InsaneJournal

Drabble: The Art of Flying (Harry Potter, PG, gen)
Title: The Art of Flying
Date: April 30, 2003
First posted at: hpdrabble
Length: 425 words
Rating: PG
Warning: None. Some sadness, maybe.
Pairing: Mention of Ron/Hermione, a tiny bit
Notes: I was actually surprised that I never brought this over to my old fic journal -- I remember liking it when I wrote it.

The Art of Flying

Sometimes, when he sleeps, Harry dreams of flight. Of the smooth, glossy handle of a broomstick pressed against the vein below his thumb. Of the sound of pure, smooth air twisting itself around the curves of his ears. Of broomsticks.

He knows it's a dream, of course. Always a dream. There are no brooms anymore. Voldemort has delighted in enchanting them all with horrible curses, incantations that break every bone in your right leg and left arm, charms that render you blind just long enough to go insane before your sight returns, spells that turn the broomstick into a Portkey so that you are transported directly and instantaneously under the icy curved fangs of a great serpent. It is his idea of sport. Buying a broom is like playing a game of Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. No maker, merchant, or buyer can be trusted, so no one flies anymore. Better to be safer, aching to fly but safer, than to … well, no one mentions what might happen if you touch a broomstick.

No one flies anymore. Quidditch is a thing of the past. The babies that have been born in the years of war, and the babies who will be born in the years before they defeat Voldemort, will grow up hearing lectures on the evils of deep water, steep cliffs, and broomsticks. They will never know the exhilaration of flight, will never hear the glittering sound of a Snitch beating its wings faster than a hummingbird in the air. The art of flying will fall and crumble to other talents that tired professors will teach to first-year students at Hogwarts: swimming, perhaps, or singing. Perhaps one day someone will reinvent the flying carpet that was banned so many years ago. Only time will tell.



Several years later, after Voldemort has been defeated, after the forests of Albania have withered and turned themselves to dust and a gigantic snakeskin has been flung deep into the waters of the Adriatic Sea, along with the bones of a small rat skeleton -- after all of that, Harry will show up at Ron and Hermione's door with a sheepish smile and baggy eyes. It is his godson's fifth birthday and he is late, as usual, for the party. He will scoop up Arthur, and the little boy will laugh and blow a raspberry that sounds like the wings of the elusive Snitch. And after cake and pastries and Every Flavour Beans they will sing and Harry will give him his birthday present: the very first toy broomstick.