It was frustrating that just as his plans for the year were about to begin, Harry was cursed with enforced inactivity. His five-day stay in the hospital wing was infuriating on two fronts. One: he'd had plans, dammit. Two: he hadn't been this inefficient for years.

Ever since he had come back in time, Harry had been working towards a goal: learning spells, doing research, protecting friends, avoiding relatives, making connections.

Even on holiday in Germany, the most peaceful and slow-paced life he'd experienced in years, Harry had had plans. He'd been determined to learn the language, pick up Durmstang school books, connect with Sirius and Remus. Knit. Ritually accept his new names. Keep up with his correspondence and reply to the fan letters…

Just as he'd found the pace of life increasing, just as his plans were about to start rolling, just when he'd come back to Hogwarts for more freedom, less oversight and more progress...he was here. Practically, stuck in the hard bed of Madam Pomfrey's Hospital Wing and at her tender mercy, Harry found himself burning in frustration. His actual fingertips tingled with obstructed momentum.

"Can I charm a book or two to speak out loud to me?" he asked Madam Pomfrey hopefully, when she was changing his bandages the second morning. He couldn't help but have his left foot tap as she did so.

"I'm afraid not, Mister Potter," the still-guilty woman replied. "You're not allowed to use magic until I'm convinced your brain is safe from fever."

Harry steepled his fingers instead. "Can you charm me a book or two then? Please?"

The medi-witch bustled around him, checking his temperature, checking his pulse. "Again, I'm afraid not," she apologised. "You're in the unfortunate position of having been exposed to my magic at your most sensitive. I don't dare cast on you or near you in case we over-stimulate your mage sight."

"It's not your fault," Harry hastened to explain to the woman. Frankly, he was the one who should have figured out that his burgeoning magic-seeing eyes would react to a ruddy magic transformation, but Madam Promfrey would have none of it.

"It's an unfortunate situation for us both, Mister Potter. As unusual as your situation might be, I should have picked up on some of the clues in your words before I tried to open already-sensitive eyes. I am happy to apologise as many times as you would like. But until you are back in tiptop shape, I will do right by you."

"With no charms," Harry mumbled.

She confirmed, "With no charms."

Harry took a moment to twiddle his thumbs. He had warm hands this morning, and that was nice, so the thumb-twiddling took up at least two minutes. From then, it took Harry a wee bit more pondering, but soon enough another idea surfaced in his mind. He tried to wait until the sound of her footsteps pattered past again, but the urge to do something was strong, and Harry couldn't hold back from calling Madam Pomfrey over.

She bustled over with the rapid footsteps of someone who was both efficient and a little harried.

"Could we move in a portrait, do you think?" he asked optimistically.

"Not a Hogwarts portrait," Madam Pomfrey shot the idea down. "And not if you're wanting them to read to you, Mister Potter. Portraits are unable to read outside of their own paintings, I'm sorry to have to tell you."

"So…are there no portraits that live in a library? Or study? Wants to tell me a story of how they transformed into a tree? Any theorists who could walk me through a magical discovery?"

"I regret to inform you," Madam Pomfrey had to say, "but that would take the Headmaster to arrange, and I'm not sure it would be good for your mind. You need to stay calm and relaxed, Mister Potter, the better to recover with."

"So not even stories?"

"Not even stories."

He went back to twiddling his thumbs. Pursing his lips. Tapping his toe.

Harry did, two hours later, convince Madam Pomfrey to ask a house-elf to find him some knitting needles and some wool – his were locked away in his trunk and unavailable for collection – so at the very least Harry could while away the class time by creating another scarf. Some of the frenetic energy he'd been expending began to calm down as he figured out which end of the needles were pointy, and where the end of the woollen yarn was.

Slowly, awkwardly, Harry began to figure blind-knitting out.

The scarf, he'd decided it would be, was long and woollen and plainly-coloured, as far as Harry could tell. He felt like he was relearning knitting from the very beginning, and frustration kept bubbling up every time he lost count of the stitches. How neat were the loops? How tight was his purling this row? But he fought through the frustration and eventually found his rhythm: action was better than inaction, after all, and as the muscle memory came back, his activity began to seem a little bit like meditation.

