As Harry walked away from Healer Jordan's desk, he stopped and turned, "Healer Jordan?"
"Yes, Harry?" She came around her desk toward him.
"What does a mind healer do?"
"Oh, that's a good question. They support people who are working through trauma of one sort or another."
"What do you mean by support?"
"Well, they guide you through the process of finding healing from the trauma. Really, they help you figure out how to heal from your trauma on your own—they give you the tools you need to process what has happened to you and then help you figure out how you're going to move forward."
"At my Primary, there was a counselor—is it like that?"
"Well, I'm not as familiar with the muggle side of things, but, yes, I think that they do similar things. Of course, in the wixen world, we have the advantage of magic to help us along."
"What kind of magic do they use?"
"Well, often they ask you to extract a memory that might be troubling and you share it with the mind healer and work through it."
"Oh, how do you extract a memory?"
"It's a pretty simple charm that allows you to share it in a pensieve or another similar magical object and then you can both view it."
"View it? How does it work when someone is blind?"
"It depends on if your memory is visual or not. If you had the memory when you could see, then you share the visuals with the mind healer."
"Would I see the memory again?"
"If it is your memory, then you see the visuals, but if you're inside someone else's memory and you're blind, then you'd experience it as you experience everything now."
"Oh, so I wouldn't see it?" Harry asked.
"No, it doesn't bypass your optic nerve and go directly to your brain. It would be great if it did. Same with someone who has lost their hearing. They still wouldn't be able to hear what someone is saying in a memory. If we had that kind of magic, then we could figure out a way to restore your vision completely, even with the magical injury to your optical nerve that you've sustained," Healer Jordan said. "But wixen are working on this kind of magic as we speak—so it could be that within your lifetime, someone figures out a way that would allow you to see again."
"Oh, well, I guess that's good."
There was a banging at the door as if someone kicked it.
"Oh, that's my next appointment," Healer Jordan said as she moved past Harry to open the door.
"Hi, Tony. How are you doing?" Healer Jordan greeted Tony at the door.
"I'm great. I can't wait to get my arms!" Tony exclaimed.
Harry felt a tinge of envy. He wished he was getting a pair of eyes for a moment, and then the thought made his skin crawl. New eyes would mean losing his eyes and that kind of freaked him out. Sure he couldn't see out of them (well, except light and dark), but they were still his eyes, and he liked having them in his head.
"Hi, Tony. Good luck with your arms. I hope it goes well."
"Thanks, Harry! I'm going to be able to eat dinner on my own today!"
"Oh, well, it might take a while for you to manage that, Tony. I'll explain it all. Let's go back to the clinic, okay?" Healer Jordan said.
"Oh, okay." Tony sounded a little deflated.
Harry went out the door that Healer Jordan was holding open for him and asked his staff to guide him to the library.
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
At the entrance to the library, Harry held his staff up and squeezed it to get a description of the area as he closed his eyes against the bright light. The room it described was large and filled with books and seating areas. He also learned that there was a person seated at a desk not far from him near the entrance.
The librarian?
"Hello, welcome to the Perenelle Adaptation Center Library," the person greeted. A young woman, from her voice, Harry surmised—the voice seemed a little familiar, but he couldn't place it.
"Hi," said Harry. "Is it alright if I read in here while I'm waiting for my next class?" Harry asked, holding up the scroll Healer Jordan had given him.
"Certainly. Would you like me to guide you to a table?" she offered.
"No, thanks, I can do it with my staff," Harry said, holding it up.
"That's fine. If you need anything, I'm here to help. My name is Besel Geller. I'm holding my hand out to you, if you'd like to shake it."
Harry took a step closer to her desk and reached out, but didn't find her hand. "Thank you, Besel, I'm Harry," he waited a second, hoping she'd grab his hand.
"Nice to meet you, Harry. I can't quite reach your hand, could you step a little closer?" Besel said.
"Sure," he took another step and his staff came in contact with the desk. He felt Besel's fingertips graze his fingers, and leaned forward more until they were able to grasp hands and shake and let go. He laughed nervously. He liked the feeling of her hand.
"It's always an adventure here!" she said.
"Yeah, that's for sure!"
He asked his staff to direct him toward an empty table that it had described by the windows that overlooked the courtyard he had been sitting in with Gemma earlier. He sat down and rolled the scroll out on the table and extracted his anagnóstis from his staff and started reading the information about the Center that Healer Jordan had sent to the Dursleys, but which they hadn't shared with him.
