A brief thought of sneaking out of class entirely crossed their mind. The first time the young Hufflepuff had ever thought about breaking the rules. However the thought of costing their house points kept them planted firmly in place. Professor Caswell must have read their mind with a Legilimens Spell cause he confidently asked for his first victim – I mean, volunteer. Of course Toru was NOT going to go first. It’d be a miracle if they went at all.

Finally there was no delaying the inevitable. They slowly inched forward until they were in front of the Professor and carefully mounted the broom. Toru had heard that Brooms were good at reading personalities of their riders or something like that. They still gently whispered to the broom to be gentle and kicked off.

The second their feet left the ground they gave an ear piercing shriek and clutched the broom with both arms locked around it and crouched entirely over the piece of wood, eyes tightly shut. It was an exact repeat of their first year flying class. There were a few small chuckles of laughter from the other students, and they slowly peeked an eye open to realize that they were floating maybe three feet off the ground which was plenty high enough for the second year. “I-I don’t think I can do this, P-Professor.” Toru admitted since it would be impossible to guard the goals at their current height. Hopefully Professor Caswell wouldn’t dock too many points. If Toru had been meant to fly, they would have been born with wings.

Toru | Hufflepuff

Callista had been practising since Merlin and some of the others had shown her a few tricks last summer, after they'd all gone to see the Harpies. She was pretty dubious about this particular trick, though. She warmed herself up by flying around the goals one after the other, at first taking them at normal speed, so that she was actually flying pretty fast by the time Professor Caswell reached her.

Which is to say, she was flying pretty fast for her. Not fast for Merlin or Professor Caswell by a long shot.

Of course, when the quaffle breezed past her ear, she panicked, and flubbed the second loop.

Nobody was laughing, but Callista's face was burning. On her second try, she did both loops correctly, mostly because she was grimly determined not to fail. Technically, she did block the quaffle.

Technically.

Unfortunately, she blocked it with her own body; it struck her firmly on the left side of her waist, nearly knocking her off her broom. For a few seconds (which felt like hours) she was flying upside down. The words that came out of her mouth would almost certainly have got her detention had they been in English, but they were in a mixture of Italian, French, and Japanese, because it hurt.

Callista landed shakily, behind one of the towers, and was glad she'd landed where most of the class couldn't see, because she was promptly and ungracefully sick.

Callista Zabini Slytherin House

Even with his confidence shaken, Ezekiel decides to learn as much as he can from the flying lessons, if it is like the other classes he should have no trouble... right? Today Ezekiel arrived confident in the field, ready to take all the notes, except... Except there are no notes to take. He freezes when he sees the teacher doing those tricky movements and on top of everything he defends the goals.

He watches his classmates do their assignment, feeling his turn would come sooner than later. And it did. After a quick recognition flight, he takes place on the front of the hoops and start doing the movements. He was so focused on doing perfect loops that he forgets about the quaffle - it goes straight through the center hoop.

"I'm sorry! I will pay attention."

Soon Ezekiel starts doing the loops again, trying to balance his focus both on his trajectory and the ball just when the quaffle is again launched. This time, with no hesitation, he launches himself toward the quaffle like a bullet, and he manages to block it! ...With his head, ouch.

Ezekiel falls spiraling without any control and hits the ground face first. After a few moments, he gets up and dusts off his hair.

"I BLOCKED IT!" he screams with arms up, yet a little dizzy.

Lysandra was used to the soft movement of unicorns and albatrosses and got sick almost every time she had to mount a broom. Those staccatos and jerks, the bobbling movements of this flying mobile rattled her stomach and got to her nerves. All the talk about the newest broom models and their alterations and upgrades sparked no interest in Lysandra and if she would have the option, she would have been in the library right now and not here on the flying field.

She did like Quidditsch, though, being hooked by the Heidelberg Harriers and her own Ravenclaw team. Yet there was a big difference between watching and actual flying.

Lysandra blinked her eyes, gulped and tried to remember the instructions for this lesson. The Double Eight Loop seems to be the name of her trip to hell today. Last time, she had gotten so sick over her broom that she had to be taken to the matron and had to stay for some hours in the infirmary.

