CHAPTER TEN
“Well, that’s it — any questions?”
Harry shook his head. He understood what he had to do all
right, it was doing it that was going to be the problem.
“We won’t practice with the Snitch yet,” said Wood, carefully
shutting it back inside the crate, “it’s too dark, we might lose it.
Let’s try you out with a few of these.”
He pulled a bag of ordinary golf balls out of his pocket and a few
minutes later, he and Harry were up in the air, Wood throwing the
golf balls as hard as he could in every direction for Harry to catch.
Harry didn’t miss a single one, and Wood was delighted. After
half an hour, night had really fallen and they couldn’t carry on.
“That Quidditch Cup’ll have our name on it this year,” said
Wood happily as they trudged back up to the castle. “I wouldn’t be
surprised if you turn out better than Charlie Weasley, and he could
have played for England if he hadn’t gone off chasing dragons.”
Perhaps it was because he was now so busy, what with Quidditch
practice three evenings a week on top of all his homework, but
Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he’d already
been at Hogwarts two months. The castle felt more like home than
Privet Drive ever had. His lessons, too, were becoming more and
more interesting now that they had mastered the basics.
On Halloween morning they woke to the delicious smell of bak-
ing pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor
Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to
start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try
since they’d seen him make Neville’s toad zoom around the class-
room. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice. Harry’s
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