hp tree

[lobelia321]

Draco had a favourite tree. It was an old oak tree. Draco's mother said it was nine-hundred years old. Draco didn't know whether this was true; he didn't really care because the tree was huge and the tree was leafy and you could fly right up to the topmost branches and land amid a shower of green, and that was all he cared about. He learned to flip off the broom just in time and to catch it in one outstretched hand as he grabbed a branch with the other. Then he stood on top of the world, wobbling, using the Nimbus for balance.

It would, of course, have been quite fun to leap off the broomstick mid-air and Shrink it to pocket-size in time for a two-handed landing but that would have meant magic, and this was the summer holidays. So no magic allowed, except tiny kinds of magic. Magic that was so low-key that it didn't even require a wand.

Draco made his way along the branch. There was a knothole in the tree trunk, and he could wedge his broom between the hole and a forked branch. Then he set to climbing.

The leaves swished against his bare arms. It was cool in the tree top, and then hot from above, when his head burst out through the canopy. On one side, he could see the turrets of home, on the other, the trees and slopes of the grounds. Behind it all, the pale blue of the hills.

From very far away, some sort of bird made a booming noise, and wood cracked.

The sun made circles in the glassy air.

Sometimes Draco liked to stay up there, like flying. Sometimes he liked to slide back down again, into the shadowy bowels, sit down against the tree's trunk which was cool and gnarled like a torso, and blow sprites out through his mouth.

'Koorly koorly', he murmured in the special singsong voice, and out they tumbled, as they had done for years and years, ever since he first learned to do this when he was only little. He watched them do their music box dance. They were as tall as fingers and see-through. They had their own strange music. Up in the tree, you could almost believe that they were real and part of the tree itself.

The sun rustled and the wind shone down on him, and a small brown beetle crawled across his wrist.

The next day, Crabbe arrived for a sleep-over.