Harry opened his eyes and sucked in a deep breath… like he was coming up for air, but he wasn't in the ocean this time.
I'm not wet. It's not salty, he realized.
It wasn't dark, but it wasn't light either. It didn't smell like the corridor outside the library.
I don't know where I am! He panicked.
But then there was a calming weight of a small hand on his arm.
Gemma's here. His breathing became more regulated.
I'm laying down. I'm on a bed… no, a camp bed, he thought as his fingertips felt along the wooden supports of a camp bed, covered with a stiff canvas cloth. There was an aroma of peppermint.
Hospital wing… no… . there are beds in the hospital wing. His thoughts were crawling through a bog of confusion and it took a really long time for the thought to reach his throat and then his lips.
"Where am I?" he asked, his voice scratchy. He heard the paper fluttering by his lips.
Gemma squeezed his arm, then took up his hand and turned it over so she could write on his palm.
"H.J.'s" space "O-F-F-I-C-E" she wrote.
She had to do it a few times before he understood. He felt really dense, like he was running in slow motion, except that he was lying down.
He scrunched up his brow, "Why? What happened?"
"DO-N-'T" space "K-N-O-W."
He could almost feel a shrug in her hands as she wrote.
"Y-O-U" space "F-A-I-N-T-E-D." Her finger was jumpy, as if she were trembling as she wrote.
He felt his throat close in mortification.
"In front of everyone?"
She tapped twice, "yes."
He cringed and tried to roll over on his side, but the camp bed rocked and he stopped, afraid he'd topple out.
Gemma stroked his arm. He found it comforting. He realized that if she had been anyone else, he would have been annoyed. He would have felt pitied and pathetic. But Gemma felt like what he imagined having a little sister might be like. It reminded him of the way Ron acted around Ginny (when he wasn't annoyed with her)—she was someone he could confide in and someone he felt an innate urge to protect. He imagined a little sister as a person who would look up to him. Except that it seemed as though Gemma was doing a lot of looking out for him.
Maybe she thinks of me as a little brother? Or maybe little sisters also look out for big brothers. He thought about what it could have been like with Dudley if he hadn't been… Dudley.
His memory of the photos of his parents at their wedding floated through his consciousness, how they smiled and hugged each other and their friends. I'd probably have a little sister or brother by now if…
A sob escaped his lips and this time he managed to roll to his side without dumping the camp bed so that he could hold his face in his hands so that Gemma wouldn't see.
Why does it hurt so much to realize that I can't look at those photos anymore? It was just paper. It wasn't like holding a person or even talking to them. Why is that so much more painful than not having parents at all. What kind of a freak am I? He wondered.
He was embarrassed that Gemma had seen him cry (at least she didn't hear it—and he cringed at himself for even having the thought—that was mean) and worked really hard to keep the rest of the sobs tucked away. He kept his back to her until he was certain that he could control them. She rubbed his back. It felt like something a mom would do. Something he'd seen moms do at the park or at school when other kids had been sad or hurt that he had never experienced first hand. Maybe Gemma's mom rubbed her back that way?
He had to get up and do something. Laying there was just making him think of even worse things and he might disappear into that pit. He rolled over again carefully and sat up slowly, hanging his feet over the edge of the camp bed. He felt dizzy and disoriented. It was weird not knowing where he was.
"Harry," a voice came from across the room. He didn't realize anyone else was in the room.
Footsteps approached—Healer Jordan's.
She put a hand on his shoulder, sitting down on a chair (he presumed) next to the camp bed.
"Harry, you need to rest a while longer. You're exhausted," she said.
"I can't lay here anymore, Healer. I need to get up," Harry pleaded.
He wanted to run. He wanted to run as far and as fast as he could.
Where could I just flat out run and not trip over things?
He wanted to run until all these bad thoughts just fell away because they were too tired to keep up with him.
"I want to run, Healer Jordan. I need to run," Harry said, standing up suddenly, and swaying on his feet and bumping into Gemma.
"Sorry, Gemma," he said, trying to steady her, but then accidentally knocking her in the head.
"Oops. Sorry about that," he grimaced trying not to start crying again. He sank back onto the camp bed.
Gemma put her hand on his arm as she also stood up.
"Gemma, thank you for sitting with Harry. I'm sure he found your presence calming. You can go on to class now. I need to talk to him," Healer Jordan spoke to Gemma, but he could also hear her signing.
The speaking was for his benefit, he gathered. Gemma swished her fingers across the back of Harry's hand, waving goodbye.
"Bye, Gemma. Thank you. Thank you for being with me."
She squeezed his hand and then he heard her footsteps as she went toward the door. He didn't think he was in the office where he'd met with Healer Jordan earlier in the morning. The sounds were all wrong.
"Harry, I'm sorry. You can't run right now. You just fainted and you're clearly still very unsteady on your feet. You need to rest. I have some nutrition potions for you and a calming draft that will help you sleep so that you can heal," Healer Jordan explained.
