By the time Harry and the Lieutenant admitted that it was time for Harry to return to the Center, the sun was streaming through the windows again and the motion of the ship was a gentle rolling. Harry wasn't sure about how to keep track of the time in the memory. He hadn't thought to ask Besel.

Can't I just choose to go back to the time I want to arrive?

"So, the pitching ship didn't upend your belly!" the Lieutenant observed.

"Uh, no. I guess not. Maybe it is all the time I've spent on a broom?"

"I imagine that is it. What I wouldn't give to try riding a broom."

"We could, you know. I have Gemma's broom in my staff along with mine," Harry sat up and reached for his staff.

"What a kind offer! Another time. We'll have to plan it when the others aren't about. They are suspicious enough as it is—what with you and your ilk coming and going while we're in the open sea. Healers Jordan and Geller have to cast enough spells on them as it is. I don't want their brains to be addled. I've heard that can happen. And I certainly don't want them to burn me as a witch! Or wizard, for that matter. But do, let's set that up. Perhaps at night? Might we be able to convince your Professor McGonagall to come with us and show her what folly it is to prevent you from playing your Quid-ditch game?"

"Okay, I'll ask Healer Geller to help me. And I'll think about Professor McGonagall. We'd have to do that carefully, I think. When I played Quidditch with my friends the other night, I didn't think about who might be watching. I didn't think it through very well. I didn't think about the consequences at all."

"Ah, well. Now you have the benefit of hindsight, as it were."

"Right."

"So tell me, where does this term 'okay' originate? Is it a Yankee term? It seems very odd to me. And yet all of you utter it."

Harry shrugged, "I guess so? I think we get it through movies and the telly."

"Guessing again? What are movies and the telly?"

"Oh, well, those things probably came after your time. They are moving pictures with sound…" Harry was quiet for a moment thinking of all the movies and the telly he'd been denied as a kid living with the Dursleys that he had planned on watching when he was on his own.

Then he shook his head. This summer he hated the sound of the telly—it no longer held the same appeal. And right now he was on a Galleon in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Africa! This was way better than watching some pirate movie.

"Moving pictures? I confess this is hard for me to imagine. I had a book when I was a child, we could flip the pages and watch the bunny my sister drew hop across the page. Is it like that?"

"Yes, like that, but with photographs."

"Ah, I've heard of photo-graphs. They say it is an exact likeness—such as one sees when looking in a looking-glass, but I'm afraid I don't recall much of what people look like anymore… let alone myself."

"Oh, do you think I'll forget what people look like, too?" Harry felt a shiver run across his back.

"Ay. It is natural and that's what I've heard from others like us, but don't fret about it. And of course, for everyone it is different. Some people cling to the visual memories and exercise their mind and some choose to forget. And others still have enough vision to keep making new memories, even if they are shadows or fragments of what they saw before. You will not forget them, you will have memories of the people close to your heart… not visual, but perhaps more important memories of the sound of their voice, their warm touch, their kind words."

"That's true. And it still hurts… " Harry said folding his arms over his chest.

"Ay. That it does… that it does. I won't deny it. I remember how sharp the pain was when I first lost my sight. That was long before I met Madam Flamel and Sir Nicolas. They did help me ever so much and their support meant the world to me. You are fortunate to have their aid so early in your blindness and I think the magic helps, too. Indeed, a magical intervention had to have prevented you from getting wet out on the deck! Here I am dripping on the floor, and I don't hear a drop coming from you."

"Yes, Besel… er… Ms. Geller cast a charm on me to keep me from getting wet," Harry said.

"And there is something that flutters by your mouth when you speak. Is that a bit of magic? What does it do?"

"Oh, the papers for Gemma. It is a spell that writes out my words for my friend, Gemma Boot, who is deaf. Do you remember meeting her after the storm on Fernando Po?"

"Yes, yes, of course. The petite lass who wrote out words on my hand. How could I forget?"

"It was a brief meeting and you were talking to a lot of people," Harry said and then nearly jumped out of his seat. "Hey, could we go up to the deck now that the storm has blown over?"

"Certainly, if you think you have time."

"Well, I don't actually know how the time thing works here."

"Good point. I gather that you're on a more linear path than I am in regard to time."

"How does that work?"

"Well, it was a little disconcerting at first, I thought I was going mad and that my memory was faulty, but Missus Geller explained it to me so kindly. I'm a memory, though I feel real. I have knowledge of my entire lifetime and depending on when people from your time visit me, the new memory becomes part of my larger memory. It slides in like a dream, depending on when in my timeline you visit me."

"What happens when we aren't visiting you?"

"That's all I'm really aware of… it is an odd existence."

"Are you trapped?" Harry felt his heart start to pick up its pace.

"Well, I did agree to this. I was working on my life story when I was approached by Missus Comstock and I had just learned that the scores of papers that I had so carefully written were fading to the point that they were being lost. It seemed like a good solution to the problem. I thought I'd be able to continue writing my story. Alas, I didn't fully understand the process."

