Time to Fly

[Indiana Night]

Indiana walked down to the Quidditch Pitch, broom in hand. It wasn't time for a flying lesson, not time for Gryffindor Practice. Instead it was time to help Preston learn to fly, with Tybalt as well. She was excited to see the two boys together once more. She barely got the time to be with Preston, and Tybalt she saw every day in and out of the Common Room and classes. They both were her greatest friends at the school, however she wasn't one to tell them everything going on with her. For some reason Indiana is a very secretative person. Whereas Tybalt told her all sorts of things when he was crying and she realized how similar the two were, she never told him. She herself had bad memories of bullies and not having many friends. However since attending Hogwarts she has made a lot of friends in and out of her house. She only had one best friend before coming to the magical school. But the girl hadn't seen that boy in years.

Walking into the open grassy area of the pitch Indiana looked around with a smile on her face. Memories of being there watching as Gryffindor made two goals in their first game right after each other. Or how the girl Captain of Hufflepuff kept getting whacked by the bludgers and had to be changed to Keeper which seemed like a stupid idea, she should have been taken out. Shaking her head from her thoughts the girl laid her broom out on the ground and stood by it waiting for her two friends to appear at the pitch.

 

[Preston Paine]

Throwing a hoodie on over the jeans and t-shirt he had been wearing in the common room, Preston made an excuse to the roommate he had been talking with about needing to grab a book in the library for some lame History of Magic homework he needed to make up. The boy hated admitting to any kind of deficiency, and so far, he thought he had been doing a fairly good job of not letting others know how little he knew of the magical world. The boy was thankfully a quick learner, especially when it came to the social aspects of the wizarding community. Pocketing his wand, Preston quickly climbed up the steps and slipped out of the castle. The breezy air felt good and he made quick work of the walk to the pitch.

As he entered the pitch, the Slytherin boy saw that his friend, Indiana, was already there. He couldn’t believe that she was already on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. It was pretty impressive, considering most of the first years were like him and could barely fly. In the past few lessons, Preston had begun to get the hang of flying around, though he was pretty sure he’d never love it. Pulling his hand out of his pocket, Preston gave Indiana a friendly wave as he walked over. He hoped she wouldn’t mind him using her broom to practice. He didn’t own one of his own. “Hey Indiana”he said, a smile on his face as he stopped right in front of her. “Teach me, oh wise one” he said, a smirk coming across his face as she tried to fight back a chuckle.

 

[Indiana Night]

Indiana smiled as her friend showed up on the pitch. She laughed at his comment about her being wise. All it really was, was that she had more practice flying. She was sure as long as he did not wimp out by the heights he would be a great flyer. "Hi Preston," she said to her friend giving him a quick hug. Looking around she didn't notice her friend Tybalt and knew they couldn't be in the pitch for very long so she opted to start the mini lesson now. Tybalt was pretty good at flying from what she saw in class anyways. The temperature was nice out but she was glad to have a sweater on as it would get colder up in the air. Looking at her friend's hands she noticed he didn't have a broom with him and rolled her eyes. "Get a broom from the storage over there goof ball," she told him surprised he hadn't already got one yet.

Once her friend was back she commanded her broom to fly up to her hand and waited for her friend to do the same. "What did you think of the Halloween Ball?" Indiana questioned as she waited for him to complete the first step in flying. She only hoped that the broom he picked wouldn't be difficult, she knew from practice that some of the school brooms would put up a fight if they felt like it. That was the only problem she found with magic, even inanimate objects gained personalities in a way. You had to be gentle to the school brooms otherwise none of them would want to listen to you.

 

[Preston Paine]

Preston laughed and then turned, jogging off to the storage shed. He tugged on the handle and stepped inside where brooms and other stuff was just lined up and tossed around. Finding a newish looking broom, Preston picked it up and jogged back out. As he did, he took a look at the broom seeing that it was one of the Nimbus series. Whether that was good or not, he had no idea. Stopping when he had reached Indiana, he watched as she easily commanded the broom around. Preston tossed his broom on the ground and then looked at Indiana beside him. “I thought it was a ton of fun” he replied honestly. He shook his head, thinking about some of the costumes. “I was sort of surprised by how into it everyone gets. I mean even the professors were in costume” he added with a small laugh.