While the pale golden light of the morning sun caressed his face in the morning, and the early afternoon shadows came to pass across his skin and tease his blind senses, Harry lay in the bed; he worked his fingers, and focused his mind to manage the mage sight, and waited for his friends to come after class.

Hermione, of course, was the first to trot into the Hospital wing, chattering happily about the year ahead. She came straight after the last class on the very first day of term and she was full of news and information.

"Professor Sprout looks like she's going to be pushing us harder this year," her cheerful voice exclaimed, even as she sat down in the chair by his bedside and – from the sound of her rifling through her bag – went to retrieved the notes she'd made for him.

Harry heard the sound of parchment unrolling and knew she was getting out her notes. "We're going to be covering plant propagation this year, and obviously we're going to focus a lot more on this year's potions ingredients too. I'm really looking forward to learning about the Angel's Trumpet: I've already got some great notes from a book I found in Diagon. Oh, and we'll be with the Hufflepuffs, which I think I'll enjoy."

"Is that so?" Harry asked mildly. He quite liked Herbology of course, in that it was practical, more method-based than memory based, and tended to be quite useful in other situations, but he had never quite understood Hermione's passion for the teachers' curriculum.

"Yes," her voice smiled. "It's quite poisonous and in Greenhouse four, so it looks like we'll be moving up another greenhouse this year as well."

"Now, that will be nice," Harry agreed. "What else happened today, Hermione?"

She paused for thought. "Care of Magical Creatures seems a bit...can I say, off-beat? Professor Hagrid has got himself a license for experimental breeding; I mean, I hope he got the license. He said he'd have some 'brand new creatures' for us, at any rate. He seems to be excited to show us things not on Professor Kettleburn's lesson plans. He didn't show us much today, just had us sketch the unicorns from a distance while he talked, but we'll be moving on to them first, apparently. After that, Professor Hagrid says he's quite excited about the year so I've decided to do extra research for Creatures, as well."

"Ooh, yeah, you probably should," agreed Harry, wincing. He remembered very vividly the kind of things he'd run into in the Triwizard maze, and Hagrid had never had that scare with Buckbeak this timeline either, so he'd probably be throwing new crossbreeds at his fourth-year Creatures class. "Lemme guess, he's wanting to do porlocks, streelers, murtlaps, thestrals maybe?..."

"How did you know?"

Harry shuffled in his bed and tried to plump the pillow that propped him up. "He's working through the curriculum really fast, I think, so he can show us the stuff he really likes. Fred and George did Salamanders in fourth year, did you know, and we got them last year, a year early."

"I…is that so?" Hermione's voice seemed fascinated. "But either way, I'll just have to keep ahead with my readings, won't I?"

"Fair," Harry nodded. "Wouldn't surprise me if we got to see dragons by the end of fourth year, not gonna lie."

His academic friend didn't like that idea very much, and promptly changed the subject.

"Yes. Well. I took notes for you, Harry, so you have an idea of what the year might look like. I'll add them to what I've just given you for Herbology. And then after lunch we had Divination and Arithmancy."

"I'm still not quite sure why you insisted you'd should keep up with Professor Trelawny's lessons," Harry interrupted. "I mean, your company is great and all, but I really thought you'd sit your exams and then drop it."

Hermione huffed. "I wanted to, Harry, you have no idea how much. But you seem to have something working for you, don't you? And anything you can do, I can do also."

Harry stifled a grin. "Have you considered talking to Percy Weasley then? He had some nice insights on it. You know he took Divination all the way through to O.W.L.s, of course.

"Really? I didn't, actually." She seemed thoughtful. "I'll have to write him a letter. But nevermind that for now; Arithmancy will be lovely this year, I think, Harry. Professor Vector gave us a hand out. Here's yours."

She plopped a skinny-sounding leaflet onto Harry's bedsheets, where the previous notes had already been dropped, and continued riffing on her favourite subject.

"Professor Vector gave us another test, of course – I wonder if you'll have to do yours later Harry, or do you think she'll let you slide right into the work? I hope I did alright, I haven't done much maths over the holidays and every time I mentioned it to my father, he just waved a muggle calculator at me. I've only memorised my square root tables because I thought that would be enough, but this year I'm wondering if I should memorise the logarithmic charts as well. What do you think, Harry?"

Harry had neither memorised the log charts or even the most common of the square root calculations, and found his mouth flapping open for a moment.

