Chapter 10: Saturday sunshine

The next day dawned sunny and warm, and since it was a Saturday, Harry was free to head out to the Quidditch pitch before lunch with Ron, Fred, George, Angelina—who would be the new Gryffindor team captain—Ginny, and whomever else wanted to play. He dug his broom and adjustable dark glasses out of his trunk and then his fingers closed around his beeping Snitch. Quickly, he collected everything else he needed, grabbed his folded cane from the bed where it lay next to a snoozing Crookshanks, and headed outdoors.

The Scottish Highlands in early September were magnificent. Crisp, fresh air wafted through the old pines and firs of the Forbidden Forest, and the grass of the lawns of the castle was so green Harry could almost see it, colorblind though he was. At least he could smell it, earthy and fresh, with that unique sun-on-dried-hay smell that fall grass gets that can never be described or duplicated. He took a moment to breathe it in before heading toward the pitch at a jog, holding his cane tip above the grass to keep it from getting caught.

Wearing the new lenses for the first time, he noticed that with a tap of his wand he could set them to whatever darkness he needed, and today, with the sun shining brightly, he needed them very dark, almost in blackout. The trouble with this was when he entered the team rooms on the way into the pitch, he could see nothing at all. He sighed, and found his way through the changing room with his cane.

Most of the other Gryffindors had arrived at the pitch ahead of him, and were clustered on the grass discussing positions and teams.

"Oi! Harry!" Ron called. "There you are! We need a Seeker for our side."

Harry raised his hand in acknowledgment as he dug the beeping Snitch out of his pocket, feeling, as always, the thrill of happiness as he felt the smooth round metallic orb sleeping in his hand.

Once in the group, he discovered that Ginny had been appointed the other Seeker. Ron would be Keeper for Harry's team and also self-appointed team captain. Fred and George were on Ginny's team, so Vicky and Alicia agreed to play Beaters for Ron.

"I just need a Chaser," Ron commented.

"I'll play Chaser," offered a voice Harry vaguely recognized.

Everyone froze, and silence descended on the group. Harry wondered what was going on. Who had spoken and caused such an immediate surprised reaction?

"Sure," he said, breaking the awkward pause.

"But he's a SLYTHERIN," hissed Ron in Harry's ear, and Harry suddenly knew who had spoken. It was Adrian.

"And?" asked Harry irritably. "Your point?"

"A Slytherin," repeated Ron, as if Harry were a bit slow. "This is a Gryffindor game. He'll bring a bunch of his Slytherin friends next time and it'll be no more fun."

"Not necessarily," countered Harry.

Adrian had stood quietly during this exchange, obviously listening but not offering his own defense.

Ron hesitated, reluctant to agree, but finally, he said, "I don't care. Do what you want."

Harry flashed Adrian a grin and Adrian gave him a quidditch-handshake. Ron snorted, but didn't say anything further.

Dean agreed to play Chaser for Ginny's team with Katie Bell as Keeper. With these details finalized, Ron opened the box of Quidditch balls and released the bludgers and quaffle.

Harry tapped his snitch with his wand. Immediately, it came to life, its delicate silver wings whirring and its beeper chiming. He threw it into the air, and grabbed his Firebolt off the grass at his feet. He wondered if he would ever lose the rush of adrenaline that kicking off gave him. He loved to fly.

As he had learned to do the previous two years, he circled the pitch above the level of the game that had begun with shouts and arguing as the bludgers quickly began finding their targets. Harry smiled to himself. Fred and George were good beaters: not just good at keeping the bludgers away from their own teammates, but also skilled at sending them directly at their rivals.

Concentrate, Harry told himself.

He was accustomed by now to his own inability to distinguish the players below him from one another and had learned to follow the game through his ears and intuition. He also realized how little it actually mattered when all he needed to do was find the snitch. It was less of a distraction, really, when he couldn't watch the game taking place around him.

Harry angled his broom a little higher, listening intently for the beep… beep… beep… that told him he was getting close. So far, he heard only the cheers below as Dean put the quaffle into the hoop, just past Ron, who hollered his frustration.

Harry had no idea where Ginny was looking. He decided to try lower down. Descending into the game meant that he became a target for bludgers himself. He heard a zing! as one whizzed past his head, but one of his teammates batted it away before it could smack into him.

