As the sun settled behind the mountain, the group of flyers started gathering together and flying back to the Egress entrance skimming surface of the lake. Harry felt a happy contentment settle in his chest. His bum was a bit sore from riding the broom for so long, his thighs and knees ached from gripping the broom handle, but it was easy to ignore as he bobbed along, riding the wind currents, listening to the birds whistle and chirp to each other, and feel the happy glow that seemed to be emanating from each of his friends—evident in their voices and easy laughter.

Neville! I've never heard Neville sound so happy.

Neville was chattering with Aminah about herbs and his garden at his Gran's without stammering, without hesitation. And he'd flown. Wow. Neville had figured it out. And he hadn't fallen in the lake… yet.

The heaviness that had been in Aminah's voice wasn't apparent.

Flying should be a form of therapy here. It's way better than Council!

Council always made Harry think about Mei. He wondered how she was doing. What she was doing. He wished she could have gone flying with them.

"Wow—that's a shadow that just passed across your face, Potter," Tony commented.

"What? Er, well. I was just thinking that Mei missed out on this. She could have really used some time up on a broom—don't you think?" Harry said.

"That'd be a sight! A fish on a broom!" Tony laughed.

"Hey, you know she'd hex you if she heard you say that!"

"Yeah, you're right."

Harry had leaned back on his broom, his hands hanging by his sides—steering the broom with his knees as a gentle mist cooled his face from the lake below. He drank in the alpine crisp air and listened to birds trilling as they neared the shore. There was a buzz of insects, too.

He realized that up ahead of them, through the vibrations of his broom that conveyed the undulating surface of the water, that something was protruding out of it. He leaned forward to get a better understanding—concentrating on the shape in front of him.

"Mei! What are you doing here? How did you find us?" Arig called out.

"Hey Mei! We were just talking about you!" Tony said.

Harry dipped down and neared Mei slowly, he could smell her fishy, salty aroma in contrast to the mild wet smell of the lake water that smelled of algae.

"Mei! We missed you," Harry said.

"Yeah, right. But, I got your note. Thanks, Harry," Mei said and Harry noticed that she didn't call him Potter.

"You have to fly with us again—when it's not dark out. It's bloody brilliant," Arig expounded, as the group drew around the form in the water.

"Yeah, it sounded like you were having fun," Mei said.

"Why didn't you tell us you were here earlier?" Aminah asked—her carpet so close that Harry could smell the wet wool.

"Eh, I was just watching you zoom around from underwater—that was kind of cool and I didn't bring my broom with me," Mei said.

"We could have taken turns," Neville offered.

"Are you a new kid here? When did you arrive? What's wrong with you?" Mei asked.

"What? Oh, well, I'm just… a friend of Harry's. Just… visiting," Neville said, his voice losing some of the lightness with Mei's interrogation.

"You sure have a lot of friends, Potter," Mei noted.

His shoulders sagged at the use of his surname, though his heart surged with the truth of that statement.

"So are you back? Are you returned from wherever you were?" Harry asked, maybe a little more forcefully than he would have earlier.

"Maybe. We'll see."

"How'd you know we were here?" Tony asked.

"Magic."

"Really?" Neville asked.

"Hey, I think my carpet is getting too wet. It won't be able to fly," Aminah said.

"Oh, sorry," Mei said and Harry heard a plunk like a stone dropping into water.

She must have been hanging on it.

He realized that he could kind of feel her form under the water, though it was a lot harder to discern than the forms above the water. The water had a mass to it in the vibrations and so the shapes inside of it were just a bit more dense… like bits of fruit suspended in jelly.

"She just left?" Neville asked perplexed.

"Yeah, she does that," Tony noted.

"She's just below the surface… she's not that far away," Harry said.

"How can you tell—I can't see anything—it's so dark," Arig said.

"I can kind of feel her there under the surface of the water. You can, too, right, Aminah?" Harry asked.

"I don't know. I'm still figuring the vibration thing out," Aminah said.

Harry wanted to ask Peter, but couldn't think of the signs he'd need beyond broom and vibration.

Oh, well. Wait, I know Mei's sign, too.

Maybe he could ask Peter. He zipped over to Peter and waved across his hand that was holding onto his broom. Gemma was on his other side—maybe telling Peter what was going on with the group all hovered over one spot in the expanse of the lake.

Harry put together his stilted question for Peter. He realized he knew more signs than he was giving himself credit for.

He could feel the mass that he was pretty certain was Mei moving through the water beneath them, though she seemed to be moving out of his staff's range.

Peter said yes, he could sense her down there as well. Harry was pretty sure that Peter also said that he could sense other fish swimming around. Harry put his hand on his broom again to see if he could get a feel for them, but he wasn't sure if what he was feeling was the water moving or objects moving through it.

