As Harry read through his schedule on Tuesday, he learned that it was pretty similar to his Monday schedule—except that he had just an hour with Godric for working with his staff and there was an hour added in to work with Besel in the herb garden. He was nervous about the time slotted in the afternoon with Professor Lupin.
Harry tried to catch Mei before she went to breakfast, but she had already left when he emerged from the toilet. He did a Reveleo memento charm just to make sure she wasn't just hiding from him—lurking under the surface of the water—hoping that he'd go away. She wasn't at breakfast either.
"Have any of you seen Mei?" Harry asked his roommates at breakfast. Gemma tapped "no," on his arm.
"No, she wasn't in the room last night when I went to bed," Tony responded.
"Actually, I haven't seen her since she was helping you during your nightmare," Arig said.
"You know, she didn't attend Council, either," Aminah mentioned. "I'm worried about her."
"I'm going to go ask Healer Jordan," Harry said as he pushed away from the table, leaving his hardly touched eggs and sausage on his plate. He shook out his staff and walked swiftly through the dining hall.
His imagination went to Mei hurt in the ocean somewhere. She could literally be anywhere… there were sharks and killer whales… submarines or fishing nets… and who knows what other magical creatures lurked in the depths of the ocean. He'd found out nearly three years ago that dragons, trolls, and goblins were real, what about the muggle myths featuring sea creatures such as the Kraken, the Loch Ness, and that giant squid from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?
There were probably things he'd never heard of before, too. Like that creature that Professor Lupin had in a glass jar in his office. He didn't even know what it was—but it lived in water and had nails that were sharp enough that it sounded like they'd eventually make their way through the glass—given enough time. He shuddered at the thought and wondered if such creatures could emerge from Mei's tank while they were all asleep in the dormitory.
He shook his head trying to dislodge the thought and reminded himself that when all the wards had closed their dormitory was flooded—the Egress in Mei's tank was protected, too. Anything that so much as stuck a tentacle across the Egress would probably be zapped just like the bug in his shirt collar had been.
Harry tapped lightly on Healer Jordan's door and waited as he heard her footsteps approaching from the other side. He was pretty sure they were hers.
"Oh, good morning, Harry, what can I do for you?" Healer Jordan greeted him.
"I'm worried about Mei. None of us have seen her since yesterday. Do you know if she's okay?" Harry asked in a rush.
"Oh, come in, Harry," Healer Jordan said and there was a quality to her voice that made his heart jump into this throat. She offered him her arm and Harry felt compelled to explain as she led him to the familiar chair by her desk.
"It's just that she said something to me yesterday that I didn't understand and … well, I still don't understand it… and then she got angry and left… and I haven't seen her since," Harry said. "Well, you know what I mean."
Healer Jordan had settled into the chair next to him, rather than behind her desk.
Harry sat on the edge of his chair, with his hands on his knees, leaning forward and listening carefully. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end and his fingertips felt tingly.
"Harry, Mei is taking some time to be with family—Mei is okay—but needed some time to figure some things out," Healer Jordan said.
He felt the air leave his body—he hadn't realized that he'd been holding his breath until he let it go.
Mei is okay.
Though in Healer Jordan's voice, Harry could hear a heaviness that didn't match her words and his eyebrows pulled together as he tried to puzzle it out.
"Do you know how long she's going to be gone?" Harry asked.
"No, Mei doesn't know how much time is needed," Healer Jordan responded.
"Can I send a message to her? Write her a letter or something?" Harry asked.
"I'm sure Mei would really like to hear from you—especially if you've already started to discuss some of the things they are thinking about," Healer Jordan said.
"They?" Harry asked.
"That Mei's thinking about," Healer Jordan clarified.
"Okay, I'll go write a letter, then. I think I have some time before class starts," Harry said.
"Yes—it is only 7:15 am. Did you eat breakfast? You look a little pale," Healer Jordan said.
"Oh, well—I wasn't hungry…" Harry said.