"I'm…still working on memorising the former, actually," he fudged. "I hadn't thought about…Merlin, but those log tables are massive, Hermione! Surely no one learns those? Are you sure that's the best use of your time?"

She seemed to shrug. "Better than the Divination homework, I'll be honest with you. We're starting with astrology, which my parents have never had much patience for, so I won't be able to talk about it in my letters home. What sign are you, Harry?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. The lion, according to Greek tradition. I don't know if there's a Celtic alternative or whatever that would fit me better though. I mean—" he flailed his arms in the air "—British wizard here! No Greek in me at all, as far as I know."

"I," Hermione paused. "That's a very good point, too, actually. Obviously, the Greek signs have gone mainstream and have the power of familiarity and Greek history behind them – modern Western culture is influenced by the Greek traditions, of course – but they're not necessarily accurate for all wizards and witches, particularly those with ties to their own lands and heritages…"

From the sounds that Harry could hear, she was packing all her stuff up rapidly.

"I think I'll go and do some research on this, Harry. This might be the angle I've been looking for."

He waved a blind hand in her general direction. She'd always been a bit odd about research.

"Have fun."

The sound of her footsteps pattered out of the Infirmary, not even pausing to look back.

Half an hour or so after Hermione left, Dean arrived with a very amusing story about Professor Moody accosting a sixth-year Slytherin Harry didn't know well. The brunet boy was being teased all over the school for being such an attractive chicken, and Harry stifled a smirk at the ferret incident that had found itself a new form: some poor Death Eater child, Harry correctly assumed. Ron and Seamus sent their apologies: some sort of Gobstone Club thing.

Luna dropped by after that with a potted singing geranium for him, although how she heard he was in the Infirmary Harry didn't know, and Neville visited for a while after dinner to chat about classes as well. Seamus and Ron had something going on and couldn't come but sent their best wishes.

Lavender and Parvati of all people popped up to visit Harry too, which was about the time he realised that his Hospital Wing stays were 'new' and 'interesting' this timeline, instead of being routine occurrences. After he'd taken a heartbeat to figure out where he knew their voices from, Harry put it all together and did his level best to reduce the chances of Voldemort learning too much about him: Harry took the time to mention he was a little light-sensitive, either from some weird German bug or possibly just too many late nights, and hoped he'd sorted out most of the rumours.

Finally, just before bed, Fred, George and Lee snuck in and huddled around Harry's bed. He still couldn't see their faces, but their voices had an extra edge of tension to them, as far as Harry could tell.

"So, how is it?"

"Don't seem to be dying on us yet, Potter."

"Why're your eyes still covered?"

"Sweet Merlin, have you gone blind, kiddo?"

"Gods, is it our fault?"

Lee, whom Harry was beginning to appreciate more and more, came to the rescue. "Back up a bit and let the boy speak, won't you? How are you feeling, Harry?"

He sighed, and then felt the sudden worry emanating from his three visitors and forced a quick grin. "Oh, I'm alright, I'll be alright. Just, y'know, a little sick of all the extra work I seem to be finding for me these days. I'll need to head out of Hogwarts castle in a few days – when Madam Pomfrey lets me stand up again, I mean – so maybe we could schedule an outing near the Forest edge for a few days' time? I need to practice controlling my vision, see, and I can't take the blindfold off in the castle."

There were sighs and relief all around, and Harry suddenly remembered again that these were just teenage boys afraid they'd just blinded someone forever. They were so young.

"Oh and yeah, I'll be fine in a bit," he added reassuringly, before decisely changing the subject. "How are you all, anyway? Have you, you know…changed recently? 'Health' alright and all?"

"Good, good," they all assured him.

"Freddy's doing the best," George explained to Harry in a quiet, intense kind of voice. "We're all transforming just fine, but Freddie can usually find his way back into the body he's searching for. It's all a bit awkward, half-changes and whatnot. We figure now the body knows the map but still needs to learn the way. The ruddy thing only worked for me properly once, and I kept tilting left, for some reason. Ruddy tail, I reckon."

Fred chuckled. "It's definitely in the tail, I tell you, Georgie. Definitely in the tail. I knew I was the better man."

"What are you implying?" Lee shot out, and Harry snorted in amusement.

"Have you tried anything?" Fred mumbled to Harry lowly.

