This lesson contains a PRACTICAL assignment. Please remain in character. Any out of character comments should be put behind spoiler tags!

Garrett was very unhappy to be in yet another flying class...he had hoped there wouldn't be any more.

He walked over to where the school brooms were, and looked for the old one he had used last lesson. Finding it still there, he picked it up and waited in line for his turn.

He located all of the enchanted dummies, and planned his strategy. He would mount his broom and slowly fly to each of them, never more than five feet off the ground. He would take the quaffle and throw it up at the dummies as hard as he could. Then, he would fly toward where the quaffle would be thrown, catch it ( hopefully) and move on to the next one.

Yes, Garrett thought, this could work...and he tapped his foot nervously while he waited.

Finally, it was his turn. He mounted the old broom and slowly rose to five feet in the air. He carried the quaffle with him and eventually got to the first practice dummy. Garret stopped, and threw the quaffle up at the dummy as hard as he could.

To his surprise, the dummy caught it, and hurled the quaffle back down at him. Garrett's broom wasn't quick enough to get out of the way, and the quaffle hit him hard in the chest, knocking him off of his broom. He fell to the pitch with a grunt and lay there trying to breathe.

After a moment, he was able to sit up, then stand and retrieve the quaffle. 'Even the dummies don't play nice,' he thought.

He remounted his broom, and slowly flew toward the next dummy, having to make a half circle to adjust for the broom's limited handleability.

Again, Garrett positioned himself properly, and threw the quaffle up at the target dummy. This time the dummy threw the ball 20 feet to his right, and he slowly made his way over to where the ball lay on the grass.

'Three more to go,' he thought, 'then I can get off of this thing and back onto land.'

The next three attempts resulted in a return to his left, his right, and the last one straight to his head.

Garrett remembered seeing the quaffle coming right for him, and throwing up an arm before everything went black.

When Garrett came to, he was laying on his back on the pitch, with the Professor looking worriedly at him. Seeing Garretts eyes focused, he nodded and flew back up to his position above the pitch.

"NEXT" he called out.

Garrett sat up slowly, rubbing his head and brushed himself off. He picked up the broom and slowly made his way over to return it to it's resting place.

'I just hate flying,' he thought 'even if I could turn into a bat, I wouldn't fly.' He pulled out his charmed flask and drank heavily from it. The blood helped to clear his head, which was still a bit sore from the quaffle hit.

He rubbed his head again, put away his flask, and went to stand with the others who had finished their turns. He couldn't wait for class to be over.

~Garrett, House Slytherin

Luck once again grabbed a broom belonging to the school and prepared for the assignment. She was worried after seeing another student hit and knocked out by the dummy's quaffle throw. Internally she went over how to use the broom from last time, and got into the air on her turn. Holding the quaffle under her arm she stayed near the ground until she got the courage to float higher, among the enchanted dummies. She tried to stay steady on her broom as she threw the quaffle. To her embarrassment, her throw was very poor and not in the dummy's reach, it made no effort to catch it. She flew down and picked it up again, then ascended to try again.

This time it was closer to the dummy, and it plucked the ball from the air. It sent the quaffle flying behind itself and Luck accelerated past the dummy to try to catch it. It was a failure and the ball fell to the ground once again. She was frustrated with herself, as there would be no impressing the professor with this behavior. Quaffle under arm, she aggressively soared at the dummy and threw it. Again, the dummy caught it, but to her surprise it sent it hurdling straight back at her. She shrieked and on her broom dove out of the way. It fell to the ground again; this was a disaster.

After retrieving the ball again, she noted that she only had two more tries left, and focused. She readied and braced herself when she threw the quaffle at the dummy. The dummy took possession of the quaffle then sent it back towards her, but more to the right. She was able to lunge and just barely catch it. "Finally!" She couldn't help but say out loud. In mild triumph, she made her final attempt. Throwing the quaffle into the air, so that it made an arc down to the dummy, it still caught it. The enchanted dummy shot the quaffle out to the left and Luck sped after it. She was finally able to catch up to it and grab it. Tucking it under her arm again she flew back down to the others and passed the pesky ball off to the next student.

