A cool shower invigorates—everyone knows this, but not everyone uses it. I am one of these people. Having woken up early in the morning, the first thing I did was wash my face and tidy myself up, because full-fledged exercises and physical training were postponed due to the need to meet Cedric and Herbert in the faculty common room—that's where I headed, walking along the deserted and absolutely quiet corridor of the male wing of the faculty.
"Hello to the sleepless," I waved my hand at the entire faculty Quidditch team. "What happened that I can't sleep an extra hour?"
"Hello, come over," Cedric answered for everyone.
They were standing almost in the middle of the living room. They were standing in a crescent shape, and at their feet lay a huge, elongated box made of wood and plywood. It looked as if it had been knocked together very recently, and there was no talk of any markings or treatment with varnish or even sandpaper—even from the entrance to the men's wing, I could see burrs on the wooden blocks that would easily turn into splinters if I ran my hand over them. Approaching the guys, I looked at the box and waited for an explanation.
"Hector!" Herbert could not stand even a few moments of silence. "Open up!"
Our goalkeeper pointed at the box with both hands.
"You might as well offer a crowbar."
"Yes, I've already pulled out the nails. Open up, open up!"
Bending down, I removed the lid from the box and placed it on the floor nearby.
"Wow, looks cool!"
"Of course!"
In the box, almost completely buried in straw, there was a broom on a special stand. It was hard to discern its shape because of the straw, so I simply grabbed it by the shaft and pulled it out. What caught my eye was not only the perfectly new, polished shaft of an unusual shape—at least for me—but also the metal footrests. Another unusual thing was that the shaft had loops protruding downwards and to the sides, like handles. Although, judging by the wrapping, this is indeed the case. The same wrapping, like that of a Japanese sword, was also where a wizard could place his hands when traditionally gripping the shaft itself.
Taking a closer look, I noticed that the shaft was much more massive, and its curves, oddly enough, resembled a sports motorcycle.
"What do you say?" Herbert's eyes showed such anticipation of bright emotions, as if he had made this broom himself.
"It's heavy," I answered with the utmost seriousness.
"Ha-ha-ha!" No one could hold back their laughter, and I smiled back.
"You need to try before you say anything," I explained to the guy the reason for this answer.
"Yes, indeed. I missed that. Let's go quickly!"
This guy's enthusiasm can be infectious. Although, why "can"? It is. We were out in the open incredibly quickly. This time the dawn was breaking, spreading a pale gray light across the horizon—cloudy, gloomy, the British Isles.
"To the locker room?"
"To Merlin's dressing room, Hector," Herbert waved his hand. "Sit down, but be careful. She's special; you'll understand."
Having taken note, so to speak, of this remark, I carefully sat down on the broom and carefully pushed off the ground with my feet—a standard procedure, if you believe the books. Hovering half a meter above the green field behind the castle walls, I pressed myself as close to the shaft as possible, grabbing the handles. This grip allowed me to hold on to the broom much better due to the support not on the central axis, but on the sides. The support for the legs was generally divine—and why don't they do this on other brooms? Now I have four points of support on both sides of the central axis. Yes… Like in the cradle of one of the models of void fighters on which the pilot's fragment had the chance to fly. Well, or like on a sports bike, only even more horizontal and elongated.
Having immersed myself in the sensations of the broom, I felt something strange. So, let's try shifting to the sides, forward, and backward.
Sharply! Very sharply!
"Yoo-hoo!" A scream burst out of me on its own.
Instantly soaring ten meters and without changing the horizon of the broom, I stopped just as instantly. Having given out a series of powerful impulses in different directions, I literally drew a vertical square with a cross inside.
"Absurdly cool!" Herbert yelled below, and the boys supported him with approving cries.
"So…" I said out loud, thereby curbing my enthusiasm. "Time for flight tests."
Acceleration from a standstill—the speed gain is simply devilish! Shifting to the right, left, up, down—very fast, sharp, and powerful. There is a striking difference from the Chistomet I flew. If you compare it with the pilot's experience, you can make a rather interesting association. The Chistomet is a voidcraft with a not very powerful reactor, cruise and maneuvering engines, and each of these engines is capable of realizing only a small and pre-programmed percentage of the reactor's power. Here, everything is powerful, but at the same time, each individual maneuvering engine can realize a full hundred percent of the reactor's power, de-energizing the others. Considering that I can, albeit not yet perfectly, control all these "engines" the way I need, then this is not a broom—it's a miracle!
After going crazy for another twenty minutes in the sky and properly tiring my body with powerful overloads, I returned to my surprised and satisfied teammates.
"A crazy broom!" I said happily, smiling from ear to ear. "Just crazy."
"We saw it," Cedric patted me on the shoulder. "And how do you deal with it?"
"I just feel it," I shrugged.
"Well? Did I tell you that?" Herbert nudged Cedric with his shoulder. "I told you that! Anyway, Hector, here's the story…"
Our goalkeeper spent about ten minutes explaining the nuances of his idea, and in principle, I agreed—get a broom to use, win on it, and for this, there will also be a small reward. But only if the team wins on the goal difference. In general, a purely advertising thing.
"Don't think it's going to be easy," Cedric, though talking to us as we walked back to the castle, was somewhere in his dreams. "To win on goal difference, the score has to be one hundred and sixty points higher than the opponent. And I don't have to catch the Snitch."
"And you will try to catch it as soon as possible."
We passed through the courtyard in front of the entrance and returned to the walls of the school, where silence still reigned, literally broken by the resounding sounds of our steps.
"Of course," the prefect snapped out of his thoughts. "If I wait too long to find and catch the Snitch, the opposing Seeker might just catch it before we've scored sixteen Quaffles. So, soon…"
"Soon?"
Cedric turned to me, looking conspiratorial.
"We'll have training soon, and you'll need to learn to score as many goals as quickly as you can."