Authors' note: First off, if you've read BrailleErin's Harry Potter and the Blind Seer of Durmstrang fic, then you know that Harry didn't attend Hogwarts in his 4th year or compete in the Goblet of Fire tournament. Cedric Diggory did, however, though he was grievously injured by Death Eaters. That's important because we're basing our Cedric on Minisinoo's depiction of Cedric in their work, Finding Himself. We've asked for permission, but haven't heard back yet and hope that crediting the original story is sufficient. Also, we're bringing in a couple of original characters (Gemma Boot and Mei Lee) from Hegemone's Blind-Harry fic, Basilisk Eyes into this story.

Braille Erin and Hegemone

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Harry fingered the sheets of the bed, which were smoother than his sheets at Grimmauld Place, and felt exactly like the sheets in the muggle hospital. Apparently, they were the same in hospitals everywhere. With his head nestled into the pillow, Harry listened to the nervous thrumming of his own heart.

There's no need to be nervous, he told himself. If it fails, you'll be exactly how you are now.

His nerves came, he realized, because of how badly he did NOT want it to fail.

The potion.

Snape's potion.

Essence of Ánoixe.

He'd been brewing it for weeks, Harry had been told. He could almost smell the musty little book they had uncovered in Grimmauld Place, almost hear the ancient, creaking voice as it read its own words aloud to him, falling open in his hands, its pages cracking into dust. The voice had been insistent about how the potion had to be administered before the incantation. This was no instant cure. No snap of fingers or flick of a wand to restore his vision. Not to mention the directions had been far more complex than any other potion he had heard of, including both Polyjuice potion and the Wolfsbane potion Snape had had him brew during detention his third year. He could almost smell the pungent odor of the Aconite again. He was glad he didn't have to brew it.

And of course, his brain would float the most unpleasant ingredients through his memory again as he waited… frog brains and beetle eyes! (Why?!).

Used in conjunction with the Visus enim spell it was going to reverse the effects of the Caeco spell that had blinded Harry last spring… when Voldemort had pointed his wand at Harry and taken the last ragged scraps of sight away from him. Now those scraps might come back.

His sight would never be perfect. He knew that. The killing curse had done its work too well. Still, he might get a little light perception back.

But would it work?

Harry's stomach turned over again.

What if it didn't work?

He remembered the first plume of hope that had erupted within him at its words, at the discovery of the countercurse he hadn't known existed.

Now it was time.

But would it work?

The sound of the door opening made Harry start.

"Hello, Mr. Potter," came the measured tones of Albus Dumbledore's voice.

"Hi," replied Harry, his voice cracking in a two-pitched squeak. "Err, hello," he repeated, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Professor Snape is here with me, as is Healer Smethwyck, your mediwizard, and Sirius Black. Are you ready?" Professor Dumbledore didn't waste time in chitchat, for which Harry felt grateful.

Harry opened his mouth to say that yes, he was ready, but discovered that it had gone so dry nothing came out. He nodded.

Then there was a long period of dithering about, where the adults spoke in hushed voices, and Harry didn't pay any attention because his heart was now hammering in his ears. Sirius came over to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Harry wasn't sure how he knew it was Sirius, but he was absolutely certain, and he felt a warmth of belonging spread over him.

At last Healer Smethwyck stepped toward his bed. "Now don't be concerned," he began, and Harry nearly snorted. "This is a relatively simple procedure. Lie back while I do a few preliminary diagnostic spells."

Since Harry was already laying flat on his back, he simply continued doing so. He heard Healer Smethwyck muttering to himself under his breath, and assumed he was holding his wand over him. He soon turned back to the others.

"He is ready," he announced. "You may sit up now, Mr. Potter."

Professor Dumbledore stepped forward. "Harry, please drink this potion, we will wait exactly 14 minutes and then I will perform the countercurse," he instructed.

He handed Harry a small, fat vial. Harry took it and obediently swallowed the thick, slimy liquid, trying not to grimace as he did so. He imagined Professor Snape watching silently from across the room with a look of quiet amusement on his face.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as he had swallowed the potion, his stomach began to writhe and his head to spin. He feared he might honk the entire mess back up again. His hands clutched at the sides of the bed as he grew dizzier.

Healer Smethwyck placed a large pillow behind him, and he leaned against it, sucking in lungfuls of air, trying not to vomit. He focused on Snape's smirk of triumph if he tossed up the potion and the whole thing was ruined, and he somehow managed to keep it down as the clock next to his bed continued its ticking.

