When Harry, Gemma, and Aminah entered Montmorency after visiting Hedwig in the owlery and delivering the bits of cookie Gemma had given Harry for Hedwig, Gemma stopped suddenly, causing both Harry and Aminah to stumble.
"What's going on, Gemma?" Harry asked.
She didn't answer, but stood still. Harry assumed that she couldn't see his note. Harry strained his ears trying to figure out what was wrong. He tapped her arm to try to get her attention, but she held his hand still as if she wanted him to be quiet. He turned to Aminah, "Any idea what's going on?"
"No idea," responded Aminah.
Harry let go of Gemma's arm and shook out his staff. "Mei, Tony? Are you in here?" Harry asked.
No answer.
"That's weird," Harry said.
He squeezed his staff to get a description of the room. And then he understood what was going on. "Aminah, use your staff to get a description of the room," he whispered.
"Oh!"
Gemma seemed to reanimate and had reached for Harry's hand.
"C-H-A-N-G-E-D " space " R-O-O-M."
Harry nodded. He was still listening to his staff and tapped his aftí to let Gemma know.
After a bit, Aminah said, "So our room has been rearranged? There's an extra area, too, right? Like we have a new roommate?"
"Yeah, I think so. It's bigger and there is more room for each of us. We have four-poster beds now, like at Hogwarts, with curtains and there is a wall around Mei's tank so that I don't get splashed anymore if that's my area next to hers. I'm not sure, actually."
Gemma had left them and Harry could hear her moving the Mami Wata necklaces.
"Maybe we can Navigant to our area? See if the staff knows?" Aminah suggested.
"Seems like they could have warned us," Harry grumbled.
"Yeah, what if we got into the wrong bed?" Aminah said.
"That'd be awkward!" Harry agreed.
As Harry stepped forward and swung his staff, Healer Jordan's voice spoke in his aftí, "Harry, we have rearranged your room to accommodate a new student who is arriving tonight and starting tomorrow. We expanded the room as well as we heard feedback from students that it was a little cramped. The new student's space was added to the left of Aminah's space. We also added privacy curtains on all the beds and a wall between your space and Mei's to prevent water splashing into your area from her tank. You can use your staff to describe the new layout and direct you to your space. Please make our new resident welcome. His name is Arig Gurgisya."
"Oh, did you get that message, too? Aminah?" Harry asked.
"What mess-… Oh," Aminah answered.
Gemma came back and took Harry's hand to write on it, " M-E-S-S-A-G-E " space " H-J-? ".
He nodded.
She tapped his hand for sighted guide, but he shook his head, "No, thanks. It's okay. I'll use my staff."
She tapped his hand twice and went to Aminah, he guessed, to ask the same thing.
As he Navigant'd to his new area, he wondered what Mei thought of the wall between their spaces. He gathered from the description that it was not something that could be seen through, so Mei had a bit more privacy than the other students now. He wondered how she'd handle the change.
At the foot of his bed, he felt for the four-poster frame of his bed and found that it was similar to the one in Gryffindor tower. The post was smooth and sculpted in an undulating spiral pattern that reminded him of pineapples. The curtains were heavy and velvety. He imagined that they were red and gold like in Gryffindor, but he really didn't know.
He touched his staff to them and muttered, "Indica color," remembering a charm that he'd learned earlier in the day with Godric. "Aquamarine" was the staff's answer.
"What color is aquamarine?" he wondered aloud as water splash against the wall.
"I think that's a blue-green color, Potter. What do you care what color your curtains are?" Mei said.
"Hi, Mei."
Harry stepped out to the walkway at the end of his bed. "I guess our room got rearranged while we were out."
"Yeah."
"Are you okay with the wall?"
"Sure. I get it. You don't want to be splashed with water while you're sleeping. And I like that you can't stare at me anymore."
"I wasn't staring," he said through his teeth.
"I know. It just seemed like it."
Harry took in a deep breath. "Have you met our new roommate yet?"
"Yeah. He was here. Tony took him on a tour of the Center," Mei said.
"Oh, okay. Well, I'm going to check out my new space," Harry said as he walked back to his area.
It was larger. He followed the curtains along the top with his hand to get a sense of how high up the four-poster bed went, until he found the post at the head of his bed.
There was a little more space between the bed and his desk. As he followed the desk around, he discovered that there was a chair now by his wardrobe.
