Harry nearly fell off the bench when the explosion rocked the house. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was shouting "Protego!" not aware that he'd flicked his wand into his hand, had crouched under the table, and was pulling Ginny and Ron with him. Shrieking erupted around him—he wasn't sure who was screaming. He heard Charlie jump up. The plaster sounded like rain as it hit his shield.

"Fred and George!" Mrs. Weasley bellowed. "For the love of Morgana, those two are going to be the death of me!" Harry heard her storm out of the room and up the stairs.

Harry put his arm over Ginny, but Ron was struggling to get out of his grasp and out from under the table.

"Harry, it's okay—it's just the twins. One of their experiments. Happens all the time, mate," Ron laughed. "Come on. It's okay. Well, I mean we've got plaster in our tea, but no harm done."

"Merlin's beard! You've got some reflexes!" Charlie shouted, his voice distant because he was on the other side of the shield. Harry could hear shuffling and grunting and finally, Charlie asked, "Harry, you can 'Finite' your protection charm—we're safe now. Nothing else is going to fall on us."

Harry started emerging from under the table and murmured, "Finite."

"Ginny, are you okay?" Harry asked, bending down under the table again. She was trembling next to him and not following him back up.

He could hear Mrs. Weasley's progress through the house and then her voice thundered—he was pretty sure it was magically magnified as there was no way she could be that loud naturally. It reminded him of the howler Ron had received after the fiasco with the Ford Anglia. He cringed in empathy with the twins at the same time that he wanted to join in bellowing at them.

What on earth were they doing?

Harry could hear Charlie vanishing the plaster dust with an Evanesco charm while Ron was pouring out their tea at the sink. "Uh oh, I don't think we can salvage mum's cake."

"Ginny?"

"I'm here, Harry. That… that was loud," she said.

"Yeah. I didn't like it either. Are you still wearing the blindfold?" he asked, returning to the underneath of the table and running his hands over her hair and finding the blindfold still in place. "You can take it off, you know."

"I know. I did for a bit when I was scared, but I put it back on. You can't… I'm going to try to do it today."

"Are you two coming out from under the table or what?" Ron demanded.

"We're coming, Ron. Keep your pants on," Ginny retorted as she started crawling back to the bench.

It seemed that Percy had joined in yell-fest in the upper floors of the Burrow and that he was ranting as he descended the stairs to the kitchen. Harry had settled back on the bench when Percy walked in—his tones reduced to mutterings by the time he was sitting heavily on the bench beside Harry.

"… caused an entire inkwell to spill on my parchment and I couldn't clean it off without removing the entire letter I'd written to Penelope!" Percy said to the room.

"That's the pits, Percy," Charlie commiserated. "I'm sure it'll be a better letter the second time you write it."

"I doubt it. They don't think about anyone else. Totally absorbed in their own world. No consideration of those of us around them," Percy continued.

Harry accepted the fresh cup of tea from Ron and started to take a bite from his toast until his tongue encountered plaster dust and he sputtered and tried to wipe off his tongue.

"Oh, yeah. Harry, don't eat that. I hadn't cleaned the table yet. It's covered with plaster and who knows what else," Charlie said, whisking the plate away.

"Wanna ride brooms, Harry? We can go down to the orchard and fly," Ron invited.

"Er. I said I'd help Ginny do her chores. How about we help her with her chores and then we go fly?" Harry suggested.

"Ginny, why are you wearing a tie over your eyes?" Percy asked.

"Harry's showing me what it's like for him," Ginny said.

"Well, that seems like a waste of time. I don't know how that's going to help anything," Percy said.

"Yeah," grumbled Ron in agreement. "Look, you've already spilled sugar all over the table. You're making a mess."

"That's plaster, Ron!" Ginny exclaimed and Harry could hear her brushing it from the table.

"Oh, come off it, you lot," Charlie prodded. "Maybe this is just what Ginny needs. And Ron, that's rich coming from you—the boy with the table manners of a mountain troll."

Percy shook out a paper and Harry was reminded of Uncle Vernon's morning habit of reading the paper and shaking it vigorously to remind those around him to be quiet. At the thought of the Daily Prophet, Harry's gut seized and he wondered if that reporter had written anything about him. No doubt Percy would read anything like that aloud to the room.

