CHAPTER NINE
Malfoy certainly did talk about flying a lot. He complained
loudly about first years never getting on the House Quidditch
teams and told long, boastful stories that always seemed to end
with him narrowly escaping Muggles in helicopters. He wasn’t the
only one, though: the way Seamus Finnigan told it, he’d spent most
of his childhood zooming around the countryside on his broom-
stick. Even Ron would tell anyone who’d listen about the time he’d
almost hit a hang glider on Charlie’s old broom. Everyone from
wizarding families talked about Quidditch constantly. Ron had al-
ready had a big argument with Dean Thomas, who shared their
dormitory, about soccer. Ron couldn’t see what was exciting about
a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly. Harry
had caught Ron prodding Dean’s poster of West Ham soccer team,
trying to make the players move.
Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life, because his
grandmother had never let him near one. Privately, Harry felt she’d
had good reason, because Neville managed to have an extraordi-
nary number of accidents even with both feet on the ground.
Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville
was. This was something you couldn’t learn by heart out of a
book — not that she hadn’t tried. At breakfast on Thursday she
bored them all stupid with flying tips she’d gotten out of a library
book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville was hanging on to
her every word, desperate for anything that might help him hang
on to his broomstick later, but everybody else was very pleased
when Hermione’s lecture was interrupted by the arrival of the mail.
Harry hadn’t had a single letter since Hagrid’s note, something
that Malfoy had been quick to notice, of course. Malfoy’s eagle owl
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