Harry put his head in his hands.
Healer Jordan clinked together some small glass containers and he realized that she must have been holding them out to him.
He reached out for them, resigned.
Where could I run anyway? he thought, feeling defeated as he drank them. The first one was delicious, but the second one made him wince at the bitterness.
"Harry, I will take you running when you are well enough to run, okay?" Healer Jordan said in a soothing voice. It was almost as if she understood his despair. "There are places you can run and ways you can do it without sight."
He nodded dully. He didn't really believe her. And he really just wanted to do it right then. Not later. But he was feeling pretty tired. Maybe he'd just lay down for a little bit.
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
When he awoke later, he was pretty certain he was alone in the room. He tempus'd his staff—which he found after a panicked moment of searching his pockets for it—on a chair by his camp bed along with his glasses. He learned that it was hours later. He had missed his afternoon lessons, dinner, and council. He wasn't sure how he felt about that—a mixture of relief and anxiety, he finally decided. Relief that he didn't have to do anything at that moment and anxiety that he might have missed out on important things. He felt small and alone in this strange office and laid there for a while trying to decide what to do.
He finally sat up and he heard a little bell go at the far side of the room when he did. Not far from it he heard a whooshing noise—kind of like a fan or wind through a small crack. He'd heard it before he realized and wondered if Besel was coming toward him in her levitating chair.
Is it powered by air or does it make that noise as air move under it? He wondered.
He turned his face toward the noise expectantly.
"Hi, Harry."
"Hi, Besel."
"Oh, you recognized me. That's impressive."
"Just the sound of your chair," Harry admitted.
"How are you feeling? Sounds like you had quite a day," Besel said.
"Yeah, I actually was having a pretty good day. I don't know what happened out there."
"Sometimes stuff just catches up with us… "
"Yeah. I guess so."
"So, Healer Jordan said that she had mentioned to you that you'd be working with a Mind Healer," Besel said.
"Yeah?"
"Well, I'm the Mind Healer at the Center," Besel informed him.
"Oh, I thought you were the librarian."
"Well, yes, that, too. We all wear lots of hats here. It is a small institution."
"Wait—does that mean I'm crazy?" Harry asked, his heart speeding up.
"No, not at all," she reassured. "And while I know what you mean by the term 'crazy,' and sometimes I am working with people who have experienced a dramatic change in their persona as a result of trauma, illness, or injury, and we find that 'crazy' is really not a helpful term, so we try to avoid it."
"Right," said Harry, abashed. "Healer Jordan said we'd examine memories."
"Sure, there are times that we'll do that."
"What else will we do?"
"We'll mostly talk. Sometimes we'll do other things… take walks, plant herbs, visit places, meet animals."
"What kind of places? And animals? What do you mean by that?"
"Some of the places that you've already visited such as the Mont Blanc room and the Samana Beach room, or even the park in Old Ellerby village. We do some therapeutic activities such as work with animals on a farm. The animals we work with are specially trained to provide comfort for people experiencing trauma. Sometimes they can also assist with small tasks. You live with muggles, right? You've seen the guide dogs that some blind muggles use?" Besel asked.
"Yeah, I guess so. I… I don't really like dogs," he managed to confess.
"Oh?" Besel's question was an invitation to elaborate, but Harry didn't feel like talking about Aunt Marge and Ripper at that moment.
After a bit, Besel offered, "we have other animals in addition to dogs that can be very comforting and help wixen like us."
"Yeah, I guess so. My owl, Hedwig… I don't know what I would have done without her… and Nio hus cherio kisa… " Harry stopped when Besel gasped. He had just spoken Parseltongue. He covered his mouth as if to capture the words that had already escaped.
"You're a Parselmouth?" Besel recovered.
"Um, yes?" Harry confessed, removing his hand from his mouth.
"It's an unusual ability, is all," Besel said in her more clinical voice.
"Little Friend," Harry said, using the English deliberately, "is a garden snake. He helped me so much while I was at my Aunt and Uncle's house."
"Mmm." Besel made a non-committal sound that Harry took to mean, "keep going," but he was thinking about how afraid the wixen at Hogwarts has been when they learned that he was a Parselmouth.
Even Ron.
He realized that he had been dreaming about Nio hus cherio kisa being a constant companion who might be willing to help guide him with enough worms to sustain him and now he wondered if the wixen world would be too unnerved if he was always holding a snake.
"Are we doing the Mind Healer stuff right now?" Harry asked.
"We can, if you like," Besel replied.
"I dunno. I, er, really need to use the toilet."
"Oh, of course!" He heard her moving her chair back a bit as if to give him room to pass by her.
"I'll be back." Harry stood up and shook out his staff. "Navigant toilet."
He did need to go and he also needed a moment to think.