Chapter 8: Intersection Alley
Authors' Note: We borrowed the concept of The Guild of the Night from Harry Potter and the Guild of the Night by Katling that can be read on ffnet and fiction alley. Kudos on a great fic!
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As Harry, Sirius and Remus stepped through the door of the Leaky Cauldron, the usual buzz and murmur of voices faded, giving way to the awkward silence of curiosity. Sirius, still a shady character in many minds, accompanied by both Remus, a suspected werewolf and also the famous Harry Potter: famous as the Boy-Who-Lived but also more recently with the added curiosities of blindness, the school exchange, exaggerated rumors of a cure, and the Inquisition…. there was no limit to the tale-telling in which his name featured.
Harry, holding Remus's elbow, suppressed a sigh. He was tired to death of it all. Tired of the gossip, the rumors. Today, the pain in his eyes was worse again, too. The least amount of light gave him a debilitating headache, which resulted in Healer Smethwyck simply bandaging his eyes to allow them to rest and heal, but the bandage made Harry feel even more conspicuous. It also made him feel discouraged, as though all the discomfort and pain of reversing the blindness curse had been for nothing. He wondered if it would have been better if they had left it there. But no, that sounded crazy.
Remus guided him carefully through the labyrinth of tables and chairs to the back of the small pub.
"Fifth year!" remarked Sirius with a smile in his voice. He'd flatly refused to go to Diagon Alley as a dog, and especially not as Harry's guide dog. After two weeks of that charade at the Dursleys, he said he was not going to put that harness on again for a good long bit.
"Remember when we were fifth years?" asked Remus with a grin.
"Of course!" replied Sirius heartily. "We had all finally mastered the Animagus Transformations by then. I believe it was that year we began work on the Map itself."
"I think it was Sixth," objected Remus.
"No, you're right. Fifth was the year that we… oh! Here's the brick," said Sirius, interrupting himself.
Harry grinned, listening to the two share memories. It was nearly as good as having his father back here with them. Not quite, but almost.
"Here we are. Watch your step," admonished Remus as they entered Diagon Alley.
As school would be starting in only a week, the narrow street was packed with Hogwarts students and their parents getting their supplies, just as Harry was doing. Harry could hear the clatter of shoes and voices shouting as friends greeted one another.
"Harry!" The voice was accompanied by running footsteps as Hermione ran up to Harry and surprised him by giving him a hug.
"Hermione," said Harry with a grin, feeling smothered in her personality and her hair.
"Long time, no see," he joked, since he had just seen her at St. Mungo's, and realized he'd inadvertently also made a rather awful pun. She laughed, and asked if he'd gotten his robes yet.
"No," Harry answered. "We just arrived."
"Well, you might want to visit Madame Malkin first before she gets busy with fittings," advised Hermione. "I'll find you in a bit; I'm meeting someone!" She dashed off without further explanation, leaving Harry feeling mystified.
As usual upon arriving in Diagon Alley, his first order of business was to visit Gringott's, the Wizard bank. Standing at the foot of the stairs, Harry was struck with the memory of being in this exact spot every year since he started at Hogwarts. His throat grew tight as he remembered how over the last two years, he had been able to tell how much his vision had changed. The first year the steps had been majestic and crisply white with dark shadows defining the steps. Then he was attacked, his vision damaged and the stairs were blurred and misty, but still discernible. Last year, they had faded into an indistinguishable wall of white. He realized that he had been anticipating being able to tell how much of his vision had been restored today. This year, however, with the bandages on, he could see nothing, and he remembered the fear of total blindness he'd experienced last year on this spot. Having faced it and come out the other side, he realized that fear had completely vanished, although after facing the moral dilemmas of challenging the Dark Lord last year, he felt ages older and wiser. Common sense told him not to get too cocky about all of his worldly experience, however.