(Luck, Hufflepuff)

~Fable, House Slytherin

Fable sighed as she walked with her classmates to the pitch. She sat in the grass with the others as the Professor began to talk. It wasn't that she wasn't interested in todays lesson, she had just been having troubles sleeping and was exhausted due to trying to keep up with her studies. Sitting next to Garrett she slowly started to lean to his shoulder. It was another warm day though there was a little breeze and sitting in his shadow helped. The professors voice, surprisingly soothing, slowly became further away as she drifted off.

She was suddenly awoken by her classmates getting up. Garrett was pale again, as she had expected, due to his "love" of heights and was focusing on the task at hand. She didn't want to ask anyone what they were doing because she didn't want anyone to know she had fallen asleep. She spoke words of encouragement to Garrett while giving a small smile.

She followed suit picking up a broom and just like last time, many were not running to be first. The few that had run ahead were throwing a quaffle at floating dummies. It seemed easy enough she thought while yawning and moved to wait her turn.

She wondered up, mounted her broom, and motioned to the professor that she was ready to go. As she threw her first quaffle at the dummy it caught it, as she had expected. What she hadn't expected was the dummy to chuck the quaffle back at her...HARD.

The quaffle hit her in the chest and knocked her off her broom. She heard the professor say "Shake it off, you can do it." but the usually very sweet girl had lost her temper. In a rage she leapt up to her feet, her wand in hand and aimed it at the dummy that had just debroomed her. She snarled one word. "Reducto."

BOOM! The dummy, not meant to be dodging curses, exploded in a shower of pieces. Fable blinked back her anger and slowly realized what she had done. Her eyes widening in shock. She looked to the professor and stammered out an apology. He looked at her perplexed and asked "Well...would you like to try again or do you think you're done for the day?"

Fable was mortified. She had known not many people, especially Professors, had seen her truly upset. She quickly walked back to her classmates and planned to apologize after class to the professor for her behavior.

Paddy had brought her own broomstick to the lesson, and figured she would be slightly safer on that than on one of the old school brooms. She'd been practising her flying since the start of term, but this would be the first time she'd attempted to throw and catch a Quaffle while still trying to keep her balance mid-flight, and she was relieved that she wasn't going to be flying first. Trying to ignore what was happening to the other students (not for lack of concern, but more that she didn't want to scare herself stupid), she realised it was her turn. Grabbing a Quaffle, she mounted her broom and hovered in mid air while trying to figure out which dummy to aim at first.

"Take it easy" she muttered to herself, as she threw the Quaffle at the nearest dummy. Almost instantly, the dummy caught it and flung it off towards the opposite end of the Pitch. Speeding up to reach the Quaffle before it fell to the ground, she pulled up her broom and managed to catch the ball one-handed. "So much for 'take it easy' she said with a sigh, flying towards the next dummy, and flinging the Quaffle towards it. The dummy grabbed the ball, but held onto it for a few seconds before flinging it straight back towards her. A straight catch was unusually challenging, but she just managed to catch it. Unfortunately in doing so, she lost her grip on her broom and started to slide sideways. Not really paying attention to where she was aiming, she quickly flung the Quaffle and pulled herself back upright on her broom, looking round to see where the Quaffle was aiming. Of course that one had missed the dummy by a mile, and she had to fly fast to retrieve it to try passing to the last two dummies.

Flinging the Quaffle behind her to the fourth dummy, she looked over her shoulder to see the dummy catch it and throw it off to her right. Hoping that she wasn't going to make a fool of herself, she turned her broom and sped up, stretching out her paws to try and catch it. She caught onto the Quaffle with the edge of her claw, and quickly grabbed it with her other paw, wondering if there was something in the Quidditch rules against the use of claws to catch them. Scanning the Pitch, she spotted the final dummy, and decided that she was going to try and finish with an easy pass and catch. Passing the Quaffle almost side-on to the dummy, she watched and waited as it caught it, then flung it straight down. Hang on, straight down? Wondering if the dummies were meant to do this, or if they were starting to rebel against the rough Quaffle passing, she dived after it. The Quaffle hit the ground seconds before Paddy pulled out of her dive and brought her broom to an almost-neat halt. "That was more challenging than I thought it would be," she said to nobody in particular, "but three out of five wasn't bad for a first attempt."

