"Oh, right!" he said as he held the anagnóstis over the paper.
"Hey, I'm going to head to bed. 'Night Harry and Gemma," Aminah said.
"Yeah, me, too," said Tony.
Harry and Gemma said goodnight to their roommates and Harry started reading what Gemma had written about her afternoon classes of balance and nonverbal spellcasting.
"The balance class is like an exercise class to help me strengthen my core because my balance was affected by the damage to my inner ear. I can compensate with visual stability training (basically orienting myself by looking at things), working on my posture, and doing stretching exercises. I think you'll be doing some of that, too, because balance is also connected to vision, so I imagine you'll need to do some of the same exercises—not the visual stability ones, though. It was pretty fun, actually. It felt good.
The nonverbal spellcasting is going to take a lot of work. I barely made any progress with that one. I didn't really know very many spells before I got sick. Shannon did better because she's a fully trained witch and she was able to do some before she lost her hearing. She can also still speak."
Harry lifted up the anagnóstis and turned his head to Gemma, reaching out for her arm, not sure if she was looking his way. She tapped his arm twice to let him know that she was paying attention.
"What happens when you sign to cast a spell? Does that work?" Harry asked.
Gemma grabbed the notebook again and started writing. After a moment, she pushed the notebook back to him and helped guide the anagnóstis to the spot where she added her answer.
"I guess some deaf or mute wixen have had been able to cast some spells with signs, but they can take longer to cast because of fingerspelling so they might get cursed first in a duel, but if it is just household spells, then it can work. Some really creative deaf wixen have created new spells with a combination of nonverbal and signs that I guess are handy. I'm going to be learning some of those. Also, I'm going to learn American Sign Language (ASL), too, because I guess they use just one hand to fingerspell and so you can use your wand and fingerspell at the same time."
"Oh, that's cool. That's a lot to learn," Harry said.
He was thinking about the braille class he missed that afternoon—though at least that didn't seem as vitally connected to his ability to cast magic as Gemma's class. It seemed like braille was going to be more useful for when he was in the muggle world since the magical world had things like his anagnóstis and staff and aftí that allowed him to read and get around and he could still cast spells.
Can I though? All the spells I've been using are through my staff. What about with my wand? Will I be able to use it again? he wondered.
He didn't think he could cast defensive spells with his staff, but he really didn't know.
I'll have to ask Godric tomorrow.
"Hey, Gemma, when do we learn about our schedule for tomorrow? Is it the same as for today?" he asked.
She took the notebook again and wrote, "I guess it changes a lot, so they do it day by day, though there are some things that stay the same like BSL and braille since they take a long time to learn. They'll update the schedule in the morning."
"Why was everyone gathered outside of the library this afternoon?" Harry had been wanting to ask for a while.
Harry heard the pencil scratching on the paper again and wondered if she needed the pencil sharpener. He summoned it out of his staff while he waited, guessing that they'd need it soon.
She wrote a question mark on his hand.
"What?" he asked.
She pressed the little rectangular metal piece into his hand. He touched it with his other hand and realized it was the pencil sharpener.
"It's a pencil sharpener," he explained and held out his hand for the pencil. She tapped his hand with it and he showed her how to use it. He forgot about the shavings and was surprised when she brushed his legs off.
"Oh, yeah. I should have done it over the bin."
Gemma scratched his hand playfully as she pushed the notebook to him. He took up the notebook and reader.
"I guess people were just curious about Ms. Midgeon's history and wanted to hear her story and it started as a small group but got bigger when other people left their classes. I guess it pretty much stopped after you fainted and Healer Jordan transported you to her office," Gemma explained.
"Thanks, Gemma. I was glad you were there when I came to." Harry gave her a small smile.
He heard her writing and waited, but then he was surprised when someone laid a hand on his shoulder from behind him.
"Pardon me, but are you Harry Potter?" The voice that asked was fragile like crinkled paper—that of a very old woman, Harry guessed.
Harry was startled. He'd been so focused that he hadn't heard someone enter their room or his area. He turned his head toward her and started to rise from his bed, "Yes, I'm Harry Potter."
He had a suspicion of who it was—as there was a tinge of French in her words.
"Harry, I'm Madam Flamel."
"Hi Madam Flamel, I'm sorry I missed your class today. I was really looking forward to it," Harry said as he stuck out his hand for a handshake.
She grasped it and her hand felt as papery as her voice sounded and he was afraid it would crumble in his hand.
"It's quite alright, Harry. I was there when you fell. It was alarming and I'm glad you're feeling well enough to be back in your dormitory. Healer Jordan let me know that you needed to rest. We will meet tomorrow and I will make sure you have a chance to catch up. I was looking forward to meeting you because I've heard so much about you from my dear friend Albus. He's been so very worried about you," she confided.
Harry was a little surprised to hear this. He remembered, of course, that the Flamels were friends of the Headmaster, but never imagined that they would be talking about him.
What about these other Hogwarts students here?
