As Harry and Gemma were walking through the dining hall and then down the corridor toward the owlery, Harry was thinking about how dramatically things had changed for him in a month. He could have never anticipated being where he was now. Ever. He was thinking about Mei, her anger and how she had been hurting herself. He understood it in a way he couldn't have understood it before.
They were at the door of the owlery—the odor bowled him over as they pushed open the door and crossed the threshold. Gemma stood still for a moment when they first walked in and he heard her take a sharp intake of breath.
"What is it?" he asked.
She took his hand and wrote on his palm, "V-I-E-W" space "B-R-E-A-T-H-T-A-K-I-N-G-!"
She walked over to a window. He followed her arm down to the windowsill she was leaning against, feeling the peeling paint under his fingertips. The warm summer air blowing in through the window lifted London's unique aroma up—a mixture of petrol, bakeries, rubbish, and curry. Down below, horns honked, trains rattled, voices rose and fell. The afternoon sun felt good on his face and took in deep breaths and loosed some tension from his shoulders.
"Yeah, it is pretty spectacular, isn't it," he agreed.
She took up his palm and wrote, "S-U-N" space "G-L-I-M-M-E-R-S" space "O-F-F" space "B-U-I-L-D-I-N-G-S" space "D-A-Z-Z-L-I-N-G".
"I can hear the cars honking their horns, the rattling of the train as it moves on the tracks, people's voices, and some buskers' songs along with the owls hooting and grumbling behind us," he told her, the paper rattling next to his lips as he spoke. He heard her grabbing the paper and then stuff it into her pocket.
"Doesn't the paper disappear?" he asked.
"C-A-T-C-H" space "I-T" space "S-T-A-Y" she explained.
"Nice."
She went on to write, "I" space"F-E-E-L" space "P-U-L-S-I-N-G" space "C-I-T-Y" space "T-H-R-O-U-G-H" space "S-I-L-L."
"I can feel it, too."
"W-H-Y" space "Y-O-U" space "C-L-O-S-E" space "E-Y-E-S?"
"The sun is too bright. It hurts my eyes."
She shook his hand gently, as if she were excited, "Y-O-U" space "S-E-E?"
"Just bright light, nothing else."
Her hand stroked the back of his as if she were petting a cat, soothingly.
He shrugged. He realized he was getting used to not seeing.
"Can you hear anything?" He felt it was fair to ask.
She tapped his palm once and then again, twice. He pointed his nose at her and pulled his eyebrows together.
She took his palm and wrote, "V-E-R-Y" space "L-O-U-D," and then slammed her hand on the sill, making Harry jump at the sudden sound.
She tapped once, "No," and he understood that she couldn't hear even that loud noise. He nodded in understanding.
Harry heard the flutter of wings behind him and claws scratching on a wood post and Hedwig's cooing call behind him. He was amazed that he could pick out her voice from all the other owls. He turned, wanting to walk over to her, but not sure what was between them in the room. They had walked straight to the window from the doorway without going around anything, but Hedwig was in an area of the room he hadn't been in before.
"Hedwig's here," he said to Gemma. He didn't fancy running into a poo-smeared post.
She tapped the back of his hand and they walked over to Hedwig. Harry reached out his hand to find her downy warmth and smiled, wanting to bury his face in her feathers. Gemma hung back a little.
"It's okay, Gemma. She's gentle," Harry said suspecting that she was nervous because of Hedwig's size. He reached for Gemma's hand and she met his and he guided her hand to Hedwig's wing.
"Hedwig, this is Gemma. Gemma, this is Hedwig," he smiled at them both. He remembered the bit of roll and biscuits in his pocket and fished them out to break into small bits for Hedwig. She pecked at his hand, picking them up with her beak.
I should have saved some of the mincemeat for her, but … ew… that would have made a mess in my pocket.
After a bit, Hedwig hooted and opened her wings wide. Harry and Gemma stepped back and she flew back to her perch.
"She must want to sleep," Harry laughed. "We've been dismissed."
Gemma led Harry to the window again and they stood side by side feeling the pulsing city through the reverberations of the window ledge. Harry heard a bell tolling and realized that it must be Big Ben sounding the quarter hour.
"Can you see Big Ben?" he asked Gemma, wondering what direction they were facing.
She tapped twice on his hand.
"It is tolling now—the quarter hour. We should head back," he said. She tapped, "yes," on his hand and he took her arm.
"Bye, Hedwig," Harry called up to her and heard her growling coo in response.
They wiped their feet at the door. The door closed behind them, shutting off the sounds of London and the owls along with the pungent odor of the owlery and they were back in the Center with its fragrance of potions. He smelled the pepper-up potion and wondered why it was needed.