He and Sirius both had bank vaults to visit, which took some time riding around in the magical mining cars underground. At one point, warding off a flock of bats with his arms and hands, he smelled something burning, combined with a dry, dusty smell and guessed that he smelled a dragon, but they whooshed by too quickly to be sure. He enjoyed the ride, but soon they had collected their Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts, which Harry could easily differentiate by their sizes, and were heading back out again into the sunshine of the late August day.
"Shall we go to Madame Malkin first as Miss Hermione suggested?" asked Sirius with mock graciousness.
"Err, I'd rather go to the Shop of Requirement first," said Harry, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"The Shop of What?" asked Sirius, turning to face Harry.
"Requirement," repeated Harry. "It's along here somewhere, at least it was the last two years. It has canes and Braille stuff."
"I've never seen that shop before," put in Remus.
Harry continued over him. "It's only there if you need it. For disabled witches and wizards."
Sirius, who lived in a disappearing house, accepted this explanation immediately.
"Well, where is it?" he asked.
"I-I'm not sure," faltered Harry. "Hagrid took me last year." All of them laughed at the problem of the shop being findable only by the person who couldn't find it.
As they stood on the pavement laughing and wondering what to do, Harry heard a sound behind them. It sort of sounded like footsteps, but there was also a thump and a scraping of metal on stone.
"What's the joke?" asked an amused voice that Harry recognized as Cedric's, and suddenly the odd noises made sense. His crutches must have made the thump, and something metal on his shoes scraped the pavement. Harry supposed it wouldn't be hard to tell it was him in the future, and he grinned to himself.
"We were looking for the Shop of Requirement," explained Remus.
"Harry told us about that!" exclaimed Hermione, to whom the footsteps had apparently belonged. Harry took a brief moment to wonder what she was doing following Cedric around, of all people, but he was soon distracted by the conversation.
Cedric asked what the Shop of Requirement was, and Hermione launched into an enthusiastic explanation based on Harry's accounts from previous visits. "I'd love to see it," she concluded.
"Cedric can help us find it!" Harry burst out, and then instantly regretted his words as a frosty silence emanated from Cedric. Harry mentally kicked himself. Of course, Cedric wasn't comfortable yet in a new identity as a disabled person, even though the glaringly obvious fact remained that he was now disabled. Harry knew that it simply took time to adjust.
After a long, awkward silence, Cedric said faintly, "sure, I'll help you find it. What does it look like?"
"No idea," said Harry cheerfully, and with that, the tension snapped and everyone laughed.
"Hold it; it's right there," said Cedric, and though Harry didn't know which way he indicated, it soon became apparent because the small knot of people all moved to follow him toward the shop.
"Hi Harry! How are you doing? It's Colin! Colin Creavy. I'm here with Dennis, you know, my little brother. He really, really wanted to meet you, so I'm so glad we found you here today!" The voice, breathless and accompanied by hurrying footsteps came closer to Harry and his friends from across the street, and Harry mentally cringed. He turned slowly.
"It's Harry Potter!" exclaimed the younger boy in awe. "What is the bandage on your face for? I thought your eyes were all fixed?"
"Err, hello Colin, Dennis," said Harry as genially as he was able.
"You look like a mummy with that bandage on! Can I take my picture with you and my brother?" asked Colin, and Harry thought to himself that if he could see Colin at that moment, he might very well haul off and smack him.
"Errr.." began Harry, but Dennis broke in.
"I'm a second year this year, Harry! Just like you were when you killed the Basilisk! What was it like, killing a Basilisk?"
"It was…" Harry said, but Colin cut him off, much to Dennis's apparent annoyance, as he shoved his brother, who shoved back.
"Have you been to Madame Malkin's shop yet? We are just going there. You can come with us if you like," Colin said, once he felt satisfied that his little brother had been put in his place and he was free to control the conversation.
"Sorry," put in Sirius with amusement. "We have another shop to visit first. It was very nice to speak with you." He took Harry's elbow and piloted him away, much to Harry's relief.
