Confronting her greatest fears.

[Violet Bellamy]

Ever since that Flying lesson with the snitches, Violet's fear of falling had intensified. It wasn't as though she was scared of heights, but it was the concept of falling from her broom that scared her. She could fall and be seriously injured. Or worse, die. Her three greatest fears were falling, failure, and death. "Maybe I'll be lucky and have to deal with them all at once. Maybe I'll fail my flying exam by falling to my death," she said, grimly. Violet shook her head. I don't want to think about it, she told herself. She clutched her Firebolt in her right hand as she strode down to the pitch, with a false air of confidence. She was going to test herself, and she was going to rid herself of her fears. After all, she couldn't be a good Hufflepuff chaser if she couldn't let go of the broom for fear of falling.
Breathing heavily, she mounted her broom, pushed off from the ground, and circled around the pitch.

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

Andromeda walked out onto the pitch, now she had the cure for her motion sickness she felt able to take on the world. Today she needed to fly, today she needed to just let go and get out there. Of course when Andromeda did walk out and look up she should have known she would not be alone. She tried to make out who was flying about in circles and eventually saw that it was Violet.

Andromeda mounted her broom and kicked off, she flew in the opposite direction to Violet, not wanting to make pleasantries or small talk of any kind. But typical that the pitch is only so big, Andromeda felt compelled to pull her broom up alongside Violets instead of just passing her by. She waited not wanting to be the first to say anything.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

Violet looked up. "Oh, dear God, don't look down, don't look down," she muttered to herself. She kept catching herself looking down towards the ground and every time she did, she would panic and believe that she was going to fall.
She noticed that Andy was flying around on her broom, too. Violet relaxed a little. Maybe flying with Andy would make Violet take her mind of her fears, and move on to her inadequacies instead. She gave an ironic smile. "Hey!" she said, kindly. "How are you?" she asked.

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

"Good. What are you doing?" Andromeda asked having heard Violet actually talking to herself. She kept flying but for reasons that were beyond her she slowed her broom down to keep pace with Violets.

Andromeda had thought she had done with all this, the niceness, the letting people in, the friend making. It had all been for nothing in her eyes when you couldn't trust them. But she sensed that Violet had more pressing problems than what Andromeda did at that moment.

 

[Violet Bellamy]

"Oh," said Violet, looking a little embarassed. "I'm...well, trying to prove to myself that I'm not going to fall off my broom. I've always been terrified of falling, but since that lesson with the snitches, I've become even more so, and I can't play Quidditch if I spend games worrying about falling off my broom," she blurted out, blushing profusely. Andy's such a good flyer, she thought. Now I'm going to look really, really stupid.

 

[Andromeda Fiorelli]

"Fear of falling is at least a natural fear Violet. Ease your grip on your broom, the harder you hold on the more you've convinced your entire body that you will fall" Andromeda told her, she very slowly dipped her broom, "Come on follow me, we'll take this down a notch".

Andromeda flew down low so that she was a metre or so over the grass, if she lowered her legs she would graze the grass with her feet. She flew slowly waiting for Violet to follow her down. She didn't know why she helped her now but perhaps not all of the old Andromeda had been pushed away by her experience. Her love of flying and her love for her friends was stronger than she had realised. No matter what one of her friends thought or said about her.