Valencia nodded as some of the other students spoke up. Well, all except Aboli. That was... dark. Thanks new management.

"There's also a possibility of falling off the broom or flipping over it." Because gravity and going down quickly. Then kersplat. That didn't seem fun.

The Wronski Feint sounded very scary to her. Claudine suddenly had an image of her trying the move but ended up splattering all over the ground. Poor Heath would be heartbroken… yeah, she wouldn’t ever attempt that Feint. Nor would she ever be attempting jumping off brooms or somersaulting. This Slytherin valued her life, thanks.

The fascinating multi coloured arrows captured her attention. They provided an excellent demonstration of the mentioned tactics. Up went a hand for the second question. “Being aware of your surroundings, or rather, the ground. One should try as best as they could to keep an eye on the distance between themselves and the rapidly closing in ground. It can help to know when to pull out of the dive.”

!!!!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!!

He liked her stupid answer!!!!!!!!!!! Even though it was wrong!!!!!!!!! He even did the finger-noise-thingy too!!!! Bernie let out a girlish giggle, like an actual, "Hehehe," and then threw her hand over her own mouth.

Who was this possessing her and what had they done with the REAL Bernie OG?!

She tried to concentrate on the professor and his chalkboard of squiggly lines, but honestly, she was mostly just seeing little red hearts on the board. Maybe someone had put a love potion in her cereal this morning. UH. HEHE. What was the orzo dive and dionsaur dive? SOMERSAULTS? Could she see a demo of those, please? Huh???????

What was the question now?

Oh, right. How to dive safely.

"Well until you're good and comfortable with it, maybe you should only attempt it really, REALLY slowly," Bernie offered, offhandedly, blinking a few times to bring herself back to the ground. She was having SUCH a tough time focusing, gosh. But she would, for sure, be attempting any broom maneuvers today at a literal snail's pace.

Merlin take her now.

Why did they even have to learn diving? It wasn't going to help them takover the muggle world or whatever else the alliance wanted. Of all the classes for Rosier to dip his hands into, he chose to leave flying as it was. If there was a suggestion box outside his office, it would be stuffed with nothing but requests from her.

"You could dive and not come back up so the only really safe way to go about it is to not dive at all." Standard Arithmancy. 2 + 2 = 4

Diving could lead to death. Remove the diving and there was no death.

Gawd, that hat could've made her a Ravenclaw.

Diving and pulling back up...sounded like a roller coaster. Her brother always got sick on roller coasters, especially if they had just had lunch. She had never got sick on a roller coaster. Her hand went up.

"If you get motion sickness, diving and pulling up could make you throw up!" she informed the group. "Make sure you don't eat too much beforehand."

Mamie figured that was probably the only advice that was similar between flying and swimming.

Once class started, Camryn was so excited about flying that she was a little bit distracted. She almost missed the first question. They were going to practice diving today? That was cool. As for when you would need to dive, well all Cam could think of was someone diving to catch the snitch in quidditch. Of course someone had already given that answer, so she kept quiet for now.

When the second question came along, Camryn was determined to give an answer. What bad things could happen with the dive and pull up? She had an idea and raised her hand right away. “If you’re doing the dive and pull up, you have to make sure that there is nothing in your way. If you are diving, you don’t want to hit anything on the way down or the way up. You could really hurt yourself if you are not careful.”

Kinsay was, yet again, disappointed. While she was excited to get on her broom and start flying, she wished they'd be doing the summersault move instead. Gymnastics AND flying? Talk about the BEST combination!

She did try to pay attention as everyone else offered answers, hoping that no one stole hers this time. "That's Newton's Law." She chimed in after Ashley because it wasn't just ~whatever~. It was real science. And Kinsay felt smart for knowing.

Other things that made her feel smart? Answering questions in class. Lots of people had already answered about the risks though, so Kizzy ignored that one and skipped to the second question about safety instead. "Practice makes perfect, so you should practice diving above something soft. Like... a giant mattress! Or..... A swimming pool! That way if you fall you won't get hurt." Is THAT why Professor Aguilar brought a pool to class today?

Delilah had yet to join in on the discussion about diving. For one, she was too hung up on the fact that first years weren't allowed to bring their own brooms. Why? Did the school think that being just one year younger than the second years would cause the first years to do something stupid? ... Probably so. Even still, never in a million years did she think she would a broom that she'd be flying on anyway. A broom...yes. A broom to fly on? Nope.