In an attempt to push those thoughts out of his mind, Harry got up from the bench and shook out his staff, then picked up his teacup and said, "Navigant sink."

"Here, Harry, I can take that for you," Ron said, jumping up and trying to grab the cup from Harry's hands.

"It's okay, Ron," Harry said pulling it back, "I can get it."

"Whatever, I was just trying to help out," Ron sulked.

"I know. I just don't want to be fussed over. I can still do things for myself, you know," Harry said.

"Fussing over people is what we're trained to do around here, don't you know, Harry?" Charlie joked, his teacup rattling in the saucer as he laughed.

"Yeah, I know."

Harry found the sink and washed out his cup and saucer in the warm soapy water he found in a basin—carefully working around the larger dishes that were cleaning themselves magically. Ron hovered nearby and moved around Harry hurriedly cleaning his own cup and saucer. He reached around Harry awkwardly at times, moving things around and getting in his way. Harry, with help from his staff, found a tea towel to dry his cup and saucer.

After feeling Ron brush against his arm again, Harry finally asked, "What are you doing, Ron?"

"Just trying to make it easier for you. There's stuff that you could knock over," Ron said.

Harry stood with the saucer and the tea towel in his hands, his staff in the crook of his elbow, and took in a deep breath and wiggled his toes, remembering one of the lessons with Ms. Midgeon.

"What?" Ron asked. "What are you doing?"

"I'm just remembering to breathe," Harry said as he took another deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Pshew! As if you'd forget to breathe," Ron said dismissively.

Harry took in another deep breath, trying to calm his heart which was trying to gallop out of his throat.

"Ron, why don't you let Harry finish putting away his dishes," Charlie asked.

"Merlin's bullocks! I'm just trying to help! Why is everyone always ganging up on me?" Ron exclaimed as he stormed off. The aroma of mint was pushed into the room by the slamming door.

Harry breathed out again and then Navigant'd to the cupboard to put his teacup and saucer away.

"Harry, is he like that at school, too? I don't know how he manages to get away with being such a lumbering Chimera," Charlie groused.

"Yeah, well. He feels things in a pretty big way, doesn't he?" Harry said.

"He was like that as a baby, too. One moment fine, the next moment balling his head off," Charlie said.

"Hey, Ginny, do you want to try using my staff? It's pretty handy," Harry invited.

"But don't you need it, Harry," Ginny replied tentatively.

"Sure, but I can get around without it for a bit—I want you to try using it," Harry said.

"I'm interested in your staff, too, Harry. It looks like it does a lot more than the one that Godric used when he was at Hogwarts," Charlie said.

"Really? I think he uses one just like mine now," Harry said. "The clerk at Wiseacre's said that Godric helped them develop a lot of their adaptive magical tools. Maybe he worked on the staff, too."

"Could be, he's really creative," Charlie said.

Harry walked across the kitchen to Ginny. He could feel the heat of the fire in the hearth more intensely on this side of the table, but wondered if the Weasleys had some sort of cooling charm set on the rest of the room that kept it from getting unbearably hot like the kitchen in the Braille home. It definitely was a lot more comfortable at the Weasleys.

Harry's staff guided him around the cauldrons, brooms, pails, and chairs that cluttered the walkways—the silver tip tinging against them. He felt a little panicky at the thought of giving up his staff to Ginny, especially at the Burrow where there were so many things to trip over—but steeled himself. He had more experience navigating without sight and if she was going to trust that he was okay, then she needed to know that getting around wasn't so hard… and it was definitely a lot easier with his staff and aftí.

"Oh, sorry," he said as he reached out thinking that he'd find her shoulder and touched the back of her head instead. "Here's my staff."

She found his arm and stood up tentatively, "I dunno, Harry."

"I'm going to also give you the aftí—it's the little metal piece that you put on your ear and then you can hear the staff talking to you," he said as he took it off his ear and placed it in her palm. "It goes on the helix of your ear."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Here, I'll help you put it on," he said and he smoothed back her hair to reveal her ear and placed the aftí. "So you can use the staff as an extension of your fingers—to feel the ground in front of you. Hold it with your index finger pointing down the length of the staff and swing it from side to side. Swing it to the left and step forward with your right foot, then swing it to the right and step forward with your left foot—that way you know that the way is clear for your foot as you advance."

