Oh, GOOD. Instructions, especially for firsties, were important and all that stuff, but Vivi was just itching to be off the ground and actually doing something. Sitting still and listening were not in her wheelhouse, not unless it was something new and fascinating and engaging. And while Prof V was all kind of old-guy-handsome and knew his stuff like the Quidditch great he WAS... she didn't need to know how to push off from the ground.

Just to point this out, Vivi tipped forward just slightly and skimmed the grass, staying just high enough not to drag her toes in the dirt and just low enough to be a danger to those not off the ground yet. OOPS.

As the girl flew, Rich tried not to lose her track as he looked around. Well, well, well. He so was not going to lose her; how many times could he get the opportunity to talk to her anyway? She seemed kinda moody the last time he had tried, well, actually it was like all the girls in his house were moody.

From the way she controlled the broom, Richard supposed she was neither a rookie nor a Hufflepuff. But then he suddenly smirked at the idea, the girl might look cute in those yellow robes. But then, he did not know if he would follow her so closely then. He smirked a bit when the girl greeted him back. Good, this time she did not look moody at all. He speeded up a bit to fly right next to her.

Was it his habit...to talk while flying?

''Well...well...well...'' he eyed the girl a bit then looked forward ''What did you expect me to do? Fly low and pick flowers? Thank you, i am not a Hufflepuff.''



Hehehe...

Did not Dylan look like he was in a good mood today? How could not he? The weather was nice and he was flying. He knew his mate loved flying. Rich loved flying too, besides girls that is. Flying close to his mate, the Slytherin gave him a slight pat on the back while safely holding his broom with his other hand. Had to keep it under control, after all as the intructor man told them to do so. It was not like Rich never flew freely without holding the broom at all but this time, eh, he was going to do as the man said. There was no need for any trouble. Plus these brooms did not look like the kind to be trusted.

''Does not this thing go a bit faster?'' he asked moving on the broom a bit. Then his gaze went on the kid talking to Dylan. School brooms. Of course, these were school brooms. That was why they kinda 'sucked'. ''I would not trust what you ride right now if i were you, kid.''

As she was gathering speed, Penelope tried to think of something she could do besides just taking laps around the area. Even if they were fun sometimes and especially if you were going really fast to practice turning and stuff, they got boring after awhile. Plus there were a lot of others around and not all were doing laps so it wasn't even like they could make it a race, so something else needed to be done.

She did decide to do at least one lap, trying to make the turns without slowing down, though she did wind up having to decrease her speed a little bit. Which was lame. Maybe she could practice it more at Quidditch tryouts, or at the practices themselves if she made the team. Mhm, that sounded like a good idea.

Making the last right turn in her lap, she kept turning right until she was flying more in the middle of the area where she'd have to try extra hard to avoid flying into anyone.

Fun.

No matter how hard he racked his brains, Pao couldn't remember Vindictus giving any instruction as to how you were supposed to actually take off. He looked around furtively, hoping to catch a hint. Spotting an older Ravenclaw poised for action, he decided to watch her in action. She just.. kicked off. That can't possibly be it, can it?

No matter, he decided to give it a try. Better angle my broom handle upwards, just in case. I wouldn't want to go flying straight into anyone on ground level. Logical thoughts completed, it was time for motion! On the count of three. One.. two.. His legs crouched in anticipation. THREE! And he kicked off hard.

"Woah!" the Hufflepuff yelled as his broom shot up into the sky. "Slow down!" When this instruction failed to have any effect, he realized he would need to level out. Slowly tipping his broom handle forward, he sat up straight and came to a stop. In midair.

Pao turned his head and looked around in amazement, heart still pounding from the adrenaline rush. He was floating. In the sky. This. Was. EPIC!

"Wa-hoo!" he let out, happy to feel free as a bird.

Hannah did a couple of more laps. This time she decided to change it up a bit a do some zig zags in and out of students. She thought about her previous two terms and the "surprises" the professor had them deal with. Normally Hannah is not one for chaos at all, but she had to admit that it was pretty fun. It gave her something to do besides just fly.