Hearing the next question, the Gryffindor decided to finally speak up. She raised her hand. "I'd say the biggest danger would be if you didn't remember to pull up in time," she offered. She winced just thinking about the painful face plant that would follow. As far as trying to avoid that happening? "Maybe we need to take it slow at first and get a feel for it before giving it a real go." Delilah also agreed with the people saying they shouldn't try it at all. Just being in the air and flying around had taken about all the bravery she had in her. Then to dive along with it?

Violet felt that anything involving this manoeuvre was dangerous and there was no way to do it safely, especially if she were the one doing it. "Be sure to pull up in time?" she ventured?

Or don't do it at all...

Hah. This was an easy one. Aries' hand again shot up, and when his turn finally came, he admitted VERY proudly, "I can say with EXPERIENCE, you call the bird's bluff and pull up because the bird won't stop and you will crash and break your nose"

In short, - just pull up in time.

”I’m with Kinsay, Professor.” The fifth year offered her younger pseudo-sister a grin. ”The only way to really master a dive is to keep practicing it until you really know what you’re doing.” In Cece’s case, she’d had a few NOT so fun interactions with the ground, but it was tooootally fine and she was okay and still loved flying. Practice was the answer.

“Now, I will show you the dive & pull up. Watch me carefully,” he spoke to the class and, finally, soared into the air on his Nimbus 4000.

“First, mount your broom and kick off from the ground. You should rise to a height you feel comfortable diving from - I recommend at least 15 feet above ground. When you are ready, grip your broom firmly with your hands and legs and lean forward. Beginners, you may want to point your broom handle down at a small angle as this will slow your descent. If you want to challenge yourself, you can gather speed in a steep dive. Remember to stay focused.” He demonstrated a medium-speed 45° dive. He was falling … and falling … (not so fast, you see) … and pulled up at the last second to hover before the students. “As soon as you achieve your purpose, whether it’s to catch something you dropped, feint, whatever, pull out of the dive by pulling the broom handle straight. Keep in mind that a steep dive requires much more strength to pull up than a slow one.”

“Now it’s your turn to practise … over the pool!” As many of them correctly guessed from the set up. EXCITING, right??

“Take turns to climb up to a diving board of your choosing,” 10 feet, 15 feet or 25 feet above water, “kick off from the board and practise the dive & pull up. Your goal is to catch a ping pong ball from the water surface without getting wet. You can try as many times as you want and vary your height and gradient each time, as long as you queue up. You can work together with a partner or in a group and give each other feedback if you wish to do so.”

Oh right, he promised Apollo that he would warm up the water. When the students were getting ready, Aguilar quickly sent a heating spell into the giant pool. He had a feeling that quite a few of the kids would fall into the water, hehe.

OOC: Diving time~ We will move on to the main activity in 72 hours.

Why on Merlins earth would they want to dive while flying? A slow steady decent was one thing, but avoiding all of these wild and crazy things.... that was just ridiculous "I wouldn't want to dive in the first place, slow and steady going down. Or just choose a different method of transportation." she mumbled to herself after most of the answers had been given and before they moved on to the actual diving.

A pingpong ball off of the water? Glancing at the other classmates she really wanted to know who was excited for this cause she sure wasn't. did Professor Aguilar not see how perfect her hair looked today? Groaning with broom in hand she walked over to the 10 ft board, no sense in getting slopping wet with higher speed, right? But she absolutely didn't want to go first, where was a little first year to give it a try first?

Violet smirked to herself at his speech about catching Snitches and winning points--that was extremely unlikely to ever be a concern of hers, and in fact, she would be lucky to get out of Hogwarts with a passing grade in Flying. She couldn't wait until she was old enough to learn to Apparate, and once she was out of school, she vowed never to get on a broom again.

A height she felt comfortable diving from? That didn't exist!! Violet felt like her heart was dropping into her stomach as she watched him perform the dive--she would never be able to do that! Suddenly she was more afraid of this class than of anything that had happened yet during this strange year.


Oh no! She was going to get wet for sure, something she hated even worse than flying. Or maybe she'd break her neck and not have to worry about getting tortured by the strange people who'd taken over the school ever again.

Violet wasn't even sure this old broom could manage a dive. She dragged her feet as she headed slowly toward the diving boards--which one? Not the tallest, that's for sure. Her inclination was to try the 10' board, since it was the shortest, but maybe that wouldn't give her enough time to pull out of the dive. The middle one it was, then--that was the height the teacher had suggested, after all. Violet glanced around to see what the other students were doing. She really didn't want to be first.