"It makes a nice noise," Ginny said.

"That's the goblin silver tip I made at the workshop—I like the way it sounds, too. I can tell what things are by listening to the sounds it makes as it strikes them and also to the way it bounces off things around it—like the walls and the ceiling. I can tell that the ceiling is low here by the fireplace—my staff tells me that, too, so that I know when to duck so that I don't hit my head."

"You're not going to know, Harry," Ginny said horrified and tried to push the staff back into his hands.

"It's okay. I'll be careful. You try it. Walk along the table here," Harry encouraged, pushing the staff back to Ginny. "I'll just stay here. And Charlie will make sure I don't run into anything, right?"

"Sure thing, Harry."

"If we were outside you'd hold it right about at your navel and swing it from side to side about the width of your body. It's probably a little tall for you, but it should still work okay. When we're inside, you hold it a little more close to your body, but still swing it from side to side. Some people let it touch the ground on either side, others have a ball attachment that rolls as it glides over the ground. It kind of depends on what you need. Is it telling you what is around you? Can you hear the aftí speaking in your ear?"

"Yeah, it's describing the room to me as I move it. That's pretty cool. Ron should try this, too. I think it'd help him feel better," Ginny said.

"Oh," said Harry.

Charlie was standing by him and put his arm around his shoulders. "Hey, Harry. Don't take it so hard. I think a lot of us are feeling that way… like we should have been the ones defending our little sister from Tom Riddle and the Basilisk." Ginny made a small sound—a gasp or a sob. "Lot of Weasley guilt swirling around the burrow. We all handle it differently. The twins blow things up, Ron runs off, Percy pretends that nothing has happened. You're just going to have to get used to it. I think the lot of us should talk to a Mind Healer."

"Yeah, it does help," Harry agreed reluctantly.

Percy shook his paper forcefully as if to push the noise away.

"See what I mean?" Charlie whispered.

Harry let out a breath of air that almost sounded like a laugh—though it was hollow. He sucked it back in quickly.

"Am I doing it right, Harry?" Ginny asked from across the room.

"Have you run into anything yet?" Harry asked.

"No, and it keeps talking to me," Ginny said.

"Then you're doing great."

"This is pretty cool."

"Do you want to try navigating somewhere?" Harry asked walking toward her while trailing his hand on the table to his left. "Like ask it to tell you how to get someplace else? You can also ask it to help you find things—like I did with the tea towel or if you want it to take you to a person—as long as they've been Memento'd into the staff already."

"Oh, that's neat. How about the sitting room?"

"Okay, then say, Navigant sitting room," Harry instructed.

He heard her whispering the incantation and then walking toward the sitting room.

Harry had reached the end of the kitchen table—long though it was to accommodate all the Weasleys.

Charlie tapped the back of his hand with his and Harry accepted his sighted guide and went with him to the sitting room to follow Ginny's progress. Charlie was careful leading Harry around the tight spaces and giving him cues about where he was in the room. "This is a narrow spot, Harry—the armchair on your left has a stack of cookbooks piled high on the seat—careful you don't send them cascading as we pass by." Harry could hear knitting needles clicking efficiently behind the stack of books—recognizing the sound from his first visit to the Burrow.

He heard Ron enter quietly through the back door and turned his head in Ron's direction.

"Yeah, I'm back," Ron muttered.

"Good," Harry said. "Ginny, do you think you're ready to feed the hens and gather their eggs?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Ginny responded turning toward him.

"Ron, do you want to guide Harry? I think I should see if mum needs help. It seems like she's been up there a long time. I wonder if they got injured and she's healing them," Charlie said.

"Sure, I can do that," Ron said grudgingly stepping forward near Harry and Charlie.

"Thanks, Ron," Harry said.

"Yeah. Sorry I ran off. I'm … well. You know," Ron huffed.

"It's okay. I knew you'd be back," Harry reassured. "So, Ginny, you know how to ask the staff to tell you how to get to the hen coop, right? Go ahead and Navigant there and we'll follow you."

"Hey, first help me with my chores. I need to finish the dishes and sweep the kitchen," Ron said. "Then, we can go and help Ginny do her chores."

"Are you going to do them blindfolded, too?" Ginny asked.

"What?" Ron exclaimed. "Naw. Harry doesn't have another Gryffindor tie."

