Chapter 094

"What?" I mumbled in shock before Lisa began dragging me behind her. "H-hold up, I never said anything about us being friends!"

"Of course you did," she chided, smiling brightly at me. "Just now you greeted me like a friend would. That makes us friends."

"It does not!"

"Now, to class!"

"Let go of me! Lisa!"

XoX

"The levitation charm was first invented in the sixteenth century with Jarleth Hobart being credited as its creator, though he had actually mistaken it for a flying spell rather than a simple charm that let him levitate objects into the air. He had been so caught up in his own euphoria at thinking he could fly that on July fifteenth fifteen-forty-four he somehow managed to convince a large number of witches in wizards, including the, at the time, Chief Warlock of the Wizeongamot to see his... 'maiden voyage.'"

Harry's small lecture/story on the Wingardium Leviosa was interrupted by a stifled giggle from Hannah Abbot and a loud laugh from one Tracey Davis. The two had asked him for help on their Charms essay as Charms was their weakest subject. Well, Charms was Hannah's weakest subject, Tracey was just horrible at writing essays period—she was good at charms though.

Giving the pair a grin, Harry waited until their laughter died down, purposefully ignoring the baleful glare sent his way by the librarian, one Madam Pince.

"You think that's good, wait until you hear this. After an extremely rousing speech about how he had discovered flight, and a national anthem being played in his honor by a popular at the time orchestra, he cast the spell upon himself and leapt off the roof of a church he had climbed onto."

"At first it looked like he had succeeded. There he was, hovering in mid air. Naturally, people were enthralled. However, after staring at him for nearly three minutes, in which time he continued to simply hover there, many people began to grow impatient and tried booing him off his proverbial stage."

"In response to the negative comments he was receiving, Jarleth Hobart tried moving in mid air by doggy paddling, which, by the way, was not successful. He stayed exactly where he was." More snickers met his words and Harry looked to see that Blaise, Lisa, Neville, Susan and Terry were now all listening to him as well. "In either event, when that didn't work he began to mistakenly believe that his clothes were making him heavier and thus impeding his movement..."

Harry trailed off here, waiting for the others to figure out where he was going on their own. Tracy was the first to get where he was going. She gasped, then paced a hand to her mouth as she stifled what was likely to be uproarious laughter. The others soon followed with their own reactions, all of which were fairly amusing.

"He didn't!"

"He did," Harry said with an almost solemn nod that was belied by his grin. "Wanting to show everyone that he could, in fact, fly, Hobart proceeded to remove all of his clothing in the hopes that it would allow him to gain the ability of flight."

By now everyone looked like they were hardly containing themselves. Tracey had almost literally stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from laughing, and Hannah was only a little better off. Neville and Susan were both red in the face and looked like they were just barely restraining themselves from openly laughing. Lisa was wearing the most amused smile he had ever seen, and Terry had his hands clamped over his mouth keeping his lips shut by pinching them together with his fingers. Even the normally stoic Blaise looked like he was having a hard time keeping the grin off his face.

"However, what Hobart didn't know was that his clothes were actually the only thing keeping him airborne. You see, because it is extremely difficult to cast magic on something magical in nature like a witch or wizard due to the inherent magical resistance they have, he had ended up casting it on his clothes. So, when he stripped himself naked there was nothing holding him up." He paused, and his grin widened when he saw the others struggling even harder to contain their laughter. "I'm sure you all can imagine what happened. He fell to the ground quite hard after that and ended up breaking sixteen bones on the way down. He then went on to receive a penalty of extraordinary stupidity from the Chief Warlock."

His last statement seemed to be the final straw for what little self-restraint most of them had. Tracey Davis burst out in laughter, her voice so boisterous and loud that many of the other students around their table glared at the girl. Tears literally streaming down her face, she held onto her stomach like her laughter was actually causing physical pain.

Hannah was giggling and snorting into her hand, a mortified look on her face due to the fact that she was doing something as unfeminine as snorting. Despite clearly wanting to stop embarrassing herself further, she seemed incapable of doing anything other than continuing to show her amusement in the most embarrassing way possible.

The two shyest of the group of friends, Neville and Susan, finally lost the battle to contain their own amusement and were chortling and giggling into their hands. Neville looked like he was gasping for air as he continued to laugh and Susan was crying tears of mirth, one hand hiding her grinning lips while the other was on her stomach.

Harry's Ravenclaw friends were not much better. Terry was actually on the floor holding his gut as he heaved deep, ragged gasps of breath from all the laughing he'd done. Harry could occasionally make out the other boy wheezing out words like 'naked' and 'stupidity,' but not much else managed to escape from Terry's mouth. Meanwhile, Lisa had buried her face into the book laid out before her as she fruitlessly tried to cover her own reaction. Harry just hoped she hadn't drooled on that book or Madam Pince would be even madder than she was now!.