The non-Gryffindor regulars weren't used to warning him they were coming, which proved to be a problem also. Using the "Voy" call was something he had picked up from researching blind Quidditch teams and Oliver Wood had drilled the command into the Gryffindor team two years ago.

Now, though, in a rowdy pick-up game, nobody bothered and Harry figured it was only a matter of time before he plowed straight into one of the other players. He circled the pitch, flying as close to the boards as he dared, listening to the echoes of sound as much as he relied on his blurry vision to tell where they were.

He still didn't hear the snitch or find Ginny. Frowning, he pulled upward again.

All of a sudden, the pitch erupted in cheering and shouts of "Ginny!"

With disappointment creasing his brow, Harry landed on the grass and joined the others in congratulating Ginny and discussing the details of the game.

"Where was it?" Harry asked her.

"Really low next to the bottom of one of the hoops," Ginny answered gleefully.

"Well done, wee one!" shouted Fred, giving Ginny a clap on the back that nearly knocked her over. Nothing daunted, she playfully punched him right back.

Harry couldn't grudge her the victory, but he also couldn't shake his own frustration. Flying low and near the poles was just really difficult now that he had so little vision, and the fact made him angry. The unfairness stung and he had to face the fact that he hadn't looked there because he preferred not to take a pole to the face.

Not that he could explain any of that to his laughing, chattering housemates, and he found himself walking back to the castle somewhat behind them rather than with the group. Someone fell into step beside him.

"Stinks, doesn't it?" asked Adrian.

Harry's head came up.

"You noticed?" he asked.

"Sure. You would have caught it first if you could see to fly around the poles," said Adrian matter-of-factly.

Having it stated so bluntly both infuriated and soothed Harry.

"Exactly," he agreed glumly. "Do you ever get tired of… well… coping?"

Adrian considered this. "I'm not sure I do cope," he said honestly. "I pretty much failed all of my classes last year. I think they sent me to Durmstrang just to be rid of me for a year."

"Can't someone...err… read it to you? Or isn't there some kind of a spell to read stuff…?" Harry asked lamely.

"Oh yeah," answered Adrian sarcastically. "Can you imagine Millicent Bulstrode sitting down to read assignments to me?"

Harry had to laugh.

"Slytherins have to fight to stay alive. We aren't notorious for helping each other out," said Adrian. "Not like Hufflepuffs."

"True," agreed Harry.

Adrian seemed ready to change the subject. "Thanks for letting me play," he said.

"No problem," answered Harry absently. They had arrived at the entrance hall, so any further conversation would have to wait.

"See you around," said Adrian in farewell as he headed off toward the dungeons and Slytherin's common room.

"See you," said Harry, wondering if he would be able to find Hermione. She seemed to be missing in action a lot lately, and he wondered what she was doing.

Instead of Hermione, someone else came up to him as he stood thinking just inside the castle doors. It didn't take him long to discover that it was Gemma, her small hands grasping his to sign under them.

"Hi, Gemma!" he signed back to her.

"Mei is here with me," she let him know. "Want to chat?"

"Sure," Harry agreed. "Outside?"

Gemma signed an affirmative, and the three of them went back out together. Harry wondered how Mei would navigate the front stairs in a wheelchair, but there seemed to be no problems.

"How do you do the stairs?" he asked, reminding himself to address them with gender-neutral pronouns.

Gemma made an impatient gesture on his arm, and he realized he had forgotten to sign what he had said to Mei.

"Sorry," he said, and repeated the question in BSL.

"Oh, I know a spell to make part of the stairs into a ramp," Mei said airily. "Let's go down by the lake. I'm dying for a swim."

Harry heard the Scribulunt loqi papers fluttering by Mei's mouth and realized that Gemma was reading their words.

"Sure," he agreed.

Gemma signed a happy "yes," and they set off.

"Do you ever wish we were all back at the Center?" asked Mei, as the three reached the lake, and Mei eased themself into the water with a contented sigh.

"Why?" asked Gemma.

"Well, at the Center, everyone had some kind of disability. Even some of the staff. So it was… normal. I'm tired of everyone here treating me like a freak of nature," Mei complained.

"I'm just sick of not being able to see," growled Harry, and Gemma put her hand on his in silent sympathy.

"I get tired of this… too," agreed Mei, and Harry knew they referred to the tail and being Jiāorén and everything they had gone through. "I mean, I like it sometimes, but sometimes I miss how… I used to be."

