When Harry awoke the next morning, he couldn't believe that he'd slept through the entire night. His protesting stomach woke him up. He'd missed dinner and now felt a bit trembly as he dressed for the day. He pulled on his trainers, grimacing as their clammy dampness encased his feet. He left the toilet quietly as he was up way before his roommates… it would be at least an hour before breakfast was ready. He made his way down the corridor wondering if the sandwiches in his staff were safe to eat.
Harry used his staff to locate a bench outside of the library and summoned the sandwiches and his water out of his staff. He sniffed at the sandwiches and decided that they'd be okay and woofed one of them down followed by some gulps of water.
He decided to write notes about the letters that were lost at sea. Harry summoned his writing materials from his staff along with his anagnóstis. He wrote out three versions of the same message, "You sent a note to me, Harry Potter, that arrived on Monday, June 28th that was accidentally destroyed. Could you please resend it? Thanks. HP."
He used the anagnóstis to make sure the notes were legible—it was weird to hear his own voice through the aftí—then rolled them up. He'd ask Hedwig to take them to the people who'd sent the messages. He knew she'd understand what to do.
She's a brilliant bird.
He cast the Navigation charm and headed to the owlery looking forward to spending some time with Hedwig.
He walked through the threshold and felt the very slight tug on his navel. The sounds of Charing Cross Road drifted in through the open windows along with the morning air, which seemed a bit warm for the time of day. He guessed it was going to be a hot one and was thankful that he wasn't stuck at the Dursley's tarring the driveway or some other heinous task that they were likely to invent for him to do on an outrageously hot day. Remembering the garden, though, reminded him of Nio hus cherio kisa and he thought of his cool scales against his neck.
Little Friend.
Hedwig hooted from her perch high in the rafters and Harry lifted his face to her and smiled, "Hiya, Hedwig. It's good to see you, too."
She flew down to him in an explosion of feathers against his face as she dug her talons into his shoulder. He had time to brace himself, his staff had warned him she was coming right at him, so he adjusted his stance as her weight settled on his shoulder. He reached for her and pressed his face into her feathery belly, breathing in her pine-musty scent, which was a bit of a relief from the stench of the owlery.
"It's no wonder you sit high up in the rafters, Hedwig. It stinks down here," Harry whispered into her feathers.
"You could take her out to the courtyard, if you want to escape the fetor of the owlery," an ancient voice spoke from the wall near the door.
Harry started, "Oh, I didn't know anyone else was in here!" He turned toward the voice, balancing Hedwig on his shoulder.
"Well, I'm always here, aren't I," said the voice.
"Oh?" Harry questioned. Then he remembered his staff and held it off the floor and squeezed it to get a description of the room and, he hoped, of the person standing by the door.
But there was no person.
"Are you a portrait?" Harry asked slowly.
"Yes, what are you? Blind?"
"Er, yes."
"Oh, right, then," the portrait had the good sense to sound embarrassed.
"You said there is a courtyard?"
"Yes, just over there."
Harry shook his head a bit in disbelief.
"Navigant courtyard," Harry said to his staff and it led him to a narrow doorway, down a few stairs (not nearly enough to reach the ground below the tower), and then out onto a cobbled pathway. The morning air was heavy with moisture and warmth, but also fragrant with the aroma of lavender. He could hear the breeze rustling leaves on a nearby tree. He squeezed his staff in the air to get a description of the courtyard and then navigated to the bench that it described under the tree.
Hedwig's talons on his shoulder were painful, so he encouraged her to hop down onto the bench and he fed her some of the biscuits he'd saved from tea. She growled contentedly while Harry took deep breaths—the garden in the courtyard was full of fragrant plants; herbs, Harry discovered as he ran his hands over some of the spiky plants that bordered the bench. He liked the coolness of the stone bench beneath his legs.
Finally, after a long while of just enjoying the quiet morning in the courtyard, Harry attached the notes to Hedwig's leg and asked her to return to the people who'd sent them. He knew one was headed to Hermione, but he wasn't sure who'd sent the other ones. I should have looked at them right when I got them, he admonished himself.
He took her back up to the owlery figuring it would be easier for her to leave from the tower than down in the courtyard and said goodbye to her before she hooted and took off.
"Did you enjoy the courtyard?" the portrait asked him as he was leaving.
"Yes, very much. Thank you for suggesting it."
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
Harry met up with Gemma and Tony at breakfast and then they headed to the Mont Blanc room for the hike.
Gemma paused at the threshold of Mont Blanc and Harry wondered if there was something about it that looked different. It smelled the same. He could smell and feel the cool mountain air wafting into the corridor from the room as they approached and even hear some birds trilling in the distance. At first, he mistook the sound for someone whistling and then he realized it must be birds. It sounded like they were talking to each other almost—calling and answering over a distance. He was a bit entranced as he realized it helped give dimension to the space inside the room. He could tell from the bird songs that the landscape sloped down in front of them and rose up behind them.
He realized that they had been standing there for a while, Gemma couldn't be listening to the birds.
Maybe she's watching them?
He squeezed her arm so that she'd know that he wanted to say something and asked, "What is it?"
Tony answered: "The benches are gone and there's just a path leading down to the lake."
"Do you think Mei will be okay on the path?" Harry wondered, conceding that he was thinking about himself as much as her.
"I dunno. She'll probably pitch a fit," Tony deadpanned.
"Yeah," Harry agreed silently. "Where do we go?"
Gemma was moving her arms, likely signing to Tony. Harry dropped her arm so that she could sign more freely.
"What's she saying?" Harry asked Tony.
He heard Gemma moving away from him, through the door, and onto the crunching pathway. The birds got quieter with her noises.
