Gideon Drake and the Fire Within (Harry Potter Sequel/Spinoff)

Chapter Twenty-Four: Fresh Eyes

Gio was tactless, perhaps thoughtless, but he didn't come across as mean-spirited. He also had Eoin and Dorian as friends, who seemed to know how to deal with him, so Gideon decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

'Just an injury,' Gideon responded to the boy's blunt question about his eye patch. 'Actually, thanks for reminding me—I was supposed to go to the Hospital Wing to get it changed. See you all in a bit.'

In the corridor, Gideon bumped into his former dormmates.

'Congrats, Gideon,' said Harjeet.

'Yeah, good luck, Gideon! It's going to be weird with you just gone all of a sudden,' added Jaden.

'Thanks, guys,' Gideon replied.

'It's good riddance if you ask me!' sniped Vinny as he entered the first-year dorm.

'Nobody asked you!' asserted Brendan most uncharacteristically, bringing a smile to Gideon's face. Despite his rocky start at Hogwarts, it was nice to know he had made an impression.

***

'Hmm,' said Madam Longbottom as she examined Gideon's eye in the Hospital Wing. 'I'd say you're almost healed. I'll want to see you one last time to confirm, but you can do without the full patch now!'

Instead of reapplying his usual dressing change and re-affixing his headband, the matron covered Gideon's injured eye with a considerably smaller patch, even more like a stereotypical pirate's.

It was something of a relief to be done with the large band. The new patch was dotted with many tiny holes to let in a small amount of light, and Gideon was able to blink with it on. Although, the holes were too small to see much through, and his vision was still blurry.

'There. Much better!' the matron said, giving Gideon a hand mirror.

There wasn't much to see as Gideon checked his reflection. He supposed it was better than the big black band, but in truth, he hadn't thought much about his appearance in the last few weeks. The band always messed up his hair, so he had given up on trying to keep it tidy.

He had been wearing his fringe differently, though, parting it down the middle. This was more out of necessity than anything else. After all, he couldn't very well cover his one functioning eye the way he used to. With that thought, it occurred to him that he would soon be trading in "eye patch kid" for his former title of "freaky eyes". His heterochromia would be exposed for all to see again.

***

Gideon had stayed up late with his new dormmates, discussing the upcoming Quidditch trials, which Gio and Dorian were both signed up for. That had turned out to be a mistake, as he was extremely tired for his first third-year class on Tuesday morning. Thankfully, it was History of Magic and many of the other students looked like they, too, could fall asleep at any moment.

Those that were paying attention were shooting Gideon looks of perplexity. He had expected Professor Binns to explain to the Hufflepuffs why he had appeared among their ranks, but it hadn't seemed to have occurred to the ghostly teacher. He had arranged some catch-up work for Gideon, though. It was a good thing, too, as the parts of the lesson Gideon had been fully awake for were not familiar at all.

Usually one to look over the year's class material ahead of time, Gideon hadn't started on the third-year books. He didn't even have some of the books he needed for his subjects, a fact that was made clear in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Seats had already been assigned, so Gideon took the only empty one next to a Ravenclaw girl at the back of the room.

She had extremely messy, shoulder-length, black hair. However, judging by her heavy eyeliner and black fingernails, Gideon figured it might be intentional. Noticing his lack of a textbook, she silently moved hers between them, so they could share while Professor Maxwell lectured them about dealing with salamanders—small, lizard-like magical creatures that fed on fire.