Alyssa happily walked down to the Practicse Pitch. Even though she already knew how to fly, she never missed the opportunity to get a chance to fly whenever given the chance.

So here she was for another Flying Lesson with the Professor. Then she noticed something different. Parts of the pitch looked odd. Alyssa couldn't quite place her finger on what made it different.

She just shrugged and walked up to the Professor who was leaning against the broom rack.

"Hello Professor. I'm glad to see that you're back on your feet again and looking well. You gave us all a scare." Alyssa told the Professor before standing aside and waiting for the other students to arrive.

With the quidditch season over for Gryffindor and the practice pitch designated for the continuing teams as well as any classes thrown in, Gideon was glad for the next flying class to arrive. For it meant some more time up in the air enjoying the feeling of flying seeing as he couldn't very well get away with the plan discussed with Selina in the common room. No flying on a broom within the castle walls for either of them...or anyone else for that matter.

So when it was time, Gideon made his way down to the pitch ready for the lesson. He noticed the oddity of the pitch's appearance and couldn't help raising a slight eyebrow in curiousity. However he pushed it aside for the moment figuring they would find out soon enough, making his way closer to where Professor Vindictus and the broom rack were situated.

"Good day Professor Vindictus," he greeted with a polite smile. About to ask if he was alright, he was beaten to it by a younger Hufflepuff and instead simply stayed quiet. The man did at least look alright and was actually out of the hospital wing so hopefully the observance was true.

Flying. Indiana's favorite activity. And then. It was with her favorite professor too. So Indy was all over this lesson. With a smile, she practiccally skipped down towards the pitch. She was excited. She loved flying lessons, especially because she wanted to use them to get better at flying. So she could go and be super awesome in quidditch. Ahh. There he was. Indy smiled, coming to a stop by the professor, and the other students. Aaah. She had missed flying. "Hi Daddy!" She nodded with a smile. Sure. She probably should've called him his official title. But she was cute, and could get away from it. Right?

Nerida walked into the practice pitch and saw her head of house. She hadn't seen Professor Vindictus since they were both in the hospital wing. It was still odd to hear people especially Narumi and her sister it was nice to see her around. She still couldnt believe she missed an entire month of Hogwarts. "Hello Professor Vindictus, nice to see you again. She followed Alyssa's example and moved to the side and waited for more students to come.

Why Laura was coming to the Flying lesson she had no idea, she was more talented on a broom than Professor Vindictus and she hated him, that was one of the reason she hadn't tried out this term, she was awesome on a broom and would show Professor Vindictus up and she didn't want to make him feel sad.

Laura had brought everything that she had been told to and then she looked at Professor Vidictus and mutter. "Good Day sir." Laura sort of snapped it out when she said it, she hated this Professor but well she had promised Hadley she would do her best and so here she was attention a flying lesson.

Vindictus nodded as the students greeted him, and gave a little chuckle at Indy's greeting. "Welcome. Please have a seat on the grass."

Laura looked at the Professor as he told her to sit on the Grass, normally she would protest about this but today she wasn't in the mood, she just moved as far away from the evil Professor that wanted her Laura Hope Hyde to sit on the grass like well a monkey would or a cow or well any animal really that didn't live in water.

Laura found a nice spot and sat down on it, hoping the evil Professor wouldn't mind her sitting so far away from him, he could should if he wanted to speek to her or come over and have a word with her right but this sport was nice and she didn't feel like moving from it.

Alyssa was surprised when the Professor chuckled. 'OMG this is the first time I've seen him chuckle. He must be in a very good mood.' Alyssa thought to herself, taking a seat on the grass while waiting for the Professor to start class.

Ella was super excited about another flying lesson, mostly because she'd had a bad couple of weeks and flying always cheered her up. She smiled as she skipped over to the area where other students were sitting on the grass. "Hi Professor Vindictus!" She said cheerfully on her way by the man. And oh! Laura and Alyssa were here too! The second year headed for her Hufflepuff friends and sat down in the grass, granting each a wide smile. They wouldn't mind if she joined them, right?

It was time to start the lesson. "Sports and broomsticks have gone hand-in-hand for centuries. Can anyone name a broom game and explain how it was played in their own words?" Professor Vindictus asked. "Only one game per person."