Maybe it's because they are so much a part of the water? Like they are water almost?

He wanted to ask Peter that—but he definitely didn't have the signs to formulate that question. He'd have to wait until they could pull out their notebooks and QQQs.

"I wonder if she's going to come back or just brood down there?" Aminah said shaking her flying carpet so that it made droplets of water splatter on Harry's arms and face. The wet wool smell got stronger.

Gemma waved across Harry's arm and he put his palm out.

"She's saying that we should go back. Mei will probably meet us in the room," Arig said.

"Oh, yeah—probably," Harry shrugged.

"Yeah, my Gran's gonna wonder where I am," Neville said.

Neville's landing by the Egress entrance sounded painful.

"I guess we need to work on that some more," Harry said.

"Yeah, thank goodness your broom didn't get scratched," Neville sighed. "Thanks so much for letting me borrow it."

"No problem. I'm glad you could use it. It seemed like you really got better at flying," Arig said.

"Yeah, until I landed!" Neville laughed.

Harry, with his feet firmly grounded on the earth, was missing the sensation of moving effortlessly through space. It was so liberating to be able to wing through the air and know that he wasn't going to run into anything. He knew how to move on the broom and he just fell into rhythms that his body instinctively understood. He lost himself in flight—it was like he was part of the wind and now that he was back on earth he felt as if the gravity of the earth was pulling on him, dragging him down.

He probed at the sadness a bit and realized that some of it was also tied up in Mei… something about her finding them there, but not joining them.

Why am I taking it so personally? She must have had her reasons for why she didn't want to join us.

"You all right?" Neville asked.

"Yeah. It was really great flying."

"Yeah. It was," Neville agreed. "Is your friend Mei okay?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm worried about her," Harry confided—it was just him and Neville—the others had gone back while Harry helped Neville heal his scrapes.

"Why?"

"Just some things she said. I was afraid that she was hurting herself again."

"Oh. Yeah. That is worrisome," Neville agreed absentmindedly tapping the back of Harry's hand for sighted guide after they had stored the broom and the ditany in his staff.

They left Mont Blanc and Harry walked Neville back to the Egress to St. Mungo's.

"You'll come again tomorrow, right?" Harry asked Neville.

"Yeah, I'd like to—if that's okay," Neville said.

"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks, Neville—it was fun flying with you today."

"Thanks for teaching me… gosh, I've never flown so well. Maybe we can show my Gran some time and she'll let me buy my own broom. That'd be brilliant."

"We'll work on landing a bit more and then, yeah, let's do it!"

"Right!"

After Neville left, Harry walked slowly back to the dormitory.

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

When Harry got back to his room that night, Arig mentioned that a scroll had arrived for him and was on his desk.

He breathed in the familiar aroma of their room … complete with undertones of seawater and the lavender used to launder their sheets and other linens and made his way to his area—stopping to listen for Mei. He didn't hear her and went on. He felt around his desk until he found the little scroll and unfurled it to read with his reader.

Ron's voice burst into his aftí. And Ron was really excited.

"Hey, Harry, you won't believe this but we won the Daily Prophet Draw (700 galleons! Can you believe it!) and Mum and Dad used a lot of it to buy tickets so that all of us can visit Bill in Egypt—they say that it'll be good for Ginny to have a change of scenery and spend some time with Bill and all that. We're all going to visit the pyramids and ride camels and see ancient mummies! I can't wait. We leave on Thursday—we'll be gone for weeks, but back before term starts—Mum thought you might want to go to Diagon Alley with us to get your school things. I'll write to you while we're gone—though I'm not sure if Errol will survive the trip—so I'll get that sorted out. I hope you have a great time at the rest of your training. I asked mum if you could come with us (Ginny did, too), but mum said you needed to stay in your training so she wasn't even going to ask—she was kind of scary about that actually. Sorry mate.

See you (Ha, ha!) Ron."

Harry sat at his desk, his anagnóstis held limply in his hand. He smiled thinking about the Weasleys winning a pile of galleons. His smile faded as he thought the weekend coming up—how it was the family visiting weekend and he had been counting on the Weasleys attending. He hoped that Hermione would come with her parents. He'd ask her tonight. Then thought about how they'd be headed to France soon.

He had a moment of feeling sad and abandoned by his friends and then he shook himself and lengthened his spine. He thought of Neville and Gemma and Peter and Arig and Tony and Aminah and even of Mei. He had more friends now than he'd ever had in his life before. He thought about Healer Jordan and how fiercely she'd marched back over the Egress when that bug had zapped him, he thought about Besel's presence as she helped him calm down after his trip through the pensieve. He thought of Godric's mobility lessons and Madam Flamel's encouragement that he'd be able to learn braille. He breathed out and then scooted his chair back and got ready for bed.

