Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 65: Disolutionment

Harry sank onto the picnic bench and pulled his t-shirt away from his sweating back to allow some of the breeze to help cool him down. The others in the group were also finding spots to rest and hydrate. He pulled off his hat and wiped his brow. He was tempted to dump the glass of water over his head, but sucked it down instead. He was thirsty. They had just spent a good half hour, probably more, walking around the park in the blazing hot sun at a pretty fast pace. He was feeling pretty good. Tired, but good. He had learned some handy tips with his staff in the process as well as really stretching his legs.

Godric, as he insisted that they call him, had taught them how to use the charms on their staves to recognize people and say their names as they approached. It even worked when they were at a distance, so you could go into a crowded restaurant or classroom and navigate right to the person you wanted to meet as long as you had added them into your staff's memory already. Harry really liked that feature. He didn't like not knowing who was in a room with him and spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out who was around him.

He also liked that it could do the same thing with a favorite area or table, too, or any object for that matter. They spent most of the time just walking and learning how to interpret the descriptions and directions of the staff and how to modify the settings for the situation. If you were in a familiar setting, you could set your staff to just give basic descriptions, but if you were in a new setting, you might want to get more information until you really understood the lay of the land.

Godric had them work with all levels of settings, even the setting that just vibrated in their hands, rather than giving verbal instructions. He said that setting was really handy if you had to listen to someone talking while you were walking so that you weren't distracted by the descriptions from your staff while you were trying to carry on a conversation.

Godric thought that Harry was getting along pretty well with his staff, though he had some minor corrections to his style. Harry grudgingly conceded that they did make it easier—so that his hand and wrist weren't so sore by the end of the day.

Adam and Martha had the hardest time, but Harry allowed them that—they hadn't had to navigate by staff before that moment when Godric handed them the blindfolds, so it was all new to them. Harry at least had a week or so under his belt (counting from when he'd been able to read the directions for how to use it). He wasn't sure how long Aminah and Fitz had been working with their staves, but they seemed pretty comfortable with everything they were learning so far, so he guessed they had had a bit more time to figure things out than he had.

They had passed the other group working in the O&M room while they were out and about in Old Ellerby village. Harry had heard Mei's voice, but didn't recognize the other voices. He quietly had added Mei to his staff's memory as they passed them, "Memento Mei Lee." He felt a little sneaky, but justified it—others after all, always knew when he was in a room with them.

Harry thought his staff might struggle with making a Memento of Adam, but it seemed that the charm wasn't just recording the visual aspects of the person, but something more, maybe their essence?

He was curious about the range of the staff, "Mr... . er, Godric, how far away, um, can the staff recognize someone?" He had squeezed the staff in the air three times in rapid succession to get a reading on the people around him and it had identified them all by name and described where they were in relation to him. It gave all this information really quickly and Harry found that the hardest part was understanding the staff, but he was starting to make sense of it. Godric had explained that it was possible to slow it down, but that most wixen preferred to learn how to interpret the faster setting because in the slower version by the time it was done describing everyone, they had moved on and the information wasn't as relevant anymore.