Ms. Midgeon explained that they could keep the training clothes for their next class and simply wait on the benches if they were in the O&M room. As Harry went back to his changing room to put on his trainers, he wondered how it was going to work with both the navigation class and the balance class in the same space. Tony and Arig were in Gemma's balance class. Harry was feeling like he could use more work on his balance, but also wanted to learn more about navigating with his staff.
He went back to the benches and found an empty space on the bench to sit. Gemma came back out and sat next to him.
"Do you have a broom here, Gemma?" Harry asked.
She tapped once on his arm, "no," and then tapped on his chest with her finger. It took him a second to understand, "Uh, yes, in my staff," he answered.
She took his palm in her hand and wrote, "S-H-O-W" space "M-E-?"
He nodded and was summoning it from his staff when he heard Arig approaching them, "Ha! I have mine in my crutches, too! Sometimes I'm really tempted to get it out and just fly. Especially when my arms are killing me. Of course, I can't do that out on Charing Cross Road, but maybe I could do it here in the Center."
Harry laughed as he pulled his broom out of his staff imagining Arig zooming through the corridors on a broom.
"Oh, wow! A Nimbus 2000!" Tony said, sitting on a bench in front of them. "Do you think I could try it? See if I can manage a broom with my new arms?"
"You mean in here?" Harry asked, his fingertips running over the familiar grain of the wood. Gemma was also feeling the broom handle—her fingers brushed against his.
"Yeah, could I just take it for a spin? It's padded, so even if I crash, it's not going to get hurt," Tony pleaded.
"I guess so," Harry said reluctantly. He really wanted to fly, but he wanted to do it in a larger space where he was less likely to run into a wall right away.
Harry held the broom out so that Tony could take it. It was hard for him to grasp and it took a moment for him to take it from Harry, but he managed. "Thanks!"
Harry listened to Tony's footsteps as he walked to the padded area of the gymnasium and listened, trying to hear him take off. He could hear some of the sounds of someone flying on a broom—the sound of wind moving through clothing and the very slight rattling of the bristles of the broom rubbing together whenever Tony went close by them. Mostly what he could hear was Tony's whoops of joy as he flew. He sounded really happy.
"That does sound like fun," Aminah said softly. Harry hadn't noticed that she had sat down on the bench behind them.
"Yeah, it does," Harry agreed.
"Even though I wasn't on a Quidditch team, I did like flying lessons. It is really fun just to zoom around," Aminah said.
Gemma wrote a question mark in his hand.
"Hey Aminah, come over here so that Gemma can read your notes," Harry suggested.
"Oh, sorry, Gemma," Aminah stood up behind them. He felt Gemma helping guide Aminah over the bench between them and then to a seat on her other side. He leaned out of the way.
Harry heard someone approaching using a staff for guidance. He imagined it was Godric. Fitz and Adam were sitting on a bench on the other side of the corridor talking quietly.
"Is Tony flying on a broom?" Godric asked.
"Um, yes," Harry answered.
"Hey, Tony. Come down here," Godric yelled.
Harry heard him dismounting a little clumsily at the edge of the mats.
"Hiya, Mr. Burbage," Tony said.
"Hey, Tony—this really isn't the place for flying brooms. And it should be outfitted with a bell charm so that the blind students don't get blindsided, okay?"
"Uh, okay. It's not my broom," Tony said.
"It's my broom," Harry stood up, shaking out his staff and stumbling over Gemma and Aminah's knees and feet as he tried to walk to the corridor. "Sorry," he said quietly to his friends.
"How do you charm it with the little bell sound?" Harry asked. Tony tapped his knuckles with the broom handle, and Harry took his broom.
"Oh, it's a simple charm—Campanis minima," Godric said. "You should be able to cast it with your staff as it is considered a navigational aid, so it is one of the charms that is built into your staff."
"Can you change the sounds so that you can tell what's near you if you've charmed multiple items with the same spell?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, you can. Are you thinking about Quidditch?" Godric asked.
"Um, yeah. Some of us were wanting to play," Harry admitted.
"Well, then we need to work on your navigational skills so that you can do that," Godric said.
"Is it possible, then?" Harry asked, his heart racing.
"Of course! I do it!" Godric laughed quietly. "Okay, are we ready to start working on navigating?"
Godric gathered up his group and led them through the gymnasium to another door that Harry hadn't paid much attention to on the map when he'd been examining it earlier. Harry waved to Gemma as they were leaving, hoping that she saw him.
When everyone was gathered in the little entryway by the door, Godric stopped them.
"Okay, we're going outside to the park we were in yesterday, but this time we're entering from the north, instead of from the south. Do you remember walking by this building when we were walking around the park?
Harry thought carefully and remembered that his staff had described a large stone building on the north side of the park. "Is it the big stone building that we passed?" Harry asked.
"Yes, that's right. Do you happen to remember the color of the stone?" Godric asked.
"Um, no," Harry hadn't thought to cast the Indica color charm on the building.
"Oh, is it the yellow sandstone one?" Aminah asked.
"Yes, that's the one," Godric said.
"Why does the color matter?" asked Fitz.
"Well, you'd be surprised at how many sighted people will give directions by describing colors. So if you happen to know the colors of familiar landmarks, it can be helpful," Godric explained.
"Of course, some of us can see color, right?" Godric went on.
