Adhara Lovella Potter.
All her life she believed her name was 'Freak'. But now, all because of a single letter, she learned of a whole new truth and world entirely. She never expected things to change so drastically, and yet, it had. Now, it was ti...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Draco Malfoy. The bane of Ara's existence. He made it a point to find her whenever and wherever she was, just to annoy her or bully her friends. Luckily, first-year Gryffindors only had Potions with the Slytherins, so they didn't have to put up with Malfoy much during classes.
Or at least, they didn't until they spotted a notice pinned up in the Gryffindor common room.
Flying lessons would be starting on Thursday — and Gryffindor and Slytherin would be learning together.
"I'm doomed," said Ara, defeated. "Now I get to make a fool of myself on a broomstick in front of Malfoy. Like he needs any more things to annoy me about."
She had been looking forward to learning to fly more than anything else.
"You don't know you'll make a fool of yourself," said Muffy reasonably. "Anyway, I know Malfoy's always going on about how good he is at Quidditch, but I bet that's all talk."
Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained loudly about first-years never getting in the house Quidditch teams and told long, boastful stories which always seemed to end with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters.
He wasn't the only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he'd spent most of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broomstick. Even Muffy would tell anyone who'd listen about the time she'd almost hit a hang-glider on Charlie's old broom.
Everyone from wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Muffy had already had a big argument with Dean Thomas about football. Muffy couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly.
Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life because his grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Ara felt maybe that was wise, because Neville managed to have an extraordinary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.
Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was. This was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book — not that she hadn't tried.
All morning in the dorm and at the table during breakfast on Thursday, she bored them all stupid with flying tips she'd got out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville was hanging on to her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased when Hermione's lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the post.
Ara hadn't had a single letter since Hagrid's note — something that Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course. Malfoy's eagle owl was always bringing him packages of sweets from home, which he opened gloatingly at the Slytherin table.
A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He opened it excitedly and showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble, which seemed to be full of white smoke.