"Nah, not in here, and I don't know what that would do to my blindfold or eyes. You'll have to help me out next week, yeah? There's this nice little corner out behind the Kettleburn Club or whatever it's being called these days. Just the thestrals and the forest and us."

"Brill," one boy whispered back.

"Can do," Lee seemed to nod.

"We'll visit again," someone else added, and they pattered out of the Infirmary without Madam Pomfrey saying a word to them. Had they snuck in, Harry wondered, and then spent some time deciding whether that had been a wise idea or merely years of habit.

He had a lot to think about, either way.

On Thursday afternoon, Hermione, the delightful wee witch, came to read out her class notes to him.

"We had the most interesting Defence Against the Dark Arts class today, Harry."

He felt a sudden shock of remembrance.

"Professor Moody is quite the odd character, but, as I'm sure Neville will tell you later, he really does seem to know his stuff."

Once again, too many times now for Harry to count, he realised that he had let the timeline go. Was it important?

He dropped his knitting to his lap, needles and all, to wait for Hermione to give him some clues.

"Go on?"

From the sound of her voice, he figured that Hermione was frowning thoughtfully. "We learnt about the Unforgivables today, actually. Professor Moody actually cast them – on spiders, mostly. They're terrible spells, Harry. Watching that poor thing under the cruciatus just spasm like that…I've never been so close to a war before. And then the helplessness, the unnaturalness of it being controlled…." Knowing Hermione, her hands were probably waving in the air. "And the killing curse. It was just…gone. I've never been so unnerved in my life, Harry."

Harry felt a little warmth of satisfaction that Crouch-Moody was still acting the same, and a little tingle of alarm that he hadn't been in the class to experience it. Would that change the timeline at all? He needed to meet Voldemort in the cemetery, after all, although this way - if it worked out - Voldemort wouldn't know his resistance to the Unforgiveable...

The possibilities worried him.

But Hermione was still talking. "With no disrespect to Professor Lupin, Harry, but I think that was the best Defence lesson we've ever had. It really puts things into perspective, you know?"

Harry did.

"It's a real shame you missed it, Harry; I feel my perspective is really transformed. Normally, I'd ask the professor if maybe he could give you a demonstration privately later, so you don't have to miss out, but I don't think it would be right to perform those spells again unless it's necessary.

"That's fair," Harry nodded, having more than enough experience with the Unforgivables to need to see them again. "I agree."

He found himself fingering the half-knitted scarf that lay on his lap, its fibres a little warm from the sun and his body heat. He didn't know what to think about that lesson plan.

Harry heard Hermione huff. "Oh, but it's such a shame you weren't there, Harry! I've taken the notes, of course. I even caught the wand movements, but I decided not to write them down. We shouldn't need to ever know how to cast the spells, in my opinion. They're terrible, terrible things, Harry." Her voice cracked. "What kind of people would use them on—on anything alive?"

Harry couldn't help but think of that time they'd broken into Gringotts. The battle at the Ministry. And his shameful fury at whatshisface Carrow, when he'd disrespected McGonagall. In hindsight, the cruciatus aimed at Carrow was not a great testament to Harry's character.

Harry had to break his silence then, and stopped poking at the knitting. "Actually, the Ministry has made all three legal on more than one occasion in response to, let's call it 'civil unrest'. The last wizarding war, for example."

Hermione gasped loudly. "No!"

"'Fraid so. And also, how do I say this…there's a bit of a grey legal area around their usage even now. All three are, as the professor might have mentioned, an immediate trip to Azkaban if they're used on another human being – magical or muggle, but on beasts and beings, though…"

Hermione gasped again, quieter this time and already a little more cynical. "Are you suggesting that if a witch or wizard casts – oh, I don't know – the Imperius at a centaur…?"

Harry nodded. "They could get away with it if they had a really good lawyer, as far as my research indicates. I'm not an expert by any means, but I researched this…Merlin, a couple of years or so ago when I first heard about them."

"Oh, I see. I'll have to get the names of those books off you later. I'll have a look myself, Harry,. But…you would have been, what. Twelve? Eleven, back then? What on earth gave you the id—Oh! I mean! Oh dear. Oh, I'm so sorry – I totally forgot!"

