The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

An Audience for Flying

Time at Hogwarts went by more quickly than it did anywhere else in Britain - James was fairly certain of it. How could it possibly be already Thursday afternoon again and time for another flying lesson without time being warped considerably at the castle? He couldn't believe he'd already been at Hogwarts an entire week - it seemed like only yesterday he'd been crossing days off a calendar, waiting for the day he would board the Hogwarts Express. In another way, though, he felt as though he'd known Sirius Black and Remus Lupin all of his life. Time moved both fast and slow at Hogwarts.

They walked across the grounds, following after Lily Evans with little Peter Pettigrew trailing along behind them, running to keep up, nervously babbling about how he hoped he'd be better at flying this go around. Madam Hooch was waiting alone on the grass in the spot where they'd learned last time and as they approached she redirected them to the Quidditch Pitch, saying that today's lesson was to be held in there as they had - and she said the next word with a bit of a tone of annoyance - an audience.

"Audience?" Lily asked, confused, "But who's come to watch us learn how to fly?"

"Half the school, by the looks of it," Madam Hooch answered.

James and Sirius exchanged excited looks and ran down the hill to the pitch.

Inside, James felt his entire body tingle with excitement. The stands rose up around them, the goals standing at each end of the long pitch. He breathed deeply the smell of freshly cut grass and the faintly lingering scent of popcorn from the stands. He looked around and saw that the other students were gathering brooms already and rushed over, hoping to get one of the better school brooms before they were all taken.

There really was quite a few people in the stands. Looking around, James saw Alice and Derek Bell in the front, along with the other Gryffindor team members. There were a couple others he guessed were Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff players. He felt a nervous jolt in his stomach and turned to Remus, who was standing beside him selecting a broom. "Why do you supposed they're all here for?" he asked.

Remus shrugged, "To see you show off, I reckon."

That was exactly the nervous thought that James had had that made him ask.

He didn't get a very good broom, but it was better than some of the more broken down ones, like the one that Severus Snape had ended up with after he ran into the pitch later than everyone else, followed by Madam Hooch who motioned for them all to line up and command their brooms up. James could feel eyes on him from all over the pitch and his stomach rolled with excited nerves. This was it. This was his chance. It was as though he'd been granted his very own private try outs, a moment to shine all by himself without any others to compete against except the motley crew that didn't even know how to fly for the most part. He glanced to one side and saw Peter Pettigrew had edged in closer to him, as though trying to spy his secret to flying and James smirked to himself.

"On my whistle, you may fly up ten feet and back down," Madam Hooch called. James gripped the broom tight in his fists, on his toes, ready to kick off.

Fweeet!

He soared straight up into the air - more like twenty feet in the time it took the others to wobble delicately the ten feet prescribed - and did a quick loop-de-loop before coming back down for a perfect landing. There was a smattering of applause from the stands and James grinned as Sirius gave him a thumbs-up. Lily rolled her eyes and glanced back at Alice Bell, one of the only ones not clapping, who shrugged her shoulders as though to say she didn't see anything special about it.

James caught Lily's eye on the other side of Peter Pettigrew, who was struggling, only four or five feet off the ground, the broom seeming to buck and twist uncontrollably beneath him. "You've got to hold your hands up a bit more," Lily suggested to Peter. Peter moved his hands, but the broom didn't calm down.