1

Riley looked down at the broom to his side. Then up at the wind weathered face of his teacher. "You trippin'.", he decided allowed.

For two houses that everyone assured him hated each other, Gryffindor and Slytherin had a great many classes together. Their collection of first years were all lined up for their first flying lessons. While the other children seemed to be too...British to even understand Riley questioning authority, Huey just lamented whatever foolishness Riley was about to commence with.

"I assure you, Mr. Freeman.", the woman stated. "I am not, in anyway or ever will be, *ahem* tripping."

"This some ole Halloween rip-off.", Riley declared. "First off, you tellin' me that we gotta be all on the down low with magic when we around normal people. Then you tellin' me they know everything about wizards livin' in castles and being a hundred years old. So even the dumb stuff that's obviously some made up bogus is just straight truth? Like we wizards with all these powers and I gotta get on a broom to fly." ", please."

Riley reached for his throat. "Whatchu do to a" "? Ay, my voice cut out again. Best stop playin'. I cut a" "!"

The flying instructor smiled. "While your head of house and the muggles studies professor are taking their time coming up with a solution to your language, I thought a selective Silencio might have more immediate results."

Huey covered his eyes. "And here we go."

"Silencio me?", Riley exclaimed. His wand was in his hand before even Potter reacted. "Silencio, you. I Muffalatio z zzzzzzzzzzzz. zzz zzzz. z zzz'z zzzz."

Madam Hooch's eyes grew in shock and indignation nearly as fast as Riley's wand work. She drew her wand, adopted a formal dueling stance and quite carefully did the wandwork while mouthing the word 'Expelliarmus'. Riley's wand fell to the grass. While the child looked down in surprise. She carefully performed the wandwork for the binding spell and mouthed its incantation but couldn't match the performance of even her immensely weak disarming spell.

So she settled for grabbing Riley by the ear. While Riley screamed in protest, she pointed her wand at both her eyes and made a gesture with her finger at the class in general, then pointed to the ground. The message was clear. "No flying."

Huey turned to Draco but the platinum blonde was not there. Sighting him in the crowd, the boy was arguing with Potter. Again.

While the school children gathered around the growing contest of wills, Huey joined Hermione. "Fortunately, I have already done the reading.", she declared.

Even Huey's scowl lessened in astonishment. "There isn't a text book for this class."

"There is if you look for it hard enough.", the girl told him.

She stuck out her hand over one of the brooms. "Up!", she commanded. The broom smacked her in the face and fell back to the grass.

"Are you alright?", Huey asked.

Hermione snapped at him. "Of course, I'm alright. I am having quite a lovely time, and I have quite a few friends thank you very much, and I can't help it if no one else wants to learn anything at this school, and forgive me for actually being interested in magic after discovering that it's real."

Huey...left sleeping dogs lie. He chose instead to hold his hand over the broom. "Up.", he demanded. The broom leapt into his hand. Pressing down on it, it seemed impossibly to have enough resistance to perhaps support his weight if he wanted. As if sensing his doubt, the broom climbed higher until it sensed that Huey was assured he could be lifted by it.

"Up!", he heard Hermione call followed by a quick "Ow." and grabbing her knee. "Stupid brooms. I'll just learn how to Apparate instead."

Then a faint glimmer sailed through the sky. And a blazing fast Harry Potter on one of the brooms blazed after it.

So what did we learn in school today? Firstly, Professor Snape was correct: magic did not necessarily depend on incantations and wand waving. The brooms did not need to be keyed or ignited by wands or spells. And Riley's idiocy through the silence and buzz as well as the teacher's response seemed to demonstrate the same. Huey wondered what was possible with nothing but will alone and which components he could get away with leaving out. Secondly, that while these house points and politeness seemed to be all important to these children, they were just another set of arbitrary rules that white people set up for keeping others down that white people will happily ignore because they aren't going to be punished for breaking them like anyone else would be. If Potter, despite being the most famous student in the school, was going to completely ignore a teacher's instructions to not try flying unsupervised on the first time then who knows what trouble he was willing to get up to? Then Huey's scowl returned. Potter was probably white enough to be rewarded for not abiding by the rules: the behavior he himself would be called a miscreant for would probably charm someone else as daring when done by a white student.

2

"I think it's another reason to not have Severus tutor the two.", McGonnal told Dumbledore.

"The boy correctly cast a fifth year spell on instinct alone.", Snape objected.

The woman huffed. "At a teacher."

"Which he will serve many a detention for until he understands he is lucky he isn't expelled and turned over to the Ministry.", Snape dismissed. "But if he doesn't learn to respect his own talent and only lashes out because he doesn't understand what he can do, then we are approaching a dangerous situation much faster than anything I could teach them."

"The Freemans/"

"Were the child's parents.", Snape cut her off again. "I thought a lot of effort when into not corralling wizards by their parentage."

McGonnal glared at the head of her competing house.

Dumbledore finally broke into the conversation. "Quirinius: you've had an opportunity to see the boys behavior in your class. What are your thoughts?"

The purple turban shook. "I d-d-don't know that I have f-f-ormed an op-p-pinion yet. I have yet t-to have the first years p-p-erform anything p-p-ractical. Even if the Freemans are immensely t-t-alent-ted, they wouldn't have shown it in my class. And I can't ask the other children t-t-to t-t-take a risk just t-t-to t-t-est the Freemans."

"Moody warned you about these two, Albus.", Minerva reminded.

Snape rolled his eyes so hard he risked needing the same prosthetic Moody had. "That man would warn a cat over a saucer of milk."

"My dear Severus.", the headmaster began. "All we know is that the Freemans may have a penchant for making trouble. We do not have any evidence of their true capabilities yet. Considering who else is attending this year, perhaps it would be more...in everyone's best interests to pay attention to the Boy Who Lived?"

Z-a motherfucker. For real. I don't play.