"I wonder where your mom is," Harry asked Gemma, he caught the paper and handed it to her, certain she hadn't seen it. He felt her shrug in response.
Then he heard Mrs. Boot's voice coming from behind them, "Gemma! There you are!"
Harry squeezed Gemma's arm, stopped, and said, "Your mom's behind us."
"Where have you been, dear? I've been looking for you!" Mrs. Boot closed the gap between them. Harry dropped Gemma's arm so that she could sign more freely with her mom.
"Hi, Harry! So you took Gemma to visit your owl, Hedwig?" Mrs. Boot addressed him.
"Yes, Mrs. Boot," Harry answered. "We were also looking for you."
"Yes, well, Gemma said that. I just went to the ladies' room. I guess I missed you. And now it is time for me to leave." Mrs. Boot sounded forlorn.
"Gemma, I'll let you say goodbye to your mum, and I'll meet you back in the dining hall, okay?" Harry said as he reached in his pocket for his staff and shook it out.
"Thank you, dear, that's very kind," Mrs. Boot answered. "Oh, wait a sec. Gemma wonders why you want to meet in the dining hall. Don't you need to go back to that classroom? What was it called, Gemma?"
There was a pause while Gemma signed to her mom, "Oh, yes. Mont Blanc."
"Oh, that's right! Thanks, Gemma!" Harry was glad she remembered.
"You're sure you can make your way back all right?" Mrs. Boot asked skeptically.
"Yes, it's not a problem Mrs. Boot." Harry tried not to sound irritated.
Gemma made a swishing movement across the back of his hand, which he took for a wave.
"See you soon, Gemma, and it was nice to meet you, Mrs. Boot," Harry said as he started walking away.
"Yes, nice to meet you, too!"
Harry muttered, "Navigant Mont Blanc classroom," and made his way down the corridor toward the now stale smell of lunch that hung on the air.
I really need to use the loo, Harry thought.
He stopped and said "Navigant toilet," and was relieved that it was close by and on his way to the classroom. It was actually a bit of a dream of a loo—just like the buffet, it was charmed to let him know what things were as his hand hovered near them. Also, as someone who had spent a lot of his childhood cleaning bathrooms, it smelled really clean in a wixen way which was much more pleasant than Aunt Petunia's toxic chemicals.
His staff was taking him through the dining hall to get to the classroom. He wondered if there was another corridor that went around the dining hall.
When he reached the dining hall, he discovered that the doors were closed and his staff let him know that someone else was in the entrance.
"Hello?" he asked.
"Oh, hi," said a tremulous female voice.
"Are you okay?" Harry asked.
"Oh, sure," she hiccuped. "I just can't figure out how to open these doors. They are super heavy and I think there must be a way to open them with magic."
"Oh, yes, there's a panel by the door on the right. Healer Jordan showed me how to use it."
"Oh, thank goodness. I pounded on the door earlier and no one seemed to hear me, I'm glad you came along."
"See, here's the panel," Harry said, he had just located it with his hand and was running his fingers over the raised symbols for opening the doors.
"Are you standing away from the door? It will open toward us, I think," Harry asked before pressing the open symbol.
"Oh, yes, I'll get out of the way," she said and that's when he heard her using a staff and realized that she must also be blind.
"Here, if you come over here. I can show you the panel. He was tapping his staff on the ground so that she could hear his location, and accidentally collapsed it. "Oops," he laughed at himself.
"What?" she asked.
"Oh, I just accidentally collapsed my staff—I was tapping it so you could find me," he explained as he shook it out again.
"Oh, I did that the other day!" she said, her voice filling with mirth. "Except I was just nervously tapping it."
She was near him now and he could hear her hand on the wall by the panel.
"I'm still not finding it," she said.
"Try a little lower. It is at a height so that people who are sitting down can reach it."
"Found it. Thanks!" She seemed relieved.
"Why don't you do the honors?" Harry suggested.
"I'm not sure which buttons open it, do you know? I don't read braille yet," she asked.
"Healer Jordan just explained it to me before lunch, but yeah, I don't read braille yet either. I guess we're going to learn here. I'm Harry Potter by the way."
"Oh, everyone's been talk… Er. I guess I shouldn't tell you that. Privacy and everything," she mumbled, clearly embarrassed. "I'm Aminah Khan."
"Yeah. I know. So, Aminah, the button that opens the doors has two triangles pointing away from each other, their flat sides in the middle, to close the doors, press the button that has the triangle points pointing toward each other in the center." Harry felt like Healer Jordan had explained it more clearly.