"Is it the same for everyone?"

"Yes, that's why the other sailors and folks go along with some of the odd things that happen, though some of them aren't as accepting and that is why the memory spell is used on them. So, shall we go up to the deck? Take in the view?" the Lieutenant said as he placed the lid back on the tin of biscuits and then stood up.

Harry laughed and accepted the Lieutenant's offered arm.

"So, you haven't been able to work on your story because you're only aware while we're visiting you and then you're busy with us and can't write?"

"Yes, that's it exactly. Also, I have my noctograph, but no carbon paper."

"What's a noctograph?"

"Oh, well, it is a brilliant tool that allows me to write and I don't have to worry about smearing the ink. Ah, we are about to go out onto the deck. I recommend that you do something about those little papers fluttering by your mouth. Might startle some of the crew."

"Oh, right," Harry said and he ended the charm. "But you don't use braille?"

"Ah, yes, others have described braille—the raised dots that you can read with one finger—but sadly, I haven't been able to learn it as it came after my time."

"Oh, wow. I didn't think about that. I've always known about braille. So you can write your stories, but you can't read them? You can't read anything at all?"

"No, I depend on others to read to me when they have the time and desire."

"We have tools—I could bring you something that you could use to read and write."

"Oh, what a very kind and generous offer, but I have no time for such things when I have visitors and I always have visitors."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It is no matter. I have grown accustomed to it. I live for it! Ha! And here we are—what do you think of the view, Mr. Potter?"

Harry tucked his staff in his pocket and held onto the smooth wood of the ship's railing and drew in a deep breath of the salty sea air. The ship's creaking wood and straining rope sounds made the surrounding vessel haptically visible to him. The calls of the sailors bounced off the ship's walls and the waves hit the sides of the boat telegraphing their rhythm through the boards beneath his feet and the railing in his hand.

"Well, it is very wide open, isn't it? I can see forever… to the edge of the earth and beyond. And the seagulls are majestic."

"I believe what you're hearing are albatross—hear them clattering their beaks? And their call is rather eerie, plaintive. But you are too right! Too right!" the Lieutenant chuckled. "How about we get a better view? Are you up for a bit of adventure? Let's climb the rigging!"

Harry found the Lieutenant's arm and followed him to the center of the ship where he stopped by the mast and reached up.

"Here's the ratline. We'll go aloft and out on footropes on the yards to untie the gaskets."

"Sure. I have no idea what that means, but sure," Harry said following the Lieutenant's arm to the rope ladder with wooden slats for footholds. It was very similar to the one he'd climbed to the divination classroom just the day before, perhaps a little wider. He swallowed a breath, waited for the Lieutenant to climb above him and then followed far enough below him so that he wouldn't get kicked in the head.

It was a different experience to climb this ladder than the one in the tower at Hogwarts. For one thing, they were out on the open sea. For another, they were on a ship that was bucking and falling over swells of waves. But the ratline was secure against the mast, not hung in space like the ladder in the tower. Once they had climbed high enough, there was nothing to break the wind and Harry felt it tugging at him. He realized that the sensation was similar to flying and some of the tension that had caused his shoulders to hike up to his ears dissipated.

"How goes it down there?" the Lieutenant called to him, his voice whipped about by the wind.

"This is fantastic!" Harry called up and extended his arms so that he was leaning into the wind while his hair thrashed around his face. His T-shirt billowed out like a sail, cooling the sheen of sweat that coated his torso. The equatorial sun was chasing away the cool air brought in by the storm and the ropes were drying quickly.

He heard and felt the Lieutenant leaving the ratline and moving along a sail that was tied up by the sound of it.

"We're going out on the yard now. You'll have to find the footrope with your foot. This bit is a little tricky. There are brace lines—ropes—that you can get caught in if you're not careful. I'll let you know where they are as we come across them. We're going to untie the gaskets and let down the sail so that it can dry. You can hear the crew above us and over on the other masts? They are working on other sheets."

Just then the Lieutenant called out to the men across from them, who answered in sing-song rhymes. Harry grinned—it was just like being on a pirate ship, but without clashing swords and gore.

It was tricky walking on the footropes while clinging to the yard and Harry was grateful for the Lieutenant's warnings about the bracing ropes that appeared randomly in their path. Undoing the gaskets was another matter, but the Lieutenant walked him through it and soon their sheets were dropping in an exhilarating whoosh of gravity and the job was done.

"You'd make a fine crewmember, Mr. Potter! Come aboard any time you wish to hone your skills."

"I think you'd really like flying on brooms."

"I agree. Come back soon and we'll do it. Under the cover of night… our best time," he said, a broad grin evident in his voice.

They were climbing back down the rigging and then they were on the deck. Harry's legs felt a little rubbery after all the exertion balancing on wire-thin ropes, or maybe it was trying to stand on a ship that was still rolling with the waves.

