"Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah?" he answered without really realizing that he was answering, he was still hovering over the lake mirroring his reflection.
She shook her arm to get his attention and that landed him back in his body.
"Where were you?" she asked teasingly.
"Oh, sorry. I just was thinking about flying on my broom over that lake."
"Oh," and he was surprised by the amount of emotion she packed into that one syllable.
"I'm going to fly on my broom again, you'll see, Hermione," he said. He was surprised at the flash of anger that flared up in him—that her sadness made him feel—and then he felt bad for feeling rage.
"Oh, Harry," she said and he could hear her tears and he hated that she was crying at the same time that he hated that he'd made her cry.
"I—I'm sor- sorry," she hiccuped. He was still holding on to her arm and she was wiping away her tears.
He stood there stupidly for a little bit and then she turned toward him and leaned her head toward his shoulder and he found himself patting her shoulder and comforting her.
"It's okay, 'Mione," he said. "I'm sorry, but I am. I am going to fly."
She nodded into his shoulder and sniffed loudly. He felt the wetness of her tears soaking through his jumper and T-shirt. He felt Dr. Granger's hand on his other shoulder.
"Are you two okay?" Dr. Granger asked. Hermione lifted her head and Harry felt her nodding.
"Yes, sir," Harry answered.
Hermione blew her nose and Harry surmised that Dr. Granger had handed her a handkerchief. She pulled away and Harry realized that the group had started moving out of the room. Up ahead he could hear the snorting girl (as he now thought of her) whingeing about having to stay at the Center for a month and begging her mom to take her home. Her mom's responses were weary.
"Let's catch up with the group, shall we?" Dr. Granger suggested in a hearty tone—no doubt meant to bolster them up.
"Sure. You ready, Hermione?" Harry asked, squeezing her across her shoulders.
"Yeah, sorry, Harry," she whispered.
"Maybe they have a library here," he said hoping to distract her and she hiccuped a half-hearted laugh.
He held onto her arm again and she led him out of the room. He wished they could have stayed longer in the room and explored down to the lake's edge. He wondered if there would be snakes in the grasses.
Someone followed them tapping a cane that sounded very much like his and Harry wondered who it was. He started to turn to Hermione to ask "Who… ?" and then remembered Healer Jordan's request that they not pry into the privacy of the others in the group—though he felt this left him at a disadvantage.
"Who what? Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Never mind," he said, turning back to face the direction they were headed. They had caught up with the group and Harry noticed that Hermione had guided them away from the snorting girl and a little smiled tucked up the corners of his mouth.
Hermione was still occasionally lifting her arm to dab at her eyes and trying to sniff inconspicuously—but he could feel the movement through her body with his hand on her other arm. He tried giving a consoling squeeze of her arm, but that seemed to make it worse, so he stopped and just listened to Healer Jordan.
Now they were near another small group of people—maybe a family—and there seemed to be some little kids who were getting pretty squirrely. He had noticed them before, but now they were whining about being hungry.
Harry's stomach rumbled loudly and he remembered that all he'd eaten that day was a bite of his sandwich at the station.
Healer Jordan was talking about the schedule and the Healers who would be coming in to give lessons and he felt like he should be paying attention, but he was listening to the family with little kids and thinking about the food and water in his book bag.
Finally, he just gave in and let go of Hermione, shifted his staff to his other hand, and pulled his bookbag around to his front so that he could open it up and find his water bottle. Rooting around in his bag, his hand plunged into the folds of the invisibility cloak and he realized that it very faintly tingled and made the fine hairs on the back of his hand stand up a bit. He hadn't noticed that before. He paused. He wanted to take it out and really examine it, but decided it wasn't the place to do it, so he stuffed it back down and his fingers finally grazed over the water bottle and he pulled it out. He tried to be discreet about opening the bottle, but it popped loudly.
Had we really changed elevation that much on the trains? Or maybe it was caused by moving through muggle and magic environments? Or had we actually traveled to the Alps when we went through to that classroom?
He took a couple of gulps of water and paused to wipe his mouth with his sleeve and took some more.
"Harry, the group is moving."
He put the lid back on and stuffed the water back in his bag and reached out for her arm.
A couple of people near them were talking in whispers that were getting more heated as they spoke.
"I know that I'll miss out on some of the opportunities, but I want to come home at night and on the weekends," a man (Harry judged by his tenor) was arguing.
"Of course, we want you to come home, we want to see you, but all that traveling is risky… " another man responded, worry etched in his deep husky voice that was surprisingly gentle.
"I'll be fine and besides I already told Healer Jordan my decision… I don't want to hash it out here, okay?"
There was a tense silence as they moved with the group.
"I want to draw your attention to this map of the Center," Healer Jordan addressed the group. "There is a similar one in the reception area, just right of the reception desk on the wall and five feet from the door. I'm bringing this one to your attention because there is more room around it for us to gather. This texturized map is accessible to our vision-impaired residents. In addition to labels in text and in braille, the audible portion will connect with your aftí as long as you're touching the map alone and do not have your hand on another charmed guidance tool. Please take a moment to check it out."
Harry realized that he had assumed that all the residents were there for vision-loss reasons like him; it hadn't occurred to him that there were other magical maladies (as the leaflet called them—the one that he hadn't read yet) that they might be attending to at the Center. He had thought that the snorting girl was also blind, but maybe she wasn't. He listened carefully as the others moved up to touch the map trying to figure out how many people were blind and if he could hear her among them. He thought he heard two or three people being addressed by Healer Jordan at the map, including the man who'd been arguing a moment ago and someone from the family with kids, but he couldn't tell who—just that the kids wanted to try, too.
He could hear snorting girl muttering impatiently under her breath and her mother trying to shush her, clearly embarrassed. He noticed that the person behind them following with the staff wasn't moving up to the front to touch the map.
Hermione started moving forward with Harry and he planted his feet so that she stopped.
"What's wrong, Harry?"
"I don't want to look at it with everyone watching me, Hermione." He had leaned close to her ear to whisper and ended up sputtering as he got a mouth full of her hair.
"Oh, it's okay, Harry, it's just a small group of people and they aren't even really paying attention."
He thought that that couldn't be true as there was a hushed silence in the group that made him think they were all paying close attention.
Dr. Granger joined in, saying "It looks like it would be useful, Harry, you should… feel it."
"It's okay, I'll just wait."
"Harry, do you want to take a look at the map?" asked Healer Jordan from the front of the group.
Harry flushed.
Great. Just great.
"No, thank you, Healer Jordan. I'll check it out later, thanks," Harry mumbled.
Someone nearby exclaimed, "I told you it was Harry Potter!"
And he blushed even harder. Healer Jordan must have heard because she reminded the group again about privacy issues.
I'm definitely not going up there now!
Harry thought he might melt from embarrassment.
In fact, he wouldn't have minded turning into a puddle at that moment, just so he could avoid the scrutiny he was now under. His hand was itching to grab the invisibility cloak and disappear under it for a while.