"But we could summon one from your room, I bet," Harry said flicking out his wand, "Accio Ron's Gryffindor tie."

"Great, that's just what I need. How are we going to sweep the kitchen if we're all blind?"

"Don't you all use magic to sweep?" Harry asked as the tie floated into his outstretched hand.

"Naw, mum makes us do it the muggle way. Says it builds character. Though I think she was tired of random things getting vanished along with the dust and dirt," Ron explained as he took the tie from Harry.

"So, how are we going to do this if we all can't see? Who's going to lead us to the kitchen?"

"We can follow Ginny," Harry suggested.

"I dunno about this. If we break something, mum's going to flay us. She's already been put over the edge by the explosion," Ron said.

"If we break something, it'll be my fault, okay? And we can just do the repairing charm," Harry said.

"And have it rainbow colored? Well, if you do it, then she'll probably think it's straight from Morgana's cauldron."

"Hey, are you two coming or not," Ginny said from across the room.

"Did you already put on the tie?" Harry asked.

"Um, yeah. Harry where are you? I can't see!" Ron said.

"Very fun… " Harry started to say, but then Ron was flailing around and whacked Harry in the chest, pushing him into the tower of cookbooks that came crashing down, scraping his shins and landing on Harry's toes. Harry yelped in pain.

"Pixie snot!" Ron yelled as they both bent down to pick up the books and collided heads.

"Oh, ow."

They managed to stack them back up. Little bits of parchment and newspaper clippings had fallen out, too, and they put those in a pile on top of the stack. The knitting kept clicking rhythmically.

Harry's sense of where he was in the sitting room was disrupted by the commotion and his smarting head—he felt disoriented.

"Ron, do you know where we are in the sitting room and how to get to the door to the kitchen?"

"Sure, we're by the sofa, see the footsto… umph! Yeah. It's right here," Ron had gone down with a thud.

"Nice one, Ron," Harry smiled and crouched down trying to find Ron's arms to help pull him up.

"Ow. How do you do this every day?"

"Navigant kitchen," Harry said.

"Walk two feet to your left and then turn and walk ten feet straight ahead," a clipped and disembodied voice said.

"Whoa! I thought Ginny had your staff," Ron said.

"She does, but I thought I'd try the charm with my wand to see what happens," Harry said. "That's cool. I'm glad to know that there's a backup."

"Why use your staff at all?" Ron said.

"Well, I can feel the ground with my staff and listen to the echoes and get a sense of the size of a room and also it is kind of a warning to the people around me to watch out as well… at least that's what Godric says," Harry explained.

"Oh, yeah. I guess that would be handy, except the part where you're warning everyone to get out of your way—I'd think that'd be embarrassing," Ron admitted as they made their way through the sitting room to the kitchen without upending anything else.

"It's more embarrassing to fall down in front of people, I think," Harry said.

"Yeah. And it hurts," Ron said and Harry could feel him bending down to rub his shin.

Harry could hear Ginny opening a door and guessed that she was getting the brooms out.

"We have two brooms and a dustpan. How are we going to do this?" she asked.

"What? Now Ron's blind, too?" Percy said as he got up noisily crushing the paper as he slammed it on the table and left the room.

"Well, it's best to be really methodical about it. Did you close that closet door, Ginny?" Harry asked.

"Um, no," and he heard the door close.

"Trust me, it really hurts to run into an open door—better to just close them so that you know."

"So, at Privet Drive, I'd start in one corner and work my way across the floor in small sections. I also learned that if I take off my shoes and socks, I can feel the dirt better and have a better sense for when the floor is actually clean," Harry explained.

Ron snorted.

"What?"

"I dunno why you had to be so precise about it—it's just a kitchen floor that's going to get slopped on the next mealtime," Ron said.

"Well, you'd do it, too, if Aunt Petunia was going to hit you with the cast iron skillet if you didn't get every last speck of dirt," Harry said without thinking it through.

"What? She didn't hit you after you were blinded, did she?" Ron asked.

"Um, yeah, well. I'll take a broom. Ron, do you want the other broom?" Harry asked finding the broom that Ginny was holding out to him.

"Seriously, she didn't hit a blind kid for missing some dirt in her kitchen just days after he was blinded?"

"So, I used a can of soup to mark my progress across the floor so that I'd know where I was," Harry said.

