Chapter 25
The day every first-year had been waiting for with bated breath...
The day destined for success...
The day when even Slytherin and Gryffindor came to a single consensus...
The day of the first flying lesson!
"Ye-e-e-eah!" Ron, looking absolutely manic, was practically dancing with two sausages in his hands. "Merlin, I nearly died when they canceled the lesson last week!"
Every single child who had grown up in a wizarding family had been anticipating this day, describing in vivid detail what it was like to fly on a broomstick.
Their enthusiasm was so great that even the Muggle-borns got swept up in it, imagining themselves on a broom: with what ecstasy they would slice through the heavens and furrow the distant, inspiring expanses of the sky.
Everyone was happy.
Everyone, except...
"Simon, why the long face?!" The hyperactive Ron, who had kept them awake last night bragging about how he'd show everyone this and that, started shaking a lethargic Simon by the shoulder. Simon tried to swat him away like a persistent fly, but Ron didn't even notice.
"Ron, did you forget?" Harry whispered, but with such volume that he was likely heard at the other House tables. "He's banned!"
"Oh... right. Sorry, Simon."
Simon just rolled his eyes.
Turns out, if an eleven-year-old first-year takes a broom without permission and flies into a professor's classroom at top speed, they get punished.
Surprising, isn't it?
Simon didn't even want to imagine what they would do if they found out he had actually climbed to maximum altitude and simply bailed, hoping his magic would crack its own shell and save him.
They'd probably commit him to the psychiatric ward of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, if such a place even existed. How do you even identify a magical psycho when they all act like lunatics?
In short, Professor McGonagall had looked at him, remembered everything he'd managed to pull in just two weeks, and slapped a ban on him going anywhere near a broom until "further notice." Apparently, she was going to watch his future behavior and decide whether to allow this "madman" near a broom at all.
It sucked, damn it!
What sucked even more was that his "friends" just nodded understandingly at this incredibly unfair decision!
Even if the mode of transport left much to be desired, it was still flight! Everyone wants to fly, and Simon was no exception!
Plus, a broom—by virtue of its compactness and ease of operation—gave any Muggle aircraft a run for its money. You didn't need a specialized education, billions of dollars in your pocket, or a mountain of bureaucracy. You just took a broom out of the cupboard and flew off about your business!
In these parameters, magic was certainly hundreds of leagues ahead.
The ear-splitting enthusiasm of the students finally found its outlet when they arrived at the wide back lawn, where two lines of brooms were already waiting for them on the ground.
The lesson was paired with Slytherin, which meant having to see those smug faces again.
"Hey, little Frenchman," Malfoy drawled from across the group. "Is the deal still on? If you lose another hundred points for the lions, I might just be nice enough to buy you something."
"Buy yourself a brain," Simon snorted.
"You—!" Malfoy's face turned red with anger as all the little lions laughed.
"Everyone line up!" Madam Hooch interrupted him. She was a grey-haired, wiry woman with a literal hawk-like yellow gaze.
The first thing every aspiring flyer learns is how to summon a broom to their hand.
The task was simple—stand by the broom, stretch your hand over it, and command confidently:
"Up!"
"UP!"
"U-u-u-up!"
...It was going poorly.
Only Draco Malfoy and, surprisingly, Harry managed to summon the broom to their hand on the first try. For the others, this feat proved impossible. The brooms would roll, hop slightly, or in special cases—like Ron's—smack the rider painfully in the face with the handle.
Tired of standing and doing nothing since he hadn't even been given a broom, Simon stole a glance at the instructor. Realizing she was distracted, he reached his hand toward the broom Hermione was unsuccessfully trying to summon.
"To me," Simon whispered, barely audible.
And, despite the distance of several meters, the broom jerked spiritedly and shot straight into his hand.
In response to Hermione's indignant face and gasping mouth, Simon merely winked.
"Laplace!" came the booming voice of Madam Hooch. "You were strictly forbidden from flying!"
"Yeah, yeah, fine," Simon rolled his eyes, handing the broom back to Hermione. "Just giving it a go, what's the big deal?"
And while Madam Hooch was drawing breath for what would likely be another point deduction, an incident occurred.
And the incident had a name—Neville Longbottom.
"HE-E-E-ELP!"
With a loud, panicked shriek, Neville shot upward like a rocket. With every second of uncontrolled flight, his panic mounted, leading to an even greater loss of control.
While the others watched the aviation disaster in the making with mouths agape, about five seconds passed, during which Neville managed to turn into a comet flying in every possible direction. He was so erratic and unpredictable that even the teacher couldn't hit him with a spell.
It all ended when Neville passed out from the G-force and his hands reflexively let go of the handle. Amidst the panicked screams of the first-years, Neville plummeted.