Gemma just listened to the others not really wanting to answer anything about diving, especially crashing. She just wanted this class to be over and not have to think about flying again. She wished she wasn't even in the class, but her mother made sure she signed up. Having a mom as a professor was a pain when you wanted to not take certain classes. Needing to be well balanced and blah, blah. It was just all annoying.

Getting up she went for a broom and kicked off the ground. Easily making up high enough to dive, but did she really have to dive? She just wanted to float, float and watch the others.

Looking around she realized it was her turn and sighed. Still trying to figure out why, she leaned her broom and started the dive pulling up in time to start going up again.

Two hooded figures lurked in the shadows watching. One holding parchment and feverishly writing as the other looked on towards the brooms and the class. They stayed back, but they were there. As the students started to gather brooms and lift off the two glanced at each other and the one holding the parchment wrote more.

For the time being they stayed where they were, but the parchment was getting filled in just the first few minutes of class starting.

"So what you're saying is that the seekers crash 2/3 times? Because if it works..." She didn't enjoy thinking about it. Anyway. Ash climbed to the highest diving board. She dived fast, caught a ping pong ball, and pulled up just in time. She had done very well, and Ash didn't enjoy it. It was scary, and even if she did it perfect, it was still scary. She got off and stood shakily to the side waiting for the next go, where she hopefully would do just as well. She took some deep breaths. The worst that could happen was that she would get a bruise from belly-flopping the water. Right? It wasn't bad it wasn't bad it wasn't bad...

Also, Ash KNEW what Newton's laws were. But she didn't want to bring up that muggles were smart, because she didn't want to die.

After Faye's response to the Professor's first question, she realized it probably did sound dangerous using trees to evade an aerial attack from a creature, but it sounded better than being a meal to her, so if it were her, she certainly would take that chance if it ever came to such a scenario.

The class was progressing onward until it was finally time for them to practice their diving, which completely made sense to the fifth year as to why the Professor had a giant pool filled with ping pongs. She watched as he demonstrated for the class and couldn't help but applaud him for his fine execution when he had finished. Being a pretty avid flyer her entire life thanks to her father, she had absolutely no complaints about this. Sure, she did feel some concern about the possibility of getting wet but that would only happen if her timing wasn't right and if she wasn't focused enough.

The redhead pursed her lips as she eyed the different levelled diving boards and shrugged her shoulders as she decidedly would go for the tallest of them all at the 25 foot height. Mounting her broom, she kicked off the ground ascending into the sky with ease until she was levelled with the diving board. It didn't seem like too many students were willing to go first, which she could understand it did seem like a lot of calculating to do this properly.

She hovered there for a few moments as the breeze blew through her fiery locks until she took a deep breath pointing her broom downwards back towards the pool below. Narrowing her eyes as she made the steep plunge never loosing her focus. She was moving very fast but didn't let that worry her as the ping pong balls were becoming more visible to see. As she was rapidly approaching the water, in one very swift motion, the fifth year extended her arm out quickly snatching up a ping pong ball and pulled up her broom completely evading the water in time. It was then that a bright smile was plastered across her lips completing this successfully and not to mention still dry.

Should she go again?

Watch me carefully.

As if she hadn’t been doing that on the sly. Claudine chanced a look guiltily at Heath. It probably was best not to let him see her staring so intently at Aguilar. This was easier said than done. Her attention returned to the diving demonstration. Fifteen feet didn’t seem too bad but gathering speed in the dive? No, thanks. At least practising over the pool was better than the actual ground for now, she supposed.

Broomstick in hand, Claudine stalked up the fifteen feet diveboard. She kicked off after readying herself. That was pretty much easy for her because of the number of times she’d done it before. Her heart was thudding in her chest, and she wasn’t even sure why.

Whatever.

Claudine let the broomstick get a tad higher so that she was about sixteen or seven feet above the pool. Eyes down below, she selected a target ball. Right. All that was left to do was to dive and grab.

Oh my goodness they got to try it now?! Mamie hopped up immediately and made a beeline for the 15 ft diving board, because Aguilar had recommended 15 feet.

While she waited her turn, she tried to go over the steps he'd done. Lean forward a little bit. The more leaning, the steeper the dive. That...yeah, that made sense. She nodded to herself. And then lean back and straighten the broom handle to stop diving. It...kind of made sense? She supposed one leant back on a bike when trying to go more slowly down a hill. She wondered if that was for the same reason.
When it was finally her turn, she climbed up to the diving board. Whoaa fifteen feet was more than she thought. She was pretty sure she could see the ping pong balls bobbing in the water, though. She mounted her broom and hovered just off the end of the board.

There. That was her ping pong ball there.