"Thirteen minutes," intoned Professor Dumbledore. "Nearly there, Mr. Potter."

Harry wondered if they knew just how wretched he felt and why they hadn't warned him. He supposed it wouldn't have done any good if they had. It would have only made his nerves worse. He mentally braced himself for the countercurse.

He heard Dumbledore raise his wand, and then it came: "Visus enim!"

Instantly, Harry's head exploded with light. Reflexively, he jerked his face to the side, crushing his palms into his eyes to block out the searing, biting brightness that seemed to pierce through his very skull. Without realizing it, he moaned and retched, writhing on the now-wrinkled hospital sheets.

Over and over he vomited, his body clearing the unneeded potion from his system. He kept his hand pressed against his eyes as pain sliced around his head.

"Mr. Potter," said Healer Smethwyck gently. "I have darkened the lights if it will help you to feel more comfortable. And you should recover from the nausea caused by the potion in only a few hours."

A few hours?!

Harry thought he might hurl up his toenails before then. Healer Smethwyck used his wand to vanish the sick and gave Harry a soothing potion that made him feel as though he might be floating. He vaguely heard Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape, and the others bid him goodbye and slip out of the room.

Sirius touched his shoulder again and said, "I'll check on you soon."

Harry thought they all left, except for someone who sat wearily in a chair beside Harry's bed with an odd clank, which Harry couldn't place but was too sleepy to care.

Harry found with the room nearly dark that he could remove his hands from his eyes, although they remained closed and his head still ached fiercely. He wondered who was sitting there. Sirius? O'Carolan?

He lay motionless, too ill and strangely detached to really care or move. He didn't know how long he lay there, or even if he fell asleep, but when he finally moved and wanted to think about looking around, he found that the terrible nausea had left him.

"Feeling better?" The person sitting on the chair beside Harry spoke for the first time, and the voice was that of a young person, someone Harry felt he ought to know but couldn't place.

"Who…?" he asked, drawing his knees up to his chest.

"Oh, sorry," said the boy quickly. "It's Cedric. Diggory."

Harry frowned in confusion. The boy who had won the Triwizard Tournament while he was away at Durmstrang? Harry had heard he was injured somehow doing it, but he hadn't known the details. Was that why he was here at St. Mungo's?

"Cedric?" he asked thickly, the calming potion still clogging his wits.

"Yeah, I've been here all summer," said Cedric.

"I heard you got hurt," said Harry, trying to remember.

"At the end of the Triwizard Tournament," explained Cedric. "Death Eaters. There was a curse. My spine… my legs are partially paralyzed… I guess."

"Partially paralyzed?" repeated Harry. "So, err, can you walk?"

"Oh yeah, guess you can't see them," Cedric said with a laugh that seemed rather bitter. "Crutches. And a wheelchair sometimes when I'm tired."

Harry was silent for a full minute, digesting this information. So there were more disabled students at Hogwarts than he realized. "That must be a pain," he said finally.

Cedric snorted. "Pain is the main thing, yes," he said, again with the edge of bitterness.

Harry said quietly, "I know what you mean, mate." They both sat in silence for a few minutes, needing no words between them but both knowing the crushing physical agony that few others could possibly understand.

Then Harry asked, "It's new for you, though?"

Cedric affirmed that he was still getting used to the injury. He talked about how he would dream that he was running or flying on his broom and then he would wake up. Harry remembered dreaming about the colors and told Cedric so. He remembered the vivid red of the awning over the pavement that was the last thing he saw before he lost his sight. He told Cedric about that.

The two boys were silent for a while.

"You have some sight back now?" asked Cedric at last.

"They could get it back to what it was before Voldemort used the blinding curse on me…" He paused as Cedric gasped when he said the name. After a moment, he continued, "... but it's not normal sight," explained Harry. "No color. Everything is all hazy and I forgot how much the light hurts."

"Why can't they get it all back?" asked Cedric curiously.

"I don't know," said Harry miserably. "Something about it being a killing curse before and it damaging parts of my eyes."

"Oh," said Cedric in solemn sympathy.

"I guess there are some things even magic can't fix," said Harry.

"My legs," said Cedric.

Harry said nothing. No words were needed.

"Hey, at least I'm not the only one," said Cedric as if trying to force brightness into his voice.

"Only one what? Incredibly handsome ladykiller?" asked Harry innocently.