"With a cast-iron skillet? Are you serious, mate?" Ron had stormed over to him and Harry suspected that he had ripped off his blindfold.

"Hey, never mind, Ron, it's fine," Harry tried to soothe, though he felt the sting of being called a blind kid at the same time that he was berating himself for letting that slip.

I'm so stupid!

"It's not fine. I'm telling mum. You can't go back there, Harry!" and he stormed out of the room again.

"Well, that's one way to get out of his chores," Ginny sighed. "He's kind of a genius at it, actually. They didn't actually hit you, did they?"

"So, if we start in this corner, we can work along the cabinets here all the way to the back door. We can either sweep up each little pile as we make it or use something to mark a bigger pile that we add to. Did you take off your shoes and socks?"

"Yeah. Harry, my Mind Healer says that talking about big things can help chip them down so that they are easier to handle… kind of like sharing the weight of the load. You don't have to carry it all by yourself," Ginny said.

"Yeah? That seems really … wise. So, is it helping, Ginny?" Harry asked.

"I guess so. I can get out of bed now… so yeah… " Ginny said.

"Yeah, that's good," Harry said as he set his trainers with the socks stuffed in them on the bench. He could feel a fair amount of dirt on the floor with his bare feet, even after Charlie had cleaned up the plaster.

He started sweeping along the cabinets and Ginny started sweeping along the benches. Harry placed the edge of the dustpan where he started at a broom's width away from the cabinet so that he'd know where to start the next row. He left his pile by the back door and made his way back to the dustpan to start his second row. In the Burrow, sweeping was almost a pleasant task—without the weight of the frying pan hanging over his head.

Harry could hear Ginny adding her pile to his—but he didn't hear his staff.

"Are you still holding my staff?" he asked.

"No, I put it by the broom closet," Ginny said.

He was tempted to summon it, but didn't.

Ginny cursed and Harry guessed that she'd run into the bench.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just found the bench with my kneecap."

"If the bruise is bad, I have a bottle of essence of dittany in my staff. It works quickly. Also, I've learned a healing charm."

"Naw, I'm okay."

Ron's progress back to the kitchen was preceded by the thunderous stomping of his feet—Harry could feel the house shaking through his bare feet on the kitchen floor.

"I'm back!" Ron announced.

"We know," said Ginny.

"What? How'd you know?"

"Seriously, Ron? You are like a herd of Erumpents!"

"We've got a pile ready for you to sweep up," Harry said.

"Hey, this looks good! Thanks!" Ron said.

"You're welcome, Ron." Ginny's tone had a sardonic edge.

"Oh, wait. I've got to wash the dishes, too," Ron said as he gathered up the dishes from the table in a clattering of china and piled it into the sink.

By the time he'd finished the dishes, Ginny and Harry had swept their pile into the dustpan and thrown it out in the yard.

"Harry, I don't want to do the blindfold thing today. Maybe another day, mate, okay?" Ron said as they made their way out to the hen house.

"No worries," Harry said.

It didn't take long to determine that Ron was not the best guide through the minefield of gnome burrows in the yard, so Harry talked Ginny through the main points of being led by a guide and Ginny took Harry's arm while he used his staff to find the hen house. They were making their way through the yard slowly while Ron walked next to them making comments about the burrows in an attempt to be helpful.

The Weasley chickens weren't quite as docile as the hens at the Braille Farm and Harry rubbed a spot on the back of his hand where a hen had nailed him with her beak. He managed not to drop the egg. That, in itself, felt like a victory.

"Here, I'll run these back to the kitchen, then we can head to the broom shed and the orchard to fly, okay?" Ron offered as he ran back to the house without waiting for their answer.

"I don't know about flying, Harry," Ginny said as he and his staff led the way to the broom shed.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You know, you could take the blindfold off while we fly," Harry said.

"Yeah, I know. I really want to try doing this today while you're here. At first, it was really pretty scary to not be able to see—especially with that explosion—but the longer I do it … I'm not as scared. I'm so used to looking at things, that I didn't realize how much I hear, feel, smell, and taste things, too. It's not all vision. I really thought you were … I dunno… cut off from everything," Ginny explained.

"Yeah. It's bloody inconvenient and frustrating sometimes, but it's not the end of the world," Harry said. And he realized that it was true.