"Morning." said Lilleth, arriving at breakfast the next morning along with Piper to sit with the boys on the Gryffindor table.

"Ready for flying?" asked Blake excitedly.

Lilleth groaned and banged her head on the table.

"What, you don't like flying?" asked Piper in shock.

"I don't like heights." Lilleth retorted. "And flying around at a hundred feet in the air with nothing but a stupid broomstick holding me up? Not a chance."

"You realise you have to do this class all year, right?" said Dennis, laughing. "I mean, I've never flown, but it looks like brilliant fun."

"Our sister Cam has been teaching us for years." said Piper, grinning.

"How many siblings do you two actually have?" asked Lilleth curiously.

Blake scowled. "Four sisters."

"He's the only boy." said Piper triumphantly. "Camryn is seven years older than us, and then Sophie and Elliana are four years younger."

"We basically live on brooms." said Blake. "Our parents are big quidditch fanatics."

"I prefer both my feet flat on the ground, thank you very much." said Lilleth firmly. "Or dancing. But not flying."

"Have you found anywhere to dance yet?" asked Piper.

Lilleth was relieved for the change of subject.

"Not yet." she admitted.

"Wait, what do you mean?" asked Blake, glancing between the two girls.

"Lilly is a dancer." said Piper, grinning. "But the dorm is a bit small and cluttered with all our stuff, so she's trying to find a bigger space she can dance in."

"There are probably some unused classrooms." Dennis suggested. "There might be a couple without desks in them."

"You should ask a teacher." said Blake. "Or a prefect or someone."

"I might ask Hermione." said Lilleth. "She knows the castle pretty well. And I wouldn't exactly call myself a dancer. I just kind of mess around, I've never actually had lessons. It's not serious."

"I'm sure you're brilliant." said Dennis, grinning.

"She's really flexible too." said Piper. "I woke up to find her doing the splits on the floor this morning."

"That's insane." Dennis agreed.

"Are you going to eat anything?" Blake prompted, pushing a box of cereal towards the girls.

"What are you, my mother?" teased Piper.

Blake put on a high, mocking voice. "Eat up, Pipette, come on! You need your strength if you're going to go out flying!"

"Pipette?" Dennis raised his eyebrows.

"It's what Mum calls me that we agreed we wouldn't tell anyone about." said Piper.

She reached her foot out under the table and kicked him, hard, in the shin. He groaned and doubled over, clutching his leg and glaring at her.

By the time they'd all eaten breakfast, they only had ten minutes to get out to the grounds for their flying lesson. They jumped up, grabbed their bags and ran out of the hall to the Entrance Hall, where they found the door going out to the grounds and went around the corner of the stone walls to the flying grounds, where a tall, thin teacher with greying hair and bright yellow eyes was waiting for them along with two rows of broomsticks.

The four of them were the first ones to arrive, although they had thought they'd be late. They placed their bags down on a grass verge at the side, just as the rest of the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor first years began to arrive, and Madam Hooch ordered them to all stand by a broom.

Lilleth quickly found one between Piper and Blake, while Dennis went on the other side of Piper.

"Now, raise your right hand over your broom and say 'up'." ordered Madam Hooch.

"This is going to go anything but well." Lilleth muttered under her breath. She put her right hand out over the broom and sat very loudly and very clearly, 'up'.

All around her, brooms were jumping up into their owners' hands; Piper and Blake's brooms had jumped straight up and they were grinning triumphantly; Dennis' broom took a few more tries before it hesitantly flew up to his hand, and he seemed very pleased about it; most of the Gryffindors' brooms had jumped up, with the few exceptions of one boy, whose broom had decided to jump so high it came back down and whacked him on the head, and one girl, who was clearly sharing Lilleth's thoughts. Ella's broom had gradually come up to her hand as well, although Missy and Mira were struggling to get theirs to behave. The Hufflepuff boys were a mixture of success and failure, although all of them were determinedly shouting 'up' with everyone else.

Lilleth's broom had just decided to roll over on the ground. Oddly, away from her. It seemed that broomsticks could sense fear, and hers just wanted to get away from her.

"Up!" she said loudly again. "Up!"

Once again, it just rolled over. Although, this time, it did come a bit closer to her.

"Come on Lilly, it's not that hard." said Blake, rolling his eyes.

"Easy for you to say." she retorted. "Up!"

At last, the broom flew hesitantly up in her hand, and she gripped onto it tightly. If it fell, she was not going to shout 'up' at it any longer.

At last, everyone had managed to summon their brooms to their hands. There were still some mixed feelings present in the faces around the training field. Some still appeared to have doubts about actually being able to fly, while some looked very excited about it and couldn't wait to get started.

Madam Hooch then instructed them all in how to mount their brooms and showed them all the correct grips for not sliding off the end.

"A good grip is very important for flying." she said brusquely. "You don't want to be falling off in the middle of a quidditch match."

"I'd rather not be flying in the middle of a quidditch match." Lilleth muttered, earning a snort from Piper.

"Slide your hand forward." snapped Madam Hooch to Lilleth, who jumped and quickly moved her left hand forward slightly. "Good."

She moved on to Blake, and Lilleth couldn't help a snort when she heard the teacher saying he'd been doing it wrong for years, even though Piper's had been perfect.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you will kick off from the ground, hard." said Madam Hooch, brandishing her whistle as if it was a weapon.

The whistle was shrill and piercing and Lilleth winced. People began pushing off from the ground, and she watched them closely.

"That's not too hard." she muttered to herself.

She bent her legs and then jumped off from the ground as hard as she could. At first, the broom supported her and allowed her to hover about three feet in the air, but the momentum from the push had been apparently too hard, and before she knew it, she had toppled over the side and landed flat on her back on the ground with a loud thud. She groaned, completely winded, and pushed herself to sit back up.

"You alright?" asked Piper, who was clearly trying to stifle a laugh from where she was hovering happily four feet in the air.

"Oh, shut up."