Harry's flying skills pleasantly surprised the Gryffindor students who had never watched him train. His proficiency was no less than Terence Higgs's, and he was even more agile.
Lee Jordan immediately seized the chance to praise him. "Potter is incredibly agile! It's hard to imagine he's only been on a Flying Broomstick for two months! Look, he shook Higgs off with a single feint—brilliant!"
"It's not just that he's good. The Nimbus 2000 is far better than Higgs's Cleansweep Seven too, in both braking and turning—"
"Jordan!" Professor McGonagall interrupted. If she let him continue, he would soon veer into a Flying Broomstick review.
Tom leaned back in his chair, listening to Lee Jordan's commentary.
He was reminded of a certain kind of person in the Muggle world—people who could recite every last detail about cars: horsepower, torque, zero-to-sixty acceleration. They knew it better than their own birthdays.
The only problem was that they could not afford one. Lee Jordan seemed very much like that sort of person.
He had every Quidditch statistic at his fingertips, but his own broom-riding skills were probably worse than Malfoy's.
Daphne asked from beside him, "What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing. I just thought of some people."
Tom told Daphne the analogy about "car guys." Her laughter was quiet, but the people nearby heard it and leaned over to ask.
Daphne repeated it, and the people around her laughed as well. The news swept through the Slytherin stands like the wind. In less than a minute, the entire Slytherin stand had become a sea of laughter.
Someone pulled out a wand, cast an Amplifying Charm, and shouted toward the Gryffindor stands, "We really admire how you can talk so knowledgeably about a Nimbus when you can't afford one!"
The moment those words came out,