OOC: Do not copy and paste explanations you can find when answering this question. Answer it IC and use words that your character would use. If your answer sounds too much like you copied it from another source, there is a chance that you will not receive points for it.

Laura looked at the Professor and said. "Well there's the Broom Race, I'm sure it's held in Sweden each year, you have to race you broom again others to the finish line somewhere, I can't actually remember how far the event is but it would make a great Olympic sport I say, wouldn't you agree sir?"

Alyssa thought of an example before raising her hand.

"Professor there's a game that the Scottish played a long time ago. The object of the game was to avoid getting hit by the falling rocks and boulders that had been charmed to float in the air and then dropped."

"The players were supposed to catch as many rocks as they could at the same time, with their cauldrons which they wore on their heads, as they zoomed around with their brooms."

"The game was called Creaothceann but it was finally banned in 1762, I guess that's because a lot of people died playing that game."

Nigel knew really of only one broom game and it was more popular than Quidditch in America

"Professor, There is Quodpot. The goal is to get the Quod into the pot before it explodes. And if it expoldes, the player holding it is out of the game. Oh and it is played with two teams of eleven."

Nigel did not know if he liked it better than Quidditch but it was awesome seeing a Quod explode.

Broom games...remind Kurumi again why she was in this lesson? Oh, right, because if she wasn't then Selina would literally eat her. Well, not literally, but Kurumi did not enjoy the look in her best friend's eyes when she had grabbed her Beater's bat at Kurumi mentioning dropping Flying all together.

Nope. Kurumi needed her head to not be dented. She did have NEWTs next term.

Sitting on the grass, Kurumi crossed her legs to sit Indian style while she listened to some of her classmates. Being a sixth year, one would assume that Kurumi knew this stuff...oh well. She did sort of put up a mental block when it came to things regarding Flying and Quidditch and anything that involved a broom other than sweeping.

She DID remember one game - because it was rather harmless now a days - and raised her hand. "There is Shuntbomps...erm...Stuntbumps...um, I mean Shuntbumps. It is only played as a children's game now, but the goal is to be the last player left sitting on your broom while everyone else has been knocked off theirs."

And IF Professor Vindictus had them playing a nice easy and SAFE game...well...she had cookies in her bag. Yep.

Broom games? There was only one Penelope actually knew about, and it seemed like the most obvious answer yet no one had said it. But surely it still counted, so she raised her hand. "Well there's Quidditch." Did she really need to explain how it was played? Eh. She was gonna anyway. "People play that by scoring with the Quaffle, hitting Bludgers, and catching the Snitch." That was about as deeply as she was gonna explain it. Wasn't like anyone here needed one anyway. Everyone should know how to play Quidditch.

Vindictus nodded as several brave students gave their answers. "Very good. Three points to each of you for your answers. There are three more broom games - Aingingein, Stichstock, and Swivenhodge."

"Today, we're going to experience a flying game of the past. And to do so, we're not going to use modern broomsticks."

He pulled out his wand and tapped the broom rack twice. What appeared to be sleek racing brooms morphed into something more rudimentary: brooms with thick knotty handles of unvarnished ash with hazel twigs bound crudely to one end.

"Medieval broomsticks!"

"I want each of you to grab a broomstick and if you desire something soft to sit on when flying, I suggest you grab one of the purple cushions and lash it to the broom with a rope," he said and pointed to two boxes containing the cushions and rope.

O___o Medieval broomsticks!? Ella eyed them curiously. They wouldn't like....snap in half or anything while Ella was zooming around on one, right? She only had doubts because lessons in this class tended to get erm...interesting pretty often and so she was a bit nervous. Not to say she wasn't excited, it was actually quite cool to try out an older broom.

Walking up to the broom rack, the second year picked up one of the older brooms and looked at it in awe. Woah. This thing really was medieval! Oh...and a cushion! That was important too. Especially when thinking about how uncomfortable it might be sitting on this particular type of broom for a long period of time. Ella picked one up and tied it on with the rope that was in one of the two boxes. Right, she was ready now so she headed back to her spot to examine the broom more closely.

Alyssa blinked. They were going to fly sitting on a cushion? This was definitely going to be an interesting lesson today.