Paddy - Gryffindor

Merlin rolled his eyes when he heard what the assignment was and started mumbling to himself. "Why do we have to take this class? I don't like sports and I don't want to waste my time practicing this stupid game thing that I'm sure I suck at." He was frowning while he waited for his turn holding his old broom in hand. "Can't I just fly with my own wings? What is magic for if not to provide us with what we need...stupid brooms." Merlin normally loves his lessons but he had grown a slight or more than slight dislike to flying lessons.

It was finally his turn and he flies up toward one of the dummies in the center, he saw how other students were struggling and others doing it very very well. "I suggest for everyone to hide!" He mockingly smiles as he says so. "That is, if you value your life." Professor Caswell ordered him to stop joking and get to work if he didn't wanted Slytherin to lose points and he immediately stopped playing. "Don't take points, I'll get to it! But I did warn you all about my aim."

Merlin sighs and holds the Quaffle in hand wishing for once he could do it. He throws the ball toward the dummy, at least according to him, but it went down instead so he hurried after it. Once more he tries and the same happened so he growls with anger and uses all his strength to throw it, and it was then that it reached the dummy, but it quickly returned it and almost hit him in the head. Merlin went after the Quaffle again and almost missed grabbing it before it hit a student flying on that direction. "SORRY!" Merlin felt miserable because his skills were not for sports, he was better with potions and spells, but still he would never give up on an assignment, he was too proud for that. Caswell went to him and gave him a few pointers so he nods and tries again. "I'm just not very strong I supposed." He says as the Quaffle went down once again, again, and again. "UGH!"

Somehow Merlin managed to throw the ball at the dummy three times by now but felt physically exhausted, most of the students were done with their assignment but there he was snickering as his lameness. He heard some of the students cheering for him and it gave him a bit of courage. "Alright, stop being so negative and visualize the ball reaching the dummy, take it as a mind game not a physical one, the mind is power and it can make anything come true." He breathes and relaxes for the first time. "Let's do it!" Somehow he felt less stressed and decides to just do what he can, he concentrates and sends the ball toward the dummy, the ball returns and he returns it back. "Woohoo! That's five for you Caswell!!" The ball reached the dummy for the fifth time and returns it, and one last time Merlin sends it back and the dummy returns it. Merlin grabbed the ball and screams with joy. "I'M DONE!! I DID IT!" Professor Caswell smiled feeling pleased and told him to go down with the rest of the students. When he landed a few pat his back and told him to cheer up and even offer him to practice on their free time. "Thanks, I could use the help but I honestly hate this game...it's because I am not into sports, unless you call lifting a spoon a sport." He giggles. "Sorry, all that sweating got me hungry." Merlin was happy that he made it and deep down wished he could at least be decent at it and not felt so pathetic but he figured he couldn't be good at everything.

Merlin Pendragon Slytherin

Elizabeth was still considering whether she should wait for more students to try out, but as her fellow housemates Garrett, Fable and Merlin already finished the assignment, she wanted to get it over with as well. She had been amused by Fable's Reducto curse somehow and she could understand her very well. In her opinion, flying was awful, but here at Hogwarts, it was inevitable.

Finally, she took one of the school brooms and waited until the training course was free. Elizabeth flew up in the air until she was at the same height as the training dummies. Her gaze wandered to the ground and her heart sank. The distance to the ground was greater than imagined. Just now she noticed that she had missed the Quaffle out of tension and she sighed deeply. By Merlin's beard, that was embarassing. She heard some laughter from the ground. "Tch.", she mumbled to herself, "I've never been keen on flying on a broom or playing Quidditch at all." As she was about to get the quaffle from the ground, Mr. Caswell appeared in front of her, with a quaffle in his hands, nodding encouragingly. Elizabeth looked surprised, then said "Thank you, Mr. Caswell", smiled and caught the thrown quaffle. She flew over to the traing dummies and got in position.

