Troublesome. But nothing came of it, this time.

At three-thirty that afternoon, the Gryffindors make their way down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It's a clear, breezy day, and the grass ripples under their feet as they march down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the Forbidden Forest, whose trees sway darkly in the distance.

The Slytherins are already there, and so are some twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground. Victor's heard Fred and George Weasley complain about the school brooms, saying that some of them started to vibrate if you flew too high, or always flew slightly to the left. 

Flying on broomsticks in the first place seems a bit dubious to Victor, but he's hardly going to say anything about it.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrives.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barks. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Okay. Victor goes and stands by a broomstick.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," she calls at the front, "and say 'Up!'"

"Up!"

Victor's broom jumps into his hand at once, but it's one of the few that does, alongside Malfoy and Dayo. Neville's hasn't moved at all. Neville, in fact, looks utterly terrified of his broomstick.

Poor Neville. Victor waits to hear what they're supposed to do next.

Madam Hooch then shows them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walks up and down the rows correcting their grips. Ron is delighted when she tells Malfoy he's been doing it wrong for years.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," she says. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly."

That seems reasonably simple, although he wishes it was better explained. Maybe it will be easier once they try it.

"On my whistle: three, two..."

But Neville, nervous and jumpy and frightened of being left on the ground, pushes off hard before the whistle has touched Madam Hooch's lips.

"Come back, boy!" she shouts.

...that's not good, but there's not much Victor can do about it from here.

Neville's rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle—twelve feet—twenty feet. Victor can see his scared white face look down at the ground falling away, see him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and—

A thud and a nasty crack and Neville lays facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick's still rising higher and higher, and starts drifting lazily toward the Forbidden Forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch bends over Neville, her face as white as his.

"Broken wrist," she mutters. "Come on, boy—it's all right, up you get." She turns to the rest of the class. "None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Neville, his face tear-streaked, clutching his wrist, hobbles off with Madam Hooch, who has her arm around him.

No sooner are they out of earshot than Malfoy bursts into laughter. "Did you see his face, the great lump?"

The other Slytherins (Parkinson, Bulstrode, and Dayo excepted) join in.

"Shut up, Malfoy," snaps Parvati Patil.

He ignores her. "Look!" he says, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

The Remembrall glitters in the sun as he holds it up. 

"It's not yours," says Victor.

Malfoy smiles nastily.

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about—up a tree?"

"That would be wrong," says Victor. "Put it down."

Malfoy dashes over to his broomstick, leaps onto it, and takes off. He didn't lie, he can fly well.

Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he calls, "Come and get it, Evans!"

"That is a bad idea on so many levels," he sighs.

"You'll be in trouble if Madam Hooch comes back while you're up there," Victor points out.