The bench had been righted and Aminah was helped to a seated position. When Harry shook out his staff to leave with the others who weren't injured, Healer Jordan gently guided him back, muttering that she needed to take a look at his back. Gemma's small warm hand slipped inside of his and she led him to a bench to sit down while they waited their turn.
Healer Jordan had summoned glasses of water for everyone who stayed behind as well as a tent that was equipped with healing supplies, camp beds, and a curtain so everyone was able to get out of the wind.
Harry wondered why they didn't all just travel to the healing offices in the Center, but didn't voice his concerns. Healer Jordan and another healer that Harry didn't know performed diagnostics on everyone and started working on Mei and Tony first, then Aminah. Gemma helped him find a camp bed out of the wind and then Healer Jordan attended to her bruises.
Harry laid down on the bed and listened to the quiet snippets of conversation between the healers learning that Mei and Tony had sustained burns and cuts. He wasn't sure how. Aminah seemed to be recovering—she was talking with Gemma—allowing Gemma to write into her hand on her uninjured arm.
Harry drifted off to sleep while he waited for his turn—the camp bed was more comfortable than he realized a camp bed could be. When Healer Jordan gently shook him to wake him, Harry was grateful that the area no longer smelled like burnt fish.
She spent a little more time with Harry than he expected and had to ask Gemma to give him some privacy. Gemma had caught a glimpse of his back apparently and was very concerned and Healer Jordan had to be quite firm with her.
She had healed his other bruises in addition to the new ones. He gingerly pressed his fingers to his face where he had run into a door again that week and it was no longer tender. He felt better than he'd felt in over a month which made him feel a little giddy. He hadn't really noticed how achy he was until the pain was gone. She had made small noises when she was working with him that made him think that she wasn't done with him. And that made him nervous.
"Harry, I want you to drink this potion. It will help you heal faster," Healer Jordan said pressing a small vial into his hand.
"What is it?" Harry asked, sniffing it.
"It's a nutritional supplement."
He took a sip and found that it was delicious and eagerly downed the rest. He wanted to lie down on the camp bed again… with the potion warming his belly and the relief from his aches and pains, he felt like he could sleep for a year. He laid down again and was surprised when Gemma was pushing against his shoulder nudging him awake.
"What is it?" he asked groggily.
Gemma took his hand and wrote, "T-I-M-E" space "T-O" space "G-E-T" space "U-P."
Harry rubbed his eyes and realized that his glasses weren't on his face. He moved his hand through the air by the camp bed hoping to find a table. Gemma wrote a question mark on his hand.
"Do you know where my glasses are?" he asked.
She reached over him to the other side of the camp bed and he heard his metal frames being dragged across a wood surface.
"Thanks," he said as he put them on.
She pulled on his hand urging him to stand up. He followed reluctantly—wishing he could sleep more. It sounded like Healer Jordan was asking everyone to gather. When he left the tent enclosure, he heard a pop of magic and felt a whoosh of wind and realized that it had been magicked away.
Healer Jordan invited the five roommates to sit on tree stumps in a close circle in the center of the amphitheater. This time they were not all squinched onto one bench. Gemma guided Harry to one and he heard Healer Jordan helping Aminah find another. Gemma sat next to Harry on his left side, she was close enough that she could lean close and touch his arm. Tony sat on the tree stump next to him.
There was a heavy silence and it finally dawned on Harry that a conversation was brewing. He felt dense. Healer Jordan was going to talk to them about what had happened and why. His stomach contracted and he had a sudden desire to flee the room. He didn't see any good coming out of talking about the incident.
And why do I have to be here? I was just an innocent bystander, he thought.
He pressed down on his leg which seemed to be hopping around as if it were filled with Mexican jumping beans. He was surprised that Mei didn't snap at him. He noticed how quiet she was—that in itself was unnerving.
He heard her wheelchair moving over the sandy, uneven mountain earth and get stuck on something. Mei growled in frustration and Tony barked, "Why on earth are you using a stupid muggle contraption when you could have something magical that actually works?"
Harry had been wondering the same thing, but had been too afraid to ask. He froze—expecting another explosion to send him hurling backward again.
These two are combustible.
"You can't put two and two together, can you?" Mei retorted.
Tony was sputtering when Healer Jordan interjected from the other side of Tony, "I hear a lot of anger and frustration from both of you. All of you have recently experienced severe trauma that has unalterably changed your lives. It is perfectly normal to experience a wide range of emotions as a result, including anger and frustration. You might even feel as if the emotions have control over you rather than you having control of these emotions. And that's why we're here, and this is as good a time as any to start sorting through what you're feeling. Over the next month, you will be working on healing both in your mind and your body and you will learn how to ride the wave of the emotion rather than being pulled out to sea by the undercurrent or dashed onto the beach,"
Mei's characteristic snort interrupted directly across the circle from Harry, "Next you'll be telling us to form pearls from the sand in our wounds."
Healer Jordan was silent for a moment, then she quietly responded, "That's fair, Mei. I should have drawn my metaphors from something that was not quite so painfully close to home for you. I am sorry. I apologize."
Harry was shocked. He hadn't heard an adult admit to making mistakes, especially to such a caustic teen as Mei. It seemed to also take the wind out of Mei's sails and he heard her let out a breathy sigh.
"Before we continue with our conversation," Healer Jordan continued, "we need to make sure we can all understand each other. Tony, I'm going to help you cast the Scribunt loqui spell so that Gemma can see what you're saying. Harry and Aminah, I'm going to cast a spell that allows you to hear what Gemma is saying. It will still write out your words, Gemma, so that you can see them, too."
