The very first official flying lesson for Gryffindor's first-years was scheduled in the fifth week of term, on a crisp autumn afternoon.
Sunlight gilded the spires of Hogwarts in warm gold, while a gentle breeze carried the scent of grass and trees, brushing across each young, excited face.
Their professor, Madam Rolanda Hooch, stood tall and firm. Her cropped grey hair did not move an inch in the wind. Her pale yellow eyes, sharp and piercing, swept across the little wizards with the assessing focus of a hunter sizing up her prey.
"Good afternoon, everyone."
Her voice rang out, crisp and commanding, instantly silencing every whisper on the training grounds.
"Welcome to your first flying lesson. What are you waiting for? Stand next to the broomstick on your left. Quickly!"
The students scrambled, tripping over themselves to find their positions.
"Extend your right hand over the broom," Madam Hooch demonstrated, "and then, with confidence, shout—
'Up!'"
"Up!"
A chorus of voices, shaky with both nerves and anticipation, filled the air.
Most of the first-years trembled with uncertainty; their magical output was unstable, leading to one comical failure after another. Ron Weasley's broom merely twitched on the ground, while Hermione Granger's rolled over with a pitiful spin. Neville Longbottom's broom was the most dramatic of all—it shot straight up with a hiss, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, nearly smacking him in the face.
Amid the chaos, Alan Scott stood unusually calm.
He did not reach out at once.
Deep within his mind, the grand edifice of his Mind Palace was running at speeds faster than light itself.
A flood of cold, precise data flickered through his consciousness:
[Arm length: 58.4 cm.]
[Broom model: Comet 140.]
[Balance point: 37% from the front end of the broom's axis.]
[Wind speed: 1.2 m/s, northwest.]
[Objective: raise broom's handle to palm height within 0.5 seconds, stable.]
[Calculation result: minimum required magic output threshold—0.087 standard magic units.]
All computations finished in a thousandth of a second.
Only then did Alan calmly extend his right hand, palm down, hovering over the Comet 140.
His lips moved, releasing a syllable so soft it was almost inaudible.
"Up."
No excess motion, no sharp command.
The broom rose as though lifted by an invisible hand, its movement elegant and steady, precise in trajectory, leaping into his palm as smoothly as a well-trained servant presenting its master with a staff of office.
Madam Hooch's sharp eyes lingered on him for a second. A flicker of approval flashed through the pale yellow.
"Very good, Scott!"
The flying segment that followed only deepened the divide between Alan and the others.
When Madam Hooch blew her silver whistle to signal the start of free practice, the training field boiled into chaos.
"Woohoo!"
Fred and George Weasley shot upward like twin crimson arrows loosed from a bowstring. They were wild stallions let loose, tearing across the skies with reckless joy, performing stunts so daring they made the Hufflepuffs on the ground gasp and clutch their robes—cross dives that brushed danger, dizzying barrel rolls that threatened to make the blood rush to one's head.
Alan, however, did not join the airborne revelry.
At around ten meters above the ground, he steadied his broom.
He wasn't here to play.
To him, this was a rare, controlled experiment—an opportunity to collect first-hand flight data.
Like a meticulous test pilot, he began his data-gathering operations.
First, steady linear flight. He tucked his body in, feeling the airflow change against his ears. His Mind Palace recorded the drag coefficients under different body positions.
Then, he extended both arms, deliberately increasing wind resistance. The broom slowed, just enough to note.
[Posture A: Drag coefficient 0.28.]
[Posture B: Drag coefficient 0.41.]
Next, from ten meters high, he released his magical grip on the broom, allowing himself and it to fall together in freefall.
Weightlessness enveloped his entire body.
He silently counted the seconds in his heart, every cell in his body attuned to the sensation of gravity's pull. His mind raced with calculations—how much altitude he could afford to lose, how much acceleration he could risk—before pulling up just short of disaster.
At the last instant, barely two meters from the ground, Alan regained control of his broom. With a graceful maneuver, he pulled it to a halt, hovering steadily in midair.
Not far away, on another training field, Slytherin students were undergoing the same drills.
Their captain, a burly upperclassman named Marcus Flint, had noticed the strange, precise way Alan was flying.
Flint was tall, with unnaturally broad shoulders and thick arms. His rough-hewn face, all cramped features and heavy lines, lent him the brutish aura of an unmasked troll.
He straddled a gleaming Nimbus 2000—the fastest, newest broom on the market at the time.
"Hey, Gryffindor bookworm!"
Flint cut a cocky arc through the air, swooping down beside Alan with theatrical bravado. His deliberately drawn-out, mocking tone carried across the pitch.
"Are you flying up here, or just doing your maths homework?"
Behind him, a few Slytherin cronies burst into well-rehearsed laughter.
"Want me to lend you a quill? You could do your sums on the broomstick—maybe even work out the exact second you'll fall off!"
His voice was loud, dripping with provocation.
Alan didn't even flicker an eyelid.
His mind was still replaying the data from his freefall experiment. To him, Flint's noise was nothing more than meaningless static to be filtered out of his environment.
And that, that absolute disregard, stung more deeply than any verbal retort.
Alan's friends, however, were instantly incensed.
"What did you just say?!"
A flash of red shot across the sky. Fred Weasley wheeled about like a fired cannonball and blocked Flint head-on. His face burned crimson with fury, his eyes blazing like a lion defending its territory.
"You slug-faced git! Take that back!"
"Oh yeah?"
Flint sneered, sweeping his gaze over Fred and his somewhat battered broom. His lip curled with disdain.
"You want a fight, Weasley? You penniless pauper?"
"Bring it on!"
Fred's temper exploded. Without another wasted word, he yanked his broom downward and launched himself straight at Flint.
The clash erupted.
In midair, the two boys burst into a wild chase.
Flint, relying on the raw speed of his Nimbus 2000, held the edge in velocity. Every dive of his broom carried brute force, each one an attempt to ram Fred straight out of the sky.
But Fred was far nimbler. Like a cunning kestrel, he twisted and darted at impossible angles, slipping past Flint's charges by mere inches and leaving the Slytherin's brute-force attacks flailing at empty air.
Their flight paths tangled above the pitch like a chaotic web, filled with near-misses and bone-jarring bursts of speed.
Gasps from below had turned into outright screams.
At last, Fred—both the more daring and the more gifted flyer—saw his chance.
After a furious chase, he suddenly dropped like a stone, skimming so low over the grass he was practically mowing it.
Flint roared in anger, diving after him. The gap between them shrank fast.
Just when Flint thought he had his prey, already stretching out his foot to kick at Fred's broom tail, Fred pulled a move that bordered on insanity.
He yanked his broom hard to the left, dragging its weight into a near-horizontal tilt. His body flattened almost parallel to the ground as he pulled off an extreme, razor-sharp turn.
Flint never had a chance to react.
He could only watch Fred vanish from his line of sight while his own momentum carried him helplessly forward—straight into the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
With a tremendous crash, he ploughed headfirst into a tangle of thick, clawing branches.
"AHHH!"
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