Harry spent a wild moment wondering if she was referring to them sneaking into the Ministry, or the battle at Hogwarts, his time in the graveyard, or his previous death before he realised that she didn't know about any of that. Thank Merlin.

"Er…well, I won't take it personally…?"

She seemed to shuffle closer to his bedside, the legs of her chair screeching a tad across the floor. The bed sheets pulled a little as she laid something near his knee: a hand, perhaps?

"I never did ask you, Harry, if you remember that night. I…Of course you wanted to know about your parents as soon as you came into the wizarding world. I…Oh my, that puts my academic enthusiasm in a really bad light suddenly. I'm so sorry, Harry. I should have known better."

Harry forcibly stopped his hands from twitching by turning the aborted movement into a proper grab for the knitting needles again.

Right, he wanted to giggle. His parents. Of course. That part of his history seemed so long ago now, he mostly forgot it. Harry's right shoulder half-shruggled. Of course, it was all very sad and all, but at least they'd gone painlessly and they'd succeeded, in the end. Harry had been saved somehow because of them anyway, as Old Master Cartwright had written, which is what they would have wanted.

Besides, he thought, crinkling his brow again. The killing curse was probably not the worst way to die. He hadn't minded it much, after all.

Harry was more concerned about his upcoming year, frankly. He'd have time to grieve more after that.

"Ah," he exclaimed. "No worries. I…yeah, it was just because I'd always been told that they died in a car crash, and when I was told they were a witch and a wizard I needed to find out a bit more, you know? I won't take it personally. But, er…if you don't mind me asking…?" He trailed off.

"Yes?"

"How's Neville coping, do you know?"

Even blind, Harry could hear Hermione's movements pause as her mind raced and put things together. "…Neville, too?"

Harry grimaced. "Don't talk to him about it, will you? His situation is a little more complex. But we're the same generation, in the end. He's not the only one. Susan Bones, I think, lost her whole family except for her aunt, although I don't know how many got hit by the Unforgivables specifically. The Weasleys lost at least two uncles – I don't know if they were single or if their families died with them…my godfather's younger brother, although to be fair, Reggie died from a more complicated situation than just one spell."

There was a bit of a silence as Hermione gaped and absorbed this.

"Don't even get me started on the Slytherins."

"Harry? But weren't they..?"

Underneath his silk blindfold, Harry raised his eyebrows even if Hermione couldn't see them. "Vol-You-Know-Who punished his own folks with the Unforgivables too. If they screwed up, they died to him. Even if they fought on the side of a bigot, that doesn't mean they don't love their families or feel pain and grief, you know.

"Furthermore," Harry continued. "I wouldn't be surprised if a whole bunch of muggle-borns in school right now are only called that because their wizarding parent was murdered." He didn't want to name names, but Harry had a list.

Harry sat there in the afternoon shadows while he waited from Hermione to come out of her shock. The bedsheets he lay on were soft and warm now; he'd been in bed long enough for the starch to soften, even if the uppermost blanket was scratchy wool.

His left knee was itchy, so he scratched at that and, when Hermione still stayed quiet, Harry rearranged his knitting needles and used his fingertips to carefully count how many stitches he'd done on the row.

The warm sound of his own knitting needles clack against each other filled Harry's ears for a moment. Madam Pomfrey was bustle about in her office doing something he didn't know what but included the clanking of bottles. Outside, there were birds chirping and someone was on the grassy bank outside, judging by the murmur of voices all those floors below.

Harry carefully counted his stitches and knitted on.

Hermione broke the silence. "But…but Harry, Professor Moody did that same lesson for every class! He was a guest speaker in classes that are normally left to the master's students. Everyone who takes Defence had that lesson: I asked Leslie MacGregor about it before."

"Who?"

"Oh, the seventh-year girls' prefect for Ravenclaw. We share a table in the library sometimes, when I Turn back. You study elsewhere; you wouldn't know her."

"Okay then…so?"

Unusually, Hermione seemed to stutter as her thoughts came fitfully. "That's…that's an awful lot of people with, people with trauma, Harry."

"Oh, yeah."

"The professor even called on Neville to describe the effects of, the effects of the Cruciatus."

"Yeah. That's what tortured his parents into insanity."

Shockingly, Hermione swore.

Harry gasped this time. "Hermione Jean Granger!"

