Harry felt raw when he left Besel's office. It was as if he had been cracked open and his innards poked with a sharp stick. It was really hard work and all he was doing was sitting around and talking about his feelings.

I'm knackered!

They did work in an herb garden for a bit and he really enjoyed the fragrant little plants and sinking his hands into the dirt. It made him wistful for Little Friend, though. He told Besel more about the little snake. He asked if they could do more of that next time and Besel seemed glad that he requested it.

As he was leaving Besel's office, he remembered that he was supposed to meet with Professor McGonagall and Healer Jordan. He was really tempted to slip on his invisibility cloak and just walk away. Really tempted.

"Harry, how are you?" Healer Jordan greeted him. "Professor McGonagall is here. Do you feel up to talking with us for a little bit?"

"Er, sure," Harry said reluctantly. He walked over to Healer Jordan, his silver tip tinged on a chair leg as he walked by.

"Hello, Harry," Professor McGonagall said.

"Hello, Professor," Harry said.

"Harry, there's a chair on your right about two feet," Healer Jordan told him. He found it and sat down and collapsed his staff.

"Would you like some tea and biscuits?" Healer Jordan asked.

"Yes, please," he said as his stomach rumbled.

There was a bit of awkward silence as his tea and biscuits were sorted out. He nibbled on a chocolate digestive and waited. He could feel a strange tension in the air and he was straining to figure it out.

"So, Harry," Professor McGonagall began. "I've been looking into the matter of your… the Dursleys. It seems we were greatly misled in terms of their ability to care for you… as you should have been cared for. And I… I'm very sorry for my part in all of this."

Harry sat still, his hand holding the teacup began to tremble a bit, rattling the china. It didn't seem like Professor McGonagall was done yet.

"I want you to know that we're working on a solution," she finished. Harry felt like there was a lot she wasn't telling him.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "What kind of solution?"

"Well, we don't know yet. It is more complicated than simply removing you from their care," she said.

"What? Do you mean I might not… " He was afraid to say; afraid to jinx it.

"What would help us, Harry," Healer Jordan stepped into the conversation, "would be if you could share some memories with us about your time with the Dursleys."

"Like tell you about them?" Harry asked, confused.

"No, it is a process that allows others to experience your memories as if they were there. Remember, we were talking about this as part of your Mind Healing experience?" she explained.

"Oh, yeah," Harry said. "What memories do you want?"

"We'd want several memories to give us an idea of what it was like for you to live with them—your worst and best and examples of a typical day," Healer Jordan said.

"I dunno," Harry grumbled. "There's not much to share, is there? It's just the Dursleys… sitting in my cupboard, doing chores, getting in trouble, right?"

"What do you mean 'sitting in your cupboard?" Professor McGonagall said sharply.

"You know, where my Hogwarts letter was addressed to… Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard Under the Stairs," he quoted.

Harry wondered if Healer Jordan and Professor McGonagall were each holding their breath. He cocked his head.

"You knew, right?" he asked quietly, pointing his nose in Professor McGonagall's direction.

She let out her breath, "No, Harry, I didn't."

"Oh, I thought you knew."

"I'd like to know now," she said, her voice breaking a bit.

"Harry, if you choose to share some memories with us, then we will carefully extract the memories you've chosen—you just think about them while we're performing the charm—to view in a pensieve," Healer Jordan explained.

"What's a pensieve?"

"It is a special magical object that can hold the memories—it can also reveal things that were happening during the memory that you may not have been aware of… it has the ability to view things more holistically," she said.

"Will they be gone from my memory, then?" he asked.

"No, you keep your memory. For this, you'd just be sharing it with us," Healer Jordan explained. "So, Harry, are you willing to share some memories with us of your childhood with the Dursleys?"

"I dunno," Harry said hesitantly. "You said that you can't remove me from their care. So that means I have to go back to them, right? What if what I share with you… what if it makes it worse?" The words rushed out of him and he wished he could swallow them back.

"Is that why you're reluctant to tell us about how they treat you?" Healer Jordan asked.

Harry shrugged and put his hands under his legs.

There was a long silence as if they were waiting for an answer.

"It always gets worse when people poke around," he finally admitted so quietly that he could hear both Healer Jordan and Professor McGonagall shift in their seats as if they were leaning forward to hear him better.

"Harry, I promised you earlier that I would do everything within my power to make sure that wouldn't be the case. In order to do that, we need to know what we're dealing with. We need to know what has been going on. I know that this means you have to trust me and I understand that many adults in your life have not been worthy of that trust. I hope that I can earn your trust. I won't press you on this anymore. When you are ready to share the memories, please let me know," Healer Jordan said.