Simon's hand went for his wand of its own accord. He instinctively aimed at the ground where Neville was hurtling and...
...did something.
Simon couldn't put into words that strange feeling he tried to channel into a non-verbal, perhaps non-existent, spell. But that feeling was entirely "copied" from his own sensation right before his own fall.
Whatever Simon did, it worked.
The ground beneath Neville, at the moment of impact, turned into rubber, allowing him to bounce.
However, the bouncing body didn't lose all its momentum; it shot toward the wall. A stone wall that, upon impact, would break at least a few of Neville's bones.
The wand aimed at the point of impact again, and a second before the crash, it once more granted the solid object the property of rubber.
Neville bounced a second time, though at a much lower speed, before landing on the grass and rolling several times with a groan.
"Excellent reaction..." Madam Hooch murmured, stunned. Recovering, she ran to Neville and began examining his body. "I must escort him to the Hospital Wing and check for injuries."
"I'll help," Simon shrugged. "I'm just standing here like a statue anyway."
"Mr. Laplace..." Madam Hooch gave an appreciative smile. "I shall speak with Minerva about easing your ban. And yes, twenty points to Gryffindor for a magnificent non-verbal spell!"
"Thanks," Simon blinked in surprise. "I wasn't expecting any luck, but here it is. I hope after your praise, Professor McGonagall will stop considering me the illegitimate child of Satan."
"Now, that is beyond my power."
"Damn."
---
"What?" Simon's mouth fell open in outrage. "You're telling me you broke Madam Hooch's ban on flying without her direct presence, and for that, Professor McGonagall made you the Seeker for our team?! That is blatant favoritism!"
It turned out Simon had missed quite a show during the time he was helping Neville to the Hospital Wing.
It all started with Neville's glass Remembrall, which had fallen out of his pocket at some point during the "dizzying" flight. Malfoy had picked it up and decided to act like his usual self—a typical rich jerk-villain—by hiding the Remembrall somewhere on the roof.
A natural-born hero stood in his way—Harry "Four-Eyes-And-A-Scar" Potter. He got on a broom for the first time and flew so skillfully that he managed to catch the glass ball thrown by Malfoy mid-air, right in front of Professor McGonagall's office.
And for such a feat, Harry was rewarded.
Simon was happy for his friend, of course, but... what was with the unfair double standard?!
For something like that, they wouldn't have made Simon a Seeker; they'd have just slapped him with another week of detention! And that's the best-case scenario!
Lately, he was getting the feeling he hadn't come to a school of magic, but to a slave labor camp!
"Quidditch is the greatest game in the world!" Ron seemed to be happier for his friend than Harry was for himself. "Merlin's beard, a first-year has never made the team! Harry, you're the first!"
"Oh, come on..." Harry shrugged with a bashful smile. "To be honest, I'm nervous—what if I mess something up?"
"Small wonder, Harry, you have plenty to worry about," Simon smirked. "Since Quidditch is a shit game."
Ron reacted instantly to such blatant provocation.
"Take that back!" he huffed. "You might know more than me, read more than me, cast spells better than me... and do a lot of things better than me, but I know Quidditch inside out, and I state with total confidence that there is no better game on earth!"
"Until a certain point, that's true."
Simon's confident tone suddenly made Ron wary. Usually, such a tone was a harbinger of a worldview being demolished—and in a clearly substantiated, logically argued way.
Of all things, Ron didn't want to be disappointed in Quidditch.
"Harry, did Wood tell you the rules yet?"
"I was going to read more about it later," Harry hesitated. "By the way, I apologized for you and said you're actually a good guy..."
"Forget Wood," Simon rolled his eyes. "Anyway, Quidditch. Two teams, seven players: one Keeper, two Beaters, three Chasers, and one Seeker. There are three hoops at each end of the pitch that the Keepers have to defend. The Chasers have to use the Quaffle to score and get ten points for every goal, and the Beaters have to whack flying, aggressive Bludgers with bats, literally knocking out opposing players and protecting their own teammates. Up to this point, Quidditch sounds cool and genuinely dangerous, which is doubly cool."
"Are you saying..." Harry thought about it. "Something is wrong with the Seeker?"
"The Seeker is the most important member of the team!" Ron interjected indignantly. "What could possibly be wrong with them?"
"Literally everything," Simon rolled his eyes. "They should be removed from the game entirely! The Seeker's task: catch the Golden Snitch, which not only ends the game but earns the team one hundred and fifty points. It breaks the entire sport and devalues the effort of everyone else."
"Well, yeah..." Harry hesitated. "That does sound quite..."
"Just imagine a regular football match. Got it? And suddenly they put a table near the pitch and force two players to play table tennis, where the winner gives his team ten goals and immediately ends the match. How does that sound?"