He bit his tongue. It wasn't this ancient woman's fault that Dumbledore seemed to favor him. He wondered if Dumbledore had expressed his worry about Gemma, Tony, Mei, or Aminah, too.
Harry realized that he had been quiet for a long time and that he was still holding Madam Flamel's hand. He quickly let it go.
"Oh, thanks, Madam. I'm doing okay."
He grimaced at the lie. Face planting in the middle of a gathering of wixen wasn't really an indication that he was doing that well.
Madam Flamel patted his arm, "You're going to be just fine. You and your friends. You've been through a lot. I'll let Albus know. He's been asking me for updates on all of you."
A weight that Harry didn't know he was shouldering fell off at that. He breathed deeper.
"Thank you, Madam."
"I'll see you in the library tomorrow afternoon. If you come a half-hour early, I can give you the basics of what you missed and it'll be enough, I think—you seem like a bright young man—to get you caught up," she assured.
"Thank you, yes. I can do that," Harry said.
"I'm just sorry you missed my talk today about Louis Braille. He was such a smart lad. Just a boy like you when he created this system of reading with his fingers. He never knew how much he liberated his peers and generations of people from illiteracy and isolation. Braille didn't really catch on until after his death. He died young—in 1853—just 41-years-old. Such a loss. The stupidity of politics at that school—it held him back," she lamented. "I brought you a book to read about him, though."
She pressed the book into his hand. He felt the bumps on the spine and wondered if his anagnóstis would read braille.
"Albus gave you his anagnóstis, I know, so you should be able to read it," she assured as if she'd read his mind.
"I was wondering about the anagnóstis. I was hoping that we could find someone who could copy it so that other students could have something similar," Harry asked before he lost his nerve.
"Oh, what a great idea. It is so much more versatile than other readers that are available. I'll look into that," she said. "Now, it is past my bedtime. I just wanted to make sure that you were doing well."
She squeezed his arm and walked away slowly—a faint lemony aroma lingered where she had been standing.
"Thank you for the book," Harry said.
"Not at all," she said.
Harry tried the anagnóstis on the cover of the book. "Triumph Over Darkness by Lennard Bickel." He pressed his lips as he thought about that title.
Why is everyone so afraid of the dark?
Gemma pushed the notebook toward him—he could hear it on the desk. He was about to put it in his staff, when she tugged on his hand and he figured out that she wanted to look at it. So he handed it to her and found the notebook and drew it closer so he could read what she had written.
It took him a bit to find where they were on the page and he remembered that he hadn't read the whole thing yet. He found her note about staying with him in Healer Jordan's office after he fell.
"Do you always have this many accidents? I mean, I've only known you since yesterday and it seems like you are falling down and getting hurt a lot. Terry told me about some of the scrapes you got into at Hogwarts—didn't you knock out a troll? And didn't you have to regrow the bones in your arm?"
He turned his face to her and smiled weakly, but he wasn't sure she was looking at him. He could hear her leafing through the pages of the book and wondered how she'd read it. Is there a reader that can translate braille to written text like his anagnóstis? Maybe there was a print copy of the book in the library. She handed it back to him and he put it in his staff.
He tapped the anagnóstis against the notebook where he was reading to show her what he was responding to. "Yeah. It seems like I'm a magnet for trouble sometimes," he frowned. "I wish I could just be a normal kid."
She tapped his arm three times.
"What does three times mean?" he asked.
She pulled the notebook from under his hands and he heard her writing, "I understand. It's not really yes or no. Hey, when I draw a smiley face what does the anagnóstis do? Here's one."
"Oh, it makes a weird little whistle. I was wondering why it was doing that. Is it just today that you drew smiley faces? I hadn't noticed before." he asked.
She guided his hand over a spot on the page, and the anagnóstis whistled again.
"Yeah, it whistled again. What if you drew other things? It would be neat if it could describe images to me," Harry said.
She took the notebook again and he listened to the pencil scratching.
"What are you two doing?" Aminah asked as she came back into Harry's area after leaving the toilet.
"We're seeing what the anagnóstis does when she draws things like smiley faces. It kinda whistles. Hey, I asked Madam Flamel about making copies of my anagnóstis—she said she'd look into it," Harry said.
"Oh, that's cool!" Aminah said.
Gemma tapped his hand and he held up the anagnóstis as she guided his hand to her drawings. The anagnóstis whistled as it read over the drawings—short whistles and long whistles.
"It's just whistling," Harry told Gemma.
She tapped his hand three times.
"Hey, Gemma? Do you have any food I could feed Hedwig? Want to go visit her real quick?" Harry asked Gemma.
"Yes," Gemma tapped his hand and then ran to her area.
Harry followed her and Aminah followed him.
"Aminah, do you want to go visit Hedwig with us?" Harry asked.
"In the owlery?" Aminah asked.
"Yeah. It's pretty stinky, but Gemma says the view is spectacular," Harry laughed.
"Great," Aminah sighed.