She zoomed past the students. Zoom, zoom, zoom. She slowed down, and sped up. Oh yeah, she was going to go check on her friend. She took off in the other direction and scanned the crowd. It was hard to tell who was who. She lowered herself and she automatically found Elliot. She looked down right nervous. She got close to her friend. Maybe her presence would ease her nerves. Smirk. Oh yes, Hannah Lockwood was always proud of herself. "Hey Elliot..." Pause. "What do you think about flying?" She didn't know what else to really say. She didn't want to flat out ask her if she planned on flying anytime soon!

She looked around and saw other students who had clearly done this before. She didn’t know if she would ever be as fast or as nimble as they were, but she felt like she had a good start. Her mom once told her that as a child she tried to ride a room around the house and crashed into the sofa. From that point on her parents encouraged her to develop other skills. Skills that didn’t involve a high likelihood of bodily harm .

She shrugged off the memory of the story and titled the handle of her broom forward slightly. She was having trouble deciding if she’d be more comfortable flying left handed or right handed, since she has ambidextrous. The slow increase in speed was enough to get her feet wet in the flying world. She practiced steering with her left hand, then her right, then her left again. She felt like her right hand was a little steadier in guiding her path so she decided it would be her flying hand. “Oh, but I suppose I should use my stronger arm as my free arm, right?” she wondered to herself. “If I ever got good enough at flying to try out for quiddich, I’d want my right arm free to throw the quaffle or hit the bludgers…” She switched hands again. “Yep. Left for the broom, right for the action.”

Deciding it would most likely be best to let her friend do this flying thing alone until she got the hang of it, Hannah took off again. Besides she didn't want to show Elliot up to bad, it just wouldn't be fair. She seriously amused herself. Everybody should be this funny she thought to herself.

She leaned down on her broom and zoomed off as fast as she could. The feeling of the breeze once again in her hair brought her back to her own little bubble of flying perfection. Getting to be a bit bored she decided that maybe she should think of an activity of her own to do. She didn't need the flying boss man to give her any probs. Hannah could have fun all on her own. She brought the broom towards her and slowed down a bit while she thought of what to do. Hmmm...flying slow and steady it suddenly came to her. Duck, duck, puffer! She seen these firsties playing a game that they said was duck, duck, goose. Well Hannah was about to put her own spin on that little game...yup!

Em’s ears perked up when she heard Vindictus give more instructions. This was just great. They were already supposed to be mounting their brooms and taking off, and she hadn’t even gotten her broom to rise. Forget it. She mumbled to herself, and reached down and grabbed the broom off of the ground. Swinging the broom under her legs, she placed her right hand over the left, and then switched them, to see which hold she liked better. So, push of of the ground? How was she to do that? The only thing she knew to do was to hop, and that’s what she did. She was entirely unsurprised when she landed right back on the ground.

A sudden movement on the ground caused Lex's eyes to dart there. It seemed that Pao had tried pushing off and his broom had gotten the best of him. Such a shame, he just needed to show the broom who was boss. Oh but he had gotten into the air and seemed to have been enjoying himself! "Hey Pao, get up here!" She called to him, gesturing with a wave of her hand for him to join her. They could practise flying together.

Turning slightly she caught sight of one of her dorm mates. She gave a friendly wave and a wide smile to her though she was sure she wouldn't have seen it since she was concentrating on what might have been laps. They hadn't gotten to jump on the beds like she had hoped they would but flying could be fun too...

She didn't realize that she had been leaning forward on her broom until she felt herself going down. This clearly meant that her mind was getting dull and needed a bit of stimulus.

Gripping the broom more firmly she headed up again, this time much faster, and tried to make a sharp stop and turn before heading towards the ground again. Pointless? Yes. But also very entertaining.

The small badger continued flying about, practicing her turns and speed. She didn't dare go too fast, though. Knowing that there were a lot of first years in the sky as well. She remembered her first lesson well and though it had been EPIC, it could also be a little scary. The last thing she wanted to do was knock an unsuspecting ickle firsty out of the sky. MEEP. That would be horrible.