She verified her grip on the broom, then leaned forward, trying to dive less steeply than Aguilar had when he demonstrated. Once she was within five feet of the water, she started pulling her broom handle back up slowly, then grasped for the ping pong ball.

Biiiiiig miss.

Mamie leveled off too far above the pool--she'd managed to avoid getting wet, but hadn't caught the snitch ball either. She urged her broom over to the side of the pool, then landed. She would have to try again. Maybe she just needed to watch some others be successful first.

Fiona was rather excited about attempting a manoeuvre such as this and awaited her turn with miraculous patience. Thankfully, soon it was her turn. Her ambitious streak kicked in so the teenager chose the highest diving board. Fiona launched from the diving board and firmly gripped the handle as she angled her broomstick at a 45 degree angle. She was within reach of one of the ping pong balls and felt a sense of pride as her hand closed around the object. Fiona carefully pulled back up.

Violet's turn came all too soon. She climbed up to the 15 ft. diving board with dread and leaned over the pool. Beginners point your brooms down at a slight angle, he said. So she tilted hers down a very little bit and leaned over slightly, and before she was ready, she was heading downward. But she hadn't aimed down far enough and wound up skimming over the pool, not even close to a ball.

Devin couldn’t help but smile back at the professor. Couldn’t have said it better myself was pretty high praise. He tried his best to listen to what his classmates were saying, but his mind kept wandering back to the pool and when they were going to use it. As the professor flew up on his broom for the demonstration, Devin jolted back to keeping his full attention on the professor. He watched closely as the professor demonstrated proper technique for the maneuver. So the pool wasn’t for swimming in? What a shame. He quite fancied the idea of splashing into the pool from that height, even without a broom. Perhaps he should get into the swimming kind of diving as a sport for exercise. It would be fun to learn all the fancy flips and tricks.

Devin chose the 15 foot diving board for his first dive, and climbed up when it came to his turn. Kicking off from the platform on his broom he pushed forward to about a 30 degree angle. As he neared the water, instead of pulling up when he thought he should he subtly waited just a little too long to pull up, and totally on purpose but trying as hard as could to make it look like a total accident hit the water with a SPLASH and rolled off his broomstick. Hey, the water was actually a pretty nice temperature. Could he splash around in here for a while? No, he would be getting in the way of all the other students who were waiting for their turn to dive. He wouldn’t want to be a hazard for anyone who didn’t wait for him to get out of the pool. So, he made his way over to the edge of the pool, climbed out, and grabbed his broomstick. A huge grin spread across his face as he walked over to get in line again, still dripping wet from head to toe. This was fun!

They were all doing brilliantly! Those who caught the ball, those who didn't, and even Mr Horton (who clearly splashed into the pool on purpose hehe) all received a thumbs up and words of encouragement from Aguilar. A few students looked shaky after the dive, and he decided to give them some time to calm down before checking on them. With a proud smile on his face, he turned around to see -

The hoodie squad.

Aguilar stared at the two tall figures for a moment, then turned his back on them without a word. He will not ask them to leave. They can take all the notes they want, but they will not find anything to criticise. Well ... okay, the giant inflatable pool idea might be a bit childish, dive & pull up is slightly advanced for first years, and about two thirds of his students were internally screaming "I HATE FLYING", but in terms of anti-Muggle curriculum - come on, it is not possible to fit Muggle hatred in this class and HOW were they even filling that entire roll of parchment??? He had glanced back at the duo once more and was shocked to see the scribe writing so feverishly.

Flying is meant to be fun, please let it stay that way.

A small smile tugged at her lips at Aguilar's reply. If she trusted and respected the broom she would be okay. Well she also had to trust in herself and have some sort of skill and practice in flying as well. Only, this wasn't her broom. It was a school broom. One she knew nothing about. Despite that little fact, diving downwards on that broom over a large pool of water to grab a ping pong ball was happening.

After watching Aguilar demonstrate the proper maneuver and technique, Lia joined the line to give it a try herself. Climbing up to the 15 foot diving board when it was her turn, she moved carefully towards the edge. Got herself ready on the broom, adjusted her grip and her leg hold, angled the broom downwards slightly and before she even realized it she was diving straight towards the water.

Lia could see the water getting closer and closer. Reaching out her arm she prepared to grab a ping pong ball. Her fingers skimmed over one, trying to close around it as she pulled the broom upwards a bit to level out, the ball slipping from her fingers as she did so. SO CLOSE!

With a small sigh the first year rejoined the line. She would try again. Maybe from a higher diving board this time.