The first throw was pretty good, but light as well. All in all, her first two throws looked pretty weak. Elizabeth knew that she wasn't good at this, but she couldn't stand the amused crowd, therefore she flung the quaffle at the third dummy and looked content as it hit the dummy hard. Unfortunately, it came to her mind that the dummy would bounce the quaffle as well and when she realized that, she only had seconds to react and dodge the fast-soaring quaffle. At least her reflexes were spot-on. However, the quaffle was flying over the quidditch pitch. Maybe she got a little bit carried away. As she didn't intend on following the ball, she simply took out her wand and while pointing at the red spot in the air, she said "Accio Quaffle!" and it stopped moving forward. Instead, it flew gently back to her like a tamed creature. Nevertheless, Elizabeth really wanted to get back on the ground again, out of the embarrassing spotlight, and she finished the training dummy course without more incidents. She even threw the quaffle to a sixth dummy as she had failed at the third one, and she wanted to show good will this time.

As she was landing on the ground, she was relieved to have survived another flying lesson. She put her broom away and sat down on the grass to watch the following students.

Elizabeth Amalia Covington Slytherin

Lapis skirted the Slytherins standing on the pitch. She hadn't had any particularly negative encounters with the group, but she was in no mood to chance a tiff with the emotional girl who had just blown a dummy to smithereens. Mounting her broom, she murmured, "Up," pushing forward with her toes and holding her broom parallel to the ground. She slowly coasted over to the quaffles, hefted one and rose higher towards the dummies. Lapis positioned herself about 20 yards from the first dummy and tossed the quaffle at it. It sprung forward, snatching the quaffle and hurtling it back at a surprised Lapis. She dove sideways with her arms outstretched, the quaffle glancing painfully off of her fingertips. This was an unexpected challenge. "Accio quaffle," Lapis hissed, flushing at her first attempt. The quaffle zipped into her hands. She tried lobbing it gently towards the dummy, which returned it with the same force as the prior throw. Lapis managed to snag it, but barely. The third attempt was slightly more successful, although the quaffle left her palms stinging. The next two exchanges with the dummy resulted in satisfying swacks as Lapis managed to catch the quaffle, but her hands were nearly raw from the impact. One thing was for sure, she was not cut out to be a keeper!

Lapis Lazuli, Ravenclaw

Chook was shuddering. She did not like flying and to be more than two feet off the ground left her speechless. But this was a lesson and she had to attend and attempt. Why she was a student at Hogwarts she had no idea, but she did believe in fate and destiny so being here was all part of the big picture. She attempted to mount her broom, but had given too much push on the right side and landed on the ground on the brooms left side. She tried again but had a similar result. Once again she attempted to sit on the broom. This time it was disastrous and very demeaning as she ended upside down with her legs entangled. 1, 2, 3, she took deep breathes and tried another time. SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for the difficult part. Get a quaffle. That was easy. Next aim for a hit a dummy. Not so easy as the dummy was enchanted and moved at the last minute. OK repeat, she tells herself. This time she hits the dummy and manages to swing to the left to catch the quaffle as the dummy returns it.

"Phew!!! This is not easy." She was getting tired and getting a sore behind from sitting on an uncomfortable broom stick. But never give up. She tried once again. Hitting the dummy with the quaffle and catching it quite easily.

Chook queasily looks below her and decides that she has had enough.

In the words of Meatloaf, Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5hWWe-ts2s

Jem pushed off the ground, Quaffle perched casually under her arm. She picked the dummy highest off the ground--this'll let me practice throwing to a player at all kinds of angles!

Positioning herself below the dummy and to an angle, she threw the Quaffle up in a serve and whipped the broomstick around to knock it at the dummy. The dummy caught and tossed the Quaffle swiftly in the opposite direction. Jem zoomed towards it but barely touched the Quaffle by her fingertips before it plummeted towards the ground.