As she headed towards the center of the pitch again, Ells suddenly noticed that she had a friend. Erm...well not really a friend, more like a pest. Sitting on her leg was a bee...A BEE. >.< Wasn't it a little late for bees to be out and about? I mean...didn't they like go hang in their bee hives and party for a while before they came out again to torment everyone? Apparently not, seeing as there was a fuzzy buzzy fellow just dying to sting Ells. Or so she assumed.

Squirm. Squirm. Squirm.

"Okay little bee, time to get off...just erm...go away please."

Yup. Ella Bishop the bee whisperer. Totally legit.

At a fixed point in midair, Logan Mancini gazed left and right, simply taking in the view. He had never been allowed this high into the air before, since he most likely would have just fallen over a railing or something. The longer he sat there, the more he liked it. But soon he wasn't content to simply sit...

Leaning forward slightly, he felt his broom begin to accelerate. He sat back up without pulling on his broom handle so he could maintain a constant, gentle pace. Alert for traffic, he started to lean left and right while nudging the broom in the proper direction. In this manner he traced out a zig-zag path through the air for several minutes. "Hey, I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this flying thing!"

Would his mum kill him if he tried out for Quidditch? Probably. Was he still considering it? Definitely.

Dylan watched as the professor walked down between both the lines of brooms that were there and listened as he instructed them on how to start off by getting the broom into his hand, now hard could that be? he just had to say Up and thats it.. ppffttt he could do that no problem there was nothing to it. The professor was acting as if it was hard to get the broom into his hand. So he put out his left hand "Up" he said and nothing happened, did this broom just ignore his command

He looked round as he could see the brooms that seemed to be obeying their commands just his seemed to be deciding that it didnt want to do come to him. "Up!" he said more firmly but the broom just rolled over as if to say that it didn't care. "Stupid broom anyways" he mumbled as he looked at everyone who seemed to be having no problems on getting their brooms into their hands. "Up!" he almost yelled and he was shocked with the surprise of the broom coming into his hand "Yeah, now who is boss! I am!" he said speaking to the broom that finally listened to him.



He listened as Kurumi seemed to say that she was ok but she shook her head, wait she was ok? and yet the shaking of the head was telling him that she was saying she was not ok. That didnt make sense, was she afraid of flying or something since she seemed quite nervous. He nodded to say that he understood, well he knew that she was lying out loud while inside she was telling the truth. He wasn't expecting a seventh year to be nervous of this class, there must be a reason and he wasn't going to ask now he was too busy getting ready to fly this wooden thing that was in his hand, yeah thats right he called it a wooden thing!



Dylan listened as the professor now who was now instructing them on the next step before flying. He straddled the broom, ok so that was done now what was the next step? Hand placement? that was easy! He checked his hand placement making sure that his right hand was on top of his left, yup tat was easy see! He listened as the professor explained how they would be able to control the broom in the air, well that didnt seem to be too hard but he would only know once he was in the air.

After he was given the green light he gently pushed off the ground but he came straight back down, all he had done was jumped no wonder he didnt fly. So he tried again this time PUSHING off the ground, and soon he was hovering on his broom above the ground "Yes!" he cried out triumphantly he was actually finally off the ground now and soon he would be able to fly. Yeah thats what he was looking forward to the flying bit seeing as that would help him when he was in quidditch.

Okay, time to get moving. Silvia took her eyes off the castle and spun the broom around. Though she knew she could fly faster and was eager to do so, she decided to start with a slower, more relaxing speed. She leaned forward slightly on the broom and began moving forward, reveling in the feel of the wind hitting her face. Tipping the broom handle to the left, Silvia proceeded in a small circle. She wanted to enjoy this as much as possible, especially since she didn't know what dangerous critter or object the crazy professor was going to throw at them this time. She really hoped whatever it was would be a bit more tame than last year's cornish pixies.

When she had completed one circle, Silvia leaned her broom in the opposite direction. She passed a few first years, making sure to give them a wide berth so she didn't startle them and cause them to lose control. As she flew in another circle, she she rose a bit higher but kept her speed the same. She was enjoying every minute of this.