"Your fan club is in fine form, I see," stated Cedric dryly as the group made its way through the door of the Shop of Requirement where the little bell tinkled in welcome.
"It sure is," agreed Harry ruefully, remembering the familiar little shop that he had first discovered two years ago. It still smelled the same: like the old secondhand shop that Mrs. Figg had once taken him to in Little Whinging. Its many shelves still gave the feeling of being cluttered with odds and ends of every kind: quills and special inks, magnifiers, canes, walkers, wand handles, glasses, lenses, rememberalls, pensieves, braces, wraps, games, cards, clothes labels, arm extenders… Harry couldn't remember all the stuff he'd been told was in here. The floor, rather than being made of stone, felt spongy, almost like moss.
"Hello, everyone!" greeted the little witch, bustling out from behind her counter. "Welcome to the Shop of Requirement!"
"Would you look at this place!" exclaimed Hermione. "It has more stuff every way you turn!"
"And what can I do for you today? More lenses? A spare cane perhaps?" she asked Harry.
As his friends fanned out through the shop to look at the adaptive equipment, Harry turned toward the helpful little witch. "Er... uh... I'm sorry," he said, "I don't know your name."
"Oh my goodness, have I not introduced myself? I apologize! My name is Madame Worthington," she said brightly.
"Madame Worthington," he repeated, in order to remember it, "I wanted to ask about brailled textbooks for this year. I know I didn't get here early enough…"
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Lupin sent me an owl back in June requesting that I put in an order for you," she assured him. "I have them all ready… If I can find the right boxes back here… I'll not be a minute…" She hurried away into a back room, talking to herself as she went.
"You did that?" asked Harry, turning to where he thought Remus was standing. "I don't know which classes I'll be taking yet."
"I'm just over here," called Remus from a far wall. "I made my best guess. Better most of them than none at all, right?"
"Thank you," said Harry, surprised and somewhat touched that someone had gone out of their way to look out for him.
"No problem," responded Remus, obviously engrossed in whatever he was examining.
Madame Worthington set a large box on her counter, and then another, and another. "Here we are, then," she said, out of breath. Harry made his way toward her and touched them. Volume upon volume of massive books were packed in the boxes, the titles sideways on the covers reading things like: History of Magic, Volume One of Twelve. Harry could not suppress a sigh.
Hermione followed him. "You have all your books this year. I love Braille books!"
Harry shook his head. To Hermione, if a book was good, a bigger book was better. "I'll never be able to read all of this," he moaned. "I'm still not a fast Braille reader."
"I'll still read aloud some of it," she assured him, and he gave her a grateful smile.
"Is there anything else you'll need?" asked Madame Worthington.
"A spare cane is a good idea," mused Harry. "I lost mine last year. How about blackout glasses?"
"We just got these in this year," said Madame Worthington. "These glasses can be adjusted with a tap of your wand from shades to full blackout. I'll also adjust them to include the red color that you used last year as an option."
"Fantastic!" enthused Harry. "I'll take them!" He added a new deck of Braille Exploding Snap cards, a Quick Quotes Quill, Bitumus paper, and another Braille slate and stylus to his pile.
Once he had finished, Madame Worthington headed off to find Cedric, and Harry wandered amongst the shelves of items, wary of touching them lest he knock off something fragile. He found the rack of canes and tried out several styles and different tips.
Once Cedric was also finished, Sirius arranged for the boxes of books to be sent ahead to Hogwarts, and they left the shop.
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With his hand on one wall, Harry descended the narrow, twisting stone steps to the kitchen at Grimmauld Place. The room was dark as he entered; only the glow of firelight lit the far end of the room with mildly moving shadows.
"Hello, Harry," came Professor O'Carolan's greeting from across the room. A tea cup clinked on its saucer.
Harry let the backs of his fingers brush the edge of the wooden table as he made his way along the length of the room. He lifted his feet so he wouldn't trip on the uneven old stones that made up the floor, and he hardly noticed the homely smells of the fire and vague memories of a thousand meals cooked and eaten here.