"Yeah, I can see some color, if it is big enough or close enough," Fitz said.
Harry was surprised by this. He hadn't really thought about how Aminah, Fitz, or Godric might see some things. He chided himself.
I can see bright light and I never thought about blind people being able to see light until I couldn't see. I had always assumed that blind meant absolute dark.
It's not really dark, either, it is just nothing. But it's weird because when I hear things, I start to visualize them as shapes. Like when someone is walking toward me, it's almost as if I can hear all of them, not just their footsteps. I'm not just thinking about their feet, but about their whole body and what shape it is by the sound of their feet, even if I've never seen them before.
Harry realized that he was being left behind when he felt the hot summer air on his face and heard his classmates walking through the door. He closed his eyes against the bright light that came through the open door, and followed the sound of the group through the door and outside.
Godric had them practice finding landmarks and walking across different kinds of terrain by sending them all in different directions and then return to the picnic benches they had worked at the first time they'd met. It wasn't nearly as hard as it had been walking on the mountain path in Mont Blanc or on the beach at Fernando Po and Harry found that it was really nice just to be outside and walking. His landmark was the post box.
What's a post box doing inside a park?
He soon realized that his staff was leading him outside of the park to the street.
That makes more sense.
His staff told him that he had reached the post box, but when he stuck his hand out to confirm that he'd found it, all he could feel was the scratchy branches of a hedgerow. When he asked his staff to describe the area, it mentioned the post box, but he couldn't find it. All he could find was hedgerow. He tried low and high and all around and he was beginning to feel really silly for spending so much time feeling the hedgerow. He tried poking around on the ground in front of him with his staff, but couldn't find the base. The hedgerow was even more dense down there. He tried walking around the corner and navigating back to it, but kept ending up in the same spot. His hands were getting scratched up by the pruned branches.
It was kind of eerie to be in a town with no inhabitants, but he was thankful that there weren't any witnesses to his predicament.
He finally resorted to sticking the top of the staff into the bushes and finally made contact with something metal. It was down lower than he imagined a post box would be and nearly completely overgrown by the hedgerow. Godric had given him a letter to put in the post box, so Harry found the hole and stuck the letter in after feeling the stamp to make sure it was stuck on securely. He then asked his staff to give him directions back to the picnic area in the park.
His staff was taking him along the road outside of the park instead of through it and the path was narrow where the hedgerow pushing out toward the road… a couple times he had to walk in the road to avoid hitting his head on the branches of the hedgerow.
I'm not even that tall.
He was glad there wasn't any traffic, remembering his nerve-wracking walk from Privet Drive to the train station on Monday morning. Three days ago. It seems like an eternity.
Finally, his staff directed him to turn left onto a walkway to the park and he found that he recognized the path from when they had been walking the day before.
He heard someone walking a little way ahead of him and use the Reveleo Memento charm on his staff to see if it was someone he knew, "Fitz Warren is walking 5 yards ahead of you."
"Hi, Fitz," Harry called out. He heard Fitz stop.
"Oh, hi, Harry. How did your landmark hunt go?" Fitz asked as he came up and they started walking toward the picnic area together.
"I found the post box eventually, but it was totally overgrown by a hedgerow, so it took a while, and posted the letter," Harry said. "How about you?" It took some concentration to stay on the path, listen to the directions from his staff, and talk to Fitz.
"Yeah, I found the red telephone box," Fitz said "but how muggles use that contraption to communicate is beyond me. I was supposed to circle it or something. Nothing happened. I couldn't get around the whole thing, so maybe that's why. It was against a building."
Harry stifled a laugh, "You mean ring someone?"
"Yes, that was it. Do you know how to do it?" Fitz asked.
"Did you go inside it?" Harry asked.
"Um, no. Is it an entrance?" Fitz asked.
"No, er, well, I guess so, but just for privacy—it is small space that holds a telephone—it looks like a small box with buttons on it and a handle that you hold against your ear to listen and your mouth to talk. Then you press the numbers of the person you want to ring," Harry explained.
"What? How on earth was I supposed to know that?" Fitz said.
"No idea," Harry commiserated. He wondered if he'd be able to call Hermione from the phone box and wondered how many coins he'd need to make a call. Would it be connected? What about the letter he posted? It felt like it had a real muggle stamp on it.
"So, are you Muggle-born, then?" Fitz asked.
"No, raised by muggles."
"Oh, that's odd. Don't hear of that too often."
"Nope," Harry agreed. Up ahead he could hear voices and guessed that they were getting close to the picnic area. "I think we're almost there."
"So, did they know you were a wizard when they took you in?"
"Uh, I dunno," Harry said. "Have you flown on a broom since you went blind?"
"Huh? Oh, no. How could I?"
"I was just thinking that a broom could be fitted up with charms like our staves and maybe we could put that bell charm on the snitch and quaffle and bludgers."
"Bludgers and blind people on brooms. That sounds like a bloody brilliant idea."
"I guess we wouldn't have to use the bludgers at first until we got good at it," Harry reasoned.
"Hey, Harry and Fitz, come join us over here. You're the last two. Of course, you had the farthest to travel," Godric greeted. "So, I'd like everyone to tell us about their experiences and what charms they used to find their way."
Harry tried to listen to his peers, but he found he was still thinking about flying on his broom.