"Okay," Harry breathed out a captive breath.

Professor McGonagall made a strangled noise—as if she'd stopped herself from exclaiming. He felt the air moving as if someone was waving a fan. He furrowed his brow, trying to figure it out.

Harry was tempted to remind Healer Jordan to talk to Professor McGonagall about how she'd forbidden him to fly, but he couldn't form the words.

"Is there anything else, Healer Jordan, or can I go to dinner?" Harry asked.

"That's all for now, Harry. Thank you," Healer Jordan said.

"Okay, thanks. Bye Professor McGonagall," Harry said as he stood up.

"Yes, Harry. I'll visit again soon," Professor McGonagall said. Harry's surprise must have shown on his face. "I'll be working closely with Healer Jordan on this. I, too, need to earn your trust," she said.

"Er," Harry said, "Thanks, Professor." She pressed her hand onto his shoulder and he flinched.

"Sorry, Harry. I should have told you I was going to touch you" she said in a small voice.

"It's okay. Just, it was a surprise."

"Right. I need to remember that," she answered. "Bye, Harry."

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

Harry, Gemma, Peter, and Aminah spent the time after dinner figuring out how to play a braille version of exploding snap that Madam Flamel had lent Peter—it was charmed to work without wands. Since they were all really new at learning braille (Gemma included), it was really slow going with all of their fingers pushing in to read the numbers—but somehow that made it even funnier when the cards exploded. His sides ached from laughing—it felt like ages since he had laughed. He was glad that Gemma made him play—he had tried to sulk off and just go to bed early, but she dragged him over and pretty soon he'd forgotten how tired he was.

As Harry climbed into bed that night, he realized that the fog that had been following him around for a while now seemed to have backed off a bit. Dinner hadn't tasted like cardboard. It was just now as the room was settling down into quiet that he could feel it swirling around him again, settling in his lungs, making his breathing heavy.

He thought about some of the things that Besel had said that might help him when he was feeling that way. He laid in his bed and tried the body scan that they had done in her office—it was easier when she was guiding him with her gentle voice, but he tried doing it for himself. He thought about his toes, one at a time, clenching each of them and then releasing them as he thought about each digit, then the arch of his foot, then the top of his foot, then the heel, up to his ankle… by the time he'd reached the backs of his knees, he was asleep.

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

Harry woke in a heart-stopping lurch when his bed bounced under Gemma's knees. He only knew it was Gemma from the fluttering signs that she was peppering across his back. She wrote "W-A-K-E" space "U-P" on his shoulders—which weren't nearly as sensitive as his palm, so it took him longer to figure out what she was saying… but he kind of figured it out anyway.

"I'm up!" he grumbled.

She took his palm and wrote, "T-E-R-R-Y" space "V-I-S-I-T-I-N-G!"

He sat up suddenly, "What time is it?"

She drew the numbers 7, 3, 0 on his palm.

"Oh!" He was relieved. Ron's coming to visit!

She tugged at his arm, pulling him halfway out of his bed and pushing his staff against his palm. "Okay, okay, I'll get ready," he smiled at her enthusiasm and stretched and extracted his legs from his covers. He poked at the edge of his consciousness… is the fog nearby waiting to envelop me? It was there, but not as thick as it had been yesterday. His limbs felt less heavy.

"What's all the commotion? It's the weekend for Merlin's sake! Can't we sleep in?" Mei splashed grumpily from her tank on the other side of the wall.

"Sorry, Mei," Harry said as he walked by, slipping a bit in a puddle of water.

Harry heard Gemma move by him to go back to her area. Tony (he was pretty sure it was Tony) was really driving his hogs to market. He wondered if he would be getting visitors or going home for the weekend. He'd heard Aminah mention that her mom was coming to pick her up and that she'd be coming back on Sunday evening, after dinner. He wondered what Mei would be doing this weekend and then thought of Arig spending the weekend in a cell while he went through his transformation.

That would be bleak, he thought.

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

Gemma and Harry had the notebook out between them as they ate breakfast. The dining hall was pretty empty. Harry guessed that a lot of the older residents had gone home on Friday after their last class.

He wondered how the Weasleys were going to travel to London as their Flying Ford Anglia was still roaming feral in the Forbidden Forest.

"How's Terry traveling?" Harry asked.

"I think they are doing side-along apparition," Gemma responded.

Harry frowned as he thought about Tony. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to travel that way after learning Tony's story.

"What time are your folks arriving?"