"It can't be..." Ron wouldn't stop muttering. "Seeker is cool... Seeker is the most important member of the team..."
"It's like..." Simon shrugged. "It's like some author created a magical sport but suddenly realized she couldn't make the protagonist stand out in the crowd. So she goes: 'I know, I'll invent a separate role for him that completely kills all the suspense and singles him out from everyone else, so nobody forgets who the main character is. Hey, sounds brilliant and doesn't break the balance at all!'"
Harry and Ron groaned. Simon loved ruining moods as much as he loved ruining faces.
"Have you decided to become the new President of the Quidditch Players Association just to rewrite the rules?"
"I don't give a damn. Like I said: up to a certain point, Quidditch sounds cool," Simon shrugged. "And you shouldn't worry, Harry. Quidditch is in your blood!"
"What do you mean?.."
To Harry's question, Simon only smirked and led them through the corridors of Hogwarts.
They arrived at the trophy room, where shelves with every possible award stretched for dozens of meters.
"Clean?"
"What?"
"I mean, are the trophies shiny?"
Ron examined the cups more closely.
"I think so?"
"THAT'S BECAUSE I'M SLAVING AWAY HERE EVERY OTHER DAY LIKE A DAMN SERF! FOR THE SECOND WEEK IN A ROW!"
Under their frightened gazes, Simon took a deep breath and calmed down.
In reality, Hogwarts was too massive for one Filch to keep clean. Magic solved all such issues. But in the trophy room, the charms are deactivated during detentions so that students have something to do. And no magic allowed—everything by hand! It was literally reverse solutionism.
"Anyway," Simon jabbed a finger at one of the trophies. "Being a Seeker is in your blood, so don't sweat it."
Harry, with an ever-growing smile, read "Seeker: James Potter" on one of the trophies.
It seemed like even his eyes were turning red.
"Thank you..."
---
No matter how interesting the daily life at Hogwarts was, Simon never forgot what awaited him in his home timeline.
He had several clearly defined tasks that needed to be resolved first.
And since he had finally discovered himself to be a talented wizard, his hands were untied.
The list of spells he needed wouldn't fit on a single piece of parchment. But as they say, one problem at a time.
A few days ago, Simon finally made it to the massive Hogwarts Library, which was a truly wondrous sight, like everything else in this castle.
Bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling, creating a sort of labyrinth, between the walls of which certain literary editions literally flew.
In a semblance of order that many would call chaos, they swapped places, flew around in entire sections, and sometimes even nipped at each other in mid-air.
There was a vast number of books. This was perhaps the largest library Simon had ever seen in his life. Though he was used to getting his information entirely from the internet.
Seeing this sight for the first time, Simon realized with total clarity that he would spend dozens, hundreds, and thousands of hours here.
The Hogwarts Library is considered one of the largest, if not the largest, in the world. Regarding magical literature, of course.
The permanent librarian was a woman of years—Madam Pince—who never took her sharp eyes off him from the moment he entered the library.
Simon immediately understood where this animosity came from—rumors. Simon's reputation was... not the friendliest.
But here, Simon would have disappointed Madam Pince either way—while he was happy to hit or insult people, he treated books with the proper respect. Always and everywhere.
To Simon's surprise, the spell he needed for his goals was found immediately. Or rather, he learned the information through the Weasley brothers, since after the incident with Wood, his relationship with the upperclassmen was strained.
In a rather thin volume titled "Spells for Long Treks," written about a hundred and fifty years ago, he found the necessary charm.
With his spirits lifted, he skipped over to Madam Pince and put in a request for one week of personal use, so he could practice on his own and not have to come to the library every time, where you aren't allowed to pull out your wand anyway.
Seeing the book, Madam Pince's gaze grew even more suspicious.
"Why do you need this book?" she asked Simon.
"I just love hiking," he snorted. "Can't live without it."
"I see," Madam Pince nodded, as if she had realized something. "And which spell caught your eye the most?"
"The Sleeping Bag Softening Charm," Simon smiled quite brazenly. "Even though I'm young, you have to take care of your back from an early age."
"You're right," Madam Pince smiled. "But that spell is quite difficult—not every upperclassman can pull it off."
"I have a very, very great love for soft beds," Simon said, taking the book with a satisfied grin. "Thank you, Madam Pince!"
Naturally, he wasn't talking about that spell. Although it was quite useful, Simon wouldn't waste time on such nonsense.
Both Madam Pince and Simon understood that this book was valuable for only one spell, whose functionality is useful not just on long treks, but in general...
The "Disillusionment Charm"—the chameleon charm.
The perfect tool for stealthy infiltration.
The perfect tool that would allow him to hide from Filch and finally reach that damn Hogwarts Express!