That's nice. Gemma could sit there while we're writing, he thought.
With the curtains and the wall, he felt like he had his own space and it felt good. His staff had described a window behind his desk and he leaned over the desk to try to feel it, but it was too far back. So he squeezed between the bed and the desk and found that it was a deep window sill—big enough for him to sit in and it had pillows. So he climbed up onto it and felt the window. It wasn't just plain glass, but had leaded panels with embossed geometric designs. He ran his hands over it for a while discerning the pattern and realized that between the squares and triangles, there were also fleur de lis.
Very French.
He wondered what color they were, and held his collapsed staff to them and cast the Indica color charm and learned that they were very colorful: magenta, turquoise, black, cherry red, indigo blue, canary yellow, olive green, purple, orange. He wondered what it looked like when the sun came in the window with all those colors.
"What the bloody Baron are you doing, Potter? Trying to escape?"
Harry turned toward Mei's voice, "Just looking at the stained-glass window."
"Likely story. You know you can just walk through the door if you don't want to be here. Unlike me. Surrounded by muggle London. I'm trapped."
"Can't you just swim out to some island in the middle of the South Pacific?"
"And what, live off crabs?"
"Uh, I guess so? Aren't they a delicacy?"
"Bottom dwellers." Mei exclaimed and then there was a resounding on splash against the wall and Harry guessed their conversation was over.
"At least the wall works," he muttered to himself as he traced a fleur de lis with his finger.
He should have been tired. It was late. But he'd slept for a good portion of the afternoon.
He leaned against the wall in his window seat and took the book Madam Flamel had given him out of his staff and his anagnóstis to read a bit about Louis Braille.
The beginning was bleak. It described Paris in the 18th century with the huge divide between haves and have-nots. The haves are prancing around in carriages decked out in silks and jewels and the have nots are wallowing in the literal sewer, starving.
Harry realized that it was a Paris that Madam Flamel must have witnessed first hand… and the blind were beggars with clawed, groping hands, pitied and grotesque in their helplessness and filth. Not only that, it was considered a punishment for past sins that they had lost their sight.
Geez. Add insult to injury. Literally.
And this guy, Valentin Haüy, who gives a poor, blind, begging boy some coins and watches him discern their value by touch and realizes that the boy has intelligence.
Great. I guess I'm lucky I was born in the 20th century… Me. Lucky. Ha!
He put it aside. He'd have to try again later. He sat in the window seat for a while just listening to his roommates putter around in their spaces. He imagined that Aminah had checked out the space as he did, figuring out the distances between the furniture, determining what was the same and what was different.
I hope they don't go changing our space often.
He knew that Gemma had assured that Mei's necklaces were safe. He wondered why it had shocked her so much that the room had changed.
He was glad that Mei seemed to be okay with the wall between their spaces. He wondered what the new guy would be like.
What a strange name. Arig.
It almost sounded like Eric, but not quite.
He heard Gemma walking over to his space, and started climbing down out of the window seat, but she tapped his hand, "no." So he sat back and she climbed up with him. She was small enough (and so was he) that there was room for the both of them in the window, side by side. He felt her reach over him to run her hands over the leaded window and the long sigh that she let out blew against his cheek.
It must be beautiful.
He summoned his notebook and pencil from his staff so that they could talk more freely and said, "Is there a view from the window?"
She tapped his arm, "yes," and began to write. He wondered if they could open the window so that he could smell the air and hear the noises of the city below (he imagined it was the city—just like up in the owlery—but now all the lights of the city at night).
She tapped his hand gently with the notebook and he grabbed it and read, "I can't really see very well out of the window, except if I press my eye up against one of the clear glass panels. When I do that, the view is similar to that from the owlery, but lower and we're facing the other direction I think. Right now there are just there are a bunch of night lights—it is shimmery."
He nodded and smiled. He liked being able to hear her voice.
"Does the room look really different? It seemed like you were surprised when we first came in the room," he asked, the Scribunt loqui paper fluttering by his mouth.
She took the notebook again and wrote, "Yes, it really is different. All the colors of the curtains on the beds, and the bigger space, and the wall between your space and Mei's. It's like a totally different room. I thought we were in the wrong room at first, but then I saw Mei's tank, and I knew it had to be ours, even though there were too many beds and then I saw the message from Healer Jordan and I figured she had a sound message for you, too."
"Are all the curtains Aquamarine?" Harry asked.