"Here, let me summon the nutrition potion. You really need to eat, Harry," Healer Jordan said as she whipped out her wand and summoned a glass vial that slapped against her palm when it arrived. "Here," she said.
"Thank you," Harry said as he drank the delicious potion and licked his lips.
"Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?" Healer Jordan asked.
"No," Harry said, though he felt the manifesting fog about Professor Lupin prodding him to speak; it was nothing that he could articulate.
"Okay, well, I hear from all your instructors that you are really working hard on all your work. I know it isn't easy and I appreciate that you're doing your best," Healer Jordan said.
"Er, thanks?" Harry said, not really sure how to respond and he got up to leave. He paused at the door, turning back to Healer Jordan. "Thank you, Healer Jordan, for … well, everything. A safe place to learn… er… to get used to things."
He hurried out—smacking the doorframe with his elbow in his hast to leave—before she had a chance to respond. He felt as though he'd muddled it up. His embarrassment was rising up his neck, burning in his ears as he walked toward the library.
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
Harry pulled out his Quick Quotes Quill to compose a message to Mei—he'd cast a little bubble of silence around himself —the one he'd learned from Healer Jordan—so that he wouldn't disturb anyone in the library and also so they wouldn't overhear what he was writing to Mei.
But he sat with the QQQ in his hand hovering over the parchment, not knowing what to say. He was remembering what she'd said when he'd first met her about harming herself. What if she was doing that again? What if she was doing that again because of something he'd done or said? He'd tried to dictate the letter, but it all sounded wrong when he read over it with the anagnóstis. He'd used the ink removing charm so many times that the parchment was beginning to feel fuzzy. When it was nearly time to go to his class with Ms. Midgeon, he blurted out a simple note and listened as the QQQ scratched against the parchment. He listened to it, decided that it was okay, and then tucked it into his staff and hurried off to class—he'd have to send it with Hedwig later.
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
As the day passed, Harry realized that he was getting more and more anxious about the lesson with Professor Lupin. His fingers tingled with the memory of the forms that had danced under his fingertips—that of Professor Lupin horsing around with his father and their other friends, Sirius and Peter, as well as the images of all the happy people at his parent's wedding and then playing with him as an infant. Why had they just disappeared from Harry's life when his mom and dad were killed? Why was he left to the Dursleys when there were clearly people who had loved him? An ache to know was forming behind his belly button with tendrils of sadness and anger that seemed to be reaching into all his limbs making him feel jittery.
Time spent with Hedwig before he sent off the small scroll to Mei helped calm his flittering pulse, but he still felt unsteady.
"You're in a right state today," an oleaginous voice startled Harry as he was leaving the owlery.
"The portrait," he sighed to himself.
"Yes, I'm the portrait. But I would prefer if you would address me by my name," the portrait huffed.
"Oh, right. Well, we haven't been properly introduced, have we?" Harry replied.
"Oh, remembering your manners, are you?" the portrait sniffed. "Well, since we've only the owls in here, we'll have to do it ourselves, won't we?"
"I am Harry Potter, sir," Harry said, making a slight mocking bow toward the portrait—he thought that it was pretty rich for the portrait to be commenting on his manners when the archaic git was constantly haranguing him.
"And I, Mr. Potter, am Lord Jimbo Blishwick," he said with a blusterous voice.
"Nice to meet you, Lord Jimbo Blishwick," Harry said suppressing an urge to giggle at the ridiculous juxtaposition of the name Jimbo with the title Lord. Harry turned slightly and muttered the Memento charm to his staff to add Lord Blishwick.
He felt his wand warm up against his arm and wondered if it also was remembering the people he'd Memento'd. He'd have to test it later.
"Is there any chance that you're a descendant of Charlus Potter? He married a cousin of my wife—Dorea Black. Funny bloke—he also had an unruly head of black hair. Had a life of its own, that hair," Lord Blishwick asked. "You resemble him."
