Summer retreats and autumn approaches, evident from the increasingly cold temperatures as he climbs up to the sky. From Simonās vantage point, the quidditch pitch is the size of an oval-shaped plate, the house stands little more than the fancy umbrellas one would find in drinks. The castle is reduced to the size of a toy, the people milling around it mere ants. A hint of undeserving conceit runs through him as he recalls the time when that had been his own thoughts. Was it really only two months ago? It seems impossible, considering the changed man heās become. Is striving to be.
From here he dives down, leather-clad palm gripping onto the handle of a Firebolt as he leans to his right to balance it out, circling around the stands once as he crisscrosses between seats and stands, training his eyes to spotting the rows and placing indistinct faces of students there. He would need to be wary at all times of what goes on. This is practice, though only a poor imitation of it.
Once on the ground, Simon feels his head growing heavier, the pain in his right side becoming ever more sharp. He recalls the advice of his coach, that physical therapy might be his only resort while the Healers assigned to his case research a way to cure him. But he was told not to have high hopes. āMaybe if you learn to assimilate the pain into your life, it will no longer be a hindrance,ā the man had said, eyes solemn. Simon sighs at the memory, digging dragonhide soles into soft grass. Slowly, he stretches out both arms overhead, ignoring the twisting agony that goes through his right shoulder.
So goes his daily schedule. Wake up, breakfast, patrol the fields, warm up with a flight, exercise, try to gain usage of his right arm again, shower, lunch, office hours, overseeing practice, dinner, solitude, sleep. Fluidity is something harder to find on the ground, weighed down by gravity and restrained by the earth under his feet. But he tries, with the stretching, flexing, arms extended to the side, twisted around, until his muscles shake with the effort and he crosses the limb over his chest. Even holding it up requires effort. Then he returns to his routine, the one he had so often practiced with the national team, requiring nothing but a broomstick and a square area able to contain the width and height of a full grown man. Legs propped up on the levitating broomstick, he pushes himself down on one arm, a move he remembers is called a push-up in English; lower, higher, exhale, inhale.
The effort to hold out up his right arm is more excruciating than it is to keep his other muscles working and he gives up, steadying himself on bent knees before standing up. Thereās a sudden silence in the air around them, and in the absence of sound, his eyes travel over the field. All of a sudden, heās all too aware of a boy whoās made his way to the stands he examined only moments prior. His lips tug down into a frown before a warning makes its way between them.
A flash of irritation runs through him at the student whoās obviously meant to be in class. And to think heād sneaked by under Simonās nose! Thereās a moment of self-consciousness that follows, where he wonders just how much the student had seen of his efforts to put his right arm to use, anger at how silly he mustāve looked with an unknown spectator watching his every move. Eyes narrowed, he mounts his broom again, kicking up from the ground until heās a little higher up along the stands, at eye level with the boy. āStudents arenāt allowed to wander the Quidditch pitch during class hours. State your name, and year.ā
The house he could figure out by the blue and bronze the boy is wearing, and recalls being told that the house of Rowena contains those of high intellect and wisdom. Then what was he doing, pulling such a thoughtless move?
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