"I miss hearing music," signed Gemma. "I miss all the conversations that were just so… easy."

Harry told them about the Quidditch game that morning and how he felt that his eyesight was directly responsible for his failure to catch the snitch. Somehow their understanding made him feel better. At least he wasn't alone. He remembered Professor O'Carolan's words about finding people who understood what he was going through.

They each sat thinking, pondering how their lives had changed. Then, with a splash, Mei dismissed the conversation in favor of a swim.

"Say hi to the merpeople," Harry called teasingly, knowing Mei hated to be compared to the mermaids and mermen that lived in the lake but who were different entirely from the Jiāorén to which Mei belonged.

"I'm glad you're here," Gemma signed into Harry's hand.

He smiled at her, thinking how much he had relied on her friendship during their time at the Center and how glad he was that she was here at Hogwarts, too.

"How was your summer?" she asked.

Harry grimaced, and told her about the weeks with the Dursleys, and the dementors and the Inquisition. Then he laughed and told her about Sirius acting the part of guide-dog.

Gemma signed her laughter onto his palm. She told him about her days at the seaside with her family, while enduring the stares of strangers who only saw her scarred face.

Harry pressed his lips together in sympathy. Shared understanding was all he could offer, but he knew from experience just how much it meant to have even that.

"Time to get back. Dinner," she signed, and he agreed, taking her elbow and following her back to the castle.

[break]

After dinner on Sunday night, Harry decided that it was finally time to cast the translation spell to turn the schedule that Professor McGonagall handed out on Friday into braille so that he could read it.

"Ugh," Harry said as he ran his fingers lightly over the raised dots.

"What is it?" Ron asked, hand on Harry's shoulder as he peered over it. He sighed and settled down in the chair next to him.

"I have Defense Against the Dark Arts with Umbridge on Monday morning. I thought the Carrows were teaching it? Why is she listed as the Professor?"

"I dunno," Ron muttered, his own schedule crinkling in his hand as he smoothed out the parchment to read it. "But she's gotta be better than them, right?"

"Are you taking Ancient Runes?" Harry said, trying to shrug off the nagging feeling that Umbridge might be worse than the Carrows… if that was possible.

"Naw. Divination."

"Why? I thought you despised it?"

"Naw. It would have been loads more fun with you, but it's not so bad. And besides, I got to sit next to Lavender and Pavarti last year." Ron's voice squeaked when he said Lavender's name and Harry nudged Ron, smiling in his direction.

"What?" Ron responded, defensively.

"Nothing," Harry said, trying to swallow the smile. He focused on reading through his schedule.

Later that evening in the boys' dormitory, Harry sighed as he tackled the huge pile of braille books next to his bed.

"Blimey, Harry! You're not loading your bookbag already? Cor! That can wait until tomorrow morning, right before class. Let's play another game of exploding snap before Hermione's harping on us to map out our schedules!" Ron said as he nudged Harry playfully in the ribs with his elbow. He picked up things that Harry had laid out on his bed and set them down again.

"Oi! Ron! Where'd you put my slate?" Harry asked when he reached for it and didn't find it where he'd laid it.

"Oh, sorry mate. Is it this thing?" Ron said, shoving a small object into his hand. Harry felt it for a second, turning it over in his hand—smooth wood with a small dull metal needle protruding from the center of the nut-shaped handle—his stylus.

"No, but I need that, too. The hinged metal tablet with cells… for writing braille… you remember?"

"Oh, yeah. This thing," Ron said, as he opened and closed the hinged plates.

"Yeah, I need that. You're going to bend it, mate!"

"Here you go! Don't get unhinged!" Ron snorted.

Ron wandered off to find someone else to play exploding snap with him while Harry finished packing his bookbag with everything he'd need for classes the next day. It was a lesson he'd learned two years before when he'd first lost his sight. He couldn't leave things to the last minute and then rush around stuffing things haphazardly into his bag and expect to find them when he needed them. 'Everything in its place and a place for everything' was a mantra that not only prevented frustration, but also injury. Professor O'Carolan had said it so many times that the phrase repeated in his head in the Professor's voice as he organized his bag.

"Hey, Harry!" It took a second for Harry to identify the voice as Dean Thomas'. He'd entered the dormitory, breathless from careening up the stairs at a break-neck speed. The door crashed against the wall sending Crookshanks up into the air in a yowling, spitting mass of fur. "You gotta see this! Er. I mean, you should come down to the common room."