"I don't know… my parents are dead—so I don't know much about my family history," Harry said.
"Well, that's a shame. A blind orphan, eh?" Lord Blishwick said, off-handedly.
"Yes, well," Harry said. "I've got to head to class." He left quickly before the pompous ass could say anything else. He considered asking Healer Jordan about moving the portrait to another location as he walked briskly past her door, but decided to leave it for another day.
He arrived at the O&M room for his lesson with Professor Lupin with just minutes to spare and paced back and forth in front of the map for a moment, trying to get a handle on his emotions—the phrase "blind orphan" doing laps in his head.
When he felt as though his heart would stay in his chest, he paused to feel the map assuring himself that the Egress was going to take him to the same spot on the second-floor corridor near the DADA professor's office.
He walked through the Egress, feeling the familiar tug and paused for a second to familiarize himself with the sounds and odors of Hogwarts. He could hear the portraits muttering in surprise at his sudden appearance—some of their voices nearby and others farther along the corridor. The tip of his staff tinged on the stone corridor floor and bounced off the walls—he remembered how high the ceilings were in this part of the castle and could feel a warm breeze that made him think that the little windows near the ceiling were open.
He navigated to Professor Lupin's door and used his staff to knock on the door. The door swung open slowly, hinges whinging.
"Hello? Professor Lupin?" Harry asked as he stepped forward so that he was hovering in the threshold. He put his hand on the swinging door and felt the slight zing of magic travel through his fingertips to his elbow. He swung his staff in an arc and took another step forward.
"Hello? Professor? I'm here for my lesson," Harry said again.
Harry cast the Reveleo memento spell to see if anyone was in the room—but the room seemed to be empty. He stood just inside the door wondering what he should do. He decided to look at his schedule again—maybe there had been an update since he got it that morning. He summoned the schedule from his staff and ran his fingers over the braille—he was getting better at reading it, but still was so slow. He found the chair by Professor Lupin's desk, sat down and got his anagnóstis and read the schedule again. It hadn't changed.
He decided that Professor Lupin must just be running behind schedule and leaned back into the chair to wait for him. He pulled out his braille work and practiced recognizing common words by touch. He checked the time. Five minutes past. Ten minutes past. He heard a cloak rustling in the hallway and turned his face toward the door.
"Hello?" he said. He was pretty sure that someone had entered the space—Harry had left the door open all the way. The breeze brought in a pungent odor—it reminded Harry of the dank closet that housed all the potion ingredients. The hair on his neck stood on end.
"Professor Snape?"
"Ah, well. It seems you're not quite as dense as you appear, Potter," Professor Snape said much nearer to him than Harry expected and he jumped. "Though you'd be dead if I were an opponent. I suppose you haven't had much time to work on your defensive magic. Pity."
"Professor Lupin hasn't arrived yet… Professor," Harry supplied, trying to reign in his unease. He realized that he was clenching his fists and shook them out—accidentally shaking his wand into his palm. He decided he felt more comfortable with it in his hand anyway and made as if that had been his intention.
"Clearly," Snape enunciated slowly. "How unprofessional of him to keep a student waiting… in the dark, no less."
Harry ground his teeth together.
Harry heard robes swirl near Professor Lupin's desk and then there was a resounding thud. Harry jumped again. Professor Snape must have dropped a stack of books on Lupin's desk. Without really realizing what he was doing, his braille work clattered to the ground and he had risen to the dueling stance they'd been practicing in the self-defense class. He knew he must have cast the protection charm because he could feel it around him and the sounds of the room were muffled.
"Twitchy, aren't you?" Professor Snape said almost gleefully. "Well, it seems you have been working after all… a transparent shield this time and nonverbal. Still, you would have been dead long before now at any rate. Much good it will do you were the threat real."
Harry bit his tongue to keep from yelling and tasted blood. He heard Snape's robes rustle, but not his footsteps. Harry wondered if he had some sort of silencing spell on the soles of his shoes.
