Richard smiled quietly as he watched Arcturus fly the new - to him, anyway - Nimbus 2000. His meeting with Cassiopeia Black the day before had kept him awake almost all of the night. Winston Churchill's Black Dog. Depression. It wasn't as bad as it was immediately after the war, when he'd run off to tend to dragons on the Swedish Reservation, It still hit him every now and then. Maybe he'd kept the war too close to the front of his memory, visiting her grave every May 2nd. The grass grew thick there now, permanent looking, like it had always been there - like she had always been there. Thinking it was time to put that part of his life behind him had been one of the reasons he'd retired, moved to Preya.
At least one thing still seemed to hold true. Talking about flying, the prospect of flying, but, especially, getting up in the air, had long been his tool to put the Black Dog out the door. It was hard to think about anything else when you were riding the ragged edge of your and the broom's capabilities.
When he saw Arcturus wave, Rich made the hand signal for 'land and dismount', then called Miss Susan up to mounting height. The Nimbus 2000 had a little snarl to the magic as Arcturus put it through its paces. Miss Susan Sto Helit had a deeper voice, hinting of waiting power, even just floating there at idle waiting for a flier to climb on board. He ducked back into his workshop and took another broom from the rack near the door, giving it a last minute check for imperfections or any signs of dust.
"Shut down and rack that old 2000, and give this broom a try, It's officially called the Bluebottle Factory Racer. Around the factory we called it the C-Class, because you could race it from novice up through the C-level races, and with a retune, through B and into A. This one has a short-track tune, based on the one I developed for Miss Susan over there. Like a Quidditch broom, but more - about four times more of everything except cushioning charm. That's at about a quarter of what you're used to. You sit low and lean forward on a racer. The sticking charm runs all the way up the stick so you can lay all the way down on it when you need to cut your wind resistance to a minimum. Only tuning difference between this broom and mine is that I've set the Novice locks on yours. Max speed is a hundred, max height is a mile. Show me you can throw and recover from a 'headache' at 50 miles an hour and I'll remove the locks. Broom is a bit cold-blooded, all the C-Classes are, so use a very gentle hand on the stick while you two get used to each other. I'll go up with you and stay close by in case you have any questions."