I bet they burned it.
A lot of the things he learned as he read through the extensive document were things that he'd already picked up on during the tour or through conversations with Healer Jordan or Mr. Burbage. There was some history about why and how Perenelle Flamel had founded the Center and the people it served. There was a map of the Center that was really useful and he studied it for a while.
He finally found the section about the choices he had yesterday when he'd gone down the mountain path instead of finding the portal at the entrance that would have taken him directly to the deck of the ship as many people had chosen. He groused a little while reading it because it seemed like Healer Jordan could have mentioned it again when she was giving directions to the group.
I wasn't the only one who missed it.
He realized that he was feeling the same kind of betrayal that he'd felt when the Dursleys dropped him off at King's Cross Station his first year with his trunk and Hedwig and laughed as they left him trying to find Platform nine and three quarters.
Attempting to tamp down those feelings, he cast the Tempus charm and decided to pack up the scroll and head to the O&M room. As he was leaving, he paused at Besel's desk.
"I guess we'll be in here for our braille lessons a little later. Do you know where in the library those lessons occur?" he asked.
"Yes, that's right. There is a study room in the northeast corner of the library that Madam Flamel likes to hold the braille lessons. It has all her materials. Would you like me to guide you there now so that you know where you're going?" Besel offered.
"Sure, I have a little bit of extra time."
There was a noise that Harry couldn't quite understand as Besel moved away from her desk—it sounded sort of like a small breeze or wind going through a confined space, like a short tunnel. He cocked his head as he listened, trying to understand it.
"Harry, I'm using a levitating chair. I'm guessing you haven't heard one before by your expression," Besel explained.
"Oh. No. I couldn't figure out what that sound was," Harry felt relieved. "Thanks for telling me."
"Sure, no problem," Besel said lightly. "The easiest way for me to guide you to the room is for you to touch the back of my chair. Here, I'll show you where you can hold on," she said as she touched his hand that wasn't holding his staff. He let her guide his hand to the back of her chair and he held onto it as she moved toward the study room. He realized that he was turned around as he thought the northeast corner was in the opposite direction. He was glad that he accepted her offer to show him the room. And he also liked her voice—it reminded him of a warm summer day.
He had expected that the study room would be small and confined, but it was more spacious (by the echoey sound of it) than he expected. The light was also less intense than it was in the main part of the library and he opened his eyes.
Besel led him back to the entrance and he thanked her for the tour and told her that he'd see her later and then set his staff to navigate to the O&M room with about five minutes to spare before Mr. Burbage's class started.
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
Harry remembered that he needed to check the layout of the O&M room when he reached it. He asked his staff to guide him to the layout when he was nearing the room and found himself in front of a picture frame just to the right of the door.
He reached out to touch it and Mr. Burbage's voice said in his aftí, "Today, the O&M room is set up as a small village with footpaths and a park. You'll enter at the park. Ask your staff to direct you to the picnic area and wait for the class to gather at the picnic tables. There is a cooler of water on the center picnic table with glasses on the right of the cooler. I suggest that you hydrate while you wait as we'll be doing a fair amount of walking today. If you have a sun hat, I recommend you fetch it so that you don't get sunburned. While Old Ellerby is a real village, we've placed muggle repelling charms on it while we're using it, so the only people you'll be interacting with today are from the Center."
Harry sighed, he didn't have a sunhat. I could use my Hogwarts uniform hat, I suppose. He summoned it out of his staff and stuck it on his head. He hadn't worn it much, but it still fit.
As he was getting his hat, he heard someone using a staff approaching the room.
"Hi," Harry greeted the person, guessing it was either Aminah or Fitz.
"Hi, is that you Harry?" Aminah asked.
"Yes, I'm here by the layout of the room, if you want to come see it… well, you know what I mean," Harry said.
"Yeah, I know. Don't change your language on my account!" Aminah said graciously.
"It's funny… I hate it when other people do it to me, why did I do it to you?" Harry said, laughing.
"We're all working on it. No worries."
"How's your afternoon been?" Harry asked.
"It's been good. I worked with Agatha Midgeon on self-defense."
"Oh, how was that?" Harry asked, wondering if it was like a Defense Against the Dark Arts Class.
"It was good—it was just the intro. I guess you'll be in there with us tomorrow. I heard Healer Jordan and Ms. Midgeon talking about it before class," Aminah sounded apologetic as she explained the last bit.
"Yeah, I was meeting with Healer Jordan this morning," Harry offered.