She drew a question mark on his palm.
"What?" he asked.
She took the notebook, "How do you even know that they are that color—let alone the name?"
He laughed, "My staff told me. I used the Indica color spell that Godric taught us today. I'm not really sure what Aquamarine is, Mei said it is a blue-green."
"Yeah, all the colors in here are ocean themed. It seems to be a theme throughout the Center. It's pretty calming, I guess."
"Yeah, Hermione was telling me about the lighting in the entrance and the hallways, that it makes it seem like we're underwater."
"She was really excited in the library. I was watching her in there. Like most kids get in candy shops. She looked really worried about you," Gemma wrote.
"Yeah, she loves libraries. Well, what she really loves are answers and solutions. She's always looking for… " but he stopped when he heard Tony coming through the door talking to someone. He turned his head toward the door, listening.
"Hey, everyone!" Tony called out. "Oh, good you're all still awake."
Aminah, Mei, and Harry responded. Gemma started climbing down out of the window seat and Harry followed. He trailed his fingers on the bed until he found the posts at the bottom of his bed and faced the door expectantly. Harry heard a sound that he couldn't quite place near Tony at the door. He turned his ear to listen more carefully, trying to figure it out.
"This is Arig, he's our new roommate," Tony announced. He sounded really happy.
"Hi, Arig," Harry said. He felt Gemma's hand on his arm and guessed that she signed a greeting as well.
"Hi," Arig's voice was low and quiet. He hadn't moved far into the room, but Harry heard the noise again.
Harry heard footsteps outside their door and then a sharp knock.
"I'll get it," Tony offered.
Harry realized that he was beginning to be able to tell Tony's footsteps apart from Gemma's and Aminah's. The tile in the room made it easier to hear them. The water in Mei's tank splashed as she surfaced.
The door opened and Harry heard Tony greeting Healer Jordan.
"Hi, Tony, Remember, I asked you to tell me when you were going to return to the room so that I could help facilitate introductions?"
"Oh, right. Sorry, Healer Jordan. I forgot," Tony apologized.
"It's okay. Luckily, I saw you both from a distance," Healer Jordan said.
"Yeah, we were just starting," Tony said.
"Great." Healer Jordan sounded relieved. "Let's gather around Mei's tank," Healer Jordan paused, "Is that alright, Mei?"
"Sure, I guess. Go ahead," Mei said.
"Do you want to stay in your tank?"
"Yes," Mei said.
"Great, I'll conjure some chairs for the rest of us." There was the popping sound as the chairs entered the space—Harry felt the air moving, too, as if it had been pushed out of the way as the chair entered. He reached forward and found a chair in front of him, and walked around it to sit down. Gemma settled into the one next to him. Harry listened to Arig walk to his chair and understood the noise he'd heard earlier.
Crutches and only one footstep. Amputee.
He heard Arig tap them three times on the floor and imagined that they were like his staff—now tiny and easily stuffed in a pocket.
"Aminah, can you join us?" Healer Jordan projected across the room.
"Yes, coming," Aminah said.
"Arig, can you cast the Scribunt loqui charm?" Healer Jordan asked.
"No, what's that?" Arig asked.
"It's a charm that writes out the words you speak on a piece of paper so that Gemma and others at the Center can understand you."
"Oh, I was wondering why everyone had those papers," Arig laughed nervously.
"Here, I'll do it for you right now, and then afterward show you how so you can do it and it stays after I leave the room."
She quickly cast it and Harry heard the fluttering paper noise when Arig said, "Oi! That's cool."
Aminah had come over and Healer Jordan led her to the chair next to Harry.
"Healer Jordan, when we introduce ourselves it is okay if we say why we're at the Center?" Aminah asked. "I mean, I know it is pretty obvious for some people, but for me, sometimes I'm left guessing for a long time because it isn't obvious to me and then I feel like I'm missing something important that everyone else understands and well, it makes me feel left out. I don't know if you feel the same way, Harry?"
"Um, yeah. I do, actually."
"I mean, I know we're supposed to respect each other's privacy and I get that. And yeah, I don't want the fact that I'm blind to be the only thing that people know about me, but also, it is something that stands out and people do notice it, so we might as well get it out of the way and move on."
"Yes, of course, Aminah. That's a very good point. I understand what you're asking. How about we go around the circle introducing ourselves and if you'd like to share why you're at the Center, please do that and if you'd like to add something else that you'd like your roommates to know about you, then add that as well," Healer Jordan said. "How does that sound?"