Ariana zipped through more students as fast as the dumb school broom would let her. she didnt see anyone she knew in the class hich discouraged her when suddenly Ariana saw a girl who looked a bit confused ..maybe..? Maybe she needs some flying help.. or just someone to talk to so she flew down to her wee she glided down through the air.. a zag-zag here and a circle there. "First time flying?" she asked the girl as she circled around her

Sierra glanced to the side of her with a raised eyebrow expression. So he liked to make fun of the Puffers, yeah? "You and I just might get along," she pointed out to him, "...and that doesn't happen very often, you should know." Well, they'd get along until he annoyed her, and then he'd be back on THE LIST with the rest of them.

She continued to fly forward, turning her gaze to everything ahead of her. This place seemed so crowded... Then again, they weren't exactly on the pitch. She wished they were, though. She couldn't wait to get the Quidditch season underway. When another curve came into view, Sierra steered around. Heh. She should jerk back on her broom and come to a complete stop, just to throw this guy off.

"You play Quidditch?" she asked him. He seemed to be pretty good up here in the air.

Hop, hop, hop hop, hop. The girl hopped around several times trying to get the stupid broom to take off. She felt incredibly foolish, and was getting angry with herself and that stupid broom. Setting it back down, she stepped over it, and stood parallel to it, and just looked down at the broom. Why wouldn’t this thing work? Sticking her left hand out in front of her, she tried to get it to rise again. “Up.” She said, and the thing wiggled again. This was getting aggravating. “Up.” She yell at the thing in frustration, and it shot from the ground and hit her hand, hard. Gripping it, she looked down at it angrily. Why was it that there was some things only worked when she got angry? Trying to mount the broom, she lost her balance, twisted her ankle, and landed on the ground, broom landing beside her. “You stupid broom” she said as she pushed herself up off of the ground. Placing her hand above the glorified cleaning instument, the girl yelled at the broom once more. “Up!.” When it hit her hand, she snatched it out of the air. Taking even more care when mounting the broom, she winced in pain when all her weight was on her right foot, but she managed to straddle it.

Vivi tipped up into the sky and bobbled along merrily, not really going very fast or very far. They had a great big field, but as soon as she got to the other side, she'd have to turn around and come back. Besides, the secret that people seemed not to remember was that going fast... was easy (except for the stopping part). Going slow took more control, and she had a very charming broom that was willing to be friendly.

Vivi dipped down when she spotted poor Vickers just... standing there. He looked so MUCH like he wanted to not be standing there anymore, and since she knew how lovely it was to be up and how sad it was to be DOWN... maybe she felt some pang generally in the region of her heart. Maybe.

"Up. Come up now. Now now now." Bossy girls were the bestest.

Now that she was off and zooming... as fast as she could on the school's broom, she tried to get as tight of a turn as possible. Tay flew around in a circle. Her hair was whipping against her face making it sting. Taylor sighed as she slowed down. She whipped out a ponytail holder and put her hair in a quick french braid. Taylor then started to go as fast as she could on the school's broom. Tay was happy that her hair wasnt hitting her face and hurting anymore. Taylor almost fell off her broom as she did a sharp right then a sharp left but she had a good grip on her broom so it was easy for her to stay on the broom. Tay glanced around the area, looking for someone to try to have a race with. She spotted the professor and just glanced around again for someone to fly around with, growing bored of doing tight turns.

Yes! Thank goodness that part was over! After two other times of learning how to summon up your broom, it got quite dull. She could do it in her sleep! It was THAT easy. Just hover your hand over the broom, and say up!, nice and loud. Of course, she had been on the Quidditch team, so her flying skills were pretty much impeccable. Well, they had to be, really.

COME OOOONN. When were they gonna be able to fly?! They had already haf to go through one set of long instructions, but now another?! Booo. But, better to listen and get better for when the time came! Cardigan paid attention through the second set of instructions, making mental notes every now and then, just to be safe. Soon enough, they were given the a-ok to begin! Broom straddled? Check. Feet firmly planted? Check. Hand placement? Check. She was ready! Tilting her broom up slightly and pushing her feet into the ground, she rocketed up high in the sky, giving herself a little imaginary fist bump. It was always exciting to be up in the air!