"Please inform Professor Lupin that I've returned his modest collection of tomes on Lycanthropy that he so urgently requested. I trust he'll find everything he needs for his research," he said from the doorway.
There was another swish of robes and the odor of potions dissipated. Harry was pretty certain that Professor Snape had left the room—but he muttered Reveleo memento before he let down his shield and summoned his fallen work from the ground.
"Rancid git," he muttered as he found the chair and sat down again.
His heart was still thundering in his ears when footsteps echoed off the corridor walls and a tapping, too.
"I'm so sorry I'm late, Harry," Professor Lupin said breathlessly as he entered the room. "Oh, was Professor Snape here?"
"Yes," Harry said between gritted teeth.
"And how did that go?"
"Fine," Harry said shortly—his jaw tensing.
"I see… Well, Aminah Khan will be joining us for these sessions. I believe you know each other?" Professor Lupin said.
"Oh, hi Aminah," Harry said trying to tap down his disappointment—he was hoping to talk to Professor Lupin privately. "I was wondering why Professor Lupin was using a staff."
"Um, yeah. It's just me… and, er, hi, Harry," Aminah said.
"Great. Shall we get to work? I am late because I was securing a Boggart—Aminah was early to class and came with me. I think the Boggart may come in handy for future lessons and I didn't want it to get away," Professor Lupin explained.
"What's a Boggart?" Harry asked.
"Oh, it's a creature that lurks in dark spaces and takes the form of your deepest fears to feed off of them," Professor Lupin said as he shifted the books that Professor Snape had dropped off.
Harry frowned—that didn't sound like a fun session.
"But we'll wait to tackle that for when you both have more experience under your belts. Today I thought we'd work on leveling the playing field so to speak," Professor Lupin continued, moving scrolls around on his desk. "There are spells that you can use to remove the light from an area—even outdoors during broad daylight. If you were threatened, it could give you the advantage you need to get to safety. These spells are tricky—so it makes sense to start working on them now and give you time to practice them."
Harry put away his braille work and stood up.
"Let's move to the center of the room," Professor Lupin said as he walked away from the desk. "The incantation is 'Nox profunda' and you have to think about the area that you want to cast in darkness. My understanding is that this is challenging if you don't have an idea of the space around you… if you can't see it."
"But both of us have some light perception—so that should make it easier, right?" Aminah said.
"True—that should help."
"But I don't have that kind of light perception. I can only tell if it is really bright out or dark, I don't see any shapes," Harry said.
"Oh, I didn't know, Harry," Aminah said.
"Okay, I'll cast it first so you can get a feel for the intonation—there is some wand movement with this spell that helps—it is a motion that mimics the shape of the room or the area that you're plunging into darkness. The stronger the arm movements, the stronger the spell and larger the area that it covers. If you're in a wide open space and you cast this spell, people who are far away may notice a shadow area where they can't see what is going on. It could draw attention from a great distance—so that is something to consider," Professor Lupin explained.
Professor Lupin clearly enunciated the spell, "Nox profunda," and the light was snuffed from the room. Harry blinked his eyes—he realized how much more comfortable he was in total darkness.
"Was that a sigh?" Professor Lupin asked.
"Yeah, it is just such a relief—the light, even low levels, hurts my eyes, my head," Harry explained. He wondered how much it would weird people out if he just cast that spell around himself all the time. He imagined an inky black hole of nothingness moving around the world—going to classes, eating in the dining hall, flying around on a broom.
"Is that why you close your eyes so much?" Professor Lupin asked.
"Yeah," Harry said. Maybe he could just cast it around his eyes—and then had a visual of himself with dark holes where his eyes should be and shook the thought out of his head.
"How about for you, Aminah?"
"I actually feel more comfortable with some light because I get a lot of information about my surroundings—even if I can't see details, I can usually tell where things are, when people are walking toward me, if there is an obstacle in my path," Aminah explained. "This total darkness makes me feel more blind and kind of off balance."