"I think around lunch time. Mum's always late," Gemma wrote. "And Peter's brother was going to pick him up this morning."

"Is Peter going to travel on the tube?" Harry asked, remembering his own experience on it and imagining it would be even harder if you couldn't see or hear. He shuddered remembering his fear of losing Hermione in the crush of people.

Hermione! I never wrote her back!

He listened to the pencil scratching on the paper, then read Gemma's response, "No, I think they're traveling by floo powder. Why did you jump?"

"I just remembered that I never wrote back to Hermione. She asked if I'd mind if she came to visit this weekend, even though the Weasleys are coming," he explained. "Maybe I could ring her… "

"Do you mean on a muggle telephone?" Gemma asked.

"There was one in the O&M room, near the post box in the hedgerow," Harry said. He summoned his muggle money from his staff… he had some coins he'd scrounged while doing laundry and cleaning the sofa and carefully stowed away. The Dursleys would definitely think he was stealing, but he had no other way of getting muggle money. They never gave him an allowance as they did Dudley. Not that he'd ever had an occasion to spend it (they'd know in an instant that it wasn't his money), but he always imagined that it was the money he'd use when he ran away finally. He felt the coins trying to figure out if he had ten pence. Gemma took the coins from his hand and then put one on his palm. "Is this the ten pence?" She tapped his hand twice, "yes."

"How do you know about muggle money?" Harry asked.

"My pa uses it sometimes. He taught me," Gemma explained.

He summoned the slip of paper that Hermione had written her number on and ran his fingers over it, trying to find where she'd written it. He couldn't feel it. He ran his anagnóstis over the paper and found the phone number, and Hermione's voice sounding in his aftí.

He heard Gemma writing, "I can dial it for you."

"Okay, thanks—that'd be easier than trying to read it with my anagnóstis and then trying to dial," Harry said as he put the notebook and anagnóstis in his staff. He stuffed the paper and the ten pence in his pocket as he stood up, shaking out his staff.

Gemma tapped the side of his hand and he grasped her arm. They were walking through the door when Gemma stopped. Harry cocked his head, trying to hear what might have made her stop, then he heard Mei's wheels.

"Hi, Mei," Harry said as he felt Gemma signing.

"Hi. Where are you two off to?"

He felt Gemma replying, so he just waited.

"Sure, it's too early to eat anyway," Mei said.

"You want to come with us?" Harry asked.

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Mei curtly responded.

"Um, I'm just guessing as I can't see what Gemma said to you," Harry reminded her as Gemma started walking toward the O&M room again.

"Oh, right. I forgot. Merlin's beard, it must be a pain for you two to talk," Mei said.

"It's not so bad. But Gemma doesn't like it when we talk while we're walking because she can't follow the conversation," Harry said.

"Right," said Mei, gliding alongside Harry.

Harry heard sounds of metal striking metal coming from the workshop as they passed it and wondered who was working there this early in the morning. There was also a sulfur smell that wafted by.

"Whew, that stinks!" Mei complained.

They turned the corner and stopped outside the door to the O&M room.

"Is it set up as the gym?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, Gemma's just reading the sign to make sure. It looks like it is," Mei said.

Gemma opened the door and motioned for Mei to pass through first, then Harry and Gemma passed through. They followed the sounds of Mei's wheels down the corridor toward the door to the park. When they got outside, Gemma was signing to Mei. It was another cool, drizzly day—he liked hearing the water on the trees and the aroma of wet grass and plants. The wet wood in the hedgerow was really pungent.

"She says she doesn't know where the phone box is. That you need to lead us," Mei said, skepticism in her voice.

"Oh, right," said Harry. He let go of Gemma's arm and said, "Navigant telephone box," then remembered that he had to change how his staff talked to him and made it so he could hear the directions. He thought he could probably get there on his own, but didn't want to attempt it with Mei. She wouldn't be forgiving if he led them down the wrong path. And he could still hear the silver tinging on the path as they walked, over the sounds of his aftí giving him directions in his ear.

He started walking down the footpath and listened as Mei and Gemma followed behind him, Mei's wheels grinding over the gravel on the path, squishing in the mud. She was grumbling about the rain, which he thought was funny, given that she mostly lived in water.

I wonder why she wanted to come with us?

He hoped the muggle repelling charms were working—it could be awkward if they encountered a muggle while walking around with a mermaid… a Jiāorén.

They turned off the footpath onto the pavement and walked along the hedgerow. It sounded like no one else was around. He could smell lilacs nearby.