"Could you come through the portrait to the present?" Harry asked the Lieutenant as they ping-ponged their way through the corridor back to the captain's quarters.

"I'm pretty sure that I'm only real here. I'd hate to ruin what I have on a whim. Though it is tempting to experience a world where people can circumnavigate the world in hours rather than months, where the blind are not shunted off to street corners with bowls, where slavery has been abolished, and women can go on deep space expeditions. It is comforting to know that it exists, even if I can't experience it first hand."

"Have our healers tried to cure your blindness?" Harry asked.

"Ah, what a great question. Surely, if it was possible, they would have cured yours? And it hasn't actually come up. I should perhaps ask. Though it is really my rheumatism that causes me more grief. If I had to choose, that is the complaint from which I'd seek relief. And here we are. Well, Mr. Potter. It has been a delightful afternoon spent in your company. I thank you."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. I'll ask Ms. Geller about coming back to fly on brooms," Harry said as he touched the frame of the portrait.

He ran his hand over the textured surface of the canvas feeling the swirls of the paint strokes under his fingers until he found the indentation that Besel had shown him. He thought hard about returning to his present time, with a quarter-hour to spare before his next lesson as he pushed his finger through the soft spot in the painting. Then there was the gut tug and he was being extruded through the magical portal into a cacophonic rainbow. He barely registered that he was actually seeing colors—and so many colors swirling around him—but the din was so grating that he thought it would rip him to shreds. Then it stopped jarringly and the soles of his feet slammed onto a hard, flat surface—floor? ceiling? wall? table?—he didn't know which way was up and threw his hands out to find context and protect his head.

He fell forward painfully on his knees and elbows, though he managed to protect his head. His eyes were squeezed shut so tightly that tears had leaked from the corners. The imprint of the colors echoed in his head, gradually fading until he could hear his heart thudding under his ribs and the room stopped spinning around him.

"This would be a good time for a cushioning charm!" he shouted at his staff—the noise of his own voice startlingly loud—but the staff was unresponsive in his pocket. Apparently, it didn't think he was in any danger.

He rose to a crouching position and rubbed his aching knees. Then he stretched his arms out in front of him and around him until he found the wall that he must have come through because a little way up the wall was the frame of the painting. He snatched his hand away quickly not wanting to fall through it.

The ship on this side of the portal was strangely quiet compared to the Lieutenant's ship. This one sighed and creaked, but there were no thudding footsteps or hollering sailors, no pulleys banging or ropes sliding over surfaces and the lake's waves against the hull were barely discernible. The hair on Harry's neck stood on end. It was like he was on a ghostly version of the HMS Eden. The absence of all that bustle and life was eerie and he hurriedly took his staff out of his pocket so that he could find his way off the ship.

On the deck, Harry thought to check the time.

"It is a quarter past 11 am."

"Trolls bollocks! I'm late!"

He took his broom out of his staff, asked it to give him directions to the door, and flew off the deck to it—stumbling in his haste to dismount on the rocky terrain. He heard the door open and turned his face expectantly and then heard the familiar hum of Besel's chair.

"Harry! There you are! When Godric said you didn't show up I was worried that you got stuck on the ship," Besel said.

"Sorry! I tried to get back with time to spare, I don't know why I'm so late. I must have done it wrong. It was really strange, rainbow-y and loud and it took so long."

"What was Rainbow-y?"

"When I went through the painting."

"Hmmm. How long do you think it took you?"

"Well, I asked to come back at a quarter to 11 and I came back a quarter after… so a half-hour? But it just felt like a minute or so. A really long, uncomfortable minute."

"Well, I don't know. I'll ask Healer Jordan about that. I'm glad you're okay. So, do you want to join Godric's lesson or have your session with me that was interrupted?"

"Uh—I'd like to go to Godric's lesson if that is all right."

"Of course, we can catch up another time. I did want to give you some time to process what happened yesterday with Aminah's book," Besel said, lowering her voice.

Harry cocked his head wondering if there was someone else nearby that she didn't want to overhear their conversation. He was pretty sure that the door to the corridor was closed.

"Thanks. I'm fine," Harry said and then amended. "Actually, it would be good to talk about it with you. What happened last night reminded me of Tom Riddle's diary and Ginny. I didn't think that there was another one like it out there in the world until Gemma got trapped inside. That was really scary."

"That sounds frightening. Do you want to sit down on the benches and talk about it now or schedule a session for tomorrow?" Besel said moving closer to Harry.

"Tomorrow. We're working with muggle canes and navigating muggle places today, and I should really do that because I'll be going back to the Dursley's soon… I need all the practice I can get," Harry said, though the words were heavy on his tongue.

"Okay, then let's go catch up with Godric," Besel said moving toward the door.

Harry stored his broom in his staff and followed her out the door.