Chapter 23: Professor McGonagall and the Flying Broomstick

The hair-wand progress wasn't going smoothly, mainly because Silven was having a hard time finding a wand body that could match Professor McGonagall's hair.

A wizard's personal characteristics were too distinctive; they would subconsciously reject things they didn't like.

Oak, grapevine, beech… over the past few days Silven had tried every material he carried on him, and not a single one worked — on top of that, he'd accidentally blown apart two strands of hair.

This left Silven out of sorts for several days, wavering over whether to wait until the weekend to find Hagrid and ask him to take him into the Forbidden Forest.

The preoccupied Silven was walking through the common room when Harry and Ron, who had suddenly appeared, reached out and stopped him.

"Hey, Silven, what's been up with you these past few days? You've been listless the whole time." Harry really couldn't hold it in any longer and asked.

"Yeah." Hermione walked over too. "You've been late three times, and Gryffindor has lost twenty points because of it…"

"What's the point of saying all that." Ron glared at her first, then turned around. "We just wanted to ask what's wrong with you, maybe we can help."

"Ah, it's nothing." Silven rubbed his face; he too realized he'd been a bit too obsessive these past two days.

Making a wizard's hair into a wand — how could it possibly be that easy? How could it be done in just a day or two?

"Sorry." Silven forced himself to clear his head a bit. "Oh, I'll find a way to make up the lost points."

"That doesn't matter, anyway even if you're not late Snape will find a way to dock our points." Ron said, then glared at Hermione again; Hermione turned her head away and refused to look at him.

Incidentally, Silven was late to Potions class yesterday and got fifteen points deducted on the spot.

"What's the next class?" Silven asked.

"Flying." Harry said, drawing a collective groan.

"What, you guys don't like Flying class?" Silven asked.

"No, we just don't want to have class with Slytherin." Ron pointed at a notice posted behind the door.

【First-year Gryffindors please proceed to the grounds in front of the castle at three-thirty Thursday afternoon to learn broomstick flying together with the Slytherin students — Rolanda Hooch】

No wonder.

Gryffindor and Slytherin both looked down on each other; whenever they met they'd argue, and normally they only shared Potions class together, which was bearable, but now there was an extra Flying class on top of that.

"Nothing we can do, the school's arrangement can't be changed." Silven said. "When the time comes, just pretend they don't exist."

"That's all we can do, I guess." Harry said dejectedly. "But making a fool of myself on a flying broomstick right in front of Malfoy — I feel like there's a good chance he won't pretend he didn't see it."

Silven said nothing.

Harry's worry was clearly unnecessary, but he didn't know that himself, and even if told he wouldn't believe it.

As for flying brooms, Silven wasn't very interested.

Because flying required one hand to steady the broom, which made it inconvenient to use a wand, and that left him feeling very insecure.

So under normal circumstances Silven preferred to stand on solid ground, unless he could ride his wand to fly…

Hm?

Wait.

Silven looked at the wand Ms. Hooch had placed at his feet, and suddenly blinked.

How come the wooden handle of this flying broom looks so much like a giant wand?

The more he looked, the more alike they seemed — this ratio of length to thickness was exactly the same as a wand's standard.

Silven instinctively reached out, wanting to take a closer, more careful look.

At a single thought, the flying broom on the ground immediately leapt into his hand.

"A perfect demonstration, I couldn't have done it better myself." Ms. Hooch said loudly. "Two points to Gryffindor, but I still have to say, next time please raise your hand before demonstrating — I'll let it slide this time."

Silven didn't hear a word of what Ms. Hooch was saying; his attention right now was entirely on the wooden handle of the flying broom.

Very perfect… although the surface of the handle was a bit rough, there were no cracks, which meant the interior of the handle wasn't damaged.

Silven took out his wand and gave it a light tap.

The broom handle unfurled like rolled-up paper, ring after ring, and in the blink of an eye turned into over a dozen thin sheets of wood.

Silven casually picked one up and carefully examined the grain on it.

Fir wood — and the finest quality fir wood at that; judging by its condition it was roughly a hundred years old.

It had been maintained reasonably well too; once the outermost rough layer was removed, the wood inside was smooth and fine, looking as though someone had carefully polished it with wax.

To be honest, Silven's behavior of dismantling the broom without a word of explanation wasn't actually permitted, but it just so happened that not a single person around him tried to stop him — even Ms. Hooch acted as though she hadn't seen it.

…Well, she really hadn't seen it.

Because right now everyone's eyes were fixed on the sky.

Whether it was because Silven had reminded him to be careful before class, Neville was especially nervous, and later he even misheard Ms. Hooch's command and shot off on his broom straight away.

Then crashed head-first into the wall opposite.

Ms. Hooch had already taken him to the school hospital, and now Harry and Malfoy were fighting over the Remembrall he had accidentally dropped.

Everyone was watching them fly, and nobody had noticed that Silven had already completely taken his broom apart.

Until ten minutes later, when Professor McGonagall came hurrying out of the castle.

"Falling straight down from that high… how dare you… enough, Potter, come with me."

"Also, Ollivander, the school does not permit destroying brooms — Gryffindor loses two points. If you can't repair it before the next class, twenty points will be deducted!"

No one answered.

"Mr. Ollivander, are you listening to me?" Professor McGonagall was getting a bit angry now, a glint of fury flashing in her spectacles,

Hermione punched Silven hard in the arm.

"Restore the broom to its original state, immediately!" Professor McGonagall repeated once more.

Although he hadn't been paying attention to what had just happened, Silven could more or less guess some of it, and he nodded and agreed on the spot.

Only then did Professor McGonagall's expression ease a little, and she led the dejected Harry off the grounds.

"You're way too bold." Hermione couldn't help saying. "Why would you destroy the school's broom?"

"No, I didn't destroy it." Silven said, pulling another wand out of his pocket.

After his observation just now, he had already confirmed that this broomstick handle met every requirement for crafting a wand body, and didn't even need any additional modification.

He just didn't know whether it had runes carved on it; the time just now was too short, and he hadn't had a chance to look closely. If there weren't any, he might really be able to fly riding a "wand."

Silven held the wand upright, planning to repair it first and deal with Professor McGonagall afterward.

But this motion happened to fling a strand of hair that was hanging on the wand down.

The hair was flung into mid-air, then drifted down lightly, and happened to stick onto a section of wood chip.

The hair Professor McGonagall had given him—after the earlier experiment failed, Silven had casually tucked it into his pocket.

At this moment the hair clung tightly to the cross-section of the wood chip, a perfect fit; even if Silven shook it hard he couldn't shake it off, feeling just as if it were glued on.

"This…" Silven twitched the corner of his mouth, an absurd feeling welling up inside him unbidden.

It seemed he had found a matching wand-body material… no, it would be more accurate to say the hair found it itself.

Professor McGonagall's hair, and the (flying broomstick) representing Quidditch…

Alright, that's perfectly reasonable!

(End of chapter)