Do They Really Call It That? PV Ruth

𝕰ver since coming to Hogwarts and discovering that witches and wizards do, indeed, use brooms as a source of transportation and sports, Ruth Fairchild had been obsessed. One would fail to stray far from the Outdoor Club fields without spotting the Hufflepuff zipping around the track on her trusty Silver Arrow. What else could she say, except relishing the feel of the wind on her skin, the clouds closer to her touch, with the sky merely the limit? Oh, she would traverse far beyond her wildest dreams if she could, racing past the ever-changing landscape below her feet.

Besides broom racing, a sport she was gradually growing devoted to, Ruth had also been immersing herself in the realm of F.A.R.T.S: Flying with Artistic and Refined Techniques. It wouldn't be a surprise if Ruth were seen guffawing at the acronym when she first discovered it.

Unfortunately, she had first realised the techniques existed at the library.

After several attempts (and failing) to control her laughter – blame her terrible sense of humour – Ruth scoured through the books containing any information on it on the school grounds. Be it under dimming light or the blazing sun, her mind ogled with fascination at the different types of artistic techniques available. From agility to synchronised flying, the Hufflepuff couldn’t help but be awed. Imagine the various stunts she could try! While Ruth couldn’t even think of a day when she would get tired of racing through race tracks and dodging obstacles, it didn’t hurt to go beyond that and try new things.

Like standing up on a broom, for instance, summer Holidays had been a chance to catch up with her family back at Bath, and it was also then that Ruth was forced to immerse herself in cartoon televisions of witches, wizards, and magic, whatever her youngest brother Ace was into these days. One of the many shows that he had dragged her along to see consisted of a young lad balancing on top of his broom (if you could even call it that, it was a mere stick hovering in the air, with a statue fixed on the end) and performing tricks, loop-de-loops, swirls, you name it. The urge to attempt it out herself was hard to resist. After waiting for the holidays to end in anticipation, Ruth was finally striding towards the Quidditch Training Pitch, broom in one hand, excitement thrumming in her veins.

…And in the other, she towed Harvey Barrows along.

Ruth herself felt surprised to find herself doing so. The two hadn’t initially gotten along to the best extent, but Barrows had wedged himself into a niggling part of her brain that insisted he be put into the list of ‘Not-so-bad’ people. Hence, upon catching on that the part-goblin detested grasping onto a broom and soaring into the skies, yet had an intrigue in the arts, she couldn’t possibly leave him without the opportunity to explore new things, even if it meant dealing with his complaints all the way to the pitch, whines that swiftly came in through one ear and left the other. It was actually amusing. “Yes, they do call it that,” Ruth replied flatly for the umpteenth time, her grip on his sleeve tightening inch by inch every single time he repeated the same question. She was starting to think his exclamations were rhetorical.

“Come on, trust me, it’s not that bad,” she reassured him. It was one of the essential parts of what she was about to teach him: Artistic Flying. Without waiting for his reply, she swivelled around to face him, one hand propped up on her waist. “Harvey Barrows, welcome to the very first, and possibly last, session where the fantastic, marvellous, absolutely raving Ruth Faaairchiild–” she performed an exaggerated bow “shall teach you the ways of Flying with Artistic and Refined Techniques.”

"Alright, Ruth. You've got me out here. So, what's this FARTs all about?"

“That’s a fantastic question, Mr Barrows!” She exclaimed, the corner of her lips twitching at the sight of his face. Ruth couldn’t tell if he was trying not to laugh or trying not to get her to laugh. Either way, he stood there as though he was ready to bolt out if she did anything funny; This she was already hanging by a thread. “FARTs–” Ruth pursed her lips, biting back the urge to burst out cackling, then cleared her throat. “FARTs.” She was so childish.

Ruth took a breath. “FARTs stands for Flying with Artistic and Refined Techniques, which is basically just broom flying, but fun.” She shrugged. “There isn’t much I can really tell you without showing it to you. So we should probably get you a broom first.” Ruth gestured to him to follow her to the shed, leaving the radio behind, as she explained while walking, “There are several techniques, one of which I’m going to teach you today. This one’s called ‘Artistic Flying’.” She stepped into the shed, coughing slightly from the dust motes swirling in the air, before tossing a spare school broom at Harvey. “Not sure how much you wanna know about the history, but it’s all about trying out different stunts and choreography on the broom to the music.”

The two walked back to the radio. “Right, so, any questions so far?” She asked, crouching down to fiddle with the turner. Hopefully, she had timed it right, and one of the stations would be playing Weird Sisters.

@Ruth Fairchild

With a final tug the pair would come to a stop on the pitch. Harvey's incessant complaining would finally come to a stop as Ruth answered his question for the countless time. Yes, they did call it that, get over it. Her message was loud and clear, with just enough force to give Harvey pause. For now. He simply blinked as she introduced today's lesson with a flair of drama. Try as he might to keep his sourpuss expression cemented in place, there was something about her enthusiasm and theatrics that stirred something within him. The corner of his mouth would upturn ever so slightly before he gritted his teeth and demanded she get on with it.