"I don't know—I think she's asking Healer Jordan something," Tony said.
"Is Healer Jordan nearby?"
"She's way down the path, but I guess they can understand each other," Tony said, "Hey, let's get out of the door. There are more people coming."
Harry could hear the man he had noticed the day before, the one who had sat behind him when the bench fell over and tried to help Harry up, his tenor animated as he was recounting traveling on the underground to someone. It sounded like it was the first time he'd traveled on it.
He was talking to someone Harry hadn't noticed before, or at least he didn't recognize anything about the person.
Then Healer Jordan's voice surprised him as it came from a space just to the right in front of him, "Please make your way down to the lake by following one of the paths. We will meet on board the deck of the HMS Eden."
"Oh, hi, Healer Jordan," Harry said.
She didn't answer.
He waited a bit more, rocking back and forth, listening to the water squishing in his shoes; he could hear the bells of the ship clanging in the distance. He then registered that Tony was walking ahead and leaving Harry standing in the doorway by himself. He quickly pulled out his staff, extended it and swung it back and forth, listening for the voice. He remembered to hold it with his index finger pointing down the length, and the aftí started telling him about the doorway and the path in front of him. He heard footsteps crunching on the gravel behind him and moved to the side of the path.
"Pardon us," one of the men said as they passed and Harry nodded and waited until their footsteps receded down the hill.
"Healer Jordan, am I on the right path?" he asked, turning back to the doorway and taking a step closer, but she didn't answer, but instead repeated the same message.
"Please make your way down to the lake by following one of the paths. We will meet on board the deck of the HMS Eden."
It must be a recorded message, Harry thought, flushing with the awareness that he'd been speaking to air again. He could hear someone walking down the path slowly and guessed it was Tony and he started down the path.
"Navigant HMS Eden."
The birds had quieted down since more people entered the space, but he could still hear the more distant trills. There was also the scent of wood burning, but light as though it were distant—a campfire.
Harry could hear other people walking on the path behind him, but they were quiet except for their feet crunching over the sandy surface of the walkway. Harry was pretty sure he was still on a path—he was following the sounds of Tony's steps ahead of him and listening to the directions from his Navigant spell. He could hear the conversations of others drifting up the hill (or down the hill) occasionally, but he couldn't always tell how far away they were.
He thought about calling Tony to wait for him, to help guide him, but then he remembered that Tony really couldn't guide him easily. His memory brushed over the feeling of Tony's remaining arms in his hands when Harry had been trying to help him right himself during council.
That would be awkward.
He stumbled a few times as he tread on larger rocks and he brushed against bushes and other plants that grabbed at his trousers.
His staff warned him of a tree branch that almost hit him in his face—and he reached out his hand in front until he found it and held it away as he moved around it. It was laden with small leaves that whispered through his fingers.
He felt as though his progress was slow going and that Tony was getting farther and farther away from him. It was harder to tell if he was still on the path. The people behind him seemed to be moving even slower than he was and he was becoming conscious of an apprehension in his gut as he felt the gulf of distance between him and the other people grow. His breath quickened.
And then he heard footsteps crunching on the path, coming up it, toward him, running, and getting louder as they approached. He stopped afraid they'd run into him. And then they stopped, not far in front of him. Their breathing was heavy from running up the mountain path.
"Hello?" Harry asked; the Scribunt loqui flapped noticeably in the breeze.
A few light footsteps, and then Gemma's hand was on his arm.
"Oh, hi, Gemma. Where'd you go?" Harry was relieved she was back.
She moved to his left side and lifted his palm to write in his hand, "S-O-R-R-Y" space "I" "L-E-F-T-." space "H-.-J-."… Harry interrupted her work, "H?J? Is that Healer Jordan?" She tapped his hand twice, "yes."
She continued, "W-A-S-LA-T-E-N-E-E-D-E-D-H-E-L-P-F-O-R-M-E-I". Harry furrowed his brow at this, Gemma had run it all together in her hurry and it took him a bit to figure out what she was saying. He repeated what he understood, "Healer Jordan was late and needed your help so that she could help Mei?"
Behind them, Harry could hear distantly the repeated message from Healer Jordan, "Please make your way down to the lake by following the path. We will meet on board the deck of the HMS Eden" as Gemma wrote in his hand.
She tapped "yes," impatiently on his hand, and then wrote "IGOHELPMEINOWYOUGOTOSHIP" Harry said the letters as she wrote them and pieced them together until he understood them.
Before he could answer, she was off. He imagined that she could see Mei at the doorway. He felt a bit useless, standing there in the pathway as Gemma ran up the mountain path to help Mei and Aminah.
The people who had been following him had passed them by while they were talking and he felt alone again. He pointed his staff down the mountain path and continued on, stumbling over stones occasionally and straining for cues that he was staying on the path and nearing the ship. The path got steeper and started zig-zagging across the side of the mountain. Dust from the path seemed thicker on this part of the trail—he could feel it coating his lungs and depositing a layer on his sweating skin and caking his damp trainers.
He slipped on some loose gravel at the bend of one zig-zags and sat down rather suddenly on the hillside, sliding down on his feet awkwardly as he tried to regain his balance. A rock had jabbed uncomfortably into his backside, and his wrist felt a bit tweaked from the sudden jolt as he landed. He managed to stand up again and brush off the dirt. Though he was a little shaky, he kept going.
He could hear the bells on the ship more easily now; he knew he was getting closer.
He wished he hadn't been squeamish about asking Tony to lead him. Better than tumbling down a mountainside. He thought about Nio hus cherio kisa and wished he'd been able to bring the little snake with him.