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

Harry ran his fingers lightly over the braille of his schedule the next morning and painstakingly made out some words. Because there was some continuity to his schedule, he had a fairly certain idea he knew what it said, but after a bit, he took out his anagnóstis and read through his schedule for a more complete understanding. One change he hadn't noticed was that they were going to have a Council that evening before dinner. He was relieved because it wouldn't interfere with Hermione and Neville's visits, but bummed because he always found Council so exhausting.

I wonder if I can talk Hermione into flying with us?

He put down his anagnóstis and worked on reading the braille again trying to recognize the words. He was feeling more comfortable with the numbers. He could easily recognize the number symbol as well as the colon between numbers in the notation of time.

"Hey, Harry," Mei said from behind the wall that separated their areas.

"Yeah?" Harry responded, stuffing the schedule and anagnóstis into his staff, standing up and trailing his knuckles along his wardrobe, following its contours to the wall and then around to the curve of her tank. He ran his fingers over the texture of the tank—it was metal and evenly pockmarked.

"I meant it when I thanked you for the note you sent…" Mei said.

"Er, I know?" Harry said, not really sure why she'd think he didn't believe her.

"It's just that it meant a lot to me. I haven't been the easiest person to be around and if I had been you, I would have been glad to be well shod of me…" Mei said.

"I was worried about you…" Harry said, mumbling, though not really sure why he was embarrassed to admit it.

"I'm not sure I deserve being worried about," Mei said as her tail splashed the water behind her.

Harry put out a hand, tentatively, and found her arm where she was hanging onto the side of the tank.

"I wasn't the only one worried about you," Harry said.

"You're holding on to me because you think I'm going to swim away again, right?"

"Um, yeah," Harry admitted. "It's kind of embarrassing to be found talking to an empty tank of water."

"Sorry about that," Mei said.

Harry shrugged in response.

"So you were trying to tell me something before … something that I was too dense to understand. I've been thinking about it and trying to figure it out. You were saying that you felt more wixen than witch and about there being more grey than black and white? Do you want to try again?" Harry asked.

Harry could feel Mei tugging at her arm under his hand, like she wanted to pull away, but then decided to stay.

"I don't know why I wanted to tell you…" she let out a deep sigh. "But I'm not really a she anymore, and I'm not a he either. Jiāorén are both and so now I'm both. Healer Jordan says that it happens in the human realm as well… there are children who are biologically both genders as well as people who identify as both or neither or the opposite of what they might look like they are physically… she said I'm not alone, but I feel really alone and that's why I wanted to tell someone. Tell you. Tell all my roommates. It's not an excuse for why I've been such a gorgon to live with…"

"Oh, well. Yeah. That's a lot to figure out."

He was glad he'd had some time to think about it because again his brain was flooded with a ton of questions about how it all worked, like the mechanics of being both male and female, but he was able to stop himself from asking because… well, that would be really awkward and he'd hate it if someone asked him those kinds of questions. And did he really need to know?

"I noticed that Healer Jordan called you "they" instead of "she". Do you want me to do that, too?" Harry asked.

"We're going to talk about it at Council tonight. That's why I came back. Since I had already started talking to you about it… well, that's why I wanted to finish the conversation. I just want to go into that conversation knowing that not everyone is going to freak out," Mei said. "And I dunno. I'm still trying to decide. I kind of like it, being a they instead of a she or a he, it feels more honest… but it also draws more attention to another difference. I hate being so different. If you could see me, you'd see that I look different—I've been changing physically—not so girly anymore. I guess I just have to get used to it."

"No one said anything," Harry said.

"Well, I guess that's good. Thanks, Harry."

"Hey, do you want to try flying? It was really brilliant last night. I wish you would have joined us… I noticed that you weren't there," Harry said.

"Yeah, maybe. If we do it over the lake then I can just dive under the water if it is a bust," Mei laughed.

"Would you be able to fly a broom underwater?" Harry asked.

"I think I'd be faster without a broom underwater," Mei said.

"Yeah, probably," Harry agreed. "Well, I'm starving. Are you ready to head to breakfast yet?"

"Sure," Mei said as they hauled themself out of the tank and into the wheelchair.

"Mei, I have a question," Harry said.

"What?" Mei asked sharply, the locks on the wheels sounding as they undid them.

"How did you know we were flying over the lake last night?"

"Oh, that's not what I thought you were going to ask," Mei laughed, relieved. "I think the Egresses are kind of connected here, because when I'm in one I can kind of feel or sense—I'm not sure exactly—that people are in another one if it has water. I could sense you close to the water."

"Oh, that's cool."

"Yeah, it's handy," Mei said as they left the dorm and entered the corridor.

"What did you think I was going to ask?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."