He reached the end of the table near the fire and seated himself across the table from O'Carolan, who carefully poured him a cup of tea and slid it raspily toward him on the wooden tabletop.
"Hello, sir, how are you feeling?" Harry asked, tracing his fingertips across the surface of the table until they encountered the china teacup. He picked it up and took a sip of the scorching liquid.
"I'll be ship-shape in no time," answered O'Carolan cheerfully, but Harry noticed he still spoke slowly as if he was a bit tired. "School begins next week?" he asked.
"Yeah," Harry said with a smile. "The train leaves Friday. I'll be glad to be back at Hogwarts."
"You won't miss old Durmstrang, eh?" joked O'Carolan.
"There were good things about it, too," said Harry defensively, "But it wasn't Hogwarts."
"And therein lies the rub," continued O'Carolan. "So few places can be Hogwarts."
"Are you really not going back to Durmstrang?" asked Harry.
"Not this year, like I said," answered O'Carolan. "I've taken leave for a year. I may come visit Hogwarts myself for a while."
"Really?" asked Harry with enthusiasm. "I'd love to see you there."
"Albus Dumbledore is an old friend," said O'Carolan. "It's time I see what he is up to. He offered me a consulting position. Might have to be sure you stay out of trouble, too, Mr. Potter."
Harry laughed. "I'm never any trouble, sir," he joked.
"Never," agreed O'Carolan sarcastically.
They sat sipping their tea and enjoying the fire's warmth in companionable silence for a long minute.
"The Carrows were there at my hearing," began Harry. "It sounds like they are going to be at Hogwarts, too."
"Oh dear," lamented O'Carolan. "Speaking of trouble." His voice was not joking now.
"What do you mean?" asked Harry, a prickle of fear running up his spine.
"Those two would not make a move like this unless they are planning some mischief," explained O'Carolan.
"But Voldemort's gone, vanished," protested Harry. "I was there."
"His loyal followers will carry out his ideals in his absence, nonetheless," mused O'Carolan.
"To take over the wizarding world?" asked Harry.
"Eventually, yes," said O'Carolan. "But not so blatantly. I've worked alongside those two for years at Durmstrang. They are clever… and sly."
"You suspect something sneaky?" asked Harry.
"They aren't the types to sit quietly doing nothing but teaching knitting," replied O'Carolan dryly.
"Why do we learn knitting?" asked Harry.
"That, my boy, cannot be explained. You must discover the answer for yourself," said O'Carolan gently. Then he changed the subject. "How are the eyes?"
"They hurt," answered Harry ruefully.
"They have endured a lot lately," commented O'Carolan.
"I didn't know it would hurt so much, getting sight back," confessed Harry. "It almost doesn't seem worth it. I know that sounds crazy."
"It doesn't sound crazy to me," said O'Carolan. "But to me, blindness isn't the terrible tragedy it is to the sighted world. I've lived quite a comfortable life with no sight at all."
"Most people would rather die than go blind," said Harry cautiously.
"They think they would feel that way only because they don't know what blindness is really like," said O'Carolan.
"I didn't," said Harry. "I thought it would be this terrible darkness and that I'd be unable to do anything at all."
"And was it?" asked O'Carolan.
"No," answered Harry. "It wasn't darkness in my soul. It wasn't even that dark in my eyes. They just didn't work."
"And now?" asked O'Carolan.
"I can see… light. No colors. Everything is milky and misty. But it's not very useful. And they hurt so badly," Harry faltered.
"Have you told Sirius or your Healers?" asked O'Carolan anxiously.
"No, Sirius would just fuss. And I don't want to go back to St. Mungo's!" Harry exploded.
"Just asking," retorted O'Carolan. "There might be something they can do for the pain."
"They said it would just take time," explained Harry. "I am supposed to see Madame Pomfrey for follow-up care. I can ask her."
