Open Broom Surfing

[Salem Lee]

Salem had an idea. Correction, Salem had a great idea. Out of all her classes last year, she was annoyed to find she actually missed the one she didn't get to do anymore. Flying had been a nice change of pace, and while Salem had gotten distracted enough just enjoying being in the air rather than whatever Professor Holland had been asking them to do, she wished it hadn't just been a one year thing. Now though, realizing that it wasn't too difficult to get ahold of some of the school brooms, came Salem's aforementioned great idea.

She'd collected a couple of brooms and dragged them out onto the lawn, not wanting to get into the way of anyone doing proper quidditch things. She could fly any old time, today Salem wanted to try something different. After some coaxing, she got one of the brooms floating just below her hip height before trying to raise up a leg and step onto it. It was delicate, and Salem wondered somewhat belatedly if she could try first with the broom a lot lower as she rested the full weight on her raised foot, the broom slipping upwards with the force and sending Salem sprawling into the grass with a muffled grunt. Undeterred, Salem hopped back to her feet, spitting out some grass and grinning as she tried again, with time with the broom lower so she could try stepping on, wobbling and waving her arms precariously as she tried to keep a balance a few inches off the ground. "I'm doing it!" she announced excitedly, just before she lost her balance, falling to the ground once more.

 

[Lysander Summers]

Over the holidays, Lysander had bought himself a pair of magical headphones from the mall. It had been a bit of an impulse buy, and taken some time to fiddle with to figure out how to properly work it, but now that he'd gotten it working he could sit around and listen to tunes while he worked in the garden, or practiced beating bludgers around the pitch. Lately though, he wasn't enjoying either of those as much, or many of the things he usually did. It had been hard to find the motivation. Instead he laid sprawled out under the shade of a tree, watching his owl do circles in the sky overhead, whilst wizarding bands played songs in his ears.

Lysander didn't hear the struggle nearby over the music, though he did catch something falling over in his peripherals. He sat up, tugging the headphones down to his neck, and looked across to where a young girl was trying to mount a broom by standing on it. He chuckled lightly to himself. It was the same thing he'd done with his much smaller toy broom, after watching Ajaccio skateboard around the castle so often. He'd been a bit envious, and a broom had been a way to try and one-up the skateboard. It had been fun, but he'd grown too big for his toy broom since. He watched the girl try again, seeming to have the hang of it for a moment until she fell a second time. He got up from his spot in his grass and walked the short distance over to where the brooms were. "Did you want some help?" He asked, picking up one of what appeared to be school brooms.​

 

[Salem Lee]

Salem was picking grass from her palms as she got to her feet when someone else approached. "Hey, you're the Quidditch captain, right?" she said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes to get a better look at him. If anyone could master broom surfing, it was probably him. "I nearly had it," she added, giving the broom a speculative look and trying to step back onto it again. It went about as well as last time, Salem managing to just get her other foot off the ground and onto the broom again before she had to start waving her arms to keep her balance, though she did manage to jump off the broom before she fell this time. "Can you show me? You know how? Is there a secret to it?" Salem could imagine it'd be pretty cool to see a whole game of Quidditch with everyone standing on their brooms rather than sitting.

 

[Lysander Summers]

Lysander beamed, taking a moment to appreciate the recognition. "Quidditch captain" was much better to be known by than "professors kid". "Yep. That's me." He said, taking a step back when she tried to hop onto the broom again. He suppressed a laugh at the arm-windmilling, and set the broom he'd picked up down to hover a foot above the grass. "'Sort of. When you step on you need to angle your feet sideways and apart, like this." He said, carefully stepping onto the broom with his feet splayed. "And you want to stand closer to the tail, so you've got more room to guide with, and bend your knees so your center of gravity is closer to the broom." He used his own legs as an example, trying to show how to go about it as he explained. "Then when you've got your balance you just sort of...go." He kicked a foot against the grass to push himself up and forward a few extra feet, and swerved the nose of the broom around to float back in a half circle around where they were practicing. "It's all practice after that."​

 

[Salem Lee]

Salem watched carefully as the Captain demonstrated how to get on the broom, nodding along attentively as he explained everything. It seemed so simple when he did it and Salem admittedly stopped listening part way through to try and step on herself like he had. She managed to get a foot on down near the tail end of the broom, but as she shifted her weight to lift up her other foot, the broom flipped, dumping her onto the grass as the Captain smoothly pushed himself off and in a little circle.

"How'd you make it look so easy," she bemoaned to the clouds above, getting back and trying again, more determined this time. She didn't stand as close to the tail this time, managing to get both feet on, though she had to grab the broom with her hand to hold steady as she tried to wobblily get to her feet. "Oh, oh, look! Awesome!" Salem said victoriously, standing unsteadily, arms out, on the broom. "Can you push me?" She asked after a beat. There was no way she could move her own feet to do it like the Captain had, but she didn't want to give up her success just yet.

 

[Lysander Summers]

Lysander pursed his lips to avoid chuckling more at the girl's unfortunate attempts to surf the broom. The lawn would probably have a few person-shaped indents by the end of the day. At least the grass was soft. He shrugged. "Like I said, it's practice. I was face-planting all the time when I started trying." He'd definitely earned a few grass-grazes of his own in the process. He gave a thumbs up when she managed to stand, despite being totally sure she might still fall off at any moment. "Are you sure?" He asked when she requested a push. It looked like he might be just as likely to push her off as he was to push her forward. He surfed up alongside her and hovered, reaching out a tentative hand. "Okay, here we go. If you wobble try not to over-correct yourself." He suggested, placing his hand between her shoulder blades and giving a light push forward. He kept his broom moving forward as well, trying to push her along until she was ready to speed off on her own, or until she fell, whichever came first. "I still need to get more practice too. It'd be cool to like, surf up in the clouds. They're pretty much sky-waves, if you think about it." It had been fun to imagine, though from that height, grass stains would be the least of his worries.​