They were pretty unanimous in agreeing that it sounded like a good plan, though Harry noticed that Arig didn't say anything.
"Okay, Aminah, would you like to start and then we'll go clockwise from you?" Healer Jordan invited. "Let's just let everyone say their bit and save questions and comments for later, okay?"
They all agreed, though, again, Arig was quiet. Harry wondered if he was nodding.
"Um, okay. So, I'm Aminah Khan and like I said, I'm blind. It has been three months since this happened. I'm here at the Center to learn how to get around with pretty much no vision (I can see some shadows and blurry shapes) and how to perform magic without sight. One thing that I'd like you to know about me is that I love to knit and I figured out recently that I can still do it."
"Uh, I guess that means I should go next," Harry said. "I'm Harry Potter and I'm also blind. I can see bright light and it actually kind of hurts—but really nothing else. I got some venom in my eyes about a month ago. Um, something that I'd like you to know about me… um, I dunno. I really like flying on my broom. I want to do that again—I'm going to do it again."
Gemma was up next and Harry wasn't sure if Healer Jordan had cast the spell that allowed gave Gemma a voice.
Apparently, she did, because Gemma spoke next, "I'm Gemma Boot. I lost my hearing and my voice and was scarred pretty badly when I got really sick with Spattergoit and almost died last year. Don't worry, I'm not contagious anymore. I'm here to learn how to sign. I'm going to learn how to cast nonverbal spells and work on my balance. I really like animals and I would like to work with magical creatures someday," Gemma said in the calm adult voice that sounded nothing like what Harry actually knew her voice sounded like through his anagnóstis.
Mei was next and Harry heard the water splashing out of her tank as she came nearer to the edge to talk, "I'm Mei Lee. Obviously, I'm here to deal with having a fishtail instead of legs. I use a muggle wheelchair because part of the problem for me is that I'm half wixen and half Jiāorén and the magic kind of clashes. I know that everyone thinks the tail is amazing and beautiful, but miss having feet and legs and I wish I was just normal again. I want you to know… well, it's really hard to choose clothing to go with a fishtail."
There was a bit of nervous laughter after that remark. Harry realized that he hadn't really thought about what Mei was wearing and that he was kind of imagining her wearing a seashell bikini top like images of mermaids he'd seen in books before he started at Hogwarts. He was glad he hadn't said that out loud—he shuddered as he imagined the stinging hex she'd aim at him if he did.
"Okay, I'm Tony Montague and I'm here to learn how to use my new magical arms that I just got today and that are so cool, but not as easy to use as I thought they'd be. I lost my arms when I was apparating when I shouldn't have been because I hadn't passed my test yet and I was splinched. And yeah, I know that you can reattach splinched things, but not if you don't know where they went. And yes, I've heard about Skel-e-grow—but they don't have anything that regrows skin, nerves, and veins. I guess I'm lucky to be alive, but it doesn't always feel like that. Um. Something else about me. I'm the Slytherin champion at Exploding Snap and I am going to figure out how to use these arms so that I can defend my title if I have to."
There was more laughter at that.
Harry was surprised. He realized he had been thinking that Tony's lost limbs had to do with an encounter with a magical creature. Aragog or something. Splinching had always sounded so funny when Dean, Seamus, and Ron had been joking about it in Gryffindor tower… It never occurred to him that you couldn't be put back together after being splinched.
I never want to apparate. I probably can't now anyway…
"I guess it is my turn. The new guy. I'm Arig Gurgisya. I know my name is strange—its Zoroastrian, but my family has been in England for a long time. I'm here because I need to learn how to get along with just one leg." He stopped, but it seemed like he wasn't done.
"I couldn't come yesterday because… " There was a long pause, then Arig took an unsteady and deep breath, "because the Ministry of Magic was… well, let's just say that there are a lot of hoops to jump through when you're a Lycanthrope. I lost my left leg when I was attacked by a werewolf, and now I'm one, too."
There was a collective gasp, but Arig went on, "I'm guessing that you probably don't want to share a room with a werewolf. Believe me, I'd rather not, too. But I won't be in here when the moon is transitioning. I'll have my own room and also a potion that keeps me from fully transforming, so you'll be completely safe. I'm actually taking that potion right now because the full moon will be on Saturday."