My new broom! ((Anyone))

[candygirl]

Terra ripped open the brown paper covering the package she had gotten from home. She could hardly believe that her mum would get her something like this. The Nimbus 2001 rolled onto Terra's bed; the brown paper scattered on the floor. The gleaming black handle looked glorious next to her blue bedspread. Terra felt the gleaming wood and her hazel eyes lit up. She had a broom! Full of glee, Terra leaped off of her bed, broom in hand. She thought that she could feel it vibrating, but she was probably imagining things. In all her haste to get outside, she ran into a few people on the way. The all seemed rather disgruntled but Terra just gave them a wave before jogging again. She couldn't wait to try out her new Nimbus 2001! It was going to be fantastic. Terra had been thinking about trying out for the Quidditch team; she had borrowed brooms from the broom closet for practice. Those brooms had been rather wobbly and very slow so Terra hadn't gotten much out of them. This would be different. This broom was the second fastest out of them all!

Terra entered the grounds, throughly excited about what she was going to do. Just the thought of racing across the sky made her even more buoyant then before. By the time she reached a place where there wasn't many people, Terra was filled with happiness. She had been wondering if her mother would get her a broom, but she had never thought that it would be this one. Maybe a Cleansweep but never a Nimbus. Terra wondered briefly where her mum had gotten the money, but she pushed that thought out of her head. All she wanted to do today was enjoy her gift. She mounted and pushed off from the lush green grass, feeling the air lift her red hair off of her shoulders. She grinned to no one in particular and steered her broom upward. She closed her eyes against the blinding sun, but once she thought she was high enough, she pulled her broom to a halt and looked down. The distance between her and the ground was horrendous, and she clutched her broom very tight in case the breeze suddenly became rougher. It didn't, but Terra still gripped her broom very hard. Breathe in. Breathe. She told herself. She took a deep breath before going into a dive. The ground was coming closer each mounting second; Terra wanted to close her eyes but didn't dare; she could tell each blade of grass apart, the broom was the close. Terra tugged at her broom to go upward just as her feet skimmed the ground. It was scary for a moment, but as the broom went upward again, Terra started to grin again. She had just done a dive. Not a great one, mind; she had almost ran into a tree nearby that she had just noticed. Plus, she hadn't dived from a great distance, it had just seemed far. Terra knew that it wasn't a perfect dive and that she had been scared out of her wits, but she was happy none the less.

She flew around the grounds for a good thirty minutes before her legs started to ache for the ground. She touched-down near the lake, her feet hit the ground rather hard and it took a while for her legs to get use to being on the ground once more. She had to walk around to get the feeling back in them and, once that done, she sat down on the beautiful green grass. Her red hair probably looked a mess, but Terra didn't mind. Her broom was laying on the ground a few feet from where Terra was sitting. She stared at it for a few moments and then grabbed it and pulled it closer to her. She didn't want someone to grab it and take it. She smiled at the thought; what kind of person would do that? Terra busied herself for a while; trying to name all the colors of the lake. There was green, blue and an odd shade of purple that was hardly noticeable. Terra sighed and laid down, her head on a very thick patch of grass. The sun was starting to get to her; she had to shade her eyes as she laid there. She wished for her sunglasses that she had left so foolishly on her bedside table. Closing her eyes tight, Terra laid there enjoying the quietness.

It didn't last long, however. Soon, Terra could hear footsteps approaching but she didn't get up. Perhaps they would leave if she was the only one here. She clutched her broom in case the person was awful enough to try to snatch it and waited for the footsteps to leave.