Holding his hand out, Preston said “Up” to his broom. It sort of wiggled a bit and almost rose, but then stopped. “Really?” he said, rolling his eyes and trying again, this time succeeding. Preston swung a leg over, his feet still happily on the grass and waited for further instruction. “What’s next?” he asked Indiana.

 

[Indiana Night]

Indiana winced as her friend tossed his borrowed broom to the ground. She knew now he might have some trouble getting the broom to come back up to him. For the most part the magic in the brooms was responsive but sometimes it didn't like being tossed around like trash. "I thought so too!" She replied holding her broom ready to mount. She laughed lightly as at first the broom didn't fully respond to Preston. The girl had sensed such a thing would happen. "Next time don't throw the broom on the ground, it might be more willingly to come back up," she said to her friend. Swinging a leg over her broom she waited as her friend did the same.

The thing with flying that she loved was the thrill of being so capable of falling and yet being able to hover in the air. Muggles would never have a clue that being able to fly the skies with birds was something they could do. "Quick off," Indiana replied to Preston. The girl decided not to take off right at first, instead she waited for her friend to quick off the ground first and take to the sky.

 

[Preston Paine]

Preston listened to her direction and thought about it for a moment before nodding his head. He had slowly come to the realization that, in the magical world at least, things seemed to have their own personalities. And she hadn't seemed to have the same sort of problem with her broom. Perhaps he would give it a try next time if he remembered. He wasn't used to think of objects as having personalities. "Ok" he replied and then just stared at her as she spoke again. If she thought that he was just going to dart into the air, she was mistaken.

Gingerly pushing off of the ground, Preston rose ever so slowly into the air, his hands immediately tightening around the broomstick as his legs did the same. He was only about six feet off of the ground, barely above Indiana's head when he stopped and looked down. "Now what? Is this good enough?" he asked, hoping that she wouldn't want to go higher. Preston would if he had to, but if he could stay closer to the ground, then he'd be more at ease. From this height, he figured the grass would be able to break any fall. He knew that quidditch players played way higher than this and knew that Indiana would easily be comfortable at a greater height, but still he hoped that this would be good. He certainly wouldn't admit his discomfort with heights and would simply have to rise with her.

 

[Indiana Night]

Indiana watched as her friend Preston mounted his broom and waited for her instructions. Of course the next thing for him to do was to fly up in the air. She figured he might still be hesitiant with flying up very high. It seemed a lot of new flyers were like that. However she knew from experience the higher you were the better the chance of someone being able to catch you if you fell. This of course wasn't something she was about to share with Preston when he just took off the ground. She knew she had been a lot like him when she first got a child's broom. Of course those did not go above a few feet off the ground anyways, she still hadn't wanted to go any higher. Then Georgie and Kayden pushed her to go higher and she loved the feeling of flying.

Taking off the girl flew up a bit higher then her friend, so that he had to look up to see her face. "Go up higher then me," Indiana told her friend. She was going to try to make it into a game to see if she was right there with him if he'd keep going up trying to higher then she. At some point she was sure he'd noticed how high they were and freak out. But the girl would be right there for her friend. Plus flying above the pitch, one got the most amazing view of the entire school.

 

[Preston Paine]

Since he wasn't very eager to look down, Preston concentrated on Indiana. He could tell how at ease she was and wished he could be the same. As she spoke and urged him higher, Preston stared for a second and then nodded. He knew what she was doing, but there wasn't really a way around it for him. Rising up higher, he narrowed his eyes and spoke, a mock-serious expression on his face. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing."

He gripped his broom tightly and rose and continued to rise, probably much higher than she had expected him to and certainly much higher than he wanted to go. Looking down was no longer an option. "You better come up here. I'm getting lonely" he sang out, trying to downplay his nerves by joking around.