Suddenly, Lysandra was hit on an idea. She rummaged in her pockets for the piece of ginger she had asked for in potions class to brew a warming tea in the evening. Beneath its spicy taste and heating character, ginger was well known for calming the stomach and reducing nausea. She didn´t know if it would also work when it came to broom queasiness yet she remembered the story of a captain of a sailing ship who chewed small pieces of ginger during shaking storms.

She nipped a thumb-big piece of the root, grimacing at once. This was spicy, even hot! However, the young witch thought, better safe than sorry, and she placed the small piece of root cautiously into her cheek pouch.

Determined, Lysandra mounted her Twigger 90, setting out to do the trick right at first try so that she could climb down again as soon as possible!

Professor Caswell had already practiced with many of her classmates and indicated it would be her turn now, swerving around the loops. She flew up to the loops, slowly. Don´t look down! Only look for the quaffle! she reminded herself.

Gaining speed, she did both loops in time and correctly yet the quaffle flew past in the distance. The second time was similar, she tried to block the quaffle with her wand basee by impulse and was happy it didn´t get hurt. Last try, she encouraged herself, you can do it! She increased her speed, circled the loops like before and this time, the quaffle flew in her direction yet she bend over, reflexive. Argh!

With a sigh, Lysandra touched down yet descended with delight nevertheless. She had been able to circle the loops in the correct procedure, even had accelerated her speed, and she didn´t had to vomit all over the place. That was a signal victory for her all in all, whatever the grade would be!

But this was a class assignment, part of her well rounded Hogwarts Education, so she had to complete the assignment "for her own good" as adults are always saying.

She mounted her broom when it was her turn and took to the air. She was able to complete one set of loops before Professor Caswell threw the quaffle. Luckily she noticed he'd thrown it in front of her, thinking she was far enough away that she wouldn't reach it in time. She sent out a burst of speed and was able to get her finger tips on it. But she didn't have enough momentum in her hand connecting with the quaffle to set it off course enough to miss the goal. Still, she thought, she'd done a whole-hearted attempt at blocking the goal, so surely the professor would see that as a good attempt and worth her passing the assignment.

She went for one more double eight loop before landing. This time Professor Caswell threw the ball behind her. As she jerked the broom to change direction she must have leaned too far to the left and felt gravity pulling her off the broom. Before she knew it she was hanging from her broom! With one hand she reached into her cloak and pulled out her wand. With as much concentration as she could muster she said "Arresto Momentum" and felt gravity let up. She felt lighter. With faith, she let go of her broom and was able to float down to the ground safely. "Whew, that was a close one" she thought.

Mounting her broom, Niamh kicked off and hovered about 10 inches off the ground. Realistically, if she'd stretched her legs out, she would've been touching the ground, but as long as she kept her legs tucked up, it was flying, right? Leading forwards, she slowly inched her broom forwards, and much to her surprise, managed to loop the base of the first goal. Still flying at a speed that must be slower than a snail can move, Niamh carefully turned around the base of the centre goal, and headed for the one on the other end. It felt like it was taking forever, and her hands were getting quite sweaty, but she didn't want to remove her hands from the broomstick to wipe them off.

As she rounded the base of the third goal, she realised Professor Caswell had thrown the quaffle. And of course, as she was only 10 inches off the ground, and the goals were... considerably higher, the Professor had scored. But Niamh was grinning because it was the first time she'd successfully flown on a broom. In fact, she was so pleased, she leant forwards without thinking, and her broom suddenly shot forwards. Finding herself flying rather quickly towards the base of the goal, Niamh did the only thing she could think of - she leant to the side and toppled off the broom, landing in a heap on the floor.

"I still hate flying," she said as she stood up, checking herself over for injuries.

Her next attempt was more about luck than anything else. Parker managed to accelerate right in front of the hoop as Mister Caswell's shot curved to meet her. He gave her a high five and looked over her broom approvingly. Maybe she would try out for the Slytherin team instead of just racing ships.