"Oh?" Aminah asked.
"She was just filling me in on some stuff I missed… " Harry deflected.
"Here, I'm going to check out the layout," Aminah said, stepping forward toward the layout of the room.
"Oh, that's cool," Aminah said.
"What?" asked Harry.
"Did you feel it? It's like a topographical map," Aminah said, with a bit of awe in her voice.
"Oh, no, I didn't do that," Harry said, stepping next to her and bumping into her a bit.
"Sorry about that; didn't see you," Harry joked.
"Ha ha, very funny!"
As he lightly touched the map, he could feel ridges and his aftí told him that it was the path to the picnic area to the park. He traced his hands out to the edges of the map and got a sense for the layout of the little town that they were going to walk around—a bird's eye view.
"That is neat," Harry agreed.
"Ready to head in?" Aminah asked.
"Yep, let's go."
Harry cast the Navigation spell to take him to the picnic area and heard Aminah doing the same. He found the door and held it open for Aminah.
"Thank you, Harry," she said as he followed her in.
He heard her feet crunching on a gravel footpath before he felt it beneath his feet. He followed a few paces behind Aminah, not wanting to crowd her. They could hear a couple people talking ahead of them. Harry wondered how many different groups of people would be sharing the same space and how that would work exactly. He could pick out Adam's voice and Fitz's, and then he heard Martha's voice.
"Oh, I thought Martha was sighted," Harry said before he could stop himself.
"Martha Makinen?" Aminah asked.
"Um, I don't know her last name, actually, but I guess so," Harry said.
"Yeah, she can see. She's here because of her daughter. Milla was born blind, dragon pox, I think. Anyway, Martha's here taking the training so that she can work with her daughter more effectively," Aminah explained quietly as they approached.
"Oh," Harry responded, wondering what it would be like to be born blind.
They walked the rest of the way without talking, just the crunching of their feet on the gravel path, the tapping of their respective staffs, and the conversation of the people at the picnic table getting louder as they approached. Harry could also hear birds, dogs barking, the sound of an airplane overhead, and the breeze moving the leaves on trees. It was a lot hotter in the park, too, than it had been in the corridor of the center.
"Nice hat, Harry!" Adam's voice rang out as they approached.
"Uh, thanks? It's all I had," Harry explained, blushing.
"Well, most of your companions today won't even notice, am I right?" Adam said.
"Absolutely right," agreed Fitz. "Harry, it's a very nice lampshade if I do say so myself."
"You blokes are hilarious!" Martha laughed. "Nice hat, Harry!"
"Amy, my name is Martha," Martha had approached Aminah.
"Oh, it's nice to meet you, Martha!" Aminah said. "But, er, my name is Aminah. A lot of people call me Amy, though."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Aminah! Harry corrected me yesterday as well. I'm just terrible with names. And here, I thought I had remembered correctly. I'm probably going to call you Amy for the rest of training. I'm horrible!" Martha blustered on.
"It's alright, really!" Aminah consoled, sounding more at ease than Harry had heard her.
"Would you like a glass of water, Aminah, Harry?" Adam offered.
"Actually, that sounds great," Harry said, glad to have an excuse to do something while they waited for Mr. Burbage. Harry followed the sound of Adam's footsteps and used his staff to navigate around the picnic tables.
"Here you go, Harry," Adam pressed a cold glass into his hand. "And here you go, Aminah," Adam said, turning away from Harry. "Thanks!"
They didn't have long to wait, pretty soon they heard the sound of another person coming along the path. Harry was pretty sure it was Mr. Burbage, he couldn't hear his staff and wondered if he was using it collapsed.
"Hello!" Mr. Burbage greeted the group. "Thanks, everyone, for arriving on time."
"Martha and Adam, before we get started I have blindfolds and staves for you to use," Mr. Burbage announced. Harry noted that both Adam and Martha seemed surprised by this development. He heard them crunch on the gravel and approach Mr. Burbage to receive them.
"Once you've got your blindfolds in place, go ahead and shake your staff three times. Make sure that you allow space around you so that you don't accidentally hit someone as it is restored to its normal size. Also, here are your aftís. Place them on the helix of your ear," Mr. Burbage directed.
Mr. Burbage worked with Adam and Martha for a bit while they got their aftí placed and also showed them the correct way to hold their staves. He went around and made sure everyone was holding their staves correctly as well. "Okay, we're going to take a walk around the park on the path at first and I'll be working with each of you on your form with the staff."