The Slytherins were already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Harry 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.
Their 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.»
Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.
«Stick out your right hand over your broom,» called Madam Hooch at the front, «and say 'Up!"'
«UPF everyone shouted.
Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. Hermione Granger's had simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's hadn't moved at all. Perhaps brooms, like horses, could tell when you were afraid, thought Harry; there was a quaver in Neville's voice that said only too clearly that he wanted to keep his feet on the ground.
Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years.
«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, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushed off hard before the whistle had touched Madam Hooch's lips.
«Come back, boy!» she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle—twelve feet—twenty feet. Harry saw his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and —
WHAM—a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown 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,» Harry heard her mutter. «Come on, boy—it's all right, up you get.».
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 they are 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 Malfoy burst into laughter.
«Did you see his face, the great lump?»
The other Slytherins joined in.
«Shut up, Malfoy,» snapped Parvati Patil.
«Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?» said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. «Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, 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.
Malfoy smiled nastily.
«I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?»
«Give it here!» Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leapt onto his broomstick and taken off. He hadn't been lying, he could fly well. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, «Come and get it, Potter!»
Harry grabbed his broom.
«No!» shouted Hermione Granger. «Madam Hooch told us not to move—you'll get us all into trouble.»
Harry ignored her. Blood was pounding in his ears. 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 him -and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he'd found something he could do without being taught—this was easy, this was wonderful. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher, and heard screams and gasps of girls back on the ground and an admiring whoop from Ron.
He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned.
«Give it here,» Harry called, «or I'll knock you off that broom!» «Oh, yeah?» said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.
Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfay like a javelin. Malfoy 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.
«No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your neck, Malfoy,» Harry called.
The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.
«Catch it if you can, then!» he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.
Harry saw, as though in slow motion, 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!»
His heart sank faster than he'd just dived. 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 dare you—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 caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle's triumphant faces as he left, walking numbly in Professor McGonagall's wake as she strode toward the castle. He was going to be expelled, he just knew it. He wanted to say something to defend himself, but there seemed to be something wrong with his voice. Professor McGonagall was sweeping along without even looking at him; he had to jog to keep up. Now he'd done it. He hadn't even lasted two weeks. He'd be packing his bags in ten minutes. What would the Dursleys say when he turned up on the doorstep?
Up the front steps, up the marble staircase inside, and still Professor McGonagall didn't say a word to him. She wrenched open doors and marched along corridors with Harry trotting miserably behind her. Maybe she was taking him to Dumbledore. He thought of Hagrid, expelled but allowed to stay on as gamekeeper. Perhaps he could be Hagrid's assistant. His stomach twisted as he imagined it, watching Ron and the others becoming wizards, while he stumped around the grounds carrying Hagrid's bag.
Professor McGonagall stopped outside a classroom. She opened the door and poked her head inside.
«Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?»
Wood? thought Harry, bewildered; was Wood a cane she was going to use on him?
But Wood turned out to be a person, a burly fifth-year boy who came out of Flitwicles class looking confused.
«Follow me, you two,» said Professor McGonagall, and they marched on up the corridor, Wood looking curiously at Harry.
«In here.»
Professor McGonagall pointed them into a classroom that was empty except for Peeves, who was busy writing rude words on the blackboard.
«Out, Peeves!» she barked. Peeves threw the chalk into a bin, which clanged loudly, and he swooped out cursing. Professor McGonagall slammed the door behind him and turned to face the two boys.
«Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood—I've found you a Seeker.»
Wood's expression changed from puzzlement to delight.
«Are you serious, Professor?»
«Absolutely,» said Professor McGonagall crisply. «The boy's a natural. I've never seen anything like it. Was that your first time on a broomstick, Potter?»
Harry nodded silently. He didn't have a clue what was going on, but he didn't seem to be being expelled, and some of the feeling started coming back to his legs.
«He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive,» Professor McGonagall told Wood. «Didn't even scratch himself. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it.»
Wood was now looking as though all his dreams had come true at once.
«Ever seen a game of Quidditch, Potter?» he asked excitedly.
«Wood's captain of the Gryffindor team,» Professor McGonagall explained.
«He's just the build for a Seeker, too,» said Wood, now walking around Harry and staring at him. «Light—speedy—we'll have to get him a decent broom, Professor—a Nimbus Two Thousand or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say.»
I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore and see if we can't bend the first-year rule. Heaven knows, we need a better team than last year. Flattened in that last match by Slytherin, I couldn't look Severus Snape in the face for weeks...»
Professor McGonagall peered sternly over her glasses at Harry.
«I want to hear you're training hard, Potter, or I may change my mind about punishing you.»
Then she suddenly smiled.
«Your father would have been proud,» she said. «He was an excellent Quidditch player himself.»