Cedric, who hadn't had time to develop any gimp jokes, suddenly burst out laughing at this. "I have competition, I see," he said finally.

There was a rustling noise at the door which Harry turned toward and regretted instantly as light erupted into the room. Harry clutched at his eyes as tears squeezed out of the corners.

"Gah!" he cried out.

"What is it?"

"The light!" Harry explained. He wondered who had entered the room. There was a quiet padding of feet as the person… a small person… came into the room, paused briefly, and then tentatively approached his bed.

A small, warm hand touched his arm and Harry lowered his hands from his face.

"Gemma? Is that you?" he asked.

She tapped, "yes."

Harry grinned up at her and started to tell her how excited he was that she was there and then realized that he hadn't cast the spell that wrote his words out on bits of parchment.

"Cedric, do you know where my wand is?" Harry asked.

"Huh?" Cedric replied. "Why do you need your wand?"

"So I can talk with Gemma. Do you know Gemma?" Harry signed a rough version of what he was saying for Gemma's sake. His fingers felt clumsy. It had been a while since he'd used the sign language he learned when he was in training with Gemma.

"Oh, yeah. Wow. How do you talk with Gemma?"

"You know each other?" Harry asked while also signing to Gemma.

Gemma made a laughing "yes" sign on his arm.

"Oh right! Hufflepuff! I forgot!" Harry made a fist and rubbed it in a circle against his chest. Gemma batted playfully at his hand.

Cedric shifted in the chair where he sat, and then his crutches sounded on the tile floor, followed by the sound of something dragging.

His feet. Harry realized.

Cedric stopped near the head of Harry's bed and adjusted his crutches. "Here's your wand, Harry."

Harry reached out toward Cedric and Gemma helped put the wand in his palm. "Thanks," Harry signed as he said it. Then he muttered "Scribunt loqui" and listened as the parchment that wrote out his words fluttered next to his lips.

"How do you speak with Gemma?" Harry asked Cedric.

"I learned a bit of sign language since Gemma was sorted into Hufflepuff, though it looks like you know more than I do," Cedric admitted. He paused for a bit and Harry gathered that he was signing to Gemma. "So, Gemma's signing on your arm? Is that what you're doing?"

"Yeah."

"That's, well, brilliant!"

Harry beamed as Gemma made the laughing sign on his arm in agreement.

"I forgot about that writing charm. I should cast it. Is that easier for you, Gemma?" Cedric asked. "Especially now… when my hands are occupied…" Cedric tapped his crutches on the floor and then walked back to the chair he'd been sitting in earlier.

Gemma perched on the side of Harry's bed and asked him how he was feeling.

Harry explained about the procedure, the nausea, and how much the light hurt.

"Was it worth it?" Gemma asked.

"I think so," Harry sighed. He hoped so.

"How much longer do you have to stay?" Gemma asked.

"I'm not really sure. A few days? They want to do some tests… I guess they haven't had many chances to use the potion and spell… and I'm their guinea pig…"

"Guinea pig? What does that mean?" Cedric burst into laughter.

"Oh, just a muggle phrase… you know… they do experiments on animals to see if their chemicals will hurt humans."

"What?! That's barbaric!"

"About as barbaric as vanishing kittens," Harry responded. He was feeling tired and not up to defending muggle practices.

"Yeah, I guess so. Where do they go?"

Gemma's hand tightened around Harry's wrist and she started to sign vehemently. He started to make the sorry circle on his chest when the room was cut open by the light from the corridor again.

"Oh, there you are, Cedric, dear!" the voice of a posh woman floated in on the light. "I thought that was your voice. Why are you sitting in a dark room?"

"Mum! I didn't know you were going to visit today!" Cedric exclaimed.

"I had a painting to deliver to the gallery and it's not so far from here, so I thought I'd drop by and surprise you! But then I couldn't find you in your room!"

"Mum, I'd like you to meet some friends of mine from Hogwarts," Cedric said as he stood up again and approached Harry's bed. "This is Gemma Boot, she's a fourth-year in Hufflepuff and this is Harry Potter, he's a fifth-year Gryffindor. Gemma, Harry, this is my mother, Lucy Diggory."

Gemma's hand left Harry's arm as she greeted Mrs. Diggory.

"It's very nice to meet you, Gemma," Mrs. Diggory spoke slowly.

There was a pause and Harry offered his hand in her direction as he tried to sit up, but grunted and fell back against his pillow as the bed seemed to tilt and lurch.

