“what?” harry mouthed, disbelieving, to ron, who shrugged they would never uand herne’s logi when it ame to exams
harry flopped down on the ouh, ompletely bored he had exused himself from breakfast, leaving ron to herne, and found himself with an entire saturday of potential boredom normally he had something to do, an essay or something, but today he found himself with no shool work at all hanging over his head
drao, who was sitting in a hair aross from him, didn’t omment on his state of boredom, if the blond even realized that harry was in the room his head was bent over some parhment of homework, an open book lying on the armrest of the hair
wathing drao aluting some angle—or something that looked like an angle… whatever it was it was some form of arithmany—from where he stood, harry thought of something to do with this free saturday afternoon he turned bak into the bedroom and sought out a small box from the depths of his trunk he hadn’t tried out the pratie snith he’d gotten at christmas yet grabbing his firebolt in the other hand, he headed bak into the other room
“drao, let’s go py quiddith”
drao looked up with a look that learly stated that harry was roahing insanity
“e on! it’s a beautiful day and i have no homework” he pointed at the arithmany (or whatever it was) with the handle of his broom “and i bet that isn’t due until friday, knowing you so let’s go outside”
drao sat bak against the hair “and suddenly seeing two rivals pying a semi- friendly game of quiddith will look normal to everyone else in hogwarts?” he drawled
harry pouted trust drao to find some problem with his idea “we’ll find some pe that they an’t get to then”
drao thought for a moment
“e on, i want to see how i do against a veriae” harry was almost begging
a slow smile pyed with drao’s lips “all right, you’re on meet me at the edge of the forbidden forest in ten minutes”
harry followed drao through the forbidden forest down a path that he had never been down before…if it ould truly be alled a path it seemed, though, that drao knew exatly where he was going, and in a few minutes the two boys had reahed an rown learing that was only a little smaller than the hogwarts quddith pith sunlight splintered down through an rowth of leaves, turning the grass a golden green olor
“not bad” harry murmured in reian
“i used this learing when i was learning how to fly” drao offered in expnan
“so you an fly with only your wings now?” harry asked “i see you didn’t bring your broom”
“my wings have reahed their propornal size they’ll ontinue to grow as i do, but there won’t be any more drasti hanges so, yes, they’ll support my weight in flight”
both boys removed their outer shool robes, draping them over a nearby tree branh harry then began fiddling with the pratie snith’s ontrols
pratie snithes worked exatly like real snithes, exept that one ould restrit where they went it wouldn’t do, after all, to be hasing the snith all over the forbidden forest itself harry estimated the size of the learing, thinking there was maybe 1/8 differene between the learing and the hogwarts quiddith pith
drao met him in about the middle of the learing, holding a pratie bludger pratie bludgers were ontrolled the same way as pratie snithes, but you ould also set how hard they would knok into you
“i set it to be reasonably annoying” drao smirked as he let it go the bludger arhed out of sight, into the treetops, but both boys ould hear it moving over their heads
“ready?” harry held out the snith
“always”
both boys let the snith go harry then mounted his firebolt and kiked off the ground as drao leapt upward, wings extending as he did so
almost instantly the bludger arhed down through the leafy anopy and whizzed by drao’s ear it headed for the ground and then arhed upwards to follow after harry for a while as he tried to evade it
harry had never onsidered how absolutely wonderful beaters were, as when there was no way to deflet the bludger you had to evade it until it got bored of you and went after the other pyer
“this is ‘mildly annoying’?” harry yelled to drao after the fifth time he had to evade the bludger
“yes we ould set it worse if you want”
“no, this is fine”
herne was buried in the library, all of her ourse books (and even some that weren’t required for the ourses she took) spread out over the table in front of her she was writing fuusly, w on some study guide, and ron roahed the table with some trepidan she had been w sine the end of breakfast and it was now te in the afternoon even herne would need a break after that
“umm…herne?” ron asked quietly
herne made some sound of aknowledgement, her hand never stopping the fuus speed that it was w at
“you know, you’ve been w sine the m, and it’s about four right now…” a nod was the only thing that let ron know she was even listening to him somewhat more boldly than he felt, he ontinued, “and anyone would need a break after that…so i wondered if you…might want that walk now?”
the writing slowed and stopped ron braed for a leture on how work was more important, bh bh, and was surprised when herne put down the quill the admonishment he’d been waiting for turned out to be a smile and a “that sounds like a good idea let me lean this up, and drop my books off in the dorm, and then we’ll take that walk”
as herne began to put her books bak into her bag, ron blinked in amazement not that he was ompining though
harry duked under the bludger and twirled into the greenery above the learing, suessfully losing the annoying thin
