Feeling the pleading look in Hermione's eyes, Kevin Goldsmith truly wanted to agree, but reason told him that being in a group with Hermione would be far more helpful to him.
And Hermione probably wouldn't refuse, since she didn't have any real friends yet.
It wasn't her fault. In every class, Hermione seemed completely focused on the exercise in front of her and on being the first to answer the teacher's questions. She always did an excellent job, seemingly oblivious to the resentful looks from the other students.
"Sorry, I promised Hermione I'd be in her group. You're so popular—there must be plenty of people willing to partner with you. And Hermione… let's not leave her alone, alright?" Kevin tried to avoid meeting Hannah's eyes. "See you tomorrow at flying lesson. Hopefully the weather will be good for our first lesson."
"There's a reason many people dislike Miss Know-It-All—she… I'm sorry, that was too harsh." Hannah hurried away.
The weather the next day was indeed perfect. The sun shone so brightly that the ground beneath their feet seemed baked hard by the heat.
Their teacher, Madam Hooch, had short grey hair and sharp yellow eyes, rather like an eagle.
"All right, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand beside a broomstick—quickly, quickly!"
"Stretch out your right hand over your broom," Madam Hooch commanded, "and say, 'Up!'"
Kevin suppressed his embarrassment and shouted "Up!" along with everyone else, but his broom didn't twitch.
He glanced aside and saw Hermione's broom lazily rolling on the ground. Most brooms were doing the same—some even skittered away from their would-be riders. Only his remained utterly motionless. He discreetly used his spell hand to make it hop into the air, pretending the old broom was simply slow to respond.
Kevin concluded that some innate magical trait let wizards resonate with their brooms. Kevin, lacking that trait, couldn't make his broom react at all.
In the end, he had no choice but to cast a levitation spell on himself. This allowed him to float up and down, but to move sideways, he had to awkwardly push off walls or the ground.
He felt like a six-year-old who had wandered into an advanced swimming lesson, dog-paddling helplessly while others glided past doing elegant backstroke.
Neville, meanwhile, was at the opposite extreme. He kicked off the ground far too hard and spiraled upward before slipping clean off the broom.
Kevin quickly cast a mage's armor on him—an invisible protective barrier—but judging from Neville's collision with the earth and the ensuing wail, the effect was… limited. (Why not a levitation spell? Kevin envied the wizards whose magic seemed endlessly renewable. Once Kevin used one prepared spell, he couldn't cast it again until the next day.)
Madam Hooch hurried over, checked Neville, declared him injured but intact, and instructed the rest to stay put as she escorted him to the hospital wing.
"What did you just do?" Hermione asked, guilt creeping into her voice.
"I tried to cast a protective spell, but it didn't work terribly well," Kevin admitted. Perhaps using a floating disc would've been smarter, but he hadn't thought of it.
"Why didn't you use the Levitation Charm? You handled it quite well in class," Hermione said, puzzled—her tone almost accusatory without her noticing.
Kevin was trying to think of a way to explain that he didn't actually know the Levitation Charm at all, when someone else snapped.
"How dare you scold others? Don't you always cast your spells perfectly in class? Why didn't you help Neville then? Poor Neville doesn't deserve being lectured by our brilliant student!" Hannah burst out, cheeks flushed.
"I didn't even have time to draw my wand," Hermione muttered, aggrieved.
A gasp from the class interrupted them. Harry, on his broom, soared into the air—straight after Malfoy, who tossed a small glass sphere high above them.
The ball plummeted.
Harry dove after it with astonishing precision, catching it mere moments before it hit the ground. He pulled up smoothly, landing with quiet triumph.
Kevin estimated Harry's agility to be around eighteen—born to be a ranger, not a wizard. The other students stood frozen, not just by the feat but by the sight of Professor McGonagall's thunderous expression.
She marched Harry away at once, ignoring Ron's frantic explanations.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle looked delighted. "He's getting expelled for sure," Malfoy crowed.
"Schools don't usually expel people for breaking rules in P.E., do they?" Hermione asked, though she didn't sound convinced.
"Hogwarts isn't like those filthy M—" Malfoy began, before letting out a shriek. Jerry, Kevin's mouse, had sunk tiny incisors into his trouser leg. Crabbe and Goyle were too busy howling with laughter to help.
Kevin noted—again—that Tasha's Hideous Laughter worked brilliantly on low-intelligence targets, and that repeatedly defeating the same foes did, indeed, grant experience.
At dinner, Harry returned, thrilled. "I might become a Seeker!"
"What's a Seeker?" Kevin asked. This immediately ignited Ron, who launched into a whirlwind explanation of Quidditch, complete with windmill-like arm sweeps.
"Let me be sure I understand," Kevin said as Ron finished. "Catching the Golden Snitch is worth one hundred and fifty points?"
"Exactly."
"Excluding the Snitch, how many ten-point goals are scored in a typical match?"
"Well—fifteen to twenty per side—"
"This is absurd. It violates every principle of game design. The Snitch overwhelmingly determines the result. The rest of the game is reasonable, but what you've described is essentially this: two Seekers flying about doing almost nothing while relying on pure chance—"
"It's not chance!" Ron protested. "You need scanning patterns, and the other team interferes with you! And how would anyone know when the game ends if the Seeker doesn't catch the Snitch?"
"For example," Hermione offered, "using an alarm clock? Matches with fixed lengths are far fairer—and far easier to schedule."
"Harry, let's go before their madness spreads to me," Ron said desperately. He could tolerate Kevin's occasional oddities—Malfoy's humiliation had earned that courtesy—but with Hermione joining in, Ron felt flight was the only sensible choice.