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Chapter 9: A Necessary Push
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 18:21:59 +0000 UTCRon, thoroughly chastised, snapped his mouth shut, a wounded and angry expression on his face. Harry shot Hermione a worried look, opening his own mouth as if to say something, but then thought better of it and wisely remained silent. In the short time they'd known her, Hermione had been a pillar of cold, unshakable calm. This sudden, sharp burst of anger was something new and unnerving, a crack in the icy facade that hinted at a deeper, more turbulent current running beneath the surface.
Fortunately, Madam Hooch seemed not to notice the small drama in her ranks. Her attention was on the entire class. "Alright now, listen closely!" she barked, her voice echoing across the lawn. "When I blow my whistle, you will kick off from the ground, hard. Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then lean forward slightly to come back down. On my whistle… three… two…"
But before she could get to "one," a panicked yelp cut through the air.
Neville Longbottom's broom, seemingly with a mind of its own, had lurched off the ground. He was already several feet in the air, clinging to the handle for dear life, his face a mask of pure terror.
"Mr. Longbottom, what are you doing!" Madam Hooch shouted, her eyes wide with alarm. "Get down here this instant!"
"I'm trying!" Neville wailed, his voice trembling as the broom continued its uncontrolled ascent. He was pulling back on the handle, trying to force it down, but the rogue broomstick paid him no mind. It shot upward like a champagne cork, climbing ten, twenty, then fifty feet in a matter of seconds.
The students below gasped, scattering as the broom began to buck and weave through the sky like a wild horse trying to throw its rider. It was completely out of control, ignoring Neville's terrified screams as it embarked on a chaotic, self-destructive flight path straight toward the castle. It sideswiped a stone turret with a sickening scrape, the jolt nearly unseating Neville and sending a shower of dust and grit down onto the lawn.
Finally, after another wild loop, the broom snagged on a flagpole high up on the castle wall. Neville was left dangling precariously from the end of it, his robes caught on a decorative spear point.
With a final, definitive riiiiiip, the threadbare fabric of his robes could no longer bear his weight. It tore apart, and Neville fell.
A collective scream of horror erupted from the students below. The timid ones turned away, unable to watch. From that height, even a wizard's magically-reinforced bones would shatter like glass.
A teaching accident on the first day. How inefficient, Hermione thought, a flicker of annoyance cutting through the chaos. The wizarding world's casual disregard for basic safety protocols was astounding. If not for their miraculous healing abilities, their entire society would have died out from sheer incompetence centuries ago.
Neville's scream grew louder as he plummeted toward the unforgiving ground. Just as the crowd braced for the inevitable, sickening impact, a clear, commanding voice sliced through the panic.
"Arresto Momentum!"
A faint, shimmering distortion, like a heat haze, appeared in the air directly beneath Neville. He hit it not with a crash, but with a soft, whooshing sound, his deadly velocity instantly arrested. His falling body was cradled by the invisible cushion of magic, his momentum bleeding away until he was left floating, limp with shock, less than a foot from the grass.
Every head whipped around. Hermione stood with her wand outstretched, her expression one of intense, focused concentration. A moment later, she lowered her wand, and Neville dropped the remaining few inches to the ground with a soft thud.
The broken bone in his wrist, however, still snapped with an audible crack.
Hermione's mouth twitched in exasperation. You have got to be kidding me.
Madam Hooch, who had been frozen in professional horror, finally snapped into action. She rushed to Neville's side, her face pale but her eyes full of profound gratitude as she looked back at Hermione. "Mr. Longbottom," she said, her voice shaking slightly, "you have Miss Granger to thank. If not for her quick thinking, it would have been far more than a broken wrist."
She helped Neville to his feet, her expression hardening as she turned back to the rest of the class. "All of you are to stay exactly where you are while I take Mr. Longbottom to the hospital wing," she commanded. "And I mean it. If I see a single broom in the air, the rider will be expelled before they can say 'Quidditch'!"
With that final, dire warning, she led the limping, sobbing Neville away toward the castle.
The moment she was out of sight, the Gryffindors mobbed Hermione.
"That was brilliant, Hermione!" "What was that spell? It's not in any of our books!" "You saved his life! You have to teach us how to do that!"
The sudden, overwhelming wave of praise and admiration was deeply uncomfortable. She was not used to this kind of attention and had no desire for it. She took an involuntary step back, using Harry and Ron as a physical buffer against the tide of her overenthusiastic housemates.
"It was in a book in the library," she said curtly, her tone designed to shut down any further questions. "You can look it up yourselves."
The Gryffindors, remembering her other nickname, "The Library Witch," accepted this explanation with renewed awe. Across the lawn, the Slytherins watched with a mixture of coldness and contempt. A few looked intrigued, but the suffocating peer pressure of their house kept them from approaching. Hermione saw it and understood. Any other student performing such a feat would have been impressive. But for a Muggle-born to display such advanced, life-saving magic was a direct insult to their entire pure-blood ideology.
It wasn't the first time they had tried to give her trouble over it. But her ultimate weapon was one they were completely unprepared for: she reported them to the professors. Unlike the honor-obsessed children in the books, she had no qualms about using the system to her advantage. The teachers, who already saw her as a model student, came down on her tormentors like a ton of bricks. After a few instances of lost house points and excruciatingly long detentions, they had learned to leave her alone.
Just as the Gryffindors were starting to disperse, a familiar, sneering voice cut through the air.
"Well, well," said Draco Malfoy. With his sharp eyes, he had spotted something small and round on the grass where Neville had fallen. He swooped in and picked it up. "Look what Longbottom dropped." He held up a small, clear glass sphere filled with white smoke. "His Remembrall. If the fat lump had squeezed this, he might have remembered to fall on his arse."
A few of the Slytherins snickered. Bullying the formidable Hermione was out of the question, but the weak and clumsy Neville was fair game.
Harry's sense of justice flared. He took a step forward, his voice stiff. "Give it here, Malfoy."
Malfoy's eyes glinted with malicious glee. He had found his target. "No," he taunted. "I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find. How about… on the roof?"
With a laugh, he swung his leg over his broom and shot into the air, hovering a hundred feet above them, the Remembrall held high like a trophy.
Harry gripped his own broom, his knuckles white, his jaw tight with anger. He glared up at Malfoy, but he was frozen. Madam Hooch's threat of expulsion echoed in his ears, warring with his desperate desire to do the right thing.
Hermione watched him hesitate, her patience, already worn thin by her own frustrating ineptitude with the broom and the lingering sting of her earlier emotional turmoil, finally snapped. This was not the time for noble, heroic brooding. This was a time for action.
She stepped up behind him and gave him a sharp, insistent poke in the lower back.
He flinched, looking back at her in surprise.
"What are you waiting for?" she hissed, her voice a low, furious whisper. "He's mocking you. He's mocking all of us. Are you going to just stand there and take it? For God's sake, Harry, get up there and knock him off his broom!"