"Cut the crap, Harry. This…he asked a victim to describe his trauma! In public. Unfriendly public too, thanks to Parkinson and her smug face."

That did indeed fit with Harry's memories.

"Did he? That's a bit rough."

"Rough!? Harry…you…Has no one ever explained to you the appropriate treatments to emotional trauma and mental injury? The muggle world has so much to say about this; they have research of cause and effect, of counselling, of treatment and therapy and support networks and whatdoyoucallthem…group thingies. I mean, my primary school got me help from a professional because of the bullying – it was a good school, they had someone come on site each week – and that was just classmates; it wasn't my parents being murdered or tortured insane, you know? There's the study of psychology and psychotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy and…and…and all sorts. And in none of these things does it say to embarrass a victim in public by surprising them with a pop quiz about the reason for their trauma."

From the location of Hermione's voice and that sound of wooden chair legs moving again, she seemed to have stood up.

Harry stopped his knitting again. He'd somehow never thought of that.

"…Is that so?"

Hermione scoffed.

"No, really!" Harry nibbled his lip. "I…I mean, of course that's so. I've just never looked into it, I'm afraid. I only really got into research on the wizarding side, you know. Muggle health care…let's just say my family never, um, needed it. And we never had the money that your parents seem to have." He paused again, and tried to come up with the best way to put it. "But…don't be angry with me, but…they're wizards, right?"

Warningly: "…What do you mean?"

Harry shrugged, his hands raising the knitting to express his uncertainty. "I mean, every child from age eleven is taught jinxes, curses and hexes and constantly carries the wand with which to cast them. We were told in first year to avoid the school-corridor-filled-with-death. We're surrounded by Death Forest and no fences. Our student to staff ratio is something like 60 to one, worse if you don't count the masters students. The most popular sport in England is played a hundred feet in the air and involves solid metal balls trying to knock people off their brooms. The most popular sport in Europe is pretending to fight each other to death. Or, y'know, incapacitation."

Hermione didn't say anything nor did she seem to sit down. Harry continued.

"I mean…some of the books in our school library try to eat people. Professor McGonagall has us do experimentation on live animals from first year. Professor Snape has on more than one occasion tried to poison Neville's pet. Merlin. We were told last year that an escaped prisoner wanted to kill me and so they surrounded the school with indiscriminate soul-eaters and told us to stay on the outside pathways since our paths probably wouldn't cross that way! Merlin, Hermione, our stairs move. Do I need to explain how dangerous that is to you?"

A pause.

"Professor Dumbledore grew up when chimney-sweeping boys were a thing. I don't think the wizarding world has really moved on from that stage." Harry paused, realised he'd almost been shouting, and wet his lips. "I just think that the wizarding world doesn't really worry about anything that can't kill you immediately. Maybe the magic fixes the rest? But that's a theory for another time."

Slowly, Harry heard Hermione's robes rustle as she lowered herself into the chair again.

"I don't like it," she told him, "but you have got a point."

They sat in silence for a while more. Harry didn't know what Hermione was thinking about. It sounded worse now that he'd actually said it, but then again, wizards didn't die easily.

They could go a bit mad if they had damage too great – and seemed to do so far more often than muggles did – but that might just be a cultural thing, and they lived long lives and no one really complained.

Harry himself had died at least once now. Almost died too many times to count. He assumed that wizards just got used to it.

Madam Pomfrey was never too horrified by whatever experimental spell damage got sent up to her. It couldn't be too bad.

"I might have to go away and think about this," Hermione finally broke her silence. "I was going to tell you how the professor cast the Imperius on all of us, to help us fight it off better in the future, but that all seems so abstract now."

Harry turned his head in her general direction.

"Okay?"

"Neville told me he'd come up to visit you shortly – Professor Sprout called him up about something, and Ron, Dean and Seamus were going to swing past and talk to you too. I'll try to find time to come back again tomorrow, Harry. Will that be alright? But if I don't come, you can send someone to find me in the library. I've got some research to do."

Harry nodded and listened to the sound of her footsteps as she trotted out of the Hospital Wing. He could feel the pressure of his blindfold against his forehead as his brow crinkled; Hermione had that tone of voice again.

She was on a mission. That was good, Harry hoped. Hermione Granger needed missions in her life, and this one might be good for her.