Oooh, I should work on my dives too, Jem thought. She dove, plucked the Quaffle off the pitch, tossed it to the dummy, which feinted to the left and then threw the ball to the right. She caught the feint in time and spun, threw the ball back, caught it, threw it, caught it.

For the last toss, the dummy sent the Quaffle in a curve around itself, a bit like the arc of a Bludger. While Jem hadn't expected that, she had a heightened awareness given this was the last catch, and she swooped towards it in time. Having completed all her throws, she grinned at the dummy.

"Looks like there are quite a few things I can learn from you! Maybe you can teach me how to catch like that?"

The dummy, of course, was silent. But maybe--maybe that was the wind, or a nod of assent?

Megan was never fond of flying. There was a reason she preferred her herbs to Quidditch and she had a sinking feeling she was going to prove just why that was today.

Walking where the broom and Quaffles lay, she chose one of each and made her way to a good distance away. She mounted her broom, pushed off and rose to about 10 feet in the air, a bit wobbly. Balancing herself as best she could, she leaned forward to make the broom go forth and threw the quaffle as hard as she could towards her dummy; the dummy rose in the air as it did with the Professor, caught it and threw it right at her. She swerved to miss, a small squeak coming from her as the ball made straight for her head. She flew to retrieve the ball and try again.

She managed to throw it 3 more times before anything else occurred. On her last try, she didn't dodge in time and the ball hit her squarely in the chest with enough momentum to push her off her broom. She landed on her back, the wind knocked out of her and took stock of herself to make sure she wasn't seriously injured. She felt sore but otherwise okay and decided her best course of action at this point was to stay still until the Professor came to her aid.

Megan Belcrox/Hufflepuff

Emmy was very excited. Chaser drills! Finally, she'd get a chance to practice her skills. She was practically vibrating with excitement as she waited, listening to Mr Caswell's instructions. Her Nimbus 2001 on her shoulder, Emmy rushed forward as soon as he was finished speaking. She grabbed the first quaffle and tucked it under her arm, swung her broom around and leapt onto it, and was the first in the air. She zoomed over to a dummy that was pretty high up and examined it interestedly, then flew away some distance and turned back towards it once she'd stopped.

Taking a deep breath, she let go of her broom with her right hand and got a good grip on the quaffle. She aimed and hurled it at the dummy, grinning as it sprang to life and caught her throw easily. She hovered as it pulled its arm back, and watched as it threw the ball quite a ways to the left of where she was. Emmy quickly shot to the left and caught the quaffle, pinning it against her chest with her right arm. She let out a small "woo!" of triumph and looked around for the dummy, who was hovering in the same position as before, all but lifeless again.

Emmy decided to try throwing from farther back and retreated another ten feet or so before throwing the quaffle hard at her dummy. Again, the thing sprang to life and caught the quaffle, before tossing it again. This time, it was a good fifteen feet short of her, and it'd tossed the ball pretty high. She shot forwards and up, and managed to catch the quaffle again, spinning around from the momentum she'd gained. She was still smiling, but she felt like this was lacking something. It was too easy, throwing to this stationary target. She wanted a challenge; in a real quidditch match, her teammates wouldn't be sitting idly, waiting for her throw. They'd be zipping in and out of the opponent players, and so would she be, so she wanted something to more accurately portray that. She tucked the quaffle under her arm again and flew over to the professor, explaining that she'd like her dummy to be moving. Carlisle readily acquiesced to her request and she flew back over to her dummy, which was now flying in circles.

As she approached, it took off in front of her towards the goal hoops, like it was waiting for her to pass so it could score. Grinning, Emmy put on a burst of speed and followed it. When she was within throwing range, she held onto her broom tightly with her left hand (she was still going rather fast) and threw the quaffle with her right. It was a near miss; the quaffle fell just short of the dummy's reaching hands and plummeted towards the ground. Slightly disappointed but also determined to try again, Emmy shot downwards and caught the quaffle before it hit the pitch, swooping back up towards her dummy. It again flew off, anticipating her pursuit and she took off after it. She hadn't taken the wind or the speed of their flight into account last time; she realized now she needed to throw harder than it seemed like she should, to account for the wind resistance.