Pretty soon his staff was telling him that he needed to turn left and cross the street. As he stood listening, Mei said, "Harry, I'll just wait over here. There isn't really a pavement over on the other side of the street and there's a car parked really close to the telephone box. I really hope the muggle repelling charms are working because if anyone sees me… "

"Okay, Mei. Godric said that the charms should work anytime we come over here," he said. Gemma came over to his side and tapped the back of his hand and he took her elbow and she led him across the street and over to the telephone box.

He could hear Mei's wheels moving over the wet pavement nervously. He wondered what she was looking at.

Gemma took his hand off her arm and put it on the door. He found the handle and pulled it open. It smelled musty and a bit rank, but he went inside, arm held up in front of his face in case he was going to walk right into the phone and Gemma followed him.

It's lucky we're both small.

He moved the handle of his staff around the space until he found the telephone. He felt the buttons hoping that he'd be able to read the numbers in braille, but he was surprised that they weren't labeled in braille. There was just a line on the button in the center. It felt grimy. He fished the ten pence out of his pocket and the paper with the number and handed them to Gemma.

"Thanks, Gemma."

She tapped his hand twice, "sure."

He heard her pick up the earpiece and he held out his hand for it. She dropped the ten pence in the slot. Harry listened for the right moment and then signaled for her dial. Harry felt his heart jump into his throat as the ringing started on the line.

"Hullo?" Dr. Granger answered.

"Hello, Dr. Granger, this is Harry Potter. How are you?" Harry said.

"Oh, Harry. How are you?"

"I'm fine, sir. Thanks. It's just that I was hoping to speak to Hermione. Is she there?" Harry said. He really hadn't had many phone conversations… the Dursleys had never let him use the phone, but he remembered Aunt Petunia coaching Dudley on how to properly use the telephone.

"Sure, Harry. Just a moment, I'll get her," Dr. Granger said.

"Thanks," Harry was relieved.

He listened as Dr. Granger's footsteps sounded on the other end of the line and then he could hear Hermione's lighter steps running toward the phone, "Harry?" she nearly screamed into the phone and he held it away from his ear a bit. He could feel Gemma breathing behind him, her breath moving the hairs at the back of his neck. He wondered if she wanted to leave the phone booth. He tried to move closer to the far wall so that she could squeeze by him if she wanted, and she slipped out.

"Hi, Hermione. I'm sorry I didn't answer your last letter," he said. He felt like he should explain why he hadn't answered, but he didn't know how to explain it.

"You asked if I'd mind if you came today and of course, I'd love to see you. I mean it'll be chaos with the Weasleys here, but… you know… the more the merrier," he said in a rush.

"Are you alright, Harry?"

Harry was surprised. She was really amazing—picking up on little things over the phone.

"Well, you know," he said heavily, "I've been better."

"Yeah, I know."

He really appreciated how much she really did get it.

"It's really good to hear your voice, Harry."

"It's good to hear yours, too. I'd really like you to come if you can manage it. There are some people I'd like you to meet… all my roommates: Gemma, Mei, Aminah, Tony, and Arig. And there's Peter and Adam. Some of them will probably be gone visiting their own families. Professor McGonagall came to see me, too. There's a really neat workshop here, too. I made a silver tip for my staff out of goblin silver that has a great tinging sound."

"That sounds great, Harry. I would really like to meet your roommates, too. I'm glad you called because I was trying to decide if I should just come or not. My mum said she had some things she needed to do in London today and she could bring me by and then pick me up afterward. I'll just go tell her that I'll go with her," Hermione said. He could hear raindrops on the roof of the phone box and realized that it was raining harder now.

"Okay, that'll be great. The Weasleys are going to be here at 10, what time do you think you'll get here?" he asked.

"Mum said around the same time. I'll see you soon!" she said as she rang off.

Harry felt around with the earpiece for a bit before he found the hanger.

He left the phone box and took in a deep breath. The rain smelled so good, he didn't mind the cold drops on his head so much. Gemma tapped his hand and he grabbed her elbow. She was trembling as she led him across the street. He wondered if Mei had left them when he didn't hear her once they reached the pavement.

He tapped Gemma on the arm, "Is Mei still here?"

She tapped, "No," on his hand. Then she took his hand and wrote, "L-E-T'S" space "R-U-N."

"Okay!" he nearly shouted and they broke into a run. Harry stumbled a few times, but managed to catch himself—his staff held higher in the air in front of him.

By the time they reached the gym door, they were soaking and laughing hard. Harry could feel Gemma's laughter as it shook her torso and through her arm. They collapsed against the door for a minute, catching their breath, before they heaved it open.