Healer Jordan first worked with Tony. Harry could feel her robes brushing against him as she helped Tony hold his wand against the stump of his wand arm and coached him to focus his magical energy through what remained of his appendage so that he could cast the spell. It took him quite a bit longer to cast the spell, but when he was finally successful, it felt like a huge achievement.
"Nice going, Tony!" Harry leaned over to acknowledge his success along with the others.
"Did that work, Gemma?" Tony asked.
Gemma clapped enthusiastically when his words fluttered on the parchment.
What was truly amazing, though, was to hear Gemma's voice. It was not the voice Harry imagined she'd have (the magical voice sounded older and deeper than what he'd expected) but to be able to hear the stream of her thoughts rather than the truncated versions he'd been getting was like being caught in an unexpected deluge after a drought. She dove right in, "Oh, Harry, I'm so glad that we can finally talk easily! I have so much to tell you!"
Harry laughed, "Great! I suppose we won't get any sleep tonight!"
"Not a chance!" she rejoined. Mei groaned in response, but without her usual bile.
Healer Jordan brought them back to the topic at hand.
"Okay, we need to talk about the events of today to try to heal through processing what happened and why. Typically we would build our community norms as a group, but right now I'm going to introduce some of the tools we use in council when we are sharing difficult thoughts and feelings. First, what happens in council stays in council—if someone shares something that you want to process outside of the group, then you need to ask permission from them to discuss it. I'll also ask you to speak from your heart and listen from your heart as well. Do your best and know that others are also doing their best. We'll pass a talking stick and only the person who is holding it can speak—when it is passed, say so aloud and state the name of the person you're passing it to."
Here there was a light jingling of bells and Harry thought that the stick must be decorated with the tiniest of bells.
Healer Jordan continued: "If you'd like the talking stick, indicate so in a respectful and unobtrusive way—raise your hand, snap your fingers, tap your foot. Speak from your own experiences and use I statements. Be mindful of your contributions to the discussion—if you've been contributing a lot, maybe it is time to sit back and listen, if you've been listening, maybe it is time for you to lean into the discussion and share your thoughts. Make sure to respectively question things that you don't agree with, though refrain from attacking others for their beliefs."
She took a breath and paused. Harry thought she was done, but she went on.
"Council conversations are often uncomfortable because we're digging into areas that maybe are easier to leave buried, but by uncovering them we are able to release toxins that are hurting us and others and then start healing in earnest. I know that this is not the way the wixen community typically addresses challenges and that it will feel very foreign to many of you. Trust that here at the Center, we've been practicing and refining these methods for generations and most of our graduates have found them to be very effective."
She paused again, then said, "I'll get us started by passing the talking stick around."
The bells tinkled again as if she were shaking it in the air.
"And I'll ask you each to say your name and share something about yourself that you'd like everyone to know. I'm going to ask that we observe a minute of silence first to help ground us in this work."
She was silent and the bells were silenced, though Harry could hear her steady breaths from where she sat on the other side of Tony.
Harry listened as the others shifted on their wooden tree stumps… the sounds that Tony was making—his labored breathing, the sharp movements of his feet made Harry think that he was very uncomfortable with this impending discussion. Mei was rocking the wheels of her chair back and forth slightly and the sand made a loud crunching noise under the wheels—louder now that everyone was so quiet. Aminah who must have been sitting between Mei and Gemma was virtually undetectable by Harry. He really couldn't tell if she was there or not. Even though Gemma couldn't hear how noisy her feet were shuffling back and forth on the rocky ground, Harry found it reassuring.
The minute stretched on much longer than a minute, Harry was pretty certain. He found himself listening to the chattering of the birds in the aspen groves and the way the wind made the aspen leaves shiver and shake. He could feel the sun emerging from behind a cloud and warming his face.
When a gentle bell broke the silence with its clear high pitch, Harry was jarred back to the present. He had drifted off somewhere peaceful for a moment. Healer Jordan let the bell's quiet resonance fade and then shook the bells on the talking stick and spoke.
"Okay, I'll start now. I'm Archimedea Jordan and I'd like to share with you that my impetus for working at the Center is connected to my desire to prevent others from feeling the isolation and estrangement that my brother felt after he was wounded during the first Wizarding War."
Her voice had a thick quality to it that made Harry feel as though there was a lot more to the story.
"I'm going to pass the stick to Tony and place it so that he can hold it with his knees."
Harry knew that she was explaining this for his benefit. He was going to have to find the stick when it was his turn. He felt heat rising in his neck.
Harry held his breath, waiting for Tony to speak. It sounded like the others had as well. He could hear Tony shifting slightly making the bells on the stick tinkle quietly.
"I'm Tony Montague," he said and then he was very quiet.
Harry wondered after a bit if he was done and if should take the stick, but then Tony spoke again.
"I don't want to be here and I don't want to do this," he said with finality.
Harry could hear the bells on the stick moving.
"Harry, I'm ready to pass the stick to you."
Harry stretched his hand out to the center of the circle in front of Tony, then started passing it through the air toward the sound of the bells. Tony muttered, "down a bit, mate," and then Harry found it and took it. He held it in his hands and felt along the length of it. It was embellished with beads and bells of different sizes. It wasn't just a stick.
"I'm Harry Potter and… "
He was torn. He wanted to share the truth—that he was glad to be there—but it seemed like it would be seen as though he were sucking up to Healer Jordan by Tony and Mei. He fought with his general distrust of adults and their systems. Deep down, he felt safer here than he'd felt in a long, long time.
"I'm not sure why we're doing this… but I guess I'll try… to do it."
It was hard to get it out, but he finally managed.