Ignoring the pain in her ankle, Emmaleigh took another hop like those she had been doing earlier. This time, she was surprised to find that she was floating just a couple of inches off of the ground. She had done this all before, but somehow she could only get this far after getting angry. It was like she was that old muggle super hero her father had told her about. Not daring to go any higher for the moment, she let herself just kind of float there, feet dangling.

Finally having decided which hand would do the steering, Eliza dared to fly a little higher. She wooshed up a few feet and realized she had forgotten to look up first. Luckily there was no one above her but she made a mental note to herself. “Right, remember, there are more dimensions to your movement in flying. Better pay attention or you’ll pancake yourself into something or worse, someone!” She promised herself she’d pay better attention from now on.

Speaking of paying attention - “Holy smokes!” she exclaimed to herself. A girl who seemed to really know her way around a broom had just zoomed up beside her out of nowhere.

“Hi – er, yeah. Yeah it is. I think I’m starting to get a feel for it.” She tried to explain herself. “I must stick out like a sore thumb, right? I just um, well I'm ambidextrous.” She glanced down at her hands. “You seem really great on a broom. Do you play quidditch?”

Though highly tempted to keep up her speed as she made her way through the middle of the area, Penelope did decide to slow down juuuuust a little bit to make it easier to dodge the other students. Which she had to do a lot since there were a lot of them out here up in the air. She flew left then right then right even more then another left, grinning as she whooshed past other students. Merlin, this was FUN. She really needed to do this more often. This and Quidditch. Thank Merlin it would be starting soon, and that they had this lesson before it.

She kept going, flying to the left then back to the right on and on until she reached the edge of the grassy area, where she slowed to a stop, heart pounding. That was when she noticed fellow Gryffindor Alexa waving and smiling at her. Penelope returned the wave and smile, turning her broom to glide over to the first year.

"You like flying so far?" she asked. Surely she did though. Who didn't? Besides Kurumi.

It wasn't long before Lex realized that her flying time was getting shorter and shorter. This wasn't good considering it meant she would soon have to return her broom and return to the mundane ritual of walking on her own two feet.

Pulling up on her broom she sped towards the castle, getting a birds eye view of the castle. While over head there was one thing that caught her attention. She took a brief glance inside a room that she had marked as the Headmistress' room--she didn't know that that's what the inside looked like!

If she had time she might have stopped to admire it but no.

Lex began imitating a roller coaster as she flew up then down, took a side turn before a dip. "WOOOO!" It felt just like the roller coaster at that amusement park...only...she was actually strapped to that and had no chance of falling....

...and then Sierra decided to pull back on the broom just to for the short thrill of throwing this guy for a loop. Who was this guy anyway? She knew he'd been sorted into Slytherin, but she didn't exactly know anything about him. She glanced at him, gave him a quick smirk, and then sat up, slowly pulling back on her broom as she did so.

She eventually came to a complete stop in the air, although she kept a careful eye on all sides of her just on the off-chance somebody was about to slam right into her. They wouldn't, would they? Hmm... Maybe she should take off again. On that note, she leaned forward and zoomed off down the pitch again.

Minerva had her broom in her hand. She couldn't believe how much her heart was beating. Come on Min.. You have done this since first year, so you lived as a muggle all summer with your grandparents, it doesn't mean you forgot.. It's just like riding a bike. With that thought she cringed, she had never been good at riding a bike, she fell more then she rode. It was a horrible thing to watch really. So that was not the thoughts she needed before taking off.

Minerva shook her thoughts away, concentrate there are first years up in the air already Minerva...you can do this. Putting her broom between her legs and gripping the stick she closed her eyes taking one last breath. Then opening them again she pushed off the ground and shakily left the ground and went higher and higher. Sitting up in the air she looked down and felt butterflies in her stomach. She hadn't been this high in a long time and the last time she was a beater was beating her up pretty good.