Standing up, she brushed off the grass from her clothes, before she selected a broomstick from the rack and then went to the two boxes pulling out a purple cushion from one and a rope from another.

Returning to where she was sitting, she sat down and first balanced the cushion on the broomstick handle before tying it up with the rope. She made sure that the rope was tightly wrapped around the broomstick and tested it by shaking it to make sure that the cushion didn't fall off.

Then she stood up, holding her makeshift cushioned broomstick in her hand and waited for further instructions.

Prue blinked at the Professor as she eyed the medieval broomsticks warily... were they even safe to use? And cushions if you wanted something soft... couldn't they just use a cushioning charm or something? Please?

She doubted they could so she slowly walked over to the broom and picked it up... it still didn't feel to right. Still she walked over to the boxes with cushions and rope picking on up and kneeling on the ground while she fumbled with the rope trying to get it tied properly so it didn't slip... this reminded her way too much of horse riding with the saddles.

Standing up she shook the supposed broom a bit, content that the cushion didn't budge and held it in her hand waiting for the next instructions... though she was still annoyed about not being able to use a proper broom!

Nerida's mouth formed a huge grin as the word medieval broomsticks came out of the Professor's mouth, how awesome would that be!! They could use what their ancestors used. She jumped up from her seat on the grass and skipped on over to the cushion box and grabbed a nice fluffy one and a rope. Now for the medieval broom she was still bouncing with excitement on that one. After grabbing a medieval broom she made her way back to her seat on the grass. She placed the cushion onto the broom and began to balance it onto the broom. Realizing it would be easier to put it on when the cushion was facing the ground she flipped everything over and began to tie the cushion onto the broom. After finishing she sat back down and looked up towards the professor for more instructions.

Nigel had never even seen a medieval broomstick, more or less ridden on one. This could get interesting. He decided he did not need a cushion so he went up to where the sticks where and took one. It actually took about a minute to pick which one he wanted to take, but who's counting.

Once he chose the one he wanted, he then waited for the next set of instructions

Vickers picked up a broom and regarded it for a moment. It LOOKED painful, he could imagine how much worse it was if he SAT on it without anything to soften its highly uneven surface. He took one of the cushions and tied it to the broom as the Professor advised. He eyed the pitch and those oddities scattered through it due to some kind of charm, both curious and slightly wary. It wouldnt be so bad if these were regular, fairly comfortable school brooms, that way he can concentrate on the task at hand, but with brooms like these? Merlin help him.

Medieval broomsticks? The only think that had gone medieval must have been Vindictus' brain if he seriously thought Elijah was going to submit his poor, perfect buttocks to that kind of punishment! Surely there were health and safety regulations against this kind of thing? These brooms had to be dangerous right? They were medieval for a reason.

Elijah attempted to pick the least medieval looking one and turned it in his hands. No. This simply would not do. An attractive person such as himself could not be seen to ride something so unsightly! Not that it would take away from Elijah's OWN looks, because that was practically impossible, but it certainly wasn't going to accentuate them either.

He groaned at the sheer suggestion of attaching cushions to these bloody things. Elijah could only IMAGINE how uncomfortable it would be for boys to ride these things and he was certain girls were likely to feel similar discomforts the way the brooms jutted out in all different, peculiar ways.

It was official. These brooms were more useless than a stick. Elijah would be surprised if he could even make the damn thing airborne.

Grabbing a cushion and shoving it on what appeared to be the most comfortable looking piece of his broom, he cast a simple sticking charm to keep it in place. No rope for him, thank you. The broom looked bad enough, no need to give it an even worse look. He was still in two minds as to whether he would even mount the thing.

"Do you think Vindictus has officially lost it?" he whispered to a few of his fellow students around him, out of earshot of the old, deranged Professor.

"These medieval broomsticks are not the type of broomsticks that we're all familiar with," began Vindictus. "First of all, they're not comfortable to ride on hence the suggestion of tying a cushion to the handle. They're not that aerodynamic, either, which means they're rather difficult to handle."

Pause.

"This means you're getting splinters no matter what. All of the brooms have basic charms placed on them: all you can do is go up, down, and stop at one speed while moving in a forward direction."

"Any questions before we continue?"