix was, by a considerable margin, the best flyer among them. He ascended into the air with effortless ease, the broom responding to his slightest inclination as if it were an extension of his own body.
What a sensation it was! The wind whistled through his hair, cool and exhilarating. His robes billowed out behind him like a superhero's cape. The figures of his classmates on the ground below rapidly dwindled in size, and the sprawling grounds of Hogwarts, with its majestic castle and dark lake, began to unfold beneath him like a vast, living map.
He could hear the faint sounds drifting up from the ground—the excited squeals of some of the girls, the envious shouts of Terry Boot and his other roommates. But as he continued to ascend, gaining speed, even those sounds seemed to fall away, left behind in the rush of his flight.
In truth, his body had been steadily evolving, growing stronger, thanks to his unwavering, daily regimen of physical training since his arrival in this world.
His current physical conditioning, his sense of balance, and his reaction times had long surpassed the limits of an ordinary human. This gave him an unparalleled ability to control the flying broomstick, allowing him to perform maneuvers that would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for others.
He rode the broom like a seasoned professional, soaring through the crisp autumn air above Hogwarts. He executed a daring dive under the arches of the stone viaduct, then circled one of the castle's tallest towers several times, his laughter echoing faintly. He even managed a few exhilarating barrel rolls during a steep descent, the world spinning around him in a dizzying, joyous blur.
The sheer speed and freedom of the flight sent a profound thrill coursing through his veins. Adrenaline surged through his system, making his blood pound in his ears, a feeling of pure, unadulterated exhilaration.
In his previous life, he had always been a composed, calm, and rather reserved individual. He had never done anything particularly reckless or out of the ordinary. But now, this experience of flight, this dance with the wind and sky, was awakening a different side of him—a craving for excitement, a desire to challenge limits, an intoxicating feeling of conquering the very concepts of danger and restraint. It was a sensation he found himself utterly unable to resist.
"Perhaps," he mused, a wild grin spreading across his face as he banked sharply, the wind tearing at his robes, "I was never meant to be a person who just plays it safe."
With this thought, his flying became even bolder, more audacious.
He recalled the incredible aerobatic performances he had once witnessed at an airshow in his previous life.
Those pilots, confined within their cockpits, manipulating their aircraft indirectly through joysticks and instrument panels, had managed to perform such dazzling, almost unbelievable, feats of skill. Now, he was directly controlling a flying broomstick, an instrument offering far greater maneuverability and responsiveness than any mundane aircraft. Those complex aerobatic maneuvers... surely, they were not beyond his reach.
He steered his broom back towards the expanse of the training lawn below.
There was ample open space there for him to practice some aerial acrobatics—and, he had to admit, a small part of him relished the idea of showing off a little. Then, with a surge of newfound confidence, he began his attempts.