"I understand," soothed O'Carolan.
"Do you?" asked Harry miserably.
"When I was a child," began O'Carolan, "my father could not accept that I would be blind. He said that there had to be something they could do to fix it. Some spell or potion."
Harry remembered asking the same thing about his own eyes. He listened tensely.
"He and my mother took me to healers all over Europe. Some tried very painful spells and procedures. I had never known sight so I didn't miss it, but my father could not see how I could possibly have a good life if I couldn't see. He only saw the darkness."
"And?" asked Harry. "Did he finally accept you as you are?"
"No," said O'Carolan sadly. "He left our family. It tore him apart."
"But you seem so accepting of it," said Harry wonderingly.
"It took a long time," reminisced O'Carolan. "I hated myself. I hated my blindness. Not for what it was but for what it did to him. I felt as though it was my fault."
"You didn't choose to be born blind," said Harry.
"No, and that's what I finally realized," replied O'Carolan. "His problems and beliefs were his. I had to let those go and live a good life without his hatred ruining it. It's ironic, really, that his fear of blindness was far more debilitating than my actual blindness ever could be."
Harry sat pondering this.
"I've lived a good life," continued O'Carolan. "I've traveled the world. I've met interesting people. I love to teach. I had love…"
"You did?" asked Harry, startled.
"Oh yes," replied O'Carolan easily. "I was married. Once long ago. She died, you see."
"I'm sorry," murmured Harry, not knowing what to say.
"'Tis sweeter to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," quoted O'Carolan. "The pain has gone out of those old memories long ago."
Harry pondered this in silence, his eyes closed.
"You'll understand when you're as old as I am," finished O'Carolan with a smile in his voice.
"How do you do it?" asked Harry at last.
"Do what?" queried O'Carolan, pouring himself another cup of tea.
"All of it. Accept… and go on… " Harry floundered.
"Time. The understanding of those who do understand. Learning to not take myself too seriously," said O'Carolan.
"Can anyone else ever truly understand?" asked Harry hopelessly.
"Sure they can," answered O'Carolan. "Others who have accepted themselves. Sometimes those with disabilities who have wrestled with this. Sometimes just those who have an ability to see outside their own experience."
Harry thought of Luna. She was like that, he realized.
"It takes time, and often humor," said O'Carolan. "The young just take everything too seriously."
Harry laughed shakily. He supposed this was true, although how a person could not take things seriously seemed a mystery.
"More tea?" asked O'Carolan.
"Sure," said Harry. "I'll get some biscuits."
While they munched the Scottish shortbread biscuits from a tin, Harry asked, "You mentioned earlier a way of dueling blind that you'd learned?"
"Ah, yes," agreed O'Carolan. "I was in Japan years ago and studied with the Guild of the Night."
"What is that?" asked Harry.
"It's an ultra-secret group of blind witches and wizards who combine wand duelling with martial arts and other Eastern magical techniques," explained O'Carolan.
"And you joined them?" prompted Harry.
"I didn't become a full member of the Guild," said O'Carolan. "But I did study with them for quite some time and learned many of their techniques."
"If you know ninja fighting, how did the Carrows capture you last year?" asked Harry, not thinking about his tactlessness until the words were out.
"Well," said O'Carolan with a short laugh. "That's a bit of an embarrassing question…"
"Sorry," said Harry contritely.
O'Carolan continued past the interruption. "...the short answer is that I let my guard down and they took me by surprise. I was distracted…"
"... Worrying about me," finished Harry miserably. "I made such a mistake."
"You were a mere fourteen years old, pitting your wits against one of the most evil dark wizards of our time," soothed O'Carolan. "On the whole, I would say you did well."
Harry sat silently, unconvinced. At last he ventured, "Can you teach me? How to duel that way?"
"When we've time, I will," promised O'Carolan. "When I get to Hogwarts. Now, pass that biscuit tin back over here."