"What is it, Dean?" Harry said, his ears still ringing from the slamming door. He hesitated a moment before he tried to find Crookshanks to soothe his hackles.

"It's… er… someone wants to talk to you," Dean said.

"Who is it?"

"That Ravenclaw fish-girl!" Dean said, his excitement making his voice crack.

"Oh, don't let Mei hear you calling them that!" Harry cautioned, hoping that Dean's voice hadn't carried down the stairs to the common room. "They won't like that!"

"Come on! I don't want to miss it," Dean said, pulling Harry away from his bed.

"Miss what?" Harry wrenched his arm out of Dean's grasp.

"She looks fit to be tied. I've heard she's got a wicked temper."

"Oh, well. Yeah," Harry said, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth as he remembered some of Mei's outbursts from their time together at the Center. "They are not that bad once you get to know them."

"Sure. I'll take your word for it," Dean said, edging toward the door.

"I'll come on my own. You go ahead. I'll be there in a second," Harry said, turning to his bedside table where his folded cane lay.

He shook it out and followed Dean down to the common room… thinking fondly of Grimmauld place: a space where he could mostly navigate without his cane while at home because his roommates were thoughtful enough to remember to tidy up after themselves and close cupboard doors.

"Harry! Took you long enough!" Mei said as he approached them.

"What is it?" Harry asked, inexplicably worried about Gemma.

"Too many people watching us in here. Let's go out to the corridor," Mei said, the wheels of their chair squeaking on the stone floor as they turned toward the portrait hole.

"How do you get through the portrait hole?" Harry asked before really thinking about the question.

"Oh, it opens all the way to the floor for me," Mei said.

"Er, really? Why doesn't it do that for me?" Harry said as his cane tinged against the metal of Mei's chair ahead of him.

"You never asked," replied the haughty voice of the Fat Lady who guarded the entrance to Gryffindor Tower.

"It just never occurred to me that there was another way," Harry said as he walked through behind Mei without his usual awkwardness of having to find the hole with his cane and jump over the frame. With his bookbag, it was even more cumbersome, and more than once, he'd tripped on his way through and ended up sprawled on the floor.

"You'd think that someone who can fly as gracefully as you could get through a portrait hole," Mei sniggered.

"Well, if I were on a broom that would be another matter."

"If only we could fly them in the castle," Mei sighed. "That's actually what I needed to talk to you about. That Umbridge toad has told Flitwick that I can't try out for the Ravenclaw team!"

"What! But we already went through all this before! Why is it an issue again?" Harry could feel his rage gathering heat in his belly.

"She's claiming that I'm a danger to the other players because I can't sit astride a broom!" Mei's words were punctuated by the squeak of their wheels as they rocked back and forth on the spot in the small alcove where they were talking.

"If she's saying that about you, what will she say about me? Or Gemma? Or Cedric?"

"Yeah. That's why I wanted to tell you right away. When are Gryffindor tryouts?"

"Angelina hasn't set the date yet," Harry said.

"Well, that's good… maybe you can let her know… maybe there's a way to… I dunno, get around it."

"What do you mean? Like having private trials? How would that stop Umbridge?"

"Well, I was reading up on the regulations… you know they were written hundreds of years ago. There are some pretty arcane rules that most people aren't familiar with… and one of them is that a Quidditch captain's selections, if done using a certain ritual, are magically binding and no other entity, not even the Ministry of Magic can interfere," Mei said in a hushed whisper, that really wasn't necessary since they had cast a privacy spell over the alcove when they first entered.

"Huh. Do you have the book where you read that? Could I share it with Angelina?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Mei said as they pressed a scroll into Harry's hand. "I also made copies for the Hufflepuff and Slytherin teams."

"Oh, good thinking."

"I gave the Hufflepuff one to Gemma to give to Cedric. Can you give this one to that Slytherin friend of yours? What's his name? Adrian?" Mei pressed another one into Harry's hand.

"Sure. Hmmm. I think we need to be careful. Umbridge. I think she might be more dangerous than the Carrows… and that's saying something. She was at my trial this summer. I got a bad feeling from her."

"You should see how she looks at you. Gives me the creeps," Mei said, shuddering.

"Well, I guess there are some advantages!" Harry said, laughing and waving his hand toward his eyes. "It's hard enough just listening to her."

Harry wasn't completely surprised when Mei punched him on the arm.