"Okay, I'm going to lift the spell, Restutio lumen," Professor Lupin said. "Let's work on the wand movements. How about you each stand here with your fingertips on my arm and I'll do the wand movements for this space. Later we can move to a different space."
"So, I could cast this spell with a simple swirl that would just encompass the space around us for as many feet out in a sphere as I imagine—that is how you would do it outside," Professor Lupin said as his arm was bent so that it pointed toward the ceiling and his wrist was rotating in tight circles. "Or I can trace the dimensions of the room like this." His arm bent at the elbow and moved counterclockwise in jerky movements. "So are you ready to try?"
"Just a sec," Harry said as he dropped his hand from Professor Lupin's arm and then started walking around the room paying close attention to the vibrations from his staff.
"What are you doing, Harry?" Aminah asked.
"I hadn't really paid attention to the edges of the room when I first arrived—how there is this curved section where the tower goes up and then more angular walls and alcoves. I'm trying to get a better sense of the room," Harry said as he made his way around. He heard Aminah following him.
"Is your staff talking to you or vibrating?" Aminah asked from a bit of a distance behind him.
"Vibrating—I hardly ever use the voice anymore," Harry said.
"I haven't really figured out how to use the vibrations," Aminah said.
"It took me a while—it was actually flying that helped me understand it more."
"Oh, I can't imagine flying now. I mean, maybe on a flying carpet—but on a rickety old broom!" Aminah said.
"It's actually so great, Aminah. You should try it. Do you have a flying carpet?"
"Yeah, a small one—big enough that I can lie down on it."
"We should try it sometime…" Harry said.
"Yeah, sure, I guess."
"Good, very good—so you've got an idea of the dimensions of the room, right?" Professor Lupin asked as Harry returned to the center of the room. "Are you ready to cast the spell yet?"
"Yeah, I'll try it," Harry said. "Should I do it with my staff or my wand?"
"Try it with your wand first," Professor Lupin suggested.
Harry transferred his staff to his left hand and shook out his wand. He made the wand movements as Professor Lupin had—drawing out the space in the room with his wand and then clearly incanted, "Nox profunda." The light around him was extinguished.
"Oh, that's weird," Aminah said from across the room.
"What's weird," Harry asked.
"Well, half the room is still light and I can see shapes, but the other half is dark… it's kind of like it just dropped off—like it doesn't exist anymore. That's where your voice is coming from," Aminah explained.
"Oh, so I didn't do it?" Harry asked.
"No, you did, Harry. You did remarkably well, actually. You just missed a pocket of the room. I can step between them—from absolute darkness to light," Professor Lupin said. "Of course, you may not always have time to map out a room before you need to cast the spell—but even creating a dark space for yourself—you could effectively hide and cause confusion. It could be a very useful strategy in a skirmish or duel. Harry, go ahead and lift the spell. Aminah, are you ready to try?"
Aminah had a harder time creating complete darkness. Her spells made the light in the room dim significantly for Harry, but didn't cut out the light completely.
Harry tried several more times and was able to push the darkness into all corners of the room.
"I think it is because I really don't like the total darkness," Aminah sighed after several attempts. Harry could hear the frustration in her voice.
"That can definitely impact a spell—intention is 9/10ths of the success of any incantation, potion, or rune work—I think it was Gamp who said that. Awareness of your intention will help… keep trying, I think you can do it," Professor Lupin encouraged.
Aminah drew in a deep breath and Harry thought he could almost feel her concentration. She cast the spell again and he whooped in delight, "You did it!"
"Yeah," Aminah sighed in relief. He heard her collapse into a nearby chair.
"Well, I'd say that was a very succ… oh, ow," Professor Lupin said as there was a thud and a crash of breaking glass.
"Are you all right, Professor?" Harry and Aminah said nearly in unison.
"Yeah, just fine," he said weakly. "Aminah, how about you say the counterspell—clearly I need some O&M lessons before I start wandering around my office in the darkness."