[ellabrady]

The sunlight that was peeping in through the gap in the Student Lounge’s drapes had been teasing her all morning. She was sure it knew perfectly well that she was in for a whole day of homework, and that astronomy was complicated enough without the heat on the back of her neck making her over-heated. It did not seem to care though, for the sun shone still bright as ever as Ella turned over what seemed like the hundredth piece of parchment which she had decorated with large, neat letters, and the occasional diagram of a moon here and there. She had forgotten her assignment was due in that evening, which - though it did not happen often - Ella was distinctly un-proud of, as she hated the idea of letting her teachers down, the curse of a desire to please you might say. It was due to that lapse of memory that Ella found herself sitting cross-legged on the carpet, glaring at the slit in the curtains, an expression that did not suit her face one bit, as she poised her quill on the next line of the essay. She knew perfectly well that it would have been sensible to open the curtains, as it would have made the room less stuffy, and at that point the room really could have done with it, the air was getting over-heated and distinctly stale compared to the fresh, milling atmosphere of the world outside but she was also sure that the lure of fresh air would put her off her assignment, and there was no-one else in the Student Lounge to persuade her otherwise, save a first year who was snoring softly, looking quite exhausted on a sofa on the far wall. Everyone else seemed to be out enjoying themselves, lucky things.

Ella sighed inwardly and dipped the tip of her quill back into her aubergine-coloured ink, her trademark in classes in which she could get away with it. Her lips formed the words as she re-read the last sentence, a bit on Callisto. Callisto is the third largest moon in the entire solar system, She read under her breath, Huge in the size, it is about equal to -. What was it equal to? She had a distinct feeling it was mercury but there was a chance it could have been Mars. Ella furrowed her brow, and reached around for the correct book to check the fact. After a second of shifting and checking, the realisation dawned on her that it wasn’t there, instead, it was lying innocently on her quilt back in the Hufflepuff dormitories. Just her luck. Of course, this was Ella, and Ella didn’t believe in swearing, but at that she was vaguely tempted to, despite all misgivings. Remembering herself though, she instead increased her scowl and thought of the long walk back to the cellars of the Hufflepuff dorms…and with that combined with the weather, it all seemed rather pointless to Ella.

“Oh, I give up!” She murmured irritably, seizing her bag from behind her and stuffing the books, and mismatched parchments through the flap as quick as was allowed by the sheer amount of writing she had done. Life didn’t have to all be studying anyway, she was going to enjoy it for once. With a slight glance towards the first year, and a discarded thought to if the boy would mind waking up alone, Ella left the Lounge at quickened pace, and within no time was taking the route towards the Entrance hall, the main doors and, thank Merlin, the grounds.



The weather was indeed glorious, better than even Ella, who had spent most of the morning dreaming of a world outside the Student Lounge, had predicted. The orbal sun was high in the sky so that the lake glistened in its light and the grass seemed lusher than usual, a perfect carpet for the students that were spread out across it. Recognising no-one among the masses, the Hufflepuff passed through the crowds that were accumulated on the banks nearer to the castle and set off across the lawns towards the lake, a hand cupped at the side of her face to protect her eyes from glare of the overhanging sun. A few more students were dotted across the stretch of shoreline that Ella could see from the distance and sadly enough for Ella, who had shared a morning with an out-of-it eleven year-old, they were nearly all organised in clumps, and only one was alone. Still, at the sight of that one, Ella’s heart leapt. Being a friendly person if there ever was one, meeting strangers was when Ella Brady was in her prime. This particular one was a redhead about her age, who was occupied with studying the inside of her eyelids, as she lay on her back. A broomstick was posititioned next to her, and the girl lay a protective hand over it. The broom looked very new, its sleek black handle was shining proudly in the sun. Ella’s eyes quickly scanned over the polished wood, searching for a name, which she found soon enough and -

“Wow! Is that a Nimbus 2001!” Ella remarked, with a distinctly impressed tone to her voice and a smile sweeping across her face. A vague thought at the back of her mind was that of, ‘Maybe she wants to be alone?’, but it was a quiet one and things like, ‘Think how pleased you would be if someone took the time to talk to you!’, were taking greater precedence in Ella’s brain. Besides she was just being friendly, ‘I’m still stuck on a second-hand Cleansweep 5 of my brother’s. Is that one new?”

((My very first post! Hope you don't mind me replying.))