Is this more than you bargained for yet?

I say you kill your heroes and fly, fly, baby don't cry
No need to worry 'cause, everybody will die

Jack had been pondering how exactly to do this since the Hogsmeade trip. She was surprised when inspiration arrived from her own childhood, shocked that something her parents had done was somehow now helping her in the present. That had to be some sort of first. But there it was, a crystal clear memory of being thrown into the pool to learn how to swim. For some reason, she couldn’t remember much of the specifics of that memory, only that she now knew how to swim.

The problem was working out the logistics. As her plan formed, the only major drawback was the timing. But even that she could make work. As far as she figured, a fear of heights stemmed from the looking down and seeing the distance. But at night, certainly it would be better! At night, you couldn’t see how steep the drop was.

It was the thought process of a semi-sane person without an ounce of reasonable fear. So what could possibly go wrong?

She’d stashed two of the better loaner brooms ahead of class, choosing a borrowed broom over her own just in case someone discovered them. But she’d arrived early and double checked they hadn’t been moved, and as the rest of the class filed in for Astronomy, tried to not get too excited at the prospect.

Despite their newfound friendliness, Jack didn’t break her pattern of solitary study during class. The only time she did was to cheat off of a smarter neighbor, but Matt was sitting on the other side of the observation deck. As the final hour started to wind down though, Jack yawned loudly, stretching her arms out and leaning back, trying to catch Lestrange’s eye. She saw him shoot her a look and she made a quick gesture for a smoke, hoping that’d be enough. He caught her drift and gave her a look in the affirmative, and she turned back to her star chart.

Yeah, she was lucky if she got better than a P on this one. Who needed star charts anyway?

As the class began to file out, Jack lingered, pretending to fumble with her charts while she kept an eye on the professor.

The second it was just her and Matt she turned. “I lied. I have a better idea.”

She jogged over to an alcove and returned with the two brooms. “Let’s teach you how to fly!”

Astronomy filled the evenings he would have spent laying in bed not sleeping. He figured if he was going to be awake he might as well be taking a class that he could do the bare minimum and succeed. This evening, he was particularly irritable having been woken up by a first year at an ungodly hour in the morning because he couldn't find his wand which had been under his pillow the entire time. He wasn't even sure how what he had done that convinced the headmaster to provide him with the title of Head Boy but a part of him knew it was because any other Slytherin would have cursed the first year into next week. That and Slytherin had probably needed some positive PR pretty badly and the whole not being a blood supremacist thing was a positive with the staff - not so much with the students.

As class was finishing up, he caught Jack's eye and made a move to speak to the professor. "Professor, I think I'm going to stick around a little bit and start my rounds for this evening up here. It's a bit easier when I only have to do the stairs once on my way down to bed after my patrol shift" he said to him. A simple nod followed by a "Stay out of trouble yourself Mr. Lestrange." as the professor left was all he needed for Jack to be ignored.

However, he was soon disappointed.

Brooms had been procured, not smokes. He looked at her, eyebrow raised - trying very hard not ignore the thumping of his chest. "In what way is this a better idea than getting stoned and throwing loose rocks off the Astronomy tower?" he asked her incredulously.

She was positioned behind the professor, so she gave a solemn nod at his request Matt avoid trouble. Oh sure, with her involved? No problemo.

Jack grinned, glad to have surprised him. She wasn’t good with people, she often failed her charisma checks, but she at least had the power to surprise.

“Because you’re missing out,” she said. “And if you have a weakness, your enemies will exploit it. And, as your enemy, I considered it, but decided to pay you back for the weed with a lesson. So… you’re welcome.”

Jack held out the broom. “You remember first year flying class? You’ve gotta say up!”

"Point of contention," he said to her before he took the broom. "I skipped out of first year flying lessons."

He wasn't going to make this easy for her - he was almost angry at the surprise but not quite. Though he was sure he would get to that point at some point this evening. Surely she didn't expect him to fly out of the Astronomy tower that was simply too high. An introductory lesson, surely, he thought to himself. At this point he realized he had been quiet too long and staring absentmindedly during the middle of these mental gymnastics.

He stopped and hesitantly grabbed the broom. He intentionally mounted it incorrectly with the front facing behind him.

"It's like this right?" he asked her.

Doing his best to deflect the fear he was experiencing with humour - unlikely to work for long against Jack.

Oh, he had jokes.

Jack pulled out her own broom and mounted it. "I am not above teaching you how to fly backwards first," she warned. "You've heard the phrase 'fuck around and find out' right?"

She smirked, before kicking off. She rose into the air so she was level with the tower walls and rotated in a circle.

"So that's the kick off. Come on, Lestrange, where's your can-do attitude?"

"I left it in the common room alongside my go fuck yourself personality and my physical confrontation mittens" he called up to her as he adjusted his broom properly.

"So you're lucky its too late to sling spells without waking anyone up." he added as he attempted a kick off.

Here was the tricky part, he could get up but he struggled with maintaining stability in the air. He had also never been able to land properly and he did not enjoy the prospect of hitting the grounds from this height. But, he did feel enough trust with Jack that he was more willing to man some attempt than if it had been anyone else.

He kicked off and suddenly found himself hovering about 6 feet in the air - he was not immediately afraid but he could feel that tug in his chest.

"I think this is high enough for now." he said, uncertain.

Jack laughed at his comment, too entertained to sling something back. Besides, being on a broom had that effect on her. When she went flying, especially outside of training or a match, she felt like she had a handle on this whole Life thing.

"Yes, yes, you'd curse me into oblivion. All right tough guy."

She squinted at him. The hyper critical eye that tormented her teammates was just what he needed though.

"Okay, I'm not going to tell you to loosen up and stop being too tense, even though that'd help. I know you're miserable on that, so you're going to be tense," she said, her voice mostly thoughtful. She did not even sense the subtle shift coming over her as she stepped squarely into her comfort zone. "But bring your hands in a little closer. You should be able to have a full range of motion, so your grip can't be too far out."

She demonstrated the two different grips, before showing how far forward she could lean to each side with the proper grip. "You have movement, you have control, you won't fall, it'll stick with you," she pointed out. "Watch, life I got bumped in this position-" She threw herself to the right but her grip kept the broomstick firmly in place. The broom spun upside down, and she shot Matt a look that said see? She swung herself around and righted. "Don't worry, barrel rolls aren't in the lesson."