"Oh, Harry," Mrs. Diggory exclaimed as her warm hand took his. "Don't exert yourself on my account. And what has happened to put you in the hospital?"

"Oh, well… just a counter-curse."

"Ah, you were cursed, too? And did it work? The counter-curse?" Her voice sounded oddly bitter.

Harry gulped. "Er, yes. I think so."

"Well, I'm glad. I wish the same could be true for Cedric."

"Mum," Cedric protested.

"So, you're an artist?" Harry said, fishing for another topic. "I understand that Gemma is quite the artist, too."

"You understand? You don't trust your own judgement?" There was something sharp about Mrs. Diggory's tone that made Harry feel rather weary. He closed his eyes and tried to sink further into his pillows.

"Mum, Harry's blind. He met Gemma after he lost his sight. He's never seen her work."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry. I forgot. I think I remember hearing about that. The three of you… er, I suppose there's some comfort…"

"Yes. Yes! We're forming a club, Mum!" Cedric said, clearly exasperated. His crutches rattled as he moved closer to the door. "I think Harry's tired. Let's let him be."

"I didn't mean… I'm sorry. Gemma, I hope you'll show me your artwork someday. Harry, it was nice to meet you. I hope you recover fully from the curse."

Harry shut his eyes as the door opened again and then breathed out once he heard it close. Gemma's hand was on his arm again.

"I'll go, too, Harry," she signed protactily. "Feel better soon."

He grasped her hand before she left and squeezed. "Thank you, Gemma."

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A week later, Harry made his way up to the rooftop garden at the top of St. Mungo's Hospital to enjoy a breath of air and some sunshine on his last day before going home to Grimmauld Place. In a week, he'd be returning to Hogwarts. His eyes still ached fiercely, and he had agreed to keep them bandaged for the outing on the roof, knowing how much the sun would hurt. That pain aside, however, he felt better than he had in a long while. He was glad the nausea and fatigue from the procedure had finally worn away. It had definitely lasted longer than the "few hours" Healer Smethwyck had predicted.

He stepped from the coolness of the stairwell into warm sunlight. He had chosen to climb the stairs rather than take the lift as his muscles cried out for exercise. On the roof, he took a minute to tip his face toward the August sun and enjoy the smell of late-summer flowers blooming in boxes here and there, interspersed with benches, creating spaces to sit and relax. He had been up here quite a few times last summer while waiting for Sirius to recuperate and he remembered the rough layout.

Sweeping his cane in front of him to be sure his path was clear, he ambled toward a near bench, listening to the sound of a bird singing. He wondered vaguely if it was a robin. He didn't know many other species of birds so had no idea to what bird this song belonged.

Then, he began to be aware of another sound behind the sound of the bird singing. Low voices came from behind one of the flower boxes in a small, private alcove. One voice finished and another, lower one answered it, causing the other to erupt in giggles.

Harry was about to turn away, ignoring the people conversing, when the higher one said something a bit louder and he gasped. It sounded like Hermoine! He wasn't sure but it was enough to pique his curiosity. He walked toward the voices, his cane finding the edge of the flower boxes, and then the privacy screen covered with clematis. With his cane tip, he followed the screen to its edge and rounded the corner.

"Harry!" said Hermione in surprise, for there could be no doubt now that it was her.

"Harry!" the other person echoed, and Harry was shocked to notice that it sounded very much like Cedric Diggory.

"What are you doing up here?" he asked Hermione in confusion.

"Oh! I… err…. Well, Cedric and I came up here to have a chat and…" Hermoine began. Harry couldn't remember when he had heard confident Hermione this flustered.

"Yeah, hi mate," said Cedric warmly. "Join us."

Harry didn't know exactly where the benches were in this section and he stepped hesitantly forward, looking with his cane for somewhere to sit. The cane hit something metal with a ping.

"Oh, err… my wheelchair," explained Cedric awkwardly.

"Here, Harry," said Hermione, putting her elbow against the back of Harry's hand to guide him to a seat.

"You know what," said Harry hastily, not liking the tension in the air. Obviously he had interrupted something, and despite Cedric's welcome, he still felt strange. "I'll just be going. I forgot I needed to pack up my things before Sirius comes…" He let his words trail off and turned to make his way back around the privacy screen.

As he walked back to his room, he wondered if Cedric and Hermione had gotten to know each other better while he was at Durmstrang and just hadn't mentioned it to him. He thought about sending an owl to Ron to ask, but by the time he was packing his bag, he'd forgotten.