"That makes sense. Okay, I'm opening them," Aminah said and they listened to the doors opening.
Harry heard Aminah walking through and followed a little behind her as she navigated through the dining hall to the doors that led to the classroom on the other side. Harry heard running footsteps behind him and wondered if the little kids were still here from the tour, then as a little hand rested on his arm, recognized Gemma by her scent… something faintly cinnamony.
"Hi, Gemma! That didn't take long."
He called ahead to Aminah who had slowed down when Gemma was running toward them, "Aminah, have met Gemma Boot? She's in our room, too."
"Hi, Gemma," Aminah greeted.
"Um, Gemma can't hear or speak, so I'm using a Scribunt loqui charm that writes out what I'm saying so she can read it—it writes it on slips of paper that flutter by your mouth and then disappear, unless you grab them—then you can keep them."
"I was wondering what that paper sound was—I kept hearing it today," Aminah said. "How does Gemma communicate with you, then?"
"She spells words on my palm and if you speak slowly she can read your lips, but I guess that's pretty hard to do," Harry explained as Gemma took his hand and started to write: "T-E-A-C-H" space "C-H-A-R-M."
"Gemma wants me to teach you the charm."
"Do we have time? Isn't it close to the time we're supposed to be at Mont Blanc?" Aminah asked.
"Oh, right. Gemma, I'll teach her when we get to the classroom, okay? So we're not late," he explained. Gemma tapped twice on his palm, then guided his hand to her elbow so she could guide him. Harry collapsed his staff.
The classroom wasn't too far beyond the dining hall. Gemma pressed the button that opened the dining hall doors to the corridor.
Harry was feeling a bit nervous as they approached the classroom. He was wondering what their instructors would be like… would they be severe and exacting like Professor McGonagall? Deadly boring like Binns? Energetic and effusive like Professor Flitwick? Earthy and congenial like Professor Sprouts? Ditzy and self-absorbed like Professor Lockhart? Demanding and brooding like Professor Snape?
As they got closer to the classroom, Harry could hear people saying their goodbyes with their families in the corridor.
Gemma stopped and grabbed Harry's hand and started quickly writing, "A-S-K" space "H-E-R"… There was an urgency in the way that she was spelling into his hand that he didn't get until he realized that Aminah was getting confused ahead of them with all the people to navigate around. He called out to her: "Aminah, Gemma wants me to ask you if you'd like her to guide you into the classroom since there are a lot of people out here."
He turned his face to Gemma, "Is that what you wanted?"
She tapped his hand twice.
Aminah sounded relieved when she answered, "Yes, that would be great. Thank you."
"Gemma, she said yes, please," Harry said to Gemma, and she let go of his hand and went to Aminah.
Harry took his staff out of his pocket and shook it out and tried to follow them, but there were too many people talking loudly in the corridor and he wasn't able to track them. The little kids were running around, giggling gleefully and more than once ran into his staff (to which his staff exclaimed loudly, but it didn't really help him avoid the collision because it happened too quickly).
He muttered, "Navigant Mont Blanc classroom," to his staff and found the door eventually.
"Hi Harry," a voice greeted him from a seated level—Mei at the entrance.
"Hi, Mei. Are you ready for this?"
"As ready as I'll ever be, I imagine."
"What's the room set-up? Can you describe it to me?"
"It's like it was before—outside in the mountains with a rocky terrain and benches set in a theater seating facing a lake."
"Thanks! Are you going to pull up the ramp?"
"Fortunately, it's already in place. You're safe. Here comes your girlfriend."
Harry felt his face heat up, but he was glad Gemma was back. She tapped his hand and he found her elbow.
"Do you want to sit with us, Mei?"
"Sure, I'll follow you." Mei seemed pleased at the invitation.
Gemma led Harry down the ramp and then their feet were crunching over a sandy landscape that also had little tufts of grass and random rocks that Harry kept slipping on. He could hear Mei struggling behind them.
Gemma had grasped both his elbows and was gently pushing him backward. He was confused until the bench hit the backs of his knees, and he sat down.
"Harry?" Aminah asked from the bench next to him.
"Yes, it's me."
Gemma sat next to him and he could hear Mei putting the brakes on her wheelchair on the other side of Gemma. He wondered if Tony was nearby. He didn't want to say it out loud or have it written by his lips, so he took Gemma's hand and wrote: "T-O-N-Y?" into her hand. She tapped once, "No."
"Harry, will you teach me that charm now? It would be really handy to be able to speak with Gemma," Aminah asked.
"Sure," Harry responded and they spent the next few minutes working on it while they waited for the next session to begin.