This time, when she was within range, she hurled the ball as hard as she could in the dummy's direction, and to her delight, it managed to catch it. "Yeah!!" she exclaimed out loud, thrilled. This was so much fun; by far the most fun she'd had in a lesson all year.

"Alright, one more. Toss it back!" she called to her dummy, though she knew it was pointless; the thing was magically programmed to do exactly that without her encouragement. It didn't move, however, and Emmy sat for a moment, confused. "Oh, do you want me to...?" Emmy began, turning her broom around and flying away from the dummy. Sure enough, as soon as she began to fly, it flew along just behind her, many feet to the side. Grinning again, she picked up speed and flew towards the other end of the pitch, constantly keeping an eye on the sky in front of her, and on the dummy. When she saw it's arm come up, she turned her head, veering a bit closer, and caught the quaffle with her right hand, tucking it protectively to her chest as she did a loop around the goal hoops and came back onto the pitch.

Her dummy was already flying away and she accelerated after it, nearly clipping someone else who was rising up and chasing after their own moving dummy.

"Sorry!" she yelled as she zipped past, so focused on her dummy that she had no clue whom she'd almost hit.

As they neared the other end of the pitch, she raised her arm and threw the quaffle again, watching the dummy catch it. To her surprise, the dummy threw it back almost immediately, towards her right. Reacting instinctively, she veered towards it and JUST missed it, grazing the ball with the tips of her fingers as it plummeted.

Undeterred, she got over her surprise and dove after the quaffle, catching it just twenty feet below. She grinned again, tucking the quaffle back under her arm and doing a quick loop of the pitch with it to let off a bit of her energy, before coming in for a landing in front of the pile of old school brooms and the few battered quaffles that had not been chosen for use. Flushed with her success, Emmy tossed her quaffle with the others and flopped down onto her back on the grass, her broom beside her, watching her classmates finish their trials as she hummed happily.

[img align=left]https://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b174/theatticbox/Caswell.png[/img]Carlisle was having a rough lesson. He was afraid students would get hurt more than learning balance on their brooms. He had noticed the girl that dozed off but that always happened. "Garrett you might benefit from some flying lessons maybe the fear will go away when you practice more." Carlisle turned around in time to notice the sleeping girl had destroyed the dummy as the girl walked away embarrassed Carlisle called "You will do just fine in Quidditch, just no wands!" He was amused she figured one way to get past the dummies.

"You know Merlin this game is not all sweating and sport. There is strategy involved. Perhaps try creating game plays for the game? You might be surprised how much flying a broom can help with the logistics some forget during a game. You and Paddy have done well today!"

"Jem I would happily set up a course for you if you want to practice more. I would like for everyone to gather around. Overall you are all pretty good for first timers." Carlisle was interrupted by Megan laying still on the floor "I thought you had landed already! That dummy got you good, didn't it?" With a swift movement of his wand he did a quick check up on Megan "Nothing seems to be broken but you might want to take it easy for a few days. Your back will be sore, but the pain should be going away already."

"Well done, Emmy! Please join the others." Carlisle took some quick notes and addressed the group "now that we are done with this exercise I would like to give some advice to you all. Practice, practice, practice. Those interested in Quidditch and are not comfortable flying come see me next term and we will see what we can do to get you all game ready. Some of you are good or getting a lot better quickly. You have all done an excellent job today and I believe you will all be sore in the morning but it will fade away quickly!"

earned 15 points for Slytherin! earned 15 points for Hufflepuff! earned 15 points for Slytherin! earned 15 points for Gryffindor! earned 15 points for Slytherin! earned 15 points for Slytherin! earned 15 points for Ravenclaw! earned 15 points for Gryffindor! earned 15 points for Gryffindor! earned 15 points for Hufflepuff! earned 15 points for Hufflepuff!