"Merlin, help me." Harvey muttered under his breath as Ruth struggled not to burst out into laughter. Thank goodness there wasn't anyone else in earshot or he'd simply just have to curse them all and obliviate this memory out of existence. However, when she was finally able to continue it was hard to deny the intrigue he felt about this artistic flying. Harvey didn't know much about these techniques. They would cover it more in their third year flying class and he had briefly researched the subject in anticipation of next year, but it was still a puzzling thought to him. Flying...with style? Perhaps he was thinking about it all too rationally? "We can cover the history of it another time. So, this is like a dance then? Ballet on brooms?" Ruth would see the doubt on his face, but a spark of curiosity in his eyes.

Harvey sidestepped as a broom suddenly came flying in his direction and let it fall to the ground. He shot his friend a bit of the stink eye. What was he supposed to do? Handle a public broom before he put his gloves on? "Let's be civilized, shall we?" It was mostly in jest as he reached into his robe and retrieved some leather riding gloves. Harvey Barrow's hands would not be blistered. "Up!" The broom would obey his command before he threw one of his little legs over it and prepared to mount. Ruth fiddled with the radio and soon a particularly groovy tune would provide the soundtrack for their activity.

With a slight kick, Harvey would float off of the ground. He wobbled a bit as he began to levitate, but steadied out after a moment. "Alright, you said this was choreographed or rehearsed? I take it you've prepared something then?" He called out to Ruth and then waited for this exhibition.

𝕭allet on brooms. What an interesting way to put it. It would surely require immaculate balancing skills. “Well, it’s all sorts, actually.” In exchange for his stink-eye, she offered a wry smile, the corners of her lips twitching up in amusement. Who knew he was even capable of such a hilarious expression? “There are dances for classical music, contemporary (of course), even break rap!” Ruth grinned. “Haven’t seen that one just yet, but who knows, maybe someday.”

Ruth had been riding brooms so frequently she hadn’t even considered putting on riding gloves, but to each their own, so she left him to his own accord as she experimented with the radio. It sizzled and krssshhhed, whining under her hand as she adjusted the dial. Where her goal had been to find the station that usually played a couple of Weird Sisters’ songs, she was…unfortunately, met with static. A final, high-pitched shriek was what took Ruth to turning the radio off completely with a sigh. That was fine. That was completely fine.

“Give me a moment!” She called over to Harvey as she hefted up the radio and knocked it. Seeing as though it was an enchanted radio, it was impossible for the lack of sound to be due to signals. How did Palm Sugar use these again? Well, she wasn’t here to assist her, and Ruth would hate to embarrass herself once again under the other’s eyes.

A little knocking still won’t hurt. After a few taps with her knuckle, the Hufflepuff set the radio back down and gave it another try. Out came a funky melody that urged her to bop her head to, but it still wasn’t what she had wanted. Ruth took another look to ensure she had indeed turned to the correct radio station. Seems about right. Maybe they hadn’t gotten to their daily mix yet.

“Well, yeah, but–” Ruth turned to face Harvey again, before stopping short at the sight. “You look terribly stiff.” It was as though you were looking at a life-sized cut-out board of Barrows. He was barely budging as he hovered mid-air.

Humming in contemplation, she circled him as though he was on display, pointing out the bits and bops that he could work on– "Curve your fingers, don't clamp", or "shift back and stabilise yourself." Ruth was clearly a perfectionist in this aspect. If Harvey ever opened his mouth to utter a single complaint, she would step back and drop her broom. “If you can’t get comfortable with flying, how would you get immersed in the arts of it? Plus,” she hovered her hand over her broom. “I would rather you be safe amidst this. I don’t want to be the reason you get hurt.” Not after the sneaking in…

With a single, firm command, her broom flew into her hand, and she hopped onto it smoothly. “Let’s just fly around for now,” she suggested. “Get a scope of this area and get comfortable.” Like any exercise, a warm-up was always necessary. It also offered the perfect opportunity to settle down and wait for the Weird Sisters mix to announce itself.

@Ruth Fairchild

Harvey floated in place, just a few feet off of the ground as he listened to Ruth explain the art from and how it covered many different styles of music. "Is it like interpretive dance then?" He himself could dance well. Not ballet or anything like that, but he knew enough of the classics to attend any formal dance. The idea of just winging it and going with the flow was something that sounded very difficult. Harvey liked everything planned out to the T. He did his best to imagine what a break dance on a broom would look like and had to shake the image from his mind. Maybe he had made a mistake...

Harvey tried not to be too impatient as Ruth fussed over the radio. Again, not one of his strong suits, but he did his best. Fortunately he was hovering in the air so he could not tap his foot, which was one of his many tells. However, there would be no hiding the frustration on his face when she questioned his posture on the broom. His brow furrowed and his eyes squinted as he circled him. Even trying to spin the broom to keep an eye on her looked clunky as he squeezed the life out of his poor broom. Even though he did not like being so openly critiqued, Harvey had to admit what she said was good advice. After relaxing his grip and shifting his weight back everything felt much more comfortable. The broom even responded to his movement much more this way too.

"Well, I can fly. Straight O's my first year I'll have you know. Not one accident either." Harvey was indeed a very good student, but thankfully not much skill was required to pass Flying class. He could go up and down and around the obstacles even if it looked like an old granny trying to drive a muggle car. Aced every written test too! Alright...he let his grumpy expression fall away as deeper down under his pride, Harvey knew she was right. The wonderful Mr. Barrows wasn't great at everything. "Fine. Let's go. Can you just fly next to me and let me know what I'm doing wrong." He leaned forward and moved off at a slower pace. Hopefully once he got some pointers from her she would then be able to demonstrate what this FART thing was all about.